Transcripts For SFGTV Board Of Education 20240713

Francisco and that starts a bay area conversation. Ill stop there and just to let you know that cutouts from the information on the one San Francisco. Org site. And give me a call rdfong sfchamber. Org and well let you know how we can make this a better city. Do we have any commissioner questions . Commissioner kubia. Hi. Ive done a full interview with you, i know youre one of the shares of the Economic Recovery Task force is thank you for fighting for Small Business on that task force, which is awesome and im a little concerned about the timeline of the task force. From what i read, the final report is due to be submitted to the Mayors Office in october when, of course, the bleeding is happening right now in such a big way and if were going to take Decisive Action to help Small Businesses, it needs to be done now. So my question tow to you, do yu feel theres an opportunity to book longterm is also shortterm quick changes to help Small Businesses who only have a couple of weeks left of runway. Absolutely, mannc. I dony. I dont think this is au hand over, but i think this is a google doc that just flows and the board of supervisors, in my opinion, should have access to this breathing plan, no and i dt think this is something that we script every single play, no matter what. This is a playbook where what if this happens, and what if that doesnt happen and we impart this solution . So maybe the first five, six things are scripted and it should be a play list to plural the cost benefit when the time is right. I believe it needs to be brought to the attention to the mayor and board of supervisors and the public. Thank you. So, rodney, you know, something that has come up for me and somewhat relevant to mannys point and a degree of uncertainty about when theyre going to reopen and under what conditions or criteria. Do you think that the task force is going to be examining that part of recovery as to the dry tarcriteria for opening thes of businesses and in order to open, what sort of requirements might they are to make . What im hearing from a lot of Small Business owners is a lot of trepidation around the planning portion of this and how to get ready to come back. I know. Its so hard, and hiring back you would like to have a little bit of notice. So i think theres some things that are out of our control, the best we can be prepared, when we get that green light go and i think the mayor has done a great job listening to health advice. At a certain point, we have to listen to economic advice. At a certain point, when the time is right. And one advantage of maybe us being conservative about it is there are many states and countries that are ahead of us and if you set up a google alert, economic recovery, theres all kinds of things coming in and people to some degree, maybe foolishly ahead of us, but i want to watch that and to see what things work well for them and what mistakes and failures theyre making so we dont step on the same pile. The best we can do is try to be prepared is cue up some things. To your point, we had a directive yesterday that loosened up construction and i think thats important, that the governor just really is trying to careful about what to unleash when things open back up. Yes, and you know, i share your thoughts that all leaders have done a great job and were fortunate being here in San Francisco and i think weve navigated this very choppy water as best as we can. I think i want to commend the Small Business Community Many are committed to staying closed because they support the publics interest in keeping everybody safe. Its become a bit strife to sayy were all in this together but its true and genuine how much everyone has sacrificed to make sure that we keep everybody safe and how much folks like yourself are contributing towards making sure that we get to the other side. So thank you for your contributions on the task force. I wish we could bottle that sentiment that people are closing for the right reasons, for their employees, neighbors and its hard these days to capture that, but were going to need to take care of each and look out for each other on the rebound. So i dont know how you bottle that, but that is good stuff. So if you can, if youre schedule allows, stick around and well open up the questioning to all of the presenters and we have a cue from the commissioners here. So commissioners. Hi, everyone. Thanks to our last speakers and i have a question for director fong, if you have gotten a sense from the task force that they are already lining up, kind of prioritization of which businesses can reopen when and i think we have touched on it briefly, but i know a lot of people who a lot of businesses subject to the last supplemental, the six supplemental that installed a business curfew for apms are wondering if thats something that the city is discussing and lifting or adjusting or if were talking about going the opposite direction and enforcing more types of curfews. Yeah. To tate date, we havent been pf those conversations, but i think we should be and i think we should be thinking about what is semiessential and what types of businesses have procedures in place, like a haircutter. Cosmetology has state regulated Health Certificate and so whenever i think theres that level of already some oversight in regulations, we should consider letting those be some of the first to come back out, worth secon. Im not a health exl defer to safety first, really. Well said. Any other commission comments or questions to any of our presenters . Commissioner adams, i know youre on the phone and i just want to make sure you have an opportunity to ask any questions. They are thinking about helping businesses rebuild and just a closing thought, something im thinking about for myself, as we look at the next phase, we talked a lot about recovery and as jenny mentioned during her comments and the need to pivot and rodney mentioned about looking at different businesses and how theyre going to have to sort of restructure their operations, i really think that were not looking at recovery, were looking at rebuilding and i think rebuilding and the right word for what were doing here, because i dont think were going to recover to where we were before. I think were building something new. And while that is extremely challenging and difficult for many businesses, my own included, were in full scale collapse right now. So im right there with you. This is changing as time goes by and this is a conversation to be continually checking in with each other and continuing to listen and make suggestions so that we can move forward in a positive manner. So with that, i will open it up for i guess next item or do we open it up for Public Comment, dominica . Its Public Comment . Do we have any Public Comment. Operator you have one question remaining. Hello, commissioners. Can you hear me . Yes. Great, im adam gordon and i own oxygen Massage Therapy and i employ 30 people at three locations and first of all, i want to thank you all for everything thats been said on this call so far. I see all of the support for our Small Business community on this commission and i just second so much of what was just said, in that this is an opportunity to rebuild and i want to really emphasize that we need relief when it comes to rent and tacking on four months of rent will be debilitating. I think its really important to look at the nuance policies of the payroll protection act loans because they are allowed to be used and there seems to be a talking point that i have received from a number of my landlords that i should use my ppe loan money to pay my rent. However, if i, too, i dont payl salary i was paying everyone, the loan will not be forgiven and a quarter of an annual quarter of my payroll is astronomical. Im working on 5 margins and in 2019, my margins were negative. So to cover that out of my own cash reserves would be impossible. And the landlord is taking that government handout and asking for me to pay rent out of that is not reasonable and i wanted to make sure people were aware. There seems to be a talking point, because there are three locations and three landlords working with me on that. And another thing to emphasize, the Massage Therapy business, San Francisco has subjected us to some of the most intensive regulations due to our association with Human Trafficking and i have nothing to do with Human Trafficking. Weve been written up as one of the leading therapeutic systems in the country and we have no reason to want to be associated with that. Were trying to disassociate ourselves. Ive lost one location and ive seen the writing on the wall and i dont want to keep acquiring debt and theres been issues where i dont believe the landlord would be a great actor. However, the relocation costs, due to the regulations on my specific industry are between 10 and 20,000. And that comes from not only the individual Health Department regulations, which are the least of the cost, but the way that regulation requires a reference from the police department, the department of building inspection and specifically planning and the way that the ddi and planning work is so much discretionary. The planner youre assigned to, costs can amass and a lot of the reasons the systems dont work because to dismantle them, its like trying to fly a plane and if we rethink the way it suburbainterfaces with the busis community and to update them to the most modern standards, this would be the time, thank you. In Public Comment, theres just a reminder that this is Public Comment for item number 3, so comments should be specific to this item. Thank you. Operator you have two questions remaining. Go ahead, commenter. What adam just said, i agree with everything. Small businesses are getting zero support and any business under 25 employees, zero support and my application has been with my pp has been for two weeks, nothing. I dont think were going to get help. Youre going to see a ghost town all over San Francisco and big banks have completely scaled down on every single level. I dont know what to do and adam doesnt know what to do and no one knows what to do and i would also like to be considered for the task force to represent the spa industry. So thank you so much and i hope we can get through this. Thank you. Operator you have one question remaining. Hi there. , there. I own a neighborhood bar in the Mission District and i have three missions that i wanted to comment on. First, i would like to suggest that the Business Commission organize a Breakout Group for bars. I hear a lot of talk about restaurants and their challenges and i think bars have unique challenges that merit some thoughtful discussions. My next point is to echo lauries comment that we need cash. Ive applied for all of the loans and grants im eligible for and ive heard nothing back, positive or negative. Also, i would like some updates on the sf health interestfree loan that the city is offering and my final comment is regarding landlords. I think its important in the discussion of landlords and leases to distinguish between types of landlords and some own one or two properties, but some landlords are really in the business of landlording and own multiple properties and maybe could afford to be a little more lenient or understanding and that may require some leadership from our government. Thank you. Next question. Operator you have zero questions remaining. Were going to give them just 30 seconds. The number is 888 4634735 and 4134030. Do we have any in the cue now . Operator ten. Next speaker, please do. Go. I think that was a typo, no one is left in the cue. Thats weird. Im getting a message from one commenter who said they are there but theyre on silent. To wyou need to dial 10 to get o the cue. Im a resident in the city, a smalltime Business Owner and i own and operate an apartment Maintenance Company and two mexican restaurants, one in hayes valley and i own a management Apartment Building in the tenderloin and i have over 70 employees fulltime and more tenants and some of my employees run departments for me so theres some crossover. My concern is the undocumented workers that we have, that work at the restaurants and in the Maintenance Company i always knew ther. I always knew a sharee workers were undocumented and using other peoples credentials, but really i did not know to the extent of the problem until we shut things down and i really had to figure out who was eligible for Unemployment Benefits and who was not. And you know, it turned out that almost everyone in the back of the house at the restaurants and a lot of guys in the Maintenance Company were not eligible for these benefits. They were not provided any stimulus relief money, even though many of them pay the taxes through tax i. D. Numbers, in hopes when they gain citizenship and they were also left out by this administrations policy for the individual relief. And it seems clear that 75 , 80 of these small restaurants are not going to survive. I think theyll pull through and our restaurant down there in union square relies heavily on the tourist business and Hotel Occupancies and im not sure that that business will come back to really guide us with the income that we need. We managed to keep what i thought was a reasonable reserve and the restaurant accounts, almost 80 of one months revenue and nearly 100,000 of income from reserves in the business accounts. As soon as we shut down, i paid out all of the unpaid sick leave and advanced nearly 40 hours sick leave to all of the employees hoping to get reimbursed from the workers and family first program. These workers that work on the Maintenance Company with the guys that go out at night and they just dont have any resources and it will be the undocumented workers that suffer the most and i want to make sure theyre putting together a plan take care of these people. And these people have been working for me more over a dozen years and many are even Family Members in many years. We have to move on. Thank you for your comments. Operator you have four questions remaining. Question hi, this is Steven Cornell and i would like to add one thing to the mission for the longterm recovery. In todays chronicle, theres a list for seniors that could linger for years and if i take two sentences, even when stayathome orders are relaxed and most people resume some semblance of everyday activities and seniors need to take extra precautions to avoid being exposed. This could mean no dining out, no public transportation, no travel and this could be out for a year or two until we have a vaccine. So this will affect a lot of our businesses that have a lot of seniors coming, maybe restaurants and that sort of thing and also it will affect our employee. S. Can we employ people over 65 . I see this was a whole other impact oaspect of our planning r businesses, loans and everything else. Thank you. Next speaker, please. You have four questions remaining. Question this is ben wineman. Prin pai inaudible . inaudible . Operator you have three questions remaining. Next speaker, youre up. Question hello, this is david, three generation familybusiness for 57 years. Were open still, so were fortunate, but i would like what was said earlier about rebuilding, because we have to rebuild, too and how we rebuild is our custome customers and rer customers and what i notice in just the last few days, how customers arent abiding by the rules and they are not Wearing Masks and everybody should know that and its seeing the change in the last few days. I reached out to my inspector, the department of Public Health, to ask for some more signs, colourful and big signs that would be put in front and so what im saying is, were rebuilding and im getting a little bit ahead. Thank you very much. Operator you have two questions remaining. Question hi. My name is sage and my partner and i own two dog grooming shops in San Francisco and i would like to comment on behalf of all of the pet services in the city. Its a multimillion dollar industry in San Francisco and as you probably know, theres probably more dogs in the city thaunder the age of 12 and a lof people consider their pets their children. Not only is it is vital industry but its essential to pet owners and i feel like weve been sort of ignored in this whole conversation. I looked at the task force online and i did not see one representative for a pet Service Industry. Ive asked to be a part of the task force and i want to ensure that at least somebody is on that task force speaking for the pet Service Industry and advocating for the millions and millions of pets in our city that are not getting the assistance they need right now. We can make protocols and open safely. Also, a dog, its not like they just have a bad hair day like a human. They get matting and their hair is starting to pull and harm them and they have nails that are overgrown and theyre getting ear infections and our customers are desperate for these services. And i want to make sure were getting represented in this conversation that we can be a stage two business that opens and we want to open safely and we just want to be a huge part of the discussion. And until we can open, we need a way to get information and provide relief to these pet owners. Next caller. Question hi, i own a cafe and we responded when the initial sheltinplace order was implemented and doo during the 16th of march, we moved our service to the doorway so no one comes inside and we were checking barriers to help customers and employees feel safe. And were very, very fortunate that our cafe business is mostly returns. And our wholesale is down over 80 . The ongoing concern that i want to bring up is that weve been applauded by customers and by other people for moving our ca cafe. Maybe we need to be more inclusive of the extraordinary measures that they have taken for peoples safety and publics health. Were nervous one day a Health Inspector will come by and make us change our setup, which is ideal and everybody feels great about and its making people safer. People that called in with Public Comment, we appreciate all of the feedback and input. Its really important when you do that, it enables us to convey your concerns with policymakers and agencies. With that, ill open it up to commissioner discussion. Do we have to make that a formal item, dominica. No. Any commissioners have any comments . Mariam here. I think this is good and im glad we created a forum to receive some input from different sectors and pick up on some trends. This is a big area that we need to address and it insects with seniors and microbusinesses that are just, you know, one individual who intersects with another vulnerable population and theyre falling through the cracks. I think getting more info out on that Employee Retention credit is huge and then, another trend is the land use and planning codes and we definitely received some written Public Comment that also eluded to that, where a Business Needs to relocate, but because theres a cu or a neighborhood corridor restriction for, you know, a franchisee, like a formula retail franchisee which could still be a Small Business by a single owner, but land use, we need to ask if theres any suspensions to land use or planning codes at this time. I think thats something that im not sure thats been asked or thats happening and i would also like to ask where some of the federal backstop recommendations that we made regarding commercial Property Owners or small Property Owners to be able to accommodate that rent freeze from tenants, so im curious where that conversation is, if anybody, my of my fellow commissioners has an update on that. But those are some of the things i think we should bring back around. Great, thank you, commissioners. Im going to recognise the commissioners that spoke and im going to, as often the case, we go to a more sort of general discussion, but i want to recommend to the commissioners in the cue first. Commissioner ortiz . Thank you to all of our speakers, time and insight. Every information is resource that you bring to the table helps us to disperse it among our constituents. And issu everyone in the publict is watching, making your suggestions known, we thank you because we couldnt do it without you. All of the minds and thoughts are needed in this crisis. And like all of my cocommissioners, one of the biggest things, liquidity, liquidity, liquidity and we need money on the streets and from a cultural component, in the latino population, thats been the hardest hit with the virus in the city and obviously, were the hardist hit with the affects and im part of the Economic Recovery Task force and all of the data, selfproprietors are not mentioned. It has to be one employer or more and this is a sole proprietor, whether its a contractor or even a Small Food Service area that may be you have your kids working in the kitchen and its kind of for free, while theyre going to school and whatnot. This leaves the latino community, weve been very underserved regarding all of the of the programs, all of the resources and everything else. So we have toking cultural sensitive during this crisis and all of the resources dont necessarily make it to the mission on time. And when they do reach out, theyre not in our language and then it becomes a capacity issue where you have to handle somebody and walk them through this very culturally unfriendly process. So i commend or politicians. They acted quickly and they acted within their capacity and i think we need to fund more programs that exist to capacity and we should take the burden ourselves and lead the way as a city. And also, its time to revisit the legislation. Before this pandemic, our businesses had a weakened immune system with all of the ordinances and all of this legislation. The time is a new day and we need to start looking at stuff. We need to revisit. And we need to stop making it so cumbersome to start a business. We need expediters to change their permits and zoning and whatever they need. We need to be helping businesses. Thank you. Commissioner hewing. I would like to thank all of our speakers today. This is an incredible meeting and i am so fortunate. I feel not saying im fortunate. I am saying we are so fortunate that we live in a stay with so many strong Business Leaders and its been incredibly impressive with all of the thoughts coming together right now and i feel that we have the opportunity to be very innovative. One of the things that i wanted to just echo or speak about, i guess, was what one of the things in terms of recovery. Ive gotten a lot of questions and ive heard a lot of this pointed out in this last piece of discussion on really identifying businesses that have other oversight bodies and other types of organizations that can help them open up safely. I really like to push forward or i guess i would like to just add that exclamation point to add that the businesses sooner rather than later so that we can start getting things into a better position sooner. Thats all. Thank you. Commissionecommissioners . Thank you to cynthia for leading the webinar and representing the Small Business commission with so much tact and so thank you, cynthia for that and for people who wrote in Public Comment and to our presenters, this has been a great meeting in a time of crisis. So i just put together some thoughts after speaking to a lot of Small Business owners and the groups im a part of and listening to this call and broke down b what i think might be the beginning i know this is kind of brainstorm time for proposals to submit to the Economic Recovery Task force and just to work on. And so if youll allow me, i want to go through them. The first are fees. And there are a lot of Small Businesses that have fees from before shelterinplace started in march, that they owe the city and. My thing is lets aim high and see what the city comes back with and ask for what we need and wit what the Small Business owners need and i want us to waive the fees that Small Business owners had before racking this up, which is weighing on their heads. The next thing is to waive Registration Fee for brick and mortars or any consumerfacing businesses for 2021. Those fees have been pushed out until september but Small Business now is a 4,000 bill on it, now. And so thats money that will come out of my bank account at some point and consider waiving those. Any application fees that make changes to physical space and make improvements. We shall allow for flex use space citywide and right now, flex retail is on the books but most commercial corridors do not allow it. We should expand it and expand formula retails from 11 shops to 51. A lot big bad businesses have a lot more than 51 location exposd that would allow new businesses in vacant spaces should they occur. Funding, i propose one is a recovery fund, a fund to be used to reopen Small Businesses and this is not for ppe and sanitizer masks. I think that needs to be separate. A lot will need to purchase new inventories and new signage and make improvements to the space in order to bring people in. Whether its Financial Support or a lease procurement portal to purchase the ppe sanitize and this ithese are businesses thatn out of money and at the very least give us a procurement so that were not competing in china and in the state of new york for the same product. Two more pieces, hdso, money should only be paid out to hdso being used and it should be i think it should be suspended for another year to three years until Small Businesses can get back on track. Im so glad and happy that the mayor has made the announcement to fak take over funds and givek to workers and i think thats magazinmagazinegreat of her. We need to suspend the program for another three years before we recover. A lot of people have demonstrated a lot of angst on renegotiating their leases to accommodate what will likely be a slow and long recovery and i think the city should help Small Business owners by providing free local services and all languages to help to renegotiate. Ill just end by saying, i think time is so of the essence right now and so, i would like to ask if you are all amenable to these, maybe starting to circulate a working document that we can kind of agree on and finalize by the next Commission Meeting should we be allowed to have it. I think we need to anticipate potential departments having issues with some of these proposals and i would like to see with your permission, to ask the office of Small Business to schedule meetings with the individuals responsible for i fr approving these with dpw, fire, planning, oewd and maybe some from the mery mayoral staff andt be clear asking to schedule a meeting in four weeks so once we have this finalized, we can present it to them. Great. Commissioner, were going to come back to you in a minute because ill have a recommendation for you. I have to take off, everybody, good talk. Ok. Thank you, commissioner suzunus. I want to make sure with is a quorum. Yes. And so, i will make a couple of sort of brief comments here i need to jump in before you go because i didnt put my name in. Yes, of course. First off, i just want to echo what my fellow commissioners just said, the speakers were great commissioner, everything you just said, i just think is awesome and i hear you. I want to thank our speakers. I probably learned more from these speakers today and got some hope than i did from watching any media. And i like what rodney fung had to say between house advice and economic advice and opening up. And i do feel theres a pentup demand out there right now and if we dont do something sooner than later, im nervous of what we may see and what may happen and thats it and i want to thank everybody who called in, the Public Comments. And this has been very, very, very good and very, very informative. Thats it. Thank you. , steven. So first off, the first thing i want to say is many of the Public Commenters expressed a little bit of angst that their business type or their business industry wasnt highlighted or mentioned. And so i wanted to speak to that. The we have the Small Business commission and we represent all Small Business, not just restaurants, not just cafes or y particular Small Business. We representative bars and we also represent dentist offices. Commissioner, ill come to you in a second. To briefly talk about some of the other things that were mentioned here, im deeply concerned about the impact of personal guarantees with so many of our businesses failing through no fault of their own and personal guarantees were designed to prevent reckless abusive and fraudulent behaviour and none of that is the case in the wake of covid19. And so, i know new york has introduce the ed a law to try to prevent landlords from exercising pertinenexercising p. I am of the opinion that we need to expand that concept and needs to be extended to folks who are falling behind on loan payments and commercial lending agreements 1. We shouldnt see Business Owners using their life savings to make banks whole because of something that affected all of the of us. I feel strongly about that and i want to make sure that doesnt get lost in the mix because that is something that will be very relevant, particularly with respect to the ability of the Business Owners to reopen a business again in their lives. If we knock them all the way back to losing every last thing they own, many wont be in a position to rebuild and deploy the expertise that theyve gained over many years of being in business. So i want to make sure we Pay Attention to that. Something that came up a lot is the issue of access from a cultural perspective, from weather due to language issues or just being, you know, in a place where youre familiar with how the process works and theres a lot of people that are left out of the current aid process. And one thing i did want to mention, there was an article in the chronicle this morning. Theres a new group thats come on board called i forget what k stands for, but you can search for it in the chronicle. They are a joint partnership with a law firm called morrison and forester and berkley law students and they are providing free Legal Support for Small Business owners and i believe its 25 employees or less. And i think thats important for people to be aware of, that theres a free service out there. And i just learned this reading it in the paper this morning, putting together a 1 billion punned to help Small Business which is magazine tides larger n anything available in the city. So keep an eye on that and as a commission, i think we need to think about what to do to integrate with that. I think bot commissioners talked about landutilization flexibility and i agree wholeheartedly and thats something that we need to make it easier for people to be in business and i think its no secret to anybody that the planning and the dbi has become so labor intensive and we need to be a forceful advocate to make change so that we can engage in the building process. I think formula retail is something absolutely, you know, that we have to look at. You know, theres a lot of smaller chains that are getting lumped in with the burger kings of the world and we head to think about how that can be improved upon. The ppe, were now seeing regulations come in, and they dont have a way to get it and i think thats an outrageous state of affairs. Why are we making it harder for Small Businesses to operate when the city cant even get ppe and you know, we heard mayor breed talk about shipments diverted but were laying all of this expectation that a small corner store will deal with what the city cannot. I think we need to make sure as manny suggested, i agree wholeheartedly, some sort of portal or ability for them to access the supplies. And acso is absolutely something. So many businesses pay into this and i think many businesses dont understand and certainly members of the public dont understand that a lot of these funds never get used by the employee at all and eventually, they get subsumed into the general fund. Youre paying money and neither the worker or business gets any benefit and it increases the cost and expense of being in business and i think originally, that was crafted in a time we did not have the aca and we did not have we had a lot of workers that did not have access to healthcare. Im not saying that aca has fixed all of that, but i am saying that theres something i agree with wholeheartedly, something is fundamentally broken and there is 130 million sitting in a fund that workers and Business Owners paid into, both, and it took executive action from the mayor for them to be able to get access to those funds. Thats an outrageous state of affairs when Small Businesses in the crisis that its been long before the coronavirus entered the picture. None of us has seen in this our lifetime and we need to rethink how some of this is structured. I agree with all of that. For the benefit of the public, we have the brown act. That means the Small Business commission, we cannot interact with each other outside of this and talk about agenda items outside of did i just get disconnected . The purpose of this hearing, at least in my mind want was to gather information and to take that information and what i would recommend is that today, we were given a lot of information and theres been a lot of written Public Comment that has been emailed to us, as well, which i have not had the chaps to read all of those emails yet and there was quite a bit of Public Comment. Rather than making a motion today and recognising, manny, that youre correct, its an urgent issue, but i think we need to take a little bit of time to digest all of the information that came in and as well as the written comment. What i think we should do is to try to set up another meeting as expeditiously as possible, recognising the urgency of the matter and that, of course, is not entirely up to us. There are scheduling issues and we ar have to get approval for special meetings. What i recommend is that we digest the information that came in and then have a followup meeting where we could have staff collate is list and thats how we can assemble all of our suggestions and items in a way that doesnt violate the brown act and collate a list and gather that list up together and then we can talk about as a commission, we can talk about what our recommendations would be to the Economic Recovery Task force and we can make our first set of recommendations. And i say first, because im imagining between now and october, we will have an ongoing series of recollections that we will make. We will get new information. Well have new things that we want to respond to and we will have new ideas and we will hav have it will be a shifting dynamic landscape and well want to respond to it. But as our first series of recommendations, i know that there are many on the Economic Recovery Task force and there are many on the board of soup supervisors that are interested in were what very to say. Im encouraging the fellow commissioners to take our time and move through this as quickly as possible. We need to digest what weve received today and work up through staff what we will discuss in our next hearing. That all sounds great, but i think the goal should be by the end of the next hearing, we have our list of recommendations. I think a month is too much time before we provide those. I would completely agree. I would hope that hat th at thef the next hearing, theres a document that we can submit, as a letter to the Economic Recovery Task force. Can i empower you or can we empower you and the dominican regina based on what was said from the commissioners and word smith is in the next meeting. It may take time for them to collate and finalize it and get it ready. Yes, i think that is a workable plan and im seeing notes here from dominica. And feel free to make it on the channel if you have notes. I am sending a reminder to everyone to keep their to activate their voices on the meeting. Ok. Just to be clear, my proposal is that sharkky dominica and reggia take what has been said and come up with a draft of proposals that we can spend the next Commission Meeting, week of may 11th. If you would be willing, i would love to have your involvement in collating that document and as Vice President , i think she should have the ability to weigh in on whether she wants to participate in that document and if she chooses not to, then i would we cant restaff, ask if one of the other commissioners would like to participate and make a decision from there on the best way to move forward. Im happy to do that. Ok. Well, then, is that a workable plan for generating a collated draft for us to review in the next meeting . This is regina, yes. Good. And we have a good plan, then. I confirm with my commissionecommissioners that tf the essence and no time to waste. Everybody has made great points that we need to get on ground now. Yeah, yeah. Look, i think its also important to highlight the work of the commission, which i think has been extraordinary. We have been moving as quickly as we can and i think quite effectively and maybe punching quite above our weight and so, i agree with you that we need to move quickly and i wanted to let the public know that we have not been moving slowly up until now. And that the public should know that we are moving very aggressively and not being shy about advocating for Small Business on all levels that we can as much as the charter allows us to. Hi, commissioner. Im going to interrupt and remind everyone that we still have commissioners reports. Also, remaining on the call are commissioner ortiz and huey. If we lose one more commissioner, then there wont be a quorum. Next item, please. Item 4, commissioner reports, allowing president , Vice President and commissioners to report on recent Small Business activities and to make announcements that are of interestininterest to the smalls community. Commissioner ortiz. I wanted to report back to the latino recovery to address all of the issues impacting Small Businesses and the latter resources. inaudible . I wanted to comment on the virus hitting the commission the hardest because that is a vulnerable community. And i do think that its appropriate that we make sure that Community Gets enough attention to that we can establish some level of equity. So i appreciate your advocacy there. This goes into the employees they furloughed and how much longer to last to get some hard data from all of the merchants on valencia so that we can provide that information where its necessary, to get a good snapshot of how Small Businesses are going and were calling it the merchants reality check. And one thing to note is that valencia corridor is one of the busiest in the city with some of the highest rents, commercial rents in San Francisco. And a huge number of consumerfacing Small Businesses and so, it is a good snapshot on whats going on and so, i hope to be able to report on some of that data for the next one. Obviously, were still pushing people to th to complete that s. To you think that will be completed by the time of the next meeting . I do. I am wondering if the results will be available somewhere on line they can be digested by Commission Members prior to the meeting . Absolutely. Wile get it all done by next week. Ok. That sounds good. Any other commissioner reports . This is steve and i just want to say what everybody has been doing is great and these have been hard times and the one thing im very optimistic about is well be able to open up so soon. Were going to do new items, arent we, on the agenda here . I dont see that on the agenda. We didnt get it on the agenda. I just want to manny, i want to put out there, because i would love to be working with some of that, because the one thing that we really all have to talk about now is the opening up and that will be a big thing and i think some of the speakers today gave me some ideas and my head is just rolling right now with all sorts of crazy stuff with this, but i do think that theyll start slowly opening up and we need to be ready for that. We need to be sooner than later, but i think week by week, youll slowly see stuff and we really need to be on top of this. Two thoughts about that and one is, as we start to open up, ive spoken with several Business Owners and theres a lot of even within specific segments, theres a lot of variance and i observatio spokeo different gym owners and theyre both Small Businesses. You know, one, everybody can go to the gym whenever they want and the other is a very small gym that you can only go work out with the private trainer and theres only two people in at a time. And what i think, something we need to think about if we start to reopen up and whether the commission is advocating for i is one concern i have is painting with a broad brush or doing one size fits all criteria. For example, looking at gyms, saying it would be upsettable founderstandable for policy maks to open up gyms last for health concerns. We have to remember that its not one size fits all and that concludes my report from what ive been hearing from the community. And youre absolutely correct. Its definitely not a onesizefits all and thats what worries me, because theyre going to do it as a onesizefits all and we have to look at individuals. And i think that is what the commissioner was speaking to, which is that weve got to start with our ask and let them come back to with whats reasonable. With we havbut we have to be ase chartered advocate this city deposit, we havgovernment, we hs aggressive as we can reasonably stand to be. By the way, we need to be loud about this, too, as commission, and as a whole. Thats right. And we have to be loud and we have to be out there and make those phone calls and just be in their face on this one. Commissioner becames, your leadership oveadams, yourleaders given us a perspective and any guidance you have on that front would be well received. Thats why im here. You know, im working for a landlord now and i will tell you, its different than a bank and a lot of stuff that was even said earlier, you have to treat everybody different and its just were in a new world, folks. And it came quick. So thank you for talking about the survey and i think that that data will be extremely valuable. Not only valuable for the commission, but it would also encourage that i know that the valencia emergence encourages many and i think we need this data moving forward. And then i also want to express my appreciation to the commissioners for really talking about the nuance in terms of dealing with the opening and not one size fits all. So it will be very helpful to know that for us as offices were communicating and working with Small Businesses to know that we have that support and so right now, its an unofficial support, because theres no specific action on it, but that may be something to propose at a future date. So thank you. Great. Well, certainly its a challenging time to be on the Small Business commission for many of us that recently joined, my goodness. And what a crazy time. So, are there any more commissioner comments before we move on to the next item . Any members of the public wanting to make a comment on item number 4 . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. And next item, please. Sf gov tv, show the business slide. We will end with a reminder that the Small Business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the Economic Vitality of Small Businesses in San Francisco. And that the office of Small Business is the best place to get answers about doing business in San Francisco during the local emergency. If you need assistance with Small Business matters, continue to reach out to the office of Small Business. Next item. Item 5, adjournment, action item. Is there a motion . Motion. I take my hat off to the generation before mine and you can ajourn the meeting, steve. Motion to ajourn. [ laughter ] motion by Commission Adams to ajourn the meeting and seconded by commissioner utiele. role call . This motion passes 40 and meeting is adjourned at 1 39 p. M. [ ] thank you, earn. Everyone. Pho this is the School District for april 28, 2020. It is now called to order. Roll call please. Ms. Collins. Here. Mr. Cook. He is not here yet. Ms. Lam. Here. Ms. Lopez. Here. Ms. Norton. Yes. Are if student delegates with us . Thank you. All right. Here we go. Our Virtual Meeting is called to order. Before w we get started. I am gratified by the work that is being done throughout the district from our Virtual School at home to the admin working diligently, our teachers are amazing. Our families are teachers as well. The Leadership Team is amazing. These are unusual circumstances. It is a crisis and people are feeling it. I think our school board as well has risen to the challenge. We want to thank everybody and show our appreciation. With that. General information. Items of approval of board minutes of the regular meeting of april 14. So moved. Second. Any corrections . Roll call vote, please. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook. Ms. Lam. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Thank you. Item 2. Is superintendents report. Thank you for the opening remarks. Tonight i want to highlight three of those areas that president sanchez was giving accolades to. I want the community to know the San Francisco School District resource link is a new service to navigate the resources during the Distance Learning. In the first week of launching, 251 tickets were created. 158 were by phone, 50 by email and 33 by web request. Of 251, 37 of those were related to Technology Support such as where do you pick up the device or how do you log on to google classroom. 20 of the tickets were from the families. Enrollment be and wellness support each received 8 of the tickets. There were requests for academic support and food and Nutrition Services. Big props to the team for developing this resource link. We know it is well used. We know that in these times and as we move forward with our Distance Learning, this will continue to be a used resource. We thank the team for all they are doing to make this happen. Beginning with monday, april 27, it will be limited to four bags per person to serve as many children as possible. We realize that this is another service that is provided. We want to make sure as many of our children that we can cover we get covered. There will be a limit of four bags per person. Adults are required to wear Face Covering when waiting in line or picking up bags. The location for the meals go to our website and we also have a link on the same website in the city to also get food resources. Also, you can call 311 for more information. We are excited to share the district is partnering to provide an hour Long Television episode every weekday, especially for pk through second great. It is sf learning. It will learn from 2 00 to 3 00 monday through friday. April 20th all through june 2nd. To watch you can check out any of the following. Broadcast channel. At t 1006. Comcast 64706. Direct channel 36, dish 36, wade is 92 or 201. Additionally, we will post elements of each episode after aired on youtube linked to the website. You can access from the website or the youtube channel. We hope this provides Emotional Learning and academic for the youngest students who have less access to technology than older students. Content is creep ated created by our educators and guests. Each episode has an opening, daily lessons, wiggles and dance, music and closing. Yesterday we had one of our board members, Vice President lopez, shared a wonderful story with us. It is an opportunity for the youngest students to have access to and and emotional. It will be in english with other languages. They will provide closed captions. As president sanchez opened, i am extremely proud of the work our district has done during these times to provide resources not only four or students but a resource provided by the entire bay area. I am thankful for our district. The employees of the district, Staff Members, administrator and board member for providing the leadership necessary to lead us through these difficult times. Thank you all. That concludes my report for this evening. I want to add to the appreciation our students. They are weathering this anniversarand areresilient. I am reading a book, too. It is. [ inaudible ] can i ask can you ask staff to follow up with me. I have been trying to see it. I dont have over the air television. I am not sure how to access it. You can access those on the website. I will ask that for you. I want to read a story, too. We will be in touch shortly. About the meal. I know there are families with more than four kids. I am wondering if there is accommodations or work arounds for those families . You can follow up with me later. We will be in touch. Good question. Hi everyone. We would like to announce that the 2020 Student Survey student delegatee election is live and will continue to may eighth. There is a video highlighting each candidate to campaign. We are happy to see Student Leadership continuing. Our goal is to encourage Student Leadership and engagement. The petition gives students a platform to advocate for concerns. Iit is an amazing opportunity we urge you all to vote for the student delegate. Thank you for creating the survey and supporting students. Good luck to the candidates. Title ix. Yesterday we learned about title ix and our rights when facing discrimination or harassment and how to handle the situations. Our goal is for more information check out the email and we also posted the presentation yesterday on the website. We would like to announce the office of equity is hosting a competition for students to create a design poster on sexual harassment. It is on the social media and there are prizes. We would like to thank the two for presenting. Grading policies. Discussion regarding grading policies. Our survey was successful. Our target goal over 5,000 students to communicate to the Leadership Team to the Advisory Council. 5461 students participated in the survey. After reviewing the data, our team conducted a focus group and emphasized the finding and concluded on recommendations. The overall consensus is to ensure there is priority for the courses they currently are enrolled in during difficult time. Our recommendation to the board would be to implement a pass or optional credit or no credit. So no students are punished. Students can fill out the option to raise the grade and have it reflected in the gpa and provide an incentive to work hard in classes. This would mean no students would be negatively affected or further disadvantaged. Students below 70 will not be required to cover the credits for graduation but would be given the recommendation every enrollment. It was the Wellness Center for students in need of council and support. At our meeting the Program Administrator for the School Health programs presented our team about the current efforts our wellness efforts are providing to the district. To provide feedback and recommendations for better outreach and we wil we will cono communicate to our peers that these are present. Thank you christine hardeman. We had the First Reading of the draft resolution. Our last meeting we read the draft resolution to reallocate education funds back. We will be having the second reading at the next meeting. We would like to thank the team for working hard on this resolution. Our next meeting will be on monday, may 4th at 3 00 p. M. Via zoom. Thank you. That concludes our report. Thank you very much student delegate. Item 4 recognitions and resolutions. National School Lunch Hero day and resolution of commendation for s. F. U. S. D. Student Nutrition Services dining staff for their dedicated service to students and families. Motion. We have a motion and second. Superintendent matthews. As you started this meeting with so much work being done, our school lunch nutritionists are heroes during this time. This afternoon we have mr. Keite to present this. It is my privilege to read this resolution for the incredible heroes to make it possible to serve 600,000 meals now since school closed. I will read this in recognition of School Lunch Hero day and student nutrition dining staff for dedicated service, whereas the dining staff of the Nutrition Services are committed to providing food healthy, diverse and affordable, sustainable and loved by student. The staff provides meals for the first week of school closure, since that dining staff consistently met the needs of the children. Whereas Nutritious School Meals enable healthy lives inside and outside the classroom. Over 200 dining staff are dedicated to serving students. 32 employees dedicated over 20 years of service and 25 dedicated over 30 years of service. One employee dedicated over 48 years of service. Whereas the dining staff have used their powers to serve more than 500,000 Meals Since School closure. The first friday in may is School Lunch Hero day. The superintendent and board of education recognize and commend 200 dining staff who work hard every day to provide a meal and support the mission to provide each and every student with equitable support required to thrive in 21st century. Thank you. Any Public Comments . Hello, linda. You have two minutes. I am doctor linda cutter. It is a pleasure to be here. Coucoupkudos to everyone. I am a fan of the First Amendment of the united states. I learned more about kalw. I am here to talk about kalw. My car heads there. I have visited quite a bit. We are taking Public Comment on this item. Sorry. We have open comments later in the meeting. Sorry, sorry. Any other people want to speak to this item of commendation, raise your hand. I am isabella. I am a student at the school of the arts in San Francisco. I am a junior. I just want to participate today to say how this whole process has been stressful on everybody, obviously, and in terms of the grading process and how that is going, it is very ify. From what i have been hearing from classmates how everybody is on the fence of the whole pass fail or just getting all as. Hold on. That item is coming up. We will have a robust discussion and vote. Right now we are asking for comments on the dining staff. I will come back later to you. So we are moving on. Board members any comments on this item . I dont see any. I have one comment. Commissioner collins hold on. Yes, yes, yes. I am field representative for sciu local 10 to one. Our members are the student Nutrition Services staff. I absolutely want to thank you so much for recognizing them. They are hard workers, determination, passion and compassion. To show up and serve hundreds of thousands of meals to families across this city. It is phenomenal. They do it over and over again. As their field repi cannot tell you i am floored by their capacity to do the work. They need to pack more bags. 100 more bags and go back out to the line to serve more meals. They are my heroes along with other members. You are giving the award to the Nutrition Service dining staff. Thank you, thank you for recognizing them. I appreciate that. I know they appreciate this. We can tie this beautiful package up with the differential they need. We will discuss that. I want to thank you to make sure that happens for them. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Collins. I want to reiterate. I have seen the work that everybody has been doing. It is a responsiveness of folks. It is overwhelming. The compassion to work through this stress by making them priority of our families to make sure they are fed. I want to say i am very, very grateful for their work and just, you know, we are not only serving sfusd families but families from throughout the city and providing a service nobody else is providing. Thank you again. Any other commissioners . Thanks for that familiar face for the students. Having grown up in this district and i remember getting to the school lunch. There were people that could get to us and talk. A lot of them have been committed over 20 years to these schools and these children. Thank you. Anybody else . I dont see any. I, too, want to add my thanks and admiration. These are Public Workers daily. They are serving our families, over 500,000 meals. I want to thank them. I admire them. I want to shout out to ms. Bee at cleveland for years. She would invite me behind the table to serve with her daily. She was the one who would manage. With that we are moving on. We are going to have a roll call vote, please. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Ms. Lam. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Thank you. Item 5 is bay area scores audio poem. Every year the San Francisco School District teams up with kalw Radio Station and one of our Great Community organizational partners, america scores to celebrate National Poetry month. We are grateful for the partnership to showcase talents of our students. Tonight we will play one of the poems aired this month. It is from redding elementary titled i am an art master. I am legend. I am an art master. I have nopa no patterns. On to the counters of the world. I can take paintbrushes chasing each other crushing the paper with my imagination. I can see the bright colors of every stroke. The colors bursting to the piece of art. I can see the checkered patterns oozing black and white and people sketching their patterns. I am an art master. I am from redding elementary. The title of my poem is i am an art master. For National Poetry month they have partnered to bring the voices of young poets from different schools. To learn more about the Poetry Program click on the radio link kaow. Org. Thank you. Welldone. They meld poetry. We are moving on to protocol for Public Comment. Let me read the rules. Please note Public Comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board jurisdiction. Refrain from using names. If you have a complaint an employee submit it to the supervisor. Board rules in California Law do not allow us to attempt to answer questions during Public Comment. The superintendent will ask the staff to follow up. With that mr. Steel. You will all get two minutes. One quick question. Once again could we explain that processor how people can get access . I am Spanish English interpreter. You want to offer your services for translation . Then we have somebody from cantonese . Yes. [speaking cantonese jesu canton. ]. This is for items not on the agenda. Not about grading system or sheltering homeless. Thank you for the reminder. Raise your hand if you would like to speak in general Public Comment and i will call on you. Go ahead. You have two minutes. Thank you. I would like to continue about kalw. Thank you for what you are doing. The food thing and the fabulous food that is being served. It was a kalw announcer who noted the School District web and made an announcement. That is how it has been announced ever since. What i want to say the congrew l learning of the School District and kalw and the fabulous programs that bring the bay area together make the bridges and bring learning we want. Philosophy talks is national. It started at kalw about ethics and morals and disparities. Latino u. S. A. Is on kalw in San Francisco. Your legal rights is on kalw. People get free advice from a lawyer on the call a lawyer. Inflection is about women who are shaping our future. That was started at kalw. We are talking about creative responsive leadership to bring the bay area and world together. 1a is about policy and connections across the fishers in our world. The Audio Academy is fabulous. It offers free instruction and learning to people who are interested in audio journalism and education. It is uncuffed part of it which goes to prison. Prisoners are learning to have lives outside of prison. There was recently a program on exmarine prisoner dying of leukemia and was interviewed by a fellow prisoner. That is powerful journalism. There are also 10 music programs to lift our spirits to teach us about the world atlarge, help our brains, our souls and bring the communities together. The diversity and commitment and the excellence of the uncuffed program was named by New York Times as one of the pick of the podcasts people should listen to. Thank you. Hello. Just quickly i want to thank you for giving the award to the Nutrition Service workers. We have other workers working so hard and showing up on day one of the covid tricesis. Crisi. We want to make sure that you remember we want all of our unit members to be recognized. How you do that is how we compensate them during this terrible time of crisis when they are risking their lives. Please remember that when you think about our members. We want to recognize all units. All of our workers, warehouse workers, transportation, they are giving critical communication information during the crisis. Our warehouse workers are working diligently along with custodial and student nutrition. Please recognize us as we negotiate for a differential for members who have shown up every single time when the district called and to be of service to families and students in the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you. Rafael. I am 1021 president. I want to thank you all, commissioners, for gratitude and appreciation for student nutrition. I will touch on some of the stuff just mentioned. Essential workers all School District are essential workers. The ones coming to work, putting in the effort to keep the district running. We are constantly coming in every day, leaving our homes and putting ourselves at risk. That comes from klw, the warehouse workers, nutrition, custodial, transportation. Every day we come in and we expose ourselves if we touch a handrail in the building or speaking to coworkers or being part and trying to keep the district running. Kim mentioned we are in negotiation, and i would like to see across the board that each and every essential worker that has been reporting since day one of this crisis be treated fairly and appropriately and be paid fairly and appropriately during this crisis, whether hazardous pay or differential pay. Our members are dedicated to our district, and i would like to see them be paid properly and appropriately for the tire less effort they are out here doing their job. They work hard. Student nutrition i see first hand. At first they didnt have appropriate ppe. Now they have appropriate ppe. They are coming into place. This is all new to all of us and we are all learning as we go. There are people like myself and everybody else coming to work that just wants to be fairly treated by the district for the effort we are trying to make to keep the district running. Thank you. We appreciate you and love you all. Thank you. Hello. Good afternoon, commissioners and superintendent. I am jerry ross, lifetime Soccer Player working with america scores for 12 years. We offered Youth Development programs that combine soccer and poetry and Service Learning in the district since 2001. I want to jump in to say thank you to the essential workers and student nutrition workers. In the bay area i want to speak on behalf of aalw and the partnership we have. It is one of the most valued partnerships. Each april for the past seven years we have been working together to bring children from San Francisco School District Elementary Schools to the kalw studios for poetry months to deliver poems on the air. We celebrate the kids and their words and effort. It is an amazing experience for the youth by changing in some ways and inspirational for sure to continue their literacy pursuits. The result is phenomenal. Thanthank you for playing the pm tonight. Klw does this on a shoestring budget and raise their own funds to pay the producers and staff who are excellent. They make the broadcast studio accessible for the students to amplify voices. I know there are many student centered products to follow their mission guided by public interest. I requested to collaborate more with them they were enthusiastic even in this pandemic. We made it happen. Thank you so much, klw. Good evening. This is michelle. I am with the parent Advisory Council, cordnator. I want to shout out to the essential workers showing up every day. I have been at sites helping with distributions of laptops and learning materials and, of course, meals. I commend everyone for showing up doing above and beyond every time. I want to shout out to the equity studies Community Town hall meeting coming up. San Francisco Human Rights Commission are hosting the town hall virtual leo april 29th starting at 4 00 p. M. That is tomorrow at 4 00. If anyone is interested, i am sure the information is on the district website. People are welcome to email me a. Pac at s. F. U. S. D. Edu. I will forward that information to them if they are interested in participating in the zoom meeting. Thank you. Good afternoon. I am lisa. I have been teaching and been an educator for 21 years. I am a private citizen because i am concerned about the future every storetive practices Restorative Practices in board resolutions. It was the result of hard work and dedications from so Many Community members over a long time. It is essential for places of collaboration for all members of the community. In the last several years it is a struggle to keep the work alive. Now all coach positions have been removed from Pupil Services i am concerned the restorative work will continue in name only or be reduced from the core principal of moving power over to power with. We need to ask ourselves what can be done to ensure the Restorative Practices does not get lost in the original protocols and budget shortfalls . Thank you. This is alita fisher, past chair of Community Advisory committee for special education. I want be to thank deputy superintendent, the chief academic officer, jill our interim chief of special education. Directors of special education jenny and the president susie for participating in the chc Membership Meeting this past thursday night. We had 71 meeting attendees, that is a record hi, who participated in the zoom call. We offered breakout rooms for interpretation to spanish and chinese to make the meeting inclusive. We had robust feedback about Distance Learning and how that is going and great conversation. We would like to thank commissioner sanchez for joining us during the meeting. It is great to see how the district prioritized parent engagement and focused on including families of students requiring special ed services in the inclusion practices around equity. Thank you very much. There is ongoing work to do. The fact we are collaborating with families openly and honestly is much appreciated. Thank you very much. Thank you. This is julie. It is appropriate we just spoke about the translation in the pac meeting. I want to know what is happening in the Board Meetings if you need translation you can only get it of your public testimony since there is no way to raise your hand be to say i need translation of the Board Meeting. I would like to see the school board adapt that to continue with being inclusive to make sure every voice counts. Because i think our school and many schools are trying to figure that out ourselves. If the district can provide that for the School Board Meetings and share the protocol that will improve our ability to serve those families. I want to add my thanks to the nutrition workers feeding my family and many other families. They were the first people to show up when the schools were closed. We said we would offer food. Many of us were trying to figure out Remote Learning, and i was disappointed when i looked at the agendas. I would like to see that bargaining conclude positively to recognize the value of those workers to our family. It is great to hear the poem read. I was on a zoom call at the same time and her classmates were checking out and the checkout words for the student were sharing were sad, mad, confused. As we move to conversations about grading in the Board Meeting, i want to remind parents there are students losing Family Members right now and that grading is probably one of the least important things on our families minds. Hello. I am laura. A volunteer at klw working on funfundraising and awareness. I know you have heard about our station already in this meeting. I want to mention a couple of ways that we jumped in to serve families during the pandemic. One of those ways is to increase the frequency of regional newscasts from 4 00 to 9 00 since the shelterinplace took effect. We took Public Service notifications from streets closed to Distance Learning to where and how to find help and volunteer. We launched a podcast in march that i want everyone to know about. Sharing the perspective of teens and what it is like to have education interrupted as well as teens dealing with antiasian racism. You can find that at examined lw. It is tbr klw and they are teaching over 100 students. Finally, we are producing the quarantine diary series. We hear from essential service providers. A Grocery Store manager, teacher, high school student. It is intriguing. Klw is proud to run Public Service announcements and we are able to do more and looking to partner with the department of children, youth and families. We would love to do more with them and the San Francisco public library, department of Public Health and the other agencies that make San Francisco a great place to grow up. Thank you for your time and thank you for your consideration of the many strengths of klw. Thank you. My name is. [ inaudible ] it is wonderful to hear about klw. I have been part of the news since its inception in 2005. The daily news magazine airs at 5 00 monday through thursday on klw. It features news from around the bay, culture from around the bay area. I just want to tell you about the station. With minimal resources we are able to create a vibrant newsroom over the years to train dozens of radio journalists. The goal is to go behind the deadlines to dig into issues. We are living it in San Francisco. Housing, education, social justice. Art. We believe the mandate is Public Service. That is how we see ourselves in the news respect as Public Servants providing journalism to San Francisco and the bay area. Right now we are all covid all of the time in the reporting. We have quarantine diaries and essential workers. Also we heard about earlier in the other voices and calls today that we are going out safely, most of us not so. I am talking inside my closet. This is how we are reporting with our microphones to want to connect with followings being affected right now. These two series that we are doing are really encouraging to people. It helps connect with San Francisco neighbors, helps you understand what everybody is going through and what is being done to help as well. One thing people might not know we are proudly housed in the back of burton high school. We wouldnt have it any other way. The High Schoolers are there. We share the hallway with them. They are part and parcel what we do, training High Schoolers in radio journalism, addieio academy, nine month radio training program, prison program. You need to wrap up. Your two minutes are up. Freddie . I am listening. I dont have any questions. If you raise your hand that means we will call upon you for Public Comment. Thank you. That concludes Public Comment. Thank you very much. Section d Advisory Committee reports. None tonight. E is consent calendar. We need a motion and second. So moved. Second. I wonder if there is Public Comment on this item . I havent seen any. Any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent or the board . No items. Any item severed by the board or superintendent tonight . All right. Roll call. I thought you wanted to severe item 14. Are we going to talk more about that . Thank you. I believe ms. O keefe wanted to make a few remarks. That item will sever or we can discuss it. That is in the next section, section f. We will call on the consent calendar minus that item. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Ms. Lam. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Seven ayes. Thank you. We will discuss and vote on item f. Superintendent matthews. So the item in question. Ms. Okeefe will speak to this item. Good afternoon. During School Closures we dont have a need for our yellow bus Transportation Services. We entered into this contract amendment with First Student to make it possible for them to continue to keep the drivers employed during School Closures. When we are ready to open up they will have staff ready to reconvene the services for students without interruption. During the time closed the amendment provides opportunity for us to give limited Transportation Services to staff. We are currently designing routes for custodians and kaftear use staff working at the 18 school sites distributing meals if they need transportation to get to and from the site. Students will help with limited delivery of goods and services between now and the end of july. Once the board approves this resolution or if they approve this amendment we will be able to launch those items. Can we quickly name which item on the consent item we are referring to . It is not under section f. It is consent calendar number 14. Thank you. Sorry for not pointing that out. The amendment does map out a lot of what i was describing including guarantees the drivers will continue to be employed and that throughout the duration of School Closures. The amount of contract represents less than we would normally be spending if school was in session and provides an opportunity to offer limited services for staff to get to and from the kaftear use of the schools distributing meals and help with distribution. If i may. Could i make one small correction . It appears to be item 15 on the consent calendar. It used to be 14. I am happy to answer any questions any of the commissioners may have about this item. Any questions . What was the original amount of the contract . The original amount is about 30 million. If we were going to be in session through the end of the school year, we spent about 23 million already on Transportation Services before school closed. There was a balance of 8. 9 million. I will bring out my spreadsheet for the exact numbers. We will have spent by the end of the year 2. 7 million less than we originally budgeted. Any other comments or questions . Seeing none. Roll call on this item. Go ahead. I just wanted to clarify. If they will be providing services we have delivered to homes at any point through our own transportation . A lot of that is volunteer based and teachers are taking it on. Is there an option . Absolutely. With this contract amendment we included the language. It was for transporting students. It could be delivery of devices, supplies and food and other key equipment that might be needed. It could be delivered to schools or students home addresses. Whatever we define as our needs they will help with. Thank you. Roll call on this item. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Moliga. Yes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Thank you. Sext g is proposals for action. There are none tonight. Section h. Four memorandums of understanding for action. If i hear no objection for the board it will be taken in one motion. Superintendent matthew. Tonight we are reading into the record. This is daniel. I think while carmela was listening i am not sure he is on. Tonight we are asking that you adopt four them randoms of understanding with our bargaining unit all related to delivering instruction and services during covid1 covid1. What are the bargaining units . The first memorandum of understanding with united educators. Second is united educators specific to substitute pay an ongoing salary continuation. Third item is with local 21. Fourth item is local 39. Union of operating engineers. So we need a motion and second for all four m. O. U. S. Motion. Second. Thank you. We have any Public Comment on this item . Yes, we do. Hello, angel. [speaking spanish] who is our interpreter . It is louise. It is possible to talk offline . I dont know if we have capacity to talk offline. Louise, are you here . Can you put them in a breakout room . Sure. Can i help in this situation . [speaking spanish]. So my name is carmen. My question is how are we supporting students with emotional needs during this time because of everything we are going through . This is not the forum to discuss that. This is Public Comment on another item. [speaking spanish]. She would like to know the situation for students who are english language learners if the work is going to count or not count . And all of the work they have completed it would be unjust they dont get credit for the work. All right. Thank you. A little confusion about the item. Susan, president of united educators of San Francisco. I am speaking to urge the board to accept and approve the two m. O. U. S that are the Distance Learning and the m. O. U. For substitute teachers and paraeducators. It took a long time to where we needed to be. I think it is worth noting that the m. O. U. S stipulate that because of the fast changing landscape that we are in that if either party wishes to revisit any of the m. O. U. Or add anything we can do so. These will expire on june 30th unless we extend them. These are good road maps forgetting us through a very difficult time. Thank you very much for your consideration. That is the final public speaker on this item. Any comments or questions by the board . Roll call on all four items. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Mr. Molega. Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Thank you. Action item resolution and authorizing documents for the issuance and sale of not to exceed 200 million of the San Francisco unified School Districts general Obligation Refunding Bonds. We need a motion and second. So moved. Second. Thank you. Designee. So we will be doing numbers 5 and 6. This is our chief financial officer. Good afternoon. Today we request approval of two financing resolutions related to the general Obligation Bond program. First is issuance of not to exceed 200 million of general Obligation Refunding Bonds to allow the district to sell for purpose every financing existing bonds at lower Interest Rates to create a taxpayer savings. Second authorizes the issuance and sales of general Obligation Bonds in an amount not to exceed 280 million. This will allow the district to sell bonds already authorized by voters for projects throughout the district. To be clear, this district currently sends bond proceeds on ongoing basis. Over the past 10 years annual building funds one moment please. Pardon me. I am home schooling. So we do over the past 10 years our annual exec expenditures this is the second sale of the 2016 bonds to allow us to continue with current projects as well as pick up additional projects that are on our bond program schedule. We respectfully ask your approval for our official statement. We will be back to the board in may. We are striving to achieve a timeline of completing the bond sales midjune or latest in july. I am happy to answer questions. Thank you. We need to move and second the action item. Motion. Second. Any Public Comment on these two items . Seeing none. Any comments, commissioners . I have one question. The Economic Situation that we are heading into have any effect upon these bonds . We are working very closely with our Financial Adviser to make sure that we are preparing ourselves for the best situation. We are considering a negotiated sale to make things more predictable and manageable. I forgot to manage the School District just completed a sale of 900 million last week. There is activity in the market. Wwe are still seeing advantages for refinancing. We will make sure that if we do move forward with refinancing of the current bonds that we are achieving the savings metric. If conditions arent good for completing that transaction, we may delay and find a better point in time for the refunding transaction. Long and short there is activity in the market, we are advised that conditions are good enough, there are demands for municipal bonds. We are confident at this point we can move forward. Roll call on both items. Thank you. Ms. Collins. Yes. Mr. Cook ms. Lam. Yes. Ms. Lopez. Yes. Ms. Molega. Yes. Sanchez. Yes. Thank you. Section i discussion of educational issues. J discussion and vote on consent calendar items. None tonight. K introduction of proposals and assignment to committee. 1. Public and board comment on proposals. 2. Board policy 51117 inter district attendance. 420. 4 Charter School authorization. 420. 43, Charter School revocation and over site and 5142, safety. Do we need a motion and second. So moved. Second. Thank you. Public comment on any of these items . We have one. I am jan i am an employee or representative of local 21. I have a quick question. On the agenda sections e and f were they skipped . Did i miss something . We voted on the consent calendar and we had severed one item for discussion. We voted on that. Does that clarify it . I believe the speaker is asking about Public Comment on section b. Did i ask for Public Comment . Yes. Go ahead if you want to comment now. I just want to comment on i was curious about this proposal number 12. The mutual confidentiality agreement with quantiphi. I dont know what happened with that. That is on consent calendar that is a bunch of items together. Nobody wanted to sever that for discussion. We didnt discuss it. There was no board discussion on that item. It is just not to be discussed . Consent calendar is a bundling. Ones severed for discussion are voted on separately. We did that for items but not that item. Where would be the most important place if i want to comment on number 12 . I am getting your comment right now. We cant discuss it with you. You can make comments and we will move on. You have two minutes. I am president of local 21 in the district. We represent the Health Workers and technical staff. We are concerned about this for many reasons. We were only notified as a board agenda item. This is direct violation of the mou which mandates union notice and chance to meet with subcontract performed by unit matter s. The district is looking for work we perform as this threat sens our livelihoods. We have been instrumental in the technology rollout. At the work site and school site each day we ask the board to honor that. We fear the jobs will be pat atk without sourcing. This puts students and family data at risk as technology with the district ensures all data protected. Undertaking cloud projects with the legal obligations. We are concerned about these high standards. The Company Website shows they have not partner with educational institutions and have concerns about how privacy will be ensured. In conclusion we remind the district to notify us, local 21, of any subcontracting of our work. We ask the board to understand this is work our members do and to ensure our jobs are not jeopardized by automation. They will understand the data of our families will provide will be protected. Thank you for your time. Thank you. We have one more hand up. I am having issues with my computer and zoom. I am back. This next commenter is a spanish speaker. [speaking spanish]. I would like to these meetings translated into spanish so we can understand what is being discussed. There is all for now. I think we can say right now that we are looking into that possibility of having ongoing interpretation in future meeti meetings. We are getting confused. [speaking spanish]. Also, we do have in place a 72 hour request you will need translation that you can call and ask the board office and the number is on the website. The whole meeting will be translated. [speaking spanish]. We have one more. I heard the comment about translation. Could the chinese speaker say that to the audience as well . That you can get translation immediately if you need a translation. Call in before the Board Meeting to the board office and the number is on the website. Yes, we can do that right now. Are you there . Yes, i am. [speaking spanish]. Thank you. Since we are talking back and forth in the agenda, i want more clarity around the translation. I am just learning the 72 hour request. I wasnt made aware and many families werent. Could we reiterate the number and tell me a little more about the process because it seems like once that happens how are they going to get these services during the meeting . That is why we can discuss this during the review. I feel that i need to start the interpretation. It will take me a minute. [speaking spanish]. Thank you. Any board comment . We will move on. We have a number of items we will ask the board to suspend the rules to hear the item. First one a motion and second to suspension of the rules 20428sp1. Resolution to adopt an alternative grading system for grades tk12 for the spring 2020 spring semester. Moved. Second. Ms. Collins. Yes. Ms. Norton. Yes. Mr. Sanchez. Yes. Thank you. To the resolution itself i need a motion and second be for formal introduction. So moved. Second. Mr. Steel can you bring up the presentation . Good evening, board members. Tonight we would like to have a very brief presentation. We wanted to spend a little time going over how we got to this point. Then we want to tell you what is in the resolution. What we are resolving to do in the resolution. Are you getting it up . It is up. Can you not see it . We can see the agenda but not the presentation. Sorry about that. [please stand by] the next slide or scroll up, please. Thank you. Put so whats in this resolution, we talk about the things that we have done. During covid and the lessons we have learned and then we go into grading and we talk about the importance of grading and what other policies from other districts weve learned and finally, we go into the grading policy and then we resolve to make it an equitable grading policy for our students. Please scroll. At this point, im going to have norma ming are you there in. I am. At this part of the presentation, miss ming will talk to the next couple of slides and the next slides after that, we will speak with our chief of planning and assessment and then finally, our deputy superintendent of the construction will close out and then well read the resolution. Good afternoon. I work in the department of sf usd. As part of the investigation, we looked at some of the literature in grading and i think what this indicates is the tension that were facing here is the complicity of grades are used for multiple purposes and multiple audiences. So instructional guidance, students rely on the feedback that the students have made and then work opportunitie opportun. So this makes it exceedingly complex the same piece of information is used in all of these different ways which makes it harder to ensure that information is truly valid and bases all of the potential disagreements about what the information should be used for and how it should be determined. At the same time that we have this tension, we have the reality but from a review of 100 years of research, but grades do corcorrelate with other measuref success. Whats interesting is that they can be more predictive of the grades. And im sorry, they may be more predictive of students success in school than just the standardized test scores. And so, next slide, please. It is especially important we have Accurate Information and as i think many of us are aware, we do know that there is learning loss when students are out of school and whats been studied is the learning loss but there are other situations when students have interrupted education. So the slighted o slide comes f0 students taking the test and it shows the averages by grade level, grades 38. And what it shows is that the line, the dotted line there, a little bit smaller, that that dotted line is typically the last day before summer and what happens you see a slide and thats the solid line before students come back to school . September. So what this study did, these were projectin projecting. With schools closing midmarch, what will happen . Some will say it stays flat and others predict the learning will continue to decrease. You see the students have not had the chance to learn as much because school stopped in its traditional manner earlier and also allows more time to drop. We dont know exactly what will happen. And then on the right, what we see is, we have the risk that those gaps can widing didnt wi. On the left, thats an average but some students will have a grow and others may have a decline and this comes from a meametaanalysis as well as anor analysis that looks at a different grade level and so you see there that some students are learning more, the ones with higher socioeconomic status and others are showing a loss in their learn. Learning. This shows the growing inequities out of school and a learning loss and inequities will be greater due to the pandemic and we dont know how large the gaps will be or where they will be. So what all of this highlights is the increased need to have Accurate Information to ensure that students have the opportunities they deserve to continue to learn, not just during this challenging time, scores are physically closed but after that, and where students may end up, whether its the next grade level or postsecondary opportunities and so forth. Ill pass it on now to dr. Rijucana who will do the next two slides. Thank you, norma and good afternoon, commissioners, and members of the public. It seems good to connect with you even though its virtual, but just the connection seems so special. I will talk about the importance of information. They talk about this and they say that providing these narratives are powerful. This is something that we have recommended at the kindergarten through fifth grade levels, which is you know if you were to provide these narratives to discuss how they are progressing, what is the standard and that will be helpful and that is one of the recommendations in our policy. And the second part i want to talk about is selfassessment, where you know there was a suggestion made about students selfassessing and there are two recent studies to site on selfassessment and the first is done at an elementary and fifth graders witgraders where 932 ste studied didnt there was an a pt to overassess their skills or not have enough knowledge in how much time it would really take to learn or get to that skill. Again, twothirds underestimation of the learning time, as well as overestimation of the skill. And then there was also a study done with older students, with seniors and college students. It would show that some of our underserved populations tend to lure their gradings when talking about selflevel. Selfassessment is good, but as we give our students more practise to do so, it will get more realistic. Moving on to the next point, which is information that is assessed by others. When there is a lack of information or when there is no information given, then biased does tend to step in. So you know, your judgment, this is what we call the studiotype thread, when we do not provide any information to the next grade level or to colleges in the absence of their information and there is a tendency to fall back on biases. And that is when the equity gap even widens. So all of these differences do highlight the fact that in order to address equity, we must accurately communicate our narratives towards our standards and provide feedback to students in terms of their demonstration of the standards. Next slide, please. The next slide i want to do is a consultation with both the state department, as well as the su and cu admission systems. We did find out that looking at the 201819 year, we saw that approximately 40 , the actual numbers, 39 of our seniors go to csu system or uc system. And that is a large number, so since they were the main recipients of our seniors, we did reach out to them. They had not considered when writing their policy and i should reach out to the youth assistance. Our conversationin confusion, te things i would like to mention and the first was around misleading feedback to students. So there was this concern that students would have misleading feedback of what they know and do not know as the grade was not reflective of their learning. The second risk that was mentioned was around placement and so this university had concerns about the risks of providing automatic aid would have, especially when assigning them to a course in terms of placement, but also in terms of College Readiness and supports for them. Now many universities have also responded to this covid19 and are putting courses for support who have missed learning during this period. The last point im not goin goie is not about placement. They did mention that it could be a disadvantage relative to nonsf usc students because any kind of universal grade calls into the question the validity of the grade and the second thing they mentioned was that csu stated getting all as would lead to an inaccurate assessment of learning and would lead to grade inflation. Therefore, they suggest ed thisg credit, no credit would provide them with more accurate feedback and has been a recommendation during admission. Looking at the availability that does exist, most universities are going to ask for an actual description on the transcript itself so they can be equitable in their admissions process and they will be asking for the policy to be there on the transcript. Again, thank you for the chance to communicate and hopefully the information gathered has been hopeful to you and i will turn it now next to nikki, who will clarify our recommendation for the grading policy during the school closure. Thank you. Good evening, commissioners and meeting participants. Based on the information that was just shared, as well as considerations offered to the board a couple of weeks ago, the following recommendations are being made. For students with individualized education plans, projects will be reported in accordance with those plans. For students in grades k5, Classroom Teachers will provide feedback on progress and the commentsonly report form and no grade assigned, just feedback. For students in grades 612, assigned credit, no credit for each course and the students receive a no credit may receive credit if the student completes the required work by the following deadline. July 31st, 2020, graduating seniors, 2020 and the beginning of fall 2020 for all other students. Additionally, staff will continue to engage our students through Distance Learning. Our next slide, justin. So we will continue to engage our students through distance education. By the end of the school year, staff will report progress and learning during this distanced education and by the end of june, sf usc will develop a plan for the 20202021 school year and additional, the board of commissioners will partner in raising resources to address the learning loss. This is more detailed in our resolution and im going to pass it to dr. Matthews and we can read it back to you. So im going to read the resolution and im going to read the first part, which, as i said, which are the areas that we have done as a district and then, im going to turn it over, and they will read the impacts of grading. And then we will close out, just as we did in this presentation with anikia portell, reading into the record, not only what we resolve around grading but what we resolve as a district to combat the impacts of what covid19 has done. Whereas this is the 20428sp1 of the San Francisco unified School District to adopt an alternative grading system for grades tk12 for the 2020 spring semester, whereas on march 16, 2020, the San Francisco unified School District ceased facetoface instructions due to the covid19 pandemic and whereas the district is part of a regional Public Health approach to covid19 pandemic, which includes the disruption of the spread of covid19 virus to protect the health and safety of earn in the city and protect the health and safety of vulnerable populations and whereas, the district now engages in a Distance Learning model and continuing to focus on the core value of equity and access, recognising the importance of relationships and collaboration and elevates the components of our graduate profile that lends itself to this new context and whereas, the districts continuity of learning approaching the student current context and provides learning options via a digital distance approach or nondigital printbased approach as Student Resources and circumstances allow and whereas, district educators engage in wellness and capacity building, Strategic Planning of syncronys learning with peers and staff and providing grades 35 and more than 1500 hot spots and partnered with the philanthropists to expand Internet Access for students living in housing and resources for families and facilitated virtual, professional learning for more than 3,000 educators and staff to help manage the shift to digital Distance Learning and distributed over 11,000 learning kits and 33,000 books to students in pk to second grade. Whereas, major predictable learning challenges have emerge asked wilemergedand will remain. This is not limited to students, families and educators struggling to balance their own reality and circumstances while still attending to their respective roles in moving forward. In the absence of consistent facetoface learning and access to learning materials and supplies, generally placed in many of the marginalized students at a disadvantage in having basic learning needs met and balancing the need for limitations, privacy, security, change management with urgency to deliver solutions and there is little or no parenttoparent interaction for students and now ill turn it over to chief kahna. This is used for audiences, including guidance for teachers, students and families and placement decisions for post secondary institutions and potential employers and whereas, inequities grow in the absents e of inAccurate Information grows overestimating their skills. Where others affected by stereotype thread, underestimating their skills and adults show more biased in judging others qualifications when performance information is removed. And whereas, the university of california and California State University systems have provided coordinated guidance around acceptable grading policies, emphasizing the need for accurate assessment, information for the benefits of students and remain astutely attentive to the opportunity gap for marginalized students including africanamericans and Pacific Islander students, homeless students, those living in poverty, English Learners and students with ieps and the potential for the widening of that gap. And im going to turn this over to nikki. Therefore, be it resolved the district will implement this for the spring 2020 firm. With students with individualized education plans, progress will be reported in accordance with those plans. For pk5, class are room teachers provide feedback in the commentsonly report forms and for students in grades 612, assigned credit, to credit for each course and students who receive no credit for the deadline. , for the graduating students and for the 2020 semester for all students. The district Student Engagement during Distance Learning will comply with educators and four hours of engamement pe engagemed projects, et cetera, and flexibility in their daily schedules. And be it further resolved, no later than may 27th, 2020, staff will report to the District Board of education on the distant learning progress, the distribution progress, the Vice Distribution progress and Student Wellness progress and be it further resolved that by junt will develop a plan for the 20202021 Academic Year to obsess and intervene on Students Learning loss, including more support for populations and be it further resolved that due to the increased revenue and resource needs in all areas, because of the learning loss as a result of the covid19 pandemic, San Francisco unified School District members resolve to lobby at the local, state and National Levels to acquire the revenue needed toe to ensure eah and every student will receive the equitable materials supplied in the 21st century. So that is the resolution and now we would open it up to questions. Before we do that, lets have Public Comment. There feel. Yes. Latoya, you have two minutes. Go ahead. Im a parent, a leader with the apex and i wanted to ask while considering the grading policy, that you also consider the federal recovery option to make sure it is to all students and if you know the letter grades. Currently its not offered or consistently. And im not sure in all cases that you just realize the impact, which is what i have on the rest of the students slides. It would be nice to also consider grades or making up failed classes, doing something that reflects their hard work and im not sure a pass or no pass would do it justice. Being assessed on their ability to deliver doesnt learning or education. Its they have never done before or a significant plan to do wouldnt be fair so i think students should be given the same consideration. And which students will have access to the technology or the internet or experiencing housing or any other type of adverse childhood experiences. So make the dis wit decision wih compassion and a safe place to learn could be taken from them in the blink of an eye. But the students who cant consistently engage in the process for whatever those reasons may be, they shouldnt be graded as hard as the other students because theyre trying and they dont have the tools or the ability to do so, so grading them on the assignments they submit and not just anything. Thank you. I believe its dorsen. Hello, are you there. Yes. Thank you. I was just curious to how this will affect our kids gpas overall. I think its a good idea that theyre not going to have the asymptoms, not a fair way to assess their abilities, but overall, how that affects their grade point for the entire year. Ok, thank you. Hello, concern. Kevin. Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate to have a harms free way for students to kind of survive through this traumatic time. My question is, what are the safeguards for students that need a lot of Additional Support . I do like following through with learning plans but i dont see the capability of making that a reality, when a lot of parents are forced to be a paraprofessional teacher at the same time as working with their kids. I wanted to hear how the administration hopes to address those issues and makes sure people have the opportunity to get access to education at this moment, even if its not the same high quality education in the classroom. Thank you. Hello, susan. Hello. Thank you for this presentation. I wanted to say that the last time i represented an sf recommendation, all as and that was really still are, but just thinking about the crisis and the trauma our students are experiencing. After that meeting, we will usf formally considered a policy recommendation and as some people may know, we were remming an a to c grading policy. We recommended what the districts concerns perform most of our recommendations, to me, one of the more significant pieces of it was not the grading but any grading policy must come for a strong commitment to how students will be supported how students are closed, not just academically but in every other way, too. This plan should be a top priority and implemented quick quickly. And so some that, we need to know and to Work Together to develop that plan, what is going to happen. I do want to mention that one of the points in the presentation seemed to be dichotomy of which is grade versus standardized test scores. I would submit that neither within of those helped to complete stories, either together or apart. Were long overdue for this discussion with grading and im so sorry it had to happen under such terrible circumstances, but im glad its happening. And finally, i want to say two more things. One is i appreciate the recognition that teachers do have a right to grade students and charged now at the national level. We do not want to take rights away from teacher. And finally, i want to say that, please dont forget united education of San Francisco, American Federation of teachers and National Education association, California Federation of teachers and California Teachers Association when were talking about resources. I was just on another phone call about what aft is proposing for reopening schools. Also, in terms of lobbying for funding, that is our baliwick and we are always concerned about full funding for public education. We are ready to work with the School District on that lobbying effort, as well as our community, family and education partners. Thank you. Thank you. Miss marshall . Here, thank you. You have two minutes. Thank you. To president sanchez, Vice President lopez, the Commission Commissioners and the executive team and union itself, on behalf of the San Francisco alliance of black school educators, we were torn between what to do. Our mo mantra is always do no hm and that the class teacher is the only educator who has a Legal Authority to change grades and we were concerned initially with the board policy. Initially, we support the union, a, b, c grade and we learned the ucs would not accept an a, b or c but had to be a, b, c or f. We believe no student should fail during this pandemic. And we had an overnight forum this past sunday with 26 people in the zoom call, including educators and community members. And we want to hear from our parents and students. Overwhelmly, when we got ready to vote, 18 parents and students said that we do not want to worry about our grades. We will go with a pass or fail. Five educators, including me voted for the grade. Two people left the call and one parent said she could not make up her mind. So were going to support our students and go with a pass fail only for this semester. We believe in going back to the historical reference, that going back to the fall of 20202021, we should go back to the a, bwc, def grade. During this pandemic, struggling families have to worry about what to eat, wha where to sleepb exposjobs and they dont have to worry about this issue. Im so sorry it came up during this pandemic. We support our historic educator and we support what she said about this issue and we want to thank the board commissioners for their support and for the many phone calls and the union sf. We also support the naacp policy that every Student Needs to earn their own grade. Thank you for listening. Thank you, miss marshall. Uhhuh. Hello, caller, are you there . Yes, i am and this is kevin robinson. Im a parent and educator and a member of the apac and San Francisco unified. inaudible . Mr. Robinson, its very windy and were having a hard time seeing you. Go ahead. inaudible . Hello, julian. I want to be clear im speaking as a parent and in no other capacity. Im disappointed in this resolution. My nephew who is a senior at Lincoln High School has been working very hard since school has closed to Distance Learning and before the schools closed, he was getting straight as and to take that away, i dont understand why the district would do that. I know all of the usd passed a model a policy so the idea they wont accept that is ridiculous because the largest asked in our state, so why cant we do the same policy that usf has which is ac and i hope that you do right by our seniors and by our students. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, michelle. Hi, im here. Thank you. I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments again. Im with the Advisory Council and im not speaking on behalf of the council but for myself and being involved with this work. I wanted to just really appreciate the thoughtfulness and fairness thats going into this conversation and the research to try to figure out what is really the best option for the majority of our students and i know its a stuff situation. And i really appreciate the focus on holding our students harmless, especially considering the current circumstances and i think one of the reasons i want to say that i support the resolution that the board has come up with is because the student Advisory Council supports it and i want to hold up and honor the students and their voice and i appreciate what i heard the appec leaders saying about that, as well. As weve heard before from another speaker and as many of us know, the magic is in the implementation and our students do need to make up some classes and credits. And i want to encourage you to include parents as your partners when figuring out how to best do that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hello, alida. Hello, again. Thank you, mr. Steel. Im alida fisher, past chair for special education and i appreciate the thoughtful work thats gone into this resolution. Part of the resolution that i wanted to comment about is the part that states that progress reported in accordance with iup plans is how our students with iups will be graded. And i wanted to make sure everyone was aware that just this week, that the department of ed has issued guidance to congress, recommending that special Education Supports and Services Still be upheld and required during this time. Everybody was holding their breath about whether or not the department of ed would provide waivers and they have not. So our responsibilities to provide education, supports and services to students with ieps is still the law of the land and what needs to be done. Having said that, what has been offered to students with iups right now is Distance Learning plans and we still have so many questions about their implementation that multiple speakers have already said and we dont know how to implement parent supporto implementpara so many things not worked how with paras, how they will receive an education during Distance Learning and i do not think this resolution goes far enough in addressing their needs and leaves more questions unanswered. I think the district is wanting to focus on equity and it needs to put a lot of thoughtful intention behind making sure these students have access to their education. I would hold up the Credit Recovery questions that miss latoya posed earlier and those are huge and echo everything that mr. Kevin bogus said as well, so thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, chris . Hi. My name is chris and im a parent of two High Schoolers i n the San Francisco School District and i was wondering if there was any way to give a kids between the choice expect grade they had march 13th, when school closed. The school had been in school for two and a half months at that point and i know a lot of them would like to keep their grades ahead. I think give them a choice, passed out or the grade they had on that date. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, aaron. Hi, there. Im a teacher at sf unified and i appreciate the acknowledgement of student and family challenges. As a teacher, im curious about the option for credit if work is completed by fall of 2020 and how that would work as the teacher Contract Period end for this year prior to that date. I wonder about teachers who may be retiring and expectations of teachers requesting grading and teachers bac back to school ovee summer. Thank you. Thank you. It looks like galaxy. Hello, are you there. . It says galaxy j2 on the name handle. Can you hear me . Yes, yes. Could you state your full name . Yes, my name is la albuquerque itquita cohenand i, Matthew Cohen and a 13yearold entering the sf usd school year for 2021. The two main concerns thatvy as a parent is number one, i totally do not agree on just giving the kids just all a letter grades because it will give them an unprecedented expectation that you dont have to work for anything, even when a crisis strikes. And i know im on the low end of that, but its still hollow. I feel helping my friends creating hard work and good values, but on the flip side, mf this and i was thinking, ok, so what are the other states going to do . Because i had several daughters who went on to college, San Francisco state universities, North Carolina and universities and, ok, like, when our kids go to college and especially our seniors, i feel the juniors have an opportunity to get things back on track and things of that nature. But the seniors, theyre at an imposition because when youre going to off to a university of whatever nature, i dont care if its a Community College or whatever well Community College is different because all you have to do is take a test, but theyre pretty much looking at who is this person . What kind of character does this person have . And it stems from the letter grade. When youre looking at a letter grade, im putting myself in the shoes of the teenager itself. So i worked my butt off for three and a half years and i am ready to just jump in there and just go on to adulthood and learn more to work towards my degree. Sadly enough, the world comes to a stop and, you know, where do i go and what d do i do . Were depending on everyone else in the world that paid a lot of money to make decisions that affect all aspects of everyones life, whether it be a student were going to need you to wrap it up because two minutes has passed. I dont want to be cut off and i apologize for going over, but ill sum it up in 60 seconds, if i may. You dont have 60 seconds, sorry. Thank you. This is lislyn. Im th inaudible . I work with communitybased organizations that work with children and youth and families. I want to highlight when these decisions are made, i understand these are challenging times, but we want to be working in partnership with our ceos, not on the backend but frontend and working to support our students during these times of Distance Learning and their programs are also shipping and pivoting when sf usd are making these decisions. Please consider whether its those in the beacon programs or childcare decisions so they can be incorporated in the wellbeing of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, alison . Yes, hi. Im alison bravman. Im a parent of a middlecooler and i have listened to all of these conversations, all of the the meetings and i want to express my appreciation to the board and the staff for all of the thoughtfulness youve put into creating this policy. My one concern, i just wanted to express, was the emphasis on how much, say, uc has gotten into this and, perhaps, thats always been the case in our grading policy, but it just feels like this one College System is to have a lot of say in how we grade our students and it does not allow for flexibility in our district in the best way for us to grade our students. And as we also add more option for vocational education, that maybe we need to consider how heavily we really weigh ucs opinion. So just going forward, i hope that the board and the administration will consider just how important ucs voice really is. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, maurica. Can you hear me . Yes, we can. I wear many hats and i need to say that im a black parent in the district and i sit on the black American Advisory Team and i have a senior a high school veteransenior, freshman and a kindergartener and i work for the district. So i am just calling today to speak on behalf of black families and as an apec Family Member and leader. Weve had the opportunity to be involved in several conversations and we have done or research to be informed about this new policy that might be vote on tonight and we are thankful for those that contributed to our conversations and informed us on the information and for also our members to bring their own thoughts and foresite into the conversation. We want to mention that our families are actively engaged in distant learning and they want to continue Distance Learning and learning through that. There are some barriers to that. But the thoughts around the grading policy, there are thoughts that saying students have no control over the things that are happening right now and that we should be acting with the students best intentions in mind and not to cause harm. And its also not fair to families to have a subject system of the a, b and c imposed upon the students. As we know, theres issues with that and again, like the union said, thats a discussion that needs to be had at a later date, but we feel that, also, some families feel that a pass, nopass option ensures that most of our families needs are being met and that our students have achievement and success during this time and the opportunity to make up things that they cannot accomplish during this time. We also want to note while these conversations are happening, there are school sites where the majority of families not participating in Distance Learning or hearing about these decisions have not been reached out to and we would like that to be more proactive, that africanamerican familys voices are heard. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, lyla. Can you hear me . Yes, state your full name, please. Lyla nelson. Im a parent leader with the africanamerican parent advisory coin critical. And i have a fourth grader and i first want to start off by applauding everyone who has stepped up and done so much to keep the focus on sf usd families during this crazy time. But i have to be honest. Im frustrated. Im frustrated as a parent watching my daughter and how what i perceive as a lack of instruction affects her. Normally, she is an overachiever, but the lack of, like, virtual interaction is taking a toll. Im seeing her lose the motivates to wanmotivation to d. Although my child is only receiving feedback as a grade, its stressful and i can only imagine what ourmonthold our l and High School Families are feeling. And not getting into class when its scheduled. By the time we get in the class, the class is over. Im asking for the board to provide more support with some sort of professional development surrounding the zoom and google classrooms and requiring more structure surrounding that students student is student teacher interaction. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, linda. My name is linda and im very irritated and frustrated because i feel like db i have a 12th 12th grader and a Junior High School student. He is having a breakdown and in a state of depression because due to the fact that everybody will be graduating and, unfortunately, ive had about over ten people graduating and he be the only one that didnt get to graduate. My concern is that what is youre plan with the kids that is under depression and going through what theyre going through . Another thing, quickly, is to ask about these computers that you all gave to these kids . Because,ism, unfortunately, ia daughter that is in 4a, and i do not want this to come back and bite her. If she uses this computer or breaks this computer and i have a lot going on in my mind and im so depressed. Im stressed out and its horrible. Its horrible. My son is crying and im crying. And hes, like, give it up. Hes if the 12th grade and dont give a damn no more. I dont know how to help my son or what feedback to give him because everybody in my house has graduated and he will be the only one, the only one that do not get to see his prom or graduation. And that was a big part of his life. He had his tuck se tuck tuxedo. Im at a breakdown point now and its horrible. This is a lie and a hoax because they all of this stuff is a hoax. The teacher got to come back and teach her 101 because she cant get through i mean, its horrible and its at a point where im trying to be so helpful to my kids but im breaking down now, im breaking down. Dr. Matthews, the phone number for the resource line . Do you have it . So this mother can call. I dont have it in front of me right now. Can you hang on and ill say it after the next caller and ill give the number. Hang on linda and well get you that number. Thank you so much. Were going to go to the next speaker. Reverend brown, are you there . I can hear you. You can go ahead. Thank you very much foun. Mr. Superintendent, president of our board, mr. Sanchez, board members. First of all, i want to applaud the two contenders and the board for having this crisis and to the other side of success. I am just pledging here with the nacp, about this church, the africanamerican faith community, to make sure that we stand in the gap collectively and as a community, to work with the superintendent to make sure black and marginalized children excel and be safe in spite of this pandemic. I would next like to stay that i hope this board, the administration will use this black resource community. We have people with skills who can stand there help this parent that i just heard that is frustrated. I would say, hold on. During the civil rights movement, when he did not finish Moorehouse College on time. He was supposed to finish in 1963. That there wahe was out in the. Everybody just wanted to give him that degree. It was not until 1972, that he got a degree from herehouse college and i think we should lovingly connect with these parents and with the children and tell them that others have had their time and there have been pandemics of slavery. They learned how to read and they read and they struggled and excelled anyhow and we should give them a sense of history. Thank you, pastor brown. Thank you so much. Were with you. Before you call the next speaker, i wanted to give the number for linda who had called. That number for our resource line is 415 3401716 and once again thats 415 3401716. And staff will answer phones between 9 00 and 1 00 and if you get a voicemail, they will call you back. 416 3401716. Thank you, dr. Muse. Matthews. Are you there . Can you hear me. I am a teacher at the high school in the district and i appreciate the time that youre giving this. And i would just like before you take a vote to make clear to all of the teachers the process by which we will change no path to paths, given that those deadlines occur midjuly and before school starts. And thats all. Thank you. Miss marshall, are you there . Yes, i just want to make sure that reverend brown was on the call because he had some comments, so thank you so much. Great, thank you. Hello, caller, are you there . 415 caller . Hello, cap yo can, can you h . Im a junior at the high school and i just wanted to comment on the grading policy from the Student Perspective. I think its really important to keep in mind all of the work that students have done so far this semester. So for me personally, i would like to advocate for the optional path, optional af because students can choose to say, hey, i want to keep working and i want to keep doing all of the things that ive done this semester, to keep up my grades and then the students that either dont want to do that, dont have the access, dont have the time because theyre working can choose to go and say, i want to get pass, no pass, credit, no credit, so that its equitable for all students in all situations. And students that ar have the opportunities can get what they need and students that dont are not punished for the things they dont have. So i think you need to take the Student Perspective and think about what will benefit all students the most and thank you for your time. Caller, are you there . My daughter would like to speak. Two minutes. My name is teresa heinz and im a junior at Abraham Lincoln and i just wanted you to consider that through this pandemic, like, the students themselves, thre that they have Family Members that are dying and this will not be the first things on their minds. And teachers are giving way more work than they would in school. And that we all dont really have the same resources, so youre trying to put this all on the same plate when its not equal, you know. Thank you. And i just wanted to add, if i have more time, im her mom. That i dont hear anyone talking about the traumas that is inflicted on students of colour, especially africanamerican. And i do know that something mentioned it, but now the opportunity to make some things right and do some concessions. Thank you. Pass, no pass. Thank you. President sanchez, that completes Public Comment. Thank you. Thank you to the public for sharing your thoughts and its heartbreaking whats happening out there. So board members, team delegates, we are going to discuss this and i want to make sure that our student delegates get the words in. Im a parent and somehow i got promoted to a panelist. I think i might have been the last commenter. So here i am. I just wanted to advocate for grades. My son is a junior at Abraham Lincoln. So i think it should be optional, give them the choice of p4 or passfail, the students option. Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to first thank all of the parents and all of the students, especially who have come to this Board Meeting, to give comment and i want to reiterate our findings regarding our Student Survey. This pertains to grades this semester. So we conducted a survey which had about 5,443 responses last time i checked. From these responses, we narrowed down the data, sinthy synthesized the info and we brought our findings and points back to our cabinet team, in which we were creating recommendations for the board. And so we want to bring up three main points. First, let me say the grading policy, our recommendation, and that is to have an optional af or pass. Grading policy. With this policy, it really covers three main points in which we saw represen repetitior peers and one point is that no one should be punished during this pandemic and this happened to everybody and its unfair to expect students to perform at a student level when its that way. Its important to maintain doesnt learning and grades in a sense, provide that incentive to come to attend classes, right . So if we do a nopass or pass, i dont see how students wont be motivated to work harder. And so this policy would give the option to students who want to continue to work hard and then the third point is that its important to, once again, highlight the hard work. please stand by . School is challenging. Students face barriers through Financial Hardship or housing situations. I do want to make sure the decision we make reflects on students accomplishments and they are able to if they want to put their grades on their final grading system. My biggest concern is the harm that this has on our newly coming students and this is like our refuge students, students escaping countries with. Reporter s. I want to strongly narrate this because this distance learns is not effective. They escaped wars. For us to put them where they have to show up to class and they dont know how to use technology and say i have to go to this class and i dont know how to use zoom and that has an effect on their grade. Of these are seniors. This will have an effect on their grade. I personally dont want anyone to fail even if they are not moimotivated. It is not fair during this time that anybody fails during this time. I dont think we should revolve around this. I know the majority of students decide to follow this College Career but we dont have to be like other School Districts. What makes San Francisco unique is that we are a unique School District and unique city. I think it should be our own decision and not what everybody else is doing. Feel freel to jump back in the situation, student delegates. Commissioners. Thank you for this presentation and for the comments from both staff and from the public and also i really appreciate conversations i have had with parents. I had a conversation with the career and College Counselor at galileo, high schoolteachers, students and student leaders and also the alliance of black educators and the Union Teachers union. I appreciate just the thoughtfulness of folks and trying to figure out the situation. I have some specific questions. I wanted to introduce an amendment to this resolution. I am going to ask these questions first to help clarify. The first question is there was data presented in the presentation and referenced in this presentation in the proposal that states that grades are an indicator for evaluating learning, and i wanted to know if there is any data that shows grades as a valid measurement of Student Learning during a pandemic. That is a question to staff. Is there any data showing that grades are an effective measurement of Student Learning during a pandemic . I dont have anything. Did you guys look at any research that indicates how Distance Learning or National Emergencies or grief and loss impact a students ability to demonstrate learning . This has been one of the first pandemics we have had in a while, and, you know, we dont have any research on this. I will definitely look for it and get back to you. I guess that is one of the concerns. In the resolution they mentioned how grades are ava are indicatef Student Learning. Nobody knows what is going on with grades. Everybody is having questions. We need to people wanted grades to mean something right now. As far as i am aware and i am interested in your thoughts as well. They are not really. I dont know how anybody could use grades at this point to indicate something during this pandemic. Do you have any in terms of measuring learning or based on standards when students have been out of School Across the country at varying levels . You know just a thought that has come across. The student delegates mention we do consider the same policy of a and f and giving pass. We went back to look at the grades. At the last marking period. I want to say this slowly. They agreed at the last grade periods how much would it add to your consume lahim gpa for 80 of the students it would add less than. 1 to their overall existing cumulative gpa. 80 of the students it would add less than. 1 increase in their gpa. So the question then came up that, yes, 20 it will impact, right . You know, we tried to see it across middle schools and high schools. Yes, we did go by look aning at the grades. When we looked at the break down there was a lot of consistency. Whatever the cumulative gpa has been at the end of the fall semester. It is not really significant enough. What i am saying you are looking at past data without a pandemic. What i am saying at this time we dont have any data how shelterinplace or Distance Learning during a pandemic. We dont have any data how that impacts students gradings and academic performance . No, we dont have data on it. It shows when kids are out of school they lose, we have data showing im assuming when parents or grand parents diane they experience grief and loss it impacts ability to learn. We could find data there are some kids that learn differently at home. Some learn better and some dont learn as well. A lot of teachers feel like they dont teach as well in Distance Learning environment . There is research that shows how learning loss can get magnified for special populations. Special populations it is magnified, the learning. So if we are grading based on what kids learn and certain populations experience the magnified learning loss, that is not their fault. I want to say that. If we were grading them on something that is not their fault because they are not in school and school cant remediate some of the things they do during the school day they provide services to students they dont have at home, it would be unfair to provide a transcript that would impair their ability to apply for college based on this national emergency. I guess the question then for daniel. I want to clarify for the public the state tell me if i am incorrect. The cde said we could use a variety pass fail, credit no credit and regular grades or a through c or a through d. Those were all suggested by the state, is that correct . Those were options. The state cannot represent those were vetted and approved by universities. I want to be clear at leadership level they have created a lot of confusion. That is for me and that is my statement. It is not necessarily a fact. They basically listed options and then didnt clarify whether they would be accepted by uc or not . They gave us options and a number of considerations for each option that we should look at. They didnt make any representations about how our universities would treat them. I want to be clear that at a state level the cde provided options that are contradicted in some cases by the uc and csu system, is that correct . That is based on our information, that is correct. I would definitely say no. I wrote that down many times. They are saying that whether you provide the grades or whether you provide that. You have to state it within your transcript what you are using. What i want to clarify is that they the uc stated they will not accept a through c and a through d only, which was listed as a potential option by the state. If you give a through c only, the question becomes how will they judge and validate your student . You will fall into that in your local context how you have graded and based on your policy they will then validate or look at it. It puts grades at risk if we choose a through c option. That is why we are told not to consider a through c because i want to make a statement. The state provided some potential options that are not vetted by the uc system, and the uc system says we will give you flexibility. If you decide to do one of the options the state lists a through c we may not take your grade . Yes, thats correct. I just want everybody to understand basically the uc system is preventing boards across the country from doing all of the options that were provided as possibilities by the state. We are all making different decisions which i think is lack of leadership at the state level. It means kicking the can down to the districts. As we see every district is doing a different thing. If we look at grades as measure of Student Learning different districts are using different measures and that is a mess. As far as students go this is the asterisk semester but credit does matter. The only question i have is specific to the presentation that says that seniors are a real serious issue. We want to make sure they graduate and they are held harmless. My question as far as it says they have up to july 31st to make up a credit. As teachers have noted, they are not all working through the summer and then i guess another concern that came up in speaking with a high school College Counselor, she said if a kid doesnt get credit by the end of the school year it doesnt count towards college. I looked at the csu and uc site they want the credits sent to uv by july 1st. , not july 31st. I guess my question is what about seniors who have no credit by july 1st . Does this policy potentially put them at risk because they wont have time to based on the resolution they have until the 31st. But the ucs want all credits due by the first. I think the u uc have a document. I need to study that to see if they have provided guidance in terms of they could submit the credit by the end of july 31st as one of the flexibilities. They have confirmed they will accept . They have not confirmed that. We are looking at theflexibility in detail. Is a serious concern. The credit and no credit option seems more compassionate. It allows students to make up credits. It may not be compassionate for seniors who need the credits to graduate. Superintendent do you have anything . I want to add to the point that the doctor made. You are right that typically we send the initial transcripts by the july 1st deadline. I did check with our High School Leadership and what they report is that typically for seniors when the student is in Summer School we update after the july 1st date. U c has mentioned they will be more flexible. Prepandemic we have been able to update transcripts in students in Credit Recovery. We can go back to make sure that is accurate. I would like to introduce an amendment to the policy and i want to include some of the things that were mentioned in Public Comment. I can send a typed version to staff. It includes Credit Recovery we ensure so they can make it up. We are not committing to make sure that Credit Recovery is available to all students. People have talked about safeguards. The student delegate spoke about they could be held harmless for this situation. If we dont have safeguards in place, i think we are not holding students harmless if we require them to do work and have an option they might not pass. I wanted to ask president sanchez what your recommendation is in order to make the amendment . You want to make two amendments . I can read it. There is basically three. Safeguard. Go ahead. I am wondering, and i am completely open to the amendment. It is not the substance. I am wondering if we could complete board questions before amendmentses. Some of the questions or issues might evolve. I am fine with that. I am open to process. Thank you, commissioner norton. Commissioner collins maybe you could type them out and send them to staff and the board. I will send them right now and we can continue discussion. Also, send them to the student delegates if you can. I will rely on justice to help me with that. Commissioner norton, do you want to add on . Yes, thank you. I have a similar question about Credit Recovery and access to Credit Recovery. I was concerned by the question that the comment error the idea we are not allowing Credit Recovery we would normally allow under normal circumstances. I would like clarification on that. Maybe could we that is my first question. Do you want to take that now, staff . Actually we did look at whether uc will extend the transcript deadline beyond july 1. Students will not have the offer admission resended. They will request it by july 1. If your school or college is unable or unsure about issuing the. Reporter s by this dat. [ ina] that they are expected. My question is and that is helpful but my question is broader than just for graduating seniors. It is for everybody and Credit Recovery for any student that gets i believe a d or f or maybe just an f in any course. I am wondering have we changed the policy because of the pandemic . What steps are we taking to make sure students are not denied an opportunity they would otherwise have to make up a credit. No, we have not changed the policy because of the pandemic. We have been having conversations around the summer programming. Definitely thinking about decisions made around this resolution and opportunities to make up a no credit will influence the number of students we serve in the program. We are in those conversations prepared to support students with Credit Recovery in the summer. What you have heard consistently from every member of the board is that we certainty dont want to make it more difficult on students to get their needs met and get the credits they need to graduate because of the pandemic. I want to make sure that if families are under the impression or being told that their students cant make up those credits, lets disspell that quickly and make sure we give students every option to make up work. We lated is my next question. In the m. O. U. That we passed previously tonight, it says that teachers will hold students harmless based on what grade they were receiving as of march 13th in the m. O. U. To me, that is i wonder how we are interpreting that in context of the grading discussion. To me that seems powerful as a way to say students will not get anything less than what they had on march 13th of this year, which is, i think, something we have heard from a number of members of the public. Am i interpreting that correctly . That is correct interpretation. On behalf of the members they agreed no student will receive anything less than what they were graded on before the shelterinplace occurred . Yes. Does that have the force then to i am searchin searching fe right word. Is it enforceable so every teacher would not be able to issue a student a lower grade than they were getting on march 13th. Does that agreement have that power . I see carmela may have joined our meeting. Maybe not. Carmela if you can chime in, great. I will tell you what i think our intertration of staff is. Uesf negotiated around grades but recognizes in the m. O. U. This is the boards determination. If the board passes a policy, i think that supersedes what is in the m. O. U. I interpret more around grades as principals and statements around belief, but negotiations with uesf cannot bind the boards as to how to issue grades for students. That is the board decision. I have been told by teachers in the last two weeks that it is their right to determine what grade a student receives except for in the very, very narrow circumstances where a grade could be appealed and overturned successfully. That applies to the individual teacher of record. It is the individual teacher of record decision. Their union cannot us u rp their judgment and right. A student was receiving a c in a course as of march 13th. For whatever reason at the end of the semester the teacher wanted to grade that student an f. That mou would provide no protection to that student against receiving that lower grade . Carmela joined us. My interpretation that is right. It doesnt bind the teacher to prevent the teacher from grading as they see fit. That is where the historically contested grades happen with students or families coming to say why did i end up with a c in this course when i was earning an a for the entire semester . The power sits with the teacher, but with all grades they can beacon tested. When it going to being contested the superintendent intervenes and there is a process to that. That board sets grading the overall grading structure that we use like if we were to completely convert to credit and no credit district that would be your call. The teachers impliment the actual grading within that umbrella. In other words, i think what i hear from commissioner collins and a number of commissioners as part of the whole debate is that we dont want students these are extreme circumstances that could be affecting students performance in any number of ways. We dont want the extreme circumstances to affect their futures or their record in any undue way. What you are saying to me is that we cant that we are not able to control that if we also want to make sure that our students have maximum opportunity from the two biggest public University Systems of the state . Yes, we cant control that. I truly believe the union and the teachers i have talked to are in total support of coming from a place of no harm and working with students. I do not believe we are going to there is always, you know, someone can deviate from the general norm. I would have to hold there has been a lot of compassion from the teachers in terms what we can do for the kids and do right by them. I 100 agree from what i have heard i completely agree. I dont want anyone to think i am saying teachers are going to be mean. One last point. I would add that if you had a teacher who acted in disregard for the Union Statement and sort of went rogue, if you will, a student could challenge their grade. It was given to them in bad faith. That would be a board decision. There are some avenues for challenge if yo you had a studet in extreme circumstances treated unfairly. That process still maintains. Thank you, president sanchez. Rather than hearing the Union Position it might be helpful to hear from the union. My understanding for mou it says some of this will be determined by the boards determination. Additional details about grading are pending a policy decisio dey ththe board of education. It says additional details. The wording mentioned was students will be held harmless and not receive a lesser grade than the grade after mar13, 2020 as a result of Distance Learning. This aligns with the states recent statement that assessment is a summit of measure but formative measure for areas where students need support following guidance from the governor the parties will meet again to determine additional options for grading. Then there is another statement about the district shall establish the grading policies to recognize the different needs answer challenges with issuing grades for all grade levels. I think that is really important. We are mainly talking about the impact on High School Juniors and seniors. Not solely but mostly. Uesf and district shall establish a committee during the emergency closure. That is not done yet formally. I want to mention in one of the hypotheticals reference by the general counsel that if something about if a teacher goes against the union. The m. O. U. Is not the unions statement. We make statements about things all of the time. The m. O. U. Is a jointly agreed upon memorandum of understanding. The board just voted on it. It was negotiated by the union and the School District. I just want to make sure that is all clear. We also recognize the union that we do have an impact and a role in all of this ultimately, yes, it is the boards decision. We do hope the other stakeholders who have spoken this afternoon what educators are saying is having an impact and it does sound like it is. Thank you. I thank you, ms. Soloman. It is not one size fits all. There is no perfect solution to meet everybodys needs. It seems to me that the credit no credit solution is the one that is going to be most straightforward to administer and is potentially the least harmful for students. That would be what i would support. Thank you. Any other commissioners . Commissioner lam, then commissioner coal lynns. Thanthank you for the presentation and engagement of our union and labor partners and the testimony. After our last Board Meeting and intensive discussion i talked directly with parents, with counselors, educators, parents, and i think ultimately as i expressed before as a board and as a body we expressed just how important it is to keep our students at the center and any policy decisions and really holding our students harmless during this very challenging time. Similar to commissioner collins anortonand and commissioner , i want to understand dual enrollment and what that means to support that moving forward through the summer and into the fall with learning loss. I want to acknowledge not only are High School Students going through a challenging time. It is any student but students just starting high school career. Having a tenth grader and her peers expressed the difficult time. Where do they fit in with the academics and learning . I want to name that it is very confusing for the state guidelines to not necessarily matchup with cfu and uc requirements. I have always said i lead with not only studentcentered policies but we support excellence and equity for all students. For me each and every student shall get that access to Higher Education depending upon they decide right after high school or 10 years or 15 years down the line depending on their personal journey and experience. I support policies within the uc guide leans. Do i believe there needs to be Stronger Partnership collaboration to evolve the engagement of our Higher Education institutions . Absolutely. For this decision and this spring for covid19 i support a policy to meet those guidelines. I think it is too important in showing our students have access to higher ed. Thank you. Commissioner coa collins. I sent out to justin the amendments that capture the comments commissioner norton and commissioner lam had made. Is it okay to read that now or more discussion before i read the amendment . Commissioners cook or lopez do you want to chime in . Commissioner cook . A quick general statement. I really appreciate commissioner collins. She pointed out the confusion that the state has created and i appreciate the delegate with the emphasis that we should be concerned about our students and not allowing the system to dictate the decisions we make. Thank you both for stating that, and all of the people that have reached out to me personally, i have listened and i appreciate your input to guide us through this decision. I am interested in the revised proposal. Thank you. Commissioner lopez. Also, looking forward to the amendment so we can further the discussion. I wanted to hear more about in the resolve section regarding the two to three contacts per week with educators and how that is looking now with the grading. If we could clarify or talk briefly about that. I do absolutely see the value of that. I think that is the best way to inform us how a student is doing in their particular household during this pandemic and how that would affect learning and the grades they will get. But if we are emphasizing it i want to hear that is clear or what the thinking and it is. I will start. Then Staff Members can. The way the resolution is written is basically these are the things we have done and even with all we have done, the last whereas it talks about even though through implementation we are seeing promising results, there are major challenges. We know the gaps that are in place that have been in place even with what we are doing the challenges are showing that these gaps may be getting larger. With that in mind, it is important that everything we do be around reducing those gaps. One big piece of that is the importance of us continuing to have contact with students, reaching out with them. You heard a couple of people, one of the callers earlier, linda, about her frustrations and it is getting tougher. It is important to check in around wellness and continuing to do everything we can to continue instruction in the instances that we can. We have been really clear about that in Distance Learning guide which is we will do what we can and we want students to do what they can when they can. There is the understanding they are going to be their situations where people get to a place where they need to pull back or separate for a while or take some time off and that is what we have been really clear about. It is doing the best we can to understand what the pandemic is and what it has done to so many of our families and individuals and to our students. It is doing everything we can. The best way to have that understanding is to have as much contact as we possibly can when people want that contact. I know other Staff Members wanted to add on to the piece around our engagement attempts during Distance Learning. I want to ask for comments on the three contacts per week. I do know some teachers doing fewer than that at the moment. I wanted to see what you think the percentage is of teachers being able to do that . We have been collected data this week and trying to get an accurate response to that very question. We know many teamers are attempting to contact students and families, some have been successful and others are struggling. I dont have that data point now. It is forthcoming. We did request that all teachers interact with students at least two to three times an week from the beginning of Distance Learning. They started in phase one and continue to do so through phase three and still to the end of the school year. We know what i should chair clarify this includes individual contact. If the teacher did a zoom call with the class and was able to interact that way. In terms of data at this point we are not saying you have to talk oneonone with the student every week but you need two to three contacts. As it says in the resolution that contact should be around checking on wellness and supporting learning. To the Commissioners Point it is an opportunity for feedback on the work and checking for understanding and support learning. We are running the numbers now and hope to have more accurate data in terms of the percent of folks that are being contacted. Do you want to add anything, Vice President lopez . No, i think maybe you wanted to share. Thank you everyone for the comments and thank you, staff for putting together this resolution. I am looking forward to commissioner collins amendments. I just had a quick question around the partnerships with communitybased organizations. I know on the Mental Health resolution we passed recently that there was an intentional partnership with our communitybased organizations and city agencies. In terms of this resolution, how would that look like . I am not sure i understand the question. Are we currently partnering with the city and then what does that Partnership Look like in regards to supporting our kids around the academic supports . For example th the check in. There was a comment made earlier with regards to the partnerships with ceos specifically. Do we have a current plan or process in place to include partners . What does that look like right now . We actually had a Partnership Engagement two days ago. I am not sure of the number. Is she a panel list or no . There was 265 people in the forum. We just had a forum. That discussion was how we are partnering. We definitely are partnering with them. They are assisting in all areas, assisting with family checks, wellness checks, with meal deployment and we have been partnering not only around the Services Provided but ideas for how we can make sure we are meeting the needs of our constituents and families, students. And a big part of the c. E. O. We partnered with around that getting that information. Over the weekend i was in a town hall and they talked about how to partner with schools, site leaders, educators to do alignments and supports in a traditional out of school time. For example at the richmond beacon center, for example, they are igniting the tutoring Services Offered to students. Those are up and going as well. Those are led by cb os. Theines are the those are the things that are entrenched in the school site during this Remote Learning that we are going to learn more about what is happening on the ground. Do you want to add to it . Good afternoon or evening. Thank you for the opportunity. So we have been doing a lot of work on the ground as commissioner lam mentioned in terms of supporting school sites around the areas, wellness checks. What we started on monday which as commissioner collins said 265 participants wa was a joint form planned with our multiple partners. It is first one and we have committed to planning three more in collaboration and conjunction with Community Partners. We spent monday getting to know one another, learning about each other, and identifying the different bucketses going forward. Then the next step is that there is a work group of Community Partners for each of the different forums working through the information we received from monday and the previous wednesday before monday we had a planning meeting with about 35 or 40 cb os a planning meeting to plan the meeting. Then we had a Smaller Group to plan the monday meeting. We have been able to engage intentionally and very deep lewith our partners. It has been really great. The partners are looking toward the district to take leadership to provide guidance on how to support around wellness and maybe academics that we have going on. I want us to continue to take lead and what i heard also was folks just wanted a lot of communications around what the current process was. Again, i want to thank everyone for their efforts. I look forward to moving this forward. Thank you. Commissioner collins, can we screen share the amendment . Yes. We will look at these and discuss them. There are typos. It is like we are here tomorrow. That is the best i can do. There it is. Thanks. Do you want me to read it . Yes, please. I wanted to add whereas to incorporate the input from the Public Comment. Whereas there is no data showing the validity of using grades as accurate measure of Student Learning during the covid19, whereas the federal government required schools to provide support to students receiving special Education Support for students interrupted by Distance Learning and the covid19 pandemic. I want to add the note. The board approved agreement between united educators to uphold the value of holding students harmless and encourages educators to ensure students dont receive a lester grade than lesser grade. Further resolved credit refer ry will be provided. How to grade students during the pandemic. The district will work with cb o partner to establish safeguards and safety nets through hardship due to the covid19 pandemic. Can i second the amendment . You can drop the screen share. That was moved buyer commissioner collins, correct . Yes. Thank you. Commissioner norton you seconded the motion, correct . Correct. Did the board want to accept the amendment without a vote or do you want a vote . Or do you want to accept the amendment to the superintendents proposal . I would say general consent. Is that okay . I have a bad connection. Me, too. He may have a bad connection. Also, i see the student delegates have their hands up. I want to make sure that he was able to hear. Thank you. I would like to request the amendment or resolution to change therefore be resolved to our hybrid policy we requested. A to f option. Where specifically did you want . Which one . When you take comments like the amendment . I would like to speak to that one. Me, too. If we want to comment on this amendment how do we do that. We have to vote on this. We can comment and discuss but we cant make an amendment on an amendment. I want to clarify. This is like a separate amendment i want to request. We accepted the other amendment by general consent. Thank you. This is not an amendment on commissioner collins amendment. This is a request to implement the recommendation to change the grading policy. You are making a motion. Somebody would have to second the motion for us to discuss it, mr. Sanduval. Second. Thank you. Okay. Can we discuss superintendent matthews and commissioner collins . One part of the reason that the uc and csu gave the flexibility was because of the realization how difficult it would be at this time when students are adequately trying to assess an a through f grade. Not only difficult for students but definitely difficult for teachers who also we could go about this pandemic happened to students and teachers. It is quite difficult for a teacher to even if the board went the a through f, but then up add on top of that a teacher now trying to assess part of the class on pass and no pass and part on a through f. Personally a big part why this isnt in the resolution is because we knew that would present we talked about hardships and difficulty. This is what some students wanted in the survey. We felt this would provide such a difficulty for teachers to figure out a and f. It makes it really difficult for teachers to manage it to move forward and to put that forward, to operate in that manner. I would say that amendment makes it quite difficult to move our grading system forward. I would just add, that it creates