president yee: we are going to resume our meeting now. we should be able to get through most of this pretty quickly, but item k is appointments to advisory committees. any apointments by board members today? >> i would like to appoint ms. elvia, ebolo and a teacher at best yee carmichael. she speaks several languages and she has taught at english language development as well as in the filipino bilingual program and over 20 years of service. i would like to apoint her to

the bilingual council. president yee: m, discussion of other educational issues. would you like to introduce your crew and also the topic. this is the peer resources in san francisco. ok. >> just to introduce the group, i'm director of peer resources. and this is my group. and we have morgan here. and everybody will introduce themselves later. somewhere there is a young person thinking of committing

suicide. who is this young person going to speak to? most likely it's a friend, another young person. imagine if this young person has the skills to help their friend. way back in 1979, this was the premise that peer resources was founded on. go forward 33 years and here we are today and here we are with young people and students who are skilled who have the learning and experience to listen to and talk to their peers and provide referrals and to provide the information about critical issues that aren't part of the core cor can you lum. we support young people to help themselves and others. i want to thank you for us to speak about where we are today in 2012. and to thank you, the entire

board of your support at peer resources over these 33 years and helping us sustain the program whether we are at 33 middle schools and high schools in the city or where we are at 13 middle schools and high schools in the city. we thank you for your support and funding us through the public education enrichment fund to provide peer tutoring and peer education services. i have spoken with a number of you already and i thank you for your time and i won't go over pieces of the program. you asked us to talk about the impact of the program. everyone who is here today is here to talk about that from their perspective as a student who is in the program now, their perspective as a school ally and alumni of the program. >> i'm a senior at a high school

and i will be attending lincoln university or alabama whichever one i decide to go to. i have been in peer resource program for three years since my ninth grade year. during my sophomore and junior year, i had a lot of problems and was going no where. my father died and that took a big toll on me, which caused me to miss a lot of school during those two years of high school. and a lot of the times, i had teachers that would judge me like, i know you are going to be a dropout or something. and if i didn't have this program, i probably would have been like, oh, you know, like trying to argue with them or cuss temperature out. but since the -- cuss them out. but since the program, i let

them know what was going on with me at the time and have a better understanding of what was going on with me in my life. that's one of the major things that really helped me out in my time of having peer resource classes. so i really thank them for having me part of their program. thank you. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. thank you so much for this opportunity. i hate speaking after her. and peer resources, you have done it on your own and incredible support for hundreds and hundreds of students at mission school. you want to talk about joyful learning, go into a peer resources class as you did the other day and see the students learning and how to advocate for

themselves and talk about health and learning how to be advocates for their community. there is so much impact that peer resources had at mission high school, from little things like make a friend day, which is an anti-violence day and walk around and trying to get to know other kids or the peer resources where they created plays and stories they presented to the community. at mission, we have the phenomenal mytv program and go to our resource web site and they talk about what is going on in the community and the school. when carlos santana visited, they helped me interview him and help me connect and make the deep connection between his presence and thinking about going to college and success important our students. peer resources is a place where students find their voice, find

their passion and find their vision which helps carry them on in the future and i'm thrilled we have peer resources at mission high school. thank you. >> i'm going to focus on one program of the program and i will stick some amazing data. i'm most proud of our site's commitment to the commitment of discipline practices, of which the peer resources program plays a significant role. so last year we were able to cut our school suspension rate by more than half over the previous two years going from 106 suspensions in 2009-2010 school year to only 45. and that is a school of over

2000 students. peer resources have been key in these efforts. just this fall semester we had 40-led student remediations and they provide a meaningful consequence that addresses the issues around the conflict. we average about 40 mediations per semester. and you know, it's interesting, students are involved, but parents have been involved and even teachers. we have had mediations between teachers and students at lincoln high school. for me peer resources represents exactly the type of program that our students need to feel that they have a voice that is heard in school and respected and have a positive influence in their school community. >> i'm a senior at lincoln and

conflict manager. last week there was a fight on campus between two boys that i had got between to i had broke it up like probably a couple months ago, i probably wouldn't have done that. i would have been watching or one of the people in the fight. [laughter] >> peer resources had helped me grow like, because before, i don't know like -- i had problems and i used to feel and used to be in a program that i used to be in trouble and get mad and morgan would say you can't be doing that if you are in the peer resources program and i would say take me out. take me out. but they kept me in the program and bagely worked with me and helped me become a better person and a role model.

>> i was ditching class and didn't want to be in spanish and involved in support groups through peer resources and strategies for success program and my senior year i was on the other side of the table and i was a mentor and peer educator and i was the positive influence. i was a role model and i decided to go into this as a career and i'm glad that i did. it's amazing. i have an amazing job and i think one of the things i have learned most in peer resources was communication skills and information and the ability to talk to others my own age or

adults like she mentioned about things like domestic violence, sex, suicide, racism, sexism, social justice, bullying, things that you know about as a teen but don't know how they are called and don't know how to talk to other people about them. when a teammate of mine, one of the captains of the football team killed himself in high school, peer resources was a place i could go to where i had support and talk to support, where i could learn to talk to other people about this and this is before wellness septemberers were around and peer resources was the place. at lincoln, i get incredible things, horrible things and wonderful things, but mostly, i feel confident that i have the skills now as a teacher, peer

resources teacher because i was a part of the program and because i benefited from it. i'm happy to be back as a teacher, fourth year at lincoln high school and glad to have wonderful students as well. >> i supported in creating united players with my facilitation skills in the 1994 riots. so i believe that schools are

here to give you options and peer resources has given me many of them. my first job was cleaning bathrooms as a high school student for a dentist office and i remember being 19 years old and being able to tell my mom that i didn't have to do that. that i could get paid to facilitate work shops and facilitate retreats. i was getting paid to speak at stanford university doing star trainings and peer resources literally gave my mom the hopes that she wanted for us at such ar young age.

>> and i really believe in peer resources. i've never once not felt like it was part of any family and today being able to come out and know everybody and feel the connection that everybody has, i feel like, it is a very special part of san francisco unified school district and i really appreciate that you guys took the time to listen to us. so thank you.

>> morgan, i met morgan when he was a freshman and i had my eyes on him then that i hoped someday he would become a teacher and i feel blessed and lucky he is a peer resource teacher. one wanted to be here but could not and she is a graduate from 2003 and now a journalist for a magazine and writes, it's not possible to -- impossible to restate this. i was lonely and drifting and peer resources gave me real social support and outlet for my creativity and way to channel the energy to better my school community. it was this positive feedback group. the more avenues it gave me to build a strong community of friends and other peer leaders and more that i could see that it was helping others, the stronger and happier that

became. i learned that participating in my community and advocating for others was a way of empowering myself and i trusted my voice. to this day, i think of about how i can get more peer resources in my life. i treasure how excited peer resources makes me feel. it's something i carry around with me always. thank you. >> really that's it for us and thank you for having us especially at the end of this long night. we encourage you to come visit your school sites and ask commissioner maufas. she has done six and seven more to go. reflections on relevant teaching practices at o'connell, please come out. thank you for your support.

president yee: thank you, commissioners. questions. >> could you name the school? >> i have the list on the attachment. >> commissioner wynns: i give a little history. you know, i -- and we talked about the funding model and what's good about it and what makes it a little weak in some places. and made some reference to a time when we actually were part of sponsoring a bill in the legislature that would have funded peer resources, not everywhere but made funding available and actually we wrote

it for us, because we thought that conditions that existed in schools in peer resources in san francisco, like full-time teachers and having a class which you got credit and other things, you would get state funds if you had some of these things unlike an after-school program. sadly, it was when that bill was hijacked by the legislature after columbine to turn into funding that was available to everybody. they used it as a funding mechanism and used by most schools and we were grilled at the time, why didn't you use it to buy metal detectors? we said we believe in human relationships is the best way to make a safe environment for students.

i would like to have a peer resource program in every high school and middle schools. but it's the strategies we use and the issue about students being such an enormous resource that we should be talking more about. and even though i have been kind of critical for the we just fund it with p-15 and we have cut back and schools have cut back. but you know, i have been thinking about it, that it's still an isolated program, not integrated enough and that is what i would hope we would talk about. i would like to see more of these kinds of efforts going on in more schools. but i think we need to talk about not just like we need a peer resource program and it might look like that in the end and don't talk about