president yee: ok, good evening. this is a regular meeting of the board of education of the

san francisco unified school district for february 14. it is now called to order. happy valentine's day. roll call, please. [roll call] please join me in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. i apologize for start willing -- starting a little late.

we just came out of a closed session meeting, so we're going to move this along real quickly. item a, approval of board minutes of the regular meeting of january 24, 2012. is there a motion? >> so move. >> i second. president yee: any corrections? roll call, please. >> thank you, commissioner. [roll call taken] >> that's five ayes. president yee: item b, presentation to the board of education superintendent's report. >> good evening, everybody, and happy valentine's day. i want to remind the president here that it is valentine's day, so in the spirit of love, this meeting can't go on forever, ok? [laughter] anyway, what the heck. you know, i just wanted to

thank everybody for last saturday. we had our annual school planning summit, and i want to thank all the parents, students, teachers, administrators and staff that came to the summit ready to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work of working together in these hard times with the crummy budgets we have , trying to figure out how we're just going to make it through and that's tough to do. at the summit our school communities' leaders learned a lot about the district goals and priorities. we gave a big picture -- of the state proposals and the proposal of the governor, and there's a lot to be worried about as you look at our state per people fund falling every year, and now we're pretty much heading to rock bottom in terms of per pupil allocation in the entire united states. but at the same time it was good to get people to talk about what their vision is and what they're going to do at their school sites, how we're going to get through this, and

we are going to get through it. it's just going to take us a lot of work working together. and pointing out the fact that no one in this room, the board or anybody, is the enemy. the reality is that budgets that we got aren't necessarily determined by us, they're determined by our state, who's too cheap to fund children. so, you know, i think that if we all want to point the finger at somebody, we ought to start with the state of california, because we can't continue to try to run school systems on the back of not providing the best education for our children. i also wanted to mention to all of you that we used to call them furlough days, and this friday is one of the but i'm not going to call them one. i think we're going to call those forced closure days, because that's really what the state has done. they've made us force our schools to be closed. [applause] and this friday, the 17th, is one of those days where the state has put it on us, where

we have no choice but to close down the whole system and shortchange our children. as all of you know -- you probably know this -- the united states has the shortest academic school year of any industrialized country in the world. and we think that to solve -- and you read all the articles of us competing with everybody in the world, and we think the way to solve that is to reduce the school year? what's wrong with that picture? it's not. it defies any kind of logic, except that's where we are right now. but i guess on the bright side is that on the following monday, february 20th, it is presidents' day, so we want to wish everybody happy holiday, and then come back on february 21st ready to go back to work. we are heading in for some really difficult times, but we also this evening will will get a chance to celebrate some of the successes going on out there, including all the wonderful nationally board certified teachers that will have the privilege and honor to honor this evening. that will be exciting.

so chin up. we're going to get through this. thank you. >> thank you, superintendent garcia. you're up next. recognitions and resolutions of commendations, and here it is, our distinguished service award. >> we've done this rave now for several years and it gives us an opportunity to celebrate. we have so many unsung heroes in our school district that sometimes we forget that the media, everybody seems to bash us, but we're doing some really great stuff. and this evening we get a chance to do a rave distinguished service award. so i want to call up sandra belvin hollis, early development education center. is the person here this evening? oh, come on up, then. i'm sorry. are you jane, then? >> i am. >> ok, jane.

jane manssia. >> good evening, superintendent, deputy superintendent, commissioners, guests. i would like you to know that i am thrilled that sandra belvin hollis, a seasoned teachner the early education department, has received this award, because one of her colleagues believes that she deceives a rave from the school district. she does deserve a rave. in fact, i'd like to share an item with you, but i'm going to look at this wonderful award, where it says sandra belvin hollis, rave distinguished service award-winner. thank you, on her behalf. sandra is a wonderful teacher. she's had a lifelong commitment to our district, and she's prepared children for kevin garnett in -- children for

kindergarten in our pre-kindergarten class at the early education school. she in fact embodies the goals of this district. she provides a strong foundation in academics for our pre-kindergarteners, our youngest scholars. she believes in a strong foundation for early learning so that our little ones will become lifelong learners. in fact, this distinguished service award is going to thrill her. she is so passionate and so committed to her work, and i am pleased to be an administrator who can say to you all thank you very much for honoring her and for in fact honoring our school with this award. thank you. [applause] >> next on our agenda, as i mentioned earlier, i'm going to

call up carrie slaughter to come up here and let's start recognizing nationally board certified teacher. this is good trivial pursuit stuff, but tonight we celebrate 29 of our san francisco unified school district faculty members who have just become nationally board certified! whoo! [cheers and applause] and i have to tell you what makes this really exciting is that there are now 204 national board certified teachers in our school district and we're the highest -- the second highest in the state only because l.a. is bigger than us. if you did it proportionately, we'd snuff everybody out because people are doing great work. these educators have spent up to three years studying and reflecting on their practice and have been assessed against

the national highest advanced teaching standards. so carrie, take it from here, ok? >> thank you. talida saucerman, mission high school. [applause] victoria polanco, buena vista. [applause] sarah falls, lincoln high school. julia fong, lincoln high school. [applause] cara friedman, marshall rye school. marcus hung, marshall high school. [applause] lenny yarez, leonard flynn elementary school. [applause]

carolyn leofante, caesar chavez. brian martin, lowell high school. [applause] sarah puner, app tass middle school -- app tiss middle school. aitchel some mccoughlin middle school. -- rachel from mccoughlin middle school. katrina rodd rench, lowell high school. [applause] maria, argon elementary school. [applause] elvira walden. [applause] brian waldman, mission high

school. [applause] stephanie wong, iloa elementary school. valerie ziegler, lincoln high school. [applause] pika chu, mission high school. lindsey penrose, mission high school. [applause] julie carniglia, yar taylor, and michelle trimble, lowell high school. [applause]

>> this is the kind of problem we like to have. [laughter] we have so many. >> ok, ladies and gentlemen, our national board certified teachers for 2011. [applause] >> i have to tell you, we're just so darned proud of you. it's so excite together see people who are willing to do it -- exciting to see people who are willing to do it all for children. i want to thank you all for committing yourselves to doing everything you can for children. thank you very much. [applause] you are the true freedom fighters in america. thank you.

and i will embarrass one person. i'd like one person to raise their hand, because one of our assistant superintendents, guadalupe guerrero, his lovely wife is here. so raise your hand, come on. don't be bashful. there she is. thank you. congratulations. thank you very much. thanks to all of you and all the families and teachers. and, boy, iloa is in the house, i guess. all the people that came out to support these heroes. thank you very much. [applause]

president yee: ok, thank you very much and we're going to continue with the meeting. so if you need to leave the room, can you leave quietly, please? thank you. the biggest class of national certified teachers that we've ever had. ok. we're going to move on to item -- before we move on to item d, i'd like to turn the mic over to commissioner wynns, who wants to make a real quick announcement. commissioner wynns: i wanted to make this announcement before everybody leaves.

at the end of the meeting i'll report on my recent trip to washington with the national school boards association. but i brought all the members of the board and the superintendent a little gift, which is a luggage tag and bumper sticker that says "be the change for kids." the reason i brought these is that this is a campaign that was -- i was at the national school boards association leadership conference, the executive committees of all the state associations, and this campaign was designed by and carried out by the new york state school boards association for some of you who know her, when florence johnson was the president of the association, who's now the past president and has been close to us for a long time through the council of great city schools and others. but the amazing thing is that this is a great example of setting the agenda and doing effective advocacy. this campaign has taken over new york state. and the amazing thing is that now this, year and last year, politicians of both parties have been using the phrase "be the change for kids" in their

campaigns. so in this time of extreme political tension over budgets and school budgets and funding for kids, i just hope that we see this as an example ta we are willing to talk about -- that we are willing to talk about and ourselves, we certainly will through the california school boards association, but also here in our district, to think about our advocacy messages and how we can really be effective at doing this with our partners. so thank you for the moment, the privilege. president yee: deputy superintendent. >> thank you, president yee. i wasn't quick enough to let you on on the national board certified, i think it would be important to recognize the fact that this past week assistant superintendent guerrero, myself and another person were at a grants summit where we were with other large school districts from across the country. what's stunning and absolutely precious about what we do in

san francisco is that we were the only large urban school district that spoke about our reform efforts in positive terms, like having more and more teachers become nationally board certified as part of our strategic strategy for improving our school system. i have need to tell you that there were a number of our colleagues that were blown away by the fact that we've taken the positive approach in empowering our teachers, rather than some of the more draconian approaches out there. and i also want to congratulate and thank terry bergesen and the san francisco school alliance who made it possible for us to fund national board certified teachers in some of our superintendent zoned schools this year. we now have some of the great ev concentrations of nationally board certified teachers in the superintendent zone. so thank you everyone for empowering our educational leaders. >> deputy superintendent or perhaps superintendent garcia, you said we have 204 nationally

certified board teachers, and what is that as a percentage? i think you mentioned to me we have one of the highest percentages. what is that? >> werblings i mean, if you took -- los angeles has more nationally certified high teachers, but they're six, seven times our size -- actually 10 times our size. so obviously they're going to have more teachers. but if you break down proportionally statistically for the amount of teachers we have in the district, we have the most in california hands down. doesn't come close. [applause] >> i would also add, because we sat next to somebody from the national board certification organization, when you look at us nationally, our percentage of nationally board certified teachers is among the top 2% in the country. so we have tremendous amount of pride in the fact that we have national board certified interests. >> ok. with this good news, let's move on to the next one of the item d, students, delegates report.

>> so, joyce isn't here today. so i will just be doing the report by myself. earlier today a few members of the s.a.c. went to a free meeting for youth -- or s.f. youth campaign. it was a rally, along with other partners of the free meeting for use collision, to let them know how much we love muni and need it to become free. these partners included power use commission, ccdc, jaynestown, soma, soma action network and a cowl of others. so this is a continuation of our campaign to get free muni for all youth living in s.f. we are doing -- on the s.a.c.'s part, we're continuing with the social media campaign, which you can visit at free muni for

youth.tumbler.com. we're hoping to get the sfmta to vote on the issue in march. secondly, at our last s.a.c. meeting we had a presentation from megan m., who is the san francisco representative of revolution hunger. and revolution hunger is an organization that works to raise awareness and involvement in world hunger. and the presentation was mainly to get more people aware of the different opportunities that they have to really enact change in the world hunger campaign. you are visit them at revolutionhunger.org. with the s.a.c. -- oh, and also, going back to what superintendent garcia said,

joyce and i attended the s.s.c. planning summit at everett this past weekend. it was very informational. i thought it was a really good -- i don't know, like stimulant for the district. it was nice being there. additionally, the s.a.c. is working on its ninth annual youth summit at fort mason, which will be held on march 22nd. our theme for this youth summit is the power of us, which focuses on youth advocacy and youth empowerment. while we're still planning on it, we are looking for -- or we're interested in workshops, including the bay area urban debate league, different workshops involving the lgbt "q&a" committee, responsible

social media youth, environmental education and coro. finally, our s.a.c. election of school representatives into the s.a.c. will be conducted through youth vote, and the declaration forms are due on february 24. and anybody interested should turn in their declaration form to either their principal or your school's s.a.c. reps. that is it. >> again, could you repeat the free muni? >> the website? >> the website or the social media -- >> ok. i don't -- >> it was in your report. >> oh, right, ok. the s.a.c. and the other partners for the free muni for youth campaign are in the middle of a social media campaign.

so we have pages on facebook and we have a tumbler, which is a multi-media website, and that u.r.l. is free muni for youth.tumbler.com. >> thank you. any questions? ok. next up is item e, parent advisory council report. >> good evening, commissioners and our district staff partners. my name is ruth grabowski and i staff the parents advisory council to the board of education. p.a.c. members tonight are celebrating valentine's day. i'm not apparently. this report -- the report i'm going to give provides an update on the p.a.c.'s work to organize community conversations about practices and also our participation in planning meetings abou