superintendent, commissioners, staff, ladies and gentlemen of the audience. i want to mention something about the race for top money. it's veryit is very unfortunate california did not get it. why did we tried to get it? we are desperate this is a disgrace. the educational reform we are engaged in is not the reform we should be engaged in. what the administration wants us to do is relate not sound, research-based educational policy, and it is unfortunate. in a way, i am not fat and happy we did not get it.

-- not that unhappy we did not get it. let's see some research. what about school number 11? school no. 12? why are we engaged in this type of competition. this is a crazy competition we are engaged in. where is the senate seat? -- sanity? where is the justice for our kids. we can look forward to federal funding. thank you, congress. thank you for the hard work. now what's? hopefully, we can bring back the laid off professionals, the

laid-off classroom teachers and other support personnel, who we desperately need in this district. we have been struggling for a long time. on page 84, you will see a list of people who have been brought back, but as i look at the lives of people we hired, -- at the list of people we hired, i see many of our talented young teachers have resigned. we have lost a great deal of talent. i hope the government will respond. we have to solve this entire process. there is something really wrong with the whole thing. >> this is just public comment on our consent item. i am not sure if i made this

clear. i am not quite sure if those were addressed. we do have another consent calendar item. >> you would think i learned the first time. i am going to speak briefly about item k-14, which is the new teacher project. today i got a phone call from the examiner about why our test scores were suddenly going to have. -- going up. the first answer i gave was our teachers. that has to do with the wonderful work they have done.

this project has supported mission high school and other schools like us, all the way through the entire h.r. process of interviewing, recruiting, and retaining a wonderful, well- qualified teachers. every year, we have been able to build an incredible staff, and it is really due to the great work. i want to put in our to sense -- two cents. >> could you be specific? the union has cards on a number of items. >> item f is public comment.

this is what you want to speak about on the consent calendar. >> we have any number of resolutions we are willing to speak on, and we want to know if you want all of those together at once. if i can draw your attention to page 35, page 35 is a change of money for the fiscal year. it specifically takes money from the child development program and hires a psa -- tsa. is that then assigned in the child development program, or is that loss from the child development program and going to a different place?

it is particularly sensitive because of the need to have child development programs, not even. -- programs, and now it's even -- programs come out even. you have six of those that did not identify anybody these are working with, so they are probably working with somebody, but they are not identified in your material, and i would think you would have some interest in knowing where these are going forward. on page 48, you are in the

buildings and grounds section. it talks about international studies academy. it talks about an item for us the service removal and cleanup. this is specifically referring to the building. there has been assessed those found in other -- asbestos found in other areas of the site. i would like to see what the efforts are too clean that out. continuing on -- is this really the way you want this done? >> we did change this several months ago. this is one time we will start taking advantage of it. >> on page 106, you have a

resolution which essentially looks like you are contacting the work at h.r. by spending $128,404 to hire the friends of the school of arts to not only higher but managed all the artists in residence and taking it out of the districts hands and put it in the hands of a separate, private organization. i am on page 124 now. he spoke highly about the new teacher project, and we're not here to criticize that, but what it says in the description is they will provide consulting

services to support the reorganization and the strategic staffing in the superintendent zones for a quarter of a million dollars. it would be my presumption that they are staff now. what are the needs in those zones, or are those not staff at this time. then you will take the resolution 15, starting on page 126 through to page 139. notice these are the students support resolutions, and you have some strange variancts. you are talking about a cost of

$265,000. on page one under 31, you have 627 students for $560,000. keeping in mind as the bouncing ball moves further said you had these students, and when you get to page 134, you find out you serve wanted 38 students for $230, and there seems to be a fairly large disparity of what is being done, and the right of some are very similar -- writeups are very similar.

these are items we have been the agenda that we hope you would be able to find answers for that would be clear to us. >> may we have a motion and a second on the consent calendar? >> the item on page 77. the last line should read, it is estimated to cost $150,000. the second is on page 139. the requested action should read that it authorizes to enter

into a memorandum with the bay area urban debate commission. this will stay in full force until may 27, 2011. the purpose is to establish of bay area fervent debate league. >> thank you. any items for a first reading by the board o? commissioner norton: i would like to sever 2b. >> thank you. >> w30 and k14.

>> seeing no others, roll-call -- >> 106. >> roll call will take place. we have an ordinance of the board of education, authorizing a special task. this has already been moved and seconded, and we will have our reading. >> i will just read the most relevant portions. by passage of this ordinance,

the board authorizes a special tax pursuant to section 53338 in accordance to exhibit a. the special tax is in fiscal year 2010 through 2011. >> i do not have any speakers signed up for this item you're a dead -- for this item. are there comments? >> i just want to reiterate my thanks to the staff and those in san francisco who have continued this to support our facilities.

>> we thank the city for investing in our public schools. roll call please. [calling votes] >> we have a board member's proposals. there is one to nine -- 106. this has already been moved and seconded on an june 8. we have our report. >> they heard this item and pass

it on with the positive recommendation. >> the budget committee passes on with minor amendments. >> now we have a reading by commissioner yee. commissioner yee: to finance a student missing 10 or more days of school, regardless of whether they are excused or unexcused contributes to lower achievement starting in kindergarten. there is lower for four months for all children. among poor children, chronic absence predicted for

achievement. this is a time they are more likely to have challenges the lead to chronic absences in subsequent years. students do not have equal opportunity to learn when they are chronically absent from school, and while it is often overlooked because most often reaching most tracks unexcused absence, both can mask children. good while chronic absence is higher in secondary schools, it is crucial to start addressing

among the youngest children. whereas in san francisco, many students are missing 10% of the school days, at least 16 of the elementary schools have a chronic absentees didn't rate of 16% or higher. whereas many utilize a variety of strategies to reduce chronic absentees, whereas a careful analysis of chronic absence-that is essential because it can have

greater impact in approaching the problem to case management, and whereas many students are engaged in after-school activities with community-based activities, and often students have developed close relationships with community workers, and whereas the department of youth and families is a close partner to help students become productive citizens and ready to work, and whereas the district is creating a plan in which educating parents can be incorporated, and whereas education can beat adversely affected, and by addressing chronic absence, the district can improve attendance, which can increase the resources

available to all students. therefore, be it resolved the district requests the superintendent of schools to provide an annual analysis of patterns of elementary schools for schools, grades, and education and to reduce the rate to moment -- to no more than 10% by the end of 2012 through 2014 school year. this will focus on schools during the 2010 through the 2011 school year to reduce the chronic absentee rates by at least 5%. each will be decided by the basis of grant funds.

at the end of 2013, they will reassess the targets for absence reduction, given progress made over the past three years. the superintendent has requested each elementary school site to create a student monitoring team. they will provide an analysis of barriers. each school will develop a message of reducing chronic absences -- a way of reducing

chronic absences, and they will partner with community programs and after-school programs to get children to school, and further, be it resolved the district will take steps to insure the ability to regularly produce reports on attendance data. that is the end of that. >> thank you, commissioner yee. we have two speakers signed up on this item. two minutes each. >> thank you. it is a pleasure to be here during dead -- to be here.

i will say the challenges san francisco faces are present throughout this country, and i am the proud mother of two unified school district children -- that you are taking a step to make a difference on this key issue. this is a really important proposal, and i want to say a few things to drive home the point. i think chronic absence is one of the points we should be tracking if we want to reduce the achievement gap. it is a sign of academic failure, both for individual kids, but if you have a large number is not getting to school in the first place, we know that school is not going to be able to perform academically. reducing public absence has the benefit of increasing state

revenues, so we win in every way possible, but in san francisco, we do not monitor the chief point. we all think this is great. you could still have 30 kids chronically absent. it depends whether they are distributed throughout the student body. there was an analysis that informed office, but that was a onetime analysis.

we need to monitor this over time. my last comment is we have lots of resources to bear. if we have the will to work on this, we have the resources. >> i am the director and the co- founder of the family support network. this is comprised of private foundations, public departments, and community-based organizations. the school district is actually a member, and we appreciate active participation. our policy committee has a focus on developing economic success.

one of the key strategies is on education, promoting education to support parents and support the children. we raised so many children not being prepared, so we want to applaud you for shedding light on this issue. we are a city known for lacking in coordination. looking at his provides a key opportunity to look at the various resources to bring to bear on addressing a challenge that is not simply a school

challenge. we stand prepared to insure that all children have the ability to be prepared. thank you. >> thank you. i would like to take comments from the board. commissioner fewer: i would like to speak to what the public speakers said. during the committee meeting, we did discuss, and you emphasize the need to have more information, and we had a discussion.

it is true we have not been collecting data. we turned the conversation to chronic absenteeism. i think we all came to the conclusion that this is a problem that we need to address and that we actually do have some resources, but that we can collect better data collectors around this issue. >> i want to thank the speakers who came out to support this. the data was collected as part

of it, and i think if we're going to pass this and take it seriously, we should probably do another analysis so they will actually know where they started from. >> commissioner norton. commissioner norton: i think this is important. it is the students that are gone continually and missing a lot of school, but not in chunks. it does add up. thank you for bringing this up. >> this is one of those things we paid attention to,