so what assurance would you give us? the new teachers -- are they going to be qualified are professionally trained to work with our students? i have heard so many meetings about achievement gap, and talking about the civil-rights problem. this is a problem we can solve. please do not lay out our teachers. thank you very much. >> i have three grandchildren ago to carver and elementary. i am not just talking for myself. i have heard parents say there has been a great academic growth in the school. if you take our teachers away from the school, our children have to go through another transformation. we know what kind of transformation and went through last year. thank you.

>> good evening. my name is ray mendoza. my son is a senior at high school. he has always struggled in grades. but there is now a kind of magic. all of a sudden, he has been on honor roll. he has done good. he went there as a junior, and he kind of guru. they want to get familiar with the teachers. especially the parents, they want to see this consistency in our school system. i have been to a lot of pta meetings. it is like a close-knit family. i just want to make sure we keep our teachers where they are right now. last, i want to say it is the place to be. thank you.

>> what was your name? >> dr. gomez is our principal. my name is rain mendoza. thank you. >> good evening. i am actually a parent from john o'connell high school. my kid is a junior. he has a 4.0. i am very proud of this school. i am actually supporting all of what they are doing. it is remarkable in transformation. with three years of being in the school, it made my son very, very academically -- very actually good. just to let you guys know, we would love to keep our teachers

as much as we can. have them come back to all the teachers that have been there for so long. thank you. this is the place to be. >> hello, board. and you for having me here again. i just wanted to start off by saying there were three parents that had to leave. the student that took off running was probably one of our students. he cried leaving the board meeting, because he wanted to stay. just to start off, i know with hydra, we are looking at the same kind of thing. the big thing showing success with african-american students is having stability with the adults, earning trust, training teachers to better assist and

help the students that really need it. right now in san francisco, the api is 7.96, which is great. in the nation's own schools, i do not know if any of them are above 700. we are looking at becoming good to great in the superintendent zone schools. this is where we need your support, especially in these communities that have low ratings. if you are ever in the area, please come see what we are doing. our staff is fully committed. the had the opportunity to leave, but they stayed because they wanted to be at o'connell. thank you very much. >> good evening, members of the board. my name is maria. i am the principal of buena vista, and immersion spanish school. i am here to ask for support for

our teachers to stay. i think that the merger created a special condition for our students, mitigated only by the fact that the teachers that were there for buena vista last year and that were there for horace mann were returned to the site. that created that stability for our students. again, begging for continuity. i believe the 28 points earned last year on the api are because of that. as we strive to create a model dual immersion school in the nation, because that is what we are striving for, we need to keep our teachers as they are. the specialty of our program demands that we have that continuity, as teachers collaborate to insure construction for all students. thank you.

>> good evening. i am the supervisor of professional learning. i am going to talk quickly about the adult practices of professional learning that is happening, what roger calls the special training to meet the needs of students. we have put in place a robust system of professional support for teachers. it is based on the best practices of professional learning. it takes place on site. it is collaborative. it fosters collegiality and leadership. i know you have gotten a list of some of the professional learning that happened. to make it real, i am going to list it. there is english now, read 180, constructing meetings. these are professional meetings to support english-language learners. there are mathematical

instruction guides, focused on core curriculums. the list goes on. in order to continue the growth and development of the teachers within the zone, we need to have them there. thank you. >> i am jennifer bird, from everett. i am here to support the resolution not to give pink slips to the teachers in the superintendent's school zone. let us stick with what we are trying to do and continue. thank you. >> good evening. i am the program administrator for mathematics in the superintendent zone mission district. i am here to ask your support for this resolution, as well as to share a little bit about the specific support we have given our teachers in terms of

professional learning, so they can deliver more effective mathematics instruction. because we have dedicated and equitable support for some of our neediest kids in the district, our math coaches, our acceleration teachers, have been able to provide not only professional learning for their schools, but we have also been a leader in the district for some of the district priorities. especially i would like to highlight the core curriculum work. we piloted the instruction guide. we continue to analyze the data to inform and monitor progress. one thing i am especially proud of is our work with performance assessments, which is forward looking for common core standards. i would like to see that continue. thank you. >> [speaking spanish]

>> i represent bryan school. >> [speaking spanish] >> last year, we can to ask you for growth for our school academically, and also for the general community. now that we are a model school, we come to find out some of those committed to our schools are going to be moved.

we are here to ask you a question. one of the pillars of teaching in san francisco is what we do to improve continuous education. we would like you to explain to our students where the killer is of the broken promises. to the professionals in education, they can tell you that to get it right the first time is one of the most important things to get things right in the 21st century. so i asked you that in regards to our school to look for

another strategic plan to help for school. thank you all. please help us. >> [speaking spanish] >> good evening. my name is maria gomez, and i come for bryan schools. i am here to tell you just as my partner did that i do not agree with what we are doing. i am asking you to maybe look for other strategies.

we have great schools, great teachers at the schools, academically and also as people. i am here to tell you to please take us into account, and please take into account our children. that is why we are here. we hope that the fact we are here is taken into account. we just hope we can get a positive answer. he is my son. he says he wants to say something. >> we do not want to lose

teachers, because they are so nice to us and the respect us. >> [speaking spanish] >> thank you for being kind and listening to us. please, they are our future. at least think about it. >> good evening, president, superintendent, and board. those are my family's. i feel proud to stand in front of you, saying that it is time to be bold. i'll say it again. it is time to be bold. it is time to be bold, to really keep these promises to our families. they so deserve it. i am here to really advocate to keep the zone teachers, and to really keep an integral to our community, to the relationships

that have built with each other, with ourselves, and with their families. like i say, this is about being innovative, but it is also about being bold and courageous. i ask that you really stand for the voices that had to leave because the could not stay late, and the voices of the 240 children and families i represent at brian elementary school. >> i am the new principal at bret harte, and want to speak on behalf of excluding the zone. i cannot be more eloquent than superintendent garcia about the difficulty of creating stomach long-term change in a constant state of transition. we were working on the budget and thinking about what we were going to do for professional development, planning the budget for that. one of my leadership team

members said, "do we also have to budget for the five new teachers who did not get the professional development we had last year? there was a pause. will they be here next year? what are we investing index it is very difficult to produce systemic change in a constant state of flux. the other thing we talk about a lot is doing our students through a trauma lands, because there is so much trauma. there is so much inconsistency in transition in their homes. one of the best things we can do to recognize the goal of equity and social justice is to recognize that in our schools. thank you. >> good evening. i work with mission schools. i work in professional development.

i'm one to talk about the framework of what we are doing. it is a process. it truly is a process. many of our teachers are already in the second step. just taking them out of the schools would take that away. also, i just want to tell you a quote i just read in one of the books. it is not educational. in god we trust. everything else, i need data. look at our data, please. that will tell you the story from our schools. thank you. >> thank you, board, for allowing me the opportunity to come up and speak. i want to thank dr. gray and superintendent garcia, and the

deputy superintendent. i am so pleased that the first year administrator came to see you on behalf of the students and superintendent zone. just to have that courageous leadership -- you can easily just go with the flow. i appreciate you standing up for our kids. i think in order to break the cycle of policy and poor performance in our schools that effective research has shown the following to be essential for positive transformation, and to resurrect schools in the superintendent zone. i have heard a lot about that tonight. just thinking about leadership and the approach to leadership, in terms of putting a distributed leadership and not going from the top down, but from the bottom down, including our community, that is essential.

the goes into our community ties. this community is hurting. there is a lot of healing that is taking place that cannot be measured in numbers. >> that was principal more. i represent the common leaders who could not be here because of fiscal side council meeting where there were deciding how to engage their community in this conversation. two things you should know about carver. last year, carter had a new principle come in, after having come to the board to ask for an investigation of a principle that was hired because of the sig implementation process. one of the things that was the hardest to witness for the school to decide was which

teacher was going to leave. 65% of the teachers at harvard left last year. teachers said goodbye to students at the end of the year that they have had relationships with for five or seven years before. if you do tonight vote to not skip these teachers, how are you going to explain this to the communities you have told to trust you? you continually say you are going to keep your promises. tonight, if you do not skip these teachers, you will be breaking their promise at the worst possible time for these schools. >> good evening, board members and superintendent garcia. three key pieces -- equity is not equality. equality is from equity.

start with that concept. flynn elementary school, for the last 10 years, and all of you know that, has gone to every two years they have a new principle besides every new year. i have the numbers. then turn around. principles turned over. my first year, i had to hire 15 teachers. i have the data about that. out of those teachers that i had, this year i had to hire five teachers. those teachers went through professional development during the summer, during the fiscal year. who is going to fund the training? how are we going to make sure our african american kids and latino kids are going to get the

quality of education they need, if we are turning over teachers every single year? it gives you a point to think about. president yee: thank you for that group, in terms of keeping close to the time. let us bring up the other group that may have some objections to any of these resolutions. if you are here, come on up, please. i will keep close tabs of the time. anytime you want to get started. >> i teach at alvarado elementary school. i am totally in support of protecting schools in need. i support the effort the board has made.

i teach at schools not in the zone. we are a hard-to-that zone. as superintendent garcia mentioned, we have been on that list as far as we have been at the school. we have been in improvement longer than i have been at the school. we have been hit hard by layoffs every year i have been at the school. we serve schools in visitation valley, in a historical and underserved community. our teachers want to be at eldorado. they receive specialized training, including $45,000 of teacher training at columbia university. we also host the only san francisco teaching residency program in elementary schools. we think that schools in the desert protection. to put struggling schools against each other to fight for

crumbs is not a positive resolution for our district. i ask you to support all schools in need, not just the ones labeled in the zone. that is not equitable. i have a letter i would like to submit that shows we are in need of protection for our teachers. >> i am carolyn samoa, the vice president of paraprofessionals at the elementary and middle school. very soon, you are going to lay off paraprofessionals, and reduced hours, for a total of 249. i urge you to vote down the resolution. i am here to bring your

attention to how these layoffs are going to affect not only those who will be laid off, but the students at the schools their work at. if you go through this resolution, including the language, for many of our students, english is a second language. paraprofessionals are often the only people at the school who speak the home language to the students and their parents. if you go through the layoffs, there would be only three left. they are doing amazing work every day, and are successfully turning around the truancy rate in the district. you are also considering waiving out parents who work in the state free k -- pre -k,

unsettling state ratios. you are also considering cutting student adviser parents. finally, with the expansion of exclusive practices and ever- increasing students with needs in the special education students, you are considering for the first time cutting hours of special education parents. who will support the students? paraprofessionals are a vital part of our school communities. please think long and hard before you vote on this resolution. you do not have to do this. >> good evening. president, i am going to ask for

two minutes. there are only a few of us here to speak on this side of the question. president yee: granted. >> superintendent garcia has delivered a message that we would get through this. he has asked us to stick together. he has stated the layoff procedures are directed by the state. but the resolution that has been presented tonight uses the fiscal crisis to pick school against school, community against community. it is a frontal attack against seniority. it is a violation of the district goal of access and equity to make social justice a reality. it is an attack on labor. we are the ones who do the work in the school. it is an attack on unions. we do not expect this type of divide and conquer tactic in san francisco. the union and the district have worked together.

we have sent several contracts together. we have gone together to the voters for parcel tax, for bond issues, for set asides. the district should focus on doing the right thing for all of the students in san francisco. do not foster division and animosity in the district. it is not going to serve the schools, the district, or our community. i hope you will consider that when you have to vote for this very destructive resolution. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the board, the audience, and president yee. if you can give her two minutes, how many do i get? layoffs are one thing. we go through them fairly often. sometimes, they are inevitable. you have your hired gun over

here, and john e. -- john yee. he will do it. skipping schools is flat-out wrong. i represent every one of those teachers. the teachers who will be skipped and those who will not be skipped. we are not asking for special favors. we are asking for equality for all of those people and justice for all of those. four board members to do it is wrong. proposing it is wrong. it makes the proponent no better than our need duncan -- arnie duncan, and the winners and losers this administration says it despises. stability in the zones is not achieved by the stabilizing other schools. professional development in these tunes -- zones is

lessened when it is not available for the others. when you to social justice for some, you choose social justice for non-. to rely on benchmark tests, which you have heard referred to as "data," which have not been validated, is indefensible and is not even smart. the principal who stood here and told you he had to hire 15 teachers and then five teachers -- those were not because of layoffs. he admitted those were not because of layoffs. so do not operate on false assumptions. the orchestrated show of support you are able to put together tonight is reminiscent of the failed superintendent who went to philadelphia. you had principles here from all the schools, right? nice job.