very transparent and having systems that work for families. and having access to the range of opportunities. in fact, many of the feeder patterns seem to do just the opposite. >> [speaking foreign language] >> for example, some of the feeders would concentrate from lower performing elementary schools and the same middle school. >> [speaking middleforeign lang] >> others will block students from getting into higher performing schools in the west side. our question is, are we missing

our question is, are we missing something? >> thank you, pac and parents. >> in the recommendations presented on may 9 of district staff, we needed time to develop plans for the master schedule. including services for special education students. plans to address these issues should be in place before you adopt this policy. [applause] people ask a lot of questions at

the community forums. we expect the district's proposal to address them. we still have a lot of the same question. are you willing to adopt the system without knowing these things? what resources are needed? what will the trade-off be to expand the proposed language programs? what are the criteria and priorities for which language to expand? what will it take to make sure that all middle school students have access to high-quality electives including proposals to at seventh or eighth periods to each school. whether expanding language programs will result in dismantling arts and music programs already in place at middle schools like presidio. >> and the thrid questio - -thir

d -- and the third question. predictability is a major priority for some families. in community conversations over the past five years, we found that most parents have ideas about the school that will work for their family and want to be able to choose from among those schools. in our experience, when parents express the desire for predictability, they have land -- linked this with two things. they want to attend the neighborhood school, and they perceive the neighborhood school as meeting their needs. the district cozy own analysis of the assignment process shows that the vast majority of families are choosing schools outside of their attendance area where they would have been given preference. almost 80% of these families are not emphasizing predictability and are requesting schools they believe will be a better fit for

their family. could you tell us why you believe predictability is a priority for parents that you are trying to meet by establishing feeder patterns? >> i don't know how you would like to do this, i will ask preference from the board members. you can respond to some of these questions if you like. my preference is to take the public input before we start the board discussions that we can have that in mind and be responding to that at the same time that we respond to these. does anybody object to that? >> we have some closing comments that are not included in this conclusion. if we are going to wayait -- >> do you want to that after the board discussion?

we have one little problem. we can hear the public comment, but we will have to squeeze a bunch of people up there. we can figure it out as we do the public comment. ok. thank you. yes. that can be your job. [laughter] 9y>> [inaudible] >> there's a clock there. it's used for that purpose. if you would like to comment on the presentation are making a public comment on the issues before us tonight, come to the podium. i don't know how many of you want to speak, but i would like to be able to get a sense for how many of you there are. and we are going to -- i think

we will give a minute to each person so we can hear as many as possible. most of you want to say i like it or i don't. one minute should be an adequate time. >> i'm anne, i was going to speak on behalf of a couple of parents. can we combine time? how does that work? >> there are too many of you. i hope that if you are just for it or against it, you can tell us that. if people want to bring up stuff, take the time to tell us what they are. >> thhow many people?

>> i won't give you more than three minutes, i don't care how many people there are. >> i am the parent of a second grader and a fifth grader, i am also the pta president. i am speaking on behalf of the number of fifth grade families that are sitting without assignments for next year. we are big advocates of the feeder pattern and we believe it is important for all the reasons that the staff gave tonight. we all wanted to give you a sense of our stories. many of you have seen our stories. personally, i did not get the elementary school that i wanted six years ago, but i got out of their grade school in the neighborhood. i became pta president and we love our school.

many of us are here tonight. we feel it is important for us to be able to stay together and move together in the middle school. and especially because i live within walking dis÷8g of the middle school. there were no other people that we knew. instead of going into a lot of our stories, we have been extremely saddened and frustrated the last couple of months. we tried as much as we could to work within the system. we have been writing letters. we want to make it work. we are public school advocates and we are extremely active in our schools. we invested lots and lots of time. we also donated money and we want to stay within the public schools. we feel like we're being pushed out because we are not willing to accept going across town with nobody we know.

when we only have three years and that sort of thing. we feel like we're being as or we are being pushed out to look for private schools. charter schools, home schooling, all of that stuff. i never called a private school until last week when i saw how dismal the situation was. the new plan would basically be prejudicial against any of us that were going to try to wait it out. now we're being told that waiting it out is not an option anymore. we have a few simple questions for you. i am not sure if you are able to answer questions, but we have some suggestions. is it true that there is a significant number of sixth graders without an assignment? and we know how many? we have heard lots of rumors across the board.

we also heard about the middle schools not at capacity. i was told that there were only two middle schools with any openings at all. the biggest thing is that we have been given hints that they are considering opening spots to accommodate the on placed children. >> you need to summarize. >> if you're going to be opening spots and some of the fully enroll the middle schools, prioritize families that did not receive any of their choices. those that received no choices in round 1. and we would like for that to take place before august 1. many of our children are the only ones that don't have placements and it is very difficult for these children. we would like to have some sort of plan to accommodate the families that have not received any place but so far.

thank you. [applause] >> [speaking spanish] >> good evening, first of all, i wanted to let you know that it is very hard for us to have to come here and talk to you again. it feels like you're not listening to us and it is very frustrating. goshaw>> [speaking spanish] >> i am here representing the families and we want to tell you that really don't want hoover to

be the only option for our children. >> [speaking spanish] >> who want to let you know that we should be able to select a school that we want. i don't know what the board is thinking, but the parents should be able to select the schools that they think is good for the children. >> [speaking spanish] >> i know latino students are the students fallen behind with low scores.

>> [speaking spanish] >> we need more schools to help them and provide tutoring with many a time when they are falling behind. >> thank you. [applause] >> my name is juana rodriguez. [speaking spanish] >> i am here representing the parents. and one of the problems that we have is transportation.

it takes for your 50 minutes to be able to get to school. since a lot of them have younger children, it is hard for them to take their kids how to the school so far away. the middle school. >> a lot of these children are in the immersion program to start at 8:00 in the morning. how are they going to get there so early to school that they are going to have to take care of them? >> [speaking spanish]

>> we also think that the school is very big. a lot of our children need assistance. they need a lot of help with their academics. a smaller school would be able to provide a better academic hellhole high for our children. >> thank you. [applause] >> while we understand the need to use it as an example, things that are happening this year. i remember that the proposal before us is to change.

what are most useful or comments about the proposed changes to the policy before us. >> i am following up to the parents because we did a survey and we wanted to ask how our community what the thought is being said. i will probably e-mail it to you as an attachment, but i basically want to give you a quick summary. more families prefer -- or we are kind of split. our chinese families prefer hoover hand-to-hand english and spanish speaking families preferred choice. most chinese speaking families prefer hoover whether or not they have a car. most families that live in the

furthest is a cutaway from hoover preferred choice. most families that live over a 20 minute drive want a bus. very few of the families that live in the dakota have cars. 95 percent of those want a bus. that is regardless of language, program, and preference for hoover or toys. to make this work, we need support for transportation. a question for you is, and of the community is not alone. a question to you is, that is going to cost a significant amount of money. i want to know what you have in place to evaluate the cost of what needs to be put into place before as these folks have said. before you put into place and pass this proposal.

i want to encourage you to go back to the language you adopted in march before the proposals were added on. i also want to encourage you to think about building middle schools in the region. have 17% of all middle school students and we need a middle school in that neighborhood. a good one. monroe is bursting at the seams. we want a k-h monroe in our neighborhood. please. we want you to build schools in our neighborhood. [applause] >> my name is.rodriguez, and i am here to talk about the buena vista school. in the beginning of the year,

there was an agreement made with the school and with the educational placement center that this year would be like a feeder program, a preschool into the kindergarten, and i was actually number two for the tie breaker, as well, and the pre-k students are pretty much made up of low-income, latino people. i was told that, no problem getting into, as well as me and other families were to access into the program. to this day, they told us it would be fixed by the may placements, and that did not happen, and as of now, i was told we would be put on a

priority for the august placement, so i just have that fear that it will not happen for the august placement, as well. [applause] >> hello, my name is -- i live in the sunset. forén$áup'd, these people came up with the idea, in new adopted it, right? is that right? so they are not here today to defend this idea. anyway, why are we sending our children away when they are literally next door to the school boat instead of what miles away? [applause] i do not know. it seems to me that you are not trying to make it easy for us. i am married, and both me and my wife work. one of us would have to quit a

job. otherwise, he would have to transfer. what happened to community? remember, community, community, a community? let's be honest here. why do i want my kids to go to chinatown or in the mission district? i have no problem with that. my time is over? [applause] >> hi, my name is -- i do not have a translator, but i am a minority, believe it or not. i have heard some people talking about it, and it is important to some people. my kid is 11.

he is crying a lot because he has to go around town, away from his friends. anyway, the sense of community, how am i going to go to another school? i cannot go there. i am sorry i am not addressing the feeder program. that is not the most important thing to me. i do not want to send my son on muni and having to transfer twice. would you? when any of you send your 11 year-old? [applause] >> hello, my name is sylvia. i have a child in a neighborhood school. i have to say the i am a product of the 1970's experience

of busting your child picking around the city, and i do not think i benefited from that. but it took one hour, two hours out of my day is for school. unfortunately, my parents did not have the option at that time. they did not have the options i can provide, and i will not send my kid out side to another school. another thing that mr. garcia mentioned is that we will continue to get what we get if we continue the system, and quite obviously, the system is not working, so let's make the change. i think we have been functioning under this system for decades now. let's make a change and see if we can improve the school. thank you. [applause] >> good evening. my name is camille, and i have a

third grader and a fourth grader in the sf unified school system. all of us here, all of the parents are here at least until the in part because we're trying to secure what allows our children to opt out of a broken school. the choice proponents want to avoid being channeled, and the feeder ones want to avoid being sent across town to one, so we're all almost unloaded here because we're trying to make a broken system work for our individual families, but how we work around a broken system should not determine how we fix it -- how you fix this system. the district middle school and k-8 plan is reasonable, and this is a long time to lose momentum. if you are going to do it, why delay the implementation?

[cheers and applause] . >> hi, my name is lisa, and i am the parent of an elementary school student. for parents to choose to stay in san francisco and pinchot's public over a private placement, i was very pleased to wind up at lafayette, where two years i have been very involved in the community. my daughter feels supported by not only the teachers and administrators and parents, but i feel supported by those parents, as well, and i look forward to moving into a school together where we can use our combined strength to continue to make that middle school better, and i am a strong proponent of the k-8 feeder. [applause] >> hello, my name is lisa. i am also a parent at lafayette. i in a huge proponent for all of

the public schools, and i am now kind of eating my words due to this year's problem with the placement, and i think it was a purely choice placement this year, and you have taken a lot of people who are very active and very happy in their schools, and you have made them miserable and their children miserable, which makes their home life miserable. at lafayette, most of the people that attend are in certain zeb coats, so, of course, we want to stay in our area. whether it is the presidio or another area close by, we like to continue, but i also believe that the neighborhood is really important, too. i hear from some of these people who are being shipped across town to go to a feeder school, and i think you need to reconsider where those feeder schools are for the people. for us on the western side of the town, presidio is a great school, and it is not even necessarily that it is a grade

school. we have built community, so i want you to consider neighborhood with the feeder, but please keep the feeder. >> hi, good evening. my name is carol. i have a kindergarten student at lafayette, ind i want to speak in favor of the feeder proposal. my family is very much invested in the notion of neighborhood schools, and i feel that the feeder pattern is a very rational, sound policy. in terms of the transportation issues that lisa just spoke to and other people spoke to, as well, i would think these transportation issues are just diffused, hard to predict, and larry bird is a moat to those families that are not assigned to their choice schools. i know we had a miserable time getting into lhasa yet. we got none of our choices and

had to go through that whole traumatic thing. yes, we should have rational assignment, and then be clear where those communities are being fed, and we can address the transportation issues. i also want to say that i think there are a lot of families in favor of the feeder haute, and they already thought it was a done deal. i heard that from many. the last thing i would say is that i understand that the k-8 schools are very light schools. this is as close to that model that we can get without having all that way. >> good evening. my name is david, and i am a parent of two children, both at lafayette, won his fifth going into six and one that is second going into third, and first of

all, we were tremendously surprised and shocked that the feeder system was removed for this year. it was our expectation that it was going to be there, and it caused a tremendous amount of chaos inside our house, and in fact, our daughter was placed in a school that is way across town, while we still have a chairman who is at lafayette, and that is the tremendous problem for us next year. i will speak just in general around the feeder system. i think it is a great idea. i do not have a leg in that game, but the issue is that what has made life yet great, a distinguished school, not only the teachers and the minister raiders but the parents, the parents who got together and work hard to build it out. the programs, to be there at the school for the kids, that is because they are neighborhood parents, and i think that is because they are neighborhood parents, and i think that is