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 qualified in our field with opportunities to work in a private sector, yet we've all chosen to be here because we believe and promote in social justice, which is in alignment wlt month sor a-- montessori principles. we ask the school board to support us. as a result of the teacher's absence due to unresolved

paperwork, today a kindergarten child was lost by the substitute staff. >> hi, i also work at san francisco public montessori. i chose to work at this school because it serves the vision that's expanding the montessori method into the public sector to allow children from all economic backgrounds to access higher education. also, in addition to being public, it's a full-inclusion school. and this allows us to work closely with children who face many challenges and heap guide them to the healing process that is needed. our newly appointed principal does not practice or support the montessori philosophy in regards to montessori. numerous times i have heard her desire to expel certain factors

from our school. i believe she is targeting children who come from low income families who she claims is bringing an atmosphere of violence. i feel that she nonre-elected me because i spoke out against it. >> good evening. my name is hannah miller and i'm a probationary teacher at san francisco montessori school that has been nominated for nonre-election without evaluation. i think my nonre-election was because i took up for under privileged children auto our school. our administration is coming under pressure from certain parents to irrigate certain children from our program.

i believe they'll hire a teacher more in line with the new administration. >> i am a teach we are 16 years' experience and excellent previous evaluations and tenure from another district. prior to going on medical leave in january, i only missed one day of work due to illness. i attended every staff meeting, completed all my grades, lesson plans and all other duties correctly. i never received a formal evaluation according to the contract guidelines. i was observed in december during a period after which i'd been assaulted by a student. i asked for a follow-up observes due to the stress of that event and back injury. the principal agreed but never showed up. i asked to see copies of any -- my evaluations twice in december and january but they were never given to me. after i was assaulted a second

time, my principal said i need to toughen up. the student who assaulted me was back in school in january. i needed to get restraining orders from a judge. the own policies to have attendance collected and classes checked for discipline problems each period in. january i was told mirror -- by my administrator to write less referrals. the consultants at the school was under pressure to reduce suspensions and referrals. since writing a referral is the only way i can get a violent student out of the room, my ability to protect my safety and my students' safety was undermined. my principal didn't give me a formal evaluation, didn't notify authorities after i was assaulted the first time, didn't notify me of my rights. left the building when a police

officer came to make statements. when i went on a medical leave she claimed i didn't inform her although i did send two faxes the day before. i seriously question whether my nonre-election is in retaliation for the injuries i've served. president mendoza: just a reminder. you have about four minutes left for everybody. >> thank you, i have documents here. good evening school board members. my name is sara and i am an intern special education teacher teaching students we emotional dishians. i have been working with students in special needs for the past six years in various capacities. on february 8 i was assaulted by a student and nine days later i was informed by emale -- email by the principal that i would be receiving a

nonre-elect. this nonre-elect comes after months of me bringing to principal chung's attention the unsafe conditions of my classroom. after being injured in october as well and not being able to return to work for five days, i requested a meeting to discuss the safety conditions at my school. i'm sorry, rather in my classroom. i told her i needed consistent aides and aides trained to work with students we emotional disturbance in order to keep the students, the support staff and myself stay safe and my concerns were ignored. on the surface the safety in my classroom seemed to improve over the school year because of the behavior management program, the economic program, the social-emotional program and the relationships that i built and put in place in the classroom. however, the safety supports to deal with crisis situations

were not put in place and the diven that has led to me receiving this nonre-elect is an example of the improper support that i have received in this placement. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> hello. my name is carlos castillo. i'd like to bring to your attention on the agenda on the front page. it says district goals. access in equity makes social justice a reality. i'm a probationary two teacher and a local artist. i was informed on friday that i was going to be given a nonre-election status by my principal, one week after i was told that i would be rehired for next year. i was a teacher at fair month elementary school for two years. i did two murals with a basis of social studies and science.

last summer i approached our gentlemen over here about the possibility of teaching at a school that was under sanction with the idea of doing something for social justice and i feel that this act of being given this status is an act of injustice. president mendoza: thank you. since time is up. but i'd like to get everybody on the record so if you wouldn't mind just coming up and stating your name and what school you're from. [inaudible] >> we ask for the board's indulgence and allow us to speak for five or six minutes. president mendoza: the only reason i'm not going to grant that is because we have another group here that's equally as large and i want to honor their time as well. i want you to come up and state your name and the school you're

representing. >> david, betsy car mile middle school. >> president mendoza? could -- i'd like to request that we give the group another five minutes. could we give the second group also 25 minutes? you gave 20 minutes for this group. if we ask for an additional five and we give the other group five? president mendoza: commissioners? >> i don't mind. president mendoza: ok. you've been granted five more minutes and fciu will give you 25 minutes, so that you have that available. >> my name is david. i'm a physical education teacher at betsy carmichael middle school. in september of 2010 i gave an order of p.e. equipment to the