the time required to complete should not exceed 20 minutes per day from c-3 and 30 minutes per day 4-5. my child at school has one hour 40 minutes a day. fourth grader, probably at home crying right now, because this week she has one less day to complete her homework pakistan. the next sentence is parents, guardens and care givers will be given the policy of homework. it says board of education 6136. when i showed this to my principal our teachers, they act like they have never seen it before. i'm here tonight to ask you to please remind your teaching staff of the homework policy. the second thing i encourage you

to do tonight is invite to a screen inc. of "race to no where" which is a documentary on the subject of homework. i expect you will be reading it in the paper. there have been screenings across the country. two are scheduled in san francisco right now. one at roosevelt middle school and on thursday november 18. i'm going to pass these out. i first attempt to be an activate. and i don't have enough. i read them allowed into the mike. >> you did it perfectly under two minutes. [applause] sure we get the word out to all the school sites. president kim: ms. samoa.

>> good evening commissioner. i'm the vice president for paraphernaliaaprofessionals and a special ed parent at paul revere. i have worked in the school administration for over 20 years. i have been in a lot of different classifications. regular ed, special ed and elementary adviser. i have been laid off from this district seven years and i'm back. one of the issues i'm going to talk about tonight is one of the most important issues i have stood before you and talked about. it is the p and r and pension and terrible injustices that is being done to p and r and professionals who are women of color. this is an issue i talked to you about. did you know they have worked in this district for over 30 years. some of them will retire with a

pension of 250 a month. a lot of our paras are 65 and over. we have 165 paras, which is 10% of the population is over 65. for the par astrg, they have found out what has happened. they are very angry. which you can see here tonight, there are a lot of paras that are here. [applause] >> this has been going on since 1993, 17 years. the district's legal and moral responsibility is to pay the paras back for the money they have shorted them. legally at least for the last four years. now is the time to fix the past injustices, what has been done

to parprofessionals. for others here, it's too late. their service in the district will never be recognized, but they are standing up for the younger ones who still have a chance in this district to get a decent pension. it's time for sfusd to tell the administration that we need a solution to this now. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners, i'm a social studies teacher and i'm on the executive board of the united educators of san francisco. i have been teaching alongside paraprofessionals and i see the work they do day in and day out and providing one-on-one services for our most challenged students to walking the halls

keeping us safe inside of our city. paras keep the schools running. they work alongside teachers administrators and are the true heart and soul of any campus in this district. one thing i learned early is that one of the biggest impacts on the morale of any faculty is the way they are treated by the administration. and how the administration treats its work has a lot to do with how we feel about the work we do. how is it possible in the year 2010, over 70 years after the social security administration was established and the basic idea of social justice, that everyone who works for a living gives to the community, feeds their family, play by the rules is that least afforded a decent pension. and you heard from vice

president samoa that we have par as leaving the district. that is a shame. this is the city of st. francis. san francisco, st. francis. from the most mighty to the most humble, this city takes care of its own, all working together to do the right thing. this cannot stand any longer. it's beyond legal questions. it's beyond mere financial questions. this has to be atorded and give the educators a decent retirement. act now. don't delay any longer. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> good evening, i'm one of

yourly aceon assigned to 11 schools. i was helping build capacity in all aspects. i assist families. i help with prevention and intervention with these families and doing home visits, walking in the communities and doing some investigation work to locate june accounted for students. i am training key personnel at the schools to use technology used for tru and n crmp y. i hard every day. i'm here to speak to you as a young paraphernaliaa affected by this fraud of a pension plan. this district should be ashamed of itself for the treatment of the hard working paraphernaliaaa -- paras.

that we need to work together to help our children move towards the 21st century learning. you abuse me with the constant threats of layoffs. you abuse me with neglect and time after time i stay silent because it's just this time and you really care for me, so it won't happen again. i can't seem to be quiet any longer. i love this school district. i want you to love me back. do the right thing and give me my pension and will allow me to retire with dignity. thank you. [cheers and applause] president kim: that's a hard act to follow. >> my name is mary and i have been working in this district in this capacity for 34 years. i first started when i was going to college at the age of 20.

it's very dishearten inc. and very disheart inc.. it is hard for me to get my words out right. you all have parents. think about if your parent were to retire and get by the time i retire at least maybe six years, the cost of living is going to go up. as a student adviser, we haven't gotten a raise and stuck at $25 for the last 100 years. i don't even know when was the last time we got a raise.

so i mean the insults are really there. they are slapping us in the face. i don't mind working like a dog but i refuse to be treated like one. give me the retirement that i deserve and give the young ones that are coming up the retirement packages that they deserve or else you're going to lose them. you're going to lose them. thank you. >> i'm here as the representative of teachers in our district. i'm a teacher in a middle school and here in solidarityy with the paras of this district. i'm so ashamed of how we treat

paras and they deserve a decent pension and we should make that happen. the disparity between teachers' pensions and paras pensions are shock inc. i work with them every day, side by side and i see their important work. i was present at the board meet inc. the night you voted not to give pink slips and i was so proud. it felt right and we all knew it was right

>> i have been working in the district for 10 years. and it's interesting as i was walking up i saw a banner that said sfusd, world class schools. last year, i worked with a teacher, special ed math teacher and together with my initiative really, we decided we weren't going to let our talented math students fall by the wayside just because they were in special ed, so we put together a program to address those students who had ability and the special ed test scores went up by 50 percent in geometry as well as in other areas. i have seen so many beautiful, talented, but learning different children blossom with the help

of their paras. it frightens me when i was 20, i worked two summers for greyhound and may get more from that pension than the work i have done with passion and with great care for these beautiful children of our city. i think whoever spoke from low well, the sociology teacher, said the morale is reflected in the way its employees, its backbone is treated. and when you treat the people who care for children like this, eventually, it does trickle down to them know matter how hard we try. please stop that now and give us a decent pension as your fellow city members and as your fellow

educators. thank you. [applause] >> good evening. my name is gail and i work as an elementary adviser at an elementary school and it will be 10 years and i will be 60 years old and i can retire with $150, which is $5 less than my premiums will be for my medical. so that makes it tough. if i wait two more years, i would probably get about $900 from social security, but i can't do that. the other thing that is frighten inc., i only get $36,000.

>> i'm here to ask you to support compensate inc. paras for the hard work they do. i'm a special education teacher and the work they have done has been invaluable. they work very hard. they have a stressful job and often a danger outside job. they tutor students one-on-one, small groups and diffuse emotional situations and are invaluable. it is incredibly difficult to recruit new ones to this district and if we don't do something about retirement, it will be even more difficult. thank you.

and that they could communicate to me accurately and that we could have small groups. we could have additional supervision of children. that there was communication individually with children, so much more could get accomplished and be done in the terms of how that particular classroom or group would function and to me, it is extremely important that

this district attract and keep good paraprofessionals. and during the years i have seen an erosion of layoffs, which shifted them from one place to another, which reduced their numbers and then to retire as far as the individually contracted people with substitutes or not. they are on the lowest part of the running in terms of putting something aside for their future. it's obvious and if they have been promised to be in a system that will support them when they retire so they know they can exist outside of the classroom, it is important legally, morally and in every other term to go through that which has been contracted and make sure they are secure, because even as retired paraprofessionals they

have use on the community and very important and important for the substitute teachers that there are people who will come in and be willing to work in this district. so that is my take on the subject. [applause] >> good evening, president kim and school board commissioners, superintendent garcia, staff and all. my name is roberto, i'm the special ed person you have been hearing about. but i'm the sergeant at arms for the teachers union of san francisco. and what brings me before you is that you probably heard it all by now, but i want to touch on specifically on the matter that the social security is actually

the best thing for some of us to be in it. and i specifically want the commissioners to be able to understand this and be able to tell the administration to fix this, this should have been fixed in 1992 and it's the legal thing to do and moral thing to do. do it now, please. >> good evening, my name is dorothy and i have worked in this district for 29 years. i'm old enough to retire, but i cannot and i will tell you why. this school district coerced me and others in order to give up social security. i wanted both. the district said no. and promised me that my previous work in the private sector guaranteed me full social security benefits at the time of my retirement.

this district never told me or any of us about the windfall elimination provision, nor the government pension offset to two federal laws which reduce and possibly eliminate our social security benefits because of p and rs. this means that i'm unable to file for social security benefits under my husband's higher social security balance. if my husband dies before i do, i will not be entitled to his survivor benefits. this will leave me destitute. and it gets worse. yesterday, i called and i learned that should i die shortly after beginning to draw my benefits, my spouse will not receive one penny of the balance in my account and i wonder how many people know that.

is this a retirement plan that you would like to have? i doubt that. you owe us more than this. please, act now to rectify this injustice, get us, get me back into social security. [cheers and applause] >> good evening. this is my tenth year working for the san francisco school district. i'm a special ed para. i don't know what to say. should i work for another 10 years or quit my job. please change the policy, please. for all the new ones. and it is my tenth year. thank you. [applause] >> good evening. i am a special ed para and have

been working in san francisco for the past 27 years as of october 3. i'm not going to be able to retire soon because i won't be able to. we all live in the most expensive city in the union and what am i go go to do? how am i go go to support myself. if your plan is much better than mine, i would love to have it and trade it off and let you guys understand what we have to go through. this is about survival. we haven't had a raise. we haven't had a cost of living. all we have is a messed up retirement plan that is not going to benefit us in any way, shape or form. i hope that you have heard us and i really hope that you are listen ingand pay ingattention

and want ingto change this for the better for all of us. i love what i do, but when it's time for me to go, i want to go with some dignity and know ingthat my district respected me enough to get us out of a travesty. i want my money and enough money to survive on. i want enough money that if i want to take a trip, i want to be able to do that. i might be like they are on tv, eating dog food and i'm not having that. so i'm hoping that you do change this so if we have a choice. yes, we can get social security, but let me put my money where i want my money to go so it will benefit me. so that's all i have to say. i hope you guys act on that. thank you.

>> good evening, i'm anthony sing willing will ton and worked at -- anthony singleton. when i first came in, i was a transition specialist. before that -- for nine years and classroom for five years. i returned to being a transition specialist and now i'm a member of the executive board of the san francisco teachers union or educators of san francisco, excuse me. when i first was coerced into signing up for this, the agents told me that upon retirement that the district would match anything that -- everything that i had contributed.

and i just found out maybe a few weeks ago that that's not going to happen. and so now at $80,000, i will only have that much and now it turns out that as of a few weeks ago, i found that social security will not honor or match -- will not match -- will not match what i have contributed or they will -- subtract whatever social security i get. now as of working with the san francisco school district, i also worked for the san francisco recreation and parks department for 15 years ain worked for a company and i'm

very concerned about this. so as it turns out, since the school district is not going to match my funds, this is no more than than a ponzi scheme in the end and i hope that the district will give us social security and help us have -- get our money, ok? thank you very much. [cheers and applause] >> i have been a special ed paraprofessional and have been here in this district for about nine years and few years in another district. and i'm outraged after hearing what the union has to tell us the other night that the district does not want to put in the money, just the last three

years or four years and has been since 1992 that they haven't been putting in this money and i stand here before all of you for the paras that are not here right now having other jobs not knowing how they are going to live when they get to the end of their lives and you people are going to have us on your payroll for a long time because we can't retire. i mean, i do have social security, but that's not great either. but little bit taken away from that because we have this pension, which is not a pension. it's a disgrace. and i think it's criminal. and i call it white collar crime. [applause] >> my name is tom and i'm a para. this was a unique milestone, 20th year as a paraprofessional

in the district and has been with the severely impaired. 20 years of autism, downs syndrome, developmentally delays and a whole lot of combinations. it's been interesting. i'm not here to complain. i knew it was going to be difficult work when i applied. however, over the last two decades, i have given the job best of my time, education and energy. i think it's only basic fairness the district fulfill its commitment. i'm asking for three things, sign the memorandum of understanding so that the impasse can be resolved and we can start negotiate ingon this, let us out of p and rs. it is fraud and white collar crime and let us into s.s.i.

i have fulfilled my part of the contract. it is upon your part to fulfill the contract. thank you, good night. [applause] >> members of the board, superintendent garcia, ladies and gentlemen, my colleagues, i say good evening to you and thank you for coming out tonight. it's wonderful to see you and hear you present your case to the members of the board of education. when there was negotiations for the years, our goal was to bargain a substantially improved retirement system and an m.o.u. was signed in 2006 to establish a committee that would write a wriret a report. here we are more than four years without a resolution to this issue.