wah! announcer: the smallest moments can have the biggest impact on a child's life. [laughs] announcer: take time to be a dad today. >> please join me in welcoming

our mayor, ed lee. [applause] >> good afternoon, everyone. i am very happy to join all of you here today. it is an exciting day to join our high school kids, our high school, here at john o'connor. principal gomez, our deputy superintendent, our school board president, and our building

trade, thank you for being here. the director of the joint power trended authority. we have the sfpuc, the school alliance, school district personnel. we are all here because we are excited about this wonderful announcement. we are here in a very green, multipurpose use building that has just been opened. this is going to be representing something that i am quite familiar with. i know mike and others closer to my age, we had a wood shop. we had metal shop in middle school. we had exposure to how to deal with graphs. more importantly, you are talking to somebody who used to spend five years at the department of public works, as the director. we're having to pay attention to our infrastructure, one of

the most important things any city can do. when we are trying to grow a new economy -- and as you know, i have gone around the city selling this idea about how the economy is about tech jobs, but we also have an important infrastructure to take care of. if we do not take care of the infrastructure, these other jobs will not be here. jobs at the transbay terminal, which we are already building, celebrating and historic project labor agreement. we also have a commitment to our growing kids, that we are going to get them there. they are not just going to school to get bored. they have to have those jobs here, and we need them trained and ready for those jobs. so, in this new economy, when we are investing, like our city

is, my commitment to the city is making sure we pay attention to infrastructure. we are going to do it right and make sure that our kids know, by fulfilling their educational goals, being exposed to a facility like this, where you are building our labor representatives with the curriculum that the school district has offered to work with the infrastructure agencies that we have just mentioned, we have a curriculum that will train them in the jobs to come. being able to pay attention to this overt -- capital structures of the city, our high school kids can be exposed and get the experience, whether it is automotive, engineering, architectural design. they will get that exposure here in the center with all of the participants. so i am excited about this because it blends so much of

what i believed in, what we have been doing in the city. all of our facilities that we are building in the city, whether you look at the mission bay, the building's at hunters point, treasure island, a partner said, all of these projects, or the hospital's going up, they will all meet plant engineers, in infrastructure commitments. for our high school kids, as you often heard, maybe not enough, i want to welcome you to the million-dollar club. that is the difference, what our school district is trying to teach all of you, to make sure that you know there is a difference between someone who just graduated from high school, and someone who will go after their college education. it is a million-dollar difference. i want all of you to participate in that million dollar economy, because that will be the

difference. and we will be working, not only through the school alliance, city colleges, local colleges to make sure we reinforce that. i am here to celebrate, participate, and the knowledge all of a great, wonderful entities that have come together to create this tech 21 center, where this exposure and experience will happen, with your leadership, printable gomez. these kids will be able to see they have a way forward in this challenging city, but one that will be there city, when they have all the skills. thank you very much for being here. [applause] >> thank you. mr. mayor, we want to thank you on behalf of the 56,000 students in the san francisco unified school district, children of our community, for your tireless

work on their behalf. we look forward to calling you a long-term partner. thank you. the mayor was gracious with his time. as you can imagine, he has a full schedule today and asked to be part of this ceremony today to show his appreciation for the work being done here. we want this to be a celebration and i would probably take until now until 3:00 to thank all of the dignitaries here, but i wanted to recognize some of our elected officials and dignitaries. of course, you met mayor lee, and we also have with us today two commissioners of our board of education. commissioner sandra fuhr. we also have commissioner moss.

[applause] we are very happy to with us also -- the mere mention her -- our transbay executive director maria ayerdi-kaplan. thank you for being here with us. and the executive vice president for the united educators of san francisco, linda, thank you. and our president of united educators of san francisco, denis kelly. thank you as well. whenever you go down this path, you are going to miss someone. with all due respect, as i see you, i will call you out as we go through the program. thank you for being here. i serve as the separate -- deputy superintendent for social justice. what i would like to think about, as the good to this dedication ceremony, this is a

tangible, real world artifacts of social justice. if we believe social justice is about kids having opportunities to explore career paths, opportunities to have jobs in the real world, if it was not for these types of opportunities, that is social justice. we are happy to have you here to be part of the celebration of social justice. on a personal level, i will say to you, this is so important to me, because i stand before you as the son of a dirty man she metalworker. local 353 in tucson, arizona. why is that important? it is important because mayor lee mentioned, you cannot run a city, have infrastructure for a city, without these jobs. there is a connection between college and career and career

and college. they are very much interconnected. as my father, who never graduated from high school, later earned a ged, the person who taught me geometry was not my geometry teacher, who had a master's degree. she was wonderful, but i was just one of those kids. i learned geometry with my father actually doing the work. when you are cutting out sheet metal, bending the angles, you have to make it fit and you have to measure. i learned about ankles and how geometry works by actually doing it. when i say that career tech education is about college readiness, it is about utilizing all of those skills that we send kids to school every day to learn. this gives you a reason to read and write and do arithmetic, because you get to apply it. that is the duty of what is happening here today.

happy to have you here. what a wonderful building. what do you think? do you like this building? [applause] this is our flexible use green building. we call it the text 21 building. we have not named it officially yet, but there is a naming opportunity for you, if you want to take advantage of that. just kidding. before we dive into the program, i would like to talk more about all the wonderful individuals that have made this a reality. this has truly been a collaborative effort on the part of our partners, union partners, labor partners, educators, former administrators. you will hear from the former principal, dr. schultze, who was part of the original work. before we get to that, i want to

introduce the current principal, martin gomez. this high school is named after one of san francisco's own labor champions, and john o'connell. i want to introduce to you the man leading the academic work in collaboration with all the wonderful teachers here at john o'connell high school. [applause] >> it is a lot more full than it was five minutes ago. as principal, i want to welcome everyone to this event. it is important, not only for o'connell students, but all of san francisco. the district is making a push to include, improve, and pushed toward education. today, we are here to celebrate another reason of how o'connell is supporting and encouraging

all students to be prepared for college and for a career. while some people are spending their time looking at what students are going to college, which are going to a career, with this new tech 21 program, the courses will support students to be prepared for a career, and for college. that is the difference between the programs of before and now. the new tech 21 courses will require students to be able to apply tougher math concepts. the program will recruit students that are college-bound and students that want to go straight into the workforce. the whole purpose is to make sure that these students are prepared for the requirements that internships and jobs are asking for out of high school. we want to ensure all of the

graduates are prepared for these requirements because we are promising them jobs and internships, which is huge for our students, and for san francisco. i want to thank mark, david, the entire ct department, all of the stakeholders, dr. schultze, the previous administration, for making this building, and the course of the reality, which is much needed in san francisco. it is an exciting time to be a high school student in san francisco, but particularly, that john o'connell, and if you are excited about these tech 21 classis, please stay in touch with us as we figure out ways to continue supporting students. thank you for your time, thank

you for coming out, and let's move this forward. [applause]