Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20171119

Charter schools as Public Schools. The difference between the autonomy and the ability to make different kinds of decisions as an operating charter versus the systems that we are trying to build as a district are very different. I worry regularly that as we start chipping away at the system of traditional Public Schools that we start chipping away at those other options and opportunities that our kids are committed that were committed to providing to our young people. I am going to honor what i have committed to for the bay view and i am going to support the leadership we have put in place there with nikki and dmitriious. I believe in the leadership. The commitment in the principal and teacher this is the four Elementary Schools in the bay view are going to do it is going to have the investments reflected in their success. I wanted to share my thinking process and to thank you for coming out and that the communities that you have built have been strong but i am not prepared tonight to take away from the Elementary Schools we have commit to in the bay view that are showing progress and our staff is committed to ensuring that we are providing a quality education for young people. Commissioner school. I cook. We sat here and listened to the Public Comments be respectful of the Public Comments across the board. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge the young people from the community that spoke on behalf of this school. That has happened on behalf of the starting of this new school and to personally shout out to the pastor reese for the commitment to the Bay View Community. My first time i had to sing a solo as a child was pasttories. What is the issue . The issue is that the people of the Bay View Community and the Public Schools are the own why i it is at this table. Educated an marshall high school. I know that with the right conditions in place the Public Schools in our system can and do thrive. Is it sattis factory for all of the student this is the city . I dont think so. That is why i ran to make the Public Schools great. I have had family members pushed out of kipp. There is no makeup policy. Missed assignments are 0. If you get a 65 and you fail the class. My cousin is talking to me afraid that he is going to fail out and asking him to come back to one of our schools. There is a different way to approach education. Those concerns continue. Seeing that type of Education Practice at Elementary School is what i have reservations about. I appreciate the engagement your organizers had to go back and forth about the issues. The suspension rate at the middle and high school is problematic. Those are my hangups about what kipp has been to the city. Can you deny the test results . Absolutely not. Is it work for everyone that goes . No. The Public Schools absolutely not. My commitment is to ensure the principals like jeremy has the support of this board. We believe brett heart will be great with principals and educators like him in place. Thank you for your empassed comment. I will vote yes starting at Elementary School. Thanks. Commissioner norton. Again i want to say thank you everybody for coming out and for your passion. I want to specifically thank the kipp leadership for really engaging in what i think is genuine with me and staff to talk about this petition. To slow it down so we could explore alternatives of collaboration. I believe you will continue to approach us with the spirit of collaboration. I have supported the kipp charter in the past. I am not going to support this tonight. I do not think the school as prescribe is the right school for all students. As we rent to the board of education we want to be concern about students. I am move by the comments of commissioner brook about his family and those sentiments about wants the school to succussed and the differences and approaches to education. I work for you. I will not be supporting the petition this evening. I want to thank all of the folks who came out. Clearly kipp is a very popular program. You have very dedicated executive leadership and high working educators. You are successful students. In the Committee Discussions we talked about the concerns around discipline, practice of counseling out students, and teacher turnover as issues. I was hoping for a longer conversation about how we night partner but you know i understand the kipp folks decided to proceed with the charter request this year. I am not prepared to move forward with this petition this year. I will be supporting the staff recommendation. Commissioner sanchez. Thank you everybody for coming out here and your words for kipp. I voted for both kipp schools in 2003 and in the second one. The reservation are similar about the ones now. It is about the charter laws governing how we run the Charter Schools in the state. I have outstanding one. They are charter because they believe a selection process. Deny by definition the challenged families in the city. That is all charters, not just kipp. Charter schools the way the law stands now will not serve the most challenged families because they cannot engage in the process. They are so out of the am they better apply to nonCharter Schools. They go in a higher concentration level. It is overwhelming for the students as well. For that reason basically around Charter Schools. I cant afford a yes vote for this charter. I would like everybody to understand the laws governing the Charter Schools ham spring the districts so we are diminished because of that. Many, many lots have been approached to do it right the governor wont sign them if they dont make it through the committee. The governor and the forces out there are procharter they cant let the most minimal changes happen for charter law. That is the same. That is why i cant vote for this school. I have in the past voted for kip schools. Commissioner haney. I want to thank everyone. Educators. Communicators. Kipp has a lot of people passionate about the school. It is impresssive to see the support tonight. One of them said we are violat violating fire alarms. I shouldnt have said that on the mic. Thank you for being here. I think that the commissioners said what is the sentiment of the board. I want to ask a couple questions about the recommendation. I think it is unusual to have a recommendation for us to deny. I think that is a strong statement from the staff and i want us to fully understand that. The particular piece around School Discipline is a concern of board and i know it was discussed in the curriculum community which i dont it is on any more. If you could speak to that a little bit in terms of what the concern was there. There is also in addition to the School Discipline rates long concerns expressed by commissioner cook that some students may be not there may be lower rates ever of the reten in the school. Interview the finding from staff report under pupils suspension was that the petition did not sufficiently balance students rights to due process to explain how they will be involved in the disciplinary matters. The Charter School the petitioner did respond and provided information regards their black record on the suspension rates. It is not good. They dont suspend at low a rate as the district. They are working on that. However, the finding stands because, one, they didnt provide information that shows that they are significantly Getting Better at that. It has not been amended to reflect change in process to make that happen. On the teacher qualifications the teacher capacity for relevant and responsive. Can you speak to that and what their inadequate amendment was in so the petitioner provided Additional Information regarding teacher qualifications and professional development but stated that the information provided in the petition meets the legal requirements and did not provide an amendment. Basically their response was the petition as it stands meet esthe legal requirements and they werent forthcoming with anything to persuade the staff concerns. You felt it wasnt . Yes was there a particular reason why . Because the reviewer in this case was not me but staff reviewer felt that the petition did not provide evidence of professional development in teacher capacity. There was no response provided for that concern. Thank you. Thank you so much, colleagues. May i make a brief comment . As much as i would love to allow you to make a comment, doctor brown, i have to be fair. This is not the time for comment. You will have time to speak as you have a speaker card here. This is not the time. I respectfully have to tell you you cant speak right now. When will that time be . I want to say this. My comments are not just for the people in this room but they are for the public out there who also may not receive the same amount of information about Charter Schools. Charter school movement, what is happening in the schools. What is happening with the Charter Movement. So you dont think i am making decisions just because of ideology or how i feel, the kipp staff can lets you know i have met with the leadership on more than one occasion. I am very sponsive and always responsive on how i feel and what i see. I want to be clear about that. Outside of this room we also have conversations about kipp and Charter Schools and i am open to conversation. With that said, i obviously have a different idea of working together and what it is. Some of the folks this evening. You dont say Work Together and be part of the system. On the flip side say if you dont approve the charter we are running to the state. That is not collaborative and working together and being within the best interest of students and families. I heard from talented educators. I appreciate having you here today that is a further testament if we were working together versus working against each other we would have i novation, intelligence, people motivated about providing the education we need and the traditional and current system. What this is doing is causing division and causing something that is not sustainable. You wont be able to sustain the Charter Movement in the Traditional Public School system there is not enough resource to do that. Innovation of the talent that you have and the Charter Schools i would love for us to work coaching and bring that into our schools. I heard someone tonight say that this is actually what was said and you can look on the screen. There are no pathways to success for the kids in the bay view. You think kipp is a savior, not with comments like that. That promotes the notion that black and brown children cannot learn. I have be trying to dispel that for 42 years more recently because of propaganda out there. Promoting the methods that our children cannot learn. Statements like that are part of the problem and not going to be part of the solution. We have educators working very hard. There is change happening. Particularly at a couple of schools i just named. [please stand by] parents, they rally around those schools. All this great energy that we have in this room, just imagine what we would do with our babys schools if we rallied around them together. I will definitely be voting no on this, and with that said, roll call please, miss casco. Clerk thank you. Commissioner sanchez . Commissioner sanchez shell read the motion. Clerk on resolution 17822 sp 2, and its denial for sp Charter School. [ roll call. ] clerk thats unanimous. Thank you. President walton thank you miss casco. Renewal petition for kip San Francisco, again, we have 30 minutes for Public Comment. Im going to again read speaker cards. I encourage you to have respect for other people who speak. There were people who spoke who did not have cards last time, and again, im allowing you to Work Together to govern yourselves sorry about that mr. Daves. We do need to read the recommendation into phone. Thank you, president walton. 10101 p 2, alternative to renew or denial certification for kip San Francisco charter high school. Kip bay area schools to the San Francisco Unified School District and whereas pursuant to california Education Code section 37605, the board of education of the district received the renew application on october 6th, 2017, and whereas the board of education shall consider the level of public support for the Charter School and shall review the petition and all information received with respect to petition, including supporting documentation and whereas the district superintendent and district staff have completed a review of the petition and issued a report and recommendation to the board of education regarding the review of the petition and whereas the superintendent and district staff review found that the review of kipsf college prop indicates that the school meets renewal criteria, therefore, be it resolved that the board of education shall grant the renewal petition subject to the requirements set forth by law. President walton thank you so much, mr. Daves. Now, again, we do have public speakers signed up for this. Im going to call out names on the list. We have 30 minutes to complete Public Comment. Again, i ask that you be mindful of everyone that does want to speak. Last Public Comment session, we did have people speak who did not have cards, so you might want to govern yourselves that so that people who didnt turn in cards have an opportunity. With that said, michael collins, dr. Brown, you are first. You might want to start making your way up to the mic. [ inaudible ] president walton so you dont want to speak now . [ inaudible ] president walton okay. Judy, jamarie, lan ddan, amali jamarie, jaden. Good evening, superintendent and commissioners. My name is ali cohens. Im a parent at fris cisco middle school, and i want to speak tonight about the area around kip and the Racial Justice issue, and it is but for many reasons people might not think. And weve been talking about kip, but i want to talk about another organization thats been in the news lately. Its called innovate. It was launched in 2008 with 750,000 from the Walton Family foundation, which is walmart, and 200,000 from the Silicon Valley foundation. Its a private Silicon Valley nonprofit. They are currently positioning themselves as a parent organizing organization, but its initial purpose was to encourage and support the development of a new new Public Schools which are specifically Charter Schools, and currently on its board are tsa, the california charter board, external a2k4rd ffairs, and charter organizations in oakland, and if you look on their team site, theres a lot of pr people and writers. But i want us to think about the fact that their purpose a charter management organizations purpose is to grow because owithout that, thy cant sustain themselves, and so for every new school that opens, we have to close a school, and i want it to be clear that those schools are tend only to be in certain neighborhoods. My children can go back to their school, im assuming it will still be there, and i can still go back to my Elementary School, but a lot of the schools that black and brown families grew up with in San Francisco now are named different things, and they have lost a history with those schools, so i just wanted to put it out there, and im very, very thankful that you all are investing in our schools. Im seeing changes as a black parent in our district, and ive been in this district a long time, and ive seeing dramatic changes. Were not there yet, but i want to make sure that we are considering their history and the heritage of families in this district in the bay view and in the western edition, and i also want to consider the students that will be left behind in schools that are under invests ed in, and i appreciate your remarks, shamann walton. Thank you very much. Hello. Im also at parent at a tenderloin public school, which is great. Its serving all the kids in the neighborhood. We dont have an admissions policy, we dont have any suspensions, were not pushing folks out, so im really heartened to see so money people come out. Its great to see so many families and teachers participating, and i hope well continue to see these faces, and im a little concerned about the comments made before that kip has a track record of pushing out students of color, particularly with students of minority and disabilities. Ive sat behind teachers who have been frustrated and left, have talked about how theyre leaving because theyre not getting the support, and thats not to say that kids in all of our Public Schools are getting everything that they need, but it is a pattern that we see in the Charter Schools, and so i want to encourage the families that are here tonight. I hope this doesnt happen to you. I hope youre not one of the students or families that get pushed out, but i want folks to know that if it does happen, youre not the first to have it happen to you. Its happening i