tv [untitled] May 28, 2013 7:00pm-7:31pm PDT
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removed for first reading by the board? >> all right. and any items severed by the board or superintendent for discussion and vote tonight? >> can i... >> yeah. >> thank you, president norton. i would like to have further discussion on the item that was just spoken to for public comment. so it is 2 f135-28 b6. >> okay. so we will sever that for discussion. roll call vote will take place under section o. >> all right. item h. we have superintendent proposal and approval of material revision to the life learning academy charter petition and to reflect the change of governor ans structure, may i have a reading of the recommendation please? >> good evening, president norton, and superintendent
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carranza. and commissioners. what we have here is a proposal to approve a material revision to the charter for the life learning academy charter school. superintendents proposal, approval of the material revisions to the life learning charter petition to reflect the change of governor ans structure whereas san francisco unified school district is the charter authorizer for life learning academy charter school which is set to expire on june 30, 2014, and whereas the board of directors of this will be the delancy street foundation on september 27, 2012 approved the change of governor ans of life learning academy charter school to the newly formed life learning academy non-profit public benefit corporation and whereas the charter school submitted request of an approval for the revision of the charter school's provision to reflect the change of the structure to the san francisco unified school district on
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february 13, 2013 and whereas the charter school specifically requested a revision to section i, the standing of the petition to be effective july 1, 2013 and include a supporting documentation of the new non-profit public benefit corporation and whereas pursuant to the sections 47605 and 607 they shall review and act on revisions to the charter school petition and be it resolved that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district shall approve the revision to the charter school's revision set forth by the requirement of law. >> thank you. >>vy no public speakers signed up for this item. are there any comments from the board? >> commissioner wynns? >> thank you. >> i have some questions. i am wondering this charter which i have always strongly
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supported in part is our support has been based on our partnership of the delancy street foundation and there is no explanation here of why this is being done, further, it gave (inaudible) and found out that the staff does not know to ask the question or to wonder about some of the synergystic activities that have been done with the treat and so i am a little, and i kind of like to know more about this if possible. >> sorry. good evening, i'm terry (inaudible) and i have been the principal for life academy, for 15 years since its inception and i am also with the delancy street for the past 30-plus years. and so our school was part of the local action plan 15 years
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ago. and local action plan had numerous other community agencies that we started. all of which ended up being given back to the community to run. the schools just taken a little bit longer and it has always been our idea for life learning academy to become separate from delancy street, although the model itself will never change it is what makes it successful. i am someone who set up a number of replications which we have all across the country, that are delancy street model replications that have been unbelievably successful. and we believe that our school, will continue to be successful as it has always been as a replication which is pretty much what it is. >> and so that is the reason. >> okay. so, so for instance, in the
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past, this school has had sort of surfaces, that came from delancy street and so in a while ago and i have not talked to you or anybody in several years about this but there was a time when most of these kids were picked up at their homes and returned to them in the evening. further, in the beginning at least, i think that almost all of the girls that attended the school lived in group homes that were run by delancy street and further one of the things that i have many times referred to other people have told them about the things that were being done there was a time when every student at the school had a mentor of delancy street and so those things still go on? are they... my question is we could... discuss, i mean that it is not up to me, >> sure. >> but those were included in the charter model. >> when it was presented to us. >> so i am wondering if that has changed, it seems to me that i am a little concerned
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that the material changed to the charter is not just a different board. >> yeah, no. the thing that did change is, which has been so beneficial to our students. is that you know, it was, the vans, that we had to pick up people, has not been for two or three years. and we stopped doing that a while ago, because it turned out that only 50 percent of our students were getting on the vans, so what we did and said which would be amazed what a hot breakfast does, which we included more of our kids come now due to a hot breakfast than when we were picking them up from their homes. so that part has changed. and the money that we have saved for 30,000 dollars a year on gas, we now send our kids through school, through college. this has been huge for us, all
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of our kids last year that graduated in the last two or three years end up going to college and we paid for them. and so, you know, as time goes, and things begin to change, some, i think that is probably the biggest thing was having to do with our vans but everything else, the mentor and we get from the people in the community and some from delancy street graduates and all of that model has remained exactly the same. >> it seems to me and the staff told me that the charter is up for renewal next year, what we are going to need is for the staff to carefully go over all of those things because basically if we have not changed the charter and the charter makes reference to the things that are not doing any more that are part of the model. i am not even certain that just passing this, adequately, you know, it just, says that the board is a different board, but, it does not necessarily make all of the changes that actually need to be done and
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also, i would want to when we do that, know more subnatively that we would need to make some sort of an assessment about whether, you know, the charter accurately reflects the program in the school now. >> i am the principal and i have been there since it opened and i have run the school for the past 15 years and i think that any changes like the ones that you are mentioning would be completely disdescribed in the charter that we will submit next year and he would love for you to review and see the school and visit as well. so i think that you know that is when we will be able to respond to the to the additional questions that you are raising right now. >> thank you. >> any other questions or
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comments from board members? seeing none, oh, if there is a problem we would hear it from our counsel. >> other than the realignment of the board which is considered a material revision of the current charter, i don't see another issue before us. did the counsel review the charter itself or the provision about the board. what i am concerned about and i think that it is probably okay and frankly i think that all charters are loose to put it bluntly. but, it seems to me that we would need to or that the just changing to another board has far-reaching implications because delancy street was a integral component of the model
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of this school, so i am sure that there are other things that need to be changed in the charter, however, i am prepared to just say that we are going to look at it in depth next year and see what we can do. >> i mean, because wouldn't there have, there is sort of specific conditions, aren't there for us to actually open up the charter, outside of the renewal process? >> you are asking for a material revision? that is what we are doing. but they are saying that is the only part that they want to revise is the board. and what i am saying is that it seems to me that this charter in particular was written in such a way, that it actually was a partnership with another organization and that organization is the one that we are taking out of the board so whether there are actually doing all of those things and i don't know if the charter makes any reference to picking the kids up or anything of those things, we need to look at that carefully. >> and legal counsel, is there any reason why we could not vote on this tonight and then
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if there are other issues... if there are other issues that would legal issues that we would need to take up before the charter comes up you could advise us to that later? >> correct. >> i can and i will and there is no reason why you cannot vote on this revision tonight. >> i am going to call roll call and we can examine these questions off line in greater details. >> thank you. >> ly. >> yes. >> fewer. >> yes. >> haney. >> yes. >> maufas. >> yes. >> mendoza, murase. >> aye. >> wao*ins fp wynns. >> aye. >> norton. >> aye. >> six ayes. >> thanks for coming we are going to move on request to speak regarding general matters.
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i have two speakers... where is my list, two speaksers, that called ahead, and so i am going to call first maggie (inaudible) and tina (inaudible). and you may each have one minute of time. okay? thank you. >> good evening, i am actually here tonight with the celebration and i would love hearing the different names of the different communities and i like that and that is the reason that i am speaking tonight and this is about the filipino language pathway and i am speaking as a parent and a community advocate that two things here that we would like to make the district and the commissioners know, good evening, by the way, that we
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would like to work with strengthening the pathway with kthrough 12 and right now we have kthrough five at long fellow and we don't have 0 in the middle school and three years ago with the help of commissioner mendoza we started one and that is one issue and the other issue is the curriculum development and it will help if we have a staff that are developing a language and culture in the multilingual department right now and there is no one that speaks that language and therefore the curriculum that comes out of it is i am not going to say anything any more that is my issue thank you very much. >> good evening, commissioners, my name is crina and i am a
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community advocate and i am a fourth grade teach and her in keeping up with tonight's tony would like to congratulate all of the high school seniors that we honored tonight and also, we would like to bring up the issue of if we are to expect these students to continue on the road to success, we should continue to make sure that there are teachers and staff who represent them who feel like them and who speak like them and who speak their language share their heritage language and culture. and this, it brings me to this point, i would like to thank the superintendent for continuing our dialogue with the filipino community and thank you for opening up the chance to have a meeting tonight as we speak with the superintendent margaret chiu and thank you for giving us that opportunity to speak with her about our concerns. and i would like to thank you for meeting with us a couple of weeks ago, and thank you.
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>> and this is a sign that we are having this dialogue and hope that we can continue to really engage and collaborate as a community. and i see it personally as a road towards practicing the restorative practices and thank you and good night. >> thank you for your comments. >> all right we will move on and we have two speakers from (inaudible) you may each, if you require interpretation you can have two minutes, but if you are speaking in english, one minute each. how many minutes? >> i am sorry. >> one minute? >> i am nervous and i am taking the power to talk to you, the first one that we are going to
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talk about is we are having a lot of relational trust issues at the elementary school. and if you ever wondered why we are hard to staff school you might want to look deeper into the practices there. and the first thing is that we have had a lot of non-reelect and we had two last year that were rescinded because they got word of them and they were rescinded, and we have one that happens to be our deaf and hard of hearing teacher. and it has torn our asl community apart and it has been difficult for our school and we have a petition that were 200 signatures from family and 30 staff of the talking about this teacher and how the non-reelect should be rescinded and also, our library teacher is going to be removed because he is not bi lingual but yet we don't have a bi lingual vice principal and i am a computer teacher and i am
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not bi lingual. my position was reduced to 80 percent, even though we are ordering 100,000 worth of new laptops and ipads and i don't know why that would happen. but there has been so little transparency and like we said, we had multiple staff meetings about relational trust and we have taken it to the administrator's boss and it was sent back to hr and to our administrator and so we asked for your help in oversight of our amazing community at (inaudible) school. thank you. >> and here are copies of the (inaudible). >> i am one of the educators and i am speaking on behalf of the deaf and hard of hearing community and because one of our teachers has been and she
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has resigned under dirres and our students are special in a different way our students thrive best when they have consistent sit and a relationship with their teacher especially when they can't communicate at home. and their only source of communication tends to be at school. our school is the only elementary school, and the only magnet school for the deaf. although they come to our school and we have teach theirs stay with our students, we have one teacher that stayed with them from prekto fifth grade and so the relationship is really important, i think that it is crucial because i grew up with deaf and hard of hearing community and i know that it is very important for our consistentcy in our school. and we have asked several times that that be considered.
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we have been told by the assistant superintendent that is up to our administration and only she can revoke that decision. so we are really asking for that to be considered. it is very hard for our students since their circle of communication is limited and we are not a hearing school. thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. we have a number of cards from valley middle school. and i want to apologize because i am going to hangle the pronouncations of the names. (inaudible) wo i believe, and (inaudible) who (inaudible) elementary? excuse me, it says middle school on the card. >> okay. (inaudible) and (inaudible).
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>> so, does everyone require interpretation? so i have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 speakers, so two minutes per speaker with interpretation, okay? >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> good evening, commissioners and superintendent, i am the parent of valley elementary school and now i am representing the group of
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parents to speak tonight. we are all low income family, we are all from low income families and also new immigrants. [ speaking in a foreign language ] at the end of this year, two very experienced teacher will be retiring and also three teachers will transfer to another school. [ speaking in a foreign language ] also four bi lingual staff will be replaced by two bi lingual parent liaisons. >> however, more than 35 percent of the teachers and also other staff will not
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return to next school year >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] . >> the teacher and also the staff leaving all because of the principal. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> of course, i believe that the district already noticed that there is something irregular happening in the (inaudible) valley elementary school. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> we are so sad to see that a very good school is cranking down right now. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> there must be safety at school and the staff safety at school either. [ speaking in a foreign language ]
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>> and also parents are very concerned about when sending a student to school. >> we really want to have a competent and trustful principal to work with parents and teachers and the community. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> to find our wonderful days back. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> we are here to request (inaudible) education to set up a independent community to investigate into this issue.
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[ speaking in a foreign language ] >> superintendents miss chiu is going to retire and so we don't believe that she is appropriate for her to become member of this committee. >> thank you. >> good night. >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] . >> superintendent and commissioners, good evening, everyone. high name is lidy and i am a parent of (inaudible). and... and and (inaudible) [ speaking in a foreign language ]
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three years ago, vivy is a school with great reputation. and also, rewarded many times. among the staff, this year has won the national excellent teacher. >> the principal... [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> the formal principal mr. (inaudible) has worked well with the teachers and also the parents. and keep wonderful communication with all parties. and the students are learning a joyful learners and they make a wonderful academic performance. [ speaking in a foreign language ]
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>> but we think that it is two years. lots of experience and hard caring staff are or were not getting along with the principal and were forced to retire early. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> finding the teachers are retiring all being fired, the parents and students are very confused and very concerned. [ speaking in a foreign language ]
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>> the parents and students cannot take those changes suddenly. and also the teachers are not teaching the students with their heart. and the students have no interest in studying. so, and even the parents cannot go to work peacefully. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> we have really concerned that for the safety of the kids. however this year there will be 7 staff leaving also. [ speaking in a foreign language ] i would like to ask it would be any similar situation in other schools? >> [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> we believe that it is all because the principal so that all of the experienced teachers
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>> in early september, that 2012, that is monday, and the students, what is the students' name? >> ivin luey and so he does not want to go to school. however, as a (inaudible) a male teacher was with him. >> however, when the principals saw the students and the student was at the playground and so she requested the students will go back to the classroom but the student does not want to go. >>
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>> the students was pulled by the principal to... sorry. >> (inaudible) [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> the principal pulled the student into the classroom but the student fight back to the principal. and pushed her off. [ speaking in a foreign language ] >> without notifying the parent the principal called the police. >> two policeman arrive at a school. [ speaking in a foreign
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