george washington carver, horace mann, john o'connell, leonard flynt, malcolm x elementary commission elementary, paul revere, and thurgood marshall academic high. employees may not be teaching under the credential or authorization listed above during the 2011-2012 school year. in order to be awarded points under one-five as described above. criterion no. 6 shall be used in the event that is necessary to apply the same date of hire criteria to certificated -- employees assigned to the superintendent zone school. any time this occurs after application of these criteria shall be resolved by lottery. i have already read the paraprofessional services resolution. i will now read the early

education department resolution. this is a short one so i will read all that. where is due to lack of funds in san francisco unified school district, the board of education under the authority of section 8366 hereby finds unnecessary and in the best interests of the district to eliminate the full- time equivalent fte of the employees in the early education program as specified below. a total of 35 fte decline. be resolved that as of june 30, 2012, the position set forth above shall be discontinued to the extent herein above set forth. the order playoff shall be determined by link of service. be it further resolved the superintendent or his designee is authorized and directed to give notices of layoff to all affected employees not later than 45 days prior to the effective date of the layoffs at

fourth about. be it further resolved phase superintendent or his designee be authorized and directed to take any other actions necessary to effectuate the intent of this resolution. i have now read all four resolutions. president yee: thank you. this will be a short staff presentation. after that we will have public comment. when we get to the public comment portion of this, i will have to organize it in a special way. this is 40 people who have signed up for that part. >> i would like to start this off. first of all, what you have just heard is basically a pretty devastating for the entire school community. it is not something that anybody wants to do as i stated at the beginning. it is by no means a reflection of the work of the people who

are doing a fabulous things out there. given what has been laid upon us through the state and the governor's proposed budget, where we are, we really are left with no options but to pursue something like this. i know that some people will be questioning the skips, for the zone of 70 employees. people are questioning that. i want to give a little bit of perspective on that issue. remember in 2008, we went ahead and approved a strategic plan. in that plan, we talked about equity access, accountability, and keeping our promises to communities and families. we talked about ultimately student achievement. we talked about that. if you continue to do we have always done, you'll always get we'll always got. we talked about could we make schools good enough so people

can say is good enough for my own child and i would be willing to place my child in that school. wei will quote something from te strategic plan. we believe access and equity are at the heart of making social justice a reality. the politics and ideologies of social justice are empty without daily actions that improve the living and learning conditions of the children in san francisco. when you talk about "what we skip" not only this strategic plan, but proper way. -- but prop a. we identified some of our lowest performing schools. we set criteria. every year, and different schools can get into being identified as the 25 schools that need additional support. we said we would actually pay people, teachers, more to go

work in those schools that we can afford. we said that we knew that we need to attract the best teachers, because every study written in education says that the stability of the staff at a school is critical to improve student achievement. we figured if we could create a vehicle to draw people to go to our schools that need it the most, we would create money for mentor teachers to get additional resources to go to those schools, because we knew that if we did not do something to disrupt this pattern that has been going on and not for 10 years, but for decades here in san francisco -- trust me. i was a principal in the late 80's, early 90's. the same school that on -- and some schools on these lists were on those lists them. there were there the 20 years before i got there. we need to disrupt the demographics.

we called it out in our strategic plan. we said if you look at the project studies, the ed trust studies, the county's great city schools studies, it said you needed to keep teachers in the toughest, neediest schools in other -- in order for children and parents to turn around and make successful schools. we made a commitment to these different communities to stand up for them through our strategic plan. that is why we developed the strategic plan. with cricket also, in an attempt to create stability in the most this in franchise communities -- we decided we would make an investment. later on, as you know, we were able to get a school improvement grant. we did not pick the schools that were going to be there. as you know, they picked the 5%

lowest performing schools in the state of california, of which we have 10 schools. those are the schools that receive the $43 million grant over three years, because we realize those of the schools that needed so much help. there were disenfranchised because our district were under the assumption, may be correctly so, but we did not keep our promises to back them up and stand by them. on top of that, we went from identifying the schools -- at the same time, we realized we had a lot of schools in the bayview who were not being served. that community has not been served for a long time. we decided to include some of those schools that are the lower performing, and have been for decades, to try to give them something that they have lacked for so many decades. we decided yes, let us do that. our theory of action was to do it for the right reasons.

we skipped teachers now. you just read off. we skipped over 300 teachers, as it is today, because of credential issues. we are adding another 70 teachers because we believe that all these people who went to those schools made a commitment to those communities, to those children, and to this school district. therefore, we as a district of them a debt of gratitude and support to say "if you are committed to us, we are going to be committed to you and we are going to stand by you." we are bringing this today, and i know it is tough, but we are bringing this today because the student zones have four times more layoffs than the district as a whole being recommended. if we allow that to happen, after investing $1.30 million in professional development in the same schools for teachers, not to mention the $6 million including instructional coaches,

to change the entire paradigm of those old schools. we needed to act and intervene in those schools. that is why we did it. none of the 14 schools. remember, these are the lowest of low. in the short time that we have been doing this, identifying this, we are starting to show results. we are starting to show double- digit growth in some of those areas. we are starting to show we can close the achievement gap, but we have to do it like we have never done before if we are going to be successful. i am proud of the superintendent to bring this. i know it is a tough issue. as we call it on the strategic plan, it is time that we walk the talk. thank you. [applause] president yee: tonight we will be discussing the certificate

and the layoffs. if my slide to go up. i have 19 slides, for those who might the counting. it should not take too long. next slide. just as with the state budget last year, we again face tremendous uncertainty. like last year, when we created two budgets based on different scenarios, although the state has sent us a budget that supposedly seeks to protect funding for k-12 education, in actuality the shortfall grows even if the governor's initiative passes. while i expect we will receive rainy day funds from the city in the amount of approximately $6

million, and would like to ask you to give us the flexibility to budget based on this immense uncertainty. this evening, you have for resolutions to consider. these deals with staff at our k- 12 division and early education department. we are bringing both certificate and paraprofessional layoffs to bring you the most comprehensive picture we have at this time. the noticing of certificates that is critical. the board must approve the notice of layoffs. this is called a reduction in particular kinds of service, or pks. the second resolution is related to the pks and same-day higher -- hire ties are resolved in the layoff process. if we do not inform them by the

man did in march 15 deadline, we lose the flexibility to write off those employees for the 2012-2013 academic school year. of equal importance is our classified staff, although there is more flexibility with early education teachers and paraprofessionals, in that we have a rolling six-week vacation requirement. the next slide is an overview of our work force. we have over 4100 k-12 teachers, broken down by a classroom and non-classroom. we have 268 administrators, and over 3100 classified employees, of which about half are paraprofessionals. you will notice the 210 pks notices include 70 teachers in the superintendent of the zone, which i will address to slides up.

-- two slides up. we need to reduce services once again in 2012 and 13. the early education department has faced $4 million in contracts productions this year. it is anticipated the deficit will increase to $8 million by the end of the year. the early education department is in the middle of a major financial and operational redesign. now let us take a look at certificate staff. this slide shows our time line. tonight, we are asking the board to authorize march 15 notices for our certificate employees. without authorization, notices will be sent by certified mail on march 8. layoff hearings will be held april 3-9. once the administrative judge has made a decision, no later

than may 7, you, the board, will have an opportunity to vote on that decision. final notices will be sent no later than may 9. in the implementation of the layoff process, first we will release temporary teachers. these are the teachers that accepted a limited-term assignment which they knew would expire, for instance covering stuff on maternity our medical leave. we currently have 124 temporary teachers. because these teachers are filling a position temporarily, their relief does not impact the layoff directly. as you know, we offered an early retirement incentive with a notification deadline of march 1. as of february 24, 81 certificates staff submited retirement requests by this

deadline. today, we have 129 staff we know will not return. these numbers are not consistent with where we were last year at this time. at the end of last year, there were about 279 teachers who left the district through retirement or resignation. we anticipate that between 225 and 275 certificates staff will depart this year. teachers are released according to seniority within their classification and/or subjects. zeros, ones, and twos will be released first. exceptions are to fill math, science, special education, and bilingual. they will be skipped, representing 389 teachers. if you approve and it passes scrutiny with the administrative law judge, an additional 70 teachers it is in the

superintendent's zone will be skipped. moving forward with the goals of our strategic plan, we propose to skip the 70 teachers in the superintendent's sound. it was created to acknowledge and address the achievement gap that historically persisted among certain subsets of students within our district. in 2009, nine of the 14 schools in the superintendent's zone receive school improvement grants from the california department of education as a result of being identified as persistently low-achieving schools, the lowest 5% of schools in the state. the district has made significant investments in recruiting, selecting, training, and supporting teachers in the zone. the results so far this year on benchmark exams shows the reforms are working. if we do not take this action, the schools in the superintendent's zone will be disproportionately impacted by

layoffs at a greater rate, more than four times greater than the rest of the district. one of three teachers districtwide who would receive notices are in these 14 schools in the superintendent's zone. because this is the first time we have attempted this type of endeavor and it needs to be validated by administrative law judge, we would send modified preliminary notices to the 70 teachers as a precaution. the skipper of these teachers is justified, according to education code, because of the special training and experience that our teachers in the zone have, in addition to our specific need of achieving equitable outcomes for all our students. we have 632 probationary teachers. in some credential areas, we

will need to lay off permanent staff, based on reduction of services. social studies and music are examples of those. that would happen if the respective of whether we skip the 70 -- irrespective of whether we skip the 70 folks in the superintendent zone. this lists the salaries. we used the low credential figures to calculate savings with teachers. and we use the average for administrators. the reemployment process is as follows. a layer of certificates staff is

placed on the list for 39 months. the employment will be authored -- offered according to seniority in the inverse order of release. laid-off teachers who are not recalled will be offered employment as substitutes. now to paraprofessionals. we have 1581 paraprofessionals. of these, 939 are in special education. 642 are in general education, early education department, community outreach, and security. of the 642, 249 will receive layoff notices. of the 249, 91 are a potential reduction in work hours. the reduction in hours must be noticed as a layoff to standardize hours across the division. we are noticing 79 special

education per professionals. overall, the layoffs are approximately 60% of all laid- off paraprofessionals. the next slide compares the per professional layoff for last year and this year. by the time we sent the final layoff notices, we were able to significantly reduce that number. in the end, all but 17 paraprofessionals were called back. we are hopeful that will be the case this year as we continue to gather information. in conclusion, given the uncertainty with the butting process in san francisco, we have no choice but to be prepared. we are asking that you give us the flexibility we need to do with the uncertainty of our funding. the can tell you the superintendent said to me before this is the worst day of the year for me and members of my staff. it is the last thing in the world i want to be sitting up here doing.

thank you. we have a number of people here to answer questions. president yee: there are clarifying questions right now. i want to move on to the public testimony, and then come back to comments from the supervisors. is that ok? >> i am sorry. i was just searching for the presentation. i missed the beginning portion. is there a total number of proposed layoffs, the savings? is it in here? just tell me the page, and i will go there. thank you. >> will you press your button? >> i am sorry. it is 210 teachers. correction.

certificate teachers. the entire total of the layoff is 333 full-time equivalents. >> is there a dollar amount associated? >> which include administrators. >> is there a dollar amount? >> yes. if you include the entire layoff, it is approximately $35 million, but that is high. we are over noticing administrators significantly. it is around $25 million. >> between 25 and 35? >> it will not get to 35. you would have to lay off almost every administrator in the district. if you choose to do that. >> i am going to take a guess.

there are some people that might have left already. there are basically two groups that are here to speak. those that have some objections to ward the resolutions -- the other group is there to support certain pieces of the resolution. i am guessing those are the two groups here. if that is the case, if you are not in those two groups, you can form a third group, and you go last. rather than reading off all these names, which will take another 10 minutes, what i want you to do now, if you are here to support something about this resolution -- please line up right over here. you have one minute each.

what you need to do is give me your name. i am going to cross off your name. if you did not sign up -- if you do not have one of these signs today, do not bother getting up here, because i will cut you off. if you called in earlier, i have those names also. this would be the group that would be supporting something about the resolutions. right after that, if you have some objection to something in the resolution, or the resolution itself. are you set? you have one minute each. i did not do a very good job with the last group of speakers, cutting people off at the one minute mark. because there are so many of you, i hope you understand i will have to cut you off.

otherwise, we will be here forever. are we ready? here we go. press the button. say your name. go for it. >> my name is chris rosenberg. i want to start by saying thank- you to all the board members. i think you have done a great job of trying to avoid layoffs, which is what we all want. layoffs are bad for all of us, bad for our kids. in the event there have to be layoffs this year, i am in support of skipping the superintendent zone teachers. those are traditionally the schools where we have the highest turnover, the students need the most support the can possibly get. we have spent a lot of time and money with professional development. we are committed to reaching our goals. i would ask you to support this resolution. thank you all for your time.

>> commissioners, superintendent, president yee. i am the proud principle of everett middle school. i support the resolution to keep the teachers in the superintendent's unsafe, so we can keep our promise to equity social justice, keep the consistency, the continuity, the investment, and the momentum to move toward excellence. a lot of time and money has been spent. the right people are on the bus. teachers are there because they want to be. 27 in my school have joined and the remaining half want to stay. they are therefore the right reasons. please support this resolution. >> good evening, members of the board. i am the proud principal of cesar chavez elementary school. i am here to urge you to support the resolution that skips or 70 teachers in the mission school

zone. i am proud to say that as an english lerner, an immigrant, and a latino woman, i am here to lift the spirits of the bulk of these students. and all the investment we have made in the past year and a half are beginning to show some traction. i urge you to support this amazing work we are doing to transform our schools and lift our families to an equitable education. thank you for your time. >> good afternoon, everybody. my name is beatrice warrants. i am the mother of four kids. i have one in cesar chavez. i am here to support the teachers'. a lot of you are interested in my school. you are doing a great job. i think we are spending money on them. i think we should put more effort into keeping the teachers

that we have. i am very helpful. >> good evening. i am a teacher irving. i am speaking on behalf of two parents that had to leave because of the late hour. one parent in particular had a student who was challenging. the transition to can the garden was extremely hard and violent. it was a violent beginning of this school year. because of the dedication of teachers working beyond their powers, the child has successfully transitioned. the have a mission to make sure every student leaves reading. i'm honored to speak on behalf of those teachers. although the lack seniority, they possess all the skills of a tenured teacher. i ask that we keep those teachers on the force. thank you. >> good evening.

my name is donna smith. i am a parent of a student at george washington carver. research has shown that one of the largest negative factors in lower test scores is teacher turnover. the teachers we have chose to be here. other teachers have chosen to leave. don't our children deserve teachers who want to work and be at our school? so many of the students in zone 6 face, or significant environmental challenges. they find our school to be a sanctuary. with so many of our teachers being at risk of layoff, the strong relationships will be destroyed. we have to spend tremendous money on training the staff, because we have to teach a challenge in population. they have made great strides. we will not