school students talents who come and share with you that information. please welcome the ladies. [applause] >> my name is alex jones. i am applying to the dominican university next year with a major in dance. [applause] [speaking spanish]

[applause] >> i don't speak spanish yet. [laughter] but i like having a four. of -- 4.0 average, and i plan to keep it that way. >> i wanted to share this last comment. i did not get his name that night, but i said to them [unintelligible] alice is multitalented.

we look forward to seeing them on broadway in the near future. and we want to shake hands with you. [applause] >> congratulations. what we do. >> i just want to thank the commissioners said jointly that evening. they are my dreams coming true.

i am grateful. >> thank you for inviting them down. >> and i have to think commissioner -- thank commissioner fewer. >> item d is the student delegates report. the of like to invite the adviser to the podium. >> andó[ the senior advisory p 6 c1 i'd like to first say congratulations, good job. they will be working with the school's to work with the student council for those immunizations. we have also been distributing fliers recently.

when it comes time to adopt, -- opt, [unintelligible] mendoza speaking. on february 14, this past week w, we want members to support that. >> academy is an advisory council report. r>> good evening, commissioners.

i think she is still at work, so i will give the report on behalf of her. tonight, i really want to focus on our work with public schools and district staff to organize kmq 6 c1unity about theh proposed pathways. night. we÷ for one, we are makingr5do it is scheduled at a good time. it is the third year in a row that they're working to organize i xbn'vfocused on student alignm. mzm7pour goals for the last fews

have been to make sure that folks in the communityjnfvcz knt proposals are. here, community questions and concerns, and to report feedback on the community conversations on the board of education members about changing policies and systems. we're working very closely with parent liaisons' and community groups to try to get the word out to make sure people know they are happening. even if you know about them, it does not necessarily mean that you will be able to attend. folks can weigh in on the same question we are talking about. in the written report to the board, we have a schedule. if you have questions about that, you can let me know.

we have the forms of almost every tuesday, wednesday, and thursday in the month of march. and then we go into april. it is likely we won't be giving reports because we will be out having conversations. there is a couple of other things i wanted to share. the written report included a description of the form and i will be happy to answer questions. but what i wanted to get to, unlike previous community engagements, we have more lead time to work on this. we have the community sort of update conversations about the proposals in trying to organize the forms. we have been hearing questions

and concerns about the proposals on the table. a few reports ago, it would be helpful to hear what those questions were. i did want to mention a few of the big questions and concerns that we're hearing. we're hopingó presentations will help answer some of these questions. i also want to point out that the two biggest questions and concerns we're hearing, is this a done deal? have you decided what you're going to do, or will that gather community feedback to inform the final decision. people are concerned because there is only one proposal on the table. a lot of people are very concerned if they are open-

minded and thinking about alternatives to that. in the proposal on the table will vary drastically limit apparent choice in choosing a school for their student. they have a lot of questions about how that will work. that is what i have been hearing, but i am also getting for it e-mail's and messages that are coming across. people are very upset that there is only one thing on the table to talk about. i wanted to share that, it is a big concern and a question to you can understand what is out there. as far as the specific questions that people have, they are related to overall improving middle school quality.

how will having the pathways include -- improve school quality? and the changes that could happen at middle schools, how much are being directed by district staff to tell schools that this is what you will do, and how much will be decided at the school level? how to handle elective periods and language programs. and there are questions about seating patterns themselves. the general questions include, how will special education students be served? how would creating patterns accommodate the fact that different students have different needs? and therefore, how will you meet those different needs? what kind of learning

environments will be provided in that case? we heard that parents want to be able to choose the school that works for their family. as the enrollment of middle school students increases, how much is built into this system? and what transportation if any will be provided? the specific examples right now are all of the elementary schools in the bayview. those are the practical questions we're hearing. and focused on language programs. we're hearing questions about the will immersion language programs. is it the whole proposal that seems to be driving it? what does it have to do with closing the achievement gap? given the larger gap in

achievement in our district, we are represented in tool immersion programs. and what does the data show in our district regarding achievement of students, especially the english learning students? and looking at people that are very excited about that program, they are asking how we will find qualified teachers to fill those needs. we are really hoping that the presentation and the discussions really get at these questions, and that we can really find out where the priority, concerns, and interests are. it will help shape how the proposals move forward. i wanted to share that people are very concerned about this. you hear, what is the mood?

how does it feel? we are trying to be ready to face a lot of negative response, to be honest. >> thank you for fielding those negative responses for us. but would be staff mind sending meeting dates to our board of supervisors? they said they were not notified, and they were not happy about that. they can help to get it out. i think that you bring up some very -- the parents you have

spoken to bring up some very good claims. anyway, i'm going to urge them to attend a couple of these community meetings and i would like to say thank you. >> if i may, over the weekend, that is when we finalized the dates. it is not likely have been keeping the dates the secret from anybody. we are just now able to say they are confirmed. >> i don't think we're keeping anything in secret. the results have been on the web site and we have been very open about this and transparent. i am not thinking that we're

being in any way, secretive. >> thank you for responding to my request. i will be reviewing this. i actually think that the question that parents are raising since we sort of tentatively said that this is the way we're going to do it, the question, how responsive are we going to be? it is our intention to be responsive and include as much feedback as possible to modify the plan so that we respond to the communitiey's needs and what they want. i want to consider modifications to the timeline, so we can

answer that question. can we absolutely change things? we know that we can because the implementation is not completed. i think we need to be more specific about how that might be done. we can answer that question that we want to respond. >> do you know when the next student committee is? the next student assignment committee is? president mendoza:. so comment on consent items, and we have quite a few speakers on this item and this is with regards to the notice to nonre-elect. page 51 of your agenda. if you'd please come up. i'm going to read your name and

we're going to give this item 20 minutes. i'm going to totally botch your name so i'm going to apologize now. [reading names] so miss wilson, we're going to

give this item a total of 20 minutes. thank you. >> good evening, superintendents, members of the board of education. ladies and gentlemen. i'm linda plaque, the executive director of the speakers of san francisco. and i'm going to ask the board to look at the nonelects listed on page 51 of the agenda. please notice that there are 38 individuals who are listed here to get nonre-election. i want to point out that seven of those 38 are special education teachers. many of these teachers have not received the training that they should have had before they were hired. that's why they are pro zeros. some of them have had the training and are completing their credentials. keep in mind they are facing

huge challenges when they walk into a special education class without support, so what sort of support should chef -- they have got season first of all, they did not have any bits of support. why? the district has done away with pizza this year. beginning teachers support and this is a serious gap in the support we should be giving. we're dismayed to see the dismantling of this kind of support and none of our beginning teachers are given pizza support. and the other point i want to make in the one minute that i have -- because i want you to hear from these educators, is that three of these educators who are from one school site were not evaluated this year. in fact, the administrator from that school did not do any

evaluations this. is why the union feels it's very important for the board to listen to and consider these cases and not just rubber stamp these recommendations. thank you very much. president mendoza: thank you. next speaker, please. >> and could you state your name, please? >> my name is amber and i'm from malcolm x academy. i've submitted a file that gives examples of why i feel i should continue to serve the san francisco school district. i'm here today because i want to continue serving and through the packet you'll see, very top -- i think one of the most telling examples is examples of my english learners' writing, samples from the beginning to have year till now. also, i grabbed some examples of high, mid, and low examples

from my class this year. where they were in the beginning and where they are now. our math scores show that nearly all -- actually all of my students now are on benchmark or in challenge. their reading levels, almost every one of my students came in this year far below. they were pre-a coming into first grade and now they're either where they should be or half the class is above where they should be for this time of year. i do backwards planning, i turn in very detailed lesson plans every single week ahead of time. i assess every single day with running records and other various assessments and i admit that i had a lot to learn coming in this year about increasing the rigor necessary to close the achievement gap in the bayview, which often has

its own unique and often very troubling challenges. but i've been working very, very closely with our school's climate coach and my most recent performance observes says satisfactory on it and my principal has said i have shown tremendous growth. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. next speaker, please. hello? >> my name is brenda. i'm also a teacher at malcolm x committee. i'm a probationary two teacher. i have two satisfactory evaluations and one needs improvement that i got in october, which says tremendous growth of my teaching performance.

i was given no reason for my nonre-election. i was completely shocked and told to talk to my yoifpblet even when i asked what nonelection is, i was given no reason. as with amber, i was also told i made tremendous growth this year and that i'm a good teacher. the only reason i can come up with as to why i was not re-elected this year is i took a mel leave at the end of the year for a reason i couldn't control. and my principal told me that she wants teachers that can go from day one. it makes me think that she wants someone who's not sick. when i got back from mel leave -- medical leave she told me she would give me a week trial to see if i could handle this school.

it's hard to believe what -- that i'm being nonre-elected based on my teaching performance and not for other reasons. i have my teaching evaluation i would like to show you. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. next speaker, please. i want to remind you that you're self-monitoring yourself and we want all your colleagues to be able to speak within the 20-minute time frame. >> i'm eric hall. i'm here to talk about the nonre-election of two teachers. hannah and vila. neither of these two teachers were evaluated and there are real issues with respect to the administrator. i've given a packet out to you. you can see that the administrator is showing a pending application for administrator credential and that's been pending since 2008. i'm not sure what that's about.

you can also see that her application showed a very different resume cover sheet in less than six months. what it's about is the struggle about that school. some people have a misapprehension about what that school is about. my thought was that the public montessori school was some sort of elite setup for people who make a whole lot more money than most of us do. it's not true. these teachers have been trying to improve the diversety in that school and to address the needs of the children with color. that is the trouble they're having with their administrator that is causing their nonre-election. i gave a single-sheet document to miss case gill which shows

from the principal's perspective that she wants to discipline the kids and the teachers want to work with the kids. it's important because the social justice model is a way out of this sterile debate we've been having of doing nothing or suspending kids, neither of which works. it's important to be taken a look at. the other issue involves miss wong's credential. the teacher was notified early on that there was a problem with the teach ears -- teacher's credible. this was dealing with teaching early childhood education, and needed some certain requirements. the principal didn't tell her. the only thing she was told is that she was not qualified. that's not the way to resolve it. it's important to look at what the issues are at the school. it's not about the failure of

these people to educate the children. it's about the struggle they have participated in to try to make the school more ethnically diverse, to retain that and to improve the model. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. next speaker? >> i'm a teacher at san francisco public montessori. i work there because of the diversity of the students and it is one of a handful of authentic montessori schools in the country and it provides access to montessori education to all children. our approach to discipline is to work with each individual child and their family to determine the root causes of the child's difficulties. we work to identify and remove obstacles and triggerers for each child. we provide a safe environment and we work with each child to -- the skills to cope with

their personal challenges. all of the teachers have worked hard to fight for the rights of all of our children. we believe this nonre-election of two of our teachers is a retaliation for a debate about discipline. please help us to reverse these nonre-elections and allow us to continue our successful approach to working with individual children according to his or her on -- own specific needs. thank you. president mendoza: next speaker, please. >> my name is beth and i'm a teacher at the san francisco montessori school. when i came to this program we implemented social justice to all children. our new administrator has taken a punitive approach. now we're not providing a

welcoming environment to everyone. instead, we seem to be catering to the upper middle class. i think the nonretaliation is the teachers speaking up. thank you. president mendoza: next speaker, please. >> our goal at san francisco montessori is to make social justice a reality by providing access to montessori education to all students. each one of us came to this school to serve children who traditionally don't have access to such children. for seven years we've been successfully serving children of all back -- back grounds without suspensions or expulsions. however, the approach adopted by a new administration is turning the school into serving predominantly middle class families. every teacher at our school is highly