We appreciate you. Thank you so much. [applause] hello. My name is celeste. I go to Martin Luther king middle school. I cant believe you guys are trying to cut the budget. It is not right. Because, you guys, we need the teachers and we cant learn without the teachers. Sorry. All of the kids get squeezed into classrooms without the teachers, in one classroom. But, we need that budget, because we need the field trip, and the school supplies, and the pe equipment, and the food for the kids. I have been helping mlk for a long time, and i like helping the teachers. It is not right to take away the budget from mlk. Thank you. [applause] my name is demarcus gray. I am a seventh Grade Students at Martin Luther king junior middle school. In students announcements, in homeroom, when i first heard they were taking away the school budget, or they may be the first thing i did, i yelled what . In the middle of class. I had so many questions about why it was happening. I also wanted to know how we can stop it . In class, we had papers that we could sign, and give to the school board. I felt like it was enough. So, i asked a few teachers if i could come here and actually speak to the school board, and actually prevent 300,000 of ours from being lost. A lot today we talked about peer resources, and at our school we have peer resources, too. But, if we lose all of our money, like us of our budget, then how will we be able to keep up with peer resources and keep on doing that . So, in class, i went around asking teachers, how can i stop this . When i got my feedback, i was like yes. So by the end of this meeting , i hope that the school board, and everybody that knows about this can figure out a way to stop this. I know there is not enough enrollment. But, just because there is not enough enrollment doesnt mean you can take away from the school budget. [applause] [speaking native language] my name is susan, and im a parent at mlk. I am here tonight to ask that the board of education help keep the 300,000dollar funding that will be taken away from mlks budget due to an decrease enrollment at the site. Our school site site should not have suffered from tran want poor planning. It is due to the unnecessary increase of enrollment and other high demand school sites. The School District should be trying to help balance out enrollment at each school and not create imbalance. They should have increased enrollment at certain cool sites each year, not wait until the start of the school year so that the affected site would have the time and opportunities to plan for the shortage of funding. Sfusd has again made changes without thorough planning and is now asking a school, like mlk, to suffer the consequences of their poor planning. Thank you. [speaking native language] hello, i am a parent at Mlk Middle School. Im here to ask the board of education to help keep the 300,000 funding that will be taken away at mlk. Our schools site should not have to suffer the consequences of sfusds poor planning. The School District should have informed all parent of enrollment increase at certain high school sites. I tried to enroll my child in one of the school sites that increased enrollment, but was rejected. There were parents whose children got accepted into the school site that i got rejected from at the start of the school year. Sfusd has again made changes without thorough planning, and is now asking a school site like mlk to suffer the consequences of their poor planning. Thank you. [speaking native language] i am also a parent to from Mlk Middle School. I pledge the board to consider to keep 300,000, remaining in our school site. Thank you. Good evening, my name is rex ridgway, i am a grandfather i have a fan base, too. I am the grandfather of a seventh grader at mlk. Her name is joe celine, ive been in a volunteer since she has started kindergarten. I am the pta president , and im on the site committee. We are asking you to reconsider the budget cut of 3,000. She was accepted to a private school, going into this year. After talking to the teachers commenting what is going on, and her ability to get to Laurel High School through mlk, we chose to keep her at mlk. With the budget cuts, i dont know if we made the wrong decision, or not. We really need you guys to keep that money there. As they say, i have a puppy in this site. She not only wants to go to laurel high, but she wants to go to cambridge. I said massachusetts five she said no, cambridge in england grade she has high expectations. I told her she needs to speak. She couldnt come because she had to finish her homework. She said to me, are you going to give them one of those. [laughter] i said no, ill just say what i always say to you, opportunity doesnt not come on the ops opens when you knock where they are here knocking to keep this money on the table and for mlk. I will close this by saying, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, will go to its whole life thinking it is stupid. Therefore, dont squeeze us to climb a tree, keep this money available for these kids, please. Before you get started, going to read some more names. [reading names] good evening everyone. My name is sarah clark. My daughter is in eighth Grade Student at mlk. She is also a product, i graduated from balboa high school. I went away, moved away, and actually the School District is what brought me back from houston. Prior to her transitioning over to mlk, we look into a Charter School. The Charter School did not have the Resources Available to her, that is why we chose mlk. Receiving a letter last night, from the school, indicating that the school was going to be losing 300,000 with the possibility of losing resources. To me, that means that my child, as well as other children are going to be losing precious resources that are afforded to them right now. Those resources could be counselors, could be School Nurses could be somebody to talk to at that school. Those resources will be lost if this funding is misappropriated somewhere else. I am asking you, you can tell by the number of individuals that are here from mlk, and the support that we do have. I am very instrumental in my child school. Im constantly there. I am also at work with my employment, and my employment has given a lot to the school as far as helping with the school to bring the school up. As well as helping her with her elementary school. By losing this funding, basically youre putting it out there that the class sizes will be much larger, the teachers will be more stressed as well as the students will be stressed. More than likely it might affect peer resources. Peer resources will be overwhelmed. Therefore by eliminating this funding, the children will not have a choice. They will have nowhere to go. We are always talking about that there is large rates of suicide, things like that. In the release of this funding thank you. My name is katie carter, i am a seventh grade english teacher at mlk. This is my sixth year. I want to read a letter from one of my students. Before i do that, i do want to say, it is my understanding that mlk is not the only school with open enrollment. But because we are a. 2 school we are expected to deal with this budget cut. A few years ago, i remember when mlk was a tier three school. We are working really hard, we are doing really good things. A school is like a tree, right . A tree does not grow overnight to, you know, you need to water and let it grow. I feel like we are still growing having Something Like this happen again, it feels like we are getting the rug pulled out from underneath us. Fostering, creating, and helping quality schools for our kids, then you need to give us the time. You need to help us continue to grow. One letter that my students wrote; i am writing about the proposed budget cuts at Mlk Middle School but i love my school because it is i love mlk like my home. If we have to have budget cuts in our school, we will miss a lot of things that we should have. We will not have enough money to do enrichments. Because of the budget cuts we will lose teachers that students trust, like counselors, homeroom teachers and nurses. Just thinking about it makes me upset already. I hope that sfusd school board will changes decision because its not fair. Thank you for reading. Thank you for your time. My name is alicia jacobs. I a resource specialist at mlk. Im also going to read a letter from one of our students to echo what ms. Carter was saying. One of the reasons i love working at mlk, theres so many opportunities for Student Voice. I do worry that could be taken away if we have these budget cuts. I am going to be reading a letter from a seventh grader. Dear sfusd school board. I am writing about the proposed budget cuts at Mlk Middle School. Im upset because 300,000 will have a huge impact on our teachers, staff and students. If we cut our budget, we need to consolidate classrooms, who have built good and meaningful relationships. I do not understand why sfusd needs to cut our budget and use it on other schools with money. I dont want my school to have less fun activities and teachers than the other schools have. If other schools have all of the fun, and we do not, whats the point of going to mlk. Please consider finding another way to make the money. Thank you. Hello, my name is sasha, i teach eighth grade math and science at mlk. I will also read a letter from a student. They want me to share, they wanted to be here themselves but they are at a softball game. Some of the students have connections and relationships with these teachers. We wouldnt want to lose these teachers. Also, these teachers are supporting us to learn from our mistakes. We know our school is not perfect, but still other schools like presidio and who have a lot of money. They have a lot of things, not like us. They have a lot of fun with her teachers. Their classrooms and bathrooms are clean, but our benches are broken, our basketball nets are broken, our desks are broken. We have to use the boys bathroom or the cafeteria bathroom because the girls bathrooms are broken. It is not fair theyre going to take away money because they want to send it to other schools. That makes me feel really disappointed. Theyre showing us that the district does not care. They dont care about our opinions. We have a voice and we should have a say. We are kids, we get it, you adults know things but we should have a say. Thank you. [applause] before the next speaker goes. I just want to say something. Usually we dont comment during public comment, we dont respond back. Im going to tell you a couple of things, a couple of you have said the Superintendents Office is cutting our budget. My hope is that tomorrow morning you will go and talk to your principal. There has been no notice whatsoever, from my office, about your budget being cut. Secondly, you talked about stir in the front, you talked about taking the cutback, or not doing the cuts, we have not proposed a cover your school. We have not communicated a cut to your school. This is for everyone. The rest of you can continue to share your comments, but we have not proposed a cover your school. One thing we know is that yes, your School Somebody said something about attendance. Its not about attendance, its about enrollment. It is currently under enrolled. At this point, the direction from the board, what they wanted us to do was to make sure if we are going to have to make cuts, that we do it in the most physically fiscally responsible way possible. All we are doing is looking. We know it is under enrolled. No proposal for 300,000, or any other number has been proposed. What really saddens me is that announcements are baited at your school were made at your school, i heard a letter was sent home saying we are proposing making cuts. We have not proposed a single cut from your school. The rest of you can continue, we will continue to listen fred i need you to understand the facts. It saddens me that it has taken on this mushroom like a, and spread all out that we. Go to your School Tomorrow and ask him if he has received anything from my office regarding we are taking 300,000 from his school. Or, if we proposed a cut at all . You ask him tomorrow morning. I wasnt going to, we had heard so much, what i dont want to d we cant have a discussion. Board members, we have to be really careful. While you do have to legally hear from members of the public, and i know you want to, you cannot legally have a discussion about their comments, unless it is noticed on the agenda. Continue, if you still want to speak your in line. I did prepare something. As an art teacher at mlk, we really do focus on Student Voice to what youve heard today. Whether it is true or not, its not the first time Something Like this has happened. I think the fact that just the thought came to us, it is triggering. I stood here three years ago and said some very similar things, and ask similar request. I do believe that this just goes to show the strength of our students, our families, and our staff, and the link that that we will go to to fight for our students. We are standing here today for our students, and i just want to refocus that. They made this today, they are holding it up. I know we keep talking about dollars, and budgets, these are the words from students today. This is their future. Its not just a matter of one moment, one school year, it is shaping the experiences they are going to have as adults, too. I am proud of everyone of you that are here today speaking on behalf of mlk. Thank you for listening. I am the peer resources teacher at mlk. I want to thank everyone for listening, and thank you for the clarifier. What marissa said about this being a little bit triggering for us might have been from a complex history, systemic and equity in our district. I think we are all aware of them and we are trying to fight. Everyone in this room wants what is best for the students, we know that. As we say one of our core values is social justice. As a district, we stand with those that are most vulnerable in our communities. I think what is important here, you need to take extra steps in the system, and to take care of those that need it the most, and to face that inequity. Mlk is changing and growing and we still have a long way to go. It is a place i want to continue to build, to be the place that im going to send my children to, as they grow up. I hope as discussion goes on, decisions are made, some of the schools that are still building will continue to get that extra love and attention. Thank you. Good evening. My name is leslie, and i work at Mlk Middle School. Doctor matthews, i appreciate, i want to invite folks to continue the conversation. That is not the messaging we have been getting, or the communication we have been getting. Our community has been told to cut 300,000 from our budget this year. This has brought up so many questions, and concerns, for our entire community. I feel really frustrated that this is happening to our community again. Several hundred thousand dollars were cut from our School Community we have to come down here in march of 2017, and here we are again fighting a similar battle. Several colleagues of mine are worried about their jobs and their ability to stay at mlk. Fear, uncertainty and mistrust have creeped into our communities. I feel frustrated that it feels like a larger system changing our youth and families. I feel frustrated that mlk students that they primarily in 94124 are getting resources taking away from them again. I feel frustrated that the system feels like its perpetuating a macro to bs. Even worse than the frustration and anger, the confusion that i feel. I just dont understand why our enrollment numbers are 50 less students this year, when they have been steady for the past nine years. I have exact numbers for that. I dont understand the reasoning behind why we arent being held. [inaudible] when we are working on our master schedule, there were 30 last students in our sixth grade. I understand and agree that that funding should follow students. We just want clarity. We want to conversation and really invite people to come to our Schools Community to see what we do, and to clear up any misconceptions. Thank you. [applause] i want to start by saying that i am proud of all of the students that showed up today. All of the families that showed up today. All of the staff that showed up today. Also the parents who are here, who might not even have students at mlk, who want to speak on our behalf. That really warms my heart. Whether or not what we have been hearing is to. I think that is a beautiful thing. To all be here and be unified. I am so proud to be here. Whatever direction it goes. My name is anna robert. I was involved in sfusd six years ago. I have been at mlk since then. I felt like it was important to be here, and to represent the students because that is why were here here in the first place. At mlk, we have been intentional about starting the school year with community building. One of the most touching ones i was part of was one that my students recommended because they felt like they were not part, feeling like they were included. Its really touching to talk with sixthgraders about what steps we can take to step stand up for each other to make sure every student is being included. Ive seen that ripple effect. I have a personal story of a student who started off the year being really frustrated. He told me that he hates school. I asked him why . He said he wanted to be at home, he would rather be playing video games. What have teachers done in the past that have supported you . He said nothing, i hate teachers the student was leading a group of students in an activity with a map, going and being totally involved. Hes coming in at lunch and getting help on his homework. These are things that take time. These are things that are intentional. It is going to continue to take time. I would just hate to see those relationships ripped apart. [applause] i am short. My name is elizabeth alberts. This is my eighth year of the district, seventh year with mlk as a special education teacher. I want to tell you some of the Amazing Things that are happening at our school that are funded by our school site budget. We have increased counseling support, which means it when are escal