scenarios. all the school community members will hear more from us before then. i will leave it at that for now. as the deputy superintendent mentioned, we will talk about some of this more at our next meeting. thank you. >> thank you, deputy superintendent lee. we really want to emphasize that on february 12 we will be bringing our school communities together, and representatives from school site councils, to begin the budget process. we want to encourage a turnout for that session. president mendoza: you have a question? commissioner murase: i had a question for mr. lee. thank you for that synched presentation. you went over the tax package. i am concerned about the dependent deduction.

by definition, the families of our school districts take a vintage of the dependent deduction. we are asking them to give up part of the dependent deduction to be able to fund schools at a reasonable level. is that correct? >> commissioner, i believe in certain respects that is correct. i am not totally clear what the amount of that is. i imagine this is part of the state income tax proposal. i believe that all of these are currently in place, or have recently expired. so all of these tax extensions -- they would not be, for the most part, additional tax increases right now. they were passed two years ago. they were intended to expire in two years. the proposal is that they would remain in place for another five

years. we can do some research on that. commissioner murase: it is important for us as a board to be able to articulate how important revenue measures are. president mendoza: thank you. commissioner maufas: deputy superintendent lee, i know as we move through the budget ourselves, our families and staff -- we have a web site folks can send questions to. questions that would be broader public questions can get answered. >> yes, commissioner. we can do that. i think we did a fair amount of multi-modal engagement last year as well. we had a series of workshops, opportunities for community members to come and talk with us in person, including in my

office. we had a variety of documents on our website. we will certainly build on those here. commissioner maufas: thank you. my second question was -- you mentioned the shift on some government programs to the local level. i know we do not have the full breadth of understanding of what those things will be, but will we have some idea of what is involved? >> we can certainly give a more detailed description of those specific proposals. we can do that either at the next board meeting on february 8 as part of our budget update -- commissioner maufas: i think probably as we go along, anything you know and that we can let our families and staff know would be appreciated.

thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> great. commissioners, this evening we have two distinguished service and special service awards. to present the first distinguished service award, i would like to call the assistant superintendent to talk about the first award. >> good evening, commissioners. it is my privilege to recognize principle chris rosenberg. this acknowledgement is well- deserved. [applause] chris rosenberg has been a longstanding instructional

leader in our district, most recently as principal of star king. he answered the call to action to come served in the superintendent's zone, leading the changes at john muir elementary. we are very pleased to have him there. some individual comments from teachers and parents frequently recognize some of the positive changes that are occurring there at john muir elementary. we know "the chronicle" has been documenting it in a year-long series. chris rosenberg has been successful because of the elevated expectations and accountability that he holds for each and every one of the students who walk through the front door, as well as educators who served in the school, for his colleagues, as well as himself. i think that is what is making all the difference as he engages

in this new charge. i do want to invite chris up to say a few words, because he is never short for something to say. [applause] >> thanks, boss. i appreciate it. thanks so much, guadeloupe. it is a pleasure to be up here. i will be short with my comments tonight because you set me up like that. it is thrilling to be up here. i appreciate it. it is great to be acknowledged by your colleagues and peers. i feel like the real key to success is the people we have working for us. i have been blessed at starke king and john muir to have a remarkable stuff that works for me. i am lucky. my success is due to them. i am thrilled to have a fantastic supervisor to add to that as well. i think my performance review is coming up soon, so keep that in

mind. [laughter] thank you also much. i appreciate it. -- thank you all so much. i appreciate it. [applause] >> congratulations, principal rosenberg. we would also like to call up to present and say a few words on the special service award marlena from our payroll finance department. [applause] >> good evening. i want to thank the payroll operations department for their fantastic job, especially during the time when we had the famous fire at 135 van ness. i think the staff for the

wonderful job they do. they support everyone who works for the school district. i also want to thank joe for his continuous support. thank you. [applause] >> could we have the staff come up so you can present this to everyone? [applause] >> nice meeting you. >> nice to meet you. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> on their behalf, here you go. can we have a round of applause? if you are an employee, please stand. [applause]

>> thank you all. item d is our student delegates report. elvina fan? >> so far, we have been continuing on summit planning. we are trying to get community- based organizations to have workshops that would help future student leaders to be better prepared for teachers, especially with the budget being so bad. we have stood indelicate applications -- we have a student delicate applications for anyone who would like -- we have student delegate applications for anyone who would like to sit here next year. a former youth commissioner came by to talk about a resolution urging the san francisco board

of education to create a task force charged with improving health education curriculum's at all high-school, where there would be a comprehensive re- evaluation of health education in public schools. also, on the weekend of february 5 and february 6, there will be a youth leadership program, where students from all around san francisco get to attend, basically, a huge workshop, seeing how the school district is like in different districts in the community. president mendoza: thank you. did you give the date on that and the time? >> the youth leadership weekend is saturday february 5 and sunday february 6, and saturday is from 9:30 to 5:30. sunday is from 9:30 to 3:30.

president mendoza: where will it be located? >> at south beach harbor appear -- harbor pier 40a. >> we have our pac representative. >> good evening. thank you for having us. we have kind of a longer board report because this year there are so many things going on. we have so many priorities. as your advisers, we are working on those as well. one of the things we have questions about is the superintendent zone in the city. we have been hearing some parent

concerns. there is constant confusion about how this incredible amount of money is being spent, and who is making decisions about it. a lot of people have questions on whether or not it is the district. is it the schools? who is going to be spending this, and for what? it is just a constant thing that we are hearing from lots of different people, from lots of different places. it would just be really helpful to get a clear way for parents to figure out what is going on. we at one. heard something about progress reports going out about what -- we at one time heard something about progress reports going out about what is happening. anything that could clarify the process of what is going on in the schools. there is also questions from parents that we heard about the whole reassignment of teachers. just the process.

some of us on the pac have taken time to look at the grant. a lot of it is focused on academics, which we are very excited about. some of these schools are barely reaching 10% proficiency. unfortunately, we have failed these students for years, and we are excited to know that there is money going in there. one thing we really need to focus on is make sure that real reform happens. these are patterns that have been going on for years at the schools. it would be really nice to know that real changes are going to happen for these children, so each kid could be performing at their own potential. i have heard people talk about -- teachers talk about how hard is to reach a certain demographic of children. that is somewhat disappointing

at times. also, this weekend, i was walking by one of the schools, and there was a teacher there on sunday, working hard, telling me all these exciting things her classes are doing. there are teachers that are so excited about what is going on. at the same time, other teachers that we know kids could be doing better with other practices in their room. we want to make sure as parents that these kids especially -- it is unfortunate that these are the schools, the 10 lowest performing schools. we want to make sure things are being done. we want to tell the parents that things are being done for their children. we want to know that is going to change for them. and i would like to say not just for them, but for the schools that are not performing that well. that is a good practice that is

going on in our district. just a little bit more communication would be helpful. [laughter] we also on the pac have been working in conjunction with parents for public schools and pta about creating a parent toolkit. we have been asking for the board to have a flow chart or a process of what parents do and where they go when they have concerns that are going on at the school. we are really excited that some of you have been -- some of the people on your staff have been working with us and are expected to meet with us. but we need to make sure that we have this commitment from the district that you are going to be really committed to getting this out there. today, i had a parent contact me about a bullying situation.

the she got a response from a teacher about this bullying situation. her child was adopted and was being made fun of. the response from the teacher was, "we are doing all we can." but it is still going on. i guess that is the public school system, right? it should not be. she should be able to go to a place and figure out who she should talk to next to make things change in the situation. there is nowhere in this district that she can go to and say, "is this what i do first? is this what i do next?" we really want to have a parent toolkit to share these concerns for our parents. on a different note, we are excited to be participating in the process to interview candidates for the executive director for parent engagement. we appreciate being invited to that very much. we will also have pac members

participating with their school sites, helping lead workshops for the school planning summits and school site councils. we look forward to that as well. ruth is good to talk about our next topic. >> good evening. we were talking before this presentation tonight about understanding that in terms of implementing a lot of these things, the district staff who do that work, and we do communicate with them and work with them on all of these issues, but we thought it was important to bring those perspectives to you as the board as well. so we are aware of that kind of chain or flow of how that would actually get done across the district. one thing. last tuesday night, while you were having a committee meeting, we were having our own meeting, which is why we could only send one person. but we have been meeting with district staff in the last week

to really understand some of the information that they discussed with you at the committee as a whole, which was looking at a lot of the challenges in trying to develop new k-eight pathways -- k-8 pathways and assigning the flow from elementary school to middle school. they presented three different approaches that they want direction from -- direction for from you in terms of developing systems. we know that the process -- we feel it. we are sure everyone who looks at the slide show is feeling it is really confusing and complicated. but we really think the district staff working on this are asking the right questions at the right time. we know that we have been working hard to organize community forums. that makes us pause and say, "if you decide on this approach, what does this mean for the

forum's?" that is a little bit frustrating, but at the same time it is better to have questions answered now than in may, when it might feel too late to change something that has already been partially developed. so we are working really hard to come up with kind of plans a and b depending on decisions to reach as a board about the direction you what staff to follow in developing a more concrete proposal to consider. one thing we want to emphasize is a request that you clarify what your goals and priorities are, for whatever new student assignment system gets developed, much like you did for the changes to the elementary school and high-school process. then we are all looking at the same questions and thinking about whether this is going to accomplish the goals you laid out of the parties you have set.

some of the basic questions that need to be included in that is how well whatever proposal you looks at supports closing the achievement gap and serves african american and english- learner students. how will expand access under any proposal you love that? specifically, looking at middle schools, how well students in the bayview be served when they do not have a middle school in their community? finally, this is something we heard from middle school principals. we are glad that their voices are clearly being heard in this process. what are the resources to carry these programs or proposals through, and what are the tradeoffs? if we create this and start this and do some great things, what do we have to give up to accomplish that? we are continuing to work with parents in public schools and

district staff to come up with structures for the community forums. there are a few amazing early adopter middle schools that have already set dates for their forums, even though we do not know what we are talking about that, and that is great. but we are needing to pause a little bit until you decide the approach to what step to take, so that we can be sure we are presenting clear information and that we are shipping our forums -- shaping our forums to the direction you are going in. i understand there is a committee as a whole meeting next week, but i have not seen an agenda for that. is there a clarification for that? or is it an ad hoc committee on student assignment? all right. at any point, we are hoping next tuesday night, we are planning to be there. we look forward to your discussion and your guidance on

the direction that this is going to go. president mendoza: commissioner wynns, we have an ad hoc on student assignment scheduled for next tuesday. is that correct? ok. commissioner wynns: [no audi[in] president mendoza: staff seems to think that has been scheduled. commissioner wynns: i will talk to stuff about the scheduling tomorrow. president mendoza: we will make sure to communicate that to you. are there any questions for the pac? commissioner fewer: i wanted to address what is happening at the six schools with the comments you have been hearing from parents. it is my understanding that we are conducting community

meetings. is that correct, deputy superintendent? >> that is correct, especially the most recent community meetings around the turnaround model schools that will require certain changes in staffing. there have been those meetings and additional meetings with community groups as well. as always, the pac is helpful, because we cannot possibly gather all the information in one place. the additional information we received from the prc -- pac gives us additional focus. commissioner fewer: then it might be helpful to make available to its members where the community members are, when they will be held, and what topics and questions you have about the change in the staff and more transparency around that. if you don't mind, deputy superintendent, just get the information to our staff, to the

pac, so they can get it to the wider community. the second thing is that i have seen the flow chart. kevin drew has shared it with commissioner maufas and i. we have seen the flow chart and we know staff is working on that right now. i think we are sort of anxiously awaiting the hiring of the new executive director for our parent engagement peace -- piece. once that is put into place, hopefully you will have great communication with this person and can get whoever it is up to speed on the flow chart, but also the discussions that have been happening around the pac and the need for this tool kit. i am asking you to be a little bit patient, but to know that staff is working on it, because we have actually seen it. so we know it is in the works. i think it was something we have

needed in our district for a very long time. there are steps and a protocol that we recommend that parents follow. it is our responsibility also to make sure that problems are resolved to the end, so we do not leave parents hanging after one or two sources and not getting the correct information or getting their issue resolved. a little patience. it is happening. i have seen it. it is quite attractive. nice colors. i also want to say thank you very much for actually voicing the concern of parents around the six schools. it is a lot of money. we will not always have this money. this is a great opportunity to use it wisely. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. commissioner maufas: i wanted to ask for the benefit of folks who are listening if the speakers could introduce themselves when

they take the floor. >> my name is nancy gabson ganass, and i have children in first grade and fourth grade. >> my name is ruth krabowski. i have a son in 11th grade. commissioner maufas: i also want to thank you all for this community meetings. particularly, i was thrilled to see that materials for translated, which was really helpful. there were questions from some of the parents in the community meeting i went to recently at brian. but a lot of the information was already transacted, which was incredibly helpful. -- already translated, which was incredibly helpful. i appreciate when meetings are held in another language and the speaker needs a translation. i think that is a fine way to conduct meetings, so i can get a sense of how it is to try to get

valuable information that is not in my first primary language. thank you for doing all the translation of the materials and making certain you access translation services. i appreciate that. thank you so much. and thank you to the deputy superintendent for coming to the last meeting. >> president mendoza, may i ask a question? commissioner wynns: i want to thank you for the report, but i was a little concerned there is so much confusion or lots of questions about what is happening in the six schools. there have been meetings before the board and at the schools themselves. i guess i want to know if the pac was not included in any of

that. there are documents, and power points of presentations we have had. there are other documents that have been provided to parents at the schools that could be provided to the pac. i do not know if this has happened already. could we have the superintendent's get that to the pac? it sounds to me like we have missed a step if in fact the pac is hearing a constant litany of questions about what is going on. president mendoza: ruth is going to respond. >> i think the pac itself has had great access to a lot of the information and presentations, and the grant proposal that was submitted. a lot of members have spent a lot of time trying to understand that. i think knowing that staff are also at the school sites, and people working in the zones are having many meetings and explain

it to a lot of people -- i think that is why we wanted to bring to your attention that despite all of that there is still a lot of confusion among parents, and i think community members who are supporting parents at the superintendent zone and the six schools. there is a lot of confusion. we are concerned that there is still so much confusion at this time in the process, and want to make sure there is a coherent effort to communicate, whether it is through written documents or the new about-to-be-hired school coordinator that can help with the communication flow. there is confusion about statements that get made explaining things wrong. all those schools are going to get $1.50 million a year for the next three years. the schools are not getting that money. the district is getting that money. that causes confusion at the school site