Clerk thank you. Id like to start this meeting with grab of broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear. Section a is general information. Number one is accessibility information for the public. Number two is teleconference information. There is none tonight. Section b, openended items. Number one, approving of the board minute approval of the board minutes of aoctober 22, 2019. May i have a motion and a second. So moved. Second. Thank you. May i have a roll call please, miss casco. Clerk yes. [roll call] clerk five ayes. Thank you. Speaker cards for the regular agenda and for closed session are necessary. If y are necessary if you wish to address the board of education. Individuals are reminded that they can complete a speaker card prior to the item being called by miss casco. Speakers have two minutes or the amount set by the board. Speaker cards will not be accepted for an item already before the board. Number two, superintendents board. Doct dr. Matthews. Good evening, everyone. October is National Educators month, and id like to take a minute to National Principals month. Id like to please join me in thanking all of our principals. [applause] last wednesday, students at claire lilianethal alternative school learned that its building is a Carbon Neutral building, the first of its kind. We are committed to eliminating fossil fuel usage and Carbon Emissions by 2040. The districts carbon Reduction Plan spells out three main goals. Reducing the energy usage of our buildings, switching from electrical power to battery equipment, and using all renewable energy. The new building at claire lilianethal brings us one step closer to recognizing those goals. The event featured a mission high graduate as a guest speaker, offered a variety of workshops and student performances. The entire event was coordinated and planned by students from the b. S. U. This week is halloween. Want to wish everyone a safe halloween, and also our offices will be closed on monday, november 11, in observance of veterans day, and that ends my announcements. Number three, student delegates report. Good evening, everybody. Our Health Committee has finished creating the logo and fund raising for students in transition. Our goal as s. A. C. Is to support our peers for students who are in need of things others take for granted. We would like to thank our Committ Committee for the hard work they have put into this campaign, and they are right there. Can i get a round of applause . [applause] and we would really appreciate your support on this campaign. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Our student leaders are driven by advocating for our conti constituent student body. Our goal is to Work Together on resolutions that touch and concern Student Support services. We invite our Board Members to our meetings to foster ongoing projects. We would like to thank commissioner sanchez and commissioner lopez for taking the time to meet with our student leaders. Thank you. Our v. R. Project update. This year, the v. R. C. Is working on a project, creation on local topics of social justice. Our s. A. C. Goal is [inaudible] taking with v. R. To foster experimential learning so as to connect students to economic, social and cultural realities of our local environment. Thank you. Our next meeting will be november 4 at 5 00 in the board of ed meeting. The s. A. C. s a Public Council and anyone is welcome to attend our meeting. Thank you. Thank you for your report. Number four, recognitions and resolutions and commendations. There are none tonight. Number five, recognizing all valuable employees, our rave awards. Dr. Matthews. Thank you, mr. President. This evening, we have two awards. Our first rave award winner is the distinguished service award. This award is being presented tonight to Tanya Sanchez manu. I hope i said that right. I did. Shes a paraprofessional at the Tenderloin Community school, and her principal is here to present the award. It is my pleasure to present this months distinguished Award Recipient to Tanya Sanchez manu. I nominated tanya because shes dedicated to serving students as well as providing support to teachers. She perseveres in the most challenging circumstances and looks for ways to help out in our school community. She jumps in to help others, has High Expectations for students and at the same time knows how to provide support that students need in order to be successful. Tanya loves tenderloin school and is truly committed to the students. Tanya is special because of her work ethic, her patience, her positive cando attitude, and most importantly, her compassion and empathy towards students that she demonstrates on a daily basis. Tanya, congratulations, and thank you for all that you do for the Tenderloin Community school, San FranciscoUnified School District, and our school community. Thank you, tanya. [applause] [applause] our next rave award winner is receiving the special service award. This will be presented by the assistant principal of raul wallenberg, christopher rosenfeld. Thank you so much. It is my pleasure to present mr. Batt to the board of education. Not only does he do a fantastic job of meeting the needs of all of our students, he goes above and beyond in so many different ways. Last year, i was struck by the fact that he was analyzing his own data and going over the d. N. F. And noticed some results and trends and the result of that work on his own that he did is that his d. N. F. List is virtually nonexistent. All of the targeted groups that he was interested in supporting are now achieving mastery and mr. Batt has done that all of his own accord. In addition to that, he is a teacher leader. He led our culturally sensitive pedagogy. He is an honor among us all. I am honored to work with him and thrilled to present this award to him tonight. Thank you, mr. Batt. Hi. Good evening. Ill keep this short. I think id be remiss as a teacher to not say i feel fortunate to be a part of this community, so thank you very much, and much appreciated. [applause] just give it up a little more for our rave award winners. [applause] so im going to make a quick change in the agenda. Im going to move up section dangerous drug, number one, the report from our African American advisory council, if you can make your way to the dais. Good evening, commissioners, dr. Matthews, distinguished colleagues on the dais, members of the general audience, and of course miss ester. My name is leticia irving. It is my pleasure to introduce you to and in some cases reintroduce you to a few of our incredible district aapac members. Over the past four years i have worked closely with these ladies and those that precede them in order to build and maintain a space where african ladies are welcome and ensure Academic Excellence to all students. I want to throw thanks to these ladies who spend very long nights with me and very long meetings such as this, and countless hours at education sites. So without further adieu, i would like to turn your attention to the screen for a very short video to give you a look at the work that guides us and work that we do that we do. [video] hello and good evening. My name is lila nelson. I am the cofounder of our sites African American advisory parent group. Hi, everyone. Im mary lahorry and im the parent of a student attending ulloa school. And [inaudible] i have a daughter whos attendi attending George Washington high school. I submit to you the greeting of the masai warriors and how are the children. Its our dream that one day, your response will be, all the children are well. Due to time constraints, we ask that you put your attention on the screen or on your printout. We will also make this powerpoint Available Online and via our monthliy updates. We, in 20182019, we held seven meetings, all focused on family literacy. We had an average of 62 unduplicated participants per meeting. Thats 25 up from what we had the year before. That number is representative of 25 of San FranciscoUnified School District k12 schools. Please note that these are not all of the families that we interface with as we see via presentations we hold or events we attend in the community. With our Program Coordinators leadership, we also led the development of six new aapac sites, bringing the total number of sitebased groups to 24. As you can see, we continued our efforts to distribute books with African American protagonists and African American authors. One of the events we held last night was learning in the sfusd. We partnered with various district proponents to engage in a moderated panel. This past week, we also had the pleasure of joining mr. Lester on a panel of the California Association of school psychologists. On the screen, youll see a number of events that the district wide aapac has participant participated in. Were very proud of our partnerships and are looking forward to see how we can grow those relationships next year. On this screen, youll see it says different year and same challenges and its a repeat of our challenges from october 2018. Now we decided to keep this slide as all the challenges still remain the same. Were finding that theres still adversity despite engagement, that theres still school sites that resist what were pushing out or what aapac is educating families about. We still face the same challenges when responding to the feedback you see below. So whats up for 2019 and 2020 . Well, on the left, youll see last years goals, and were going to continue focusing on those areas. However, were adding unpacking pushout, racism within sfusd sites, and increasing sense of belonging for black students and families. And strengthening our Collaborative Partnerships for this current year. It also goes without saying that in order for us to succeed, were going to need the help of everyone in this room. As you are able to see in the previous slide, we are focusing our energy on sense of belonging and why sense of belonging is important amongst our families. If you look in the clusters located on the left, you will see words used by participants at our september 2019 African AmericanParent Advisory Council meeting which defines what sense of belonging means for them. Words like valued, welcomed, heard, understood, respected, cared about, and genuinely loved. Ultimately, a sense of belonging is about love and that felt experience for African American children within sfusd. As pooh told piglet, you dont spell love, you feel it. At the end of the Academic School year, we hold a Community Meeting to hear the issues that they want us to focus on in the coming left. Participants wrote principals are insensitive and dont know how to address issues of race especially when race is involved. My black second grader is already feeling the difference in treatment than that of his white school mates who are treated better. Someone else said we need to build a space where black and brown Families Build trust in the Larger Community and these are just a few quotes from the many we captured. We also look at the s. A. L. Spring survey level from 2018. We noted that there was a 1 drop in the favorability of families feeling a sense of connectedness to their schools. Last year, it was 91 . We would like to note that only 598 respondents completed the survey. Those African American population in San Francisco though African American population in San Francisco is declining. We know that many more families are here. We dont believe that 598 families is a large enough number for us to have an accurate feel, but it may be an indication of how families are truly feeling, and for us, thats not truly connected. We also looked at the response from the sites of aapac. While the ultimate responsibility of increasing sense of belonging for students and families in this district rests primarily on district officials, us families are doing our part to take the lead in ways that we can. These pictures are aapac meetings across the district. Some school sites are working on simply building affininy, while others are looking to build relationships on their sites. And pulling partnerships to supplement the learning for those children. We have some of those aapac based people in the audience and hopefully during Public Comment they will speak on what theyre doing to increase sense of belonging at their sites. Finally, here are recommendations for 20192020 school year. We are asking that sfusd work closer with the city and county of San Francisco to address the conditions outside of the classroom that impact learning and overall wellness. We have added a link to a study that was done in los angeles for more information as to what went through a study called beyond schoolhouse. We are asking that there is increased support for access and completion of a through g requirements. Beyond basic graduation requirements for African American students. Many of our students are graduating with ds, and while they are graduating, theyre not graduating and u. C. Eligible, therefore, not competitive in the world after high school. We want adults to transform their mindsets, to raise standards and expectations for African American students. We are asking all sfusd sites be required to attend the Pupil Services acclimate team committees. Currently two of us sitting on this dais attend and we find information valuable for all schools to have access to. Again, we want all sfusd staff to be mandated to take or attend implicit bias training. Were asking that sfusd mandate training plans for cohorts of african Elementary Students at every school. Many of us were part of this conversation that was happening in some of our west side schools a while ago, and we believe in order to look at the whole child and to serve the whole child to increase academic outcomes, these plans must be in place. Lastly, we want to thank the board of education for passing the equity studies resolution, which will ensure that black history will be acknowledged and celebrated. We ask that you continue to prioritize and develop the implementation of the resolution. We believe that the resolution will directly impact our students connectedness to their school sites, thus supporting Academic Excellence and achievement. So as we close out, wed like to share with you our 20192020 aapac District Meeting dates. All meetings begin at 5 30. Dinner and child care are provided. In an effort to make sure that we are making these meetings accessible to all families of African American students, we are moving the meetings to Different School sites each month. That information will be made Available Online or on fliers or via our monthly email updates. And through calls. We are definitely in need of more parent volunteers. As mentioned before, there is a lot of work and time that goes into creating this form. In order for us to sustain and grow, we need the help of more families. To get involved, please see us, call leticia, or email the aapac email. And we would like to vice all of the commissioners to attend one of our aapac meetings just so you can see whats happening and the growth that were making. Thank you so much for your attention. We look forward to the day that we can ask, and how are the children, and our collective response will be, all the children are well. [applause] thank you for the presentation. We have two public speakers who signed up for Public Comment. When you hear your name, make your way to the dais for Public Comment. You have two minutes. Aleta jackson, and julia fisher. Good evening, commissioners. I cede my time to monica jones. Hello. I am monica jones. I joined the p. T. A. To be on the on the board, and maybe that the summer after my son hes in second, so the summer after kindergarten, i ended up going to an aapac meeting kind of on accident in a way, but i was excited i was really excited and motivated when i leave the aapac when i left the aapac. I got the p. T. A. To fund the aapac at my school. Now the issue that we have here is theres not many African American families that are involved like we would like. Theyre for many different reasons, many that i dont know. I am a product of children being bussed outside of their School Districts back in the 90s, and im from louisiana. That can sum some of it up. So with that being said, i feel like a lot of the parents feel worn and beat down by what they experience in their personal lives, being African American and having someone in this world where a lot of things can be hidden, but you cant hide the color of your skin. And children are feeling this because we have passive racism. We have racism where you smile, you speak, you act as if youre directly caring about a child, but yet, you dont motivate them in class. The moment something happens, you dont give them the pass as you would someone else, and right now, ive feel like weve come too far in one way, but were still taking too many steps behind with our children, and something has to be done, way up there in higher level, so thank you. Thank you. [applause] good evening. My names julia jackson. Im the founder of the aapac at jose sanchez elementary. Instead of just targeting resources this year, were learning to be more strategic. I was here last year, and i talked about how we had accessed 6,000 to help with the sbac scores at our school and english language arts. We are a pitch school, unfortunate, which you know is a 50 achievement gap between minority students and everyone else. It just wasnt happening. The parents got together, we pooled our money, and we werent waiting. We brought an educator down from seattle, and they spent a day with the students. We had ten of the 13 African American third graders at the time show up on a saturday to do that. So we need this year, were not going through the kres process and all that, were going to get somebody on the district payroll, so we found two people at ortega. We had money for 16 weeks, twice a week for an hour. We were only able to do it for eight weeks. I think our school has been singled out. We focused on mathematics, and our kids had one of the largest gains in mathematics on the sbac. I think its third, fourth, and fifth graders. These are African American fourth graders. The educators had High Expectations about their abilities to score in mathematics. My son had a 60point gain on the sbac. Just show up, and harvard or bust. You have to believe in the kids, and this is what were doing at jose ortega. Thank you. [applause] any comments or questions from commissioners . Great job, yall. Commissioner collins . I just want to say how much i appreciate all of you. I met many of you at the aapac meetings when they were first starting, and i want everybody to acknowledge the work that these families are doing. They are doing this work. It is voluntary. They are spending hours upon hours upon hours meeting across the district, meeting with families who need them. I as a parent have reached out at times. They are supporting one another. They are pushing the district. They are working despite in some cases support. They are creating their own network and they are leading our district, and they are i will say this from personal experience, at the expense in some cases of time with their own families. So i would love for everybody to give them a round of applause because they are everything. [applause] and then, i guess, one question is we have the equity resolution, right . Because i was one of the parents that has said, why dont we have implicit bias training because that keeps coming up again and again and again. So now im putting it on us. Its on all of us as Board Members and parents to make this happen. Is there anything that is very important that isnt in that resolution that you feel like has been coming up again and again and again that we need to either do as a district or we need to write a policy as a board so that some of those things, those kind of repa repetitive things get addressed . We dont have a question right now, but if we do, we will bring it to you. And then, there are families that are feeling loved in their schools and there are families that arent having that experience. One of the things that ive found, if youre in school, and youre a black family, and youre underrepresented, the data cant be shared. It makes you feel insignificant because you may be having a different experience than other folks at that school. So i wanted to know from the superintendent or if theres staff who can answer. I know we do a lot of work at pitch schools, but theres a lot of schools where students are underrepresented. Im wondering how we are looking at students that are at schools that feel like they are underrepresented because theyre small in number . Do we capture any of that . I would say one of the ways that we try to capture that is through the climate surveys if theyre taken. We reach out, doing what we can with those surveys to try to get that experience, to try to hear from those families. But i just from what you just said, as you just answered the questions. This is one of the things that were trying to continue to work on. One of the reasons that pitch wasnt focused on schools in the bayview is because we know that experiences of African American students arent just limited to the bayview, theyre across the whole city. We are aware of a large number of African American families that have moved out of the bayview and into other areas of the city. So it really is through, one, through us one of the things we heard here is the importance of asking that question, how the children are doing, which is our mission statement, all of our children, asking that question. But the real key for me is this has to be who we are and what we live, and so your question is exactly what it should be, which is how we are finding out exactly whats happening through the system to our students . And the other thing is through questioning me directly. Whether youre a pitch school or not a pitch school or in getting culture and climate data, were starting to ask those questions of who are the African American students and who they are and who theyre performing. I want to say theres a focus on pitch schools and the focus and the priority for African Americans is not just for those schools, its district wide, so were trying to highlight those experiences and those outcomes. My kids went to francisco, so we never saw data on how African American students were feeling in those schools. I talked to other parents, but its anecdotal. I dont think theres any way of capturing experiences of families, and especially if were talking to teachers, were not actually talking to parents. So you guys were maybe the ones that were showing up, but there are families who really dont feel welcome. Theyre not at p. T. A. Meetings and theyre not here tonight. But you all are talking to them. I just want to be thankful for the aapac because you guys are talking to folks that maybe dont show up to those meetings, and were not even talking about test scores. This has come up multiple times. You walk into a main office and people dont look up or look at you. My daughters are different colors, and they get treated differently, just them . And then, they get treated differently than their darker skin friends. This is not a new thing im seeing nods, and this is not a new thing. I would like to see when these issues come up and its not everybody, but its one or two, but those families, when they come up, theres a way that they can be supported in a more systemic way. Because there is a problem that black families experience nationally . And as far as i know, other than filing oneoff complaints with the office of family voice, theres no way that were addressing that issue systemically, so im just going to leave that there. I have a response. So my daughter goes to ulloa elementary on the west side of the city. So theres nine black students out of a school size of about 2300 students. So in terms of your comment, in terms of families feeling unwelcomed, thats something that we as parents have to advocate. Like, how are we going to create a safe space for our students, for our children . And thats one of the things that we did with creating the black student unions. And once we created that space, we saw parents coming together. Thats one of the things that were looking on, is strengthening the student union. But i know that other west side schools, its the same narrative. I think in terms of going back to your question, what can the district do to support these west site schools, i know that aapac has pushed this agenda forward to support black students and families. But ive heard from families who have students or children who attend the schools on the west side, this is in terms of implicit bias. There was an aapac flier. A parent said i want to make sure that this is sent out. And we need to make sure that they come, and an administrator said, this flier does not belong in our school. Why are we reaching out to these families . But again, there are so many schools that have been untouched. But as a family, as ulloa, as the west side, were trying to increase support, to increase just words of wisdom like this or not even words of wisdom, but just narratives that often go unsaid because people feel like no ones going to respond, no ones going to say anything . So our goal has been to respond to let them know that theres aapac at the district levels, but often times, administrators prevent that from happen. I just we need to push that there is a system to support black students and families. [applause] thank you very much for saying that. I really appreciate it, and i want to say that has also been my experience in starting aapacs. There was a staff with a supportive principal, but with nervous families. When i was an administrator in sixth grade, the administrators were resistant to send out fliers. I want to let everybody know that i am committed to this, and if youre a parent and youre experiencing Something Like this, i am your representative . We are all your representatives . So reach out to all of us, but i intend to show up for families because i know that there are families that are having great experiences and families that arent, and i want to make sure that every family has a great experience in our Public Schools. [applause] thank you to the aapac members for your leadership and all of your work. I want to make sure that following the recommendations from aapac, how were making progress. I think thats the questions that board has been asking from staff. So for example, im particularly interested in the study and looking at and funding and requiring individualized learning plans, so ill be curious around report back from superintendent matthews around what that looks like. Im also wanting to name that my colleagues at the city and county of San Francisco are deeply committed to addressing the conditions of African American students and their wellness and overall how a young person is growing, thriving in our city. And just this afternoon, we had a meeting with several city agencies as well as district leadership, and i know that my colleagues at the city would welcome the opportunity to sit and meet with aapac leaders . So as a follow up, i can follow up with staff or potential attending an aapac meeting and how we can bring those city agencies together, and im excited to dive into the more of the beyond the schoolhouse study. Well, i want to commend you all again for your service. I know that i heard a lot of founders of the programs at your school, so to start something new in support of not only your students, but all the students all African American students at your site is a heavy lift. And my hope is this time next year, were closer to the answer that were all seeking to have. So hopefully, we can continue a direct line of communication, and you know, in the incident of targeted discomfort or neglect or disrespect that happens to any family is something that this board is highly sensitive to, that this superintendent is highly sensitive to, and im really encouraging leticia to let us know that. We shouldnt be hearing about this at a public meeting. We want to address this immediately. So as youre hearing about it, let us know. You know, we want to make sure that families feel like we have their back, and if theyre not feeling it from the site, theyll feel it from us. I promise you that. All right. Good night. [applause] oh, leticia, where is the november meeting . What site . Our november meeting is a combined meeting with the advisory of special education at leona havner at 5 30 p. M. Okay. One more quick change to the agenda, moving up section i, discussion on other educational issues. Dr. Matthews . This evening, we will have a presentation on our k to college, and this will be presented by our city treasurer, jose cisneros. Good evening mr. President , commissioners, and superintendent matthews. During the day, im tasked with managing School Investments and collecting more than 5 billion in revenues annually. But im here to talk to you about what the best part of my job is taking a group of sfusd kindergarteners on a field trip to a bank branch to help them make their first deposits into their colleague savings account. I promise you, this never gets old. In 2011, with the support of thenmayor gavin newsom, we launched kindergarten to college. We in partnership with you, the School District, each year automatically open up a College Savings account for every sfusd child entering kindergarten, and we seed that account with a 50 deposit. Now, we all that College Costs a lot more than 50, and we didnt launch this program in 2011 believing that 50 would somehow bring thousands of dollars to pay for expensive colleges. We launched kindergarten to college to help parents and kids get to the starting line, believing that post secondary education is an option for every single child in our School District. And this is where the childrens savings accounts can play an Important Role and its honestly why were here today. K2c shows that children that grow up with a College Savings account thats opened in their name and that their family and the children engage with and make deposits into over the course of their childhood, these children are seven times more likely to go to college just because they engaged with their College Savings account. And it was because of this research that we launched kindergarten to college as an easy, automatic place to save for any post secondary education. A way to build a collegegoing identity for every child in San Francisco. We built k2c so that every child starts out with an account. Theres no paper to fill out, no Social Security number required, no minimum balance required. Day one, every family can walk into a bank branch and deposit any amount of money, even 1, maybe that came from the tooth fairy or wherever, in cash if they want to, into their childs College Savings account. Every School District teacher can talk about college and know that every student has a College Savings account. And let me go to some results. In San Francisco, more than 42,000 students today have a kindergarten to college College Savings account. [please stand by] bank branch every other week since 2012 to deposit 20 in cash into her College Savings cash. Today, she has 3315 saved for college and there is no doubt that she will be going to college. Im thrilled to see Success Stories like hers. The k2c program is all about getting families to save. Thats where the aspirations come from. By the families going to the bank and making the deposits. We offer field trips for grades kindergarten through grades 3. And id love to have each and every one of you come on one of those field trips with me. Im telling you, there is no better time to be had. Its such a great event that the pbs news hour a few months back came on one of the field trips and did a piece they put on the news hour and will be forwarding a clip of that to you so you can see it for yourself. But you got to come on one, i promise you. K2c is designed to equity in mind. I want to do everything i can to get those people who face barriers to the starting line. Organizations including felten institute, mission graduates, parents for Public Schools of San Francisco, family connections, 100 college prep, and the urban ed academy. Other partners like meta, and richmond promise neighborhood have been instrumental in getting students and families to engage with the kindergarten to college accounts. Some of the organizations are here with us this evening, but many are with us during the year. With the help of our partners last year, five historically underserved pitched schools increased Student Engagement with the College Savings account by over 20 . This year, were giving special attention to the other five pitch schools, bryant, chavez, muir and willie brown to increase family contributions. Some of our partners have started taking deposits right on school property. Two schools in fact have reached 100 participation. Every child in that school has started to save because of the onsite deposit opportunities. Im excited to report this year were developing a new equity incentive that provides extra support to students from lowincome families. Its really an exciting time to be doing this work. Particularly since k2cs launch, 10 other cities in california have started programs similar to ours and there are 65 programs across the country that have followed San Franciscos lead. And former mayor gavin newsom excuse me, now governor gavin newsom remains a k2c champion. And his budget invests 50 million to support College Savings account programs just like kindergarten to college being spread across more cities in california. We cant wait to hit the ground running with the next phase of the program. We know with your enthusiasm and partnership, San Francisco will continue to lead in this effort for the entire country. And wed be happy to take questions. Thank you. I think we did have one person that signed up for Public Comment. Maybe not. People want trade school. They can buy their machinery when they get out of trade schools. Hi, Marissa Robinson again. Im coming from a school that actually has partnered with k2c and interestingly enough, i didnt know you guys were presenting tonight [laughter]. But i just wanted to really suggest that you guys really take a deep dive into the equity part of it. Currently there are no banks in the neighborhood where students and families can actually go and deposit or create a Checking Account that can be linked to make a transfer to a savings account. Its hard for families to build Financial Literacy and build wealth without someone in the middle saying give me your two coins and ill make four coins for you. We need to look at that. Implementing financial lessons. The kids understand it, if i say five nickels and get a piece of candy. But im a family liaison in my 9 to 5 work, that could be helpful for my school site. My families value saving money. They value sending their babies to college and having somewhere to make that happen. What they dont value is the limited access to it. I would just suggest you take time and really think about how that works and the partners youre