adopted -- this is the superintendent's proposal for the adoption of the fiscal year recommended budget i can just read the first paragraph. the recommended budget for the san francisco unified school district and city and county office of the education should be approved as the budget for fiscal your 2011-12, and be placed in the official files of the secretary of the board of education. the superintendent is authorized to make any transfers to correct erroneous account classifications or to affect any changes made necessary by the method of expenditures within the purpose of the appropriation. there is other boilerplate

background information. president mendoza: thank you. we have quite a few public speaker signed up on this item. when i call your name, if you can please come up to the podium. kelsey jeter, rosario ramirez, lelou reboiso, [names are read] commissioner maufas: deputy superintendent lee, a clarifying question. the first paragraph, the last sentence is that the superintendent is authorized to make any transfers to affect changes in accounts made necessary by changes in the

method of expenditures. we will be told about that if and when it occurs, correct? >> i believe that language is meant to refer to technical changes, not substantive changes. commissioner maufas: even if it is a small technical change. >> can you confirm we are able to do that? i do not know exactly. >> i can get that in the memo form that a change was made or there was a modification. i just want to be aware after our support that if anything occurs you would send the information to us, and just information. i would appreciate it. thank you. commissioner wynns: i just want to ask -- a memo we got, since the state budget is totally up in the air. we will soon come before school

starts, have another review of the budget based on the state budget once it is passed, including if it is passed just as we expect now and the revenue looks the same. we will review that. you will report it to us. commissioner fewer: a clarifying question. if we did the opposite, if we decided as a board to look over the budget, and we change the allocations from certain departments to another department, that could also take place after the adoption of the budget. >> thank you. sorry about that. public speakers have two minutes each. come on up. state your name and go ahead.

>> my name is oxi and i would like your undivided attention. my poem is called "the word." i see all of you taking your time, sipping her coffee. you already have their education. achieve your job. the ones after will suffer. no way to back them up with summer school. that is too expensive. we don't have the money. why not donate it out of your pocket. you can afford nice suits and perhaps a car. i must have got on the wrong agenda. there is no way you can take your place. failing grades, parents and unsympathetic board. who said money was free. these kids need a safety net. the same as relying on your parents when you were small. i thought all of you needed to

support us. add engagement toward the parents that made the push to help their children. money is paper but i guess we need 1 million of that paper. i will write my rights in million times and have the education paper your bills. never go down and never achieve their dreams. thank you. >> you see a little girl. she is 4 years old, attending school for the first time, following requirements to put up for the day she starts middle school. things are rocky, but she manages to finish with a 3.0. she starts high-school confident

it will be all right. after the first semester, she fails 3 classes. she knew what she had to do to get it right. it is not that her teachers are bad. it is just there were hard to understand. by the end of her freshman year, in total she did not pass 6 classes. in the beginning of her sophomore year, she knew that failing anymore classes would be crucial. she worked three times harder than her peers. look at me. the girl i told you about was me. i want to make myself better for myself, my peers, and my family, and to break down the barriers and stereotypes that say i will not and cannot. they need to stop and and now. how are you going to help me? thank you. my name is goya.

>> what do we want? summer school. when do we want it? now. what we want? saturday school. when do we want it? now. >> [speaking spanish]

>> what do we want? summer school. when do we want it? >> now. >> what do we want? parent engagement. >> i am a parent and

grandparent for a child in hillcrest. she said everything in the school system is about a conversation with parents about their children. how can the office of the school and family partnership accomplish this mission if they do not have the staffing need to make things like getting free and reduced lunch? things like calling parents when they are concerned about their children. many things like engaging parents to be part of the school council, and the development of balance school cultures, and supporting parents' voice. we ask you to double the budget so we can have the service we

need to move forward to the promise of social justice. in all schools, for all children. thank you. >> what do we want? summer school. >> my name is macualy. i have the pleasure of being the campaign leader for a random number of parents and supporters throughout the school district. we have been here a lot over the last three years, four years, 30 years, whatever number you want to look at. we have been here with you, fighting with you were pushing with you to do the right thing for students that have been failing in this system for a long time. we are here tonight because

based on a little knowledge we have been able to gather from the budget, the things that were not in the budget that at a bare minimum help to accomplish your goal was whether there was an adequate credit recovery system for students who have to meet new graduation requirements and if there was enough funding for parent engagement, something that is critical for all students to graduate from this district college and career ready. the reason why we choose college it career already is because san francisco is an expensive city. you cannot live in this city on a high-school diploma. you can barely survive as a city college student to get an associate's degree in the city. somehow, in some way, what we are asking you to do is not simple, but it is important. we are asking you to set aside and to find the funds to make to promises that you said to the students and thousands of other

students. we want you to be college ready. but if you fail, you cannot make those courses up. if they get too 12th grade in four years, good for them. that does not set up students for success. that does not set of parents for success when they do not have someone at their school site or the district office to talk to one concerns that we know exist because we have a system that has not addressed all of the structure or racist issues -- we have a system right now we are trying to reform. we are pushing you to make that reform possible. "we are here to ask you to do is to find $600,000 for summer school, to find 400,000 additional dollars for the office of family and school partnership. you do not have somebody in charge of our reach in a through g. you do not have out reach to

school sites and training sites to deal with african-american or latino parents. you do not have school site staff who can speak the language of students or parents. these are the things we are asking you for. i hope we hear support and that it is possible. thank you. >> what do we won? summer school. when do we want it? now. what do we want? saturday's school. when do we want it? now. >> tonight, you are deciding the future of my life and the lives of 55,000 students. we hope you have studied hard the budget you are about to pass. we hope you have a word to find $1 million for saturday and

summer school. we hope that next year will see a stronger system that truly believes that all students have the right to graduate, learn for college and a career. but all teachers, superintendents, and stuff live by the belief. >> what do we want? summer school.

>> thank you. oxi and rosario, you are not speaking. thank you. president mendoza: comments from the deputy superintendents or the board? deputy superintendent lee. >> for folks who were not at the meeting last week, there was a discussion that all the commissioners had around the process issue, which commissioner fewer alluded to a

minute ago, indirectly. after the budget is adopted, after the details of the state budget are better understood, we may or may not be on the brink of a clearer picture. i can comment on that tonight, on the latest news from sacramento, if that would be of interest to the board. but the process that we walked away from last week, understanding that the commissioners had in mind, is that after the state budget is better understood, but before the beginning of the school year, there could be a discussion where the board would talk about possible adjustments to the budget, reconsideration of different items. i did circulate a list of the items, some of which were discussed last night and some of which commissioners have contacted me about since last

tuesday to put into that parking lot list. that is a process that we will support as well as we can in terms of work ahead of time to bet those proposals and work with individual commissioners -- vet those proposals and work with individual commissioners. president mendoza: can you describe for me a little bit better about how -- i agree that we need to put a lot of these things in the parking lot because there are further discussions and rolling analysis of some of the things that have been brought forward. without starting an elaborate process -- how we prioritize where additional dollar should

go or how we have discussions and agreements on bringing some of these things back to life. how will that process look? >> what we would like to do to help support that discussion is to do a few things. we would like to know what is the idea proposed and help flesh that out in terms of implementation, the programmatic and fiscal connotations' underlying the ideas. in general, we will try to help put together a package that would be agreed to buy multiple members of the board, or

hopefully by consensus, as opposed to having a set of 1-off ideas that turned into what could be a free-for-all and an unstructured discussion. that is what we would hope to do. i will give you an example. since last tuesday, we had some discussion following up on the committee meeting. i will not go into great detail, but we did talk about the discussion around recovery and what implementing strategies around credit recovery might look like. if we could have a more thorough discussion at that time, we would bring those ideas to that meeting and flush them out in a discussion with the whole board. i will say the superintendent is not here, but i would know what he would say. the deputy superintendent can back me up on this.

i know it is very important to him that we all keep in mind that the three year budget projection is pretty lousy, even in the best case scenario from the state. that has to be a counterweight to the discussion that we talked about last week. we would need to bring that to bear as well. i think the ideas that commissioners have generated through the discussion last week included -- it is a good list. i think we could do good work to prepare for that discussion when it takes place. commissioner fewer: king to, deputy superintendent. i think that my personal opinion is that if we are going to be discussing items that we might restore to the budget that we should be looking not to increase our expenses but to

piecemeal out money where we think we can carve out money for these programs. i am in support of summer school. i just want it to -- i am worried about our ninth and 10th graders that will not pass and will have to pass the requirements to graduate. in three years, we will see thousands not graduate. i think it is better to put money to it so we can see that as many as possible will graduate. in this summer school cycle, what we learned which was very interesting to me is that it only really cost about $250,000 to give summer school to ninth graders. that is pretty incredible. plus summer school to our eld students. i think that is a really good idea.

we should discuss it later. but i just wanted to ask the board to consider that any expenditures that we are looking at changing in this parking lot, that it be one -- it relate to at least one of our 13 priorities. we have 13 priorities anyway that we cannot fund all of. but the most crucial of those should be prioritized. commissioner maufas: i agree with commissioner fewer. i hope we have this dialogue sooner rather than later so the executive staff can work with our recommendation and what we have come to consensus about, so you are not waiting until the last minute and then having to do with other information coming from the state. you can figure out how to work

with what we recommend and then work that into a bigger discussion. i want to again support what commissioner fewer is recommending. the investment helps us in other areas, the investment around summer school and the possibility of saturday school, and the credit recovery helps ninth and 10th graders passed the test. building them up in that way helps in other areas where we are doing makeup work when they do not pass. how do we down continue to support those more senior students before they graduate, where it becomes urgent and they have to attend summer school in a different way? that is an assessment which can make that will benefit as in other areas. the same thing regarding the current engagement peace. we know that will benefit us in other areas. it is needed for parents to understand how to navigate. that will help our immigrant or

newcomer parents understand other areas. i consider those investments. that benefits us in other areas. from my perspective, i want to look at things that are manyfold. we are getting that on the front and. we can tap into other areas so they do many things. i hope we can have that conversation practically so we can get those ideas or what we value so you understand that and can work with us in your executive level discussion. commissioner norton: i want to speak up also in favor of summer school, if we do manage to see an improving picture, understanding what the deputy superintendent said, channeling the superintendent. i know he would be reminding us that this does not look very

good. i think looking back over the last two years, the cut that has hurt the most, the programmatic cut that has hurt the most has been summer school. that has been the one i have heard the most about from people in the community, about how impacted kids for from that cut. if we were to find ourselves in a position where we had some money that we thought we could restore, that would be very high on my list of priorities, to have some kind of funding for summer school next year. that continues to be an area where i think it has really hurt. commissioner murase: i would like to read this list because i think listeners at home do not have access to this information. there are six items.

credit recovery support for ninth and 10th graders, for example summer school and saturday school, estimated to be 500 dozen dollars, and strategies to support more and students to pass courses the first time they are enrolled. secondly, an eight hour day for teachers and security aides. third, lower class size in gatekeeper courses. for, the parent engagement plan. fifth, arts and music. 6, but study site issues. i think in offering suggestions for priorities if the budget loosens up, we have a responsibility to identify sources of those moneys. i am very committed to exploring. if it does not happen in this particular budget over the coming months, which can look at things like bottled water and audits of telephone lines in the district.

i suspect there are a number of telephone lines that we do not use the we are paying for. the city and county of san francisco eliminated cell phones for most of their employees. how many cell phones to we paid for? there is an elephant about non- payment of school lunches. quite a few families of the district money for that. having done a lot of budgeting in my daytime work, i think it is important we look at cost savings, not just ways to spend additional money. vice president yee: focus, focus. i have to agree that summer school is important. i guess in moving that discussion of why we are even

having summer school, i want us as a district to not just focus on thinking that summer school is the only answer. we have to look at other solutions for students that have to go to summer school. i am sure they would rather do something else during the summer and there are ways we could help them during the school year. i think that commissioner murase points out a few things that could possibly generate a few things. i think if we were to take a more aggressive look at keeping our kids in school and reducing the chronic absenteeism, as was

discussed last week, we are finding out there has been some impact in terms of the kind of revenues would generate, just because kids are staying in school more days. i think there is still a big gap between what could be accomplished and what we have accomplished, in terms of absenteeism. that is one thing. i guess i can itself empower. i had some questions on page 46. is it ok? can i deviate from this discussion? page 46 of the new budget booklet. i noticed that on page 46, on i noticed that on page 46, on the proposed budget for 2011 and