president mendoza: think you for joining us for the regular

meeting. this is called to order. roll call, please. >> [roll call] thank you. president mendoza: if you would like, please join us for the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] thank you. the approval of boredom and hence, i need a motion. any corrections? roll-call, please. >> [roll call vote]

six ayes. >> the presentation of the board of education from the superintendent. >> monday, april 24, they will be closed for one of the districtwide furlough days. i wish i could say that this will be the last time that i will announce an upcoming furlough day, but with the agreement between extended revenues and what is going to happen, i fear the worst years are still ahead of us. with the budget on april 19, we will be discussing the deputy superintendent.

given the current projections, the district faces a shortfall of approximately $25 million for next year above and beyond 130 million that we just cut last year. if we are trying to win the love of competition, we are getting really close. when you think about it, a $25 million that we will have to cut for next year, if you talk about the following, it will become $84 million of deficit for the school district. think about that. we had a $500 million budget. last year, which topped $113 million. it will now be $84 million. and with no end in sight. just to put in proper perspective, this represents about $485 per student in the school district.

and with all of the one-time money is that we have been getting, sooner or later, we get to the point where we can't do it anymore. i know that school sites are having a tough time having to figure of their budgets. it comprises about 70% of the entire address to the general fund. we may have to make more cuts and absorb cuts. were they supposed to get all of this? >the remaining cuts, we will do as much as we can. but no matter what we do, we gave off layoff notices. the matter what we continue to do, the reality is that this was not a problem caused by the citizens of san francisco, it is a problem being caused by sacramento and the lack of will to set up and save the future of our children, which is really a

disgrace. the only good thing to say, thanks to the rainy day fund, and they stepped up and have gone out there. maybe california as a state has not provided, but everyone in the wonderful city has tried to give us the monies that we need. we will get to the point where we are not going to be able to do it. i want to make one correction, it is april 25 that we are going to be reviewing all of our budget information. when we look at the horrible things coming at us, i want to remind everyone in spite of how tough things are, we will make it through this. i hope we don't get to the point where we try to cannibalize each other because there is no one in

this room or in the city that is to blame for this. when we start picking each other apart about making tough decisions, things will be extremely tough. to now go to another $84 million is not going to be something that any of us would want to do. i think it is a disgrace, and everyone in california ought to be ashamed of ourselves for not standing up for our kids and saying that they are our future. and if we don't speak up to them, who will? when all is said and done, we talk about not having any vision. i am really kind of upset about what is going on. i want to congratulate our governor as he is trying to go out in the state is trying to get support to do something about this. the plan may not be the best

plan, but nbc has a plan. it is better to have a plan than sit in criticized about everything and do absolutely nothing. on another note, it is great to have an evening like today where we can honor one of our own that has made a great contribution to this wonderful city and all of our children. [applause] later on, i am really excited. are we are wearing the red ribbons here, i think this is the magic of the city. this is what we can do right when we stand united. president mendoza: thank you, superintendent garcia. governor brown was in san francisco speaking in front of hundreds of business leaders or with the bay area council and it was really great to hear him encourage everyone to think about the tax extension once

again. he had education on the top of his list of priorities. allotted to publicly and knowledge the governor for his efforts and his willingness to talk about the need for higher funding for our schools. commissioner wynns: i just wanted to say that a week ago, where it is representing the california school board association, we had a discussion about this issue about what the teacher organizations and other employee organizations are planning to do in response to the budget crisis, all of which we are supportive of. it occurred to me that i think we need to change our language. i made a pledge that i would never again use the term that the superintendent use to describe the days that we have cut at school. it is too easy when we say and

the words because hot i think -- do you want to say what they were? >> frulough -- furloughs. commissioner wynns: i don't want to use that word anymore. it is something that sounds logical, but is not. and for our employees, it is had no payday. we should be clear to our pants and our students, to the public, that we know this is a bad thing to do. this is not a good budget solution. it will limit earning opportunities for our children. it needs to particularly not be acceptable to the legislature that has proposed this as a

budget solution. there are proposals to allow us without sanctions to have fewer instructional days this year. even though we have agreed to cut next year. we are doing five and foreign ministers this year. under the current proposal. when of their ideas is to make the school year even shorter. even though all of the research tells us that instructional time is clearly correlated to student achievement. i am hoping that we will all be mad as hell about this and understand that this is not an acceptable way to operate and tell everybody how ashamed we are of how little we are doing for our children which means how little we are doing for our own future. commissioner norton: i wanted to

suggest that we go with the term of forced closure days. >commissioner maufas: yesterday marked the the one month since the catastrophic earthquake in tsunami in japan. i wanted to encourage our school's communities to do it can to raise money for the relief effort. one simple way, take a juice bottle and collect spare change. accepting donations are the american red cross in the japanese cultural and community center. 100% of those proceeds are going directly to relief efforts. you uncalled during business hours or online locally, we have

raised over a million dollars from about 6000 generous donors. i know many other schools have stepped up. i wanted to keep that in the back of our minds. president mendoza: go ahead. great. thank you. item c is recognitions and resolutions of commendation. we have done, but i want to take item m out of order. i want to bring for the bay area urban league in the students. i would like to have commissioner fewer give us a preview. commissioner fewer: think you

for moving them up and for accommodating the honors today. the urban debate lee has been supporting our students, and teaching them the art of argument. my daughter was one of the participants in the urban debates when she was at washington high school. i dunno if i should be thanking them or cursing them for preserving her argument, but it is quite an effective. it continues in her personal relationships today, but i would like for the bay area at the beit leet to come on up. -- debate league to come on up . tell us a little bit about your program. >> welcome. thanks for all of the work that

you do. the people that you see here earth today are people that are involved in the urban the vaguely. we were founded in the fall of 2008 and have been partnering with the san francisco unified school district for the past year-and-a-half now. we're currently in four schools including mission, balboa, jordan, head down south. it is this powerful program since i was a public-school teacher drafted as a debate coach, it was found to be entirely new to me in quite transformative. the students that involve themselves in the day, we will spend entire weekends advocating plans for social change. we also advocated changes to parents. i know we have plans for

expansion in san francisco including an improved scores to get our folks will prepare for college. we look forward to the support and partnership of san francisco unified. >> and the program director for the urban debate lead. i am just going to say in my brief time here, i have seen the results that this league has done. there are several students that have been accepted to colleges all around the country, and they definitely hone their skills through the monthly workshop into the tournament. i also wanted to give a special

thank you. >> i have wonderful students here with me, and i am a product of debate myself. it was one of the most influential experiences of my life. i realized we had an incredible wealth of untapped talent. i wanted to get really involved in this incredible program. i really look forward to continuing this relationship. with that, i would like to invite a couple of my fabulous debaters. >> i am a senior at the school for equity. it is a school that does not get enough recognition being that it is a small school.

but we focus on social change and equality for minorities. one thing that debate has done for me is put me in college. i would not have been able to do that without the urban debate league. i will attend college in the fall of this year. [applause] in northern washington d.c., the capital of the country. i have learned to debate about why the troops should come home and one good reason is the furlough days. i think it should expand, and i am going to be very excited when i graduate and come back to my city. [applause]

>> the evening, everyone. i am a senior had also capt.. i commute every morning and every evening from richmond, but i have never been so dedicated to something ever. i can honestly say without a doubt that i can stand up here with confidence and not be scared or be intimidated by the crowd. i do articulate. i do talk just fine, sorry. [laughter] i categorize and organize my speeches, all the things that i'm going to say. it has definitely helped me with my note taking skills. i have never been so dedicated or committed to something. . >> and an english teacher and

debate coach at balboa high school. i can tell you that i have seen and the transforming power of debate repeatedly in my students. i wanted to speak about the new course that has been designed for debate. it has been written specifically to conform to a through g requirements. we can reach the broad spectrum of everybody. with this new curriculum, i feel like it is going to allow flexibility for recruiting and expose more people to this activity. i want to impress upon the importance of this league continuing to build relationships across the bay. the flexibility of this model can work with many different inner-city schools. don't forget to fund our

program. we love you. have a great day. i like to introduce my coach. >> it is weird to see myself on the screen. one thing that we should all keep in mind and that i asked the board to keep in mind is that myself and the students that have talked to you and the students that will talk to you are products of the school system, a product of the investment that the community makes in the san francisco unified district. looking at the success stories, you can't help but be inspired. i can't emphasize the amount that the debate puts it in the

right track, but given me the tools to express and to promote social change in a viable way and to be critical of myself and to care for my own education, all of those are skills that i have developed in my involvement. learning how to think, i think that is something that gets overlooked in the constant memorization of things in the classroom setting. learning how to think is something that often gets neglected but should be the cornerstone of a good educational system. the work that the urban debate legal does is key for making up for that. it is not something that can be tested, it is something so

intangible that you can't correct with a test or with increased funding. i think debate provides for that. i have talked to much. that is about it. and these are balboa students. >> i have one sentence in my mind right now. if no one steps of for the kids, who will? the answer is, us. we care about our future. i come here and i am thinking, i have all of these feelings and i have one or two minutes to express how much of debate means to me. i will hit on one point i have noticed throughout my year-and-

a-half of debate. as a freshman student, i did not know anything about politics at all. whatever my parents told me or my parents told me -- or my friends told me, there are many different ideas. the of them are completely wrong. a lot of the friends i have now don't have the feelings that i have about it. they think that we should totally go to war or we should not go to war at all, but they don't understand the reasons behind it. i have learned many things about how these things are happening. and although i will never understand completely and i am sure nobody ever does, i will not be an ignorant american that everyone else thinks that we are. [applause]

so i am going to introduce a fellow partner, another non- insurance american. although i cannot say i am as well spoken as my partner henry, i can give my thoughts so organized -- i will actually just go with the flow and see how it goes. i will say how debate has affected my life. before i went into a debate, all i would hear is that when you get to high school, you will have to take tons of ap classes. essays, pop quizzes, an big test. i was terrified. after debate, after i went to a few tournaments and learn how to speak in public