of restorative practices throughout schools in the district. we know that a number of schools are piloting restorative practices but our sense is that a large number of families don't have any idea what it means and it's not happening at every school, yet. and what we're hoping is that we can meet with, we're aiming to meet at about 10 to 15 sites, school sites and possibly community organizations, we hope to hear from about 250 participants and our goal is really to share information about what restorative practices is and also hear any concerns from parents, get suggestions and if there are parents who are interested in taking some next steps at their school site, maybe helping to give them some tools to do that. of course we'll share our findings by the end of the school year. i'm sorry. share with the school district

and i'm sorry, my name is marnede martin and i'm a parent as well. >> and so, where are we going to conduct the community conversations? p.a.c. members have 24 schools we're approaching and asking if they're interested in this conversation. we don't have the capacity to actually conduct many conversations, as much as we want to, buzz of the limited capacity of the p.a.c. but we are making a point to go to the 24 schools. we balance a number of different things when we come up with this list. the school suspension rate, compared to the district's -- district's average of those grade levels and if the school is already implementing restorative practices or is interested in developing more plans and also we look at the demographics of the school's student populations and because african-american and latino

students are suspended at a disproportionate rate, the p.a.c. is making a high priority to reach these communities. at the same time, we want to hear from families in different kinds of schools, different levels, different neighborhoods and we would like to work with community groups who can convene parents outside of school settings to talk about the issues. we want to invite other paraphernalias into the conversation as well. in terms of the process, we have been happy to have a lot of interest from carrie berke withs who is leading the initiative with the district, she is helping us develop materials, invited us to train in the coming weeks to bring ourselves up to speed and help share the information out to the larger parent community. so we're really looking forward to this and we also would love if any input the board might have in terms of questions that

you think we should be asking or information that you're hoping to hear and also if there are particular schools or communities that you think should be included in our outreach. >> thank you, gloria and miranda. president yee: are there comments? commissioner fewer? commissioner fewer: i think it would be great if members could attend the trainings coming up in february. i think the trainings are an introduction to restorative practices. i think if you went and -- whoever attended would have a deeper understanding of what we're trying to do and chang our discipline practices but i commend you for taking this on because we believe it is a very important issue in our school district and it is imperative that we look at how we're

disciplining students in order to meet the geels for our stratenalic plans. >> i'll just say that i think it is a testament to how popular the program is that the programs are all filled. we were able to add an additional program to get the train big the end of this month. president yee: commissioner murase? commissioner murase: thank you. my experience is that these community conversations are so important. you get to engage in dialogue many of us aren't able to do. i encourage you to go to as many school sites as you can. my question is, will this be at all levels? are you focusing on the elementary level or will you be talking to middle and high school? >> i think that was part of our balance in looking at sites, we

try to have had a representative sample that included at least some schools from each level. >> do you feel any recommendations on which schools to go to? that would be helpful as well. commissioner murase: my youngest goes to rosa parks and they've been active and i received a lot of concern from families attending marina. >> rosa parks is excited to work with us, they're on top of our list, we're excited about that. president yee: thank you very much for your report and your hard work. ok, next item, f, public comment on the consent items.

i believe there is one speaker. mrs. black. >> thank you very much. good evening, members of the board of education, ladies and gentlemen, i want to congratulate presidentie and vice president rachel nor -- presidentee and vice president -- president yee and vice president rachel norton. i'm hopeful you'll appoint committee hodes so that the different committees we count on on the board of education will be able to schedule their meetings and the union will be able to testify at those committee meetings. i rise to speak tonight on

several of the resolutions. in this time of tight budget constraints, i think we have to look at every nickel that we spend. so i ask the board to take a look at k-13, which is on page 117. now you might say, this is only a $0,000 expenditure, and the purpose of it is to have leadership development in partnership with an outside organization, as it says, but there's a term being used in this that i don't typically use so i'm wondering about it. the term is a critical friend. a critical friend to the principal. i'd like you to look at that and see how much of the money is being spent for that and how much is going for the leadership development that was intended by this. additionally, i would like to ask you to take a look at k-14 on page 119.

it's curious to me, i would like to know, this is about an excel program at wester. who was in charge at webster before this resolution? what evaluation of their services ended up demanding this mid year change? or was there no one in charge before? it seems rather odd that you would be doing this in the middle of the year. and then i'd like you to take a look at k-26. k-26 on page 143. and this is money for a consultant to guide a staff member in understanding their job. now, i can understand that the accounting department activities might cost this amount of money. but why should the money come

from what it seems to me are funds that should be used for direct services for students. if you take a look at the funding sources, you see it comes from dcyf mayor's wellness program, comprehensive school health local, i don't know what that mean bus it sounds like it belongs to the kids. i think a word is left out there. and tobacco use prevention education. so i'd like you to look at these resolutions and before you approve them, see whether the money is being spent the way it should be spent. thank you very much. president yee: as a reminder to the public, in accordance with 11-2 of the board policy p-120,

an individual wishing to address the board on agenda items or on matters other than those calendared for forward action can call the board office by 4:30 on the day of the meeting or by completing a speaker card on the evening of the meeting, prior to the item being called. cards being turned in at the same time an item is being discussed will not be accepted. so we're going to move on to the next agenda item, g, consent calendar. is there a motion and second for the consent calendar? any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent? >> yes. we have two items to withdraw, the first is 121-10-w-16 on page 77. and the second is item

121-10-k-15 on page 121. >> any items to be removed by the board. any items severed by the board or superintendent for discussion and vote tonight? commissioner murase? commissioner murase: page 143, k-146, reference about hiring to train new employees. president yee: which k resolution?

commissioner wynn? -- commissioner wynns? >> i'd like to several w-17 on page 78. president yee: any others? ok. roll call vote will take place under the section on this item. item h, superintendent's proposals. none tonight. i, none tonight. j, requests to speak regarding general matters, we have a number of speakers and i will have the first speaker -- the first speaker will be paulette

brown. ms. brown, are you here? go ahead and take two minutes. president yee: press the button on the mike. >> my name is paulette brown. i have a daughter that goes to lincoln high school. i'm here to complain about that we were talking about bullying earlier.

bullying. we're not talking about bullying from students, we're talking about bullying from the faculty, the teachers. my daughter, there's a breach of trust about her religion. the teacher has been bothering about. president yee: please don't name names. thank you very much. >> he's been harassing her at school and she is -- i don't feel comfortable, i don't feel supported by the school. she's been there since she started. she'll be graduate may 23 and this person is still harassing her, putting his arms in front of her, stopping her from moving, standing in front of her classroom, talking about her religion. i lost my son to homicide, 0 rounds of bullet, and my daughter daughter is suffering

from it, we're both suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and my daughter doesn't have a lot of counseling. this faculty member took my son's picture, which is a picture -- this picture, and put it out in front of the school for everybody to see on the desk. i had to -- this was not supposed to be out. he goes to the front of my daughter's school, he's telling her about her religion. that's just like if she wore a turban on her head. i've bven there talking but

still nothing is done. what do i do? this is not fairle president yee: can you speak to her? >> dr. schultz is over there. she'll be glad to speak to you. right there. she's the assistant superintendent in charge of that school. president yee: the next group of people, i will call the names that were given to me. they are lillian phong, when i call your name, come up to the mike, debra quan, colin higgins, wayne yen, jamie ramirez, nancy lee, paul, ann

kyung, terry wong, terence yee. what i'd like to do is give you one minute apiece. and when you get started, gist state your name and get started. you need to press the button on the mike and then it'll be on. >> thank you, and congratulations president yee and vice president norton. i want to make one correction. we actually have pauline zela, one of our parents is home sick today. i have a replacement parent, her name is cassini. i'm the chair of the school

council, as the first chinese immersion school, it's been highly successful in graduating students who are high academic achievers, active student learners with strong foundations in chinese language and culture. in fact, we received notification from california's state superintendent that we're up for the national school award. i'm here with a number of concerned parents to tell the board that the district is imposing a drastic change in our enrollment policy which jeopardizes the integrity of the immersion program. [applause] president yee: thank you for sticking to the time limit. >> my name is debra qwan.

the policy is to change the policy and enroll up to 2/3 of kindergarteners who are proficient in cantonese makes no sense. how can we be an immersion school if twisheds of the students already speak the language. this would turn our school from immersion to a focus on learning english. mastering english will be the primary concern for the students, especially in our current high stakes testing environment. we were a chinese language. im-- immersion school. werdum founded at the district's proposal. how can an immersion program be successful with a 2/3 native speaking population? >> my name is dennis yee, i'm a

member of the school site council. as debra said, we are requiring -- the district is requiring that 2/3 of the students should be 2/3 language speaking students. we co-have a significant english learner population at the elementary population, 1/3 of our students are english learners. at the last meeting, you ask if e.l.'s are getting enough language in our immersion program. we don't provide much time for english language learning. we have modified the program. our english learners are classified to english proficient at a fast rate. we want to target speakers that

give all students the best chance for success. i leave you with the question what is the legal basis for the 2/3 ratio? thank you. [applause] >> my name is wayne yen, i'm a member of the parent association. we were shocked to learn that not all applicants were tested for language proficiency as was promised last year. language learning will -- imwill only occur if they say that cantonese is spoken in the home. anyone who says english as

their proficient language will be taken at their word. this -- self-reporting of language leads to problems. help us stop this mad ps. without assessment of all aply capts, how an earth can an accurate proportion of english proficient students be assigned in the fist place. it defies logic. >> i am the father of three sons in second, third and sixth grades. you can be sure that the proficient speakers will be ethnic chinese. this means that the older ethnic groups will be fighting

for the valuable slots in the one-third english proficient. many i third grader is in a class where the dwertsity is imbalanced. i have seen a difference in his confidence in learning chinese than his older brothers who have been educated under the immersion program. english speakers like my son feel less confident in speaking out in class because a majority of his classmate already speak fluent cantonese. i know my son is too embarrassed and humiliated to say he doesn't understand. please, how is this promoting ethnic diversity with this? thank you.

>> good evening. i'm a parent at this school. placing an english learner in an immersion program is not going to work. english learners need more support. why the school district is imposing a model known to have problems? at the december board of education meeting, they said it is great people are learning another language. but he also said that the district needs to make sure that such programs can serve. my question is, why doesn't the district try to replicate the successful model, one that has worked well for years, instead of trying to destroy the best of our school. thank you.

>> good evening. my name is nancy lee. i'm a secretary of the parent association. i have a question for the commissioners. we talked about ratios, one-half, 2/3, one third. how can we talk about ratios when we do not test 100% of the pool? please, use some common sense. currently, the 32% of e.l.'s of the school are not measured by how well we teach chinese. we are measured by how quickly we convert e.l. to e.p. it's hard work. it's tutoring before, during, and after school. 100% paid by the parent association.

please think of the child and how we can equip them for the 21st century. thank you. >> i'm a member of the school council. my question to the board, shouldn't there be at least one school in 100-plus schools in the san francisco unified school district where nonchinese speakers can go to learn to speak chinese? i hope the answer is yes. we can agree we live in a global economy, one in which future generations need to be on equal footing, particularly with china. did you know there are more people in high in a fluent in english than there are people in america fluent in english? our school has been teaching successfully for 26 years. now they want to change the purpose of the best school in the district?

why? can there be one school in the san francisco city that provides nonchinese speakers with a right to speak chinese and learn chinese? by the eighth grade, our students are able to read, write and speak fluently in cantonese and mandarin so well that they go to china on an exchange program with a sister school in beijing, can confidently bargain for goods, order in restaurantsing and live with a host family and communicate well. the district is proposing a significant change to the student composition without agreement from the community. we are outraged and object to a change which will negatively impact the success of our existing program. please help us understand why

the district is imposing a program design change which will destroy a program which has been working so well. [applause] >> good evening, board members and district staff. i'm a member of the school's council and it is my opinion that changing to a 2/3 english learner ratio will have a significant negative effect on ethnic diversity. hispanic, african-american and caucasian will be fighting for the 1/3 supposedly english proficient group, an i say supposedly because they're not testing for english proficiency so we don't have any guarantees. further under the proposed design there won't be any ethnic diversity at all because we already know that 2/3 of the students will be chinese that are going to be cantonese

proficient, but what about chinese and other asian applicants like my families that aren't cantonese proficient? what about the other chinese and other asian applicants that will be fighting for the same spots as the hispanics, african-americans, and caucasians, as others have already asked, how can this possibly be called immersion? i urge me board to take immediate action. thank you. >> my name is barry wong, i have been a community advocate for the school since it moved into the neighborhood. i have been so fraud oaf -- proud of the nation's first chinese immersion program. i probably spend as much time playing tour guide as i did meeting with the district whenever positions were whenever positions were eliminated or cut from our