efforts toward the implementation and assessment of our strategic plan have been pretty specific. what are we going -- how are we going to develop data that will tell us about this specific goal and that specific goal? and that is hard, so i appreciate that. looking at the available data and what we need to develop to get to the specifics is good, but while we are doing that we need to talk about the big picture and how those things fit into reaching our goals. i am hoping the committee will be able to keep that in mind and work with the staff to be able to figure out and help us get that larger context. i would like to think everybody again. i appreciate your coming here again tonight. that has taken more of your time. thank you. commissioner maufas: again, let me echo what commissioners have said around your time and energy to this service. we really do appreciate it,

because the board room is lonely when it is just you in here doing your work. i know that. thank you very much, especially when you are plugging away and your family is home, and you are not there with them. thank you, young men. you are fine examples of whatever school district has provided and what you have learned from it and are able to go out in the world with that information and learning, and continue to do that. others will learn from you and model their lives after you. so please do not stop. you are on the right path. thank you very, very much for coming forward today. you know we appreciate it. president kim: are you done, commissioner? commissioner maufas: no, but do you want to speak? >> i am sorry. i apologize for interrupting.

i just wanted to remind or note to the commissioners and to the school community that an important part of our work is not just looking at these programs and recommending the things, but is to go out into the community to inform the community of how these enrichment funds enriched our students, make the culture of san francisco that much broader, that much more cultured, if you will, and that it is going to be an important part of this coming year and the next two years or three years until we come to the next reauthorization. but that is going to be an important part, and that was not stressed. i did not want that to be lost in the other comments. excuse me. commissioner maufas: i appreciate that, because that is one of the things i was going to inquire about, and how we can hear more about your community conversation. i would like to figure out with whoever our leadership is going

to be threat the coming years how you can come forward to us with what the community is telling you so we can continue to be impressed as time goes on. in a quarterly meeting, i would like to hear from you more often, the committee members, about what you are hearing and how these funds are impacting students and families' lives at school sites and making differences, and how they operate. i hope that that can be a topic of discussion within the committee and we can figure out with the leadership of the board how you can come forward and related information for not just the board members, but also the public, so that messages back to the broader audience. i think that is key so they understand and hear that schools are being impacted by these funds and they're being used in the way that schools -- because for some reason, and i just think we have not messaged it well enough, i continue to hear from the public that schools do

not have music, schools do not have libraries. and i think what is happening across the state and across the country is playing like that is what is happening in san francisco. and that is not the case. but a lot of the general public do not understand that. things are very different here in san francisco. the generosity of our citizens has helped us be different. again, there are lots of folks out in the world here who do not understand we have done something quite unique, and many of our students benefit from that. again, i think all of you coming to the board meeting and sharing these stories helps get that message out. we just need to continue to figure out how to get that information to the broader public. i am very interested in hearing more about what their conversations are, but i also would like to hear from the committee in regards to how we can present information to you. because part of it, i think, is

many of you do not have the historical knowledge about the peef committee, so some of the knowledge about what happened before your time is missing. so when you hear frustration in the communities, you do not have the answers for them to understand what happened before and how it transitioned. you just know what it is now. and i get that. that makes sense. and possibly that is some of our work, to somehow make a package of the history and win it transitioned into what the committee work should be going forward, which is really doing more community engagement, which is a piece we were missing. but also what we can provide from you -- for you in regards to the budgeting process. you are explaining that to the community in context. so you have a context to explain, you know, why you are up there communicating and trying to gather information. i think that would be helpful for you. but also helpful as you explain

to the community members. so i would like for us to work on how we can provide that for the cac so they can do their work with assurances, instead of in a vacuum, if that makes sense. does that seem like that would be helpful? >> yes. but just a bit on that, in addition to the things you discussed and the things commissioner few were discussed about students served but not being able to gauge the level of impact. the think additional information -- i think additional information on exactly -- we work closely with walter about getting additional information and evaluating what is being measured for impact, so we have a detailed knowledge about what is supposed to be happening and we can ask more pointed questions to people running these programs around what is working, what is not

working. the platform currently is to hear what is going on from people in the programs, but a detailed knowledge about what the program entails and the evaluation process is going to help inform us as we go out into the community and are able to address nuances of age-specific programs on that and, and ask more questions around, you know, you have this amount of students coming. but what are you saying at the outset in terms of what you want to see by the end of the year, and how is that being tracked? just so we know. we do not know currently what is supposed to be happening. that was supposed to be given to us at the beginning of our time on the board for this year. commissioner maufas: is that because that was not a part of what was put you as a part of your practice, or is that

because the program was already up and running so that was not part of your historical knowledge? >> it was not part of my own personal historical knowledge, and it is a bit outside the scope of what we set out to do this year. but having that additional information does help give a more broad, you know -- it helps when you see and are asking questions under supposed to know exactly what is supposed to be happening. commissioner maufas: it sounds like a bit of both. >> it is a bit of both, yes. commissioner maufas: thank you for that. president kim: any other comments or questions? as a former member of peef as well, i really appreciate your dedication to this process. as we talk about potentially bring this to the ballot, i know there are a lot of different discussions as to how this is

going to come back. it is important message to voters how this impacts our schools and benefits our communities. i think an important forum would be to go to the select committee on the board of supervisors before final approval of the budget. this is where the funding comes from. it comes from the city. the voters approve city funding to come to the school district to help us to enhance our programs, to build stronger leaders, to have a more well- grounded curriculum in our schools. the can continue to do that. thank you for your time, and thank you for being here. commissioner yee: i do not want to spend a whole lot of time, but this is an issue with the select committee. if we are going to have representation at the select committee, not only should we be talking about, you know, our two-thirds that go into the school district, but we should invite the people that administer the piece that is the

third of the funding to be part of that discussion, because we have to look at the whole package. even though we are not administering the preschool portion of prop j, our children's fund, the idea is that the other third the goes into preschool would have an impact, a positive impact in terms of the kids coming through the preschool programs into our system. so i would like to have that discussion. president kim: thank you, commissioner. and thank you very much again. [applause] our next item is item l, special order of business. there is none tonight. item m, discussion of other educational issues, there is nine tonight. item n, consent calendar resolutions -- there is none

tonight. item o, but on consent calendar -- that has arisen been moved and seconded. [roll call vote] >> six ayes. president kim: our next is item p, consent calendar resolutions. that has been severed. there are three. commissioner wynn, would you like to hear two first, or all three together? k2 -- commissioner wynn. commissioner wynns: i appreciate the information here, particularly the sort of perspective on the proposal on this program. but the reason i severed this is that a few meetings ago i had

asked for an overview of professional development money, if we had a plan for spending the professional development money that we retain, since we have cut that to such a high degree. and i have to say that i think that we actually postponed action on a number of professional development contract when i asked that question. i was told of a debt before the next meeting at least an outline of some kind of strategic plan for professional development and how the resources we have in the various programs we are funding would be aligned with specific academic goals we have this year, or whatever. what i actually received by e- mail on the day of the following meeting was just a list of some things that were funded only through the same source of the things we had severed at the previous meeting, not in any way, and that is one of my main interests.

i would like to know what all our professional development resources are. i know it is germane to the discussion we just had about prop h because of resources that were formerly categorized and restricted to professional development. under the so-called flexibility, the state allows us to use the money to back fill schoolteachers more core activities that we said we have lost funding for. i know the resources that remain are limited, yet we have still some small amount, or i do not know exactly how much, although i can see some listed in the tier 3 list of formerly restricted professional development money being spent that way. we have mostly federal resources like are being referred to in a number of contract we have tonight. that is one of the things i want to see. as much as we can say, i do not need the specific amount, but

generally what do we have left from what resources to target and strategically focus on our academic goals and other kinds of professional development? i have not seen that, not even a summary of professional development resources. i severed this just so i could ask for that again and hopefully get some updates on some of the status of that, if it is taking place at all. >> we can certainly provide that for you, and it will take a very long time to do. as you have said, the resources are much more limited this year. commissioner wynns: i appreciate that. i am not talking about the specifics. i do not want to know every contract. i want to know what we got from what resources. i hope these contracts, as they come to us -- this is not the only one this evening. there are a few others. i would be able to say we are spending this much on technology relations, professional

development. for this reason, we are spending this much on reading. i do not know what they are. but i am presuming we have such a plan. if we do not have it written down, at least it is conceptual. i think the board -- it would be helpful for us to know that. we will be making more cuts and i would like to know how we are deploying it. president kim: roll call, p lease. [roll call vote] >> six ayes. commissioner wynns: thank you. for some of you, this is repetitive. i wanted to, if you remember, discuss some of the smaller contracts just like this during

the supplemental educational services under no child left behind, contracts in the administrative law approved resolutions for the same meeting, and was not able to do so. that is something we have referred to the rules committee. we want something on the agenda that will allow us to discuss administratively approved actions on the agenda. i did bring that up with members of staff. we talked a little bit about how we could get information about the process in the budget committee, because we were talking about administratively approved resolutions. i think here in a public arena where more people are listening to this, i want to bring this up again. here is my issue. as i understand this, we previously, when notre left behind first passed, -- no child left behind first passed, we

had a limited number of contractors to work with. i had a few years to serve on the state practitioners for title one when those regulations were being developed, when the plan for notre left behind was developed in the state. most of the people in the committee, to my benefit, were title one directors. so i learned a lot about how districts do it. i have to frankly say there are people there who were concerned that we were limiting the number of providers in a way that may be was not allowable. but there was a lot of discussion that there were a lot of less than effective providers in the state, on the state list. the committee was instrumental in having some kind of allowable, under the federal government regulations, evaluations.

the pattern -- there was a huge list of providers. the quality of the services was enormously variable from the people who were reported by title 1 directors to take the money and never provide any service for kids, which was apparently allowable under those regulations, to the people that we on the time were pretty much only contract in with, so widely recognized organizations. princeton review, etc.. these contracts here, and also the administratively approved ones, i saw, had a response numbers. one provider with for students

or three students -- four students or three students. we at the budget committee said we would ask the curriculum committee to take this up, but i really want the board to be involved in a discussion about the process that we are now using, how we assess the effectiveness, how week -- for instance, one of the things i learned at the committee, years ago, was that there was a pop -- and i should say at least that there is a lot of -- you know, these are services many school districts did not think for a very effective way to spend these federal dollars to help students. it was a process or an opportunity that was presumed to, or known to, largely be the result of lobbying by private providers to the federal government when no child left behind was passed.

we were setting up some rules for our own providers and our own schools that seemed logical to me. we asked that services have to be provided at the school site. many other districts were prohibiting providing days of the school site. we thought there was an opportunity to have alignment between these tutoring students as -- is to trim services and instruction at the schools. we thought that limit to the number of providers -- at the time, we used a process that was take all the students that are eligible at a certain school, ask their parents to vote, and then have one provider at their school. we would not have four people being tutored by this service and six by this service. have we changed that? do we think it is better this way? do we think it is effective? do we look at effectiveness? have we had interaction with the state department or other regulators about how we do it?

is it aligned with our instructional programs? do we think it is effective? all those kind of things. i want to caution the board that as we all know, no child left behind has not been reauthorize. given the recent political developments, it is anybody's guess when it is. and what that means, sadly, is that some of these principles of spending that are embodied in the current law may be with us a lot longer than we thought there would be. -- than we thought they would be two weeks ago. president kim: let me say a couple of things, and then i am going to turn it to the person who supervises this process. as the law exists now, the department of education -- the california department of education -- is a body that approves providers of these

services. there is a statewide list. and the parents have the absolute right, if their students are eligible, if their children are eligible, to be provided with these services. it is their choice which provider provides the services. and we are to inhabited -- we are prohibited from trying to persuade parents to go with one provider or another. that is the context. i think we all agree with you that this is not a very effective or efficient use of these resources, which amount to quite a bit of money. but that is the law that we are living with and now we have to abide by. i am going to ask jorge to provide the details of the process we are using now and what sorts of resources we have in terms of evaluating services and so forth. >> good evening, commissioners. i am glad to be here again.

i had the distinct honor to now serve on the committee of petitioners' myself. i was appointed last year. i am happy to report that things have advanced in the state. as of last year, there were new rules and regulations executed that allow the state to actually eliminate providers who do not have data provided to the state that document the effectiveness of their work with california students. so they are monitoring and assuring that everyone on the list has been vetted by them in a much more thorough process than the past. on the local front, we also are working with our parent liaisons' directly, or other designees as dedicated to this task by the principals, and they are reporting to us to assure the service is quality. anytime the parents are not getting services or the tutors are late, etc., we monitor the quality of services going in and

going out. there are not that many hours provided by these dollars. the services and of being spent -- a number of the vendors want 5 students per session in order to want their ends meet. i too am troubled by the way in which these things are set up. it is a federal mandate. under our current contract system, we are able to eliminate providers for any number of infractions. thanks to the legal office, we have a tighter contract than either before. that allows us to throw folks out who are not doing what they need to for our kids. at this time, as we will continue throughout the year, you will be getting constant amendments as we chase down what families tell us, which providers the want, and providers telling us the will or will not serve. obviously, there must be a better way of doing this, but at this point the fed will government depends on this system instead of trusting the district or the schools to set up their own tutorials.

commissioner wynns: are all these services being provided on school sites? >> the providers have now three options for providing services. one is the can be on school sites. they can also be in a publication agreeable and allowed by the family, such as a library or the parent's home. what is a new or growing phenomenon is there is also on mine tutoring, where there is nobody there, but there is tutoring services that caused a great deal of issues. that was turned to the petitioners about the legality. if there are any issues about student harm or the person is not within state lines for the country, that can be controlled. the new age of the web-based support services have caused a new angle on things. another phenomenon we have seen happening is that a lot of these companies are starting to use resources the giveaway, such as

a laptop at the end of the tutoring service, to be an incentive to be recruiting families. we have made sure they understand that is legal. you cannot offer more than $50 up front, but families talk. when someone got a resource, a lot of phillies will go down this half -- a lot of families will go down this path. that is a new phenomenon as of last year. commissioner norton: wow. i apologize. i am going to ask some questions that some people have the answers to. how much money are talking about? >> is roughly 1300 to $1,400. the figure changes each year. i have to look it up on the internet, but it is around that.

per student eligible. that is right. depending on the amount of dollars per tutoring session, anywhere from $20 to $70. you can do the math there about how many hours of the bill we are provided. commissioner norton: i was interested in the answer to commissioner wynns's question. you said there were three options for where they can provide the service. did we change our policy? it sounded like the previously said it had to be on the school site and we are not saying that anymore. >> there is a right to allow the tutoring to happen in a location that is amenable for the parents. if that is the way in which tutoring is offered, the parent selects that tudor to be in that kind of set up, we have to abide by that. commissioner norton: if the parent chooses an on-line service, there is nothing we can do with that? >> that is correct. it is the parents' choice. in this district, we send out a

letter and ask parents to rank their top three choices. you can imagine with 40 providers and 25 schools, and thousands of kids trying to make it all worked out, we can calculate the contracts and renew the amendments each time. it ends up being a full person's job just to manage the work, which probably could be better done if it was allowed to be an option within the districts control with one company we trust, but that is how we set up -- but that is how it is set up. commissioner wynns: could you tell us, just for the record, just how much the whole amount of money is? >> yes, i can. but i will have to look up. it is something to the effect of $800,000.

commissioner wynns: the state does not recommend providers. the state does not say this is a good provider. what they are mandated to do, if they make it on the list, they can become providers. the me thresholds which have very little to do with effectiveness. it has to do with filling out the forms correctly, asserting that you are going to do this. there are very little -- there is no, "have you actually helped kids do better in school?" just so the parents -- just so the community understands the intention of the law here. do we have something in our contracts that requires them to align their work with the construction all -- the instructional program in our schools? >> it does say that, but of course it is a stretch.