you will probably see next and one there are those who disappear. they are at many sites, and this person is an expert on what date collin destructive demolition, were you actually go drill alcohol region -- drill a hole and say there is more work. there is a process that is supposed to be followed commo, f which is to say we did it correctly. >> if you could think about this process a little bit more and the way we get the information. the reason we have 15 contracts

is it goes that is what we do, and i do appreciate that. the page before talks about the certification, and i know that is trustworthy, but we can have more information if we knew what they are doing and why there is a reason to be 15 contracts. >> thank you. can we vote on 15 please bowma? [calling votes] >> thank you. good night. good iteitem s is a board membe. city and school districts select

committee. >> i believe i was the only commissioner in attendance. >> i want to make an objection to the report we got, because this was not a meeting, and i do not think it should have taken place. i do not think they can say, let's sit down and talk and issue a report. >> this is the city it school. waxman and now commissioner wayne is a practice -- >> commissioner wynns is correct. you need a form. >> are you speaking of the city college school district? we had a quorum of the body but not the sandford cisco unified

board -- of san francisco unified board. we heard a presentation, which is lovely, and i appreciated there was a student and teacher and principal, and it was a nice presentation, so that is my report. >> should we have the presentation done to the full board of some point? >> i think it would be worthwhile. it is about all the efforts being made in some of those neighborhoods, and there are some wonderful improvements being made. >> maybe we can check and see if there is a milestone point where

they can come and present to one of our board meetings. commissioner fewer on budget? >> it was a lovely meeting except that we have our report on the budget but was not about lovely, and i blame the deputy superintendent on fivethat. we did have an interesting reports. gjust to give you an overview that the educational placement center where it is funded, so approximately their budget is

$224,000, and i am hoping the board receives this power awpoi. if not we can give every board member a copy. thank you very much. >> a report from the ad hoc meeting. city college? >> it is from commissioner yee, and he is not here. >> there would have been a quorum of the body. were there four people there? >> i was not. >> there were only three people there. >> we will have that when we

get back. he already did this, so he is providing us with copies on this, and commissioner norton on curriculum. he brought with him and seven people. there was a lot of discussion about african-american students and lack of participation and lack of achievement in math and science thos, and we were interd

in some of the ideas they brought us. they were identifying african- american achievements, really pointing out what they have achieved in these areas, and we asked staff to bring up these ideas. goowe got a lot of data, and it seems obvious from the data we are given that we have a lot of

students identified as gay in this district, and as we've probably are not surprised, there is a difference among races. there are more white students being identified times -- identified as gifted. also, how are we identifying high achievers? it still is clearly a sorting mechanism in a lot of our schools, so this is a discussion we need to return to.

i think we will bring it back to curriculum. we asked a lot of questions of staff, and i davis is a discussion -- i think this is a discussion. we are very concerned. some parents want their students to have access to an honors track. what is the promise we are going to make too high achievers? what does this take away from other students? and i do not think we have all the answers. it was an interesting discussion, and we will continue to talk about that. >> i wanted everyone to know that the matrix of programs available in middle schools and

we saw when we saw the proposal and discussion and everyone was enthusiastic about out, has now been done, and all the parents were really excited about that, so we asked information people to make sure that was widely disseminated and put on the website. >> there was, and i think that is a lesson to us that parents really want to know what their choices are pure good the last item is a discussion of our work around math and core curriculum and aligning vat with standards, and one thing i thought was interesting is that many of them are constructed

answers, so we are not preparing students for multiple choice as much as encouraging them to solve problems and think creatively, so this sounds very exciting. it sounds like it is going to allow us to build on the body of knowledge as kids get progress through the gravesdes and are nt going to be as discreet about focusing on subjects and focusing on math as building blocks. the committee will meet again on november 7. we will hear a report on our progress. we will also be hearing about the early warning system, which is some data we are pinpointing students who are at risk academically as they enter high school so we know in eighth grade who the students are, and

we know the students who may encounter problems, so we will hear a report on that. >> let's hear all of the committee's first, and i will give you a chance to do your updates. we will work to figure out with some holidays. we do not have an ad hoc on committee assignments. commissioner wynns: the committee has not met. the next meeting is on the 19th, which is not our normal meeting. yesterday would have been our normal meeting, but it was on holiday. >> do we have a committee meeting on labor relations? >> no meeting in october.

i will check with our legal partners to see if they would like to for november. good >> you have an update on your trip? commissioner maufas: i will speak more at the next board meeting, because i have materials to present. i was at the annual conference, urban schools council, but it was specifically our legislative -- i do not know what it was, and a fascinating component of that is going to new orleans, everything particularly with regards to education is talked about in of pre-katrina, a post- katrina construct, and that was

so incredibly intriguing and how they are dealing weswhich is res on what they believe of the residents that are still there, how to educate them to again live in new orleans, but i will speak at that at the next meeting. president mendoza: thank you. commissioner wynns? commissioner wynns: this past weekend, i was at the unity conference, of the latino school board members association and the coalition of black school board members. a lot of people -- they asked me about that, and i have a lot of interesting material. then i just wanted to say this, because i just got this. san francisco has been named number one in "barron's"

magazine as the 10 healthiest cities for families -- in " parents" magazine. the city by the bay rose to the top of our list in part because of its gutsy move to bring healthier foods to schools. san francisco booted soda and high-calorie, empty food five years before the state did and was one of the first places in the country to push for school gardens. california's with whole grain breads debuted in 2007. now, at least have have them. skipping, it says san francisco also goes the extra mile to keep kids active, with playgrounds, recreation centers, and 60 soccer fields, and there are miles of car free roads during designated times so families can get without traffic worries. there is more, but

congratulations. president mendoza: congratulations. commissioner fewer? commissioner fewer: i wanted to say that i could not be at the conference because i was judging a contest, and i saw many of our principles there. and then i attended the 11th annual conference, and i went to many workshops, and i met many people. they had 1600 acree registered attendees, and i am sure there were many more there, like people like myself who just happened to to stop in and did not free register, but it was overwhelmingly a success. they fed everybody lunch. it was completely free. they had over 20 workshops, and every session, it was excellent,

and i look forward it to their 12th annual. and i just want to give a shout out to mission high school and the principal there for welcoming the conference back to their school, and it is a fabulous location to have been in. i think next year, they might outgrow that location, quite frankly, just because of the amount of people that game, and i also like to mention that they are not only educating our teacher or our staff or people interested in education and san francisco but those in sacramento and davis, coming very far to attend this. commissioner: commissioner fewer, many come from across the country to that conference, and they have an amazing history of attracting educators on the cutting edge of what is in education, and i just want to hear more about what happened,

and i will talk to you. congratulations. president mendoza: superintendents? superintendent: we are hosting an event that is actually sold out. we have about 670 people registered for it, and we were planning for less than 500, but the organization is, you know, tenfold in a very, very short time period. it should be great. we have people from all over the country here. they are working with ell students, everywhere in the country. it should be very exciting and very worthwhile. president mendoza: thank you, i want to thank warren again for the bluegrass festival, which was fabulous, and he again retreated our middle schoolers with respect and brought out

lots of fun people, including m.c. hammer, and i also want to thank the marshall middle school -- the middle school, and we have a lot of folks come out, and we have a lot of folks participate on walk to school day. it was an exciting. and the other announcements? item t is a report of a closed session action, with by a vote of 6 ayes, the approve the expulsion of six students. they also approve the stipulated expulsion agreements for three high school students. item u is one informational item. may i announced in first? i would get to you when i am

done. ok, item u are in for mensural items -- are informational items. one is the acceptance of gifts for the month of july and august. we had one speaker, but she has left. commissioner norton? commissioner norton: there are a number of special ed para's that have been added, so why that was. president mendoza: great. this meeting is adjourned.

>> there has been an acknowledgement of the special places around san francisco bay. well, there is something sort of innate in human beings, i think, that tend to recognize a good spot when you see it, a spot that takes your breath away. this is one of them. >> an icon of the new deal. >> we stood here a week ago and we heard all of these dignitaries talk about the symbol that coit tower is for san francisco. it's interesting for those of us in the pioneer park project is trying to make the point that not only the tower, not only this man-built edifice here is a symbol of the city but also the green space on which it sits and the hill to which is rests.

to understand them, you have to understand the topography of san francisco. early days of the city, the city grows up in what is the financial district on the edge of chinatown. everything they rely on for existence is the golden gate. it's of massive importance to the people what comes in and out of san francisco bay. they can't see it where they are. they get the idea to build a giant wooden structure. the years that it was up here, it gave the name telegraph hill. it survived although the structure is long gone. come to the 1870's and the city has growed up remarkably. it's fueled with money from the nevada silver mines and the gold rush. it's trying to be the paris of the west. now the beach is the suburbs, the we will their people lived on the bottom and the poorest people lived on the top because it was very hard getting to the top of telegraph hill. it was mostly lean-to sharks

and bits of pieces of houses up here in the beginning. and a group of 20 businessmen decided that it would be better if the top of the hill remained for the public. so they put their money down and they bought four lots at the top of the hill and they gave them to the city. lily hitchcock coit died without leaving a specific use for her bequest. she left a third of her estate for the beautify indication of the city. arthur brown, noted architect in the city, wanted for a while to build a tower. he had become very interested in persian towers. it was the 1930's. it was all about machinery and sort of this amazing architecture, very powerful architecture. he convinced the rec park commission that building a tower in her memory would be the thing to do with her money. >> it was going to be a wonderful observation place

because it was one of the highest hills in the city anywhere and that that was the whole reason why it was built that high and had the elevator access immediately from the beginning as part of its features. >> my fear's studio was just down the street steps. we were in a very small apartment and that was our backyard. when they were preparing the site for the coit tower, there was always a lot of harping and griping about how awful progress was and why they would choose this beautiful pristine area to do them in was a big question. as soon as the coit tower was getting finished and someone put in the idea that it should be used for art, then, all of a sudden, he was excited about the coit tower.

it became almost like a daily destination for him to enjoy the atmosphere no matter what the politics, that wasn't the point. as long as they fit in and did their work and did their own creative expression, that was all that was required. they turned in their drawings. the drawings were accepted. if they snuck something in, well, there weren't going to be any stoolies around. they made such careful little diagrams of every possible little thing about it as though that was just so important and that they were just the big frog. and, actually, no one ever felt that way about them and they weren't considered something like that. in later life when people would approach me and say, well, what

did you know about it? we were with him almost every day and his children, we grew up together and we didn't think of him as a commie and also the same with the other. he was just a family man doing normal things. no one thought anything of what he was doing. some of them were much more highly trained. it shows, in my estimation, in the murals. this was one of the masterpieces. families at home was a lot more close to the life that i can remember that we lived. murals on the upper floors like the children playing on the swings and i think the little deer in the forest where you could come and see them in the

woods and the sports that were always available, i think it did express the best part of our lives. things that weren't costing money to do, you would go to a picnic on the beach or you would do something in the woods. my favorite of all is in the staircase. it's almost a miracle masterpiece how he could manage to not only fit everyone, of course, a lot of them i recognized from my childhood -- it's how he juxtaposed and managed to kind of climb up that stairway on either side very much like you are walking down a street. it was incredible to do that and to me, that is what depicted the life of the times in san francisco. i even like the ones that show the industrial areas, the once with the workers showing them in the cannery and i can

remember going in there and seeing these women with the caps, with the nets shuffling these cans through. my parents had a ranch in santa rosa and we went there all summer. i could see these people leaning over and checking. it looked exactly like the beautiful things about the ranch. i think he was pretty much in the never look back philosophy about the coit. i don't think he ever went to visit again after we moved from telegraph hill, which was only five or six years later. i don't think he ever had to see it when the initials are scratched into everything and people had literally destroyed the lower half of everything. >> well, in my view, the tower had been pretty much neglected

from the 1930's up until the 1980's. it wasn't until then that really enough people began to be alarmed about the condition of the murals, the tower was leaking. some of the murals suffered wear damage. we really began to organize getting funding through the arts commission and various other sources to restore the murals. they don't have that connection or thread or maintain that connection to your history and your past, what do you have? that's one of the major elements of what makes quality of life in san francisco so incredible. when people ask me, and they ask me all the time, how do you get to coit tower, i say you walk. that's the best way to experience the gradual elevation coming up above the hustle and bustle of the city and finding this sort of