off. if i were able to do that, we have to give you a lot of credit for holding us together, in particularly in the tough budget year, when we had to make the hard decisions. it is not always easy to have a lot of people were together for a budget that has to work for everyone. i appreciate all of your leadership, to be able to duplicate the qualities that you have brought to us. thank you very much. the best thing i could do, as commissioner mendoza stepped away, her gift to all of us, you probably cannot see this postcard, this is a little boardwalk where three people are at the edge of the border,

holding a surfboard. board meeting, in hawaiian. maybe we could pretend we are in hawaii. we have a lot of business today. the first thing on the agenda, and congratulations to commissioner norton. i will need your help. there is a new face around this stage, here. that maybe you noticed and you wonder, who the heck is that guy over there? i want to introduce him. i am sure he'd be introduced anyway. he is the new attorney, legal councel for the school district. maribel was going to lead and we

were going to hire a new person. don davis, give him a hand. [applause] >> ok. first official business. the approval of board minutes. is there a motion for the business for 2013 -- 2012? -- 2011? is there any correction? the role call? ms. fewers? ms. mendoza? dr. maurasi? ms. norton? ms. wynn? mr. yee? seven ayes. ->> presentation to the board of education, superintendent report? >> first, i want to thank -- to

congratulate the new officers, and i can tell you that everyone is excited with working with both of you this coming year. and i want to thank -- i am it ready for that meeting in hawaii. i want to thank her for making it fun this year, and we are really working hard, and i think that this was a really good team effort. the entire board is to be commended for working together. we do not pull any punches, but what is really exciting is how well we came in as professionals, working for the benefit of children. and i know in a political town, this is tough to do, but you made me proud to serve as your

supervisor. i want to start the meeting, not to bomb everyone out, but i want to let you know that i am going to keep my remarks brief. i want you to know that when you look at what governor brown has proposed, things could have been worse. i want to tell you that things are worse. taking deeper cuts into the school systems across the state, it is really derailing all of the hard work that all of us have put into developing all of these great things. this is what everyone is it -- this is the effect everyone is having in our schools. the outlook really does not look very good. in fact, this looks very bad. with the proposed budget there is no cost of living adjustment. what this does is it keeps putting us further and further behind. later on in the agenda we have

proposals out there, with different things and when you look at this, what california is doing, we have all of us practiced cannibalism. we are practicing what we cut and we fight among each other. we fight among each other instead of saying that we are the problem. the problem is in sacramento. we have another round of layoffs, and we have all played this tune many times and this is not getting better. this budget, it could even get worse. it begins with the notion that in november, a ballot initiative will go and if this will pass, this may change but all that this does is maintained the status quo. it does not take it further, and helpless to closer to where we were a few years ago.

just think about this. we knew that we were going to have a significant deficit in the next couple of years but this proposal puts the district somewhere between -- on top of the deficit we were looking at, we are looking at 15-28 million more in the deficit. you get to the place where i hope that there are good math teachers here, because how do you make things like this work? i just want to encourage everyone, that the legislative session is going. we all should be outraged because enough is enough. we will be put in a position where we are forced to name our poison. i do not like this position and i don't think anyone in the state of california should just be excepting of this. it is unacceptable to keep constantly cutting, because we

are 49th in the country with expenditures per person. and this is not getting any better. when we start this long process, and it is a long process, to give thanks lips to our employees this year is terrible. but we have to be less than honest to tell you that this is where we are headed. just think, if something happens in november most school districts in california can plan that way. but how do we plan what we do not know? the only plan that we can plan for is the worst-case scenario. having said that, we will make it through this because the only bright side of all of this terrible situation, we see the economy slowly improving. we will probably be winning that

limbo competition, but sooner or later, we have to raise the bar and start demanding more for our children. with that, i know that is tough but i want to welcome back all of the students -- and we are already starting the second semester. i know that, especially as -- especially as you get older, you appreciate life more, a little bit older -- i know that life is too short. everyone in this district needs to make this year better than last year and make everything humanly possible to make certain that all of the students are ready for college or their careers by the time they graduate. this is a great school district, in terms of student achievement. we have all of the large, urban

districts. nobody comes close. we will keep moving in spite of all of those challenges. i want to wish everyone a happy new year. we are going to make it through this but we have to stand united, and we have to make some tough cuts. so be careful -- these new officers will have to roll up their sleeves. i think if we stand together as a community, we will make it through those tough times. thank you very much and have a wonderful year. [applause] >> i wanted to acknowledge a former colleague, who was on the school board not long ago. former commissioner dan kelly. [applause] moving on to the next item,

recognition and resolution of commendations, we have three of them tonight and we will start with the executive board of the district english learner's advisory committee. superintendent garcia? >> we would like to call on kevin chavez to make the presentation. >> that evening, commissioners. i have the honor of supporting the work being done with the lerner advisory committee -- and it is great pleasure we come together today to recognize the accomplishments of an incredibly dedicated group of parents. this team has worked diligently to inform and enhance the work that is being done to support our english language learners and their families. they have facilitated the

general meetings, conducted needs assessments, and delivered annual reports and recommendations to the school board. each representative has become an empowered member of the community and foster's apparent leadership at the district level. with the help of my colleagues, we would like to honor them with a certificate of recognition for their service. >> if i could see -- jackson flores. [applause] susan patel. [applause]

uni tang [applause] yeah. visa tseng. [applause] edwin yun. [applause] peggy liu. [applause] miriam lopez.

[applause] lucia luna. [applause] gloria suna. [applause] dora alvarez. [applause] [applause] cindy choi. [applause] and daisy -- [applause]

thank you very much. we would like to briefly introduce the new district learner advisory committee board. this was elected by parents of the district -- and as i call your name, can you come up please? maria -- [applause] cindy choi. [applause] maria -- [applause] rosario -- [applause] edwin yun. [applause]

carla mirada. [applause] dora alvarez. [applause] gloria cerva. [applause] carolina. [applause] amalia mendez. ana vazquez. gloria. my colleagues will read the chinese members.

>> maggie pho. [applause] thank you. >> we look forward to serving the needs of this district's english learners. the english learner students. thank you. a few words from our new president. [speaking spanish]

>> hi, my name is maria rocha, and it's an honor to be chosen to represent the english learners. >> [speaking spanish] >> so i'm looking forward to working together and all of us are on the same page so we can provide the children with the tools so they can be successful. so again, thank you for this opportunity and we're willing

to work. >> once again, thank you for those that served last year and thank you for those that are willing to serve this year. it's going to be a lot of work. congratulations. we're moving on to our next item, which is for the japanese american citizens league donation of the book "zero" to the san francisco unified school district elementary school libraries. superintendent? commissioner murase. >> one of the few things i did on the board was to recognize a civil rights activist who was

recognized at the end of january. january also happens to be anti-bullying month and our hardworking staff also distributed materials into the schools for anti-bullying month. included in that package was children's -- a children's book called "one," a book that illustrated and written by katherine otoshi, a local author, who is here today, because the japanese american citizens league will be presenting to each of our school libraries the sequel to that book, called "zero" and both of those books address bullying if the bully's perspective and the victim's perspective. i would like to introduce a representative of the japanese american league -- japanese

american citizens league and the author of the book, if they could come to the podium. >> it's always a pleasure to come to the board with something like this. in this particular case, something rather special. when i read "one" and happened to read "zero" i thought it would be a challenging task because we'd have to raise a lot of money to get both books into the system because you have a lot of elementary schools. but it turned out, when we looked at it, "one" had been distributed, so you cut my job in half. it took a while, but we were able to get the book and will get it distributed to the libraries. i'm going to turn it over to the author and illustrator and i have to say i'm very impressed by both books. >> thank you again, good

evening. i was asked to say a few words about "one." "one" has to deal with the issue of bullying, prejudice and really the power of one's voice. and i thought i would just go ahead and cut to the chase, just talk about, one thing that's always asked -- ask when i go to talk about the book, someone will always ask, why did you write the story of "one." i'll talk about the experience, it was a repressed memory from fourth grade. my parents were interned in a camp in world war ii, i was one of the very few minorities growing up in the suburbs and i remember looking around me and as kids do, sometimes you wish you were better at soccer or wish you were better at sports

or whatever. in my case, i actually wished i had blond hair and blue eyes or red curly hair and green eyes. this might seem odd but i remember at one point, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and being so surprised, think, wow i'm asian. it went on for a long time, that was sort of my secret. i've never talked about that until i wrote the book "one." and again, sometimes i'm asked, why did you write the story? one particular way someone asked this question, recalled a memory in fourth grade of a little girl i'm going to call ming who walked through the classroom door and i remember distinctly being very excited about ming because i was like, wow, she has the same shaped eyes as me, the same dark colored hair, the same skin color and i was excited for

maybe two seconds until her name was called in roll call and she was laughed at and i thought, well, maybe it's not so cool to try to be friends with this person anymore. it got worse the second day of school because she was -- since she was laughed at, nobody said thing. -- anything. her hair was pulled and she was pushed, surely because no one said anything, it must be ok to shove and pull the hair of this little girl. we fast forward to a whole week and she was so afraid of the rest of us that i distinctly remember when the school bell rang, she would run to the girl's bathroom stall and lock the door and stand there throughout the entire lunch period. my last memory of this little girl is of her crouching behind

the school tool shed and she's crying so loud, she is screaming, because there's a semicircle of kids surrounding and pointing and laughing at her. i am the author of "one" which deals with standing up for yourself. but i could not say that i, back then, stood up for ming, and how ironic being the author of "one," when i think about it, that i certainly could have been a one back then, and i was so afraid to confront these other kids. i was thinking, what if i stood up for this little girl that i called "ming" and they saw that i, too, was asian and that fear alone kept me from doing it. i wanted to thank this board formening us -- helping us in distributing these books out to every school in the san

francisco school district. for my part, i decided to do afterwards, i was so upset at the memorying i wrote the book "zero" which has to do with, how do you become a one? how do you become the person who stretches and grows and that person you hope and want to be? how can we see ourselves as having value and bringing value to ourselves and others. i wanted to say thank you so much for bringing this vocabulary to our schools and i also wanted to thank emily murase and grant muratami for bringing value to us all. [applause] >> i want to have a

representative speak about what we're doing on bullying in schools because it is such an important issue. >> good evening, after that, i read "one" so many times, just so you know, it's in all our libraries, please read it. after hearing that story, i certainly get it now. basically, this book, blue is picked on by "one" and orange and yellow and green don't do it -- is picked on by red, and orange and yellow and green don't do anything, until one comes along. we need to make sure that these lessons are brought to our students' attention buzz the sooner we teach them to value each other and value themselves, that's most of the

work we need to do in developing them as human beings. we thank you. the book went over really, really well last yore, it's amazing, and we're happy to have the book "zero" to help kids become one and be counted. i want to introduce very quickly -- i really do want to read the book, i really do. i want to introduce martha who helps me work on things and they're going to give you a brief presentation about what we're doing. >> i'm martha and just on behalf of school help programs, student support services department and the children of san francisco we'd like to thank ms. otoshi for donating this new book, "zero," as mr. truitt mentioned, "one" was

very well received. we had the pleasure of writing a lesson i just shared with you today and many teachers have been asking for more copies of the books. we'd like to thank you. >> good evening, i just want to echo what martha said. the book will be a welcome addition to our comprehensive health education that includes lessons on bullying at the elementary, middle and high school levels. january is school safety and violence prevention month where we asked all schools to create activities on violence prenks. and we'd like to thank the board again for supporting violence protection month -- prevention month for the safety of all our students.

>> the posters that will be disprayed in all our -- displayed in our schools this month, you have the right to be safe in school, it tells studentser that rights, what they have the right to be protected from, protection from bullying based on race, gender, sexual identity. we deserve the right to be safe. you will see these displayed in all our schools. thank you.