it is fascinating how intensely emotional some of the reaction to those letters have been. we as americans have a right to know whether the people who want to replace have significant influence in the obama administration. host: frank is a republican. he wore on with newt gingrich. >> you can see that conversation and our video library. eco live to pasadena, california for an update on the mars curiosity mission just getting started live on c-span. >> an update on all the activities, we have michael watkins, the msl manager from the jet laboratory. the principal investigator for the camera on curiosity, mike malin. don sumner from the university

of california in davis. andy mischkin from jpl. doug ellison at jpl. we will begin with michael watkins predicts good morning. but another fantastic day on mars. curiosity continues to behave basically it flawlessly three had executed all of the planned activity successfully and nominally yesterday. it is a good time to point out the team operating curiosity also is performing basically flawlessly and completing of planned activities as well. it really is a great day all around. a couple of things for these activities, we are about to do or upgrade our software on the

rover, just like we upgrade our operating system on your home computer or laptop, we're going to do the same thing. the software though it is optimized for service. landing does not have to drive the rover and operate the arm. the service does not have to land the vehicle. we will switch to the new flight software that is optimized for surface operations. we will do that starting the day after tomorrow. sol 5. prep work for that activity. we will check out the backup flight computer and make sure it looks fine. we sent the files to get ready for the software transition. we also checked out more instruments to do more health checks on the remaining instruments. we checked out four different and they passed successfully, all in great shape as far as we

know to the tests we have done. that is a great sign. no anomaly showed up at all in those tests. we also took a whole lot of imagery around us. we took a panorama using the navcams and look back at ourself and took a close-up of the deck, and the first 360- panoramic to greet and color -- view in color. let me start by showing some of those images. this is the deck pan. zooming in, that is the rad instrument. you can see a few large hovels on the surface. apparently, they were kicked up

by the lending event. armoires engines pushed up some of the gravel may be about a centimeter in size on top of the rover. they pose no problem for operations. we do move the black thing, the pivot around, but can easily crush these or not even hit them at all by going over the top of them. we do not see any operational constraints, but it is a little unexpected is there. when the team analyzed the landing before landing, i do not think they thought they would kick up things this large. they are looking at that. maybe these are lighter materials than the expected or something like that. the el guys have nothing to do now. [laughter] this is something for them to do. we do not see any impact from this. it is not affecting the

observation, so we think all of that is in pretty good shape. let's go to the next slide. this is kind of a context shot. you can see the hiking antenna, the thing that points off to the side and behind it, the little thing sticking up is the low and antenna. you can see the rim of the crater in the distance there. we also acquired some color pans of this area, and mike will talk about those. >> thank you. here i am again i am wearing a different hat this time. and the principle of investigator of the navcam. we got a 360-degree panorama into the sequence from yesterday. we got our thumbnails back. i need to tell you, the full frames are now stored inside the

camera. we do have to get to those images, get them out and stored in to the rover's memory in order to bring them back home. the sol is the last sol until the software activity goes through to get them cued up. and we will keep up a few resolution images. i am showing you thumbnails. you should remember back a couple of sols ago when i showed to the thumbnail of the heat shield, then faded back into the full resolution. that is the kind of different you should expect between what we show you now and what i will show you when we get some of the full resolution frames back. if i could have the animation or video, please. this is the full 360-panorama. it is the color as it was transmitted, except it was pretty dark to begin with.

the area going off to the right, the impact, the impact of the rocket plumes. we're panning across the base of mount sharp. we see a shadow of some of the hardware on the rover is self. we zoom in because there is a big gap the places we did not take pictures, to be a better view of the images we did get. you'll pick up a the very top, a slightly different color, light layer as was seen any navcam. this is the area that has been discussed, shown last time i was here. we talked about bedrock and picking up material by the rocket plumes. if we can keep going. beacon back out from this and show you the full -- we can back out from this and show you the

full mosaic. then we will show you the plumes. they are light tones. that could be a contaminant. we won't know unless we observe these things. but other than that, this is a very low resolution image. the images are only 144 by 144 pixel, 130 in here. it took us about an hour and six minutes for the mosaic. and it off.i will handl >> we have these beautiful images and mike did a nice job describing some of the interesting features. we are looking forward to the full resolution images. we can also see the main reason we chose gayle as a landing site. if i could have the first slide. this is the navcam mosaic. in the upper right, you can see

the main target area of where we want to go. in the hills of the background, between 190-200 degrees at the top, ec these beautiful knolls of layered rocks. those players -- layers are what the recording the history in gayle crater. the main reason was to study those rocks. piquancy those in the distance from where we are. -- we can see those in the distance from where we are. it is exciting thinking about getting there, that it is quite a ways away. we also want to be able to take the science where we landed and integrate that into the mission as well. the next slide. i have been coordinating with others, and mapping effort.

this image you can see the landing in lips outlined in red, and we have divided the area to about 1 mile by 1 mile quads. we have volunteers from the science team at each quad. looking at the different textures in the images and mapping the boundaries between those textures. we do that for geology and on earth. curiosity ended in quad 51, which happens to be one of the ones i mapped. i am sure that was intentional but in navigation team. what the science team is doing, we have these individual maps and started integrating them to get the broader picture. also, investigating the rocks and craters and patterns around

where curiosity is now. we will use this matter -- map to find a pass from where we've added to the main target at the base of mount sharp, which is south of where we landed. we will drive on the northwest side of the dunes and go through a break. on the way, we will have interesting geology to look at. the team will leave balancing observations and scientific investigation on our drive, but also still get to the base of mount sharp. if i could have the next slide. this is quad 51 where curiosity landed. you can tell by looking at this image that we have several different textures of rock and services in this. the team is focused on what is the key observations we can make

that will tell us about our landing site, and many will go from those and choose a path to the base of mount sharp. doing the best science recant along the way, but also keeping -- we can along the way, but also keeping our eyes on the beautiful layered rock at the base of mount sharp. >> your hearing about these great results in images coming back and what they mean, i am here not to talk about those, but talk about what we're doing all day and our mission operations in order to enable getting those results back. my team is the team that does the command sequencing and intergrades things coming from the science teams. it is a challenging issue to actually do the operations because we cannot do we stick the rover due to time delay and a number of other reasons. we have highly resource constrained vehicles, the amount

of power we are getting is basically a little bit more than you need to power a 100- watt light bulb he may have at home. we need to also deal with the data volume and basically make sure we can fit the data we get into our next available opportunity to get data down through our order barring -- order relays. in addition, we have to make sure we can achieve what we want within the time available to the rover because they can only do things so quickly, and get that done in time for the downlink. we can only communicate with the rover a few times per martian day. we have to fit those things in. in addition, we have to do all the managing of different types of activities the members of the science team and engineering teams want to do, for example,

we do not try and point the mast to take images in one area when we want to be taking engineering camera images. there are hundreds of rules we need to manage. all of that takes time. our solution to dealing with the challenges is effectively we are erecting a software program every day that has to run the first time -- we are writing a software program every day that has to run for the first time, telling the rover what is going to do the next day. that really involves a combined team of engineers and scientists who are working together over the course of 16 hours, basically every martian sol. if i can get the graphic. this is just a brief summary of our process. you will see all of this going on is pretty much when the rover is asleep.

that is what we call it the overnight time line, from the standpoint of the rover. we're doing our work when it is not really doing much activity, except maybe brief way cups for nighttime operations or communications. in this process, we have the starting point in the timeline where we get one or another orbiter as bringing down data basically from the rover's late afternoon, and getting down on the ground, which has some variation from sol to sol. we produce the products in order to be a to see the images as constructed and the other telemetry. our engineering teams and science teams are assessing and making sure the rover is healthy over the course of a few hours, and looking at the results so based on that we can decide what we want to do and what the next steps are for the sol that will follow. at that point, we end up in a

meeting where we end up addressing those items, bringing the key issues to the forefront. that involves about 20 folks at that point. in parallel of that, science and engineering teams are looking at the activities that need to be constructed into a coherent plan for the next sol. when that is put together and the conflicted, we make sure we're not violating any of the hundreds of constraints, we will review that for a group of scientists and engineers, maybe about 40 people, and we are ruthlessly sticking to this time and because it is leading to our command opportunity. after having that plan, we then turn those into command sequences, which effectively is the software of up to maybe 1000 commands will be executed to govern exactly what the rover is going to do over the next martian day.

when we prove to ourselves we have not created issues and everything will execute properly, then we approve that up think it. you can see the deadline. it is the one time to tell the rover what we wanted to do. -- what we want it to do. it can communicate in the afternoon the results of what happened. that is the basic cycle that really keeps over 100 people busy over that 16-hour time line, and really running a sprint every day to make sure we can meet that mark and keep the vehicle productive and gathering science. i will turn it over to doug. >> exactly a week ago, i was introducing you all to the sol

system. the module, specifically made for curiosity's entry and landing. i did not want to spoil the surprise. the surprises, it works. i will give you an update on how it went, how many people were watching, and other things you can do in the solar system now that we're on the ground. i reported the touchdown time 10:17 and 57.3 seconds. the navigation team gave us a trajectory three weeks at a touchdown. our touchdown time was 10:17, 57.9 seconds. we are very pleased with that. most people were probably basing it on the clock on their own computer rather than the

trajectory. i want to thank steve collins it was in the darkroom during landing we were on call in the afternoon and steve was gesticulating to us and the other room, for the pointing of the spacecraft and we got that in before the big traffic arrived on the solar system about 9:00 in the evening. between saturday and monday, we've had 973,000 visits to eyes on the solar system. landing at a long, over 700,000 visits. to give people this amazing experience. not just people at home. some of those visits doubled ford. there is any event led by glenn nagel. hundreds of people were watching their. it was streamed live into a google hang out. museum of science and industry,

arts and sciences in georgia, planetfest just down the road here were all using the system. in total, reports of about 65 different landing events which were using "eyes." almost eight her thousand extra visits. we will be replacing me trajectory -- we will be replacing the trajectory. it could turn into reconstructive trajectory and we will let you know when you concede the actual series of events. we are about one quad away from the landing site. i think we were in quad 64. once we get the new trajectory we will put that in. in the meantime, there are still things you can find in eyes.

we a people sending us some of their favorite things. i can cut to the live feed. one of our favorites was this one. it is the donut shop. people putting the camera right behind the vehicle just before separation. we have people sending as different screen shots of things they were doing. one guy had a triple wide desktop machine watching this landing. i will skip a few things you can still have a look at mike was talking yesterday about the ballast impact spotted by the camera. here it is leaving the spacecraft in eyes. the pictures at the back of the room, the impact this will get around this little mesa down here. when we get the reconstruction, we will put that back here as well. touchdown was a little bit off.

the actual landing site is not far from here. we can show you how far off the war if we zoom out. the real landing site is about here. we're not far off. we have the sky crane fly away. by good fortune, roughly happen to be in the same direction. off it goes to a safe disposal. there is even more. if we go to sol 2, taking up the moment in time when the mst was deployed. i will fast forward. it takes about a minute. there it is. turning around to the position. you can see mike's beautiful cameras there. this does not live in isolation,

and lives with all the other space craft. going back to mars at the moment in time where things are right now, you can see curiosity right here in gale crater. we have mro. the question was sent, is there a book that table of communication passes? actually, you can find them right here. if you fast forward, you can see as the planet rotates, you can see these going overhead. another one for odyssey right there. every few hours, the spacecraft flies over. there we can see the sunrise in the east. all of these things are things people can still do at home.

we'll have news for you and we get this trajectory replaced in a few weeks' time. >> we will start with questions at jpl and then go to the phone line but i will start in the middle. >> mike, the colors your shyness and these images, are the natural color -- you are showing as in these images, are the natural? >> they are not white balanced. there with the camera sent back. i did brighten it up because the elimination -- illumination is much less on mars foand we wantd to make sure we did not saturate the detector is something was glinting. i just bring them up. that is with the beer filter gives you. >> doug, into simulated the fly

away, he estimates the angle at which it struck the surface question of >> i can eyeball it. will be onhe edl panel tomorrow and can be a better idea and i bawled guess is 45 degrees. -- eyeball guess is 45 degrees. >> jonathan, bbc. can you compare what you have got with what you will, gives a sense of how much bigger in terms of scale this other image is when you get the whole thing? we fill in the top as well? >> the data volume will be 64 times larger. the resolution will be eight times better. these are extremely reduced

versions of what we were getting. in a sense, we originally proposed the zoom lenses. i am basically giving a slow- motion resume. we have a low resolution camera, then will take a high-resolution camera, and eventually we will use the 100 millimeter lens and that will get even closer. but this was interesting and pretty enough we thought it was worth sharing with you guys. >> [unintelligible] >> we have not filled in the top. there are gaps in the bottom as well. those are not really in the plan right now. this is the first. we hope we will get many others, and we hope some point there will be guided by science and not by just taking a random picture. this one had to be planned. it was planned in november of last year. what you see is what i thought.

it was complely independent of where the vehicle was pointing or anything else. it is a random shots where you see the landing. the turnaround and take a picture. use raw your tripod and take a picture. it probably is not the best picture and does not include everything you want. we're hoping as we move out of the characterization activity phase, that we can start putting in and getting better things. >> let me add one thing. mike richter good point. most of the activities we have executed in this phase were actually uploaded to the vehicle a couple of months ago. that is partly because we wanted to check them out and make sure there were 100% guaranteed to work. we wanted to check them out. ultimately, we had to pre-build them before we knew what we have to look at. we did not know exactly where

mount sharp was going to be and things like that. the talking about this team working on the technical timeline that is very pressing, we wanted to reduce the workload. we're trying to flex our muscles slowly on the rover. we're trying to flex them a little slowly on the team as well. we wanted have more things for the bill so we did not have to write as much of the program each -- pre-built so we did not have to write as much of the program each night. now it into more optimal targeting coming up shortly. >> in the cap intermission, i think there's a question from the audience, we do have some mosaics we're going to be able to move a little bit. they were planned to be moved. we have a place holder positions. as to get into the phase where we can do that, which is after the software update, which is critically important to us as

well as running the vehicle, then we will move them around. one we hope to shoot with the 100. we do not have any yet. there are none pre loaded to the vehicle. there is still that instrument to be checked out. we're going to try to shoot mount sharp with that. >> we go next to the phone lines. go ahead. >> thank you for taking my question. i think this is probably for mike for dawn, with the color panorama, are there certain features you're better able to see as opposed to black and white? are there things you did not notice at first they came through in the color through wih the color shots? >> color and brightness on mars are very closely correlated. i don't see anything personally

in the color that i didn't see in the race village. but i am trained. and what to look for. i think the importance of this mosaic at this point is that it can show everybody -- everybody can see the difference is. the discolorations that you see around the rocket plume areas and the color and brightnesses of the rock in mount sharp in the for field, those are real differences. we don't know what the differences are, but they are real differences. the color can discriminate something in the order of a thousand different colors, but only about 60 different grade skills. -- gray scales.

>> for the engineering team come it was easier to see the dust in the color image then in the black and white. >> irish television. these briefings to place just as the news broadcast in europe. could you be specific as to when you think, in perth days, when you think the panel will be available and when you think we might be mount shark in full -- mount sharp in full in birthdays? how higher those cliffs? think i can address

all of them. i don't think we will see more than a couple dozen of the full resolution images from this panorama until after the software upload. putting commands to -- the idea is that you take pictures with your camera and there in your camera. what do you do with them? you physically take out the card and put that in your computer. i can do that with my camera. [laughter] i have to ask the rover to go get them. and we have only put in a request to do that, something like 24 images, to pull them out of the card. and today is the last the we have to be up linking commands like that.

now we get some more back. we are also limited by a band with. the images will be to megabits 2 4 billion bits -- 2 megabits to 4 megabits. that will run into the gigabit and i am not expecting to see many of those come back for quite a while. we don't have the band with, like the seller cable. so there is that issue. -- like dsl or cable. so there is that issue. high above the crater wall, there are two problems. the no. crater wall is actually orthernhan the -- the no.

crater wall is actually lower than the peak of the opposite wall. we're below the height of that wall. but it is only about 2 kilometers higher than where we are right now. >> ok, we will go to the phone next. go ahead. >> question for michael watkins or anyone else who might answer -- several of the photos that have come down, i see little pixilated versions of the rover. the captions said that they will be used with smart phones. is there an app in the works by jpl and when are you going to release it to? will you attempt to make these open, like google and so forth,

so people can add the data? >> i can take that one. i am not sure the specific timeline for the ar tags. you are probably best putting in a question to my bpo for that. but online, there is already an on-line experience. the be a martian app already in progress. >> in the room, we will go to the middle. >> reuters. the color panoramic images that you are showing this morning, when were these taken? >> these were taken at 11:00 p.m. last night here.

>> what hope checks were run at the same time on the same day -- you said you checked in number of instruments? and what instruments have been checked and are there a number of instruments you should have not checked and have deemed them so far ok and operable and functional? >> everything i listed, the online rce check out, the mazcam and 360 pans. so they have all been checked out. but there are different levels of checking them out. if i turn the circuitry on and

let electricity flow through it, is it basically working? there are some mechanical check- ups. can i move things around inside sam mechanically? that hasn't been done yet. the calibration and the full performance of the science instruments has not been convicted yet. we're starting off slowly here -- has not been tested yet. we're starting off slowly here. we're getting images from mike cameras.-- from mike's there are still loads of instruments to be looked at. >> we have one more caller on the line and then we will come back to the room. we will go to ian o'neil from discovery news. >> i was just wondering about the debris on the back of curiosity. thatasn't it anticipated

debris that size would be on top of the rover? are there any insurance, vulnerable to it? will there be a follow-up study? -- are there any instruments that are vulnerable to it? will there be a follow-up study? >> it was not predicted could the propulsion folks tried to figure out how much pressure would be on the martian surface. they took a guess at the range of particle sizes. the accumulated that and figured it would not kick things this big. this means that these materials are lighter than expected or the exhaust was stronger than expected or it it was all closer to the ground than expected. we don't think they have any impact on us right now. there were some potential things that could have landed on the rad instrument detector, for

example. there were results is today and it is fine. we don't see anything like that on the deck. some of our other instruments could have been impacted by one of these, but we have not seen any evidence of that yet. in terms of mechanically obstructing any of the things on the rover, there is no problem with that at all. >> on the other question, held last? we won't know. >> this is mark kaufman with " the washington post" and "the national geographic." you say there are about a thousand commands or so what to curiosity. have there been any anomalies? is this something that is just reading it in a near perfect

way? >> i will say that coming in this early set, with some of the things already on board, the command being actually uploaded is a little bit below that. it is representative of really the combination of the things we are uploading and some of the things we have on board. we anticipate we will have something of that order when we are fully in the nominal process, when we don't have any of this pre-built stuff. but we are not having any trouble getting things on board. we have had some small shakedown issues related to getting in the habit, but we have not had any issues getting our commands on board. >> in the diagram, you showed that both odyssey and mro are being used in terms of transmission. how about the european

satellite? is that something that can and will be used to? >> we do have plans, i'm not sure exactly which sol to work with max, but it has not been used to date. >> over here on the iaisle. >> the planetary society. for mike, what kind of data rings are you receiving from the rover and when will you be able to ramp up to the two megabits per second? >> we have been up to a few hundred k data rates so far. we started out very low and ramped those up slowly as each of them proves successful. probably, in a week or so, we will continue to increase those data rates and -- the specific

question was adaptive data rate. they can dynamically adjust the data rate. so the link is very strong, opted to megabits per second. as you continue to progress through the data rates, we will probably get to that within a week or two. we are being a little bit cautious here because of flight transition. mike was talking about the backlog of data. it is important to check out the telecom system fully and get more of the data cleared out of the camera buffers. we're trying to get the data rates up as fast as we can. >> my impression from the images is that this is a much more colorful place then we have ever landed before. is that correct impression?

can you speak to what that means scientifically? >> that is my impression as well. but i spent almost no time looking at the navcam. i saw this thing when i came in very early this morning. some of the coloration we are seeing here has to do with the sand dune. you see the dune fields is dark and this camera, it will look sort of bluish. so there is darks and, red dust, and a substrate raw which is tan or light tone of some type. those are the basic elements we have known for mars from telescopic observations. andknow, from the 1950's 1960's and all the way through our recent transmissions.

it can also be a factor texture , as we found in the murder sites -- in the mir sites. certainly, nothing you could see optically different. the way sand and dust is trapped by a surface will also change their color. i cannot say if they are more color for more diverse than the others just on the basis of the photography. i would expect we will see lots of patterns from that. >> if i could add something to that -- we have been looking at the high-rise and mapping. when you start looking in detail, there are a lot of variations in the texture. one of the things we will be working on is mapping these

images that we see, in particular the monty descent images, onto the high rise once to really try to see what that diversity is. we are very excited that there are a lot of things to look at. as mike said, we don't know that they are the same or different compositions. but they certainly have different textures and we're hoping the color can help as a guide us to some variations as well. >> "florida today" and "usa today." i'm hoping you can tell us what you will be doing within the next 24 hours. it sounds like you'll start the software upgrade. i was wondering how long that takes and whether you think you can do anything else during that upgrade or if that is just what you have planned. >> on cell 5, those after

transition were devoted after that flight software activity and not to science. the reason is that we have two computers. when you think about opening your own software, it is down for a little bit. there are some backup copies and delivered into one and loaded on to another and very 5 -- and verify each of those steps. then there is a part where you're stuck between the old software and the new part. we don't want to start new complex activities in the middle of that. so week -- so we will be back to science activities after sol 9. >> i certainly hope he does better than i have done on my

machines. [laughter] >> ok, we will go appear. quickly. we have five more minutes. >> just to clarify what an earth day cell 5 is. >> it starts on saturday. >> ok, in the front of the room. again, we have about five minutes left to get a couple of questions in. >> bbc. in your quads, you should a son the navcam panorama where you want to head to. can you show us which squad that is? >> it is not in any of the quad we have mapped. actually, it is. it is about 120, 121, 134, 135. so down towards the bottom is

the area that i was pointing to in the navcam. >> the second part of my question is has there been any conversation in the science team about using the -- or has there been too much contamination? >> there has been a lot of discussion and eagerness to know what the composition of the rocks are end user laser. [laughter] -- and to use our laser. [laughter] >> in mapping this area with the orbital imagery that to have available, does it look like what you expect it to? a few rocks, wide deposit, whatever? >> >> almost none of the rocks we can see in the foreground are visible from the orbiter images.

so this area we identified as being smooth and we sort of have a number of units. this is one that, in compiling the map, it is difficult to interpret what it was. so the images have given us our first sense of what this terrain is like. and we are now discussing what it means in the broader context, ways that it might have formed, how we can -- what observations we can make to understand how it formed. >> any more questions here in the room? all right. that will be it for today. i want to remind everyone that we will be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. pacific time. we will have a longer format press conference at that time. we will have our daily updates. we will also have the anti- descent-lending -- the entry

/descent/landing team . broadcasters, please stand by for the replay of images. >> and to let you know some of our prime-time programming, a look at foreign policy from a recent gathering at the aspen institute. a pair of events, looking at u.s. policy toward iraq, afghanistan, and pakistan. here is a preview. >> in invading iraq, we took up probably the toughest problem there is in the region. it is, after all, where the persian world meets the arab world, where the she of world meets the suny world, or the turkish world meets the arab world. if you're going to go into the toughest place, don't just do it on adrenaline. do it by maybe doing a little homework. i feel that we should have done

an awful lot more homework. when you look at a dictator, the first question should not be how do we get rid of him? the court -- the first question should be how did he get there? once you figure out how a person like saddam hussein got there, that should form the answer to how you get rid of him. clearly, iraq has to be ruled by some combination of those three communities, sunni, shia and the kurds. that has to be how it works. but to go in and to think that denazification in terms of 1945 and getting the sunnis are, i don't think that we understood it. dictatorship and democracy is something that we understood and we would like to rectify that.

but the sunni-shia fault line has been there for thousands of years. you want to pay more attention with how you will deal with that. i must say that it was a very hard thing. i agree that it is going in the right direction. and i would put myself in the blast-half-full side. i know that -- glass-half-full side. i know that bush will take a lot of grief for what happened in the middle east. but i hope we can stay with it. i hope the 0 -- the obama administration will stay with it. we have a peruvian guards there still appeared you have you done since. we have panamanian gardners. it was a regular tower of babel.

i used my albanian, bulgarian, macedonian. [laughter] it is a very unusual situation. at this point, we have to stay in the dust on it. >> -- state engaged on it. >> next up, a look at the negative impact of traditional disciplinary measures at schools. the education department hosted this event earlier today. it includes remarks from a behavioral specialists and family court judge. it is just over 90 minutes. >> ok, let's get started. good morning. thank you for joining us here today. i am the senior fellow at the

education policy institute and i will be the moderator of this event this morning. i would like to welcome to this discussion. the administration's new support action program, strategies for success. we're live streaming this event. and we would ask you first off to turn off all cell phones so we don't have those interruptions. let me begin by introducing the other guests who are here today. first is our featured speaker, alejandro mallorca. with him are several people who will be commenting later in the program, beginning with the david martin, who is a professor of international law at the university of virginia and former principal deputy general counsel at the department of homeland security.

we have the director of our nip office school of law at nyu. now, to be precise about our topic this morning, the deferred action program is being called the deferred action for childhood arrivals program or daca. so we have a new immigration acronym. we will be using that this morning during this program along with the terminology that has been used before deferred action. daca makes it simpler to talk about. as you know, for people who are under the age of 31 who were brought to this country prior to reaching the age of 16 and are

currently in unauthorized status. this population group has become known as the dreamers because of proposed legislation called the dream that that has been pending in congress regarding their -- the dream act that has been pending in congress regarding their status for many years. it has not pass. however, in june, the administration issued a new initiative that would have deferred action for this population. it will be decided on a case by case basis and it is being implemented by the united states citizenship and immigration services, which is part of homeland security. uscis was given 60 days to prepare for this program, accepting applications on august

15, one week from tomorrow. uscis is charged with an enormous task. some of it is in familiar territory and some in uncharted waters for the agency. it announced the guidance that it will use fordaca this last friday, august 3, and we will have a chance to learn about that shortly. what is new here is the hybrid nature of this deferred action initiative and also its scale. deferred action is not a legalization program. it does not confer a formal legal status nor can it be converted to permanent residents or to citizenship short of legislation along the lines of something like the dream act .

it is more akin to a tps program which provides work authorization to those who can show an economic necessity. at the same time, it requires more extensive documentation for the decision to be made to grant the deferred action. regarding the scale, this will be potentially one of the biggest initiatives, if not the biggest initiative, that the agency will have undertaken organizationally for many, many years. we have generated estimates of the scale, the population size, for a number of years, beginning with when the dream act was first proposed. today, we are releasing our news estimates of the size of this potential eligible population. you have it in the fact sheet. it is available at the entry and for you to take with you.

it shows the d that theaca -- it shows that the daca eligible population is 1.6 billion people. that is up from 1.4 billion people that we provided in june because of friday's criteria announcement. the act -- the criteria announced on friday had an element in them which allowed people to file applications if they are enrolled in school. that means that a population of about 350,000 nouri needs range that is eligible for -- 350,000 who are in the age range that is eligible. to learn more about these things, particularly about daca eligibility and how uscis will

implement this program, i am proud to bring to the director of the united states citizenship and immigration [applause] >> thank you very much, doris for hosting this importance -- important investigation this morning. i would like to acknowledge our colleagues -- i am joined by a number from u.s. citizenship and immigration services. breaking up my long-held rule, i will send a loud one individual, and that is my chief of staff who has put so much thought and time into the development of the implementation of deferred action for childhood arrivals.

over the past three years, the administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to transform the immigration system into one that focuses on public safety, security, and the integrity of the immigration system. as the department of homeland security continues to focus its resources on the removal of individuals who pose a danger to national security or our risk, including violent criminals, felons, and repeat offenders, dhs will exercise discretion as appropriate to ensure that law enforcement resources are not expended on low priority cases. as a further step, on june 15, 2012, janet the baton of --

napilitano announced children who come to the u.s. may request action for a. two years -- period of two years. we are creating a new process for individuals who meet these guidelines to request deferred action for childhood arrivals. there is something else doris articulated -- what deferred action is and what it is not. deferred action is the removal of action as a measure of prosecutorial decision. deferred action does not excuse individuals of any previous

periods of unlawful presence. an individual who receives it deferred action and demonstrate economic necessity for employment is also to receive authorization for two years. i will be speaking about that shortly. any individual meeting the following guidelines may request authorization. we at uscis will make our determinations on individualized, a case by case basis. to request for deferred action -- or request for deferred action received before august 15 will be rejected. individuals may request action for childhood arrivals if they were under the age of 31 as of june 15, 2012, came to the

united states before meeting the their 16th birthday, have continuously resided in the united states since 2007 up until the present time, was present in the united states on june 15, 2012 and at the time of making the request of deferred action from uscis. or their lawful status expired on that date. or they are in school or have received a certificate of completion from the school, have received a ged certificate, or an honorably discharged veteran of the coast guard or armed forces of the united states, and not guilty of a felony, three or more misdemeanors, a significant

misdemeanor, or have compromised national security or public safety. allow me to clarify a few of the guidelines i just outlined. an individual who has never been in removal procedures, the individual must be at least 15 years of age or older at the time of filing the request for deferred action. if the individual is in normal proceedings or has the voluntary departure rule and the individual is not an immigration detention, an individual can request deferred action, even if he or she is under the age of 15 at the time of filing the general request. in all instances, individuals cannot be the age of 31 or older as of june 15, 2012 to be considered for deferred action for a child could.

with respect to travel, absence from the united states will not interrupt continuous residence as long as it was before august 15, 2012. after august 15, 2012, if one travels outside the united states, the individual will not be considered for deferred action under this process. if an individual though receive deferred action in their case and they do want to travel outside the united states, they must apply for advance parole by filing an i-31 travel document and paying the fee of $130. we will review the requests based on the circumstances. generally, we will only plant --

grant parole if the individuals traveling for employment or education purposes. they may not apply unless or until uscis considers action, and the individual may not apply for advance parole at the same time they make a request for deferred action for childhood arrivals. with respect to the school requirement -- to be considered currently in school under the guidelines, individuals must be enrolled in school the date they request consideration under this process, and we anticipate providing additional guidance on the subject on august 15. allow me, if i can, to turn to the documentation that we will evaluate in deciding whether or

not to exercise discretion. if -- the individual has resided in united states for least 15 years immediately before june 12, 2012 -- is not limited to school records, employment records, and military records. documentation to demonstrate that an individual is currently in school, is currently in high school, or has obtained a g.d. includes, but is not limited to, diplomas, ged certificates, report cards, school transcripts. documentation to demonstrate they are and honorably

discharged veteran of the coast guard or the armed forces includes but is not limited to authorization forms, military personnel records, health records. i will comment, if i can come on affidavits. -- i will comment, if i can, on affidavits. we understand there's a question whether to include affidavits in the documentation. we consider the document terry -- the documentation the individuals might confront while insuring the integrity of the immigration system. affidavits, generally, will not be sufficient on the wrong to demonstrate an individual needs to guidelines for uscis to

consider them for proposals. however, affidavits may need the guidelines if there is a gap in the documentation demonstrating the individual needs to apply for a continuous residence requirements for a lack of documentation for required continuous residence. we realize there may be? in the available documentation for individuals requesting deferred action here. we need to establish the following guidelines if the documentary evidence is insufficient or lacking shows they were physically present in united states and to 15, 2012, they came to the united states before reaching their 16th birthday, they satisfy the continuous residence

requirement, as long as they provide the correct -- direct evidence of their continuous residence and the circumstantial evidence used to fill in gaps approved by the direct evidence. we took into consideration the documentary realities of the young people requesting deferred action. additional information about the documentation can be submitted and will also be provided on august 15. information provided protected from disclosure to u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, commonly known as

i.c.e. unless the request to meet the criteria of a notice to appear under the criteria set for -- our notice to appear guidelines. the guidance is published, and it has been for a month -- for a number of months not. it is available at www. uscis.gov/mta we are mindful of the fact that individuals who very well may receive a grant of deferred action under this effort -- but might be headed -- might be

hesitant because of fear of revealing their current undocumented status -- and is balancing those interest in trying to ensure that people who are indeed eligible for deferred action come forth who could qualify under our discretionary guidelines. i am sure that they do come forward. we have set forth a confidentiality provision. individuals whose status are deferred for consideration of deferred action will not be preferred -- will not be referred to i.c.e. the information may be shared with law enforcement agencies for purposes other than removal

including identifying or preventing the faults claims, national security purposes, or the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offense. this information sharing falls on family members and guardians in addition to the request for. this policy may be modified or rescinded at any time without notice, and it is not intended to confer a right and may not be relied upon to create any right. allow me, if i can, to take a minute to describe the filing process that we will be implementing on august 15, beginning -- on august 15. beginning on that date, individuals will be able to submit a request for deferred action, together with a second for requesting employment

authorization document. we tried to create a process that is efficient, that enables us to deliver results as swiftly as possible, and that provides a positive customer experience, a positive experience that the public expects of us and we expect of ourselves. to do so, we leveraged existing systems and processes. individuals meeting the guidelines not in detention who request consideration of deferred action from uscis, this includes individuals in removal proceedings or with a voluntary departure. please note that individuals in removal proceedings will be

reviewed by uscis and not i.c.e. we made that change believing uscis as a centralized agency to receive all the requests for deferred action and to evaluate them according to the guidelines would be more efficient and achieve great consistency, which is a very important hallmark of a good program. requests will be mailed to the lock box and revealed to the service centers. this allows us -- as doris mentioned -- to submit them for work, that this effort allows

us to move around internally as our work flows required sufficiency dictates, while providing, as i mentioned, a positive and seamless customer experience. the total fee will be $165. we will be submitting these forms to the office of the budget for review. pending forms and instructions will be available on the uscis web site on august 15, 2012. any requests received before then will be rejected. we recognize that individuals requesting deferred action may actually have financial need, of

course. and for them the total fee of $465 may be critical. at the same time, uscis is an agency that is funded by the fees it receives. in order to sustain our ability to execute this program efficiently and swiftly as everyone in visions, we were not able to implement a fee waiver program -- as everyone envisions, we were not able to implement a fee waiver program. if they are under 18 years of age, homeless, or otherwise lacking any parental support and their income is less than 150% of the u.s. poverty level, or they cannot care for themselves because they suffer from a

serious disability and their income is less than 150% of the u.s. party level, or have at the time of the request accumulated $25,000 or more in debt as a result of on reimbursed medical expenses for themselves or an immediate family member and their income is less the 130% of the u.s. -- less than 150% of the u.s. poverty level. even though we depend on support for the implementation of this effort, we recognize the financial need of some in the community, and we wanted to be sure to address the needs of the most vulnerable and the guidelines i just outlined, we believe, achieve that outreach to the most acutely vulnerable. the fee exemption request must

be admitted and decided before the individual segments their request for consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals without a fee. there will be a separate process when an individual requests an exemption from the total fees that i have identified. that process will proceed in time due process of requesting childhood are rivals deferred action. after the deferred action request is received, individuals will be scheduled for a childhood services appointment and will be subject to background checks and other -- from other government agencies. then we will make our decision as to whether to exercise

prosecutorial discretion in that individual case. that request may be submitted on 1. if uscis denies the request, individuals cannot file a motion to reconsider and cannot appeal. we will not review our discretionary determination's. s. determination' we have set up protocols to ensure the quality and consistency of our decisions. let me speak of preserving the integrity or protecting the integrity of the immigration system and ensuring public safety and national security. we will implement the deferred action for childhood arrivals process to ensure that these

critical priority goals are achieved. individuals convicted of a felony, a significant misdemeanor offense, or three or more other misdemeanor offenses will not be considered for deferred action under this process. a felony is a federal, state, or local criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. for the purposes of this process, a significant misdemeanor is one defined by federal law, specifically one that is greater than five days. -- with a penalty of and president ford greater than 5 days. this includes sexual abuse or exploitation, burglary, drug distribution or trafficking, or driving under the influence, or

if not an offense noted above, is one for which the individual is in custody for more than 90 days. for the purposes of this process, on non-significant misdemeanor is any misdemeanor defined by federal law, specifically -- and i want to be very clear here -- the penalty is one year or less but greater than five days. it is not an offense of domestic violence. sexual abuse or exploitation. is not lawful possession of a firearm, drug possession or trafficking, and is one for which the individual was sentenced 90 days or less. it is important to emphasize the driving under the influence is a significant misdemeanor regardless of the sentence

imposed. a minor traffic incident, however, will not be considered a misdemeanor. we will determine whether under the totality of the circumstances we want to exercise prosecutorial discretion. if the case does not involve criminal offense, fraud, or a threat to national security or public safety, it will not be referred to i.c.e. for the purposes of removal proceedings except in exceptional circumstances. if the individual knowingly makes a misrepresentation or fails to disclose facts, they will be treated as an immigration enforcement procedure to the fullest extent of the law.

about the concerned risk of unscrupulous practitioners who seek to take advantage of the population of young people who may request deferred action through this process. we have already implemented over a year ago and initiative to combat immigration law fraud, commonly known as notario fraud. we are partnered with state and local law-enforcement agencies, community-based organizations, civic organizations. we have an nationwide effort to combat the of unauthorized -- the unauthorized practice of immigration law.

we are, of course, especially concerned about people's ability of individuals who could be requesting deferred action under the process i have outlined. it is very important that people understand the time of the request for deferred action under this process has not commenced, that it will not commence before august 15. we have information and resources to educate the public on information services scams, and that information is available on our website at www.uscis.gov/avoidscams. we are currently engaging in our field and district offices throughout the country on

educating on how to detect and report notario fraud and what resources are available to protect oneself and to protect others. we are very mindful of the need to communicate how the process will work, the guidelines that are available to educate people who will seek to request deferred action for childhood arrivals under the process as i described, and we are going to be moving forward with the dissemination of information, understanding that not everyone will necessarily listen here, to

the live stream -- or in person. we're very grateful for the coverage of this event, because it is a very effective way to disseminate information. we have a designed webpage with information about the process. we will beat amplifying the message with posts on facebook and twitter. we will be acting to ensure the public that seeks to avail themselves of the process is an educated public, and therefore a protected 1. thank you very much. [applause] >> ok, we will give al a chance

to get seated here. then we will have a dialogue. we will talk a few -- we will talk about a few points he made. then we will flesh out some of the layers and layers that will accompany this. i do want to start by saying -- of course, there is an enormous appetite for information and a desire to talk about what is going to be required. this has been an incredibly short preparation time. congratulations. the guidance is very complete in laying out the contours of the program. i cannot imagine what it really is like to be sitting in your shoes at this point. i am wondering what you're doing

about the staffing that will be required in order to handle this case load. can you talk a little bit about how this process will unfold? >> sure. i should say the shoes in which i rest are very comfortable shoes because, quite frankly, of the people who are around me, around the conference room table on a daily basis as we plan and prepare and discuss the issues. i cannot overstate the level of expertise and knowledge my colleagues have. we took a look at and studied the available data, publicly available, published by marielena hincapi -- mpi and other resources, in response to the individuals who would be availing themselves of the

process that we began to plan the level of staffing we would need to maintain for the program in a way that achieves the overarching goal said i identified. -- that i identified. a clear, well defined process. one that is efficient and affordable for the agency. that is economically sound. and one that ensures public safety and national security and protect the integrity of the immigration system. we have begun to plan and execute on enhancing our staffing models and other resources to be able to deliver this program, to be able to implement and execute this program. and we are developing training materials and sections of the

--cator's -- educator's field manual. we will have more guidance on august 15. they will be trained to deliver sound, consistent decisions. >> if you are going to be doing actual hiring? are you going to be hiring staff? >> yes, we will. >> will they be dedicated to this program so there is a dedicated work force? or will they be doing other kinds of adjudication? >> what we thought we would do was use the service center personnel as the best point for the decision making for a number of reasons.

number one, as i mentioned, the use of the service centers allows us to levitate existing resources and systems, including quite frankly, i.t. systems as volumes warrant. we would have concentrations of individuals and request for childhood arrivals. we to expect litigation resources -- we to expect litigation resources to achieve -- we do expect litigation resources to achieve consistency. >> [unintelligible] it is a legalization program, even though this is not a legalization program. you have people that are trained to do that and our focus on the. of course, as you know, you will

always focus -- who always faced the criticism of time and processing. you know, expectations that your other caseload handle. i take it you are working to keep that calibrated? >> we are, and we're working very hard to do that, to achieve that. it is not only the amount of work, but the precision of thinking that is under way by our leaders and experts in the agency. is not just developing a training material and executing, but rather developing the same material with the expertise around the table. then really using it for a separate process of training the trainers, identifying

individuals who are best suited to train the work force that will be dedicated to reviewing the request board deferred action. training the trainers, then training in the decision makers. -- training the decisionmakers. >> have you been able to hazard a guess to the ideal processing time? assuming that it is a straightforward case. >> the averaging processing time, doris, is a function of release two important factors. one is volume of requests. in this case, request for deferred action childhood arrivals. and two, the pace.

in other words, will the agency experience as a steady flow of volume from august 15 forward? will people who wish to request deferred action, will they file very quickly? will some wait to see how others to do? it is not just the aggregate volume. is the pace by which that volume is received -- it is the pace by which the volume is received. our goal is to deliver results adequately and quickly end see healthy volume flow is paced at the outset of the program to better calibrate and overarching processing time. >> and you need to see what the

submission times r? >> we need to see. >> the underlying promise -- premise of this program is about prosecutorial discretion, but there is certainly a likely argument about what is this aggression and what is legitimate. >> prosecutorial discretion is a function of the agency. prosecutorial discretion can be exercised by default or some dramatically because you use it until you run out of resources. there was a major effort over the last 10 or 12 years to be more systematic and be more informed about the stresses that are made. this is not a particularly

systematic way of doing it. most people are probably aware of the so-called norton memos. it is more systematic in addressing the particular issue. one of the main figures who has done thus claimed that congress took away all the prosecutorial discretion. it is -- it is premised on a couple of provisions. 1 has been around for a long time the says any applicant for admission, and must be inspecting officer considers them clearly beyond a doubt entitled, shall be detained for normal proceedings. so, any applicant for admission who does not pass that test --

that has not been the practice for a long time. people have gone for decades without being placed into removal proceedings. so, it does not fit into the application. the other part is a memo from 1996 to assist anyone in the country who has not been admitted shall be considered an applicant for admission. you have to admit them into proceedings and consider them that with. i want to just come up for a moment -- the provision -- i want to, just for a moment, the provision was put in there in the 1950's. 1990's. [laughter] in about 1995, there was a discussion about that.

it made it somewhat unclear whether parole that was ending, this athens would be considered for admission -- the application would be considered for admission. the idea was suggested, you have to give them some time to leave on the wrong. there was real concern. in 1996, we took time for that inspection. the was a real worry -- give them a few weeks, and i will leave. the technical provision was entirely intended to give ins more discretion in prosecuting in the polls -- individuals, not to take away their discretion. the word "shall" cannot be

interpreted as a mandate to issue this treatment for everyone. nobody believes that cabins the discretion of enforcement officers. it is superficially plausible, but in the history, it is perfectly appropriate. in fact, it is so much better in a systematic way. you have to put it in the proceedings. so, it is quite legitimate. it is quite a long process to being symptomatic. there were not doing enforcement. there were really ending enforcement. the systematic and sensible way,

rather than just having an agenda process. >> thank you for making us all laugh. one of those people is muzaffar chishti, who i am going to ask a question to, because i want to go back to the 1980's. they were at risk. that is certainly the case here. could you talk a little bit about the reaction and the reaction to the program as it has been announced, about the ingredients for success that are critical here in creating consonance in this program and this population? >> it is difficult. i am not from the 1950's.

i cut my teeth on the 1980's. parallelthere's a between these two events in my live -- in our lives. there is a distinction between these two programs. a, this is not a statutory program. 2, there is no time on. 3, there are no entities enshrined in the statutes. there are three very different criteria that made the 1984 program different. having said that, there are important differences that would inform us about what would make a successful program. one is from the government. on the other hand, one is from the private sector. i have to tell you the most

important thing you have to do is issue timely decisions. people have to build confidence early on. the very initial response to the program. people have to gain confidence that the government meant what it did, both in terms of evaluating the guidelines and doing it in a timely manner. you have to make sure the relevance of the policy is protected. @ think people see -- i think if people see their interest in jeopardy, they are going to persecute the program. one item i might quickly raise is the employer's. -- employers.

a majority of tocumention is going to come from employers. you have to give some understanding that employers will not be targeted for having employed someone. i think that was a big issue in 1986. there were strong confidence measures given to the employers. the second thing is, but there is not even administrative appeal. people have the same applications in new york as they do in california. they are going to be treated the same white. the government -- the same way. the government is going to make the terminations of applicants,

so that there is consistency and accountability. if i may make a point -- if there is a czar who would report directly to you, that if important final decisions had to be made about whether discretion should be exercised, they should be made by one person who would be answerable to you. in four centers are going to be used, you would have to make moderate adjustments. i know from the guidelines there will be a school. i think that is extremely important in the absence of a

minister of appeal and judicial review. -- administered of appeal and a judicial review. there will have to look at what was felt about good documentation or not. the applicants would know what the government likes and what it does not like. the last thing i would say is do not issue denails and hold -- denials in a wave. i think that will create a lot of havoc in terms of confidence building. the mirror image of this is the private sector as to build confidence in the very initial stages, and to have this very

difficult raised her egg to -- razor edged talks. on the other hand, there are serious risks in this program. it will be very difficult for advocates of the decision. the decisions will have to be made by individual applicant. but i think they are extremely informed about the pluses and minuses of of being -- of being in this program. and the outreach, as we know we're very well in 1986, note it is not a one-size-fits-all out reach. given the disparity of these populations, people in

metropolitan centers, the same media does not always work. i would like to believe churches, schools are going to be much more important than any easier at reach the bank last thing i want to say -- outreach. the last thing i want to say -- they have to build an acceptable application. it has to be acceptable guidelines you have issued. you have to have some faith in the word of the government. if there are guidelines, they will be complied by the officer. and it will be honored by this administration and any administration that comes after

it. because this is a country of laws. obviously, it will be determined a lot by how the government responds initially. >> if i may, this is a very important point. the issue of consistency and time limits that you raise our issues of tremendous significance and we have given a great deal of thought to them. when deciding whether or not to be centralized, one of the factors we considered was something doris mentioned earlier, our existing workload and managing that workload effectively for the individuals who apply now and will continue to do so. to do that with respect to the volume of people who may be requesting a third action under

this effort, we could not functionally centralize all the work in one location. we have to be more nimble than that and draw from the work force in different parts. we have the service center model that provides the lowest ratio of centralization and therefore consistency. we have reviewed the analyses provided by the front-line the adjudicators. these are not, however, decisions that will be made within a few days of our receipt of the request for action. we have a process in place that includes, as i mentioned, i need to conduct a background check of

the individuals to ensure our public safety, national security issues are appropriately addressed. so, what we have done to in short time limits come -- to ensure time limits, the confidence it and stills, and at the same time, a coordinated process with agency objectives is to issue a receipt very quickly. so the individual requesting the deferred action, the application has been accepted, they will receive a receipt and see the process has begun. and then subsequently received a notice of appointment at an application support center. those are located throughout the country.

so the individual knows they have been scheduled and they achieve the biometrics. so, you have the individuals in the different stages of the process so they have the confidence, and they have the progress in the review of the case. >> let me look at a couple of related point here. from the standpoint of the applicant and what it is the applicant needs to do to present an application that meets the requirements. from that standpoint, what do you think will be the difficulties applicants face taking advantage of this program? >> thank you. thank you, doris, for hosting this time the event and to all the staff. you have been able to accomplish

so much. -- you have agreed to a talent in preparing this in such a short time. they are not only an inspiration, but i would argue they will transform the united states. it is a temporary reprieve and the added education in our work force will benefit our country greatly. thank you for hosting this. i am one of the dreamer's. i was definitely not around in 1956. i learned a tremendous amount from all of you at this stage. i consulted them yesterday to get an idea.

one is a confidentiality concern. because of the timing, given the presidential election, there are serious concerns that the guidelines to not give enough insurance to dreamers who are concerned about themselves or their family members. if we can continue to codify the steps we're taking, as well as ensuring applicants that information would be confidential would be really critical. this is in terms of being concerned about what happens when the youth get authorization and will that result in being fired by employers? any information provided to employers as well would be very helpful. another concern provided by dreamers -- more information

about what documentation will suffice. specifically the requirement they be physically present on june 15 and the educational requirements as well. the concerns they raised at to do with the complexity of the criminal provisions that may follow them. again, this is a population, many of whom have engaged in probably not the best behavior during high school, for example. some of those are concerned the guidelines with respect to criminal provisions may still be of concern to them. some of the concerns they have ranged is on the totality of traffic offenses.

the kind of traffic offense would not disqualify you. gang membership. that was raised as a concern as well. the reason for that is, in many poor communities of color, young people may find themselves a gang member just because they are placed on the list, without even knowing they are on a list. date may simply be listed as a gang member. -- they may simply be listed as a gang member. they are worried about the prosecution of felonies. some states provide sentences of years that are longer than one year. and the last concern from the is fornts' perspective

the low-income immigrants, the ft. and again, the fee -- for the low-income immigrants, the fee. and again, the fee -- it will need to play an important role. we understand the goal of being self sustaining. but there is the aspect of philanthropy and public/private corporations really need to step up. >> do you see any of the stepping up taking place? and you are from california. the population is likely to be eligible for this program. what is it like on the ground in terms of getting people to submit applications? >> i would say on the legal representation side, there are

challenges. week at the law center incoordination with the american lawyers association, and other nonprofit legal services have joined efforts. we have created the national legal implementation system to really map out legal services and are starting to work with the affiliate's at the local level across the country. in california because we have the largest number of dreamers, individuals who may qualify, we have a nonprofit legal services community and will start really figuring out how to support this and what is going to be needed. i have to say, it is the challenge. in terms of implementing this from the ngo site, it is going

to require a lot of resources. >> according to our data, 58% of these people are employed. so, the employer dimension of this is a significant could be a significant dimension. i will open up the floor to questions. before i do that, one quick point for you to respond to that goes to the structure of this program. talk to us very quickly about the significance of this program being described through guidance as compared through rule-making regulation. >> that has been an ongoing issue with a number of initiatives taken on by the obama administration. we were generally resistant.

number one, the regulation process has become increasingly cumbersome. this could never have been set up in less than a year if it had gone through the regulation way. second, prosecutorial discretion is guarded by the justice department and all law enforcement agencies as exactly that, discretion. and if it becomes too formalized, if it becomes subject to judicial review, the incentive is not -- the incentives not to go down that route is enormous. i know people want those kinds of checks and balances, but we need to develop a more extensive appreciation for the kinds of checks and balances that can come through the kinds of supervisory review, management systems for checking on consistency and quality of decisions.

it is not as the judicial review is consistent either. you get very different results from very different federal judges. i think there are better federal opportunities and it is important for it to remain that way. if there is certain requirement for everything to be so formalized and reviewable, they will say, no, we won't write it down. we need it to be more formalized and it will only happen by guidance. i think the same thing is true through the formal appeals process, although i would hope there would be some room more in practice than any guidance. there is a great mistake in some fashion with the officer who considered it. >> i will use the microphone in the first to roost, if there are

any press questions. for the audience, there are microphones part way up. >> we would like you to comment on the estimates released this morning by an mpi. is it something realistic given the changes with regulations announced on friday? >> with respect to the guidelines announcement on friday, we have modeled our operational readiness based on the data that was publicly available at the outset. understanding that that data is only an estimate, comprised only estimate of a population that is

undocumented. therefore, those are inherently rough estimates. we have planned for operational nimbleness should the volumes vary to some degree of what was estimated or more. so we will be prepared to implement this to capture the increased estimate that npi published this morning. >> first, you talked about building confidence with employers. i didn't hear something specific on what you do to do that. the second question i have this, is there any risk of people going into this program and, if there's a political regime change, that program ceases to exist?

how would you do with that from an administrative perspective? >> i think it has to be done exclusively and implicitly that employers should assurance that, just because they gave documentation regarding the data for employment of a particular person who becomes an applicant, that that itself would not target them for sanctions. but in the same way you're giving -- it does not review removed, there are some similar issues that, just by giving some verification of employment will by itself not trigger an audit or prosecution

sanctions. that would help. >> i think there are a couple of things on that that would be helpful as well. the immigration customs enforcement. the business liaison office could provide some guidance on that. there are fact sheets and other available information for employers within the civil rights division that can also provide an opinion issue. other loose to parts of the government assure the employers and had to do with individuals coming forward, both in terms of providing evidence for individuals who will request deferred action as well as for approved. people are >> with the changes in the election, what would be ribeyes? >> at the end of the day, this is an individual decision.

it is our responsibility as advocate to make sure that individuals have the best and for -- the best information possible. we don't know what would happen at the end of this year with respect to presidential elections. i would argue that anybody who applies soon and gets granted deferred action would be in a better place under a new administration. if it were to be mitt romney. if the republican party really understood the importance of this population in particular for the future of our country, mitt romney should confirm that this isn't a change in policy that he would make. he hasn't publicly addressed that issue. clerks that is a very real question, especially in soap -- >> that is a very real question, especially so close to the election. i am guardedly optimistic that

these changes, including the broader changes in the view of how to use prosecutorial discretion sensibly are finding some residents. they are sound. they make a lot of sense for a lot of reasons. i think it would be very hard for in your administration to come in and completely clean the decks of that. i think it will be very hard for them to make a radical change. they may not extend the program. after two years, it may not go forward. but i would be surprised to see some use made -- this will be high priority group we're going after. a is an individual decision. there is a real reason to have a question mark there. but for all the controversy over this, there are some solid behavior patterns that of being established that i think will have more staying power as a political matter and not as a

legal matter. >> thank you for this program. the deferred action that people are granted, use the application open-ended? is there no time line? if people want to wait until after the election, they can plaapply after the election? >> i think we have entered the first question. but as far as the application period, there is no deadline. it will continue into the next year. next question. >> there is a concern. i know that traffic violations

are not supposed to be considered and civil disobedience is not to be considered. but if a young applicant has a lot of civil disobedience and a lot of traffic violations. would that be something significant considering the agency is saying that they will consider the whole context? you have a very long career in immigration. you have seen a lot in all of these years. what is your take on this program? do you think it will be successful? do you have any concerns? >> please remember that the decision whether or not to defer action in response to a request under this process is an

individualized decision. it is made on a case by case met said. we will be publishing additional guidance with respect to the offense conduct that would disqualify an individual from receiving a favorable exercise of prosecutorial discretion. your questions call for a very case specific analysis. while minor traffic offenses are not in themselves considered misdemeanors, taking into the record of the individual, we will have to take a look at whether this individual really is a threat or danger to public safety. to deal in the hypothetical because it is such a fact-based inquiry. >> my opinion is that this program has all the ingredients

of being very successful. t is imminently doable. the fact that it is open-ended is positive. and the official criteria that nobody expected which came on friday the people could be eligible for the program by enrolling in school is a very positive development. it really signals a forward effort. and opportunity for people in this age group who could be eligible for the program to actually take steps that enable them to be eligible. so then i would agree with my colleague that the issue at this point is the issue of feed back into the community. that with the garment says is indeed what it means and that is

why we're having this program. and why it is that -- that with the governor did -- that what the government says is indeed would it means and that is why we're having this program. >> thank you so much for doing this, for such an excellent discussion and opportunity. i am the manager of a legal program in maryland, coming from a community based organization. we're dealing with a couple of details. i would like to hear reaction with regard to the details and at the same time urge you. there's so much talk about the confidence level that will be a result of what happens in the beginning of this program. believe me, our doors are being

pushed down with people so anxious to begin. there are some of questions that it is difficult to answer, things like what is the gap? is it three months, a year? will one document per year the five years suffice? with regard to the criminal conduct and conviction bars, there are so many databases today, having moved -- including montgomery county, a gain database that novenas have it put that together. in terms of the confidence that the public would have with this program, it would be wonderful if you could say that this is the database that will be used. if you do read fbi background check, whatever is on that check, it is what will be looked at. we will not go beyond this

particular database. if he could make some kind of statement because advocates and legal representatives need to know something very concrete with which to revise applicants. the other issue that i haven't heard anything about -- in fact, yesterday, noted that, on your web site, when we look at the application for employment authorization, it says that it cannot be used for the childhood arrival program. so it seems like you will have a different application for work authorization. we're very anxious to hear what, if any, wilconsideration will be shown for income. it will be difficult for a young person and an undocumented young person.

what, if any, measures will be taken to facilitate that given that this is a population almost by nature that is in need and the fact that really deferred action without work authorization for somebody who is 25 years old and has yet been able to drive and a lot of local vehicle administration's will not be issuing licenses if they cannot come in with work authorization or at least it will take another half year of advocacy to get them to do that? work authorization is very critical for this population and showing economic necessity could be coming after you streamline the whole process with deferred action criteria, that could be really messy and difficult to do on the ground for some of the kids. i would like to hear your reaction to some of these questions. >> i appreciate the concerns

that you articulate. we are very mindful of the employment authorization application needing to be simple and straightforward. i don't to comment on the specific form because it is in the omb clearance process. so it would be inappropriate for me to comment on that. but let me highlight that we understand the need for clarity and simplicity in the forms process. we also understand that, within the framework of the guidelines that we published on friday, august 3, and that i articulated again today that there will be more detailed questions. concerns with respect to specifics in certain areas of the guidelines.

we don't intend to approach this in a static way. we publish the guidelines on august 3 and now we're focused on implementation. rather, we would like to be organic and iterative. we will be providing greater specificity, either before or on august 15 and thereafter as issues arrive. as the community expresses concerns with specifics, we will be reviewing our guidelines so that we are in step in terms of achieving the transparency and clarity that are important, not only in terms of instilling confidence, but in terms of delivering the consistency that i think everyone understands is so important. >> you asked about the databases. it is fedele data bases -- it is federal databases that will be used for the background check.

is that correct? >> we will use the fedele databases that we currently access and that we -- the bedroll databases that we currently access. -- the federal databases that we currently access. >> i have a quick question about confidentiality. in the regulations that were released, there are a few exceptions to the confidentiality one being things that normally trigger an mpa. in terms of the misrepresentation, given that there is no appeals process, we're talking about young americans, young potential americans, what goes into -- do they get automatically referred to ice if there is knowing misrepresentation?

how does that process work? >> let me say this. the threshold is, as you correctly encoded, one of intentional misrepresentation. we're not talking about a mistake, an inadvertent error or clerical error, if you will, but an attempt at fraud on our agency that really impacts the integrity of the system as a whole. we have very experienced individuals that address these issues, are adjudicative who will be handling these cases, are trained on that. we do have a division of supervisor review. and we will be doing interviews as a mechanism, not necessarily in every single case, but as a mechanism to really ferret out the facts and make a decision

that is really one with integrity. >> ok, thank you very much. thank you audience. thank you everybody for joining us here today. i would urge you to be paying attention to future events and we have a big conference coming up on the first of october. our analog on poverty conference -- our annual launched on party conference. i would also invite you all to come forward and ask additional questions if you have them. in particular, thank you very much for joining us here today. all the best wishes. this is a very important initiative. thank you very [applause] ] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> here is a look at what is ahead on the c-span networks. coming up at 6:00 p.m. eastern, or from a series of speeches

from the national press club. first, on the girl scouts 100 anniversary. and we will wrap up with billie jean king on c-span 2. later, more on the open what -- more on the "q&a" program. then judge marshall perron here runcie's bentonite, u.s. policy toward iraq -- here on c-span -- then judge marshall. here on c-span tonight, u.s. policy toward iraq. >> while the library of congress has a new exhibit, 88 books were selected by the library for their influence on america and american culture. here is a brief interview but the exhibit and how you can join in on an on-line chat about the library's list and what books you think you should be -- you think should be included.

>> we think that books slowly have an impact on american society. some books have had such a profound influence on american culture and society and the very essence of what america is. the earliest book is actually ben franklin's book on electricity and thomas paine's book that really sparked were saved the american revolution. novels are a critical part of american culture. many of them identified who we were becoming or the aspirations that we had as a nation. others told about experiences that we had uniquely as americans. we also thought that it was very important toook at non-fiction and books that either were self- help or kind of ok barriers of certain kinds. we look for many books that were innovative, that kind of showed

america as an innovative country, that used books and stories to inspire a new frontier. that could be literally or intellectually. >> if you would like to participate in an online discussion with roberta schaefer, one that we will then appear on the tv, we would like to hear from you. e-mail us. >> next, a look at the negative impact of traditional disciplinary measures in schools. the department of education hosted this event earlier today. it includes remarks from a behavior specialist and a family court judge. this is just over 90 minutes.

>> a good morning, everyone. welcome, everybody. this institute is one of five that are running concurrently here at the 2012 national conference for the office of safe and healthy students. i wanted to let everyone know this morning that this particular session is being filmed by c-span. let me begin by introducing our guests. the chief judge of the bill were family court and brendan anderson, who is the senior

program director for the african-american male achievement for the oakland, california school district. welcome, all of you. just a few things i want to do before we hear the presentations. i would like to find out who is in the room. how many teachers do have? school administrators? school counselors? school nurses? researchers? policy makers? others? who else is here? who are you? [inaudible] great. school social worker, ok. >> administrative assistant for [inaudible] >> terrific. sir?

>> [inaudible] >> are there other school resource officers were police officers in the room? good. thank you, everybody. very shortly, i will introduce the panel. but i wanted to let you know that you have cards on the tables. if you would throughout the session brought down your questions, at the end of the presentation, the reader will pick up the cards and i will be reading the questions to the panelists, given time. i think that is really it. with that, i will turn it over to george. >> good morning, everyone. we will try to get to the

content and keep you alert. it is great to be with you. my job is to describe a little bit about how we will talk about school discipline and get you set up for the other two presenters. mostly for the benefit of the c- span group, this is one of five strands, a multiple and repeating topics going on to get feedback from the community that relates to save and help the schools. i am at the university of connecticut. and the director for the center for innovation and support that was started by the department of education. i spend most of my time looking at school discipline classroom management and kids to present some behavioral challenges for us. this cartoon was published in

1985. but it reflects what this is about. there are a number of kids were struggling in the classroom because of their behavior. you see the teacher has sent the kids to the corner because of his behavior. that is what this session is about, about how we're responding to kids to have behavioral difficulties in our schools and in our communities. i want you to note that, in the past and the present, we spent quite a bit of our time with a get-tough approach and will respond by sending the kids to the office, to the court, to the hallway, to the community, depending on who displays. the other person in the room is the teacher. in this case, she is having to teach to the corner. all of us in this room is concerned about academic achievement and success from being able to read and do math and so forth. it is difficult to meet your

active and goal if you have to teach to the corner. one of the set -- one of the messages that will come out is the relationship and importance of school to looking at kids a with behavioral issues. it is very difficult for people to think about discipline if they also don't think about kids academic and social and behavioral games of the same time. the active school discipline impact and social behavior of success. a few days ago -- you will hear much from our panelists about the impact that school discipline, such as proportionality, dropout, access and so forth. and in part to appease him out, a summary of data out of the department of education, that was summarized by some folks at

ucla. an initial statement in a news article -- "students with disabilities are almost two times as likely to be suspended from school as non-disabled students, with the highest rate among black children with disabilities." that is one of the channels we're trying to address here. we're interested in your comments and thoughts on how to address this. i will comment from a school based perspective. we will have some content abutted district level perspective that looking at this question. the variety of issues we're looking at, miami special educator by training. i will focus a little bit -- i am a special education and training. i will focus a little bit on disabilities. kids with disabilities are twice as likely to be sent to the office for miss p. beard then kids without disabilities. what is particularly troubling is that one in four of those

kids are kids of color, particularly, kids who are african-american. it is an important thing to look at. >> 13% of kids overall are suspended? >> 13% of kids with disability are suspended compared to 7% overall. the "new york times" article has a nice little summary. you also need to know the high suspension rates are highly coordinated -- highly correlated to achievement rates. also, i want you to understand that kids, if you have one or more suspensions in one year, you have a high likelihood to be suspended, especially if you're black. but it is also true of kids who are american indian and latino as well.

it is an important set of data. there is a lot of data for you to look at. i will skip to the national data. but this is a little glimpse of what we're trying to address here. what is particularly interesting, his data as well as the national data indicate that it is not highly correlated with the race of the staff. it is important to think about the context in which this is happening and how we try to address it. let me give you a couple of examples. i want to give you one school example and would be one big guy gets to walk away. this is just one school, some place in america -- i will tell you what state, district or school. it is an intermediate/high school with 800 students. it is 7-12 type of school. in one could declare school year, the school had 5100 office visit peripherals.

some administrators would say that is not much. in fact, it is a lot. that is a number of times that the kids have violated the code of conduct. two-thirds of the kids have had at least one trip to the office. i know law enforcement in this room, teachers, policy makers, i wanted to think about what it would be like to work in this particular school. the administrators said to me that it is like taking a number when you go to the office because there is some action going on around behavior. this is a problem and want you to think about systemically. but i want you to look at this picture. i still lead off the internet. it says "scream until daddy stops the car." 012 to think of school as a loud scream. they are succeeding -- i want you to think of school as a loud

scream. they are succeeding, trying to call for help and so forth. i unfortunately, the kids have learned that this is their only mechanism by which they can get assistance. i wanted to think of this notion of discipline in the context of how kids are operating and the function of their behaviors. my wife is a school administrator. i want to extend that example one step further. my wife tells me this day is wrong. i will tell you why in a second. but because i am me has been, i will show you the day anyway. i want you to understand the importance of those 5100 referrals. if you assume that my wife has to process one of those -- every one of those -- that is 76,000 minutes of time acting on discipline activity. that is the formal referral process. that is 1200 administrator hours

spent dealing with this. my wife signed up to be principal to be an instructional leader. functionally, she has 159 days to do with discipline. that means she has about 11 days to be an instructional leader. that is assuming an 8 hour day -- that is where she says i'm wrong. but she spends 159 days of her time dealing with discipline. again, i want to to think about school discipline in the large picture and the affected has and the members of the community, of the school and administrators. i will do this the fast way. those of you who raised her hand and said you were teachers, let's just assume that the kid mrs. 45 minutes of instruction as -- the kid misses 45 minutes of instruction because an officer for all. if you have 5100 referrals, that is two and a 29,000 minutes of

instructional time lost -- that is two hundred 29,000 minutes of instructional time lost. that is 546 days that are lost. that is an important way to look at school discipline. if you're a -- if your interested in improving student achievement scores and school climate, you have to look at the time. i want to go with little bit further on what it means to approach the problem of school discipline given that context. people inside this room, people who will be presenting after me, they pretty much have a good sense about what effective practices do. but ineffective practices are commonly put in place in our schools, labeling kids come excluding kids from instruction, blaming families, punishing those students and so forth. those are frequently used as a way to respond. what we want you to help us with is why are these schools rely on ineffective practices when we

know they're not very successful? there are some very effective strategies that are on the right side of the screen. teaching kids how to manage their anger, how to express their needs and so forth. we know that active supervision on the part of the adult coming gaging in prevention-based strategies is a very positive way and powerful way to deal with school discipline. and individualized ways to do with kids who need more assistance. so want you to think about this picture as why is it we end up doing 5100 referrals vs knowing what these effective practices are and the people that will come up here will give you the solutions. so here is part of the problem. i need to clarify this. i was in western australia -- that is why the phone number looks a little funky -- but i was walking through this particular venue to do it

presentation and i saw this sign, a graffiti hot line. i want you to notice what is on the sign. isn't that interesting? we put a sign to solve the problem and the kids come in this case, or adults, whom we are trying to have the biggest impact on -- i want to replace code of conduct with discipline handbook. it is a universal intervention for all kids. about 75% of the kids will respond to it. but the kids warwick most challenged behaviorally her the ones -- the kids who are most challenge behaviorally by the ones that need code of conduct. my daughter, who is a good kid in school, the code of conduct is really good for her. if i think about my son, it took

him three office referrals to understand don't do this again. if we had a third son or daughter, which we didn't have, he would probably be the kid with 5100 referrals was not responsive. but our system has a code of conduct as a way to help kids to change. and i want to suggest you that we're not going far enough. we have to be very careful about matching interventions to what the problem looks like. what that means is that we have to think about a continuum of support for school discipline as opposed to a one-shot intervention. back in 1995, we did a bit of work on a prevention-based model for school discipline. they took the public health logic of three tiers and said let's apply that to schools. and we generated in 1995 a picture that took that logic from the public health literature and and perceived control and said let's think

about what we can do for all for thosendividualize were not responding. that is not really a three- tiered continue on. it is a blended continuum based on individual students. we started having this triangle of need. most kids do pretty well in classrooms. some kids need a little lecture. some kids need some individualized type of strategies. there is a problem with the three-tiered logic. i want to suggest you that every kid has a profile for which individual interventions are needed. here is one kid who says -- who does things really well and benefits from the universal interventions in place. but she has math and science at the top where she needs individualized assistance. most of our schools do a really good job that differentiating

instruction based on academic performance. but this kid is labeled with serious emotional behavior disorders and has frequent office referrals. he has anchor management and problem solving issues that require individualized assistance. but if you look at the bottom, he has some skills that he is very good at. but we often don't recognize the skills. we should not be calling him a three -- a tear-3 kid or a behavioral disorder kid, but someone who need support in specific areas and he has skills that quite good. i wanted to know that attendance is in between. he even shows up when we don't want him. we know that he has to work done when he should show up. but he does have to work on in your management, which the -- which does get him in trouble with the judge and others. to finish off, i want you to think about how we think about

school discipline. i will brag just to make the for the thing about my wife. if you visit her school, preschool-5 school. most of her kids are -- spanish is the primary second language in her school. if you asked her what her school look like, she would say, this is what we do for our kids. we teach them 35 actions for success. we have the best academic intervention. that is one of our best behavior management tools. we have a parent engagement program can that is what we do for older kids. but she says what is the smallest thing we can do to have the biggest effect. for the kids to do not respond very well on that, we will send them up to 22 and son of for

targeted skills. so those kids who do not succeed at that level, wraparound mental health support from the community -- i don't care that you look at the details. i want you to think about the notion that she has the continuum of support for school discipline. she does not rely upon the discipline handbook for her approach. your homework task is to fill out your continue on. i will try to do it faster than she does. how do you put it all together? don't answer the question out loud. i want you to answer inside your head which state did this sign come from. two years ago, my son and i did it cross-country bicycle ride. we went through 20 states. we went to this particular place for rest. he said, "dad, how far away is the would?" i said, it is not how far away is the wood.

it's fire wood. they have fire would here. [laughter] don't answer out loud. answer inside your head where is this a sign from? answer -- maryland. if you said alabama, eastern montana, i want you to think about why you said that. why did you say that? then i want you to ask if you had a kid of color sitting in your office, why did you say three-day school suspension as the first thing out of your mouth? why is culture important? it is important because common in the work that i do, we know that practices are important, but you have to have the permission to selectee practice and you have to have consistency in place so the outcomes are related to how well the

competency the adults are in using information to make the best decision about practices. the work i do is all about making decisions about data to maximize the outcome. we know that each of those have to be culturally valid, culturally equitable, culturally relevant, and culturally skilled. everything you will hear today is all about contextualizing the interventions of school discipline around those variables. i will stop here because i want you to think about this set of 5100 referrals, which state you thought about in the context of discipline. i want to turn it over. she will talk was about discipline experience as a judge. [applause] >> i actually forgot to get started on the next step here.

>> close that one out. >> good morning. this has been both an inspirational and very informative conference. i am with family court in the state of delaware. i am in my 15th year as a judge. i tell you that because, with delaware being a unified family court, we see everything that is involved with families. we have child welfare, which is the entry point for everything that we do. we have juvenile justice, domestic violence, any time a family is dissolving -- we

handle those matters. so what is going on in our schools today is just so personally and intimately important to me because it affects every child that walks through the door of family court. some of the things we're doing in family court -- we have multiple specialized courts that we found to be very effective, including mental health court. we also have a gun court for our juvenile justice kids where every gun charge that a juvenile, anything 18 and under, comes through one courtroom and you would be amazed at what we see, including kids that have taken against to their school or out into the woods intending to commit suicide and get arrested. luckily, because family court is rehabilitative, we work with

these kids and sometimes they end up on our competency calendar for our divergency program. we did have one little schooler who took a gun into the school intending to commit suicide. of course, there is disciplinary action. so what are we dealing with? i am extraordinarily proud of what is here on the wall. this is data performed by my intern who just got his ph.d. from the university of delaware. he was previously an attorney, so he already is an attorney. he is now at temple university. he went to the d.c. school of law. he turned to me and said i want to do my dissertation in family court. do i do it in gun court or on your school offense calendar?

we have three courts. so it comes to three different calendars. and i said to him, you know, we have deeper and broader data and we really need to look at -- because the gun court is much smaller -- we really need to look at what we're doing in terms of school arrest. so he spent last summer going through both the computer data and files statewide to prepare what we presented at the new york summit, fighting and fussing, which is 2010-2011, every school arrest that came to family court. so you will see the real deal and we're very confident about the data. he triple checked everything. it was just amazing.

we know that right now, we're in a difficult time for schools. i'm speaking to the choir. we are requiring more of everyone in the schools, the administrators, more of students, more testing, more everything. yet where are we and what are we doing? so there's all this tension. there is a significant amount of tension around school discipline and how do we deal with student- school resource officers and security in school? the criminalization of school discipline is a reality. we have security policies, discipline policies, a 20-year trend that we talked about over the last two days, all of which is affecting all schools and increasing the number of schools were being excluded from the classroom. we're now learning that the students were being excluded

from classrooms are disproportionately minority. and girls are a piece of this more significantly than in the mainstream. so is this a tipping point for school discipline? i believe so. i believe it is a good dipping. -- a good tipping point. i am a little scared, but very excited about where we are. i am now on three different committees, the national juvenile family court judges, the council for state government, and our internal delaware juvenile justice task force, where we're all looking at this. for the first time, we're looking at this at such a multi- disciplinary way. five years ago, we were not talking about these issues, not in the way we are talking about them today, not with school administrators sitting in the front row and me as a judge appear. so it is exciting. but what are our challenges? we need to meet every student's

challenges and we need alternative response. we have pierre court, which seems to be very effective in the -- we have pure court -- we have peer court which seems to be very effective. we still have this inclination on many levels for all of us, many of us who are parents, we understand. we don't want kids who are missed beating to be in our kids' classrooms. but we need to address the issue. i will go quickly through this because i want to get to this. we usually present this together and this is very fun and exciting and we will go to school administrators next year the 2010-2011 school year, one year ago, the types of offenses,

the ethnicity of arrested students, the course outcome. famous is in our computer data besase. here we go. you see just how small delaware is could we only had 739 arrests in schools. we had 900,000 human beings in delaware. we have less than 1 million people. these numbers will be tiny compared to what other folks have, but they're still significant. 16% of all juvenile arrests between september and june of 2011 were in school. the vast majority were very minor offenses. but i want you to look at the second number, middle schools --

two hundred 69 -- 269. it is almost as high as the high school arrests. the alternative schools, 50. we had 20 unknowns and 14 on the buses. so what do we have? the majority of the cases are misdemeanors. that is not a felony level offense. a misdemeanor offense, the highest level misdemeanor offense in delaware would be an assault charge. that is punching, hitting with a bruise. that is not broken skin or a broken bone point it is a fight. the unclassified misdemeanors are really minor fights. then we have the breakdown of felonies. these are the lead defense is, too. the lead offenses for all juvenile arrests in delaware,

18.2% are felonies. 43% are misdemeanors. we will get even more interesting. 77% is fighting behavior in school. disorderly behavior is -- get away from me. it is not even swearing. it is disorderly. it could be throwing a chair against the wall with no damage. that could be you're the defense. it could be any kind of disorderly behavior. this is pretty low level stuff, 77%. it gets even more interesting. assault in the third degree is 28%. that is just, if i were to push on george -- that is what

happens, isn't it? i would cause offense and alarm. 34% for offensive touching occurred in school. 34%. and terrorist -- and characteristic threatening. disorderly conduct, and in the big picture, is 90% of what we are seeing. 49% for disorderly conduct. 49% of all juvenile arrests occur in school. here is where it gets sad. black students are 3.5 times likely to get arrested than white students. anecdotally, we thought this was the case. but how can we in delaware or any jurisdiction say anything

other than the reality that we have performed a research and then the date and said that this is real. 3.5 times more likely to be arrested than a white student. that is what is going on. lead arrests for females, very concerning. the girls really are getting in a lot of fighting. by the way, writing is a really bad fight. the rioting i have seen at a school site -- i don't see it much, but i would say that what i see, the charges and the kids coming in, is not as serious as what i see in the street. when you see rioting in the street, you see people gunned down and it is truly bad. it is a felony level offense. i am not saying that it should not be charged in a corporate circumstances, but we see a different standard being applied -- charged in

appropriate circumstances, but we see a different standard being applied. it% of the kids who are arrested in school have no prior -- 50% of the kids who are arrested in school have no prior arrest record. so this is their entry into the justice system. i want to dovetail on this. when you look at the research for the kids who are involved in the juvenile justice system and the percentages that end up in the adult criminal system, the numbers go exponentially up. we are introducing kids to our juvenile justice system when they are in school. that concerns me and lot. -- that concerns me a lot. what is happening with these kids? 63% of the cases -- 63% of the 738, first time in family court

and juvenile justice, 63% of the cases are being dismissed. so they either they do school perversion, mediation before probation. this data is why we are in a rush to get civil citation started, which is all pre rest. we know we are working toward developing civil citation, how are going to do it? the prosecutor, the head of it juvenile division looked at her and said you are already doing it. they are just going to court first. and this is the prosecutor. he is like, we don't have to arrest them. we need to get them into diversion program so we can assess where they are, so we can really look at these kids. do you have educational issues,

mental health issues? what is really going on? how can we get to you, johnnie, to the right programming? it does not mean -- all will be involved as a judge, but it does not mean the kids department is not going to be involved with these kids. means we will not be criminalizing their behavior. we are really excited because this one slide is going to change everything in delaware. and that is really exciting. i am going to turn the floor over to brendan. the offenses were predominately minor, and predominantly for fighting and disorderly conduct. we know that fighting and disorderly behavior has always been going on. we know that female students are larger percentage of arrest in schools than on the streets.

that is huge. why are girls getting arrested in school more so than on the street? at least one paper out there says that when girls fight, we get really uncomfortable. gerlach historically -- is a cultural thing. girls are not supposed to fight. and cat fights, if you have never seen one, they are really ugly. there is screaming and hair flying. i am so serious. there may not be any injury, it is just like a cat fight and there is hair going everywhere. half of the arrested students have no juvenile justice record. this is huge for us.

and half of them were diverted. strict disciplinarian security initiative, and iant to be very careful because i was a police officer in college, or a rent of copyread you can call it whatever you want. but i have a real -- and rent -- a rent a cop. i am not being critical of police agencies. but there are some times that we are using sro's in ways that could have been utilize better or they were not originally intended. we do have random searches. " we have suspensions, expulsions, arrests, and then we have decreased educational attainment, increased criminal

involvement and incarceration. this is the school disruption to prison pipeline, and that is what we see. the school disruption to prison pipeline trade we have to figure out ways that we can work together. that is what i am so excited about because i feel for the first time we are all working together to figure out where we go from here. i am just going to close this out. >> thank you. [applause] >> greetings, everybody. it is of privilege and pleasure to be here in front of you all. i just want to give you a little

information about our department. my name is brendan anderson. i am with the oakland unified school district. it was through the courage of our superintendent, dr. tony smith, that our department was able to come to fruition. he saw a need through the data and through the experiences of african-american students in our school district that we needed to focus and be delivered and intentional to help support the needs of our african-american male students in our city. our department was initially set up to focus on improving the achievement of our students, the attendance, graduation rates. we know there is a big outflux of students, whether from

dropouts or even our high achieving students, when they are in middle school they tend to go to private school when they are going to high school. we wanted to keep our high strivers in our district as well. we are charged to lower the suspension rate and incarceration rate for our african-american male students. so part of our job is to be interrupters from this school to prison pipeline. we want to make sure that we interrupt all situations that the judge was talking about as far as already setting them up for their road to prison while they are in school. we know there are high recidivism rates once they get caught in the system, they continue to stay in there. what we know as far as open is the african-american male students are six times more

likely to be suspended than their white counterparts in the schools. out of those that are suspended, african americans, almost half or 44% of them are suspended for subjective things such as willful defiance or disruption. again, this is highly subjective and these rates are out of whack when it comes to being suspended six times more than their counterparts. we also know that prison cells are billed based on literacy rates in the second and third grade. there is already a correlation that they know that if students are illiterate as adults, it is very hard for them to be seen in any -- to build a life for themselves in this country and in our community in oakland.

two years ago our department was started with our executive director, chris chapman. what we did the first year is we wanted to canvass the landscape of the oakland schools and find out what was really going on. what we looked at is culture, conditions, and competencies' across all the schools. really looking for best practices that were happening in those schools. it was great at this conference hearing culture so much, because when we first guarded, we did not know how to define culture or what to look for. we understood the value of the school was part of their culture, and what was important to the school, but there was not really any measurements that we were able to go to to see the different indicators of culture. so is great hearing culture coming up so much and conditions

coming up so much and knowing that is just as important as the instruction in the schools and in the classrooms. one of the things we say about our students that we know is that students don't care what you know until they know that you care. for us, it is very important to build relationships not only with the students but with the families and the community members at large. the way we frame our solutions , engage, ande's courage, and empower. engaged in is all about building relationships, as you would guess. knowing the family, we have to do family visits. a lot of times we see that older siblings are dropping their younger siblings off at school on their way to school and sometimes they may be late.

then they reached their classroom and the teacher says go to the office, you are late. they already have the responsibility of dropping off their auger siblings at school at a young age. they are already responsible for that, but then when they get to their class, they get punished for being late. so again, it is all about building relationships, knowing and understanding what each student has to go through in their daily lives. even transportation is a huge issue in oakland. from the east side and the west side, some students have to cross different neighborhoods to go to school, and safety, as we talked about in the conference yesterday, is an important issue for students, to be able to feel safe so they can achieve academically. one of the other things about engagement that we look for to understand the students is, we understand the different

domains that students have to navigate through. by domain's i mean there are different rules for different areas that they have to go to each day. at home there are different rules, at school there are rules. they might have an after-school program they go to with different rules. there are rules when they are hanging with their friends on the corner, and there are rules if they are in some sort of sports organization. so all these different domains that the students have to navigate through. at a young age, even in high school sometimes, they don't understand that the rules that apply hanging out with your friends are not the same that apply in the classroom, even though some of your friends might be in the classroom. that have to understand about being able to change their behavior for the different

situations. another thing as far as engagement is for schools to utilize all their faculty and staff. what we see a lot of times is there is not enough african- american male teachers in the schools. a lot of times they end up being security officers or custodians and we see them in that regard. there is nothing wrong with utilizing them as school faculty to engage students in that way, too. a lot of times there is not the instructional staff, but we see them as coulter keepers. a lot of times the coaches and p e teachers used to be the life coaches for the students. now p e is getting pushed out a lot so we do not see that as often. we want to let schools know that the more they can utilize all their faculty and staff in order

to engage students, the better it will be for the students. professor bradshaw also mentioned guest today that bullies are less connected to schools. again, this whole engagement strategy to bring in families and students to the school is very important. we understand that a lot of times, parents had poor relationships with schools. a lot of times when parents get calls home from teachers, typically it is for something they did wrong. when we can call our parents and let them know about what students do right and a positive behavior is, maybe the parents will be more interested in talking to the schools and having relationships with the schools and coming in for open house. in understanding and engaging

everyone, we also know in our communities, there is a lot of violence that goes on in our community. one of the things we say as far as people that have survived abuse is that hurt people hurt people. a lot of times they are just acting out the way they were treated as youths themselves. we want to be very aware of that and engage in get to know each student individually and get to know their parents and their families, so that we understand where they are coming from each day and what they are going back to each day. even though we have them for the bulk of the day, six or seven hours, a lot of times whatever we do to help their academic achievement we know can be completely reversed when they go back. if we are in it -- able to engage with the parents and families and let them know how

important reading at home is, and sitting with them with their homework, finding a quiet space to do their homework. we do a lot of parent training as well. to let parents know the best way to advocate for their students. we understand that peer to peer is the best way, too. we try to find parents and schools that are activist and have them reach out to parents that are struggling to engage because we understand the power of peer to peer. as far as encouragement, as human nature, we all want the attention. students are going to learn how to give -- get attention based on what we give it to them for. if we constantly give them attention for doing things wrong, that is what they will shoot for. if we only encourage them when doing it right, that is what they will work towards.

we want to be very deliberate and intentional of providing them with positive reinforcement. one of the things we use for an engagement strategy which crosses over with the encouragement is student awards. when i was a teacher in oakland school district in the mid- 1990's, we used to just have meals and think we could just bring the families and by offering food. that does not work anymore. transportation issues, other siblings they have to take care of, it is too much for them to just come and get a meal. but if you recognize their children for doing well in school, they will all come out. ogles and dance, grandmas, what we found in our first year of -- uncles and aunties.

we did a little research and we were wondering how many students in the district got a perfect score. we found out there were 30 african-american students in the school district that got a perfect score. we recognized them. we brought them all together and had a huge event, had over 500 people, and got some news out of it where the media came and had a positive story to report. again, that was our engagement strategy. it does not always have to be the high flyers. it can be those students that are failing and now they are c's.g b's and

that is a huge movement in a positive way. we want to recognize them as much as possible and that is our best family engagement strategy. the way we look at it, schools can be dream makers are dream killers. a lot of times, students think they know what they want to be in a court we are as early as kindergarten, first, second, or third grade. we have a listening campaign where we go around to different schools to uplift the voice of the students and listen to what they have to say. we asked them about the careers they want to be into so that they understand the importance of school. a lot of the students, because of what we see in the media, they want to be professional athletes and entertainers, and that is fine. there is nothing wrong with

having great dreams and dreaming big. the judge's daughter your wants to be a filmmaker. we want people to be open to understand what their gifts and talents are and work towards that. but a lot of times the schools tell them they will not be able to get there. there is such a small percentage of people that succeed in that venue. we don't believe that. we say this is what you want to do, and these are all the things you need to get there. you need to have high academics. if you want to be a professional football player, every professional player in the nfl has to go to college. you need a 3.0 to play on the team. so all the different things to encourage them and give them a reason to come to school. otherwise, why are they coming to school for the next eight years that they cannot even choose the career they want?

the third thing is to empower them. it is really just having high expectations. that is huge for our students. we want 100% of students to graduate and 100% to be college and career ready. we cannot shoot for 70%, knowing if there is only a 50% graduation rate, we cannot say let's shoot for 70% so we can incrementally get there. we want to shoot for 100 every year. if we reach 70, we reach 70, but next year we shoot for 100%. we have to have high expectations. we went and talked to all of the principals in the oakland school district the first year that we started. my executive director got in front of all of them and had them close their eyes. he said i want you all to

envision a high achieving an african-american male in your schools. how many of you can envision this? about one-third of the als raised their hands. he said how many of you that raised hands can envision a group of african-american males in your schools that are high achieving? and more hands went down. so we cannot even envision and see that. how are we going to expect them to be high achieving? i also had the privilege in working with the education trust. they opened an office about seven years ago in oakland. one of the slides we did there was around expectations as well.

resurveyed students, parents, and teachers and asked the students, how many of you think you are going to college? about 78% said yes, we think we are going to college. we asked the parents and 52% said they would go to college. then they asked the teachers, and 37% of them said they thought their students would go to college. expectations are huge and we need to empower our students and let them know they can achieve anything they want. as far as discipline, we get a lot of students that are moving around. as adults, it is no problem sitting in this conference all day without getting of fidgety, right? but we expect our students to

sit there for six or seven hours a day. if you have what we call spirited students, give them leadership roles. a lot of the time that is all they need. they need something to do. if the curriculum and content is not culturally relevant to them, a lot of the time they are not interested anyway. put them in leadership roles. have students work with students and teachers work with teachers. we have seen some classes where all the students are behaving, higher achievers, and the same students go to the next class and all of a sudden they are off the hook. the last thing we do as far as empowerment is around the counter narrative. making sure that students can feel good about being smart. we see that a lot of times it is

not cool to be smart, being an african-american male. we want to change that misperception. a lot of it has to do with their value of their life and self- esteem. they internalize a lot from the way the media portrays the african-american male. a lot of times we internalize that. we want to make sure that have strong self perception. a couple of programs we are doing to really change the landscape, we have a development class where it is a school day where we started with all ninth graders and we help them advocate for themselves and be able to build relationships with their teachers. we started with ninth grade and now we are adding each year and also doing as sixth grade class.

middle school and high school, and each year we will add another class. we have had excellent results in the data from that. all of our students have improved in attendance and academic achievement, and suspensions have gone down a lot. we also have a program called of voluntary school study team were to go to schools and have them bring all their administrators, teachers, classified staff, parents, students, and community members. this is our sustainable model. knowing that we have grants for five years can help change the culture. as you know, it is up to the schools to build sustainability. this model of bringing all the stakeholders together for the school with a focus on the african-american male achievement, everybody working

toward that same goal, is are sustainable model. we call it the voluntary school study team. i know we will have some questions and answers. in summary, we speak about trying to get more informations about defiance, but having more back out on what that is an intervention, partnerships are huge, being able to share data among different agencies with the schools, because the students will go through different agencies but no one is sharing that data. we have more programs, and again, peer to peer is huge. thank you for your time, and i

look forward to answering any questions you may have. [applause] >> i love what you said about students don't care what you know until they know you care. that will be my take away for the day. i think what we want to do now is asked that if you have questions, or if you want to take a few minutes to write down some questions for the panel, we will pick up those cards and get some discussion going with the panelists. let us know if you have a card that you have written on. are they supposed to be talking at their tables? >> there is a sheet on your table that might give you some ideas.

>> the other thing i wanted to mention is, we do have power point presentation that the back so if you want to pick those up when you leave, they are there. questions. i actually would like to ask you to talk a little bit more about what you were going to touch on with regard to restore to justice and how that works. it caught my interest there. >> we see the program as a preventative measure. restore to justice is more intervention because that is after the fact. any sort of disciplinary action or situation. it is more about building relationships and bringing the

perpetrator together with the victim, and being able to -- almost a therapeutic session of understanding each other and what the behavior was and why it happened, and really does build a relationship between the perpetrator and victim. and with other people around so that it is a holistic group situation. one example was one of the students -- my example of coming in late. a lot of times a student will come in late and then the teacher says you have to go to the office. then the student gets mad and curses the teacher out, and then everything escalates, even though it is just a couple of minutes late, not a big deal, and everything gets escalated

because of any sort of verbal abuse. for the student, it is all about respect at that age, especially in middle school, but in high school, too. if a field is respected, they will all of a sudden, it was a minor incident that turned into a suspension. the teacher felt that the student cursed at them. they want to make sure the principle suspends them. the principle is always in an awful situation. they know the student should be in school and that is what is about. giving instruction to the student. they brought everyone together. they were able to talk about it and work it out. the teacher understood that the child was dropping off siblings to school before they got to school. without the knowledge of that an

understanding of that, everything escalated. there was another example where there were a group of boys afterschool were walking in the neighborhood and throwing rocks at houses. they broke a window. the owner of the house was upset. they went to the school and told them there was a group of students walking around and throwing rocks. they got everyone together with the owner of the house. afterwards, the owner of the house bill pretty good -- understood and spoke to the students and built the relationship. we are all human. we make mistakes. we can talk about it and build relationships. we are restoring the relationship and building a bond between the perpetrator and the victim. >> thank you. that is helpful. this is for all of you, but

george in particular. please discuss smaller class size as it relates to students and successful academic achievement. >> good question. we have always struggled with what is the ideal class size? what we have learned that it is dependent upon the competency levels, if you will, and the competency levels of the teachers. much of the work we focus on is building predictable and positive kinds of classrooms and non-classroom settings. the more positive and predictable the are, the easier it is for a structural activities. the caution size discussion is about making sure -- the classroom size discussion is also about making sure about what students can handle.

kids are broken up into a variety of groups sizes depending upon the instructional activities those kids need to have. it is a difficult question to ask about class size when there are many burbles associated with it. there are some caution teachers to panhandle 50 or 60 kids and have not -- there are some classroom teachers who can handle 50 or 60 kids and not have any problems. i am hedging a little bit because i do not know what that ideal classroom is. it depends on how the classroom and school is as a whole. i have to say that it is easier to run a classroom when skilled teachers are able to have visas structural activities.

expectations are high for success, but opportunities to express that is perfect for kids. it is a question that would have to be addressed at the school level to figure out what is best for those kids. >> day want to comment on that? -- do you want to comment on that? >> what advice do have for district attorneys and what they can do to change in how school disciplinarian cases are handled? >> i think it all goes back to relationships. it starts with relationships. in delaware, the district

, we have one for the state. you take whatever location your act and whatever authority that district attorney has any meet with the superintendent and you bring people together to start the conversation. even if you do not have data, start something. talk about what that will you want to get to and where are you. they started meeting with police officers. we have student research officers. i had conversations on what

charges were being brought. i believe the number is already down. she started having conversations with them and pushing the on the low. we will not take that. -- pushing the envelope. we will not take that. the reality is, without the backdrop of resources -- sometimes folks would get children into the system to get them healthy -- it does not happen that much in delaware. we were able to get children help without getting them into the system. for whoever asked that

question, does that answer the question? >> thank you. >> brenden, you talk about the structure of the male development class. >> we do have our own instructors. that was the biggest challenge. they are part-time staff. it is not a full-time teaching job. if there are teachers and the principle is willing to set up and have that classroom for their own teachers in the school, that would be the best situation. but the biggest piece of it is making sure for us that it is a school day and not after-school enrichment. it is really passage, a rite of

passage start of class. it is life skills. the way we set up in 9th grade, they understand how to connect with their teachers and how to get the most out of the school and how to advocate for themselves. they learned how to go to their teachers during lunch time to get extra support. they learn how to talk to their teachers. they learn how to support each other in study groups and these important and essentials for high academic achievement. more than anything, it makes kool relevant for them. it feels like to have someone -- it makes school more relevant for them. it feels like they have someone who cares about them.

scheduling, there are scheduling issues as well. it is only african american males. they are the only ones in that class at the time. there are some latinos every lead in their depending on what was available for scheduling. sometimes there will be an issue. really, it is about the curriculum that you have and having a rite of passage to be able to build their capacity for high academic achievement. does that answer your question? d one more specifics? -- do you have more specifics? >> [inaudible] >> microphone. >> most polls believe in advisories, but more often than not, it does not work. i want to know if you have any

ideas or suggestions. and think it is accepted in theory, but not in the classroom. >> depending on the school, we have some classes that utilize them. that was the most seamless. some schools because we came in late, it ended up being an after-school enrichment program. we would rather have it a school day, but at least it is something. really, once you get the scheduling and the instructor, we can help you with a different curriculum. >> i do not know who ask this question, but i am glad it was asked. it is something i am very interested in. kids who are exposed to trauma and pilots in their houses and communities every day -- and

violence in their houses and communities every day -- and what can schools do for their needs? what responsibility do schools have to identify and recognize the trauma? what role can school personnel play in caring for those kids? >> i will take a shot at it. i am in family court. 80%, of juveniles and the juvenile system are exposed to domestic violence are involved in the mental health system. right then and there, we know that the percentage of kids are struggling have a high exposure

to trauma. as a nation, we have to look at this and say, what is our responsibility? if we're going to get kids graduated from high school, we as a nation have to address the needs of these children. many of them remain in their homes, whether they are in a chaotic homes are not, they remain there. i think the most important things for school -- and i know that delaware has a school nurse in every single school. apparently, that is not the norm. that makes me very proud of delaware. you have an individual who is

trained in the medical and trauma issues. many of these issues manifest for the kids with stomachaches and headaches and absentees. often it will be brought to the attention of the school nurse. many schools have a family crisis therapist. some schools get certain resources. i personally believe that it is all of our obligation. i hope all of the schools would want to take on this. we cannot meet the needs of the child in some fashion,

they will not be in school. it is a matter of figuring out how we can do this and looking at what funding is available. look at the funding that we have. there were three different things that he mentioned. we continue to struggle with not being able to increase resources. in this day and age, we need to work smarter and more streamlined. i believe that we need to look at it. >> thank you. >> much of the work that we do is responding to that kind of challenge. we try to help them understand that kids have to experience a positive and safe and respectful environment. we like to have the staff think

of the role as being part of creating a safe environment. for example, i think about my wife's school. she greets every single kid at the door in the morning. every kid. there are some kids uses hello to her twice. -- who says hello to her twice. the teachers stand at the door and greets every kid. i asked the kid, i have you interacted or talk to a teacher today? if they say no and they have sat through seven hours, if we are in trouble. kids need to feel safe enough to ask for assistance and ask for help and so forth.

every single staff has an obligation. they need to say good morning. we know the cafeteria worker ask, what lunch would you like? we need interaction on every level. without that, we are in trouble. we like to have every staff pick three or five kids that they would have extra contact with. some kids need a little extra. the last thing they should experience is a positive adult contact. because they're walking to an environment that is not. kids who have issues that are bothering them will seek out an adult. that teacher could be that an adult. if we ask a kid, and you have an

adult who you feel comfortable talking to? and they say no, we are in trouble. what we have realized is that this behavior kids display is the request for engagement. what we do is send them out instead of sending time with them. the-spending time with them. -- spending time with them. we want to make sure that the school is a positive and safe haven for kids. they did not have a neighborhood that allows them to do things in a productive way. it can be done. it is all about contact. >> the next question i have is for you. can you discuss the key strategy

for involving families? >> we let the judge to do whatever she wants. [laughter] >> remember that triangle logic that i gave before? we want to do something for all families. all family should be exposed to information and positive interaction. everyone to have access to that. some family members we have to call them. there are some family members who do not have access to the school. we need to provide some kind of busing for those families. there are some families who need highly individualized report to reach the school. as you all know, there is parent

teacher night. only certain parents show up. that is usually the party needs the least information about what the school is up to. it is a graduated set of experiences. we need daily and weekly contact for all families and parents. without their regular communication through e-blasts or websites of information in backpacks, families need informations about what is going on at school. we did not want parents surprised when their child is in trouble. we want to generate more activities. it is all about making sure that

some families have much more intensive support that they cannot access otherwise. it is a broad answer, but it is more about differentiating the support. in the positive parent engagement. >> thank you. here is an interesting question. i understand the concept of getting everyone on board with discipline. do you think it would help if some kind of training would be done at the beginning of the school year? i would add to that, what kind of training are we talking about? for any of you. >> well, one of the things that pop up in the earlier questions for me is that there are students right now who are living in a war zone. we hear about the number of casualties in iraq and places

like that. in oakland, the numbers are similar. what is happening is that our students are being desensitized. the lives -- whether it is a friend or a family -- we are losing all of these young lives. they are desensitized. we have students where we have an oral history project were read into the african american males across the district to up with their voice. one of our students missed a session. we are strict about the session and making sure attendance is high. he missed it because his best friend was on his way to his house. on the way, he got chased down and gone down and was killed by a 12-year-old boy. it was gang initiation.

they have to kill someone to prove that they are hard enough to do that. this is something daily inmate not only open, but other cities in the nation. -- this is something that happens a daily and in other cities in the nation. we can do it at is -- we cannot do this as an individual school. training our staff and letting them know i do they can this landscape of the city of what are the different support of agencies out there? it can be mental health or foster youth or homeless youth. there are many supports out there in the community.

you want to be able to find those right away. when you go through your training, it concertos so everyone will be equipped with that. thatne of the things - teachers are overwhelmed with the amount of training that was being completed. we have to be cognizant about it because it is a difficult time for schools and we're asking for more and more. on the other hand, we have to find a way to integrate some of the appropriate training and be able to show that where it has been accomplished, they will be able to spend more time teaching. it may be a matter of going to some of the experts, the educators in the schools that are in tough areas and have

been a bill to accomplish it -- have been able to accomplish a. -- accomplish it. a lot of the teachers from what i am hearing early utterly exhausted before they get started. i think we need to show them that you will be tired, but once you get started there is help up there. >> it really quickly, another thing is that we may have our back-to-school trading and everything. a lot of the times, it is just the staff. what about having the first three days or week of school to where everything is a retreat? we can really build relationships before we start school. that everyone understand or everyone else is and where they are coming from.

we can really support people before we jump right into the instruction. >> two quick recommendations on that comment. my wife taught me that i'm not tranquil. training is a way to get access to -- it is important that administrators and teachers, who ever people will have eight respected status model of what we want teachers to do. my wife make sure she is out in the school and visible and interacting with staff members. we spend $40 per week on wal- mart candy because she has able candy for the staff members. we have to model for ourselves and others, as well as for kids what we want.

second, if we want schools with training practice -- my wife has a great example. she tries to make sure that they have the smallest numbers of things they are investing in to have the biggest effect. we have schools doing tanner 12 mandates at the same time. what she has learned is that you cannot do more than three things at a time. the staff will be willing to adopt a practice on a daily basis if there are two or three things you invest in. you could talk about literacy, the school climate, and parent involvement. they are more likely to engage in those practices if they know they're not been bombarded by multiple things.

you have to work smarter and with what you are investing in. adults like me will not change their behavior unless the environment has changed. i want to throw that out. >> thank you to all three of you. you bring an interesting combination of wealth, knowledge, and experience. it is very heartening to be here and be part of this. a hand to the panel. [applause] we have about literally two or three minutes remaining. we want to ask any of you if you want to the microphone and let us any know of resources that you bring with regard to school discipline that you would like others to know about. anyone out there? please. >> hello.

i come from new jersey. i have worked on different committees in child will be in initiatives in regards to action and motivation. my question was regarding trauma, children victims of crime have been i exposed to violence are trauma, we know in general that debt exposure to teenagers -- that the exposure of teenagers losing parents. using resources and addressing the need for it children socially, emotionally, and academically within public schools and their comments to engagement not just with the child and understanding what they need, but the motivation for the staff to get them to create those attachments to those children so they show that

they care and that those children rely on them as resources. they may be the only one that they have an opportunity to talk to. within a school-based setting, i think we can open up access to counseling services that already pre exist. most schools have school counselors. if we can give them an opportunity to facilitate what is there are ready, those services, but equitable access -- whether it is lunchtime or after school -- making sure those needs are there. if they ask to go to the nurse, they are allowed to go. not in the middle of a test, of course, but the teacher can use their best judgment to determine the need. sometimes they are allowed to go sooner rather than later. sooner rather than later.