district support for the language programs and want to continue to encourage to you support the language emersion programs at star king. this year part of the investment that you've made in star king has demonstrated by about 60 principals and teachers from as far as beijing and hong kong, visited to see the mandarin emersion program and how well we've been doing in implementing it. and we really want to encourage you to continue to support the program. as it's more difficult because you guys are making difficult choices with respect to the middle school. but we really appreciate all the work you've done in helping us so thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> my name is mike powell. i have a proxy from about six people that are willing to give up my time if i can read a

letter for about three minutes, 3 1/2 minutes. may i have your permission to do so? president mendoza: who are the folks that are not speaking? >> mike powell and i'm representing the inner sunset community group this evening president mendoza: who are the folks that are not going to be speaking then? beverly. >> mario. president mendoza: ok. go ahead. >> i'm trying to make your life simple. president mendoza: i appreciate it. >> you bet ya. my name is mike powell. i'm speaking on behalf of many members of the inner sunset community group. if you are an inner sun set neighbor here and express concern over moving of the principal center, could i ask you to please stand for the next two minutes. first, i would like to say that our neighborhood does support proactive and extensive professional help for these students. we agree that the goals of the principal center, its innovative curriculum and the services, that they do provide these students to help redirect their

lives and to have more positive outcomes. that said, we do not support how the unified school district has handled in announcing the formation of the new school and the principal center to laguna hunt school. this community, the inner sunset community, is disappointed and some of us are in fact incredulous that a decision has been made to move a school into a community without actually talking to and involving one of its primary stakeholders, the community itself. it asked the question of the unified school district has in fact done its homework to do this and in fact if there are better and alternate uses for the school. some questions that i'm not going to go through them all, i'll narrow it down to three and apologies to those of who you submitted many more questions but is this the safest location for the children? a short five-minute walk from golden gate's hippie hill where

there are easy access to drugs and alcohol? does this school, the proposed use of this school, represent what is probably best for that building? could it be an elementary school or a middle school? and does placing 150 youth, troubled youth, or a mixture of troubled and nontroubled youth, in such an environment, have there been any studies to show what the affect of that is? is it going to be successful? there are others i will skip past those. these and other many, many questions, answers to these, have actually gone unanswered for several weeks to the community. as a community representative, i mean, yourself, the last thing you would want to actually find out, that in fact this planning and communication with the community was in fact intentional, that there was an intended lack of communication. i'm not saying that is the case but that is in fact what a

portion of the community actually is believing at this time. there are several opportunities for your leadership here. and we ask that you use your moral authority and position of elected leadership to pursue the following. that the inner sunset community's questions be answered, meetingsing be scheduled and promises kept, all records of earlier planning and decision making around this be made public immediately, that the inner sunset community's needs and concerns be listened to. we are one with of the stakeholders of this school. we also have sk that other entities that might be affected, such as the merchants, the park street police station, local daycare centers and the like, also be brought into bear. we ask that a neighborhood impact assessment study be done. we ask that alternatives be brought forward and at least considered. and most importantly we ask that

until some of these things are actually addressed, we ask you to hit the pause button on something that the community has been told it is on auto pilot, quote, unquote. so, in the last 20 years, there's -- 30 seconds. in the last 20 years as an inner sunset resident i haven't seen anything that has galvanized this community like. this i'm a little worried that unless there's actually information that comes forward to the community, you are actually going to alienate the community to the plan that you have. elected and appointed school officials have a duty to represent the needs of both the children and the community and we ask that you make sure that the best decision is involved for all of us. thank you. president mendoza: thank you.

>> pam hoffman. laguna honda school lies between two with 100-year-old institutions and are you proposing to put 150 at-risk students that the school. these students are angry and frustrated and have learning disabilities often and very stressed and as you know, some of these students have a hair trigger response to any perceived slight. i've subbed, i've seen it. think about the hypersensitive teens walking to or three abreast down the narrow sidewalks of err syringe street and it brings to mind two groups who have not been represented in this discussion. the first are the tourist and museum patrons. they come to the academy of sciences, etc., to -- and sometimes they eat in the neighborhood. the recent exhibit drew large

crowds into the neighborhood as did the egyptian exhibit. in general these people are, let's say, not aware of the urban situation. the second group comes from ucsf. patients come from all over northern california, oregon, nevada, south america, africa and the middle east. i'm often asked where is the emergency room. my husband's wife's son is having an emergency surgery, where can i park? when i see people who are very stressed standing in the neighborhood and i ask them, can i help you? one woman said, my child is having an eight-hour surgery, i thought i'd walk around the neighborhood. and try passing the time. she's not alone. i've heard these things many times. the relatives of patients come down into the ninth and irsyringe area to take a break from the hospital room. these people are stressed themplet really stressed -- stressed. they are really stressed. so how will your proposed

student population interact with these people? how will you handle this? what is your plan? thank you. president mendoza: i'm sorry, can i ask a clarifying question. you said you subbed. did you sub at the school? >> not at the school. thank you. president mendoza: that's fine. i just wanted to check. thank you. >> my name is spencer. and i agree with everything this gentleman just presented. one of the issues i want to bring up is an issue that's been a seam of the evening here, budgetary issues. i really wonder if we can actually maintain this school as you want to do it because the budgetary. if we can't fund music programs, if we are really drastically cutting things back, whatever you promise us right now, you can promise us that next year? where's the funding from this coming from? so i just want to present this

to you because this is an issue. if the budget is the main thing on our minds, can we afford to even use a private program like this? those kids were wonderful kids. i myself went through individualized education program back in new york. and i don't see why they can't receive that at other schools here in san francisco. thank you. >> good evening. my name is mary, i'm the third grade teacher of the chinese education center. i am here with the other teachers of the chinese education center to bring attention to you a serious matter at our school. here they are. i won't introduce them for time. ok, i am the most senior teacher with 40 years in the district and 40 years in my school. this is the first time in the 42 years the chinese education

center that our staff must lodge a serious complaint against our current principal. since our students only stay at our school for one year, our staff must maximize students' learning opportunities so we cannot be sidetracked with ongoing issues caused by our principal. his lack of school -- his lack of our school vision, poor leadership skills, his disregard and distrust of our staff input and lack of accountability to our parents are some of the reasons we voted no confidence for his stay at our school. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> good evening. my name is joanna i'm the fifth grade teacher at c.c. so we have many issues with our principal and it causes to us file a grievance and has cause the supervisor to spend many hours at our school. while we're pleased to report the grievance was upheld and we've had many meetings, we still have many concerns and it was unfortunate that the situation had to come to that.

because of our newcomer population, it is important for us to have a strong leader who can make immediate connections with our parents and families. our principal's infective leadership, unfair targeting of certain staff, poor role model for students and no accountability to parents is very dert mental to our school -- detrimental to our school. thank you. president mendoza: thank you very much. thank you all for coming out tonight. dd >> good evening, commissioners. i'm susan solomon, secretary of united educators of san francisco and i'm here tonight to present to you uesf's position on inclusive practices for special education. as you know, earlier this year the district adopted a policy whereby every kindergarten,

sixth grade and ninth grade class would have students who are inclusion students. we have looked at this carefully . we started with a few people on our executive board looking at it and we took it then to various committees, the high school committee, the elementary committee, the special education committee, then our executive board and our assembly because we really want to make sure that this program is done right. what i want to do is just read you our statement of beliefs. i certainly won't read the whole document to you since it's five pages long. but i will leave copies for everybody. so our beliefs include a program of inclusive practices can be an exciting and useful mod that will helps to ensure equal access to and participation in a quality education for all students when it is implemented in a manner that provides the necessary services and supports that each student needs to be

successful. when the necessary services and supports are implemented with fidelity, a model of inclusive practices is a model that can be beneficial to all students and not just to students with special needs. president mendoza: you can leave the document with us. thank you. >> may i offer a point of information? to mrs. solomon's comment. which is we plan to bring this item to the curriculum committee on may 2 and i at that time would like to invite uesf to give us a short presentation about the document. so we'll -- desmond already knows about this. that's the -- she's the staff liaison but i wanted to make sure you're aware of that, that you're invited to have some time to present some of the concerns that are in this document at the curriculum committee on may 2. president mendoza: great, thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening, once again. i'm still dennis kelly, i still

have spots on my shirt. thank you, commissioner mendoza. it's still a pink shirt, thank you superintendent garcia. may 9 through 13 we are talking about a state of emergency in california with regard to education. that says may 9 through 13, state of emergency. we have come to the point where we're no longer talking about cutting schools, cutting programs and all that. it's getting time that we whip out the old zapat a-line. about being better to live on your feet, teach on your feet. die on your feet, teach on your feet. than live on your knees. i even made sure think a didn't give credit to the basks who take credit for it. we give to zapata. these are terrible times for education.

and it's time no longer to start talking about with what we're going to cut and how we're going to cut because we can't. we simply can't. so from the 9th to the 13ths, we will be in sacramento in fairly good numbers occupying the capitol and doing whatever we can in sacramento to try to make the point that these are no longer times to talk about these things, that it's time for the legislators, it's time for the people who have the votes, to use their votes appropriately. there will be actions throughout san francisco during the exact same time culminating in a rally here on friday the 13th. we ask for your support. we will come back actually and try to put together a resolution and ask for you are you to pass a resolution of support also. in the meantime while you are concerned with all of this that we are concerned with, now is a time when you know what you don't know about the budget with. to use the money that you do have and that you're going to have to spend, to get out there

now and rescind those layoffs that you can rescind and you're going to have to rescind. thank you very much. president mendoza: thank you. >> good evening, board. my name is nancy and as you know i've always come to speak on the behalf with of the by a vue community. but -- bayview community but today i'd like to talk about not the target population but the chinese and asian community in the bayview. i'm here to speak about the bayview community that is mourning the loss of a son, a student, a friend, the chinese community has been hit hard with the tragic death of andy xing. students throughout the district feel the pain as those that did not even know him, they're also grieving. all families involved are grieving. i've met with some of andy's

friends last friday afternoon. they expressed that they have no one to talk to. no one to talk to about their feelings and no one to open up to and express their pain. the chinese, asian children have been overlooked. we say that they're doing well and fine due to their academic performance, but we fail them in their social needs and forget that there are some that stray and become involved in dangerous activities. the students say that they need someone young that can relate to them, a mentor that can speak their language and understand their cultural nuances. their ineffective communication between home and school as many families do not speak english and i'm asking, board, if you can please consider hiring student support personnel to address their needs. thank you and they taught me a few words in chinese. [speaking chinese]

thank you and shout out to kim for coming out to visit our schools and our communities and for listening. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. ok. we got through public comment. thank you. cleared out the board room but we got through public comment. item k is the advisory committee report and appointment supervisory committee. are there any board members making appointments? commissioner murase: i'd like to appoint jeff ang to the public education enrichment fund citizen advisory committee. president mendoza: great. jeff ang. thank you. item l is a special order of business. there isn't, there's none. item m, we've moved up. thank you. item n is a consent calendar resolution. item o is the vote on the consent calendar. it was moved and seconded under section f. could i get a vote please?

i'm sorry, roll call. commissioner fewer: yes. commissioner maufas: yes. commissioner murase: aye. commissioner norton: yes. commissioner wynns: aye. vice president yee: aye. president mendoza: yes, except on items k-2, k-4, and k-5 which are retroactive. item p is the consent calendar. the items that were set by the board for discussion. immediate action, let's see. we had item k-8, i believe. it looks like commissioner norton and fewer. either of you guys want to comment? >> if i may. i think the question i had on this was that i wanted to know how many students this 15

million, that's kind of hard to get out, 15 million goes for, like how many students does this represent? and i also wanted an accounting of the racial breakdown and wanted to know a little bit about students' disabilities and why we are unable to serve them in our district. president mendoza: and commissioner norton, you had questions on this as well? northr in the i think commissioner fewer's questions are all excellent and i would like to know the answers to those and in addition i would just like a little bit of an explanation for why some of these scrools so far away -- schools are so far away and why there's not a closer facility that if we do have to place them out of district, why are we placing them all the way in pennsylvania or other places? also i noticed there's some new institutions on the list that i haven't seen before. so that troubles me a little bit. it's sort of just makes me worry

that we're not being as diligent as we should be in really limiting the number of students that are placed out of district. president mendoza: deputy superintendent. >> yes. president mendoza, commissioners, assistant superintendent dodge is not here this evening so i'm going to answer at least to give you preliminary responses and then we will absolutely follow up and give you more specific information as to the requests that you've made from us. but in general keep in mind that the placement of students in n.p.s. is driven by a.p.'s. and in many of these cases students have multiple disabilities that we can't serve their needs for in the school district. so it makes sense to pursue some placements in some of these n.p.s.'s. i know of at least one situation where a placement has been made through the county department of health, mental services as well

and because that student is a school age student we're required also to be part of that placement as well. so that kind of a detailed explanation we will provide to you along with the breakdown of the students that you requested. i also want to mention that keep in mind, we agree whole heartedly with mrs. flack and her comments around -- plaque and her comments around being able to serve our students with disabilities in our school district. as we move forward with the special education redesign and we're looking at the needs of our students, we're actually looking at how we're going to build into our own school district services to the able to support those is students. so that's not something that's going to happen in one year. but we are timing up what those i.e.p. plans are in the process for the i.e.p.'s and we're looking to at every possible opportunity bring students back as quickly as possible into our own system as we develop those programs.

president mendoza: is there a -- commissioner norton: is there a bidding process on that for the programs? how do you guys select the institutions? >> they're generally selected based on the students' needs and a lot of instances there are not n.p.s.'s here, either in the city or the local jurisdiction that can address the various needs that the student may need through the i.e.p. but we do not have a public bidding process for that. president mendoza: can i just add -- so if there is two organizations that provide the service, how do we go about choosing one over the other? is this a referral? is this who we've always used? commissioner norton: if we're ordered by an administrative law judge, if a parent has taken its due process and we lose, the a.l.j. basically goes to the parent and says, what's the

appropriate placement. president mendoza: so the parent could be the one -- [inaudible] commissioner fewer: we have more recently been monitoring the cost as well and so we -- president mendoza: i'm sorry, you guys. thank you. >> so we do now take into consideration cost, transportation, so generally with very limited exceptions in the due process setting, if there is an n.p.s. locally that can provide the services as opposed to santa cruz or some of the other locations, we'll select the local n.p.s. so we can take into consideration cost and those other factors as well. president mendoza: commissioner fewer. commissioner fewer: i also wanted to mention that some other school districts, they actually provide this service themselves in-house in a different facility. we do have schools that we could look at housing these students themselves versus outsourcing them to private institutions.

that is a possibility. >> i would also like for the board on this request that you've made to include on there, because there's a long list of programs, it would be real helpful to include to the board what specific program is offered at each one of those institutions. because i look at the list and in past lives i've dealt with many of those institutions because they're real specific programs that are kind of one of a kind that are offered, basically in the entire country. so when you start thinking, well, why are they going that far? well, hardly anybody offer as that program. there are real specific programs like that. so i think that would be really helpful for the board to see that and why, you know, that placement is being made. i think that's critical because when you look at that, i feel the same way. i say, holy cow, you know, look at that big list, look how much we're spending. but when you start looking around the country for special

ed programs, there's some that are just, you know, i mean, you have florida there. i did an internship there. i know what they do with advanced autism and things like that that nobody else in the country basically does. so there's, you know, when you start looking at different programs like that and when i look at that list i see a bunch of them that i know of. but i don't want to be the one putting out the sentence. but i really think it's important for you, the board, to really see that. because there's real -- there's certain programs that there's no way we're going to be able to recommend kate in this school district -- replicate in this school district. >> i just wanted to say that sometimes requests are made or demands for residential programs which necessarily means not here. so that's one with of the reasons why they're far away and expensive programs. the goal is to minimize the number of students that are placed in programs like that.

president mendoza: thank you. any other questions on this? roll call please. commissioner maufas: yes. commissioner murase: aye. commissioner norton: yes. commissioner wynns: aye. vice president yee: aye. president mendoza: yes. >> six ayes. president mendoza: thank you. i think that was the only item that we were -- item q is the superintendent's proposal for first reading. there are none. item r is the board member's proposal for first reading. there are none. standing committee, board delegations, are there there reports by the board? commissioner norton, on the curriculum. commissioner norton: i was just getting there in my agenda. i didn't get there fast enough. yes. so what we heard at the last

curriculum and program committee on april 11, we heard an update on the plans for summer school which i'm very happy to note that the city has found $250,000 which will allow us to offer somer school to our -- summer school to our ninth graders who did not pass their core courses in that first year. they also had an update on the requirements for high school students in sfusd. and finally we had a presentation from coleman advocates on the kinds of sore spoers that really need to be in place to -- kinds of support that really need to be in place to our students wesm did have some disappointing numbers from the first semester from students who didn't pass core courses. this is the first year that we were checting them to -- [inaudible] that was a good presentation. we also had a very interesting presentation on identifying -- on identifying students who are at risk for dropping out.

there are some very specific numbers that the board were provided on eighth graders who if they have an attendance record of less than 87.5% of the time or have failed a core course in the eighth grade, they're far more likely to drop out later. and so we've identified 182, i believe it is, aggete graders who now that they're moving to high school, we know who they are, we know that they're at risk and we can follow these students and support them better. so i found that data really interesting and i don't know was it provided to the rest of the board? or could we provide that to the rest of the board? i think that would be interesting for people to see. the next meeting will be on may 2. we will be discussing the plans for inclusive practices and i've asked uesf for their concern and asked uesf for their concern and asked for special ed to talk