are. thank you very much for listening to me. good night. >> i am in ninth grade student at metro. this is my first year in high school, and i am very happy to have it at metro. i chose metro because it gave me a good seal when i visited. i chose metro because of its small size, the way people treat each other, and the performing arts program. i like performing arts, because when i was younger i took acting classes, but i never felt like i got a true opportunity to perform, and i know i've metro i would have an opportunity to get hands-on with performing arts every day. another reason why i chose metro is because of its size.

and my middle school was small, and i really enjoyed it. i thought this would be a good option for me. when i visited last year, i note his teachers were very supportive i knew if i got off track, i would always have someone to help me get back on track, and i knew because of the drama class this is a place for me. i have to build stronger relationships with mine and teachers. -- with my teachers. my math teacher is a patient. i feel supported by the teachers and know they will help me do my best. i have also enjoyed participating in my drama class. during our last project, we performed in front of the entire class. i like to the activity because

it helped me see myself from another person's perspective. metro is all about getting students ready for the next lovell and making sure we are challenged. i feel everyone can reach their best at metro because students get specific health they need in the areas they need as well. -- students get specific help in the areas they need it as well as a. >> thanks for having us. my name tis kenta. i am a first-year teacher at metro. i have been teaching for five years, and i have probably learned more active metro transformative latthan i did iny four years as a public teacher prior to this. three things make that possible. metro is for a projects-based

learning. at the end of the day, we want our students to show that using their hands and voices and everything, not just paper and pencil, so it is well-grounded. no. 2 is we start every unit with an essential question, so that makes everything super irrelevant for students and teachers and makes the students work harder, and it allows them draw connections between what they are learning when their everyday lives. during our staff meetings on wednesday, we are very purposeful about making everything cross-curricular, so if i am teaching something in

science and they are teaching something in math, they remember more because they are focused on realizing that subjects are connected and not independent, so at the end of the day, this promotes great teaching, and great teaching promotes great learning, and you really see that in the students at metro, and my metro church on the back says, we know, we do, and we reflect, and i think that sums of metro. thank you. >> good evening, president, superintendent, commission toward greater i come as one of the parents. two of my daughters go to metro. one graduates this year.

her name is sarah smith', and se started as a junior. carry-on was started in ninth grade -- nearianna started in ninth grade. i had to decide whether to put them in public school or charter school to prop them for college, so the school is not just an institution of education. it has changed my daughter's life. she is my shyest daughter out of four girls, and she was a shell when she got to metro, but now she does public speaking, and she has volunteered in projects, and the school has opened my daughter's eyes, her understanding.

it has equipped her and empowered her, and i graduated from mission high school. i spend a little time at city college, and i did not want my daughter's going to these big public schools, because i know the chaos and confusion. i have been there and done that. this school is at hunters and waved when is a tower of knowledge that needs to be poured into the communities of the community can be empowered, so i am asking you to back-to- school and renew this program -- to back up this school and renew this program because it is changing lives. [applause] phon>> my name is christina, ani am and 11th grade student. i want to talk about why metro has made a difference for me.

metro has made a difference in my life because it has put me on track to graduate on time and make sure i am needing my requirements. my last school was very vague, and i did not feel like people knew me. as a result, i have wasted a lot of time. metro has made a difference because there was a lot of focus on me and my needs. i use my time and effectively and cannot wait to go to college. as of a few resident, i know how few options there are. i know how proactive mature is about building strong relationships, and i know they -- how proactive metro is about building strong relationships. >> i am suzanne.

this is my seventh year as a teacher in california and my fifth year at metro, and i wanted to tell you why i teach at metro and why i would strongly prefer not to work anywhere else. i have the opportunity to tell you about our approach to project-based learning. i am encouraged by the interactions that take place. i believe we live in a culture of the creates a cap on critical thinking and that it is common, and there are things we

are discouraged from talking about, especially high school students. one thing i truly appreciate about metro is that now our students are real people in a real world and are very capable of being particulates in the region being articulate. at metro, there are not topics that are off-limits, so we encourage students to question everything, and we really encourage them to question everything so they can be when agents of change. i believe they have a right to be angry, but there are real

reasons to be a great in the world. -- reasons to be angry and the world. it should be used to better understand what are the problems in society and be motivated to change them. good >> i need you to wrap thought. >> the connection between these things awhirl and not what students have completed is an attack on hopelessness, our real hopeless as. >> i need you to wrap up. >> can i say one more thing? >> no. you have gone well over your charm.

>> i am one of the teachers to join metro in its first year. i prepared a lot of remarks, but i do not think they are as important anymore because they were said by other people, and instead of saying the same thing, i want you to think about the remarks tonight. now we ask you to go beyond just regurgitating information, and and i hope you sought in our students' voices that metro is about going beyond regurgitating knowledge end not encouraging students to become thinkers on their own, and instead of telling you the rest, i want to say you have heard a lot about what we believe metro stands for, and so we have a lot of people who did not have a chance

to speak, so i would like to have everybody who believes metro stems for something important to stand up now just so you see the impact it has had on this room. >> good evening. i am the principal at the arts and technology high school. this is my second year as principal, and i want to thank you for listening to the comments of the community. they come from a passionate place, and they are rooted in some deep history, and i want to thank you for taking the time to complete a thoughtful review of our charter. we appreciate the time you have given us at the meetings in the past couple weeks, and we have really been grateful to the commissioners who have come in the past week or so to find out more about our community and

meet our teachers and let me guide them are round, so i thank you very much. we are thrilled about our new home. we could not be more proud. we have been working extremely hard since february when it was announced we would be moving, and we truly feel fortunate to be here to discuss our direction and mission, to make all current and future metro students realize their dream of being a successful college. we have lots of representatives that can answer any questions you might have, and i would be happy to participate in that conversation. thank you very much. >> comments from the board?

>> i want to point out it was pointed out i gave an erroneous report, and i do apologize for that. i was thinking about the budget committee curios -- about the budget committee. >> this is regarding enrollment and budget. i did not know what the current enrollment is right now, so if it is a lot less than 174, when

we received the renewal common reader received the renewal, was it budgeted for how many students? >> i do not recall exactly in the budget pages, but i know the budget in last year's proposal that was presented, when we spoke to weeks ago, the current involvement was 125 i believe, and i expect they were enrolling students over the past week or so, especially our the beginning of the school years a weaker against a staff report on their current enrollment at the new location. >> in regards to current enrollment whether they have surplus or reserves to get them

through the year, and whether or not the enrollment is under projection next year. we know it is going to take some time where they could bring the enrollment back up because of the rules. >> that was the main conversation at the budget committee. and i know nancy was also in the audience if we need to respond to the. i have the budget pages in front of me, so i can jump in. >> just to enter your question about current enrollment, that is changing on a daily basis. last week it was 125 students. we had another family coming today to register as well. those numbers are lower because

of the late announcement of us moving last year, and we lost some attrition over the summer. one of the interesting things is we are operational. students and families were able to come and see the site as opposed to hearing it, and we have not seen any tidal waves, but it is a trickle of fact, and it comes and goes, and we feel very it stable about our enrollment season coming up. >> the second part of that question is because the projection was based on 174? >> we knew we were relocating

the school at that point, so the budget for metropolitan is 130. >> that answers pretty much my questions. >> thank you. commissioner fewer: i had the privilege of taking a trip out, and we observe the building itself. i commend metro for putting down roots and growing a high school in that community. it was something who were unable to do ourselves, and i want to commend you for having many students there. i think the of reach you have

done to the communities has been excellent, considering you are getting a lot of children from the community. i think they are making our real efforts to build enrollment and to meet the needs of the students and the community and also believe some of the fears of parents. i hope you are very successful in the site, and it is the site are previous superintendent and would have us the showcase. we have not been able to maintain it. i wish you much luck. >> i want to thank nick for

meeting with me yesterday. i really enjoyed it. the instruction was great. the kids were wonderful. i really thought it was terrific. this is the problem i have. i have a couple of problems. i continue to have a problem with his three, and non -- with history, and it is ironic. having been told you have to give us another chartere because it will not work -- now it is the opposite. i do think it does little ironic.

have a little trouble getting over the ongoing tension. also there are huge investments being made. how are you doing? -- that have been made in the school district over the years with all kinds of presumptions about what the impact might be. we have a gigantic public investment. i have a little problem, because we are required to make a five- year renewal, and because the

numbers are so low. the good will and the intention of the people but are there now, a small number does not reassure me the school will be viable for five years, so i am tremendously conflicted about this. i want to thank everyone for the good work they are doing. >> did they house of third one from -- did they have a third one? >> the only school not in operation isn' marrin.

that was related to another insurer where the school was collapsed into a metro. >> that particular school, was it at the end of a five-year cycle, or was it in the middle of a cycle? >> i am sorry. >> i have a small amount that say enrollment will not go up and not superior region will not go up.

it has been difficult. our relationships could be better, but realizing when you have to move so often, it is not going to have a stable situation to recruit students. i thought when the school closed down and the organization did a pretty good job of making sure those gains have somewhere to go, -- making sure those students had somewhere to go, and i think fiscally this particular chartere may not make it, but the mother corp. would handle the kids in a sensitive way. i think the combination makes me feel a little bit better to

support this charter renewal. goocommissioner maufas: in listening to some of the conversation happening now and then looking at the statistic, and you were first authorized in 2005, and this is the fifth site since you were in existence, and i think if you survived all of those moves in all of those neighborhoods, i think you will do just fine, so that is not an issue to me. looking at how your staff and families have stuck with you, definitely some folks have moved on, but that happens at any school, and they are not moving around, so that is not an issue for me. after visiting with commissioner

fewer, i cannot tell you how much renewed hope i have for the site. i thought it was a shell of a school, our money wasted, and we did not have a school that could do all we hoped it could do and all the promise we dreamed it could do. i know you are working with the superintendent and believe your school will grow tremendously over the next few years, and primarily from the students said lives nearby -- that live nearby as they have had to go outside of their area, and that is not to speak on folks going to school in your neighborhood or not, but this particular

community has had a history of having to go outside far away to attend high school. i believe you will be a fine example for high schools and closest to you on how to do rigorous college preparatory education, because they have now now now. i know that from personal experience, so in regards to academics and all those things, i know you do it well. i am so grateful to have your staff speak on that. your words were heard regardless of whether you were able to finish your comments. your meeting was understood by all of us, so thank you very much. i think what you are hearing and some of the commentary is a bit of our past immaturity, and as

the board of education, and i want to say i think it has taken time for us to learn how to work together against dance together in a way that is supportive to each other, and i think we are coming around to that, and i think it is acknowledged you are running a great program. i have seen it firsthand. parents are not making it out. we just do not need to do that, so i am grateful for the parents and students who spoke. you came forward to represent those who could not speak, so thank you for doing that. if disempowering to hear your voice at this table, so thank

you. new -- it is in power rain -- it is empowering to hear your voice at this table, so thank you. i am supporting this, and i will be telling many families you are there, because we absolutely need to have you they're working in collaboration with our other charter schools, with private schools, as an option for a high school doing great things of the top of the hill, so i am thankful you have taken the spot, because i believe it is meant for you. i believe it is there to prove your mission and as a testament to the mission you have, that site end community will do wonders for your