qualify for free or reduced lunch. and the board of education approved a three-year plan in december to reduce the number of school buses serving 59 elementary and middle schools from 44 school buses down to 25. excluding the school buses for special education students. and because these and the it is unified school district aims to promote an appreciation of the diversity that exists in every neighborhood and community, you should be able to access of the opportunities advances go has to offer, including but not limited to after-school programs, museums, parks, and job opportunities regardless of what neighborhood they live in. at the result of the elimination of school buses as a commuting options, all students that depend on school buses are forced to find alternative in

node of transportation. and whereas free muni would eliminate the challenges of purchase and distribution that hindered the success of the life line passes. and whereas environmental awareness is important in the city of san francisco and allowing them to utilize public transportation systems advances our goal to a more sustainable environment. and whereas the recent downturn in the economy places a financial burden on families making it difficult for them to afford the additional cost of student commuter fees, and whereas article 2 of the student advisory council states that the fcc is committed to providing a voice for the students of the san francisco unified school district by representing and presenting the interest of the students with administrative and policy making body is with the intent of solving the and that needs of the youth of san francisco.

therefore, be it resolved that the board of education at the urging of the student advisory council supports faster passes for all you've residing in the city and county of san francisco. and further be it resolved that they support and join the work of the mayor's office, the municipal transportation agency and the board of supervisors of the city and county of santa it is in order to implement the pilot program. including the exploration of providing free muni for 18- year-old full time students. >> i have one speaker. wendy, are you here? , and press the button. -- come out and press the

button. >> my name is wendy, i am representing the student advisory council and behind me are the student advisory council themselves representing at supporting to show our support for the resolution for the past week. members have been a school's out reaching into collecting over 2100 signatures from all public high schools. just to show the support of this resolution. thank you. >> you have how many signatures? >> over 2100. [applause] >> nice job. thank you. comments from the border? does everybody like my sweatshirt?

>> i love it. commissioner fewer: i just wanted to say that i wanted to thank the student delegates for writing this resolution and bringing it before the board of education tonight. and also the student advisory council for bringing this forward and urging us to support the free fast passes. we are cutting transportation. students do choose to go to school, and i think our superintendent actually said it best when he said that san francisco students should have the ability to use all of san francisco as their educational class room. to have access to that, they would need transportation to do so. i urge my fellow board members to support our efforts and

improve this. thank you. commissioner maufas: i just think this really helps clarify that we care about our young people in this city. it sets the tone for how we should be thinking about young people, and hopefully other measures that supported the youth in our city will come about with this as a fine example. i am grateful to the student advisory council. your ability to out reach is clearly stellar, and i just want to support it all the way. commissioner wynns: i want to thank you for bringing this, and it is a clause that we support. i am concerned again about the

-- there is no reference in here to the cost. the last time there were free passes for public school kids, there is no distinction here between public-school students and other students. there is no distinction here related to -- there is a reference, but nothing in the result of making sure that our immediate students are prioritized or any of the public school students are prioritized. nor is there any reference to -- the first time this was brought up, the idea is that we would take the money out of proposition h.. i think we would feel unable to do it this year. i really appreciate the resolution that came that is

being put forward by supervisor campos, very much in the mode of urging all the agencies to have a discussion about it and try to move toward doing this. if i am totally in support of all that. i am a bit worried that such an unqualified language from us could be interpreted or brought forward in those discussions as we are willing to pay for it. i am looking for some recognition of that, that we might revise it a little bit referencing the budget crisis and protecting the school funding. prioritizing, not necessarily saying that that this budget time we just one of kids and college students to have free -- i know it doesn't say that, but i am worried that might be interpreted or used in the discussions if it is without

qualification to promote that point of view. >> i certainly agree that is definitely a problem if someone were to interpret it as the district taking complete financial control over the situation, but though it might not be written in the resolution, there is a verbal agreement that it will be a multi-agency effort, so it will be both the cost of this new plan that will come from -- and the funding will come from both public and different private agencies to cover the cost. it won't just be one certain group having to cover all the costs. this definitely can go into a

lot further discussion, but as of right now that's all i can offer. commissioner norton: i want to support what everybody else has said, i absolutely support the idea of our students be able to access it free. i am also somewhat concerned that how brought this is. i am a little worried, just because there seems to always be misunderstandings when there are verbal agreement that they are not written down on both sides of the streets. and when i looked at supervisor campos's resolution, i think this first resolved cause is very clear about how this would happen. all these agencies get to the table, the design of pilot, they secure funding. i am just wondering if we could

change your first results clause in some way to align it more with what the supervisor is laying out in his resolution. and to specifically give the board support for his resolution that i understand is coming before the board of supervisors very soon. i don't know what everybody else thinks about that and what the students think about that, but it would be my suggestion. commissioner fewer: i think we may be able to add, supports the idea of free passes. for it to be resolved, support joined the work. what this resolution is about, the heart of it is that they join the work and be a partner in developing this work.

if you feel compelled to write in a monetary number, i would defer to the delegates. what this resolution says is the support and joins the work. that means that we are at the table. that is the gist of what the heart of what the resolution is saying. if you feel more comfortable, we can say supports the idea that supports and joins the work, and i think that means that we are at the table, so we have a voice in that. commissioner maufas: i want to be very brief in reading through this resolution and hearing from the city side. and myself as a member of the public, i don't ever believe that the school district could find any of this. i don't think anyone in the far reaches of their imagination

will think that this is our burden, and i have never heard that in the back and forth conversation. it is about welcoming everyone to the table with an equal share of say and making sure that we participate, it will really be affecting our constituents. that has been my public impression, but that is also my commissioner impression. thinking that we are going to take this burden on financially, we don't have any. commissioner wynns: i appreciate all the things that have been said, and if we have the idea, that would be great. i am fearful that if we say we don't want to pay for it, they will say, the idea, let's get them to pay for it. what is at issue here, we have the proposition h. money. we think of it as our money, the

board of supervisors often think of it as their money, and we have had the situation where they have said, unless you spend it on this, we will not approve your spending plan. that is not his intention, i understand that. his language is release specific as only being exploratory. this language is not that specific. to tell you the truth, if we take the idea of putting it in as language and have this conversation on the record, that goes along way. then just having the board of education be clear that we had no intention to be in support of spending money that could be spent for educational purposes. >> i think in your reference,

particularly around proposition h., when we have this discussion around funds and who it belongs to, i think we have been able to rightly clarify that the citizens have said that the unified school district has control over that money with approval from the board of supervisors and we have had to go in and beat the drum for the folks that might be new to the table because they were recently collected or those that decided they need to come back around again to that conversation. those points are on us and we have not hesitated, from my understanding, to reiterate that every single time that it comes out. >> every single time. >> we would not hesitate to do it again. >> a couple of comments. i have been a little bit

intimately involved in this. i appreciate support of the work and want to commend you for bringing this forward. this has been a conversation that has been going on for a while and i am glad you took a position on this. this is about a 6-$8 million project. when we think about the examples that have been given, portland and new yorker the school district takes a large lead in the funding of this, it is also additional taxes that have come through, we have had multiple conversations. they're seriously considering what we would be able to qualify for. mta has stepped up, and they have already given $1.2 million for what we implemented as a pilot last year that worked out wonderfully and helped us think

about how we can help all of our kids more permanently. there is money that has been set aside, but we are still short several million dollars. the gesture that the school district may for what was -- it was basically saying that our kids need to get to school and it matters to us that they are able to take it and they are not sleeping on the bus or coming to school because they don't want to get thrown off the bus. it is a true reality for our students. i think that the concerns that have come up are true concerns as to the supporting, and it is the word "support" that concerns me the most. it doesn't sound as if we will be contributing. or that we agree with what is

happening when i think the original intention behind the resolution is thinking about the urge to work together. the school district has to be at the table and our resolution should reflect that as well, and we should be saying that we need to be at the table because we should have a voice in that. i agree that if we can add some language to that, the way that the language is now, it is about urging us to work together to design the program to secure the funding and to work on the launch. these are all pieces that we should be participating in. and instead of on the second resolution saying that the board of education supports and joins, if we can perhaps say

participates in the work that the mayor's office, mta, blah, blah, blah. it might have us joining the forces to find a solution. we don't have anything in place yet, so there isn't a program that we are supporting. we support the concept. but it is the development of the program, how it will get implemented. the implementation conversation that we have been having, it has been extremely challenging because we would be talking about having the school district implement selling the passes, and that is why the free passes were more attractive. i would push to have support for coming together to come up with

a program to identify funding into be able to participate in the launch of this program. i am a little worried about supporting free passes, especially for all youth. i get what we want to do this for all youth, but i think for the board, we are looking at what we are doing for the public school kids, and that is all we can speak to. this is just my own opinion on supporting the free passes. as an individual, i am not sure that i personally support it for all youth. i think there hasn't been any clarity to that yet, and that there are some, one of the discussions, could some of them pay a very discounted fee to

augment what the cost of the program would be. if you would be willing to at the supporting -- and not be supporting. the urging the school district to work together on the design of the program, helping to secure the funding and launching the initiative or something along those lines, it might help. >> i think that the work is exactly what you are describing in paraphrasing what you have said. that the work is about what they are planning to do.

i would defer to student delegates. i am hesitant to speak for them, actually, so maybe we can get the student delegates, if you can weigh in on her suggestion. >> i would be fine with keeping the work in there, it is the support, have it be participating. >> what president his is proposing is that we resolve the second one, that the board of education participate in the work of the mayor's office? >> be resolved -- it is after -- right. it is after the urging of the sec. nasa supports free me any staff

passes -- instead of supports free muni staff passes, supports the idea, design, the way the board of supervisors read -- i don't know if you have that available. >> we understand that it isn't that easy to just say that this can automatically work or you want to be at the table. and also to address that makes you uncomfortable that is all youth rather than just public school because that is what we're here for, i think that would create this division in the city of san francisco i

don't think it would make us look really good, and it would be really hard to the minister that kind of -- you know, like private school kids paying this much in public school kids not paying this much. there are low-income kids at private schools. i don't have a number for that, but kids could be on the same level as public school kids as well. >> i wasn't separating public from private schools, and i'm just saying some you can pay at some you can't. i am ok with leaving its if we do the urging of working together peace. commissioner maufas: sorry to continue the words, but would you consider as a the same in the very first, instead of saying the support, may be

considered believes in free passes for all? >> as of of supports the idea -- commissioner maufas: does that work for you all? believes in free muni passes? >> i believe is a bit too passive. that is a good idea, i don't know. coming after the urging, it just seems as if -- we should think about it, but not actually do anything. that is how i feel. >> i like the idea in the first resolve of the suggestion that we say supports the idea of free

muni fast passes. and in the other resolve, change -- building on what commissioner mendoza said, the the board of education authorizes the district to participate in the work that the mayor's office, blah, blah, blah. the second one says will get the staff to work with everybody else. we should just say supports this kind of a term of art, almost a legal give money to any public arena. >> i agree, i can completely understand how that could very

easily be misconstrued. i know if i can think of any -- something else to put in there right this moment. >> the whole thing is to urge everybody to work together, authorizes feels so "we'll let you." can we say encourages or urges the district? >> [inaudible] >> that's fine. >> the board of education -- the sentences could unified school district adjoins the work? how about that?

>> he mentioned that we can say supports the idea of, let's say, the design, the launch. what've we added those and to make you guys seem like you would join the process rather than just supporting it right away. i understand support is a crazy word. adding the words that you gave us, when that make it better? >> can you read what the board of supervisors has? >> the first result clause in the legislation is resolved at the board of supervisors of the city and county urges the metropolitan transportation commission to work collectively

to design, secure funding for, at lunch program with a clear timeline that provides access to free of charge to san francisco in youth. i think that is the pertinent clause. >> if that is ok with you guys, the support and with the board of supervisors is doing, allowing them to join forces and allowing them to be at the table. we agree this is a good idea and we want to participate. that would make sense if that makes sense to you guys. does that speak to your meeting with your fellow students was about? >> yes. for some reason, we did not add that because we did not want our resolution to look like david campos's resultion.

[laughter] we tried our best. >> prove to be told, i love it. >> is there a question? >> in terms of doing the rewording, does it still speak to what the youth wanted as far as having us participate in the larger conversation? >> i and the student advisory council coordinator. i do believe with of the rewording that is being discussed, it was still get the idea across of what the students wanted. >> student delegates,