>> so please keep the emersion program at buena vista. that's what we want. the emersion program at buena vista. >> greetings. superintendent garcia, and president mendoza and all the board members. my name is -- smith, the parent of deangelo who attends and will be graduating from buena vista. my daughter is also a graduate of buena vista. we the parents want to say that it is unfair to say that horace man will be an emergent school and that you want to make a change. we want our principal to be our principal and not a vice principal at horace man. we like to know who the

principal and vice principal will be before june. we would like to know by march or april. we know, we understand the emergent k through 8 is a long time coming. we know politics are playing a role in this or who we know. thank you and have a pleasant evening. >> thank you. >> hi, my name is tracy. i have a fifth grader at buena vista elementary. i just have two important points that i would like to address. one is the principal next year at the horaceman. the district has asked him to apply for the position of principal. they will not let us know who'll be principal until july. we want to know that he will be principal before the school year is finished, is not in summer. the district wants 22 general ed

students and 66 spanish students only at horace man. the fifth grade parents were told all emergent for sixth grade next year. we question the reasoning behind these 22 students. some feel it is for april reasons and others feel it is unfair to these 22 students and wonder if the parents who put horace man as their first choice knew about the situation when they signed up and also wonder if this district has told these parents now after the fact and if they plan on telling these parents before they receive these acceptance letters about this new situation at horaceman. i would not want my child to be one of 22 kids in general ed in sixth grade when the other sixth grade kids were all in emersion. these concerns are not directed at the horace man community. just at the school district. i went to horace man on three

different occasions. the teachers were dedicated and the students were dedicate and engaged. lastly, we sent a letter home to be signed by all the fifth grade parents last night and we managed to get 44 signatures so i would like to give these to someone on the board. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. >> good evening. my name is frances -- i'm from lakeshore school. i'm a concerned parent. i have been a member of the p.t.a. and vice president and i'm on a psych council. i currently have a son who is in the third grade there. i'm not against feared system but i am concerned about the lack of equity in the feeder system. i chose lakeshore school because it offered afterschool mandarin and cantonese.

it has 10 sessions of mandarin a week and five sessions of cantonese. students at our school are very proud when they become gate students. the school that we have been assigned to which is now denmon, it has no gate program or no language program. i do not find it equitable to be sent to a school that does not have established programs. you are effectively changing lakeshore. the children in the neighborhoods are going to choose the other elementary schools. they are not going to choose lakeshore. so please reconsider and send our kids to a different school that is more local and in their neighborhood. schools that have more equitable and parallel programs. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. >> hi, my name is barbara mcdowell. i have a fourth grader and a second grader at lakeshore elementary school.

and my issue, because we'll be feeding into denmon is the proximity and it will cost us $500 a year gas, which is more than the amount for the two $180 p.t.a. donations at my local school which i might otherwise have funds for and i have not in the past. and i could use that money to make my local school better. and also, i calculated on google maps, it would be about two hours of commute time for me on ocean avenue and the carbon footprint is 5.8 metric tons versus zero riding a bike or walking from our house at 45th and yeloa. the commute time also adds to obesity for the driver and the passenger.

it limits extracurricular activities for both of my children. no buses to denmon. there are none and the city bus ride is 40 minutes of travel time in each direction plus a bus pass costs. $180. it is not safe to have my tween riding the bus after 5:00 p.m. this limits me as a parent time to earn an income with this two hours in addition to what i need to provide for my child and the distance does not promote community, especially when it is forced and not by choice. we should also be showing our children sustainability. busing for all but magnet schools should be eliminated for economical reasons. there should be no reason to bus kids all over the city. we chose to live in the neighborhoods for whatever reason. no one is denying anyone because of race, religion or sexual

preference housing anywhere in the city. those that want to integrate do because they want to. those who do not do by choice. wherever they choose to surround themselves by. we go to the farmer's market and speak mandarin, cantonese, italian, i don't see why we need to be busing children all over the place. >> i'm sorry. need you to wrap up, please. >> being forced to go to a non-local school takes away our empowerment. if you want to go to a specific school, you have to move to that neighborhood. >> i'm sorry, you need to wrap up. your two minutes is up. >> ok. >> thank you. [applause] >> good evening. my name is elizabeth ridny. i'm a parent of a sixth grader at lakeshore school.

i'm here regarding the feeder program to denmon. i want to be able to echo what my other portfolio lakeshore parents are saying tonight. partly the reason i am here is for the fact that denmon is going to cause an economic downturn in my family. just like the school board has problems with their finances, it would cause problems for me. i work from home and rell niche the fact that i can get my child to and from school in five minutes. that allows me to work when i need to. if i need to go to the doctors five minutes away i can take him during lunch not affecting my lunch hour and if i have to drive across town, ps going to cut -- i'm independent. i don't get health care. i have to pay health care on my own. all of those are just going to add to my pocket, my bottom line. i'm not necessarily against the preassignment of feeder schools but i just think that i feel

duped in the fact that i chose lakeshore because it was close and i knew there were other middle schools nearby me that i could potentially go to. three are within five minute's drive. one is within walking distance. i also have a high schooler who i would then have to somehow manage to get two kids on opposite ends of the city at the same time. or have to have him start driving in order to have a ability to get everybody where they need to be on a regular basis. i'm thinking maybe you can consider a compromise. i feel duped. i would not have chosen lakeshore if i knew denmon was going to be my assignment. i probably would have pushed for another school so i could stay in my neighborhood band part motor vehicle commubt community. i'm -- -- be a part of my community.

i'm a fourth generation san franciscoan. allow compromise and allow people who already have a child in lakeshore start with new enrollings. thank you. >> hi, my name is matt. i'm a parent of a fourth grader at lakeshore. i do -- the other parents and also i would like to again underline the gate program issue. my child is a fourth grader and she is part of the gate program and i'm concerned with the feeder assignment because the gate program and the education that they get through the gate program will not be visible and it will not be -- during those -- so also i believe that quality education is a combination for curricular and extracurricular activities at the same time. i just wanted to underline my concern on that. thank you very much for

listening. >> thank you. [applause] >> hi, thank you. my name is ben. i'm also a parent of a child at lakeshore. my personal concerns are similar to the those other parents who spoke already. i'm also chairman of the council currently. i'm hoping to highlight the negative impact that will have on lakeshore. the other parents have already spoken well for my child if you have. it has not been getting adequate attention. the current proposed plan feeds lakeshore and passes to a more distant middle school. by tying lakeshore to a distance ant middle school, we think this is going to attract -- from the neighborhood, the larger naked. i'm well -- neighborhoods.

base simply on student enrollment and not getting the funds for students. therefore it has to afrabt from outside -- it is sparsely pop lates with school-age children. the current proposal, those from the west side, those staying in the middle school, will not choose the middle school. also those more distant families that currently choose lakeshore because they value its programs over their own neighborhood school are unlikely to favor a west side middle school. there are parents, five, who have chosen not to speak, but they are here showing their support. who feel similarly. all of these parents, would not have chosen lakeshore had the current feeders not been in place. it is currently the most diverse

west side school. the feeders need to be modified to allow lakeshore to stay local in middle school. this will serve. >> finish your points. >> this will serve both of those already and lets lakeshore keep keep strong support from the side of town. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> do i have any -- so i have a couple of other cards. michael rogers. valerie. james. ash. jean. or gabriella. all right. i close public comment. thank you. item k. i'm sorry. i wanted to see if the superintendent had any comments. >> yes, i do have one brief comment and that is on the buena vista issue. first of all, i have to tell you

that where people have gotten their misinformation was certainly not from me. because i was very clear from the first time i ever met with the horace man staff and when i went to buena vista, i clearly stated that the part that we would keep the people who were already applying for sixth grade in the general ed program that they would be staying, that we would have slots for them and that over a three-year period, we would phase out the general ed program. that was said from the first time we ever even discussed this issue. so i do want to clarify that. second, there was never a commitment for any of the principals to be automatically placed as a principal. we did say we would consider it. i have told larry and i have told them that we wanted the community including parents, everybody will be involved in hiring the principal. now, for people to think that by march we're going to name a principal, that's not a search.

that's a scam. we're not going to do that. we are going to try to rush the -- as quickly as possible but it is not going to be done by the end of march. that is just not going to happen and i'm not going to tell anybody here that it would. we have to advertise the position. we have to give people an opportunity to apply. but if we could move quickly, we'll make do our best to have that decision made obviously before the school year is over, but people will be involved from your community in selecting that principal. i have encouraged larry and mark, if they so choose, to apply. we are planning to have both a principal and an assistant principal at that school, so we have clearly said to them, you know, that position, it is nothing against either one of you, but we think it is fair for -- since we're starting a k.a. school for people to have -- k. 8 school for people have to an opportunity to apply. we're trying to be fair with everybody involved. i realize that -- i don't

understand why, you know, we -- team are -- you know, the people are saying that there is other information out there. this is the information. we got a board presentation meeting here three weeks ago where i purposely put this item on the agenda. we discussed it here. i mentioned to the board how that would work. how the phasing would work. it was talked about here in this meeting. we have never been secretive about that. we have been upfront. i went to horace man by the way and said the exact same thing. the timing, the reason why people are wondering about the timing. the timing was simple. we first wabt wanted to know if there was even an interest in the buena vista community. we know historically even when i was a principal here 20 years ago, buena vista wanted to be a k-8 school. the opportunity was available and we thought we would provide

that opportunity if we could make it work. the committees in terms of parents who have asked to be involved, we obviously, we have asked -- to be in charge to have committee so that she doesn't have -- intent at this time to apply for the position so we thought that would be a good person to be the liaison to do the planning. guadalupe has been in charge of that area but we are going to have a very open process and procedure to engage the community in selecting the principal and that you have my firm word on and our commitment on it. i hope this helps to clarify some of those issues. you know, we are working on trying to get committees together on developing the program and the plan. so you will be hearing more about that from the area superintendent there. guadalupe guerrero. thank you.

>> thank you. item k is the advisory committee report by board members. are there any appointments by board members? the public education enrichment fund will be linda asato. >> good. i think she will be a great addition. >> any others? item lmp is a special order of business. there is none tonight. item michigan. we had two presentations. we are withdrawing one. one from san francisco that we will hear from in aprilened that evening, we have the privilege of hearing from the parent network, a presentation of the april 16 parent education revolution event. i would like to invite commissioner norton to invite her guests up and do a little

introduction for us. >> thank you very much. make your way up to the table. parent education network, i hope i don't get anything wrong. so they will correct me if i don't get it all right. parent education network is an organization of parents, of students with learning disabilities who got together and have formed an organization to bring resources to parents and students who have learning disabilities. we have some guests, some of the students that are in a really interesting group and they will tell you more about it. they also are going to do -- they have this wonderful conference that is both for students and parents and teachers. so -- with lots of resources about l.d.'s. they are going to tell us about that. so welcome parent education network and it looks like some student education network.

>> thank you very much for allowing us to speak on this evening and know that you have had a long night. we will get started. my name is laura malone. i'm briefly going to tell you just a little bit about who we are and how we started. and then i'm going to threat students and ely take over. in october, 2010, the truemain foundation recess leased a poll saying the public is dangerously confused about learning disabilities. parents and educators and school administrators confused learning disabilities with mental reardation. we know many are of average intelligence and recent studies show that 35% to 40% of entrepreneurs have disabilities.

we know these students make up 20% of our school population. in the absence of educational and cultural chains, we continue to lose bright minds if we fail to support them. the national debate continues here in san francisco, a group of parents with children with disabilities who struggle to find resources necessary to support their children understood too many times the parent-educator relationship was adversarial. they met with educators and experts and after a year of discussion the parents education network was formed. working with students and educators in the community to bring academic success to students with learning difficulties. they have begun to change the conversation about learning dibblingts here in bay area and beyond. -- disabilities here in the bay area and beyond. let me just skip some of this and tell you what we do. we provide a speaker series to

educate parents and teachers about probably 40% of those who attend our speaker series, which happens once a month, are teachers. we help parents understand how their children learn and we help teachers understand how they can reach these students in the classroom, regular ed and special ed. we have a branch of parents education network called safe voices. this remarkable group of high school students hailing from a variety of san francisco public and parochial and high schools have been supported to lead the day log and join the debate about how to best support students. they wrote accounts called "read this when you can" that has been used at the harvard education graduate school as an instruction book. they regularly speak on panels. they mentor younger students in hopes of instill in them

understanding and self-esteem. currently they are mentoring at cobb school. several members are now college. none have dropped out of high school and they have been helped out by the unique voice. we also started a 2007 teachers education network where we provide teacher training twice a year on -- the teachers education network is dedicated to helping teachers regardless of classroom experience, discipline grade level or educational background. they help teachers understand research-based information about brain function and findings and effective teaching practices. but what we're here to talk about is an event that we put on that started three years ago called education revolution.

from at&t park. a conference from students by students where they could stand up and speak out about their learning disabilities and what it was like to be learning-disabled in the classroom. we now have students traveling from as far away as new york to attend this conference. one of the schools in new york brought two students last year and they said it was the most powerful experience they had had all year, and this year they are bringing 13 students so we're really excited about that. the day consists of hundreds of resources, speakers and this year, a special afterparty for students. this year we're also really excited to be collaborating thanks to se cillia and rachel, the support for family of children with disabilities to offer our conference for the first time in spanish. so we're really excited about reaching a new demographic. i'm going to turn it over to ely who runs our safe voice program. thank you.

applause >> ok. i'll keep it real short. i work with this wonderful group of kids. i grew up sharing the same experience as they did as a dyslexic learner myself. i currently work as a crime analyst for the plit. in all of my spare time i help out this group of kids. basically what we're here for today is to ask for your support and help in promoting this great awareness not only for this event but to encourage your students officially to join a community like this. as we know, we try hard to provide a lot of resources for students with learning dibblingts and districts do a wonderful job of that. unfortunately we know that comes with a set of stigmas and otherfects on students' self-esteem and social behavior and alienation. as a result of a lot of the great things we do for them. unfortunately the district cannot provide what is pretty

much one of the best solutions to that problem, which is a community that can dispel the myths and stigmas and provide support for the students. 35 or 40 students rotating every year. we have been around for several years now tim here is my right-hand man. he is a graduate. hess kind of my guy who help -- he is kind of my guy who gets things coordinated and moving. they are headlining go touk about their organization and the things that they do and they are here to hopefully convince you to find a way to share this community and all the benefits it has with all the students. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. ok. the students are going to speak now. >> i'm tim. i graduated from gate way high school last year.

ely introduced me pretty well. safe is a community of students that strives to empower ourselves and others through outreach. all our work comes together every year now at the educational revolution conference where we come together as a national community and a growing national community. and we're here now asking you to help us bring our programs and our event, which has helped us so much, to the public schools, where the need is the greatest. thank you. >> hello. i'm frankie. i'm a ninth grader. i go to gate way high school. i'm a new member of safe voices. safe voices has provided a community for me where students and graduates share the same learning disabilities as i do. same experiences as i do.

safe voices has made me proud to have a learning disability or learning difference. it has helped me with challenges throughout school. and has also given me knowledge to spread and give to younger students who have learning disabilities. thank you. >> hi. my name is sarah. i'm a senior in the creative writing department at the school of the arts. i wanted to take a minute to kind of describe it. it has been said that it is the carnival for disabilities. it is a vibrant, life toing opportunity for kids to see a different way of being in education and being in the world. so please help us to propel this celebration of difference and diversity forward in our school systems that is so desperately needed. thank you.

>> hi. i'm sunni. i'm in ninth grade. my story. i've always known that i've been an l.d. kid and my mom -- sorry. my mom has always told me that i was smart and i believed her and