counseling are making people available, or that we are going to have a time when we will look at that, so they do not think this is all the help that are going to get to us. the other thing we have not mentioned here, but we have talked about recently, it is the realignments of the after-school programs. i am hoping that we at least have that in mind, that we also will say that. that we are working with the city on a major realignment of after-school programs. that we will -- that is one of the -- information we might get from people about how many of them might have trouble accessing the after-school programs they are in. it might give us the ability to get a list of where we need more capacity and initiate new after- school programs or expand some

of them. we need to do that, and we need to tell people that we are clear on that and we will look at that when we see with the needs are. in both of these areas, i hope we will be able to say to people we are not just making an announcement that we are moving your transportation and now you are on your own, but that we are aware of these various developments and plan to provide them with some service and support. these are the kinds of opportunities that we might have to make, some changes that might be helpful to them. i do not know if any of the comments or questions we made you want to answer, or have any responses to. commissioner fewer: how much money are we saving doing this? >> overall, i think the document -- the q&a type

document, if you look at the second page of that, indicates the long term budget goal. this is based on how much we currently spend on general ed transportation and what of that could be redirected, or savings could be redirected to other things. if you see the little table, it is a total of about $6 million in the current year and $2.20 million is dedicated for transportation. in other words, if we do not spend it on transportation, we do not get it. that is the baseline of funding that we would accomplish -- that we would contemplate. in any case, in the future, that is what we tend to spend on transportation. we intend to take $1.40 million that could be redirected. title 1 has a limitation.

under current law, under "no child left behind," if we do not spend that on transportation we would need to spend it on private after-school tutoring. that is not free and clear to be repurchased for general purposes. excuse me? >> i was joking when i said i would rather spend it on transportation. chairperson wynns: the law could change. >> the bullet points right below that indicate what the percentages are of these resources that could be saved or redirected in those two sources. in the short term, if we had a net reduction of six buses next year, that would save about $600,000. it is about $100,000 per general

ed bus. chairperson wynns: remember, buses, not routes. the buses have two or three routes. commissioner fewer: next year, we hope to save 600,000? that is what you're telling me? >> i will remind the committee that we had a reduction of six buses in the current year, compared to last year. that was by eliminating all general at high school routes. that was what was in the budget deficit action plan that the board approved last year. that was a reduction over two years of $1.20 million. a further reduction was not even scored in that plan. this would generate an additional -- chairperson wynns: actual savings for next year. commissioner fewer: did we give counseling to the high school students that normally get transportation? i know those buses were fall.

did we give any counseling to them? >> what is very interesting -- and please jump in if i get this wrong -- but what was very interesting is that we did not undertake the kind of activities that we are contemplating with the school community meetings and individualized counseling, and talking about alternatives. and yet i think the word had gotten out enough about these impending reductions that when the letters were mailed there was very little -- we did not hear much about the impact of these reductions from these families. we were a little bit surprised. commissioner fewer: i was too. i am on a couple of listservs, but nothing. having brought parents over to

epc < they do this kind of counseling already -- over to epc, they do this kind of counseling already. they say it the shortest route to each school. the are already doing some of that, and i think pretty extensively. this would be sort of an extension, i guess, of this, working particularly with schools. i guess the counseling also would change. we must notify parents as they are signing up for schools there will no longer be transportation to the schools and this is the best bus route. thanks. chairperson wynns: i was hoping you would answer a few of these questions. i would get to that later. i particularly am interested in the question of the special ed us, whether we can figure out a way for kids without ieps to

ride those routes. one other question -- when you look at the -- i understand this is a little bit misleading. excuse me. the pan map that shows people who ride in the morning only -- 11% is kind of shocking. that does not count those who run morning and afternoon. still, i am not sure we have heard enough information about routes that are really underutilized in the morning. are we consider writing -- considering the idea of routes we only have in the morning that we do not have in the afternoon? i know that is a new way of planning, but i am wondering if that is a new way we can save money. >> commissioner, let us take the first -- the last comment first. annually, we go through to see what stops we can reduce. we look at what we can combine

and eliminate. that is what we are in the middle of right now, is going through accounts, getting back to schools to confirm there are no students. on the day we did a count, we make sure there were not absent or just not using the vehicle for that day. chairperson wynns: is that specific to the idea of having iraq in the afternoon and not in the morning? -- having a route in the afternoon and not in the morning? >> we take them independent of each other. it is a question. on the one hand, we have a bus picking up students in the morning, but in the afternoon no one was taking it back. we took the stock up. later on, we had parents who use the bus to go to school and not back from school. the reverse is true some places. as long as it was done without any cost, we have put the stops

back when feasible. if not, we just cannot. that has been the states. -- the stance. we are continually trying to refine the system down. we are not -- i want to see the money in the classroom, not on four wheels. that has been my position since i have been here. that is what i still try to do. that is where we would get. there will be hits. there will be severe cuts. we will try to mitigate those as much as possible. we will provide everybody with information as early as possible as to what those cuts are so they can take steps necessary to get their students to school. on the special ed question, the special ed buses to run around the city. most of them are not carrying 20 passengers, their capacity.

and a stop might exist in september and be gone in october. then the students will no longer be able to catch that bus, because they cannot keep that bus there and still do the special and -- ed. there was a situation where the bus was reaching capacity because there were four or five siblings with one kid going to a specific school, and we are picking up other students along the way, and we are coming up with capacity problems. taking the special needs child but not the siblings. they are not entitled to special ed buses.

the commissioner wrote -- commissioner: it is not a commitment for the year, and, second, because of transients eat oat -- because notof transiency, we do not have the obligation to provide it for the entire year. people are going to yell about it and be unhappy. we want to do as much as the possibly can within the severe financial constraints that we have. >> the other factor to remember is that the special needs -- commissioner: from a practical perspective, when my daughter was 3, the bus picked her up.

they would have to notify every general ed students to say, "if you would like a ride to the school, you can have it, but it might go away." the staff time alone in doing that would make it prohibitive. commissioner note: -- commissioner: if we cannot do it, but cannot do it. that we had somebody with four siblings that overcrowded that bus, that does not mean that we should say that we are not going to do it for anyone else, but to say that this bus is overcrowded, we cannot accommodate those children, that is different. commissioner: i want to be very

open about this. i think really considering the circumstances, there are some schools where this can be accommodated, and we can take this into consideration. it is not like we have to let the school know that you can cut chappaqua -- you can catch a bus going to rachel's house. we know the kids who are riding the buses. let's just think of how we can be a little more accommodating. that is all i am saying. chair wynns: ok, is there anyone in the public who would like to talk about this? we will talk about the community engagement plans, but let's take

public testimony on this item, if anybody wants to talk about transportation, the transportation policy. they are welcome to come to the microphone. is there anybody who wants to do that? no, ok, then we do not need to give the instruction. the next is an update from the parent advisory committee on the community engagement plans for the quality middle school pathways. go ahead. she was suggesting no board comment on this item. go ahead.

[laughter] >> good evening, commissioners. i am representing the parent advisory committee, and we will talk to the transportation issues tomorrow night at the board meeting. >> my name is vicky, and i will start by describing what we will cover in the report concerning community engagement in the k through 8, implementing the pathways, and then we will talk about our plans for community engagement in the process, and then, finally, address concerns and questions you might have. first, context. what we have been working on so far, what is our timeline, and

why? we have been meeting regularly with the district's staff, meeting with the middle school team, and our collective understanding is that the board will approve a system for student assignment to middle schools this coming may, and the implementation will be in place for the 2012-2013 enrollment, and the idea for the pathways is that they go beyond assignment, that they are just not about how elementary school students will go into middle school, but these pathways will also address program coherence, school climate, and overall school quality issues, which is something we have heard that parents have been asking for in a number of our other community engagement efforts. secondly, how are we proceeding? pac and others are working with staff to conduct community

engagement. in addition to staff, we are bringing in a community partners to help shape the discussion and facilitates conversations to bring in parents, students, educators, and community members into that process. for example, in early january, we are meeting with the dual immersion parents, for parents of children with disabilities, and others. overall, we have five goals for community engagement. the first is to inform the community about plans for creating k-8 pathways. the second is to shake the system through community discussions. the third is to increase middle school quality for all students. the fourth is for implementation of the new student assignment system, and finally is to build trust for the district and board of education through improved

communication. commissioner: can i ask a question? i am interested particularly in what you are meeting with eastern and advisory council. >> it has been the pac's of four years to strengthen these guys, so i met with them i think last week, to lead the know about the ideas for changing middle school assignment in the k-8 pathways, and we want to let them know what we are working on. we really feel that middle

school and high school students will have a lot to say about the school climate and curriculum parts of this, maybe more than the parents even, honestly, and so, looking at high schoolers having gone through it -- commissioner: whenever you do anything in san francisco, you have to talk to everyone in san francisco, which is, again, not serious, but it seems to me that there are different questions that i would want to ask the student advisory council other than parents who are going to make these decisions and who are invested in particularly the curricular programs that we hope will turn out to be pathways.

i always want to talk to students. i think it is great, but i am a little concerned if we expect the same kind of input from high school students about what we might do with the student assignment system that would affect the way the parents, families of incoming kindergartners look at these requests about where their kids go to school. >> let me step back to the bigger picture, too. part of it is meeting with these folks, the tool immersion families, and the goal is to help -- the dual immersion families, and the goal is to shape the questions that will happen at the forum. we know very few students will actually participate in this forums, but to help us to shape what questions we should be asking and what we should be thinking about, especially around school climate and some of the curricular pieces.

i know very little about what is happening on a day-to-day basis at the school. maybe members of the parent advisory council are working more closely with the student advisory council. commissioner: i think that is great. all i am asking is that you look more closely and probably report to us on a different level -- if you do report to us about and this process, that, you know, unless we are totally wrong, and everything seems exactly the same that we be careful. >> sure, sure. so in terms of the timeline for the community forums, you would adopt a new system for assignment in may. working backwards, we know that we would need to present to you our findings and recommendations

to inform that decision in april, and so, we are looking at conducting the community forums in february and march, and maybe if somebody is really wearing to go, -- really anxious to go, we will look at february. drafting the assignment patterns for people to look at in an initial place of discussion also looking at setting up the forums themselves, framing the discussions, in trading the facilitators to conduct them. basically, we are in that planning phase. february and march will be forums, and then in april, we will have reports for you. we plan to hold a forums at 15 middle schools and encourage

families of the current students and also elementary school in families who may be feeding into those schools to participate. we also know that in some communities, it is less likely for people to go to an event at a school that they really do not have a connection with, so we are trying to think strategically about where we might want to conduct what might be smaller forums, so we are thinking about that and think, too, about some of the relationships we have built and how to extend that. the format will be different from the community conversations we have had over the past years that were focused on student assignment in were more like the budget forum -- and were more like the budget forums, to give the principles also the chance to showcase their schools. they could talk about specific things happening at their

schools and then break into smaller discussion groups that are focused, so the small groups would focus more on some issues, and some of those issues could include changes in special education services, looking at language pathways, dual immersion pathways, but others, to note -- others, too. talking about after-school programs and in curriculum issues, like enrichment programs, more or change, and preparing students to meet the new graduation requirements, so we are thinking that those would be really important topics for parents given the experience we have had with conversations in the past, and then we know some communities will really want to focus on how the student assignment process would work,

so we are looking at trying to make as many of these small- group conversations happened in all of the forums, but there might be fewer of them, or there might be different issues because of special programs or things happening at a given school. commissioner: so are you suggesting that the way that it would work is that the group would break out according to what job they were interested in discussing? >> yes. commissioner: ok, i like that better. breaking up into smaller groups is kind of hit or miss. that is actually a great idea. >> yes, i think we are really looking at people's health selecting to those, which makes a complicated to organized, because we have to be prepared for all of them versus a random, average-ish number, so it will

be different. it actually worked well in the budget forums. everybody had a chance to talk. it was much more interactive. people could share comments where questioners and get some -- comments or questions. it was great, rather than people going home with a question that never got answered, or factual inaccuracies that never got corrected, so vot-- so, yes, its going to be interesting. we may have to adjust how they go depending on our. -- " depending on how they are. -- depending on how they are.

chair wynns: commissioner? commissioner: a policy around language acquisition proved meeting that if parents, because i think what i have seen -- a policy around language acquisition? meaning that is parents, because i think what i have seen, they leave and middle school, but i think part of the problem is that we have not articulated as a district a language policy, meaning that we are having these pathways because it helps the facilitator as a vehicle for which we get by 12th grade every student who is in a path away will be at this language level by the time they're in the 12th

grade. we were doing these pathways because by 12th grade, your child should then be bi-literal, bi-cultural, and bi-lingual, so they can test into that for college. they can see the purpose of not only developing the pathway but the purpose of continuing the child in the past away, you know what i mean? we have found out for kindergarten that parents say, "i have to be locked in now, forever?" yes, that is the commitment, because our language pathways will not work if they do not stay, you know? so i am wondering, i do not know, i always thought we needed a language policy petco so that when you go out, you can tell

parents that this is why we are doing it, right? and then another thing, also, i think it would be interesting to actually ask students who have continued the pass away, so have gone from one to another and found out sort of what was helpful, what was not helpful in that transition, you know, and we can also chargedchart -- chart. i think is what was their experience, it is true we do not know. we can set policy, but we do not know what it is like to be in the classroom or to go not to a high school of your choice but to a high school that has a program. it may not be the one you want to go