let's get start. present mendoza won't be able to attend this meeting for the rest of the school board members, you have me today.

so this is the regular meeting of the board of education of the san francisco unified school district for august 23, 2011. it's now called to order. roll call, please. >> thank you, commissioner. ms. fewer? >> here. >> ms. mautas, dr. taru -- murase. ms. mendoza, ms. fan, ms. tom. ok. that's it. are meese join me if you'd hike to pledge of allegiance. pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

>> ok. item a, approval of board minutes of the special meetings of july 19, 2011. august 2, 2011, august 16, 2011. is there a motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> ok. any corrections? roll call, please. >> thank you. ms. fewer? >> yes. >> ms. maufas, dr. murase? >> aye. >> ms. norton? >> yes. ms. wynns? >> aye on august 16, and abstain on july 19 and august 2. >> thank you. mr. yee? >> aye. >> ms. mendoza. ms. fan and ms. tom aren't in the room. ok. thank you. >> so let's move on to item b,

which is the presentations to the board of education superintendent's report. superintendent garcia? >> good evening. it's really exciting to start another school year, a rip roaring opening of the school year again. i want to congratulate all the administrators, teachers, staff, and parents of all our great schools for a smooth opening of schools last week. i also want to thank our facilities department for ensuring that our schools's moves that took place during the summer were really efficient and also what a great job they did in cleaning up our schools and getting them ready to open up for a brand-new school year. on the first day of school, i had the privilege of visiting several schools and i have to say, wow, what a difference our facilities bonds have made. that the public here in san francisco has passed in 2003 and 2006. if you look at our facilities, really knocks your socks off.

i remember when i was a principal 20 years ago here, our schools didn't look anything like this. and then coming back, you know, almost five years ago, and i remember visiting our schools and saying, boy, there's a lot of work going on but when is it going to be done? and going out there this time, i noticed what a difference it's made, having those bond funds because when you look around, you see school gardens, you see ramps that make schools more accessible. you see freshly painted classrooms that are nice colors, you know, that they're bright. the hallways look welcoming. and the floors, you could almost eat off those floors. they're so shiny and it's great to see those in our schools. and really when you finally look at getting internet access and wide band in all our schools this last year, we're making huge progress. but at the same time we're doing all these great things, you know, our city has really been behind us. and just this summer to give you an idea of some of the bond

projects that went on, we had $45 million worth of improvements being made at over 60 school sites including 13 green schoolyard projects. next month we've asked david golden, our chief facilities officer, to give the board an update on our facilities' improvements. you'll just be blown away by all the stuff that's been going on, especially if i'm going to ask him to show what it used to look like and what it looks like today because i really think a picture is worth a million words. we also got information back about our accomplishments on our test scores. and i really want to congratulate all our students. for the 11th year in a row, the overall proportion of our students scoring proficient and above on the california standards test increased. also, this year, most of our targeted subgroups made well gains and some continue to narrow the achievement gap. for example, for the third year in a row, our somalian students

outpaced the district in students scoring proficient or above in both english and math. later this fall, i'm asking our big specialist here on student achievement to come to the board and do a presentation on showing you the trends and what we're doing and we're headed in the right way, the right direction but we have a long ways to go. i also want to mention just a little bit, even though there's a lot to celebrate as we open up the school year, i do want to caution everybody that our budget is still a problem. in the next two years we're going to go through some really tough financial times. and as you've seen the state revenue collection is not keeping pace with the assumptions that were made in developing this year's state budget, so that means even at midyear we'll be asked to make cuts and if we don't make them, we'll have to carry them over to the following year, so we're going to have a lot of work to be done still. last, i really want to -- the

tdap. we have to vaccinate our students, it's a state requirement all 7-12 grade students be vaccinated by september 14. and this is kind of alarming because here we start school and september 14 is just around the corner and currently we have vaccination and documentation for only about 60% of our middle and high school students. we do not want to turn away students from our schools, but come september 15, that's exactly what will happen if they don't have their vaccination documents. so we want to urge everybody to get their children vaccinated asap. and i've asked kevin truett, associate superintendent, to just give us a brief update and to tell the public how they can have access to these vaccinations. mr. truett? >> i feel much safer if i'm

book ended here by two nurses, my favorite people. this is mary ann rainy and judy rosenburg . and she reminded me and i said her name wrong. yes, we are at the high schools. board members, you have a current list and this is as of one hour ago when i was frantically pulling this together. these are the actual numbers for the high schools. i do want to recognize a few of the schools with some very high rates of return. i want to start with marion's school, lowell, with the population of 2,633 students, they have 2,325 students or 89% of their entire population that has turned in the proof of their vaccination, and a large part of that is due to the

efforts of mary ann and working with the teachers at lowell so i commend them for having a very high percent of return. also galileo, washington at 86%. lawton, 94%, presidio, 78%. we do have some schools that have made significant efforts to reach out to their students and to communicate how important it is to get the tdap booster vaccine. that being said, we're right now on a 30-day grace period that was provided by the legislature just a few short weeks ago. otherwise, all of these students who are not vaccinated would be out of school today. we would have to deny them entrance to school. so we have until september 14. there have been a number of clinics, and i don't want to cloud the message and talk about everything we've done already. schools are communicating where the clinics are that their

students can have access to -- now we're working with san francisco department of public health to strategically locate them throughout the city. we have one at chinese american international august 6 was the last one. individual school district nurses are also working with maxim to have them done onsight and working with d.p.h. to provide the vaccines on site on the days leading up to september 14 so there will be plenty of opportunities unique to each school. those messages will be going out. and i do want to remind the public that www.shotsfor school.org is a great website which has everything in multiple languages, all the information you ever want to know, but also we posted everything on the district website in multiple languages and also at healthiersf.org. >> i just wanted to ask about

individual outreach. you know, i -- are we using school loop, are we doing something to tell parents, the individual parent, your child doesn't have the shot yet? >> we are. >> as opposed to -- >> it's on school loop and we sent out robocalls to the district. frequently we've done that. multiple mailings have been sent home to the students, also. and the individual schools are messaging it through their principal's messages and the individual messages they send out, yes. the school loop. it comes up as one of the first reminders, i think. >> thank you. >> also one more thing. the bsis system, we recognize there was a problem with eighth to ninth graders so you've turned in your tdap and now you're going to lincoln high school and you know you turned it in and lincoln high school wouldn't have the verification and would have to go through their files to find out where

the proof of the vaccination is so we had the i.t. department very quickly, thank you, adam savarte, create a vaccination box on the sis to include tdap and all summer long we accepted those, the verifications from d.p.h. for any student in the district that got vaccinated all summer long, all those forms. and there were several hundred that came into my office and the staff in the third floor largely martha and maria went into sis and recorded every kid and we sent them out to the schools and said they're already logged on, you don't have to do a thing, put them in your files. on the s.i.f. system you can pull them up and tell right away and run a report on that field, also. >> commissioner, could you please walk us through what happens to the students on september 16 when they show up and they're not vaccinated? >> very good question.

everyone wants to know the answer to that. we have a proposal but it has not been shared with cabinet, and the deputy superintendent and the superintendent, so we have a proposed plan that we'd like to present to schools, but it isn't officially endorsed yet. but september 15. but yes, the noticing to go home with them on the 14th that this is your last day of school, you cannot return it until you have this. so there is a very careful plan laid out. >> let's move on, then. >> very good. >> you can initial your report. superintendent? >> yes. >> going on to item c, then, recognition and resolutions of acommendation. superintendent garcia? >> this is always the fun part of the meeting, it's the rave reviews, distinguishing people who do great things, our unsung

heroes and we get an opportunity to recognize them. this evening i have two people that will make the first presentation. the two new folks at martin luther king middle school. and i'd like to introduce natalie eberhart who is the principal and anthony braxton who is the assistant principal to make the presentation. please. >> so thank you, my name is natalie eberhart, the new principal at martin luther king jr. school and with my assistant principal mr. braxton and with ms. diane reynolds who is one of our outstanding teachers. mr. braxton and i have only been at the school for less than a month and already found ms. reynolds to be an inavailable -- invaluable member of our staff who cares deeply for our teachers and the staff and are making sure our students with special education needs are being fully realized in the education classes, being fully included and coming to the fullness of their potential

in our school. so we're definitely very proud to recognize ms. diane reynolds. [applause] >> it's been my privilege to be at dr. martin luther king middle school since it's been at the present site. i only missed one year there. being at the school. and i've really enjoyed it. i live in the neighborhood and would like to recognize my mom who's here tonight. right there. and then sarah who works with me and she's wonderful. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> yes. we have another one. another rave review award. i'd like to introduce the principal of mission high school.

eric, you want to come on up? eric guffords. >> thank you very much. good evening, everybody. it is my absolute pleasure -- this is such an honor for me, to give the award for the rave special service award to a member of mission high school staff who is unique, absolutely committed to our students, and i almost don't have the words to say because i actually love you, linda. so this is for linda jordan who linda works in our community relations office, working with our families and students, with a particular focus on african-american families but actually linda work with everyone in the building and basically if you're a kid at mission you know who ms. jordan is and you're going to college. that's really the bottom line. what i want to tell you, my cell phone is packed with pictures of students going to college and saying ms. jordan,

here's my first day, here's my bags, here's my dorm, here's my roommate. and ms. jordan sends them to me and i've got stacks and stacks of these amazing pictures of students go to u.c.'s, h.b.c.'s, c.s.u.'s, ms. jordan is a tireless, committed, passionate educator and it's my pleasure to give her the rave distinguished service award. [applause] >> and dorothy gray said i'm not admission and can't do this but i am. linda, here you go. go linda. hey, we're so proud of you. >> thank you very much. thank you very much. >> hey, how are you doing? >> ok. wow. it's amazing for me.

whoo! >> how do you say thank you for doing what you love to do? i'll be fine in a minute. just give me a minute. ok. good evening, everyone. i first want to thank my ancestors, my parents, and my family for instilling in me the value of community. i want to thank the shoulders i stand on at mission, eric guffords, kevin truett and dr. gray who did phenomenal work at balboa, all the teachers who are present, mr. cabana and others, nurse judy, and our

students. every day i learn something new from our students. they come to me but i'm learning from them, also. it was amazing to me last year when school began when i was presented with a list of students, 1 african-american seniors, of that number, i was told only nine qualified for u.c.'s and c.s.u.'s. i knew something wasn't right. i wasn't sure what it was because i knew these students' plans. i knew what they wanted to do. so i worked and found ways to connect with our c.s.u.'s and hbcu's to find alternatives for these students. at the end of the year of the 31, 17 have gone for four-year colleges. but it's not only me. [applause] >> because that's the part you've got to understand. they've gone there because of the work that's being done at mission with everyone. i'm accepted the award but it's really for all of us. because it wouldn't happen

without all of us. the kids always say, you know, you're always in my business, you're doing too much. and i tell them, yeah, carlos garcia pays me to do too much, you know. i'm supposed to be in your business. because being in your business helps you stay focused. and the parents, you can't do it without the parents. we put together educational plan for our students. we put together activities but without that parental input or that caregiver input. no matter what we do, it's not going to happen, you know. so i thank you. what i wrote i'll probably never read. but i wanted to say thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, ms. jordan. at this time we'd like to call up nick casser, our environmental futures contest and we have the certificates here.