Transcripts For SFGTV Board Of Education 20240712

The Prevention Services in particular qualified as essential services under health quarters. It was really an effort to clarify and provide clear guidance to the c. B. O. And other prevention providers in particular around how to provide services safely and develop resources for home testing, for example, options for people to minimize clinic visits and looking at low barrier approaches to delivering some of the services. Zoom doesnt work for everyone, but are there other ways to continue to provide services in a safeway. Next slide. And then off on policies side, there has been, when the shelter in place occurred, all the clinics closed due to activation many of the people were activated for covid response. And also in response to ensuring that staff are safely in these clinical settings. But as a shelter in place has been lifted, there is a need, in particular because of the Prevention Services that have been declining, to reopen and provide care for young people particularly and so this curbside care model was discussed at the last meeting around expanding services for youth, including some of the Nonclinical Services that are essential for a lot of the vulnerable truth in the city. And then there is the task force , the Housing Task Force addressing homelessness and the differential and disproportionate impact on people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. Next slide. I will defer to the commission if they have questions about that section before talk about ending the epidemic. Commissioners, you have any questions or comments . First of all, thank you for your accomplishments. This is incredible work. I guess i had two questions that are more statistical. I was wondering, given this effect of covid19 on testing and so forth and virus suppression, how you plan on looking at these statistics yearoveryear. In other words, have you thought about how you would correct the unique drops that we see this year so you can see what have been incredibly successful on tread lines trendlines in this condition . I guess, you know, the corlett to that is do you anticipate any increased Disease Burden and we do know not we do not know what the winter holds. I think it will be disproportionate among our populations that are are ready at higher risk of having worse outcomes. And many of the prep clinics, for example, prescriptions were extended for another three months or six months and people miss to the test. But if they stayed on prep, they still maintain high levels of protection. For individuals who might be experiencing difficulty adhering to prep, they might continue to have sexual risk and might discontinue prep. We are seeing that in the clinic there is no question that we will see a decrease in our case findings because the h. I. V. Testing, for example, is a cornerstone of our prevention for Public Health response. It has been negatively impacted by covid. I defer to link for any statistical adjustments that might be made. I also think the highvolume, easy access testing as part of our Public Health h. I. V. Prevention response. That has gone down. There is a concern that it will undercut these efforts we will really try to counteract that as much as we can buy supporting, encouraging and facilitating testing Prevention Services to be restarted and reoffered in maybe a different approach. And for People Living by h. I. V. , ensuring that disruption of care is minimized so, how do we bring for whom zoom doesnt work, into the clinic with capacity where they can also where they could meet their needs . It will not be businesses usual for anyone post covid. But how do we maintain the success that we have had . I think that we are trying to figure out what the best approach for that is. There is no question it will impact our income. All right. Thank you. Commissioner christian . Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. Looking at the viral suppression , the left bullet point had worse viral suppression but did not change after covid. Could you help me understand exactly or why you think it might be, or i am understanding this did they have worse viral suppression, but it did not change after covid. Can you help me understand . There was a disparity that we were looking for. And there was a new disparity that arose post covid and there were disparities that existed that were sent. It existed at ward 86 and it did not worsen. It is about how poverty impacts the ability to maintain adherence in viral suppression and how income and competing needs impacts, particularly for a black individual and for black men in the city. It was present precovid. There was a change seen in the data. So, i mean it was deeply distressing that it was so bad when there were normal Health Situations and it didnt get any worse after covid. Yeah. I totally agree. There has been efforts both at ward 86 and to address this through black health and focusing on what are the ways that we need to adjust and change our care model to meet the needs of black patients, and particularly, black male patients given the disparities we have. I am one of the providers there and there is a nurse, as well as another medical provider working on what are the models that we will shift to try to remove these disparities. Describing them, i agree, they are not positions. We need to have a proposed solution and monitor our outcomes and be held accountable for how we do or do not address those disparities. Right. Systemically it is such a nightmare at base level. It could not get any worse after this pandemic started. As someone who is fairly new to hearing about this level of statistics, it is very distressing. Yeah,. I completely agree. I completely agree with commissioner christian and hope this is something we can hear reports back regularly as we get continued data from getting 20. Next we will go to commissioner dorado. On adolescence . And whether when the access for the youth in the clinics is going to restart. It is not able to see anybody. And what is there a timeline to reopen the clinics and have access for the youth . I know there has been discussions around the timeline for reopening. I know that allie is on the line im not sure if there are updates on this. But if we dont, we can get the timelines and at the information back to you. Okay. Thats great. I appreciate it. Two of the clinics at balboa and burton, i mean those schools are probably not going to open until at least january or february and [indiscernible] thank you. I would appreciate the information. I can speak to that a little bit. Would you like some information now . Just followup would be great i would appreciate it. Okay. The long and short is we are slowly reopening clinics that were closed just because of concerns about air circulation and deployment of staff for the activation. We have a timeline now for reopening as we are able to deactivate some of the clinical staff and bring them back to the clinic once we determine that the sight is safe. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner ciao . Thank you for this presentation. Thank you. The first thing i was concerned about was it appears you are still working with the City Attorney to try to assist the input for Community Clinics to be able to feel comfortable in doing h. I. V. And s. T. I. Services i am wondering and im not quite sure they determine to these essential in the beginning and the prevention could be in question. That is just one thing. When you were describing this in the last few minutes, i became similar i have some similar concerns. It is a phenomenon not just that it was h. I. V. , but everywhere. There has been, in general, a resurgence of visits back from [indiscernible] they put this into get to the baseline again. Im wondering if part of that, and you are starting to convey that some of these people are potentially no longer here. Some of them may not need visits because youve extended their medication. And i guess the real bottom line is, how are we going to try to figure out the real impact that you are discussing here in terms of the fact that, you know, intuitively, it will probably get worse in the sense that there are bound to be some people who dont feel like they will get services or didnt feel like the services were as easy to access as before. There is a factor here in which a number of people had continued my cheek medications. Others may not need prep perhaps because of social distancing and isolation. And others have moved out of the city. All of this has been confounding any sort of a normal study, and i recognize as you are having a good look at this, whether or not there is some sort of clarity or some sort of timeframe that maybe we can sort through between people who have stayed on treatment, what havent actually been followed up by us, people who [indiscernible] that is not even asking the question of how many people should have been tested that didnt get tested, right . And the complexity of this. Im wondering what some of your thoughts are in terms of us being able to sort it out. Its something we can take a look again as the commissioners have asked, suggesting they get a followup on this. Well be following this closely and be happy to present an update when we have new data. The way that i have been thinking about it is its a spectrum from prevention through care for h. I. V. There are individuals whose risks change and they dont need prep anymore so they dont need to be on prep and they decide that they made a decision that they dont want to be on prep and they dont go in for visits. And then there are people who are unable to access prep, for example, because they cant get into their visits and they have continued risk and they have breaks in their medication. I think there are people who have who are living with h. I. V. Who are adhering and are able to come in every six months to a year anyway, so it hasnt been a disruption. In particular there is a lot of drop in services that have been for people who are on the margin and those really got disrupted. Its not easy to get into any of the buildings or any of the clinics on the hospital campus, for example. Many places providing support are no longer open. I think we will need to make take a systematic look. There is already a large outmigration of People Living with h. I. V. In San Francisco. And i know it was accelerated during covid. It is a densely populated urban centre. People are moving towards more space and suburbs and other more rural areas in response to covid i think we are, particularly from the surveillance team, there is the ability i have been following up with individuals. And within the prep clinic, there will be a lot of utility i know that is an effort at magnet to provide outreach and educate people. It has been clarified that prevention and Care Services are essential and that has been disseminated to the communitybased organizations and clinics to provide clarity. It is getting communicated into the community. It will be a big next step. Thank you. We appreciate getting feedback on this and to see where we are all standing. Thank thank you. Commissioner green . [please stand by] to that followup testing. So there are people who have been discontinued, not refilled if they havent come in and that is not true. Because, you know, i know well have a lot to learn about level Risk Behavior that occurred during the shelter in place and over the pandemic. It appears as looking at the testing data for example, the bigger institutions like the general or ucsf and other Hospital Systems are bouncing back if terms of their testing. Are we seeing a similar bouncing back of the communitybased organizations that are engaged in prevention and other kinds of services and if not, is there any kind of support that the Department Needs to provide to them . I think it is going to be difficult in the spaces and how its around ensuring staff safety and social distancing and the types of things is going to change the volume that can happen in the clinics. So we are starting to see that and i know that there are efforts to sort of think about doing things differently with home testing for example. So that individuals can do their testing at home. Or dropin testing where there is minimal contact with staff unless there is a need for a discussion for like Sexual Health or other clinical needs. So, yes, things are opening up. Theyre not at the same level they were and there are unique barriers i think that communitybased organizations have that hospitalbased systems can better mitigate. Thank you. Commissioners, any other questions or comments for dr. Scott before we move on . May i make a comment. Director colfax, yes, thank you. I wanted to thank them for their presentations and i think one of the key pieces about this is that our Institutional Response to covid19 has been driven by our institutional memory with h. I. V. And the work weve been doing. The commissioner saw the vaccine presentation two weeks ago. The doctor who has been leading the vaccine efforts, while there are differences, vast differences in how theyre transmitted, i think going to the inequity were seeing here, we need to ensure were doing everything we can to prevent and mitigate very similar inequities that were seeing across the nation and to some extent, hopefully. And just a reminder that while these our focus on these Infectious Diseases is often in the health care system, these are often also socioeconomic and social factors that are at play here with regard to the social determinates of health. At the same time were talking about getting to zero in San Francisco and im hopeful well be talking about getting to zero covid19 infections. Sort of book ending these departments. Thank you. Thank you, director colfax. Commissioner christian . Commissioner christian thank you. Dr. Scott, this is a late question and maybe it might be best answered by dr. Seo, but it is kind of a prep question and follows on the last couple. Looking back at slide 4 if my notes are correct, where the doctor told us that the slide is titled trends and new diagnosis in select populations and that for transwomen, it had increased to 13 . And my notes say lower by transwomen. And my question is why. Were talking your thoughts of why, were talking about the social determineates of health that exist and disparities that drive that. And then you just mentioned the impact of the closing of communitybased organizations on people and how obviously people who rely on them and who are at greater disadvantage than many others are suffering because of this. Do you think that has something to do with the increase in new diagnosis in transwomen . So, i think so if i remember that slide correctly, i think it went from 2 to 7 among transwomen and the absolute number was from 6 to 13. So we have definitely seen a rise in transwomen, new diagnosis among transwomen. This would have been data before the covid19 impact on all of our care and Prevention Services. But, yeah, prep is prep uptake among transindividuals has been lower than snm which is the comparative group. Its not about awareness. Its not about knowledge that prep exists, its about all the other things that are necessary for an individual to take prep, including what is a perspective of prep among peers and other Community Members. There has been more and more data around the impact of prep and hormones. So there is a concern among the community that prep can negatively impact gender hormones and there is more and more data coming out that it does not negatively impact hormone levels. Actually gender performing hormone levels reduce, but not to the point where we think there is increased risk of h. I. V. And there is also where people access prep and is it available in the clinics where the individual might receive gender affirming care. So there is a lot of, think, going back to the social determinates, there is also high rates of poverty and other social determinates are driving the lower uptick of prep among transwomen compared with other groups. Particularly among smn in San Francisco. And could you describe some of the efforts that are being made to overcome as much as possible these barriers . Yeah. So there was a study called the stage study that was really about providing peerbased social support and clinical support for transindividuals, specifically transwomen, to access prep within San Francisco. And it was within several of the transclinics, those providing transspecific care and one in the east bay. Here at bridge h. I. V. , we actually created a clinic here as well for the city, because there were barriers that were people were encountering accessing care that was delaying their ability to initiate prep. So we wanted to provide a very low barrier access strategy for transwomen to access to access prep. So those are some of the efforts. There has been a lot of communitybuilding, Community Education, provider training, provider support, increasing both provider and client awareness around prep for transwomen and also dissemination of the information that we have about the impact of prep on gender forming hormones and the fact that the data do not indicate there is a negative impact. So making sure that we communicate that. And there is an effort here at bridge h. I. V. To develop a prep clinic specifically for transindividuals and focus on transwomen. And well being doing a study which is focused in supporting prep among transwomen using a peer support and genderforming hormone service model. And that will be done here at bridge h. I. V. Commissioner christian thank you. Can you say a little bit about how the Community Education, how youre getting the message out there is no negative effect on the gender forming hormones . So there was during covid similar to the Community Education forum we did around Sexual Health in covid, there was one focused specifically on transindividuals, highlighting transwomen. And talked about prep and talked about the data that was many of the investigators are based this San Francisco have done looking at the impact of prep on gender forming hormones. Disseminating it through the community, disseminating it through the peers and peer navigators that worked within the study, that worked within the community as well as the ucsf has a center of excellence, so leveraging that and using social media and strategies to get the word out as the study come out. There was one at aid 2020 by dr. Bob grant that also has been communicated through the channels. And the Community Connections and connections peer connections are really driving most behavior in general is based on connections to other people. So leveraging those connections have been built to disseminate information from trusted sources. Commissioner christian thank you so much for your answers to my question and thank you so much for your work. Thank you, commissioner christian. Thank you very much, dr. Scott for your presentation as well. I think we can move on to the next section that dr. Philip. I think this is still me. Still you, okay . Thank you, dr. Scott. Thats all right. In line with our getting a zero effort, there is a National Ending the Epidemic Initiative and we actually here are thinking about it in ending the epidemic, plural, because we have an epidemic of h. I. V. , hepc that we want to have as one of our Guiding Principles. The goal is to reduce h. I. V. Infections by 75 by 2025 and 90 by 2030. And so this is a cdc Planning Grant that was implemented for funding on august 1st and there is work to hire new staff. And the grant is actually five years, so it goes through 2025. And these are the Guiding Principles so Health Equity and Racial Justice eliminating stigma and discrimination, ensuring barriers are as low as possible. And valuing the experience and providing peerdelivered services, so very much in line with what weve done in getting to zero and very much compliments the work that getting to zero has already been doing in the city. So im going to go through some highlights and happy to take additional questions. So, this is currently were finalizing the plan with the Community Planning council, getting to zero, ending hepc, as well as several programs. And we said this is inclusive of sti. And then expanding Community Engagement with communitybased organizations like aids project of the east bay within the latinx community, as well as the transcommunity and people who inject drugs and those experiencing homelessness. And this is just a summary that this is the prevention dollars from the cdc. As i said, it started in august 1st. Goes for five years. Its about there are two sections, component a and component c, totalling about 2. 7 million. Next slide. And these are some of the planned activities. So its really organized in these principles of diagnosing individuals, treatment, tracing, and prep. And so im just going to highlight a couple of items for each of these. And talk about them. So the take me home is a home h. I. V. And sti Testing Program that was done in collaboration with building healthy online communities, which is a group out of the San Francisco aids foundation in collaboration with emory university. And this was a homebased h. I. V. Testing. There were ads placed for free that ran from april through july. There are about 150 people who ordered a kit. There is over 260 kits selected. 20 never tested for h. I. V. Before. These are home h. I. V. Selftests, so these are essentially anonymous tests. And they were an effort to create low barrier. They were mailed to individuals, but date of birth and Social Security was not collected, so there was not an opportunity to do a surveillance match, because that would have created a new barrier for individuals. There were no h. I. V. Tests reported positive tests reported to the Health Department, but this is an ongoing study and there are surveys done, so well hopefully have more and more data about this program and how well it works. So within the treat rubric, its really around expanding services for people who are coming out of incarceration. And then working with stabilization rooms and a support team for individuals who might be living with h. I. V. And diagnosed and treated for hepc, or have a recent sti diagnosis. Prevent is really about prep and there is multiple components around prep, including an effort within the San Francisco zuckerberg General Hospital to increase prep scaleup. And there are a lot of individuals coming in both at risk for from injection drug use as well as sexual risk, and there was no prep discussions that were happening in the hospital until there was effort to use that as a moment to educate individuals about prep and to start initiate prep in the hospital and then discharge individuals. That program has been ongoing and there is going to be data hopefully available next month or two around the amount of prep initiations that were able to be initiated, reaching communities that have been relatively low uptake of prep particularly among individuals experiencing homelessness. And then there are several other expansion programs around both prep as well as syringe services. These are focussing on cluster. A big part of this is developing a cluster and outbreak Response Plan that needs to be multijurisdictional. As i tell folks in soma and i can get to west oakland faster than the campus and were mobile and our communities are overlapping with other jurisdictions and how do we ensure we can respond to clusters that might cross jurisdictions . So this is really working closely with our local jurisdictions as well. So actually ill end there. And ill turn it over to susan philips. If the commissioners have questions, im happy to take them. Thank you, dr. Scott. Commissioners, any questions before we hear from dr. Philip . All right, seeing none, dr. Philip . Thank you, president bernal, commissioners, and thank you so much for the opportunity to present along with my colleagues as part of this really Important Panel and discussion. And i think its really important to recognize while were each speaking from our individual teams perspective in which we have expertise in individual areas, i think you heard from the last portion of the presentation, were thinking about this work holistically and understanding there is so much overlap in the work we need to do to improve disparities and improve Sexual Health overall. Next slide. So you heard a little bit about the aids foundation and the great work they do and the clinical services. I wanted to make sure youre also aware that we have have Wonderful Services as well at city clinic, which is the only municipal clinic run out of the department. And city clinic operates 36 hours a week. Its our Sexual Health Services Clinic or the city and county of San Francisco. And in 2019, we saw that 15,000 visits, 64 of the visits were by people of color. And really important Sexual Health work in an integrated way happens with the team at city clinic. In 2019, there were 741 initiations that happened at the visit. There are 120 patients in 2019 that were served in extremely low barrier and in 2017, they diagnosed about 16 of the overall declining amount. So, again, that sort of comprehensive approach is so important. But as we had heard previously at city clinic, magnet, other care sites, the visit levels decreased and are not back up to preshelter in place levels. What the clinics have tried to do is focus on urgent Sexual Health care needs. Have had limited asymptomatic sti screening and that has been a gap. We tried to fill it with creative ways. Some of which you heard from dr. Scott. Extending the refills for prep. And really, moving and pivoting to telehealth which hadnt been done before and trying to manage syndromes as people describe them to us. So here, this is really just looking at the data from city clinic, but the same pattern weve been talking about. During shelter in place, the visits dropped by twothirds. Even after the shelterinplace were seeing half the visits because of the need to have spacing, the ventilation issues and so on in the clinic. Next slide, please. And so this is not just a city clinic because chlamydia and gonorrhea tests in all San Francisco residents are reported to the Health Department by law, we see here those reported cases among San Francisco residents have dropped had dropped as well during shelterinplace. This is happening in all providers and we see that drop has continued over time. Its the same story youve been hearing with h. I. V. Is true and the others as well. And in addition, to having the challenges of people not being able to get in to be seen, in addition weve had shortages that have recently been announced and noticed. Shortages of testing components. So for chlamydia and gonorrhea, the implication test, which are the recommended test sites, have been in short supply and we received a Dear Colleague letter from cdc about this earlier last month. The reason for this, like the visit changes, are tied to covid19 as a lot of the National Production lines have been moved over to try to accommodate this immense need for covid19 testing. So we have been able to order alternate, so the testing we have done at city clinic has not been interrupted or the Public Health laboratory. And were working with other selfhelps to assess for shortages there as well. Cdc has recommended certain priority groups that are higher risk for chlamydia and gonorrhea, including women under the age of 25 and men who have sex with men, and then patients who present. Were in the midst of planning a Health Advisory as we do assessment of other Health Systems and what theyre experiencing. Next slide, please. And the concerns, just as with h. I. V. , this decreased access is not going to come back to everyone equally and well be worsening the existing health disparaities which are higher rates among h. I. V. In people of color. This graph is looking at chlamydia tests performed over time. We see that drop off in march and extending into april. It really seemed to affect all racial ethnic groups at the same time, but what we see, we see the orange line which represents tests among white patients increasing above some of the other ethnic groups. So again these are efforts we have to monitor and think about ways to creatively decrease these access and testing gaps. So some of the ways weve been trying to do this is again this telehealth model we had not previously done. Selfcollection of swabs and specimens in different routes, including new Generations Health center. People have done a Curbside Pickup and dropped off their specimens for testing. Home testing as we just heard about from dr. Scott. And then working with the Health Network to really measure the screening in any primary care visits that do occur, so chlamydia screening in women under 26. And cdc has been putting out guidance on management, which ideally, we want to get the test and get a diagnosis, but if not, if people just present with discharge, we have ways of treating them even if we cant get the test wed like to. Our top priority and the last time i was able to present to you, this was also a concern. Congenital syphilis. This is the most devastating outcome of the nonh. I. V. Stis resulting in neonatal. And these cases are increasing in the United States and california. These are generally among very Vulnerable Women with history of substance use, people experiencing homelessness and a lack of prenatal care. The cases are rising among women in San Francisco. While cases among men comprise over 90 of the cases, the number in women while still small has been increasing. And from 2017 to 18 we saw they increased 84 among women. And so that led to our activation of the command of structure in 2019 and that was at the point we went from 62 to 114 cases among women. And unfortunately, its continues to increase. We see racial and ethnic disparities with the women diagnosed with syphilis as well. With black africanamerican women disproportionately impacted here. The thing about syphilis among women, congenital syphilis, that treatment with penicillin cures syphilis and prevents genital syphilis. So our primary goal within std and within our disease intervention specialists at the moment for std is to ensure extreme for 100 treatment for 100 of effected women. This is showing the bars by year, the numbers in grey of women that were assigned as cases for followup for treatment and then the percent in blue that were successfully treated by the link team. The navigation to care, which is a team that works on the syphilis and h. I. V. You can see that as the numbers increased greatly, i can assure you the team did not grow in proportion to the number of cases, but they through really great work, have managed to enable treatment for over 90 of the women. And, of course, our goal is 100 . And we are thinking of new ways to increase that percentage further. So again to reinforce, our cases overall of congenital syphilis are quite low compared particularly to some of our other challenges in california and other areas of the United States, which have very, very high case numbers and case rates. But, again, because each of these is a potentially tragic loss of life or health, we want to do everything we can to prevent all cases of congenital syphilis. We went from zero cases in 2018, to four cases in 2019. And through the period of time we have one case. But weve had three additional cases since then in the third quarter, so it remains a strong concern. Next slide, please. And this is a busy slide that has a lot of dense important data. This was put together by one of our outstanding epidemiologists. Its looking at cases among pregnant women from 2018 to 2020. There were 27 such cases during this time and you can see by the shading of blue, the grouping by year. And then the most important line is right below that with the circle, the pregnancy outcome. A solid blue circle means there was a case of congenital syphilis averted. The pregnant woman was able to receive treatment in time within 30 days of giving birth, which averts syphilis in the infant. Red is unfortunately a case where that did not occur and congenital syphilis was diagnosed in the baby, either because there was a Clinical Evidence of congenital syphilis in the child or because it met the definition of being treatment less than 30 days at the time of birth. Then grey is where there was either therapeutic or spontaneous abortion. The single circle, that is green with the white inside, means that at this point in time, the mom was treated but had not yet delivered the infant. And if you look at some of the risk factors going down the rows there, lacking prenatal care is overwhelmingly associated with the cases of congenital syphilis seen in San Francisco. Experiencing homelessness is quite common and using methamphetamine. So again, speaking to the vulnerability of these women and new ways of working and new partnerships that will be needed to avert cases and try and reverse this trend. So again, this is why we had the activation in 2019. This started as a health alert in may. And we started the activation june 3rd and it went through the end of the year. Next slide. And it was truly a partnership between many areas in d. P. H. , both in the Health Network and the Population Health division, including the offices of Health Equity. Dr. Bennett was a leader in this work as well. You can see the many areas within both the network and ph. D. That were involved in trying to do this. It was an unprecedented effort up to that point. Now were seeing a much larger scale activation citywide, but this was a really important effort to get a lot of key partners together. So you know, now post activation, i can tell you what we accomplished. So it went it was meant to transition into an a3 process in january, but then covid came along. We did make breakthroughs. We have a result of the work, a new partnership with team lilly. Its led by doctor simon and others and it specializes in prenatal care to women with bare seeking care. Through grants, were funding team lily and working with them. Rapid syphilis testing has been rolled out in jail health and street medicine. And that partnership has been wonderful. Along with team lily and the disease investigation specialists, theyre going to be instituting case conferences to talk about women and making sure we can offer syphilis screening to women and follow up with prenatal care and medicine. These multidisciplinary case conferences are important because there are so many avenues of care that are needed to ensure treatment in these women. And linking them to the other services they need. And then another thing that was done through the team and jackie mcbright, a very experienced std specialist is testing information and approaches with women experiencing homelessness to see what type of messages appeal to them. We worked very closely with dr. Luke john day at zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and were making plans to really think about syphilis screening among women that came into the Emergency Department and care. We were limited about our timing because this was when being rolled out. Then new reports that look indepth at syphilis in women are happening every quarter. As i said, we were in the process of switching from a structure that served us well into a more a3 response. I want to switch a little bit to talk about innovation in the last two slides. So really, the reason that weve had such profound success with h. I. V. Is because of biomedical prevention of h. I. V. Both with preexposure prophylaxis and the profound imi im impact on the field and getting to zero. We would need that. A vaccine would be wonderful, but other approaches are important. There are preliminary data to say that this medicine seemed to reduce the incidence of chlamydia and syphilis. That was enough of a signal to really warrant trying to do a study, a larger study. So this is a study doxy pep that is going to be done among 780 people who were assigned male at birth. Either living with h. I. V. Or on h. I. V. Prep. Men who have sex with men. And theyll be randomized to getting doxy sigh clean after sex oar not. And were enrolling in San Francisco at ward 86 and also at city clinic. And dr. Scott, dr. Butch binder and the team is led by dr. Stefani cohen. Dr. Connie from washington. This is really exciting. Well get to see if this biomedical intervention does work to reduce syphilis and chlamydia. And theyre going to be evaluating for safety of taking doxy longterm. The reason that women are not being enrolled in the study is because doxy can have bad impacts on a fetus if a woman happens to be pregnant. So this initial study is limited to people assigned male at birth. And then finally another exciting innovation. I think well hear about this more from director armstrong when she speaks in an upcoming system. Planned both by leadership and ncah, upsf, Population Health, and i think its really very exciting to bring together Community Members to engage in conversations about how institutions can really enable people in this work of reproductive justice and how we can become client focused and better provide the services and embrace the goals together. So im really looking forward to this and well be sure to share information with you commissioners as the date comes a little bit closer and those plans are finalized. I believe that is my last slide. So thank you very much for the opportunity. To be with you and share these information with you and present alongside my colleague. Thank you, dr. Philip. Commissioners, questions for dr. Philip . Commissioner green . Commissioner green thank you for this wonderful information. I guess i had two questions. One is, can you touch points that brought the pregnant female syphilis patients in. I think out of the five that are the bad outcomes, three were homeless and two were not. And i wonder, you mentioned clinics and so forth. Is there anything you can learn or any information we can gain based on when they actually entered the system . And another system that comes from earlier in the presentation, you talked about telehealth and selftesting, yet, those two elements, you know, have significant barriers. I was wondering if there is a particular population that you think would be most amenable to approach through those means or you know how youre kind of directing your resources to try to get the greatest effect given the limitations of trying to reach populations . Yes, absolutely. Thank you, commissioner green. For the telehealth and selftesting, what has been shown in studies and in other jurisdictions have been that gay men and other men who have sex with men do take up those routes and are able to use them. As i said, we still have over 90 of our syphilis patients among men. I dont want to down play Offering Services to gay men in San Francisco. And that is very important. And speaking of some of these creative avenues to do that will be help. Ful. We also want to see if young women, adolescent women will be amenable to vaginal swabs and taking that route. As you said, the intensive work we want to do in person, in conjunction with street medicine, our colleagues at General Hospital and other will most likely be best served in working with a very vulnerable population of women that have limited prenatal care before delivering. In fact, for a large portion of those individuals that did end up being diagnosed with syphilis and having an infant that was diagnosed with congenital syphilis, there was not touches to the system ahead of time. Like during their pregnancy. Were doing case conferences to try and look for opportunities, you know, to intervene and make sure that providers throughout the city know about this. Of women with syphilis, about a third of them are served by our own San Francisco Health Network, so its really wonderful that our colleagues there are as engaged as they are. Because we need to look together for any opportunity to do that. Were hoping that street medicine because theyre so proactive and have relationships and out in communities of unsheltered people, might be able to enable us to try to offer screening if we know that someone is might be pregnant or others know people that might be pregnant within their social networks or nearby. And then having lily be able to really offer that clientcentred prenatal care to whatever extent the person is able to engage in it is also wonderful. So were hoping that this model will be helpful in preventing what is happening before that people present in labor and we dont have a chance to do anything before. Thank you. Commissioner chow . Commissioner chow yes. Dr. Philip, thank you for your presentation and also wanted to ask as you mentioned that youre still emphasizing obviously the stds that are in males and gay males, but at the same time as we heard earlier in previous years, the rise of std was also in the young. And so the project that was described, the integrated h. I. V. Program, would seem to be targeting the h. I. V. Population. How are you looking at also being part of that as and at the same time also as you did with the congenital program, how would you then continue to also concentrate on the black and young male std rise . Absolutely, commissioner chow. Yes, so we are we are trying to understand what the best ways are to continue to deliver services so that young people have access. And you know, we have also been watching to see if youth are going to which clinics theyre going to. And i think that the plan weve heard about from dr. Hammer to roll out or to reopen the clinics will be helpful in that regard. And i think, again, these ideas of nontraditional ways of doing screening and low barrier ways of doing screening are also important. I previously talked about our great work with our amazing partners at services and pratt and her team. They have been also really champions of trying to do rapid gonorrhea and chlamydia testing within jail populations as well. So i think there are several ways in which were trying to move the work forward. It becomes much more challenging in the time of covid, as all of our work is. And so were continuing to refine and try to improve that within the limitations, spacing and needing to have patients per hour at clinic. We dont have all the answers and were trying to work with partners with expertise and also hear from community as to how they would like us to. Thank you. I know that well continue to look forward to not only this collaboration, but also the emphasis of trying to reduce overall std rates in the city. With the new innovative ways that youre thinking of, and some of that will come from the experience working with the h. I. V. Project there, too. So well look forward to Additional Information as we get more reports. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Philip. Commissioner chow. Any other questions from commissioners . Dr. Philip, i did have a question. Its for you and all of your colleagues. I view San Francisco as having the best second to none health and surveillance. And every year, particularly when we get these reports from you and your colleagues, we find encouraging things. We find evidence of the great work that theyre doing and areas that we need to refocus our efforts. Given were nine months into 2020 and this is no year like any other, is there an Inflection Point where we will use the Data Collected from this year and what is happening in terms of Risk Behaviors and other things so we can adjust our strategies accordingly but do it more quickly and more in realtime . Yes. I think that is very much very much needed. And you know finding exactly what the Behavioral Changes have been, i think we may also need to rely on some of our academic colleagues and others who are able to dig into that more. I will tell you that my team and i weve been focussed on what we know the structural barriers are as a result of covid. I think all of the pieces, as you said, have to come together. And without sort of all those pieces, we wont know if we see the decline in syphilis for 2020 or 2019 what that means. And i think none of us would feel reassured by that and i think wed want to really understand dive more into the different aspects of the data you have. Knowing that is going to be somewhat limited by the data that was reported to us and the fact that a lot of our leadership is involved in the covid response, which is really important. Our epidemiologists are community experts. And our disease intervention specialists as well are leadership. So its balancing all of those things which is a constant challenge, but were our team is up to it, so were going to keep working at it. I know you are. It ties back to one of the points made in dr. Scotts presentation, which is a great concern, that black patients have worse viral suppression, but it has not changed in covid. So what can we learn from that and how that may provide useful ways to address the fact that black patients do much worse in the suppression. Because as we know, viral suppression is not just an issue of patient outcomes, but community outcomes. Absolutely. And i think that, you know, understanding that all the Sexual Health outcomes and hepc, theyre all tied together. Theyre the same structural barriers and underpinning of racism throughout, that we are all going to be working together and using these federal dollars to find new ways of improving our work and thats our Constant Mission and pledge. Great. Thank you, dr. Philip. Commissioners, do you have other questions or comments . Mark, any Public Comment . There still remains no one on the Public Comment line. Ive remained hopeful, that, unfortunately we do not have anyone. Dr. Philip, dr. Scott, dr. Hsu, thank you for your presentation. I look forward every year. Thank you so much for that. All right. Moving on to the next item. Other business. Commissioners, any other business . All right. Seeing no other business, welcome move on to item 12, which is a brief update on the joints Conference Committee from zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Pardon me, did i miss somebody . Or if not, commissioner chow . Commissioner chow thank you. Briefly, we did do a routine study, routine reports on the regulatory affairs. We also received a very comprehensive presentation on zuckerbergs quality programs and data. The enormity of over greater than 100 measures that we have with maybe six or seven different types of reporting agencies that they go to. And its implications. It was a very good presentation and i think that we might be able to distribute that to our commissioners here. Action items included the approval of the Laboratory Medicine rules and regulations, intervention radiology, standardized procedures and we had a closed session where we did review our work and passed the credentials report. So put that into my report. President bernal thank you. Mark, any Public Comment . No Public Comment, sir. President bernal commissioners, any questions for commissioner chow . If not, the next item which is consideration of a closed session. Do we have a motion to move into a closed session . So moved. Second. Commissioner, roll call vote. Commissioner chow yes. Commissioner green yes. Commissioner christian yes. Commissioner giraudo yes. President bernal yes. Before we move out of open session, i want to thank all of the d. P. H. Staff that joined us and provided excellent presentations today because we may not be seeing you when we reopen briefly to adjourn. So thank you. If everyone wil closed or not disclose the discussions from the closed session. I move not to disclose the discussions during the closed session. Do we have a second . Second. Thank you. All right, roll call. Commissioner green yes. President bernal yes. Commissioner christian yes. Commissioner giraudo yes. Commissioner chow yes. Thank you. President bernal moving on to the next item, 14 which is adjournment. We will enter a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Commissioner christian yes. Commissioner green yes. Commissioner chow yes. President bernal yes. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. For september 22, 2020, is called to order. Roll call, please. Clerk thank you. [roll call] so it looks like were all here. So welcome, everybody, for being here today for our school board meeting. Welcome, everybody, and superintendent matthews. I think you have an announcement regarding todays agenda. Yes, thank you, president sanchez. Good afternoon, Board Members and members of the public. Being withdrawn from the agenda today in section g is item 1. Its board policy 6142. 7, physical education and activity. That is being withdrawn, and in section h, items 3, Second Amendment to the Instructional Calendar 20202021. Both items will be heard at a future meeting of the board. Thank you, dr. Matthews. We are going to vote on the approval of the board minutes for september 8. We need a motion and a second. So moved. One one moment. Could everybody whos a panelist please mute your screen while youre not speaking at the meeting, please . Thank you. Motion and a second, please, for the board minutes. So moved. Second. Thank you. Any corrections . Okay. Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Clerk thank you. [roll call] clerk thank you very much. Thank you. We are in section b, number 2, superintendents report. Dr. Matthews . Thank you, president sanchez, Board Members, and members of the public. Good to see you all. My report from today, first and foremost, id like to encourage all families to complete the multipurpose Family Income form for the 2021 school year today. Completing the form provides benefits beyond meals, including essential funding for your Childs School. Benefits include eligibility for free meals through september 2021, eligibility for future e. D. T. Funds, discounted utilities and internet access, free enrollment in excel after School Program, free s. A. T. Waivers, benefits regardless of citizenship status, and this provides essential funding for your school. Its critical for us as a district, and it absolutely benefits your child, your family. Please go to sfusd. Edu mfif to fill out the multifamily information form. Today is also National Registration day, so if you have not registered, register today. Make sure your voice is heard. Register early. Make a plan to vote early, and then vote early. Among the many important issues san franciscans will vote on, proposition j, which addresses a legal loophole to continue to provide funding for sfusd, and proposition 15, which would increase revenue for Public Education and other services. Mayor london breed placed prop j on the ballot to replace proposition g, which was passed by San Francisco voters in 2018. Proposition g was a 298 per parcel and proposition j is for 350 per parcel in San Francisco. Californiia californians will vote on proposition 15, which would amend the state constitution to adjust the original 1978 proposition 13 to enable commercial properties to be taxed at their fair market value as opposed to the value at the time when they were purchased. Proposition 15 would not affect property taxes for homeowners. Upon full implementation, this initiative would raise between 8. 5 million and 12. 5 billion in property tax per year for education and other public services. While i cannot say how to vote on these and other ballot issues, i want to encourage all san franciscan voters to exercise their democratic right by voting in this election and every election on these important measures. Make sure your voice is heard. It is more important than ever for our San Francisco Unified School District families and gua guardians to have active information on their schools, their classes, and the district. We share information as it becomes available with you in our weekly digest. Theres a lot of critical information someone has there mic their mic on, so once again, if youre a panelist and youre not speaking, please make sure to mute your microphone. Thank you. Going to start again. The district can share information that affects many families and students, but there is a lot of information unique to each student. Families are more fod when their schools and districts keep them in the loop. Our information is can communicationed in a confidential member through our family portal, parent view. Parent view allows parents to use a single login to follow their student the entire time their student is enrolled through our public schools, kindergarten through high school. Through parent view, parents and guardians can access their students grades, and the digital platforms their students are using. Parents and guardians can also update their information in parent view, including cell phone numbers, address information, and more. Parent view works on phones and devices, including a handy mobile application so if they prefer to use their phone, they can still stay up to date on their childs education. If a parent has more than one student enrolled in our district, a parent view account lets them log in to them all. Families can change languages to their preferred language. Because it is highly secure, families need to get a unique active jags key from their Childs School to set up their account. If you are a district parent who hasnt activated your parent view account yet, you can find more information here. We look forward to here on our district website. We look forward to staying in touch about one of the most important things to all of us your childs educational journey. Thank you so much. That concludes my statements this afternoon. Thank you, superintendent matthews. Student delegates, this is the time for your report. Thank you so much, president sanchez. This months update is the sfuchd rez for Pacific Island a sfusd resolution for Pacific Island and hawaiian students. Sfusd supports the efforts to close the opportunity gap and increase hawaiian and Pacific Islander representation by implementing an amendment that promotes selfsustainability, our essential goal it to create a longterm migration into our School District. Yesterday at our s. A. C. Meeting, commissioner moliga presented at our s. A. C. Meeting, and we voted unanimously for the resolution. Special thanks to our adult ally, commissioner moliga, and the entire s. A. C. Team for disseminating this important resolution to our peers. Peef preserves sfusd programming and sports, libraries, art, and music while supporting other Educational Opportunities and academics and student and family support. Our s. A. C. Goal is to distribute the opportunity to our constituents so we can have a total of six students nominated to serve on peef c. A. C. Our student representatives will meet the peef c. A. C. Once a month on the third wednesdays at 5 00 p. M. We would like to take the opportunity to thank mr. Edmond diaz for taking the opportunity to present to us and answers all of our questions. Next, the s. A. C. Has a coalition of committees where students are driven by their passion to create a change in our School District through various projects. Our goal in the s. A. C. Is to roll out campaigns for each specific committee. For this year, we have a total of five committees health, environment, student support, social justice, and a district and accountability committee. Jet at our s. A. C. Committee meeting, we presented about each committee, and we are now beginning finals. Thank you to our president of leadier for giving this presentation. Our next meeting will be on november 5 at 3 00 p. M. If you would like to attend a meeting, make a presentation or would like a meeting agenda, please contact salvador lopezbarr. All right. Thank you so much, especially the last part. So item 4 is recognitions and resolutions and commendations. There are none tonight or today. And then, 5 is recognizing all valuable employees, rave awards. We do have some today. Dr. Matthews. Thank you, president sanchez. This evening, we do have a rave award, recognizing all valuable employees. Presenting that award will be gene robertson, the chief of special education, and kristin defi devine, the director of special education. Miss robertson . Thank you, dr. Matthews. I have the extreme pleasure this afternoon to formally present this wave award to karina mcgraw. Its have you awkward because karina, i cannot see you on the screen, but i know youre with me. Karina has served the sfusd and now as an administrator in the special Education Services department. She was called out by a colleague in the field as one of the hardest working special education administrators in the district. It was noted in the nomination that she was like part human and part octopus, having her hand in almost every pot to make sure that important is given to the site, the family, and most importantly, the child. She is responsible and seamless in the way that she addresses the issues. Thus making the job look way easier than it is. Her nominator has noted that she is super smart, and i couldnt agree more. We have a Wonderful Team in our special Education Services department, and we Work Together now more than ever during the pandemic, and karina continues to set the gold standard, and she uses her many gifts to help move the work forward positively. So on behalf of Kristin Devine and, most importantly, dr. Matthews, and all of you here today i just wish sort of we could have a virtual class, a mini class for karina mcgraw. Thank you for your kind words, jean, and for your service. I landed here 19 years ago, and ive been working here, as jean said, 17 years. I would not be here both in my experiences, what ive learned, how ive grown, without each and every student and family, so thank you. Im very grateful to be a part of sfusd. Justin, i think there are a couple of speakers who also wanted to speak. Yes. Miss fisher, did you want to go ahead and start . Of course, absolutely. So my comments are both as a member of the Community Advisory committee for special education but also a parent who has had the opportunity to collaborate and work with karina, and wearing both hats, i would like to say thank you. You have always been an amazingly collaborative partner. At our c. A. C. Meetings, we have an opportunity for parents to troubleshoot and problem solve with our special education reps, and karina is there always. All of our c. A. C. Members appreciate that. Having been a parent at a school where karina was a supervisor, i have to say, karina, i give you a lot of parent for turning me from an angry frustrated parent into a collaborative partner. You were totally instrumental in helping us understand not just the process but also part of why the bureaucracy is the way it is. You helped us understand why the system is a little convoluted and helped walk us through it, so on behalf of me and my family, id like to say thank you very much. Miss martin . My name is julia martin, and im the sfusd ombudsman and parent of a senior, long time member of the c. A. C. And got to know karina many, many years ago through c. A. C. Meetings and really appreciated her at that time as someone who was willing to lend an ear, even if she wasnt my supervisor. But to lend an ear, to give a hug, to be there to support families, and you really helped through some difficult times. I really appreciate that. Ive become even more impressed with her leadership, with her voice and empathy and strength in always speaking up for families, and now in her new role in early ed families, helping guide them through a very convoluted and difficult process, so thank you for all youve done for families. All right. Thank you. Dr. Matthews, i assume that the certificates in the mail . The certificates definitely on its way, and we have a second wave award this afternoon. Dr. Matthews, i just want to quickly say compa oh, yeah. Its so nice to see one rock star, jean, give another rock star a rave award. We are so lucky to have so many great people in our Community Working so hard to serve our students and families, so just wa wanted to put that in there. Our next office will be given by helen petifore. This next rave award goes to Blanca Gonzales. Shes a student advisor at mission high school, so miss petifore . Thank you, superintendent, and all of those present this evening. We are going to honor Blanca Gonzales. She has worked for the district over 23 plus years in serving migrant education program, which is a unique program thoroughly funded to serve these children of farm workers. This is a very vulnerable, fragile population that moves often from the city back to the Central Valley, from the city to the Central Valley to really make a living, so we can imagine the obstacles that these students face. What i was to say about blanca, when she started her role, she didnt have an office, a desk. She would work out of her car to identify families to bring them into the fold of sfusd so that we could provide their students more opportunities to go onto college, become professionals. Blanca served in this role children who are now parents, who many of them are outside of the migrant farm workers now. Theyve gone onto college and become professionals, so the work that blanca does is precious beyond words because she is really making the change for families who dont have adequate you know, families who, at times, face some of the hardest things we can imagine. So tonight, we want to honor blanca by first starting in her car, serving families from place to place, driving to school, eating lunch in her car, helping wherever schools would give her space. Blanca is warm hearted, she easily connects with people. Principals, come on in here and have lunch, teachers she has been, really, a servant to the district in serving these families, and i want to recognize her tonight, and the whole team of access and equity curriculum instruction stand by the work that Blanca Gonzales does for our students. Her work is really, really from her heart and from her soul. Thank you, blanca. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Well, this i would like to thank god first, and my family, and also my team. They are good support, good support for me. Working with migrant families is not a job for me, its a passion, its a labor of love. I am very grateful for the families that i have worked with through all these years because they taught me a lot of life lessons. These family share with me the humility and their hard work of wanting a better life for their children in this country. They alwa they i trust in god, and i trust in my families and my team, and i dedicate this award to my son, caesar, who pass away, but he guide me to my life journey. And i love you so much, my son. This is for you, and this is all for the families, who i love. I love work with the families every day, every day, and i see them every day. They are more than families, they are truly love. So thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, blanca. So much more rock stars in our midst. Thank you so much. We are going to move onto Public Comment. So mr. Steele, you want to make the announcement and then the protocol . So yeah. If youd care to raise your hand, if you want to speak on general Public Comment on items that are not on the agenda some evening, so something that is not on the agenda, you can speak during this time. Please raise your hand, and then, well call on you when its ready. Go ahead. Perfect. Thank you. Well see what happens. All right. So the protocol for Public Comment, please note that Public Comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters in the boards jurisdiction. We ask that you refrain from using employee and student names. If you have a complaint about a district employees, you may submit it to the employees supervisor as per district policy. Rules under California Law do not allow us to respond or answer questions during the Public Comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that the staff follow up with speakers. Okay. It looks like nine hands are up right now, president sanchez. So two minutes . Yeah. Hello, angela . Hi, yes. Can you hear me . Yes. Hi. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is angela watson, and im the Vice President of local 1741. Our union would like to thank those who spoke in support of the bus drivers for recognizing us as part of sfusds family and a Union Workforce. I would like to add in support of School Bus Drivers letter, there includes a description of student bus services. We are all aware of the budget deficit the Transportation Department faced prior to covid 149. The community is dependent on our elected officials to truly represent the core values of sfusd. It is essential that the School District considered rebudgeting School Bus Drivers health care so we can continue to serve the community, which weve done for almost 50 years. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Hello, natalie . Hello, natalie . Natalie, are you there . Gerardo . Gerardo . Hello . Yes, go ahead. Two minutes. Yes, good afternoon. My names gerardo martin, and my wife and i are School Bus Drivers in San Francisco Unified School District. Were already going through some hard times, trying to help the kids with their zoom meetings, and now were facing another challenge where were going to be left without Health Insurance, and thats going to be hard not only on us but a lot of families that are School Bus Drivers that do rely on that, and i just want you to consider, we are there for you when you guys need us, and we would love for you to consider us now. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, judith . Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah, my nickname is shane, but thats okay. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is shane hu 4ud fhuff,e been a School Bus Driver for 31 years. A letter published on september 8 addresses the issue of supporting School Bus Drivers in this time of layoffs due to covid19. We did find that superintendent matthews letter had some misrepresentations in it. It gives the clear impression that sfusd provided over 6 million of funds to pay wages and benefits of School Bus Drivers and staff for four months. These funds were provided by the emergency state and federal relief packages that were granted to the entire Public Education system. In specific, California Senate bill 117 directed districts to pay their contractors, which included contracted School Bus Drivers. Dr. Matthews states that cert, which is coronavirus employee relief for transportation act will help, but that bill is dead in the water and has been given an 8 chance of passing i thank you for your time. Thank you. Heather . Hi. Id like to request the board support in keeping Presidio Early Education School open. Its perfect for covid, it has rest rooms in all the classrooms, windows that open, and tons of outdoor space. Please intervene so that the school doesnt close at the end of this school year. Thank you. Thank you. Raphael . Yes, this is raphael picazzo, can you hear me . We can. Okay. Seiu 1021, chapter president. I want to talk about our student warehouse workers that are being called heros but are being treated as zeros through the districts management because they dont want to continue to pay these guys hazard pay. These people come to work every day putting their lives at risk, and its you know, theyre exposing themselves to the public, especially with student nutrition on their hand to hand contact with the public. You know, our members deserve better. Theyre not expendable members. You cannot just wait until someone gets sick with covid and then say okay, just sit, go home two weeks, three weeks, with no pay, etc. , when these guys are deserving, and they care about the kids in the School District, and make sure that they got fed, that theyve got a clean school, that theyve got the supplies that they need. We need our members treated and respected properly. Also, im in support of the bus drivers. Please at least give them their health care. Theyve got children. This is not the time to take away their health care. Theyre teachers. Give them the appropriate pay that they need. Theyre working extremely hard with the Distance Learning. I know its difficult for all of them, and its hard on all of us. Were all learning together, so lets appreciate the staffers that youve got working for you in this district and pay them appropriately with hazard pay. Thank you. Thank you. Shelby . Hello, shelby . Shelby, are you there . Can you hear me . We can, go ahead. Okay. My name is shelby. Hi, superintendent and members . My name is shelby, and i have been a School Bus Driver for 15 years. I would like you to know that we are about to lose our health care in eight days. We are eight days away from a disaster for our membership. Also, i would like you to know that several San Francisco School Bus Drivers have not received unemployment since june, and we have all these different circumstances going on. We have just horrible things going on. Some of the drivers have caught covid and are recovering from this deadly virus. My question to you guys is when School Starts were looking at a start date of november 2. How are we going to start when we have no workforce to start with if you guys dont try to help us . Its a shame that we have to beg the city of San Francisco for help, the city that we serve. Thank you. Thank you. Sam . Hi. I would like to talk real quickly about an issue that has been on peoples minds lately, which is climate change, and the bad air, and what im asking the school board to do, and everybody in our sfusd community is to have a hard look at our facilities and what we can do to get money either from the state or the city to upgrade facilities because thats an equity issue. Children need to be able to breathe clean air, and i think we need some air purification plans as well as really good air monitoring plans. This is the future of our area, and also, i just want to give a shoutout to the bus drivers. As the mother of a special ed kid, i know youre a part of our continuing care. Thank you. Thank you. Lorraine . Hello, lorraine . Lorraine, are you there . Yes, im here. [inaudible]. Your screen is on, just to let you know to turn it off. I was promoting to what . Your screen is on because i had to promote you to panelist. Im okay now . Yes, you can go ahead. Okay. Hi. My name is lorraine bowser, and i work in student nutrition department, and im also one of the local area reps for 1021. Im one of the frontline workers working in student nutrition. Im working at willie brown schools. Ive worked 30 years for the School District, and were working really hard. Were doing unusual work right now, and were all putting our families at risk. Some people have people at home that are dying, but theyre consistently still coming to work. I just want to express about our hazard pay. Thats something that we need. Were hazard. Were facetoface, frontline, with these people. And now, were hand to hand because were doing other thing with accountability, so were actually hand to hand. I wanted to speak on that behalf, and i want the board to consider the hazardous pay for the workers that are out there doing this covid. We have a lot of people out there every day, people that are dying, so were asking the board to please help us through this process. We need your help, we need your understanding. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, bissa or bissa . Hello, members of the board. My name is bissa [inaudible] and im a teacher in the district. All of these things that youre responsible for making decisions on and supporting us with is a lot of responsibility, so thank you so much for taking on that responsibility. Really appreciate it. And today, im here because i wanted to ask you to consider thinking of how we can better support the the citys hubs, the learning hubs that are just getting going for our children, and how we can better support the youth that are potentially going to be going to those learning hubs. Im a teacher at hill top high school, and the students that i teach would really benefit from being able to go to learning hubs if it were possible for them, and also members of their family to go to learning hubs. Theyre among the most vulnerable students in the city, and many of them are experiencing the multiple pandemics that we have going in our society right now. Racial pandemic, covid19 pandemic, and right now, i feel that were in an evolving education pandemic, and what can our system do to stop that racial pandemic as it rolls through our black and brown communities. Ive been involved with a c. B. O. Called homie, and theyve been trying to help set up their hub, and theyre struggling to get that going. Im wondering how we can help these hubs get going. Hearing those awardees really inspired me and made me say we have to figure out how to untie our hands so we can make that happen. I know that our hands are tied in some ways because of legalities, but were in a pandemic, and this is the way to figure out how to untie our hands. How can we do that . This is not the time to say, our hands our tied. We need to support our students. Thank you. Thats time. Thank you. Thank you for your hello, gail . Gail . Can you hear me . We can, go ahead. Hi. Good afternoon, commissioners and superintendent matthews. My name is gail flynn, and im a 15 year bus driver. I have the pleasure of working very closely with our 250 of our drivers. Im also a mother of five adult children, one who is severely disabled and rode our buses for 16 years and is the reason i became a School Bus Driver. Most of our 250plus drivers at the time knew joe, and they all watched out for him. Today, i want to discuss the appalling idea that sfusd wants to drop our bus drivers from health care on october 1. Were part of these childrens educational day. In most case, were the first pleasant person they see before they go to school. Often, were invited to a students i. E. P. Plan, connected to these children as well as their families. Weve watched these children go. The thought of dropping the drivers from their Health Insurance during a pandemic is unc unconscionable. I am recovering from a long illness and do not know what i would do if i didnt have my Health Insurance. We deserve to keep our Health Benefits while we wait for school to start back up. I ask that you please, please reconsider this action against our drivers. Thank you. Okay, speaker, you have an sfusd email address. I believe the last name is young . My name is donnie l. Young, [inaudible] and seiu 1021 vise president of the School District chapter. Im here to speak about the food pick up program, and im speaking for the members that are prayed to speak up because theyre worried about losing their jobs. Some individuals are worried about the scanner system that the school is making the parents use. Sometimes the student nutrition workers have to enlarge the q. R. Code by pinching the picture on the phone screen, so there is no social distancing. Its facetoface but more hand to hand contact, not only making it easier for our families and members to get sick, but for students, as well. Will the district provide more p. P. E. Because we have to touch everybodys phone or more paperwork . Will the district give us more time because we have to change gloves before we interact with another family so we dont paspas pas pass covid19 through the community. Work due that causes extreme physical discomfort and distress which is not adequately alleviated by protective devices is deemed to impose a physical hardship. Our members definition of why they deserve hazard pay theyre risking their lives. Please pay our heros the right way. Please show that you care about our heros. Thank you. Thank you. Leslie . Hi, good afternoon. This comment is in regards to the letter that was written by dr. Matthews and mosted on medium. Com. The letter stated if the district funded our health care that it would affect our lower or Unemployment Benefits claim, that thats not accurate. The two are completely unrelated. In fact many drivers like the millions of others dealing with unemployment are having issues with being paid on time or not being paid at all. Yes, these are difficult times for everyone, and the district has the daunting task of balancing the budget, but we ask that you dont balance the budget on the backs of the School Bus Drivers who have been part of the sfusd for decades. And when the board of ed is looking at [inaudible] and are considering cost saving measures, youre not looking at the children as individuals and the Important Services and transportation that they need. Okay. Im done. Thanks. Thank you. Hello, jan . Yeah, my name is jan jinn, and im the president of the local 1021 here at our local School District. We at protext are in solidarity stand in solidarity with the bus drivers. I think its really important for them to have at least their Health Care Benefits not be affected during this time of covid, and i know that the bus drivers, you know, they see a lot of kids, and they know, you know, they have a an understanding of our students, a special one, and i think its important to state it. Id also like to that we stand also with local 1021 about the hazard pay issue, as these people are on the frontlines, and youve been hearing about the news, the public is not necessarily very careful about their own safety precautions. So i i do think that its i think hazard pay for those people, nutrition workers or whathaveyou, being the fact that given the fact that they are going to the possibility of them being exposed, i think that they are deserving of hazard pay. Thank you. And thank you. Thats all i have to say. D. Miner . Yes, can you hear me . Yes, we can. Go ahead. I am a 1021 member, seiu 1021, and i am a radio announcer [inaudible], and i am just checking in about hazard pay. I worked i come in onsite six days a week, five to six days a week, and i think it would be appreciated to present hazard pay. I take care of my grandmother, my grandmother, whos 89. I take care of her, and my father, who his dialysis three days a week. And coming to work, coming onsite, and being around a number of people, im exposing them when i come back home, so i would so if we can have hazard pay, that would be greatly appreciated, and i also support the bus drivers, the School Bus Drivers. Thank you. Soha abdu . Soha from ccdc . Can you hear me . Yes, we can. Go ahead. So im working with a lot of the immigrant families, and i hear from a lot of the parents that theyre concerned for their kids education because most of the kids, they are still young or they came here to the country, and they wouldnt find the same help online to be advanced more in english or in other classes. So they were asking me if there is any resources they can go through this, and they can access, like, [inaudible] but as you know, a lot of these learning hubs, its very limited, so a lot of families didnt know about it. We were thinking if there would be any resources through the Unified School District, they could make think about special teachers, like, to have small groups of students, and they can work with them regarding, like, the Language Skills or math skills or maybe oneonone. A lot of immigrants are, like, really suffering from this, and they dont know where to find the help, so please, like, try to consider these options or try to consider more resources for these families. Thank you so much. Thank you. Brandy . Hello, brandy . Hi. My name is brandy markman. I am a parent at sutro school. I want to thank the district and board for changing thanksgiving to thanksgiving to fall break. I know native American Families have been asking for that for quite a while. I hope that the Central Office can announce a plan to make sure that all of our schools know that because teachers at our school have been sending out calendars that say thanksgiving break, and i know they would happily make sure that their language reflected the district language. But if theres not a plan to get this information to our schools, then it wont happen. So i just ask out of respect for our native American Families that there be a plan for native american schools and families. Also, i just want to make sure that teachers are aware also now it is and how to present it through their students to an antiracist lens, Indigenous Peoples day and the halloween holiday. Thank you so much. Thank you. Miss marshall . Good afternoon, president sanchez, subject matthews, Board Members, and delegates. I have some good news to share, great new to see share. A week ago, one of our former sfusd students, who graduated Tuskegee University was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the u. S. Air force. He was able to fly his father, reverend rob chisolm from atlanta back to tuskegee this summer. He is the only student that i have had in my career who will be a pilot. Were having a celebration in the next few weeks, and i will let everyone know. So i brought out my bells, so i want to ring my bell and congratulate ayande chisolm and his parents and his entire family, who came from bayviewhunters point. We have Second Lieutenant, ayande chisolm, who will become a pilot in march. Thank you. Thank you. And president sanchez, that concludes Public Comment on this item. Thank you, mr. Steele, and thank you to the public for coming out and making comments to the board and to the general public. Moving onto section d, Advisory Committee reports and appointments. We have the Community Advisory council for special education, julia martin. Thank you. Good evening, superintendent matthews, president sanchez, and commissioners. My name is julia martin, and i am proud to be here today as your liaison to the special education commission. With that, i hand it off to our new chair. My name is [inaudible] and i am the current chair of the c. A. C. For special education. Thank you for being here. It is important to highlight that the c. A. C. Is a state mandated Oversight Committee and part of San Francisco county special education local plan area. Our purpose aligns with the districts Mission District to drive each and every student the quality instruction and equitable support required to thrive in the 21st century. During covid19, we are focusing on three responsibilities per our state mandate. One, supporting activities on behalf of individuals with exceptional needs. Two, educating parents, students, staff, and Community Members regarding special education issues, and three, Encouraging Community involvement in the parent Advisory Committee. Hold on one second, danielle. Justin, our slides, for some reason, are not showing. Okay. Ill go ahead and put them up. Thank you. There we go. Thank you, judson. Can we go to slide two oh, we are on slide two. [inaudible] we would like to provide you sorry. We would like to provide you with a brief overview im sorry. Can you go back next slide . Next slide, thank you. Sorry. We would like to provide you with a brief overview of special education in San Francisco Unified School District. Overall, we have approximately 7,700 students with an i. E. P. Which makes up about 5 of students in sfusd. A small amount, 2 , are placed in the most restrictive setting, nonpublic schools. 24 are placed in special day classes, but 74 of students who receive special Education Services have their needs meet in general education classrooms with support of resource specialists or related services programs, which is why we always return our focus to this excerpt from the sfusd exclusive education guiding principle. Students requiring special Education Services are, first and foremost, general Education Students who need Additional Services and support in order to succeed in school. Their success, therefore, is the joint responsibility of all sfusd educators. Lastly, we want to commend our sfusd special Education Team for working hard to Keep Services moving during these unprecedented times. While much of our society has shutdown, there have been no waivers for. D. E. A. Further, sb 98 was created president ial requirements for Distance Learning. While it has not been perfect, and there is still work to be did you happen, we are grateful that our district continues to provide special Education Services. Next slide, please. Now for our priorities for the Current School year. Our first and most importantly priority is a focus on institutional racist, systemic basis and inequity in special education. Second, we believe that it is very important to provide social emotional supports that address all Students Mental Health needs during covid19 and whatever else this year may throw at us. Third, the move to Distance Learning and virtual classrooms has been a big pivot for our educators, so we are focused on increases learning and collaboration for general education and special education staff. Fourth, but most definitely not least, we are focused on strengthening academic based interventions for literacy and math. It is crucial that all students continue to have access to their education and can make academic progress in these fundamental areas. Next slide, please. My name is alita fisher, and i am the Community Liaison for special education. Im presenting on behalf of liliane lim, whose birthday it is today. On behalf of the entire sfusd, i say happy birthday, liliane. This is our first mission. We are continuing abbott eye racism training for the c. A. C. Board and are excited about the new opportunities for this school year. The c. A. C. Is rethinking our outreach efforts and even our meaning formats with our membership diversity and efforts. We look forward to continuing our collaboration with the joint council and Family Communities and other Community Outreach and empowerment events. The c. A. C. Is especially proud of our partnership with aapac, the African American parent Advisory Committee. Lastly, the c. A. C. Recommends 88 and 30, an 88 and 30 in color, a series of 30 interviews created by black and Indigenous People with disabilitied about the incident intersection of race and disability. While this whole series is amazing and worth watching, our favorites are blackautisticlearning, and 30 in 30. We shared this slide with the board in june and felt it was so important, we need to bring it back. The graph on this slide highlights the disproportionate amount of students in special education. This past spring and summer, the cceis, comprehensive coordinated Early Intervening Services task force, which consists of special education and general education staff, as well as 5 apac members has been researching the lived members of sfusd students and families that cause students to be pushed out of general education programs. The cceis teams will present their report to the California Department of education this fall. Until this report is approved, 1. 8 million is being held by the state. Once approved, it will be moved from holding to the education budget for intervention services. Lastly, we want to stress the important of literacy in this discussion and encourage you to read the linked article how families are pushing to teach reading skills more effectively. Next slide, please. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is naheed [inaudible] and i am the secretary of the parent Advisory Committee. After a very long and hard spring, the c. A. C. Advocates worthy of excellence wards in skbrun were a shallneeded opportunity to in june were a much needed opportunity to highlight achievers. [inaudible] which includes special education teachers, bobbie huang, and lauren page, as well as paraeducator miranda chen, laura romney, peggy huber, therapist at oaks childrens center. Joe goyas, and sabrina james, special education teacher. Even though this was a virtual ceremony, the contributions shared and the Award Winners were just as moving as when we were in person. We look forward to next years a. W. E. Award ceremony in april of 2021. Distance learning and the ongoing covid19 pandemic are taking a toll on students and caregivers. Many of us are experiencing a new form of isolation. The safety and needs of our students and Community Members with exceptional needs has been highlighted during this time. To address these needs and provide resources to parents, we are focusing our september cceis meeting on our education efforts. For Additional Details about the meeting, visit our website or information on our facebook page. Every ten years, the sfusd, c. A. C. , and San Francisco Special Olympics has collaborated on a special schools week. This years theme is the time for inclusion is now. Inclusive schools week provides an opportunity to highlight and model best practices, providing students with exceptional needs in our school as whole, complete, and valued citizens. Particularly now, as we are rethinking our classrooms and so thes, we must build inclusive societies, we must build inclusiveness in everything that we do. The next is to increase professionalism and collaboration for special education staff to enhance Distance Learning. Professional development is crucial as we pivot to distance laerping. This past august, the c. A. C. Participated in Digital District day, it was an opportunity to learn about the various tech tools available to staff and how to make our meetings and communications more accessible. We thank the department of technology for including us on that inspiring day. During Distance Learning, we ask for staff to have access and training on the following tech tools Remote Desktop access for teachers and support staff, streamer, for access closed captions to those who are deaf or hard of hearing, private messages options for support staff, and zoom meeting access for our students therapists. As the district creates new virtual krik also, the curriculum, the c. A. C. Hopes that more is available for our educato educato educators. We are pleased to have a large number of teachers and other staff in attendance at our august general meeting on Distance Learning. Zoom has made our meetings more accessible to staff and a resource to those looking for more information on how best to serve our students with exceptional needs. In january, we will be shining a spotlight on our paraeducators who provide important support to so many of our students with exceptional needs. Next slide, please. Literacy inventions. This bill would have eliminated an important reading test that teachers need to take to earn their credential. We cannot expect our teachers to be able to teach reading effectively if we arent ensuring their effectively prepared. The california dyslexia guidelines are more important than ever during Distance Learning. For students who need structure learned to learn how to read, it is critical that we provide those services. Math intervention. Last spring, we had hoped to have a meeting on math interventions, but the pandemic forced us to reschedule. We are happy to report that that item has been rescheduled for our february 2021 meeting. You are all invited, and we hope to see you there. Next slide, please. At our presentation last june, the c. A. C. Had eight asks to the board. While the district made progress in some areas, others still need work, and some new concerns have arisen one, we ask to keep Distance Learning for students who are thriving or have medical needs. The c. A. C. Is excited to hear a limited hybrid option is being planned, but parents and students in priority groups that are thriving in Virtual School or medically fragile should still have the option for Virtual Learning until it is safe or appropriate for them to return in person. Two, conversely, we ask to create an inperson option for students who cant access Distance Learning. While we appreciate that our most impacted students will be prioritized to return to school, there are many other students receiving special Education Services who are struggling and would also like an option to return. How and when will the district be able to skoaccommodate thos students . Further, the c. A. C. Is concerned about the layoff of the First Student bus drivers . How will transportation be provided if we dont have enough bus drivers when students come back . Three, we ask the district to provide inhome Parent Support and therapies for homebound students. While the c. A. C. Has seen some improvement in this area, parents are concerned about having to sign contracts, such as compromise and release agreements. In addition, the c. A. C. Remains concerned about how the hubs will help students with i. E. P. S. We ask the district to continue to advocate for our students, and five, we ask for a united educators memorandum of understanding that supports i. E. P. S. The c. A. C. Is proud that the fall semester m. O. U. Allows teachers to work a full day, but we are concerned about the ability of teachers to access i. E. P. S with fidelity. Next slide, judson. Thank you. Five, we ask to expand Home Delivery of meals for all members of home bound students. Thank you for providing meals to siblings of these home bound students. We ask the district to find a way to expand the number of families receiving Home Delivery. Can a. D. A. Accommodations and pick up sites be explored . For families with mobility issues, is there a way to make this easier . Six, we ask to address related needs and ensure that all prek to 2 students have learning devices. We still want to ensure that related services and all Service Minutes are appropriate in emergency learning plans and meet 1sb 98 guidelines so that students can continue to meet their goals. What is being done to move special education assessments forward . How is progress happening monitoring students with i. E. P. S . How will regression and learning loss be identified, documented, and supported this fall . Eight, lastly we ask to continue to expand structural literacy and science based dyslexia intervention. Wed like to leave you with an article by a. P. M. Reports. What the words say. Many children struggle with reading, and children of color are far less likely to get the instruction that they need, and the consequences are high for getting this wrong. We look forward to seeing you at our upcoming meetings. Please feel free to reach out to any of us and contact us to discuss any of these topics further, and finally, thank you for your time, and that concludes our presentation. All right. Thank you so much for your presentation. We have one small request. We missed our first slide, and we wanted to share just our welcome slide, which was pictures of members children, so if thats possible. Thats just some of the children that are represented. Great picture or rather great slide. Okay, mr. Steele, lets see if theres any Public Comment on this item. Okay. Thank you. Please raise your hand if you care to speak on this item today, on the c. A. C. Sped presentation. Just a moment. Hello, megan . Hi. My name is megan colusa, and im a v. A. Analyst in the district, and a c. A. C. Special education member, and i wanted to give my thanks today for all of the Board Members that presented . As always, there was an amazing presentation and highlighted a lot of the work that this argues is doing, as well as a lot of the that this organization is doing, as well as a lot of work that needs to be done. I work very closely with a lot of educators and educators serving students with special needs, and i wanted to strongly urge the district to especially move on the ask for more intervention, specifically interventions that can be used in our current learning situations for students with disabilities as well as training on supporting students with special needs via Digital Learning as well as offline home learning. Our special educators are working very long, tireless hours to try to meet the needs of the students on their caseloads but do not have the resources to do it. We need more interventions for students, especially math interventions. We need equitable access to intervention, like mathspire. Schools that cannot afford more kits are not able to serve all of their students, and we need more math interventions that can be applied online as these are students that have goals in these areas that educators dont have access to and cant makeup on the fly. Thank you very much for the c. A. C. Board, all of the c. A. C. Members, and all of the special education staff who are working really hard to meet the needs of our students. Thank you. Thank you. Marisa . Hi, good evening. Can you hear me . We can. Go ahead. This is Marisa Robinson. I wear many hats, but tonight, im going to wear the hat of a proud 11 grader who has cognitive disabilities and has an i. E. P. Due to members of the special advisory board, i was able to navigate the system of special ed for my daughter. I also want to speak to their African American special ed council. [inaudible] to help the fight. Im especially excited about partnering with the Advisory Council about addressing the disproportionality and under and overrepresentation of African American students in the district. I look forward to hearing the voices of our community through the data that we brought to the school board regarding the over representation of our babies in the industry. And dont forget to vote. Register. Thank you, and have a good night. Thank you. Michelle . Yes, hi, judson. Thank you. Good afternoon, commissioners, student delegates, superintendent, district staff, and Community Members. My name is michelle. Im speaking to you now in support of the Community Advisory council for special education, and their thoughtful and detailed presentation to you today, and their asks for the 2021 school year. The c. A. C. Is an integral part of the joint advisory and advisory alignment work within sfusd. They attend task force meetings, help to plan events, and members provide valuable feedback from the stakeholders to the district on on such things as the learning continuity plan and the labor attendance plan as youll hear about later in this meeting. We align our goals and priorities and Work Together to accomplish positive change. We are stronger together. Thank you. Hello, susan . Yes, hi, mr. Steele. Good afternoon Board Members and delegates. Im susan solomon, president of united educators of San Francisco. I think i say effort i hear a spedcac report. I want to echo what ms. K4colu and ms. Robinson said before me. Really happy to hear that january is paraeducators spotlight. If uesf can participate in that or help out in some way, please do let us know. We appreciate how everybody is working hard to solve some really difficult problems. We do know how much inhome support is needed and the complication that that brings in terms of health and safety for everyone, and uesf is committed to negotiations with the School District, which actually start this week around how we will be able to provide services and when we will be able to provide services to the students with whom we work. Thanks very much. Oh, and register to vote, and vote. Thank you very much, miss robinson, for that reminder. Thank you. That concludes Public Comment, president sanchez. I just wanted to open it up for Jean Robinson for maybe some additional responses. I know you work with the c. A. C. , but there was a long list of asks, and wanted to get your thoughts. Hi. Thank you for giving me a moment. Totally didnt prepare anything, but i will say that the c. A. C. Are fantastic partners. I feel as though the c. A. C. Is sort of my Oversight Committee, and theyre my site council. They definitely show up, and we collaborate, indeed. Having the ombudsman show up and serving as the liaison has been fantastic. Julia has been great in helping us hone in on what our collective goals will be. Their presentation yielded no surprises. Were very much aligned where the needs are out there in the field. Obviously, the pandemic has created all kinds of new situations and challenges for us, but were learning in together and committed. Were really looking forward to this weeks meeting also, which is going to focus on Mental Health. So all of sped will be in the house as we always are. We always show up, and we will avail ourselves to meet with the families first, and then, well Work Together to learn more about first wellness for ourselves and then obviously the children who are in our charge and in team members and taking care of each other. So im available to process out anything that might come up in the next few minutes, along with the c. A. C. Team members. Thank you so much, jean. Commissioner norton, and then commissioner lam . Thank you, and thank you for that great presentation. I just had two well, one comment and one question. Ill start with my comment, which is im so appreciative that the partnership that the c. A. C. Has built with the other parent groups. I think ive commented on that before, but i just really, really want to commend you for that. And, you know, as a former c. A. C. Members many, many years ago, i wish that i had thought of that. So im i just really think its an Incredible Alliance that youve built, and youre to be commended for that, particularly the work that youre doing with aapac and the antiracism work. Im interested and maybe if its too long, we can talk offline, but im interested in the changes that youre exploring for the meetings because that was always a challenge to get the full representation of our really diverse parents out to c. A. C. Meetings. I mean, its been our experience, right, with board meetings that were getting a lot more people showing up because its easier to participate through zoom, which i think we wouldnt have realized before this. We would have been oh, but it requires people to have an Internet Connection and a computer. [please stand by]. How to continue doing zoom even if we return to inperson because it has granted a lot of access to families who might not be able to come out in person and get to a meeting. So with that, i want to thank everybody for hearing us, and i have to go take care of my kid, and our other Community Members will take over. Thank you all. Yeah, thanks danielle. I think a lot of the credit belongs to danielle, but also, julia, our ombudsman. I think having a collaborative relationship with the district has allowed us to access more district services. Weve been able to coordinate vietnamese interpretation with a couple of weeks notice. If we had access to a bigger zoom account like, the account weve been using up to this month was capped at 100 people, and thats a good needtor us to have. Two years ago, they were 30, last year, they were 60 people, and now were up over 100. So our overflow goes to our Facebook Live page, but we have a lot of partners here in the city, but we have spark sf, and i dont know if one of our Corporate Partners could donate one of their links to the parent advisory meetings instead of it coming out of our engagement fund. That could be an opportunity for all of us to increase collaboration and outreach. Thanks, lee. And then, my last question, ms. Robertson or somebody at legal, can you just touch on the contract issues . My ears perked up with the concerns that families are having to sign about waiver or instruction agreements . So if you could just talk a little bit about that. That sounds really, really intimidating, and a huge barrier to our families, so i dont know if we have any response to that specifically. If danielle is in the house, she can chime in, but when we put a person in a home, there are some requirements that have to be met. Theres a waiver process thats happening at the forefront. And then, to waive claims is negotiatable, and its not definite for everybody, and its not a waiver for everything, either. Its kind of a moving target depending on what the needs are of a child. We start with sort of a boiler plate, so everything is negotiatable in my opinion. If a family doesnt feel good about it, we try to give opportunities for them to speak up, and we can i will make a commitment to work through it. Yeah, no, and i know that about you, and i really appreciate it, and i know that you always promote that. Its just so intimidating to even to even to negotiate, right . Like, let alone read through a legal form. Im just wondering if theres a way we can work with our providers and not make families sign a contract or negotiate a contract. I guess thet that were in a r unusual situation and that we want to cover ourselves here, but it makes it really hard for families. I wonder if we can just try to find a way to keep families out of that loop as they would be under normal circumstances . Well, point taken, and ill bring it back and continue to try to work in harmony so that people arent feeling intimidated. Thats the last thing we need at this time, really. I agree. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Commissioner lam . Thank you to the c. A. C. I always appreciate the thoughtfulness and effort that goes in, day in and day out, that our members put into the presentation. O if we can formalize the monitoring either call it a dashboard or list of how were working with staff, so just wanted to note that with my colleagues and note that one thing two followups around recommendations number 7 and 8, both around the assessment options and maybe, jean, you can respond to currently what options are. Wants to understand recommendations just arent the structural literacy and science and support, and just the end, i hope to be a partner with you in those areas. Ill just pause there. I missed a little bit of that. I heard you ask for an update on the partnership with ucsf and the yes, exactly, the assessments. Oh, the assessments, too. So well start with ucsf. I meet with, i would say more than once a month with ucsf, maybe every three weeks. They reached out to me at the very beginning of the pandemic, and they have shared all of their webinars on safety protocols and whats happening with kids Mental Health wise, stress wise, and ive shared with them a little bit of sort of just updates from our end and just some information. We meet every three weeks, and we can continue the conversations. They do need in a little bit of the kids not Case Management per se, but really Touching Base on how to best partner with the school personnel. So i feel that our work with ucsf is really healthy right now, and with strengthening, it will be ongoing. The assessment situation to date at this point is sitting in the hands of probably myself and labor. A task force did come together and came up with about seven recommendations, so were going to flush them out and kind of hone in on what looks right at this time and bring them back for another review. Were beginning our negotiations with u. E. Beginning tomorrow, so the essential piece is different. Like i seds, itsaid, its a t, but were getting close to addressing that. As soon as we do get back into the red and we are allowed to go back into the buildings, we will have the plans flushed out. And jean, ill follow up with you around the ucsf supports and the screening, just that its been multiyear that this has been coming up in the spedcac recommendations, if theres anything policy wise or just Strategic Partnerships wise, just want to be moving that work along. Yeah, because actually, that has taken a little bit of a back seat during all of this time. We are getting close to the point where we are bubbling up our regular work, so i look forward to that. Thank you. Commissioner collins, and then, well go back to commissioner norton. Great. I appreciate your comments and questions, commissioner lam, and i want to piggyback, but before i do, i want to start by reiterating commissioner nor tans praise for the spedcac and appreciation for other parent leaders that are official parent leaders and are just parents. I want to say as a parent in the district, there are parents in your c. A. C. That have helped me as a parent before i was on the board, and i know that youre accessible to families, and julia, i just want to approximately out that youve been helping parents before you were a staff member. So i want to say thank you, and also thank you for all the parents that i dont know about that youve supported in navigating, as Marisa Robinson mentioned. I guess on that note, i want to follow up at some point. We need to follow up with families, and i think julia is great, but i think our systems should be easier to manage and shouldnt require a people to help you, they should be a little easier. With that, i guess i do want to say i appreciate all the free labor that you guys are providing us, and i think that we should be paying parent leaders because of the work that you did. We ask Staff Members to put together presentations, and we pay them for their time, and i think we need to start paying parents stipended money because you were helping us improve. So im putting that out there, and i would love to talk to other commissioners i know we are in a budget crisis, but we are improving our system on the backs of mostly women, okay, who are working for our districts for free, so i just want to name that. And then, i guess, i want to move into a question that commissioner lam posed, and i want to follow up on it, which is last year, you shared the recommendations, and i want to ask deputy superintendent or maybe its superintendent matthews, how are we whats our whats our dashboard . I remember as a native american p. A. C. Recommended to us recommendations, and i actually went out and printed out several years of recommendations, and you could see a pattern of people repeating the same questions and asking for stuff, and it was unclear how the district was responding. And then, also, in some cases, we had responded, but it was unclear how we were responding as a district. So superintendent matthews, what do you propose as a very transparent and visible way to track requests of p. A. C. S . Do you have a system we could use right now . I think you mentioned a system. Give credit to commissioner lam. Commissioner lam mentioned a dashboard. I think for resolutions, what we do is we put them on a spreadsheet, and then, we list out all of the items im sorry. I apologize. My neighbor just started blowing his leaves, and we put them all on a spreadsheet, and then, we track progress on where we are, so we similarly could do that same thing, which would be it could be a dashboard, but more of a spreadsheet, and then tracking progress, either the red, yellow, green, or done, not done, but i could do those. I would appreciate that, and i think we could make that a part of the presentation, so the spedcac could make a presentation, and the district could present their dashboard at that time because i know we have those regular presentations. Does that sound like a good process . Yes. I also want to say that not every recommendation is made actionable. Actionable. Moving forward, some are, some arent. There would need to be clarity, just because something is active doesnt mean its red. I understand some things are sometimes parents make requests that are not they dont meet legal requirements or theyre not allowed in the budget, but i just want to talk about that. I know on the lcac, parents say were not doing enough. I do want to make is more visible. And then, i guess a follow up for all of us is assessment. It came up in the assessment are. We had a curriculum meeting yesterday. Specifically, interests ae a request for a conversation around assessment. We have our regular, like, formative reading assessments that we do for all students, and then, we have specific assessments that we rely onto support students with i. E. P. S, and im just wondering, director jean robertson, do you know, when youre talking about the Assessment Task force, is that the one, like, its the up i dont know and parents and stf that just talk about all assessments or is that a different specific task force thats specific to special education . Its very specific to special education. A referral is made for a speech pathologist, we do a battery of assessments. And Classroom Teachers will also do the academic portion of those assessments. One of the problems with all of these assessments is theyre all normed. On zoom, its very difficult to do because theyre all normed. So i guess thats another i was having just similar questions around just rating assessments, right . Because teachers usually conduct those in person, and theyre normed in a classroom under a regular session. One of the concerns that im having is oftentimes, parents or teachers will refer students based on regular informative assessments, but also just formative assessments as a teacher, i do spelling tests in a regular spelling exam, i might see that student has dysgraphia or dyslexia. Im concerned were bigging a backlog of kids that were not able to do the follow up on the assessment through the special education department, but were not picking up on kids through general assessments that might not be referred right now. Im just wondering what youre thinking around this. As a chair of the Curriculum Committee, we can make start to move conversations forward, and im wondering if you have any recommendations for us as a board in that process. Im fascinated that you are hitting it out of the park with this question because weve already sort of pondered all that it entails. So we have an obligation to child find, but we also have this pandemic situation, where the questioning we would have to question any referral coming to us at this point, given the circumstances, but we do have child find. We have something, but its not ready for prime time. Its being vetted across the nation through our partners. Theres a lot of alignment having in the field of education with the pandemic conditions. All i want to say right now is yes to everything you just said. It is absolutely on our radar. We have some things in development, and its not quite ready for prime time, but it hopefully will be soon. All right. And i do want to say, i agree with president sanchez, and i think just as a general, we need to be assessing learning, but how that looks is going to be really different right now, and we want to do it thoughtfully, and we want to do it ethically. So i think we want to have a follow up conversation just in general on how were assessing learning in our district, so i will look forward to talking to other commissioners and staff to set those meetings up and hope to involve you in and spedcac members in those conversations with an idea that special education members are also members of general ed classrooms and are identified a lot of times in just general ed classrooms with those assessments. And then, i guess my final question is just getting back to concerns that the spedcac had special education c. A. C. Had lifted up the Community Hubs i wanted to know if you have had an community or staff any of our special education staff has had an opportunity to follow up with maria su with the San Francisco department of children, youth, and families to ensure that the hubs are inclusive of students with i. E. P. S or 504s . I have had one conversation with maria su early on in the school year. Have not had one since. Did reach out again. Im absolutely open to the conversation on how to best support kids in the Community Hubs. So we do have a little bit of a pilot going with boys and girls club, believe it or not, through commissioner lopez hooked us up. So thats us doing that kind of piloting. You didnt have the conversation with id like to think of it as brokering a relationship. Okay. In getting some resources and support system on how to support folks in the community who are working with our kids, so we are absolutely ready, willing, and able to sit down with maria su and sit down with her and see how we can support her folks in the community. I just want to say i appreciate your willingness to partner with both families and Community Based organizations and just thinking creatively. I want to say that i have been disappointed i want this on Public Record can director sus and the department of children, youth, and families. They have explicitly in previous meetings stated that they were not open to allowing students with i. E. P. S in their programs or they were not for those kids, and i was very clear about saying those kids are all of our kids, and they are in all different you know, and so and specifically if they are interested in supporting students that are foster youth and Homeless Youth and students from historically marginalized backgrounds, a lot of those students have i. E. P. S and 504s, and those are to be included, so i will continue to work with you and appreciate this special education c. A. C. Who have also been advocating strongly to make sure that those Community Hubs have been inclusive of all of our kids, and i will hope to follow up with all of that in the joint select committee meeting. So stay tuned, and thank you again for all the work that youre doing, and thank you so much for your families, for your advocacy, as you mentioned, for the district, but also with the city, as well. Commissioner norton, and then Vice President lopez. Oh, i just remembered i wanted to follow up on the zoom question, and im just wondering if its possible for the c. A. C. To use our account in some way, and maybe thats not possible and, you know, not to put anybody on the spot, you guys can just take it under advisement. Thats my suggestion. Okay. Go ahead, Vice President lopez. Thank you. Thank you, everyone again, of course, for all of the work that you do. I wanted to follow up with a few things about a few things that i heard, and i made a note of the measurement piece. Well, specifically with how or if this is happening now, how are you measuring the students who are thriving right now . Because this has come up a few thi times, that some of our students are in crisis learning and Virtual Learning, so if you have been, how is it being measured . Is that for miss robertson . This was actually one of the recommendations that you gave, but if theres something that youve seen . Weve been discussing that, and we have family needs that run the gamut from oh, yeah, my kids okay, or oh, my gosh, my kids accessing education for the first time in years. And some of the specific examples weve seen particularly with the asynchronous learning or kids with adhd who cant sit for 45 minutes and just get the work done. The home environment and just being able to break when you can has just been so, so beneficial. I think now the home is the classroom, so so much of what were seeing is dependent on the overall family, whether or not its safe for a student to learn, and safe is a completely subjective term, right . So i dont know that we necessarily, as a c. A. C. , have any solid data, you know, other than what were hearing from our families, and as a special education advocate, i would say one of the hardest things for Distance Learning and enforcing an i. E. P. Right now is actually progress monitoring on goals. So ill turn it over to jean or any other c. A. C. Members who might want to me, ill just jump in there. So me personally, my freshman is suffering from adhd, auditory processing, and ive seen stes level reduced fr stress level reduced from not having to get to another classroom in four minutes, having to run in and dress out for p. E. Hes doing it, clubs, games, and ive heard that from other parents whose students have been able to concentrate better because its a oneonone. Also, not having to have their camera on, believe it or not. I know that thats a big controversy. I know its hard. Im a para, as well, and its hard to run a class or teach a meeting if everybodys camera is off, but ive actually seen students who have connected a lot more because they dont feel scrutinized, so they open up. Id like to collect more data on that, because my son had ten teachers to support him last year, and now, he has me, and parents are not equipped to do that, to be the para, and the counselor, and the teacher, so we have the two camps, and thank you for being mindful of that, too, and thank you for the question. Absolutely, and i know it was in your recommendations, but im just curious if theres something youve seen be effective, if we can utilize it. Now the question is for chimis robertson if we can do that . I have to survey that. But i do know for everything kid thats thriving under zoom, there is another one whos languishing, so theres a lot of individual stories out there, and we need to capture it in order to best serve them moving forward. So theres a discussion on how best to survey, but we havent landed on agreement in that just yet. And my last question is around contact contacting families, right, cause they have to agree to a plan during this time, and its essentially doing an i. E. P. , which im imagining is over a phone or over a video call. Where are we with contacting all 7,000 families . You know, i am embarrassed to say that i dont have the number in front of me. D. J. Irvin is our numbers guy, and he was actually off last week, but he was getting me a daily counting of how many e. L. P. S have been completed. [please stand by] springtime, we needed to bolster it and make it more rigorous. The teachers are teaching full days. The number of minutes look very different now. So we really need to make those elps more robust and in alignment with what is really happening right now. So thats the charge. Some teachers hit the ground running and knocked them out of the park. And others are still struggling. The supervisors and specialists are at the ready to monitor that and ensure that we have those phone contacts phone contacts all should have happened already. As far as readjusting those plans, those continue to be a work in progress. Okay. Thats actually that actually is clear for me. I think im asking the question because im afraid if the plans arent in place, what the students, so we make that happen, right. The way the law is written, it says you fall back to your Distance Learning plan. Whatever is in place, that can be put in place at this time. What were saying, we want to make sure that its robust and appropriate during this time. So the conditions are different. The way the law is written also, it says you fall back on your spring Distance Learning plan and you dont redo your plan until your new iep is due. If its due in march, but the Distance Learning plan isnt rigorous enough, then we need to get mom or dad or caretaker back to the table. I was hearing my colleagues request around measuring your recommendations and the resolutions we have. So i wanted to share, superintendent matthews, you shared with me, tracking of the latinx as an example. If we can make this a practice on what were passing and making sure were not just saying were doing it, but actually doing it. Thank you. All right. Unless there are any other comments or questions from Board Members, commissioner collins . Ms. Collins thank you, i wanted to ask a quick question. There was a request from parents about the ispire access. I wanted to know from director robinson, is the access based on site base licenses or district based and how do we ensure all kids that need it can get access. Thats a great question. I reached out to my director who helps to ensure that ispire is where it needs to be. We did order 700 licenses for ispire. It appears that we need more. So we have to go back and find the funds to make sure that everybody has access, because obviously, im not into denying access to kids who need it. So we need to make that happen. Thank you. If you could provide a report to the board and the special education c. A. C. On how many kids were talking about and the time line, that would be great and i appreciate you being on top of it. Happy to do so. All right. Thank you to the t. A. C. On special education. I appreciate the conversation, the robust conversation with the board and with staff. So thank you again. We are going to thank you very much. Quick question, sorry, mark. Commissioner sanchez. I want to check, do we do our appointments now or is that later . President sanchez that is now. Yes. I dont see it on its actually under special order of business, so its a little later. President sanchez we can move it up if you want, since theyre here. Can we . Yeah. Yep. If you want to, we can. President sanchez let me move the special order of business up since we have everybody. Okay, so this is 20922so1 appointment of five members to the Advisory Committee for special education. Kim, sue, sam, karen, we need a motion and a second . So moved. Second. President sanchez thank you. Okay, julia . Okay. So, tonight were asking the board of education of the San Francisco Unified School District to appoint to the citizens Advisory Committee of special ed five regular members to serve a twoyear term beginning august 21, 2020. The members recommended are kim, carla, sue, sam, and karen. As designated by resolution 63987, c. A. C. Bylaws say the c. A. C. Shall have a membership of at least 11 but not more than 25 members on staggered terms. The c. A. C. Currently, if these members are appointed, will have 21 members, leaving open four seats. The nominees named were interviewed and approved for appointment by active members of the c. A. C. And were ratified for confirmation through the approval process. Biographies have been provided to the board in a separate document. President sanchez thank you, again. See if there is Public Comment on the item . President sanchez, to speak on the appointment of the new members, recommended members of the citizens Advisory Committee, please raise your hand. Hello, ms. Marshall . Thank you. President sanchez and board commissioners, congratulations to the five names we heard. We heard a scathing stats earlier about the high number of africanamericans in special ed and i want to know about the diversity and i want to know how many are africanamerican . Thank you. Thats the only hand i see up. President sanchez go ahead, ms. Fisher. Thank you. On behalf of the c. A. C. I would like to appreciate everyone for considering these nominations. These are amazing new folks that were really excited to have join us. And as always, we encourage all members of the board to send any potential members our way. As you know, were an allvolunteer organization, unless you happen to take commissioner colins advice, which i totally love and we strive hard to be as diverse as we possibly can. You know, and we do attend as many of our advisory meetings as we can and many are active in our schools. I think that our has done a great job at outreach, but we realize there is a lot more work to be do and would love the boards assistance in being representative of our parent communities, because there is a lot of intersectionality in this district. Thank you. President sanchez all right. Commissioners . All right. To the Public Comment regarding diversity, i dont expect that you have something prepared on that, but if you do, you can share that with us now or provide the board with a memo later. We can provide the board with a memo later. President sanchez okay, thank you. Can i just make a comment on that . I thought that was sort of standing expectation for Advisory Committees, when we do appointments its fine, im going to vote on the appointments. I dont have a problem with it, but i thought we generally ask for that report. I know we do with the pac and that just seems like it should be a standard thing we do with Advisory Committee appointments. Its under the executive on the board doc agenda on that item. I dont believe that the cities are included, though. Correct . In the information to the public, we do not share member demographics or personal information, but in the bios to the board we provide that. And i would welcome connecting with ms. Marshall if she has any Community Members she thinks would be interested in joining the c. A. C. As members or Board Members. And we can also talk more about outreach efforts to other folks if people are interested. President sanchez i do appreciate the invitation again for school Board Members ourselves to recommend folks as well. Okay. So if there is no other comments or questions, roll call. Thank you. Ms. Collins . Ms. Collins yes. Mr. Cook yes. Ms. Lopez yes. President sanchez yes. Yes. Yes. Thank you, that is seven ayes. President sanchez thank you. Section e, consent calendar. We need a motion and a second. So moved. Second. President sanchez thank you. Any Public Comment on this item . If you have Public Comment, please raise your hand at this time. Seeing none, president sanchez. President sanchez any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent . None. Any items removed for First Reading by the board . Okay. Any items severed by the board or the superintendent for discussion and a vote tonight . Okay, seeing none, roll call, please. Thank you. Ms. Collins yes. Mr. Cook yes. Ms. Lam yes. Ms. Lopez yes. Mr. Moliga yes. Ms. Norton yes. President sanchez yes. Yes. Yes. Thats seven ayes. President sanchez thank you so much, section f, discussion and vote on consent calendar, none today. G, proposals for action. The first one is policy board policy 6142. 7 oh, this is the one that is withdrawn. This is going to be heard again at Curriculum Committee and then make its way back to the board for second reading. 10623a1, implementation of strategies that will optimize San Francisco School District transportation costs and modes of transportation that are innovative, student centred. Introduced by mr. Moliga. It was heard by the Budget Committee and received a positive recommendation. Commissioner lam, is there any comments you want to make about the resolution from committee . Ms. Lam overall, we had a great discussion about the resolution. A lot of work has gone in between commissioner moliga and the staff. And we had a positive recommendation as to the full board. President sanchez thank you. Commissioner moliga . Could you read the resolution into the record . Mr. Moliga resolution number 10623a1, implementation of strategies that will amount myself San Francisco School District transportation costs and support modes of transportation that are sustainable, equitable in the Student Center by myself. Whereas on may 14, 2020, with the covid19 pandemic impacting youth, california governor newsome laid out a grim plan announcing 53. 4 billion deficit that would slash funding for education. Whereas on february 19, 2020, precovid19 pandemic, superintendent matthews in his letter to the district staff alerted educators of potential layoffs and drastic cuts totalling 26 million and where as the School District spends 33 million to provide Transportation Services to 2000 Education Students in elementary and middle school, with individualized program, and whereas, a variety of factors drive up transportation costs, including the unpredictability of assignment with a choicebased assignment system. The location of special education programs. Transporting 56 students to 16 nonpublic schools in the bay area. Offering curb to Curb Services for students with ieps when hub transportation would be more efficient and meets some needs, and 19 different start times, 27 different pickup times and 40 schools that adjust their schedules on different days of the week for common planning time. Whereas, standardizing the amount of instructional time students receive having three start times instead of 19 different start times and implementing Early Release on the same day of the week for all schools could reduce transportation costs by 5 million. Whereas sfusd has been contracting with school bus First Student, inc. To provide and maintain school buses, hire and train bus drivers. Whereas transportation costs have increased 42 since 2014 due to a 20 increase in the daily rate and increase in the number of school serving students with Transportation Services in their ie pex and increase in the number of schools with modified schedules. Whereas in february, 2020, the board approved a threeyear contract with zoom for commercial passenger vans to create more flexibility when responding to unique home to School Transportation needs. Whereas in february 2020, the board approved a oneyear contract extension for the First Student, inc. For the 2021 school year that included a 6 increase in the daily rate charges and not to exceed the amount of 30 million. Whereas, february 11, 2020, regular meet of the board of education, president sanchez noted that the districts budget is in deficit and it is absolutely out of line to spend over 30 million on transportation every year and that number had just gone up every year. Whereas the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency manages a city wide safe route to School Program with established goals of reducing singlefamily vehicle trips by 37 whereas, the transportation working with katy tang completed a child transportation study with transportation challenges. Over half the parents said that they drive their children to and from school during peak periods of the day, contributing to additional vehicle miles, congestion in local neighborhoods. The study estimated that approximately 6080,000 miles are driven daily by parents transporting k5 kids to and from school. Further more, many were unable to participate in after School Programs because of lack of sufficient transportation. And whereas, 2019 Student Transportation r. F. P. Failed to find, they rejected all bids as cost prohibitive and forced to renew the contract with the existing vendor for one year at increased cost of 6 . Therefore, be it resolved that the superintendent of staff will implement the following strategies after the Student Transportation costs and modes that are innovative environmentally, and economical economically sustainable and student centred. No later than the 202223, implement schedules that provide equitable access to planning time and reflect the requirement and sb328 that middle school start no earlier than 8 a. M. And high school no earlier than 8 30. They must join efforts with the student Transportation Department on this effort. Strengthening the process for allocating Transportation Services during iep meetings and innovative and alternatives that expand offerings beyond curb to Curb Services and result in the least restrictive environment for our students. C, evaluate the fiscal implications of supporting the different students options being explored by the board of education and share these findings with the board in the fall of 2020 with recommending a new Student Assignment policy for elementary schools. Can everyone still hear me . Yeah. D, partner with the city to improve muni school trip, empty buses during school lettout times and bringing the safe goals to fruition. The department of children, youth and families and the board of supervisors to secure a California Department transportation Planning Grant for the purpose of cocreating a San Francisco School Access plan. The plan would include near and medium term transportations for k through 5 students focusing on equity and students with individualized programs. Students experiencing homelessness, foster youth and lowincome. It would have focus groups resulting in an action plan for recommendations for direct funding, pilot programming or Business Development plan. The plan will help meet regional and state transportation planned goals of reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions and car use, Sustainable Transportation and promoting equity. In the fall of 2020, issue a request for proposal for Transportation Services that design that is designed to improve the quality of Services Provided to our students, and reduce costs and shift toward sustainable modes of transit. From this process, recommend contracts for the 202122 school year to the board of education no later than december 2020. The r. F. P. Must reflect a system of commitment to reduce the yearly cost of the transportation to the School District starting school year 2021. And the following year. Improve the experience of students and families by various means, including, but not limited to, new vehicles, optimized travel time for students, flexible options to meet special needs and circumstances and modern technology for vehicles and students in transit and rate their experience and service. Provide transparent data on the performance of services and experience of students and family. Provide a clear path and commitment to obtain the district sustainability goals, including transforming an emissionfree Student Transportation system in future years. And reflect the principles of labor, management, cooperation and collaboration that have yielded positive benefits for the district and labor partners. Further, it be resolved, district staff must seek out options with an openended request that allows providers an opportunity to demonstrate how to improve service to the district and to students at lower cost. Written submissions should be followed by oral presentation to the Selection Panel, rather than a selection based solely on written proposals. They would have open Public Committee meeting exploring Selection Process to allow Public Comment and questions by committee members. Staff must ensure that while drafting, evaluating and recommending the award of a new transportation contract, that they write and release an r. F. P. That is openended, detailed and meets the goals of the district while promoting Creative Solutions for the bidders. Bidders should be allowed to propose multiple options, slash solutions which will be evaluated on their merits, including whether the recommendation recommended approach is reasonable and feasible. And whether the bidder had the Organization Capability and competency to perform the required services. In the r. F. P. , the district should not prescribe a number of buses and routes, but bidders are asked to present a bid with their own routing. They should not describe technology, but the type of service, visibility and the accountability that the district requires. The r. F. P. Should allow the bidder to bid with their preferred technology and how it will improve services to the district. In the bid evaluation and Selection Process, district staff must create a Selection Panel made up of district staff with subject matter expertise in and provide an opportunity for bidders to orally present the bids to the Selection Panel in addition to submitting them in writing to better understand the proposal and the capabilities. The Selection Panel must use a pointbased system of evaluation. Once the panel has completed the evaluation and decided on recommendation to the board, the Selection Panel must make a presentation to the Board Committee at an open Public Meeting to allow students, labors, and Community Partners to comment on the proposed recommendations. The challenges presented by the district, the District Needs to have vehicles stored, parked in a manner that allows them to be available when needed. In the r. F. B. , they must ask bidders how to solve the challenge and ask the type of Parking Solutions for vehicles, requiring a restaurant to limit the ability to attract competitive bids or drive up the bids. The fullest extent permitted by law, we will respond using the valuebased criteria described above, cost reduction, student and family experience, sustainability and the ability to perform, the contract, vendor best aligned with the longterm interests of sfusd articulated above. President sanchez thank you. Now, Vice President will read it in spanish. Ms. Lopez i will if you need it. President sanchez thank you so much, commissioner moliga. Any Public Comment on the item . Does anyone care to speak on the resolution, please raise your hand at this time. We have several hands going up. Looks like four or five. Thank you. Hello, meg . Yes, can you hear me . Go ahead. Good evening commissioners and superintendent. Im meg a School Bus Driver. I and others have brought up concerns with this transportation resolution throughout its amendment and reading. We have mentioned that the openended nature of this resolution seems to further open the door for an increase in the utilization of ride share, Tech Companies and gig workers and compromises the safety of the children and promotes the further exploitation of the marginalized workers. This would be unethical and go against the values this board claims to stand for. This transportation resolution utilizes many catch phrases such as innovative, equitable, sustainable and so forth. Understandably this resolution focuses on increasing efficiency and reducing cost. However, missing are any statements regarding student safety which should be a paramount concern in Student Transportation. Also notably absent is any substantial statement regarding fair treatment of those transporting the children, other than a general sentence about respecting general manager labor. Supporting documents provided at the committee meeting, revealed that the Transportation Department was considering allowing bus share locations as far as 50 miles away. This resolution and openended approach does not disclose the fleet location as has been done in the past. Instead, the resolution relies on bidders to offer solutions. I feel this could lead to a hodgepodge of inconsistent unreliable way of transporting school children. In the case of workers, they are not allowed to join labor unions. You should be looking for consistency in the workforce, reliability and safety in addition to cost savings. Doing otherwise would be a disservice. Thank you for your time and attention. Thank you. Hello, paul. Im paul. Im a School Bus Driver. Been with the district for about 49 years. Commissioner moliga and dr. Okeefe have done a lot of work on this and have good ideas. While i agree with most of what was said, i have a problem with some parts. [please stand by] since i have a few seconds left, i wanted to point out they have only been in the district 12 years. Before a. R. I. Services, it was educational recreational services. And before them was associated charter bus company. I dont know if that means anything, but i thought i would clear that up. But thanks for listening. Chairman thank you. Hello, megan . Hi, my name is megan, and im a behavioral andrew bell witanalyst with thel district. I wanted to echo some of the concerns around safety and training for drivers. As you may know, a large portion of students transported to school on buses are students with i. E. T. , who has transportation as a service, and some students with i. U. T. S will require special support and understanding and accommodations while being transported. And i share concerns around contracting with services that dont have training for drivers, particularly in and around student safety. Particularly in and around hope that this will be addressed. I appreciate all of the work that the commissioners have put into this detailed resolution. I especially appreciate commissioner malegan and his attention to detail and determination to read entire resolutions in all of their detail because this detail is needed to create a process that gets us to where we need to be with transportation. I just hope that the concerns around safety are addressed within this resolution. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Hello, jett . Hi. This is Julie Robertson calling in from my kids zoom account. I have concerns with this resolution, both as a parent and as someone who has helped to develop a Community Benefits and project labor greassments. Agreements. We know these resolutions drive proposals, and based on the way they crafted we end up with certain outcomes. My concern as a parent is safety is listed nowhere in this resolution. That means if the contracting language is drafted based on this resolution, even if sfufd found or had a sense that one of the contractors was not able to safely provide services, we would not be able to choose a different contractor if that particular contractor scored best on this in the matrix of it being used. It is very troubling that that language was left out, and would encourage the resolution to be amended to include language around safety. On the flipside, the word technology was in the resolution four times. As somebody who has worked on contract language, im just really concerned this is setting up a framework that will lead us towards contracting with companies that exploited workers, and my concerns around that are the works that provide transportation for our families are many of our families, are or graduates. Sfus d p sd it is what is counter to those values is dangerous. And i dont believe that were seeing that those companies are actually sustainable right now as we see uber and lyft fighting for their lives, as we hold them to the same standards as taxi drivers or taxi driver companies. I would urge you to change this to include the kinds of language that would match our values and goals. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Hello, susan . Susan solomen, united educators of San Francisco, standing in solidarity with the bus drivers and their union, the members who spoke, and their supporters who spoke. Of course safety is paramount, and that can be delivered through bus drivers who are currently working for the district. And while i spreesht appreciate language that says respect the principles of Labor Management cooperation, that have yielded positive benefits for the district and labor partners, as the previous speaker mentioned, there is no mention of a project labor agreement, nor is there really a clear definition of what the resolve means that i just read aloud. I appreciate the message, but i dont know what meaning this has for labor partners, because losing your job is not a benefit to a labor partner. So i strongly urge this school board to please not to let this become a union busing action, pure and simple. We can keep our students safe and keep a Union Workforce working for the School District. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Hold on. Hello, caller, 415 number . 902 . Caller, are yu there . Hello. Chairman yes, go ahead. This is caden miller, im a student at loyal high school, and i also have concerns with this plan, that it will shift away from our School Bus Drivers, who are highly trained in safety. And im also concerned about when we go back to school, the muni bus service that is currently provided at our schools will not be enough to meet social distancing guidelines. A lot of high school and middle School Students get to rely on the bus. They are not driven like elementary School Students. So when we go back to school, there needs to be adequate transportation to make sure were getting to school safely. Chairman thank you. Hello, tom . Hi, can you hear me . Chairman yeah, go ahead. Im tom anderson, and im a special ed teacher. The thing about safety is that students who get picked up who are in special education, the bus drivers are their first line of contact with the school. And many times they know the students really well. Just to dismiss that is a relationship and community issue, which i think is really important. The other thing, too, a lot of parents may not be able indescernable , the value may save money, but is it really what we need. The other thing is the same start time might be difficult when you have kids in three or four different schools, lets say, and also the needs of the communities in terms of the schools and the staff. My school just got, you know, our planning time, and we had to fight for that. So i think to say a blanket statement is maybe not the best tuay to way to approach it. I would encourage you to look at safety because that is the number one thing, before anything. So please be robust in that. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Randy . Hi, my name a brandy markman, and i stand in solidarity with a lot of the people speaking before me. I remember as a child, my late brother, who had autism, and how important having a quality relationship with the bus driver is. I also share some of the other callers concerns about privatization and giving the gig economy more of a foothold in our district. So i just wanted to bring up those two things. I think it is really important when these resolutions are written, that families with children with disabilities and educators are consulted, as well as their labor partners. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Thank you. My name is donny alyoung, and im in support of the School Bus Drivers. The cost of everything is going up, so lets not put that all on transportation. Im supported of having trusted drivers to take our special needs students safely to and from school. Im supporting our School Bus Drivers. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Chairman hannah . Hi, im hannah, im a school nurse, and this issue is really important to me because a lot of my students at 504, the students with i. U. P. Use get transportation accommodations. Just from being on the bus with bus drivers, and hearing everyone talking, yes, safety is the most important for our community and for our schools and our students and their families. And, um, i think keeping the transportation within a union of sfusd workers will keep our Community Safe not only physically and emotionally, but also the Mental Health and just the wellbeing of our whole community. From what other people are saying, the fact that there are a lot of families that have been in the district working, that have children who go to our schools, or grandchildren in our schools, and also just that were not using gig workers for outside organizations, corporations, to get services were going to continue to need going on with every year. I think that if we can come up with a way to do that from our own district, it will help actually keep funds down longer. So i urge you to keep our bus drivers. And thats all. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Tara . Hi. Im a teacher with the district, a special education teacher, and im also a parent. I just wanted to really think about what it would mean to get rid of our bus drivers. Theyre really hardworking individuals, and they set the day up for our students. And to have it be like another service would really do a disservice to our kids. I urge us urge the district to rethink this. Thats all. Thank you so much. Chairman thank you. Jan . Hi, im jan jenn, and im the chapter president of protect local 21. I would just like to say in this that our union is in total solidarity with the bus drivers, and i think Something Like this speaks to what experience means. And. What people who have worked for the sfusd for, like, over a decade, or even more, when they devote that much time and it shows that theyre really connected to serving the students, how important that is. Its, i think, taking the bus drivers out of the loop, were losing sort of a lower base of our pyramid, and thats and its the lower parts that have been there the longest and that has been there for the district, through thick and thin. I would really like you to consider this and retaining the bus drivers in any way, shape, or form. Okay. Thank you. Chairman thank you. Nicholas . Yes. Hey, so, im a School Bus Driver for First Student. Ive been a School Bus Driver for them for about six years now. And i just wanted to let you guys know that, you know, as the gentleman alluded earlier before me, with the lower part, taking that away, you do take away the Community Aspect of it, as far as bus drivers are concerned, and as far as relating to the kids. You know, some of them may not, you know, have family at home, or they may not have a stable household at home or whatever, but that bus driver is there for them, to get them home safely and to get them to school safely. Now, when i drive these kids when theyre on my bus, theyre like my kids. So i make sure i get them there safely, and i love what i do. If you told me i was going to be a bus driver when i was six, i wouldnt have believed you. But being able to work at First Student and work in the city of San Francisco, it is a blessing, to be able to transport these kids and see their faces, their smiles. When youve got to get on them and discipline them, you have to just for their safety because thats first, and i mean that. Im not trying to be politically correct or whatnot, but im serious when i say that. So i appreciate you listening. And thank you. Chairman thank you. Michelle . Hi. My name is michelle cody, and a teacher at sfusd, and im standing in solidarity. I have a Family Member that goes to an m. P. S. School, and that child has to travel across the bay. And our family puts our faith in the bus driver that takes care of our kiddo, and makes sure theyre safe. We have that bus drivers telephone number, and thats extremely important. Once you put your child on the bus, you want to make sure they do their best to keep them safe. I want to stay in solidarity with the bus divers, and make sure the teachers have their back because their essential and crucial to us being successful. Chairman thank you. That concludes Public Comment oh, one more. My apologies. Hello, mickey . Hi. This is amos, mickey is my husband, and we have a kid in sfusd, and i was listening to the radio and i just heard about this. My daughter is a special Education Student that relies on the school bus to bring her to and from school. So this is a shock to hear that were trying to privatize, and the bus drivers have been lifersavers for us. The bus drivers let us know when theyre running late, we have their cell numbers. So im just calling in support of the bus drivers. We need them the they keep our kids safe. We know them well. And theyve been vetted. I would want those responsibilities to go to a rideshare driver. Thank you. Chairman thank you