9 judge terri l. jackson. the court is now recruiting prospective civil grand jurors. our goal is to develop a pool of candidates that is inclusive of all segments of our city's population. >> the jury conducts investigations and publishes findings and recommendations. these reports them become a key

part of the civic dialog on how we can make san francisco a better place to live and work. >> i want to encourage anyone that is on the fence, is considering participating as a grand jury member, to do so. >> so if you are interested in our local city government and would like to work with 18 other enthusiastic citizens committed to improving its operations, i encourage you to consider applying for service on the civil grand jury. >> for more information, visit the civil grand jury website at sfgov.org/courts or callion, tu, already. roll call, please. >> ms. fewer? >> here. >> mrs. maufas? dr. murase, ms. norton, ms. wynns, mr. yee and ms. .

commissioner mendoza: mendoza please join me for the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] commissioner mendoza: come on, you guys. thank you. item a is the approval of board meetings. we have no adoptions tonight. item b is a presentation to the board of education by superintendent garcia. superintendent garcia: i wanted to let the board know that so far it looks like we have about 5500 young folks participating in summer school this summer and there's 45 schools offering summer school and a lot of credit goes out to community-based organizations with the deputy department of

children, youth and their families, a partner with a lot of different folks to provide services. in the superintendent's zone alone, there's about 1500 kids served in summer school so it's great to see that the city and all our partners have come together and support in doing this because otherwise it would be very difficult for us to provide that due to the budget problems the state has. later tonight, our deputy superintendent will go through our proposed budget for next year and i'll actual right now from the beginning that it's not the budget that i would like to see passed, but taking everything into consideration, it does get us to at least submit a balanced budget which is part of our responsibility and unfortunately the way the state operates, that if we don't submit a balanced budget, they can take over our school district so it's really tough times in terms of turning in a budget because those are not things we want to the brag

about. we're not investing the money. we wish we could invest it and we're making recommendations for lots of cuts, but the good news is, i guess, that it will be balanced and we will be showing that a little bit later. second is, this evening, i think it's pretty exciting to see that we're finally going to bring closure to the middle school assignments system. i think we've been on this track for several years, and so it's nice to see -- i don't want to jinx it so i'll knock on wooood and hope for the best. but i also, you know, there's still signs, we have until tomorrow evening for the california state to pass a budget, approve a budget, and, you know, i doubt that that will happen but there are surprises sometimes. i know that the governors may revise. i hope that people out there are supporting that because even though it doesn't solve all our problems, at least it's taking a step in the right direction of dealing with some really huge

deficits that exist in a real practical way. either way, the may revise was actually better for us so we're hoping that if they stay with that, it will help. our number one goal will be to try to bring back as many of our employees as possible. we still have layoff notices and a lot of our employees -- i doubt we'll be bringing back every single employee but we'll do our best and luckily we saved a lot of our money from last year. the jobs bill, the city has given us money for this coming year and without that money, our layoffs would have been probably double or triple what they are today. so things look bad but in relative terms to everybody else in the state, i'm proud to say that this budget, we're doing better than most in the state of california. thank you. commissioner mendoza: thank you. that wasn't bragging, by the way. item no. c is our recognitions and resolutions of commendation this evening. we have -- we'll be recognizing

the a.i.r. health award to san francisco unified school district from the california breathing, california department of public health. so superintendent garcia? superintendent garcia: i'd like to call on nick casner to come on up, the director of sustainability for the school district and works with the city, as well, funded by the city, i might add. >> thank you, superintendent, thank you, commissioners. that's actually very important point because one of my job responsibilities, of course, is to fund my own position and continue to find funding for the work we're doing to green our schools. i'm particularly excited to see the reusable mugs and bottles the board has and i commend you for that. i want to introduce tonight scott kessler of california breathing, a programs manager for the schools and childcare settings at the california department of public health, and we applied for an award from california breathing to

recognize some of the efforts that our buildings and grounds and our maintenance and operations departments have been doing to improve air quality and implement a green cleaning program and reduce pesticides used in school yards and i want to bring up scott kessler to explain what his group thought about our efforts in the past. scott, welcome to san francisco unified. >> thank you, nick. this year, six school districts from across the state distinguished themselves and are recipients of the a.i.r. health awards, achievements in respiratory awards. and san francisco unified is one of those six districts. why is this important? in san francisco, approximately 16.2% of the students have been diagnosed with asthma so in a

class of 30, approximately six students have asthma and there's an enormous financial cost. in california each year approximately 1.2 million students miss school each year as a direct result of asthma. and that means that approximately 39 million dollars in a.d.a., average daily attendance revenue, is lost, because of asthma-related absences. now, it causes one to wonder how many teachers could be put in the classroom for $39 million or school nurses, how many facility staff could keep classrooms clean and ventilation systems in good repair. and what's the cost in lost income when a parent stays home with a child who's ill? also, asthma is a distraction for teachers. when a child is in class but can't breathe or was awake the night before with asthma symptoms and is half asleep or a

behavior problem in class as a result and then there's the effect on the district health staff. what other important work might a school nurse or health aide have time to do if that person weren't focusing on an entirely manageable health condition like asthma and then of course there are the liability issues. what happens if a child has a severe asthma episode at a school when the school is not prepared for that. and that is why we created the a.i.r. health awards, to shine the light on these issues and recognize those districts working to solve them. so what do we look for? we look for education to be provided to school staff concerning ways to improve indoor air quality, and that there's an outdoor air quality program with alternative activities when there's bad air, smog and ozone. that when there's excess moisture from condensation and leaks in classrooms, that's dealt with immediately because

that can cause mold which is a powerful asthma trigger, that there's a well functioning air supply system. good air supplies in all classrooms and low co-2 levels and that there's no animals in the classroom policy because animal dander is an asthma trigger, that the custodians are using environmentally preferable cleaning products. toxic fumes are a potent trigger. and that the teachers and art staff are using non-toxic art supplies and not using perfumes that can trigger asthma attacks and there's an integrated pest management program, thus keeping pests out of classrooms and using it is least toxic products possible to get rid of them and there's a school bus idling policy prohibiting bus idling for more than 30 seconds when within 100 feet of schools and

finally that the district is enforcing the california tobacco-free campus policy. now, san francisco unified has met almost all of these criteria and the accomplishments are particularly impressive in certain respects. the many board policies and administrative regulations passed by the board of education concerning indoor air quality, the internal indoor air quality tools for schools web site where teachers and other school staff can access classroom check lists and resources and quickly send alerts to facilities staff when problems arise. training the custodial staff on green cleaning products and procedures and also teachers, parents and school nurses on these same products and procedures because they sometimes participate in cleaning classrooms. and being one of the first school districts in california to meet the newest clean air standards for school buses.

also, i want to point out the many associations that you have with community based organizations and governmental organizations. these are so important, and not all school districts avail themselves of these. the san francisco asthma task force, the san francisco department of public health and its indoor air quality tools for schools coordinator, the environmental protection agency and the american lung association, all wonderful partnerships. now, there's no finish line. problems can quickly arise without vigilant attention and effort, and so it's essential that effective strategies that are put in place become part of the district culture, and that is what has happened in san francisco. i'd like to mention a couple of people who deserve special recognition, we believe. superintendent garcia, hydra mendoza, the president of the

board of education and the board of education for setting these priorities. also john bidoff, executive director of maintenance and operations, martin esclante, director of custodial services, nick cesner, lu annain lee, san francisco unified asthma nurse and all the nurses, custodians, facilities staff, teachers and others who have contributed to these ongoing efforts, truly remarkable, very impressive, and it is my good fortune to present the 2011 achievements in respiratory health awards and a check for $5,000 to the district to, we hope, continue and expand your many achievements. congratulations. [applause]

>> thank you very much. >> congratulations on all the good work you're doing. commissioner mendoza: thank you so much, mr. kessler, we appreciate the recognition and the efforts you put in to recognize districts like ours who have put strong efforts to ensure our kids are healthy and safe. item 2 on this is a presentation on the investment in success

scholarship program, with the california masonic foundation, which we're going to move to the next meeting on june 28. our student delegates report. they're on summer break, as you can see. good for them. item e is parent advisory council, p.a.c., report, and after the p.a.c. report, if it's o.k. with my colleagues, i'd like to move up the item where we're going to be appointing new members to the advisory council, so if there's no objection to that, we'll also be moving up, let's see, what it is, item l. >> thank you, we very much appreciate that. good evening, commissioners, superintendent and folks in the room. i'm ruth krabowski and i staff the parent advisory council. i generally try not to be the one doing the talking but the p.a.c. members are also pretty much on break and asked me to do this for them. our report tonight addresses the superintendent's proposal that

you'll be taking up later this evening to establish -- that includes establishing feeder patterns to assign students to middle schools and we share the superintendent's enthusiasm for the fact that this issue is about to be over, even if we don't agree with everything in the proposal. so i also want to let you know that district staff who have been working on the very complicated different pieces of this proposal invited us to meet with them to discuss our recommendations and their rationale behind the details in the proposal and we had a really frank and positive conversation which we really appreciate having the opportunity to talk more in depth about the issues that you can't always spend the time on in a public setting. and i also felt being at the ad hoc committee meeting last night, that conversation was really interesting especially in discussing the function of tiebreakers and the use of c-tip as an equity mechanism. and following this discussion,

the p.a.c. stands by its recommendations on and parents for public schools joins the p.a.c. in making these recommendations in terms of the vote that you're going to take later this evening. the p.a.c. puts a lot of work and effort into evaluating the proposals and policies that come before the board to really look to try to understand these fit and match and support the goals of the district to support student achievement, equitable access to opportunities and accountability from across the district, and it's through that lens that the p.a.c. urges the board to continue placing a high priority on giving students equitable access to educational opportunity in middle schools by making a few changes to the proposal related to feeder patterns and there are three specific recommendations. the first one is to change the order of tiebreakers. so, an equity mechanism comes before the feeder pattern mechanism. we know that there are questions

about how effective c-tip is to serve the students that it's intended to serve so we're not attached to c-tip. we're attached to an equity mechanism that you decide is a good one so the order that we're recommending is that younger siblings would come first followed by an equity mechanism with the feeder schools being third. our second recommendation is that -- within the policy or just the practices, the mechanisms, that there's a clear method for evaluating and changing feeder patterns that aren't resulting in the desired outcomes, whether that means that there's more racial isolation or a concentration of underserved kids in the same schools, that we don't understand what the mechanism would be for changing those especially because full implementation would be some years out. we would hope that if things aren't going right in the

interim, that there would be a mechanism to change it. and thirdly -- this is difficult, i think -- is to commit to providing transportation for students who are assigned by feeder patterns to schools that are far away from their home or difficult to get to on public transportation. what's difficult is the cost in this time of drastic cutbacks but last night there was a kind of rubric presented by staff that looked like evaluating how long it would take or transfers or how many miles away the feeders were and that there were some schools that were really, really far away and that it would be really difficult and inequitable for students to have to cross town to get to schools, for example, from bayview to geninny. so to conclude, because we've talked about this a lot, whatever you decide tonight, the p.a.c. is committed, i mean, really, sincerely committed, to engaging families in the process of strengthening schools across

the city and as part of that we ask the district to share with the community a detailed implementation plan for whatever you decide tonight that identifies specific challenges in each school with specific action plans to address those challenges, that there's a timeline for implementing those actions and a way to evaluate them and we really look forward to seeing that plan so we can understand what we can do to help. that's our report before we move to the appointment part. commissioner mendoza: any questions or comments from the board? needless to say, ruth, we really do appreciate the work you and parents of public schools have put in to helping us identify the challenges and successes we've had around student assignments so your work is really appreciated. and we do all hope that this will be coming to the tail end before we start going into evaluations. if there aren't further questions, we'll move to the --

to item -- excuse me -- i guess it's item l, the appointment of three members to the san francisco board of education parent advisory council so the recommendation is that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district appoint to the parent advisory council three regular members to serve from july 2011 to june 2013. the members recommended for appointment are scott falcon, miranda martin and gloria molt. a recommendation and a second? thank you. a reading by the -- beyond what i've already read? o.k. so what i read will go into record. and then i don't have any public speakers at this time speaking on this matter. do you have -- on this item?

no, that's not what we're talking about. and then any comments from the board or superintendent? no? commissioner fewer? commissioner fewer: thank you, president mendoza. as a parent who wrote the resolution to have the parent advisory council and created it, i'm thrilled we're getting new parents to be on it and i didn't envision it would be as successful and last as long and be funded for such a long time but as a parent advocate, thrilled whenever i see a friend that steps up for this volunteer service so, scott, pleasure to see that you've joined this great group of parents under the great guidance of ruth and also just want to say, welcome to miranda and gloria, also, and hope to work closely with you. thank you.

commissioner mendoza: thank you, commissioner fewer. we have a lot of people in the room and i know you're talking to the person next to you. but when all of you are talking to the person next to you, it really makes it difficult for us up here to hear the presentation and have a discussion. if you need to talk, you can step outside. otherwise, we'd appreciate it if you'd honor the meeting that's happening. so, if there are no other -- sorry. commissioner murase? commissioner murase: as a former chair of the parent advisory council, i want to welcome the proposed new members and to really, i look forward to working very closely with you on, in particular, the middle school feeder patterns and what comes next and getting families the information they need to make the right choices for their families so looking forward to working with you and thank you for your work. commissioner mendoza: thank you. if there are no other comments. roll call, please? secretary: ms. fewer?

ms. maufas? dr. murase, ms. norton? ms. wynns, mr. yee, ms. mendoza. seven aye's. commissioner mendoza: thank you, welcome to the p.a.c. i've always wanted to say that, "welcome to the p.a.c." our next item -- but it wasn't that p.a.c. our next item is public comment on consent items and i have one speaker card. ms. plak. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen, i'm linda plak, executive vice president of the united educateors san francisco. tonight i'm speaking to you on behalf of united educators. tonight you have a retainer for cbre, a real estate company. over the past couple of years, we have gotten to know cbre representatives very well. the backup for this item is that you have -- you tell us that

this retainer is not all you're going to pay them and that you need to hire them because you no longer have a real estate department. presumably, you do not have a real estate department because of the cost involved in maintaining a full-time employee who has limited work to do for the district. why, then, hire a consultant who is going to cost you the lion's share of one salary that you would have paid for a real estate office? the folks at cbre are perfectly decent people, no doubt, good at what they do, but they did it wrong time and time again when the board told them they wanted an rfp for educator housing. being teachers, we are certain that people can get it right. we could train them, we could retest them, but that's not really the problem. the real concern is the big expense and what you're going to get for it. if there are plans for real estate transactions in the

coming year, perhaps it will be better if you can get a better deal on a consultant. thank you very much. commissioner mendoza: thank you. ms. plak. our next item is item g. before going to the next item, though, i've been reminded that our speaker cards, that we're actually not observing the state board policy 11.2 on the request to speak. so if you are wanting to speak and i'm only going to let people tonight in particular because we have such a large group, who want to speak on any of the items, they have to submit a card and you have to submit a card just after we announce the item. so once we're rolling on the item, i will not accept any more cards on that particular item. i just want to give you a heads up now as we continue with the agenda. thank you. item g is the consent calendar. i need a motion and second on consent calendar. [so moved]

commissioner mendoza: thank you. any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent? thank you any items removed for first reading by the board? any items severed by the board or superintendent tonight? commissioner? >> k-11, page 94. commissioner mendoza: any others? so this roll call vote, thank you, this roll call vote will take place under section l. item h is superintendent's proposal held for speaker cards in action so this is item no. 24 sp 1, revisions to board policy p5101 student assignment and it was moved and seconded on may 24. i need a report from the student ad hoc committee, commissioner wynns. commissioner wynns: thank you.

the ad hoc committee on student assignments met yesterday evening. present were the three members of the committee, plus commissioner fewer and commissioner norton. and there were three items on the agenda but i'm only going to talk about this one and we'll do the rest later. so the middle school, k-8 feeder patterns is the item at issue now. i would like to ask whether the materials given to the committee last night have been made available already to the whole board, is that true? so, hopefully you all in particular have seen that there were, after the last meeting that we had, which was only two weeks ago, of the ad hoc committee, where the whole board, i think, was present, there were some questions asked, including about the working of the c-tip preference this year,

even though it's only preliminary information, because no one has yet actually showed up for school. it's only offers that have been made and now accepted. that still doesn't mean they're going to be there. so in particular i commend to you this chart in the materials which shows the using and this is the most important thing, is that the only data available for analysis is the current year's data. so, in other words, we're using data to try to analyze the effectiveness of the c-tip process, which is to analyze how, whether those students would have gotten into schools that they chose using the feeder preference or the c-tip preference as the -- in what order, we would use those two tiebreakers and of course they weren't actually choosing schools that were the feeder