internally, so an important example is to the family and community area. that is a great area where we said they support school engagement work, working with our families to understand our learning goals. the best way to support that work is something we can collaborate on the best approach to be. it will look a little different across each of the school's, but i think your question goes back to something we started. we can almost not do enough on the way of our goals, so we have got to try to identify as many opportunities to do that.

sometimes we have to pause or insure all the folks in schools are messaging that, so whether it is the teachers or school coordinators', that everyone is finding venues to be able to do that, so that is an area we need to make time for, and hopefully as we try to continue what an -- to articulate what our work is, hopefully it is getting easier to do that. >> teachers, staff, parents, they are all participating, so the principles involved everybody in making those decisions, and if it does not work, we stopped doing it.

>> because the proposal -- we are in an interesting situation. some of the people who may have identified the original strategy may not be the people in the position of implementing its today, so we have to say within the parameters, so what we develop was a signature expenditure proposals form. gustiwhen they come forward wita reform project they would like to do, we asked them to identify it, and what is the intended impact bowman -- what

is the intended impact? what is the evidence for what you are requesting, and what would wea expect to see as an outcome that? we can have some context with which to evaluate that. >> have you found that based on their original proposal have we had many changes foie? they are evolving. i would expect they have some different needs.

it is the way they can tweak the original request salmon -- wheat the original request? >> they can tweak it. we have not gotten to that point yet, because they may have said, you wanted us to use about reform partner, but this one is better. that is not a big deal. but we would have to go back and say, this is what they want to do, and this is why, and we need to get those budget revisions approved.

>> i want to thank you for a much for the time and attention you have given to my questions. commissioner wynns: i just wanted to us in one short question about what you raised about mission high school to remove -- about mission high school. i am hoping you can give us some insight into our relationship whiswith cde. i want to say publicly i appreciate the we have tried to do this in a site support of the way -- site supportive way. while we have funding, and whether we can make a judgment about how enthusiastic we think the state department is in support of what i view as a

negatively-focused project, so i am interested, and that might be a good thing to reflect on, and i will take time this evening to give you an idea of how we think our working relationship is, and the last thing of related to that thiis when we looked at the budget, it occurred to me that the budget part, the board does not look get the very much, so when we look of the components of the plan, i do not remember paying attention to that amount during road -- for that amount.

your comment about mission high school was supportive of that thinking, because this idea that there are external people like this. it can be positive and negative, so i personally am interested in who they select to do this, but i am not interested in saying why are they getting an external person, so i think it would be helpful for us if we got your perspective on how that is working and what we think about it.

we can leave it there, and next time we talk. >> the relationship is pretty good. they are also stuck between the federal intention, and it kind of gets distorted or miscommunicated as it makes its way through, and that is part of what we are facing, the people were not clear, so they had to come up with a revised edition of it, but they have been very supportive with a small staff to do anything with regards to the

funding source. g>> can we vote on items in -- >> it pais 6 through 11. [calling votes] commissioner mendoza: yes except item k-6. >> we have one other item. it is w11 and 15. i thought those were going to be bunched together and not individual, so i apologize.

>> this is the contract under 15,000, so i see a lot of them under the same vendors. goothis made me think i guess accumulative vendor does not apply, so that is fine. the fact that the same vendor has been yearused, we have a grp of contractors we call on that do not go through this process, but i am not sure how we go through the, although i understand these are all on different sides. we have the same issue with personal services contracts.

since they are actually generated from the sidetes, they did not have any other way of knowing if another not school is being yearused, so i would likeu to comment on those things if you would your good -- if you would. >> i will try to be very brief. these are the accumulations over the last three months of those construction contracts under $15,000 and now, particularly if it is a contract were public bidding is not required, and if

it is not, certain other things need to happen, and one of those is that we get three votes, -- three quotes. it is true we do have a collection after five years of a number of small contractors who have been successful, and we like doing our work and seemed to be the lowest of those, but i can assure euayou we give multie chances toda bid, and as people do not do a good job they do not work for us again. 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 sl