program and some other music programs and next year, we tripled the population because the students were telling their friends, look, you can do this, do that. as a principal of the court schools right now, i deal with that on a daily basis, a student coming in who is 17 years old, could be homeless, could have multiple issues, and you try to sit down with that student and figure out the best path for that student. in the recent let's say three years, there are more options for those students. so i was seeing that with a student today. we mapped out something for him. he is coming back into school after not being in school for four years. what do we do with him. i showed him the options he could take. and he bit into a couple of them, which is great. and we will try that. and if it doesn't work for now,

we could try the g.e.d. program, the city cards program, online schools, there are all kinds of things that claudia and i have done forever and it is with the support of a lot of people. we try small programs and see if they work. i think care is an example of that. people are saying what do we do with 20 students not going to school. how about we build a program. we added cyber high school, online high school. we added g.e.d., combination of programs with civic center secondary. now with big picture, we are taking a lot of those students that evidence for years and years and trying this with them. it may not stick with all of them, but we are trying these small programs and i will leave you with this, for me, the best way to try to solve this problem is ask the students and they will tell you exactly what they need. for example, if a student is not going to a comprehensive high

school, they are telling you something about their fit with that high school and that's ok. let's try something else with that student to see if it works. >> commissioner mendoza. vice president mendoza: a couple of comments to add to the presentation. part of the work we have been doing is trying to align our community-based organizations with the strategic plan and that has made a huge difference. we don't have c.b.o.'s in our schools doing whatever it is they like to do, which don't get me wrong, we appreciate. but one has tapered off quite a bit and are wanting to make sure the work we are doing -- and that has made a huge difference. and c.b.o.'s was built through dcyf and the work we have been doing here at city hall and the

school district. with regard to the social workers, one of the things we have been trying to do is to have students who are touched by multiple departments to have one social worker. and i don't know if we have been able to be successful in that mode of operating, but at least we wouldn't have four, five different social workers to talking to the one student and not having the four, five social workers talking to each other, but can we assign one social worker to the student and then be able to connect with all of the different departments. that was our other way of trying to get services to the student without having them touch multiple departments. we have also been trying to do some work around public housing and we have got legally involved in the public housing conversation as to what can we share, what can we send in the bills, what can we do specifically for our students in

public housing, because such a high percentage of our kids in public housing tend to have the services not quite get to them. so we have been working closely with public housing as well. and we have also been working to -- with the funding that we have through dcyf, actually asking the question, having the c.b.o.'s ask the question, what does attendance look like for each of our students. adding that as one of the criteria that they look at when they are doing their regular reporting. so that wasn't something we were doing in the past and we are actually able to see where the chronic students lie and what additional services we can give to them. one of our partners is sfpd. they have been cooperative and hasn't been an area they have been thrilled about but they

understand the challenges that we have been faced with and they have been great partners. speaking directly to the mo magic collab ritive. bringing together people every month to talk about the challenges of the youth. so we have made sure that the school district has connected directly with the organizations bringing these groupings together and make sure we're at

the table to show our support of the work they've doing, and secondly, to make sure we're partnering directly with them and the value of the work they're doing in the community and thirdly, solving some of the issues that they themselves have not been able to penetrate in the school district, so we're giving them a front-line face and staff member or staff members to make sure that they have a direct connect from the outside to inside. and so those are all really just in addition to all of the tremendous work you guys have been doing and i want to thank you for the collaborations that have been happening and the consistent meetings you've been having. and people show up. i think that we have put this on the front, forefront of the work we want to do. this has become a real priority and we saw some small changes in our -- actually, it was about

16% in our truancy both on chronic and habitual average. and we have some goals, now, that we really want to reach and they're going to be higher than the 16% and i think with all of these mechanisms in place and the other things people are talking about wanting to do including reaching out to the community, you know, saying to the merchants, as we've done, if you see any of our students who are out and they shouldn't be, here's an anonymous phone number you can call or these are ways you can help so we want to come outside of the school, also, to help our students not get into situations that they don't need to be in and continue to support them the best ways possible. so thank you for the work you've been doing and being that collaborative partner that we've all being the last year and a half. >> commissioner kim?

commissioner kim: i was going to add that i'm so happy that, hydra, you just mentioned the partnerships going on because i think to solve the issues we're talking about to deal with violence, to prevent it, to intervene it, to address it, we have to be able to first identify a partner, a neutral party that will be able to create this collaborative effort, this collaborative opportunity with multiple city departments. and then we need the departments that are experts in, let's say, mental health,s for, dph has taken the lead on addressing the needs overall for mental health of young people. so creating the partnership, identifying who is the lead, and moving on with the issues that deal with violence, that's really helped us, for example, in the truancy reduction initiative. tark is an anchor, a base to be able to look at as a possible solution. however, truancy reduction is something we had to communicate

to all city departments and say this is an issue that we're facing, truancy, who is at the table and what resources are available that already exist and how can we better work on a consistent basis to be able to resolve this, come up with better solutions. so i want to echo that. another thing i would say is dcyf, we've recently submitted to the nccd the 13-city plan that reduces community violence and it's an effort to bridge all different departments. we've had letters of support from all the departments we've mentioned already involved with the truancy reduction initiative and we've identified five major goals that reduce violence and that includes legislative support, that includes education and work force, it includes community safety and community policing. it also includes really looking at re-entry services, bridging that gap for the 18- to 25-year-olds.

so developing these plans and making them live and assuring there's a department that consistently tracks and meets all the goals that are met in our plans is also really important so i'd love to share the 13-city plan in the future with some of you and i know we have panz to meet with supervisor dufty and a couple of other board of supervisors to share more about these plans. but again, collaborative efforts, partnering, leadership, all of those efforts support solving this big problem. >> commissioner kim? commissioner kim: these questions are for tark. i was just curious, now that i know it's still not been that much time, but if we've been collecting data and how things have been going at tark and maybe some of the success stories and some of the challenges thus far. >> i can give you just briefly. we can arrange another time to come. i know we were trying to schedule a time to talk about

specifics. i can tell you that in general there are about 46 cases that are enrolled. commissioner kim: how many? i'm sorry. >> 46. and most of them are kristin cavallari and habitual. and there's been an estimated 36% decrease from chronic to habitual. some of the profiles we're dealing with, we're talking about youth that are multisystems involved so jdp and h.s.a. have been at the table to talk about dealing with wrap-around services and addressing some of the needs young people have through sfusd. we've worked closely with student support services. the referral process has really been from sfpd, from the d.a.'s office, all the active partners have did referral services inside tark. >> have local businesses and parents been referring students, as well? >> oh, yes. parents have. we haven't received too many

local business referrals. part of our efforts were just to out-reach and have the community involved with preventing some of the truancy. but besides that, we've mostly received referrals from parents in that area and there are parents that have come specifically with their children on an ongoing basis that just say, please help me with some of the issues dealing with young people but we can arrange a specific presentation so you can hear more. commissioner kim: i'm curious as to what has been most successful so far. >> the success has been, according to what we hear on a weekly basis, is really having the case managers engage and identify the agencies that are already involved and coupling some of the mental health services, like, for example, with d.p.h., and offering multiple opportunities for some of the young people. the case management is one piece of the puzzle. so walking these young people back to the school environment, having the school community

engaged, all of those have been the successes or the anchors that have really resulted in improvement in attendance. commissioner kim: have we thought about, for the students that aren't going to civic center, for example, or principal center, have we thought about calling those families and door knocking to see what we can do to get them back in school? >> at this point, i know that the d.a. has tried to communicate with them on that heavy hand lens. there has been notices. we've done some calls but definitely that's an area where we need a lot more staffing and support. but we have done a couple of phone calls and i know that there are some efforts through the city that we were all going to purposely commit to per agency. so there's different calls in different ways. there hasn't been something that's been done large or

systematically. commissioner kim: i would be very interested in that because i think that sending letters is not the best way to outreach. i brought this up at the last school board meeting but i have been meeting our truant students on the streets, door knocking, and i think it's the best way to reach out to them to find out why they're not in school. i personally feel uncomfortable asking you to pick them up with the police. i don't feel comfortable doing that. it's not because the police are not friendly, but i feel bad after i build that relationship with a student to have the police officer come and pick them up. i wish there was another way to have someone come to their door and bring them another way. >> we have found a good solution is having the c.r.n. involved. commissioner kim: that's right. yeah. >> so what we've done is that some of the young people that have been truant know that --

especially with the northwest c.r.n. chris commissioner kim: that's a great use of c.r.n. >> so we've been providing the safe transportation they provide to get young people back to the center and reengage with their education. >> what's the break on elementary, middle, and high school students of the 46? do you have round numbers? >> they're all high school students. the 46 are all high school students. there are no middle school students enrolled at the moment. and the elementary students, they're not tark-focused. >> commissioner mendoza. commissioner mendoza: the other thing i want to add is that we have parents that bring their kids to tark which was really surprising. but there were a series of things that they were not successful in doing so they brought their own children down

to ask for support. >> i want to piggyback on this a little bit. i know the board of ed members know this, but the supervisors may not know that in addition to the wonderful work that tark is doing, the school district also employs at this point six -- i wish it could be double that number -- but six child welfare and attendance liaisons that work out of student support services, and nine attendance liaisons that work directly out of the assistant superintendent teams, and they are, in fact -- and i couldn't agree more that what really needs to happen oftentimes is to go and knock on a door and say, gee, we're here because we care about you. we know you're not attending school, can you talk to us about what's going on. so that is happening, not on the scale we wish it would happen. i do know that at civic center,

they have a full-time attendance liaison there who i believe is doing some of those home visits now to try to find some of those students that were assigned there and for varieties of reasons didn't go to school there. so we also have retired teachers that we have making phone calls and in some cases home visits, as well. >> colleagues, i think we've handled the questions that we've had. i want to thank the presenters. i think this is an excellent continuation of our hearing and we're glad to know that tark has got clients and to talk about the big issues ahead. and most importantly, about the collaboration. i want to acknowledge assemblyman reano with proposition h. that created a whole different

dynamic where we were investors and supporters of the success of the school district and it opens doors in both direction and it's much, much more than just the money. beyond that, i think there's a whole area of collaboration. i did not open this up to public comment. if there are any members of the public that wish to be heard on any aspect of this hearing, we'll open it up to public comment. seeing none, we'll close public comment and with that, we will continue this item to the chair and thank everyone for their participation. we are adjourned.

>> lierse the general manager right here. thank you. it this is a meeting of the

recreation and park cobb commission. >> commissioner buell. commissioner harrison. boneniia. >> present. >> lee. >> here. >> martin. i know commissioner lev ton is on her way. >> i'll make a couple of general announcements. the ringing of cell phones and electronic devices are prohibited a the the meeting. we may remove anyone responsible for the sound producing devices. in order to have a fass tilt driven meeting, you may sign a blue card. each person may have two minutes to speak on each item.

let's proceed. >> address your comments to the commission during public comments on items, in order to allow equal time for all, neither commission nor staff will answer questions during public comment. the commission may ask questions of staff after public comment is closed. we're on item number 2, which is the president's report. >> thank you. >> i like to ask ernestine waters weis to please stand and come forward. i'm going to read something. this is the san francisco recreation and park commission certificate of appreciation to yweis throughwaters her leadership after the queark and the ensuing demolition of the freeway she initiated a transfer of the underlining,

blocks two 0 -- 202 and 203 to the rec croo park department. her tireless efforts with community groups resulted in the creation of the park then known as ferry park. as open space in perpetuity protecting and preserving this valuable land from development for the benefit of future generations. signed on thursday october 7th, 2010, mark buell president. [applause]

>> on behalf of my family that couldn't be here today and all of the wonderful individuals and community groups and friends, i want -- i want to thank you mark buell and everyone connected, you too margaret for the certificate of appreciation and for the creation of ferry park. it will be eternally remembered. i will be eternally grateful for this. i appreciate this so much on this day october 7th. thank you. thank you.

>> let me make a couple of other announcements. one as you all know, we have been faced with receive bucket cuts. and -- budget cuts. the department never knows how much that will be but we know it is going to happen. that forced us to look at two options in how we balance the budget, one is to let people go. that translates into gardners and reaction center directors and other staff. it means generating new revenue in the course of coming up with proposals to generate new revenue, it implies change in the parks. if i have learned anything in the last eight months, everyone wants to weigh in on the parks and they all have an opinion about them and how they operate and how they treasure them. anytime we propose to make changes and there's an item on the agenda that will reflect that. we're going to get enormous community comment.

it is incumbent on the department more so than ever to reach out to the community and try to get input in a constructive and dependable way. i'm suggesting today and there's an item on the agenda that rather than hold two meetings each month for the recreation and park department that we go to one meeting per month except in budget cycles. then we'll have special meetings on the budget. but two additional days added to the commission hearings. these will be committees that will be formed and give the public an opportunity to come and comment on items before they get to the commission for approval. so that it won't be the day of an item to be hearing the possible's input. there will be outreach in advance of that. there's a chance in a public arena to voice your opinions on issues in front of committees of the commission and this will be three members of the commission. if we have four it becomes an official body that -- that has

to act and these will be committees. we have a zoo committee already. there will be two additional committees. there's a capital committee and operations committee. this is one step further in giving public notice of items agendaed and giving them an opportunity to speak without the consequence of it being acted upon that day. that in -- one of the desires beyond the public input will be that it gives staff a chance to get more input so items may be modified to reflect community input before they reach the commission for final approval. so with that, i'm going to ask commissioner boneniia to weigh in on this because she inspired me to move in this direction and we'll speak later when it is on the agenda. >> thank you so much for this opportunity. during my first term we had this subcommittee structure in place

and -- i was of the strong belief then and i am now that it served the public very, very well. and with -- would it al -- it allowed us to have that maybe we don't have as much of now and that is -- to -- it allowed us to get input and buy-in from the communeity -- from the -- from the onset as opposed to after the fact. it also -- also allowed for the for the community or the public to drive the process in terms of the -- in terms of the problem solving, the ideas for revenue generating, the -- the needs, the priority needs.

i'm delighted that -- that -- that the president of the commission -- has taken my input seriously and is -- and it -- will work towards -- and have -- is actually encouraging all of us to work toward implementing the new process. that said i think it'll be incumbent on all of you to make every effort possible to go to the other committee mets and to -- and for you to make your comments early on and make sure that your comments are institutionized early on and that we have that staff and the commissioners have an opportunity to to explore your

to look at your views and to explore how we take those views and -- you know in terms of doing the business of the of the department. >> let me make a couple of other announcementses about what is being proposed. the capital committee would meet on the first wednesday of every month at 2:00 p.m. items before the capital committee would be those capital improvements. the operations com miltity would meet on the first thursday of each month at 2:00. items before the operations committee would be everything that is nonzoo related and noncapital related. the committees would be audio taped. the action that is occur in the committee would be posted online and recorded on the commission phone. we're not required to to do minutes of the meeting but there