support to this topic as a district so that some of those elements and some of that outreach with some of the groups in the community, so that we can expand on the strategies that are working in our city and our schools with our kids and make that much more, much more collaborative service provider model. we've shared and aligned academic goals and supports for students and family. thank you. >> thank you to our deputy superintendent. i know supervisor cohen had a couple of questions. supervisor. we have been joined by president chiu. >> thank you very much. i had a question, if we could go back to the slide that discusses partnerships with city and cbos. on the second bullet we've got back on track/naacp mou. can you please inform us what naacp mou? >> we have in our midst [speaker not understood] who can provide lots of detail.

>> thank you. supervisor cohen, last year martin luther king had 200 suspensions, and there was a number of staff changes and meetings with the community. and one of the things that came out of that was a person by the name of bob ivory who had come out from ohio. and this summer we came up with an mou of the program. in fact, they've got a big open house tonight. and last year they had 30 suspensions the first month of school, this year it's down to one. so, there are activities that are going on. the academic programs are just getting started. students are being referred through the counseling office

to him and, so -- and also this year we're going to probably this summer have program of freedom schools that will connect with that. >> thank you. thanks for describing to me the functions. could you talk to me a little about maybe a little more of the mechanics of the m-o-u, the goals expressed? is it set up to minimize suspensions? >> certainly suspensions. there are field trips. there are meetings with parents. as we speak, i think the two things we've mentioned with african-american students in particular have been the achievement gap and outmigration. last year there were 105 african-american students at martin luther king. this year there's 92. so, again, the outmigration is evident that's there. >> how does the outmigration

tie into this, the m-o-u? >> it really doesn't. it's just the fact that the school -- it will be less students to be working with. and with that in mind, we feel as though we should be able to have a lot more success because we have less students we're dealing with. >> is there a budget associated with this m-o-u? >> this budget is beings raised by the group itself. and i know they're working with wells fargo, bank of america. and at this point they have only had groups that have shown interest, but no money has been raised as of yet. >> so, what happens' the projected budget, which i'm sure -- what is your aspirational goal? >> i think it's around 100,000 or $120,000. >> is that for one academic school year? >> yes, one academic school year. and also in mind how to be expand totion other schools, particularly in the bayview,

thurgood marshall, and as the funds come in. >> so, the purpose again of the m-o-u is to provide support for teachers and the administration to address suspensions? specifically the achievement gap. >> i would say the person who runs it, bob ivory, is considered a linkage coordinator. and what he does is he works with different groups such as the teachers, community groups, and in doing that, try to focus on the individual need of each of the students. it's going to differentiate as to what each student needs. >> is bob ivory here today? >> no, he's not. >> okay, thank you for your time. >> okay, all right. >> thank you. supervisor olague? >> we'll come up with solutions and recommendationses after the hearing. it seems like we've gone from horrible to less horrible, so,

i'm not feeling the, you know, joy, i'm not jumping up and down at this point. [speaker not understood]. so, i mean, the starting point, the jumping point was [speaker not understood] pretty bad. we are where we are, it's not acceptable obviously. i just want to know how we get there. hopefully we'll get, you know, some good positive conversation going. and if it means developing a task force to really focus on this, it's not a bad place to go. i mean, the one good thing to about the task force we established there was a sunset pointe. i like the idea of sunsets because at least it's action oriented, you know, or achievement oriented. i was just a little bit alarmed. >> commissioner maufus? >> thank you, supervisor campos.

supervisor olague, to your point, i think what you see presented before you today is what the district is doing in recognizing [inaudible] has been happening and not turning a blind aye, and taking some very purposeful, very direct, very intent action and including our staff, our teacher -- [multiple voices] >> i don't want to disregard that. >> also, in particular the very, very strategic about how we bring our students along so they are not falsely led to a place and a path to nowhere. but really, truly, to a path and pathway to somewhere and that at least they have an opportunity to make a choice. but if they didn't have those opportunities to even get to the place to make a choice, then we truly are at fault. and i would agree with you and the concern of others here, and

probably everyone in this room, of our history and how somehow this has been so prevalent for so many years of intentional activity taking place by those in power and positions of power, as a district, as a board, and in our community to thwart that understanding and find solutions. so, where i think you see presented by our deputy superintendent guerrero is although intentional and purposeful activity to change that ma'am i can and essentially change the lives of our students and their families. * dynamic i believe clearly the commissioners that sit on this committee have been -- [multiple voices] >> a part of that and do not turn a blind aye to facts that have been glaring at us. we have come up through this system ourselves and know full well many students who have not been able to participate in

college education. and even in [speaker not understood], because by the way, you have to be academically ready to ascend and not just be at the labor reer level. -- laborer level. so, i'm happy, supervisor cohen, and president chiu, you understand where we are at and we are not turning a blind aye to this issue -- [multiple voices] >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner fewer. >> yes, i'd like to comment a little bit about looking at the state. quite frankly, when i saw this data, i myself was very, very shocked particularly about the students not on track for graduation. supervisor, i share your concern. i think as far as the pathway, this is a pathway to nowhere. so, i just want to emphasize about the difference between feel better and do better. i know if you're not really in this conversation all the time,

what does it really mean when we give two sets of data that say, on track c or better and on track d or better. on that track d or better is a lie, it is a lie to all our students because we instituted an a through g graduation requirement to do two things, one is to give access so that those students that never had access to the a through g courses that were missing eligible for college or university, would be given access to these classes. these students, african-american, latino, islanders specifically were not given those classes, integrated science or integrated math which could get you to graduation, but could never get you to college. that a through g graduation requirement gave them access, so, that's one fabulous thing about this graduation requirement. the other thing is it gives them opportunity. quite frankly, d or better gives them no opportunity. a d or better says will not get

them into college. a d or better. and quite frankly it's even cs and d at some colleges. so, d or better is actually not an adequate, i think, level to say that we have graduated with all fairness, have graduated our students prepared to college or a job because d or better is not prepared for college or a job. so, as a board i think if we're going to be looking at this graduation requirement should it be c or better or d or better. we're giving the numbers for both to see how much work we have to do. i think you can see on the chart even with the d or better we have much, much more work to do. this talks with black migration, african-american migration, outmigration. this is a huge factor. you are absolutely right about education, african americans cannot come back to san francisco if they don't feel confident that we can educate their students at a very high level. their children at a very high level to give them opportunity.

so, education is a key part of this outmigration. and i think we should have a stronger partnership, really between the human rights commission that is working on this and our educational system because if you look at outmigration, we also have a part in that because when you look at these scores, anyone -- any middle class african-american person would look at these scores and say, i'm not moving back here because there's nowhere i can educate my children. and that is a very real reality. so, just to get back to also what our deputy superintendent is saying, we are trying to upset the culture that we've had for many decades in the school district. as you know it is like turning the titanic around. it is hard to change a culture. it is hard to change an infrastructure that is very, very traditional in this district. and, so, i think that these small gains that we've made -- and i think we have made some

gains but i just want to say when you look at the overall achievement gap, i think that's what we need to really look at. we have a very long way to go. i say this, though, i'm hoping that community groups will hold us accountable to it and that we are not seen as an isolated bureaucracy that nobody can come and say, you should be doing better. i think that everybody should be saying to us, you should be doing better, and you can do better. we are trying to do better. our budget has been cut 20% in the last couple of years. and if prop 33 -- we are looking at big early budget cuts. i think it is correct to say that we are proud that we have no gains, even though we have the budget cuts. but make no mistake, we have a huge achievement gap. and if we are to ready our students prepared for the 21st century, they must be properly educated and be able to survive in the 21st century and be viable participants in the 21st

century. and i think we have depended heavily on the generosity of the people of san francisco, particularly at city hall. i mean, prop h has been huge, dcyf supports given us. i think the one thing, what is sad about the san francisco family is we understand it takes a village to raise a child here, and definitely san franciscanses have embraced that. i think you will see coming up that we are in a panic mode also about -- we know that we can track certain students and how we can get them ready, but the 2014-2015 class is in need of crisis mode, i think, because these students are juniors now. the acdc deputy superintendent mentioned sequentially gets much more rigorous. we could be looking at much larger numbers come senior year. this is daunting, it is

extremely daunting. it is the thing i think that keeps all of us that work in education up at night. we may be coming to you for support again. this is a difficult task ahead of us, but don't think we take it lightly. all of us in education take it very heavily. we weigh all the factors. we are trying our best. i have been an advocate for 8 years at the school district. and now that i'm on the school board i have been very humbled by the work our district is doing, how hard everybody works. but i am glad you called this for a hearing. i think the conversation needs to continue. it needs to be ramped up. and everybody needs to hold us accountable. >> colleagues, just to remind you, i know coleman at some point is -- [multiple voices] >> okay. supervisor cohen, did you want to add anything before coleman presents? >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. i would like to ask a couple more questions to the district.

if i missed it in a slide, maybe you can direct me to the slide. i want to know what the drop out rate has been the last 10 years and how have we increased our decreased. i'm looking for the drop -out rate the last 10 years. >> 10 years of longitudinal data? anybody want to speak to that? >> if there is somebody in the district that would have that information, we have an analyst that could crunch that. >> we can forward that to you, the 10-year trend data. >> do you have the last two years with you today? >> today we have the last two years. we don't have it here today, but certainly that could easily be pulled up for you. >> okay. so, a little bit -- my portion -- the reason why i requested this hearing was there was a

report that came out sometime ago about the high school drop out rates for marshall high school and burton high school. i want to ask questions specifically to these two high schools. how do they compare with other high schools in the city? i'm just talking about the specific drop-out rate. >> there are certain variability. we could look at the overall rate, but one thing we are of course interested in is how subgroup performance is. that also varies. >> when you say the subgroup, you mean broken out by ethnicity? >> correct. we have high schools that have greater graduation rates for african-american students, latino students, samoan students. we do have those examples where schools are getting traction. >> can you share that with us today? that is exactly what i'm trying to extrapolate in the hearing. >> i don't have a high school by high school rate with me today. i don't know if any of our staff may have that today either. >> looks like you have some

homework. >> looks like you gave us some homework. >> okay, everyone, i'm going to hold you all accountable. my next question is -- and this may be more of a philosophical one. i'm just looking to get some insight. what does the san francisco unified school district believe are some of the causes of this high drop-out rate? you mentioned outmigration. what are some of the other causes? what are the symptoms, why are we so sick? >> well, clearly the american high school drop-outrate -- we don't have a monopoly on that. * it's the case in most urban centers and even rural districts. so, the factors, they are complex. certainly we have our students during the school day, but it's hard to not make some correlations to sort of the other social economic factors, community factors, you know, people were saying sort of the slogan it takes a village. it takes a healthy village. some of the things we notice

makes a difference is when we help students and families sort of meet some of those challenges. so, things that have proven successful in getting kids to better rates of proficiency, making mental health services available, making sure there is academic and enrichment opportunities in the summer and after school, making sure they are involved with a mentor, making sure that they're involved in advisories with a principal or staff member they can relate to, making sure that every single one of these students has an individualized success plan that somebody is monitoring and checking in with them. you see pockets of success where we have some commendable improvement happening with subgroups of kids. and, so, how do we expand on those. >> okay. so, you said you've been on the team eight weeks? >> yes, ma'am. >> is there anyone here who has a little more institutional knowledge that might be able to help me out here? what i'm really trying to understand is that like this gap existed even when we were in flesh times when the economy was doing well and we had money

and there was surplus, yet there still was this gap that still existed. and i know i actually -- this is the first time i met you. i'm a product of a public school. every bit of my education has been k through 12 has been through public school. so, i'm trying to figure out at what point -- what point do we start to lose this battle? that's why i asked for the longitudinal study the last ten years. it would be great if we could go even further back than that. i'm going to -- mr. arm entrout, i want to ask you to follow-up to get the answers to the questions that i propose here today. this last question really is -- i'm just looking for a better understanding, i've got? some concrete solutionses that the unified school district is going to be implementing to help combat these high drop-out rates. * i've heard some solutions today

about the partnerships that you've passed, that -- partnerships with the city and the cbos and i've heard about a through g requirementses. i agree like many other members, a through g should be the standard no matter what. i do remember when i came through, i graduated -- there were some students who did finish with a through g and some didn't but still were able to graduate. so, my original question is what are we doing about this? we'retion calling a hearing, sounding the alarm. look at all the people in the chamber. we care about this. this is important. this is not only important to the african-american community, but to the entire health and wellness of san francisco and i believe we compete as a world and global leader. so, how do we fix this? >> well, there are definitely some concrete examples of past efforts or current efforts that actually produced results. so, if you think of the consent decree, for example, and what

it was able to bring to some of our racially isolated schools in the way of some strategies. so, the additional resources, a longer school day, additional staffing, some of the same elements you see in our school improvement grant effort which have actually surpassed a lot of rates of improvement with most of our schools, having those extra intervention teachers who can be there to ensure all students in the class are keeping up with the grade level standard as an example. and one concerted effort is working closely with after-school providers so that there are shared academic goals. so, yes, they do an enrichment, but here is an opportunity also to catch up on some reading tutoring, math tutoring, et cetera. those are other examples. in past initiatives, there's also been the addition of the seventh period in some of our schools. that allowed students to also catch up on some of their course work. that's another example. >> thank you. you did a really good job of trying to answer these questions.

thank you. okay. mr. chair, we are ready for coleman. >> thank you. why don't we continue. i know my understanding is there are a couple of presentations. there's one by coleman, there is also dcyf. so, if we can follow-up with the next presentation. i don't know if coleman advocates or dcyf -- let's go with dcyf. >> good afternoon, my name is [speaker not understood] department of children youth and families. thanks for having me here to respond to some of the questions you have today. in today's presentation you will see our dcyf investment strategies and out of school

time, youth leadership and department development support education out dumb comeses. and i'll give you examples of acat this timetionv we've funded so far that helps to bridge the gap. -- activities. what has made us unique in the current and upcoming cycle is we have made education our focus for three years and the upcoming three-year. ultimately want to make sure our students are ready to learn and are succeeding in school. and more importantly we cannot be doing these without addressing some of the preconditions. as supervisor cohen asked earlier how can we fixed this, there is education effort. we must address student needs, wellness and also safety. our stretch goals are to make sure that every child is ready to learn. every child is ready when they are beginning high school, every youth enters high school ready to succeed and when they are finished with high school they're ready to transition to adulthood. you'll see each of our

strategies are broken out to target early care education, kindergarten through 8, out of school time and work with students who are in ninth grade through 12th grade. our funding also supports family services, wellness, health and nutrition, violence prevention and intervention. you also see system support. we work very closely with the school district to fund item such as transportation, [speaker not understood], athletics. we have a public engagement effort and evaluation internally. our funds are targeted for all youth across san francisco and the at the same time we also want to be able to narrow it to specific neighborhoods and ethnic groups who are in disproportionate needs. so you see in the middle tier, another way to look at how we fund is to look at what are the risk factors the young people are facing. so, we have identified risk factors and also high-risk factors. things we'd like to highlight are mental health issues,

depression, substance use, truancy, family violence, et cetera. so, out of school time is something that we fund for kindergarten through eighth graders. you will see some of the strategies we have highlighted. ultimately we want tone sure access to comprehensive before and after school programming both at the school site and [speaker not understood]. summer is an important time. we want to make sure the programming during the summer, not all fetch want to go through comprehensive programming. so, we have some highlighted specialized activities such as football games, such as soccer games. we also have training for our providers in capacity building to learn about literacy development, curriculum development, and also science and technology, engineering and math. some examples in the out of school time activities are kindergarten through 8 students. you see tutoring and mentoring is a key highlight.

san francisco students back on track. across the cities we also have beacon centers. so, again, they have on-site services. for example, visitacion valley school and [speaker not understood]. one is more complicated. it includes teens programming. the first line is specialized out of school teen programming. what students [speaker not understood] project based learning and they get to showcase their work at the end of the curriculum. summer transition program is something that we will be funding in the upcoming funding cycle. we currently have summer programming which i'll explain a little more later. work force is a very key component to ensure us -- students succeeding in school. we have relevant learning. we have work services in the school site and also after school. [speaker not understood].

we fund 15 centers, 15 different high schools to provide holistic health, counseling, and also academic support. so, again, this is a list of some programs i'd like to highlight. college track is a four-year program that helps our young people to learn more about what is available out there for them in the college collection process, again, support leadership opportunities, opportunity impact, provide really great enrichment and civic engagement, [speaker not understood]. as i mentioned earlier, the wellness centers and something we want to highlight more, summer academic employment program where we i think for the second summer in a row we provided funding for 9, 10, 11 graders attending school. after school they receive additional tutoring, mentoring and also career training.

this is something we explore further in the coming funding cycle on how we can continue to do that. so, these are some of the highlights of our activities and fundings that we have. >> great, thank you. colleagues, any questions for the department of children youth and families? supervisor cohen. >> thank you. i first would like to get a copy of the presentation that you gave. >> i have distributed that. >> thanks. i didn't get one. >> sorry about that. >> that's okay. you know what? mr. chair, could you -- >> okay. supervisor olague. >> well, i guess really -- i guess we really should jump over to coleman. but i have a very quick question. the work force issue, i know this past summer we had that summer jobs program that i think we had about four or 5,000 jobs. >> correct. >> that were provide today youth.

the feedback i was hearing was that not all the young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, probably some of the folks we're talking about today that are in that percentage, were necessarily had the qualifications to obtain some of those jobs or succeed once they were placed. so, i just want us to -- at some point i guess i would like to have a better understanding of, you know, whether the match was there, you know, but yeah. >> sure, it's a very complicated circumstance. i think to quickly highlight within the 4 or 5,000 job opportunities, there is a range of opportunities. from entry level internship all the way to private sector placement. of course within that spectrum it has different levels of requirement. so, you're right at some level, some youth are not ready for the private sector placement that they can just go in and work. so,