we're talking about basically, and the staff in the schools was the issue. many of the teachers that were in the schools were first and second year teachers and so forth. and in looking at the data, i did not look that heavily in terms of first year, said it your teachers, but had a history of looking at this stuff and it has not changed that much. and continues to be that way. the other question i asked myself, when i looked at this, i had to dig through the resolution what impact it would have and so forth, i was not too sure. i read it once. i had to think about it and say, well, is this something we are going to do every year? we're going to say these teachers will be protected every year? when i looked at it, it did not say that, which was a good thing

for me, because this does two things for me. number one, i aretino the schools have very young teachers -- i know these teachers have not been around a long time. and also, i agree, whether it is my own conclusion, whereat have looked at research, where stability brings success to situations. the thing with this, knowing that this is asking for the situation forn one year, i am more inclined to support it. if we have 1-year, 2-your teachers, these same teachers are there the next year, have been there two, three years. i would say that we should look at that carefully next year. whether or not we need to that,

indeed the situation anymore, -- whether we need the situation anymore, because once there is a percentage of the teachers who have been around long enough, then there is an equal playing field. right now, i don't feel like it is an equal playing field when the same schools year after year receive new teachers, going in and out of there. it is a tough decision, no doubt, but my colleagues, and commissioner few were really pointed out, sometimes we have to make these decisions because we are focusing on what is the best thing for our students for the next decades, basically. so i will end it with that. roll call, please? >> we have to have quorum.

president yee: i think all four of them were moved. >> we have to vote on them separately. president yee: which is fine. go ahead. >> ms. fewer? >> yes. [roll call vote] that is 5 ayes. on the second, which is the same date of first paid service -- [roll call vote] that is 5 ayes. reduction of para professional services --

[roll call vote] 5 ayes. and the last, which is the employees in the early education department -- [roll call vote] 5 ayes. president yee: ok. so let's move on. this is going to be item n, discussion of other educational issues. this is the general education transportation update. superintendent garcia? >> i like to call our deputy superintendent. come on down.

president yee: okay, we're going to have to move on. the last item was very tough, but there are quite a few other things we have to talk about, so let's get started. deputy superintendent? >> thank you, president yee, and commissioners. we do have another tough topic to present an update on. i hope it will not seem as sobering as the conversation that you just had, but nonetheless, we feel like we have to present an update on another difficult topic that is predicated and necessary as a

result of our budget situation. so this is an update on the staff working group's recommendation about the reduction of general education and transportation services. i believe all of the commissioners have received a hard copy of the presentation, and we have large. for the commissioners. we have readable print for the committee members. on this presentation, i believe it has already been placed on the district website. let me just continue. i think the commissioners will recognize i am joined by all of my colleagues, and we are members of the staff working group. we are missing an important person, it with the district's

leads team, which is a part of the network of districts, which is in albuquerque, new mexico, on a network meeting, sponsored through stanford. ok, can you do the slide show? >> right here? >> yeah. ok, so we're trying to get a better projection on here, but i will continue, susan, if you don't mind. just to begin, yellow bus service, i hope the commissioners will remember, for general education students attending elementary and middle schools is changing.

this is a continuation of a multi-year phasedown, not phase out, but phase down of general transportation services. second slide? so one thing to set out day up front, students with iep's that require transportation will not be impacted. other things to mention upfront, the transportation changes are all consistent with the board policy guidelines that were established when the board passed a transportation policy in december, 2010, and i will talk about that in a moment. the point is to minimize the use of general fund contributions for transportation, again, necessitated by the state's underfunding of our school district. in december, 2010, the board

passed a transportation policy, 108-24sp1, which is the first modification of the transportation policy since the 1970's. prior to that, there was an accumulation of an incremental changes to a policy that was first established in the 1970's, under what we called the horseshoe plan. as you can imagine, as you well know, commissioners, the transportation policy and how we deliver transportation services is intrinsically tied to, or should be tied to, our student assignment policy. in that process that started more than a year-ago, that also included a lot of discussions at community meetings, multiple stages of development of that policy, including leading up to

the policy discussions, the board's consideration of the policy, and the implementation and rollout of the first year of cuts. the board policy itself had these principles. one was to support choice in student assignment as a tactic for creating diversity, for creating diversity, to provide it reasonable access to english learners and newcomer pathways. that is census tract integration process, within the city, which has the lowest 20%, the lowest quintile of student'' academic performance. to provide access from those parts of the city to k-8 schools and immersion schools. and in isolated cases where their attendance area schools that cannot be reasonably access, without the yellow school bus, for residents of the

attendance area, that was another consideration about access. another bowl was to support middle school feeder pattern, which was central to the board's incentive policy, and then to provide limited services to after-school programs if feasible and necessary to support the district's vision. so in february 2011, about a year ago, there was a three-year implementation plan, and that was based on community input, board policy, and budget. so three different sets of considerations that was developed to implement the first stage of reductions, the first of three faces of reductions to the general said transportation services. in terms of communication, there were multilingual, frequently asked question documents and feedback forms.

the feedback was received by the transportation working group, the staff team. as the commissioners may remember, there have been time to time conversations about budget constraints for transportation. we did a fairly thorough review of, exploration of the possibility of charging fees, which some districts have done. we have concluded that was not feasible, in essence, for these reasons. one is that state law prevents school districts -- not that we would want to do this anyway, but we are not permit it to collect fees from students who are low income. and in our situation, that would be more and more the focus of the clientele that would receive transportation services. there is also a cap on the fees that the district can charge. if we charged fees within that cap, we would likely not cover the cost.

there is also a significant administrative cost developing that fee service model, to develop and keep staffing, a structure to assign the fees, send out information about the fees, collect fees, etc. all of that said, we did not think that was a real solution to the budget issues with transportation. in august of 2011, the beginning of the school year, the first round of cuts to general education transportation services took effect. 11 schools lost general education transportation services. you see them listed. in addition to those 11 schools, for schools experienced a reduction in general education transportation services, and you see those schools as well. compared with last year, 2010- 2011, where we had 44 school buses serving five middle

schools, 3658 students, in the current school year we have 38 school buses serving 47 kilometers schools, five the schools, and slightly over 2700 students. we have already implemented a reduction of general education transportation services, and this is consistent with the plan that the board was briefed on, approved, and was part of the board policy discussion. in the current year, 2011-2012, this is a breakdown of the funding sources that support general education transportation. there is a state categorical at least for this year that is providing $2.4 million, and in addition to that, between the consent decree -- sorry, but targeted block grant and the general funds, together, that

represents about $640,000. the reason why they are put together, from the state's perspective, and the permissiveness perspective, that is a tier 3 funding and is flexible. so in some ways, in terms of policy calls, the state permits the funds but to be used for other purposes. dcyf field trips does not provide any additional school buses, but it does allow the school buses to provide it field. support to the elementary schools, and that is title 1. that is 2.4 million of us, and that language in there is describing the current provisions of no shot left behind, which set -- no child left behind, which set aside 20% of tidal 1 funds to be used for

transportation or supplemental services, tutoring. so the cost, $5.6 million, dividded by the 2700 riders,. this slide shows the projection for 2011-2012, the numbers i just went through, and also looking ahead to 2012, 2013, showing the staff's recommendations about the next round of reductions. and this, i should say, is an acceleration of the reductions compared to what we have contemplated previously. we were originally a originally a -- we were originally talking about a three-year production, down to 25 school buses, which

represented here shows we have reduces down to 38 buses in 2011-2012, but due to the increasing severity of the budget problem, we are recommending that we go to the 25 school buses next year. then that level would be maintained until further notice for the following year. that would be a reduction of $1.8 million next year. in terms of the specific schools that would be maintained, you see the list of schools. but each group, there is the policy guideline that is linked to the rationale for maintaining services to those schools. with respect to the hour and a discussion that has already taken place tonight, i will not go through all of these are less

anybody has questions. also in february, 2011, there were schools identified that would lose by the end of the third year that would not have general education transportation services, and these are they. i should note this list is subject to change. we're looking at the impact analysis. not that we are comfortable on all respects of continuing to recommend reductions, but we don't think there are surprises in terms of the impact, but we are still finalizing that analysis. we want to finish that over the next two weeks, and then roll out the information. this is another representation. it is hard to see on the handout, but it is a color coded representation of schools that have already lost services, that would continue to receive

services, and the schools that have services this year but would lose services beginning next year. the timeline is in early march, we want to finalize curbside stops and a lot materials. this has begun, but we want to develop materials to engage and inform families. mid march and april, share information and get their feedback. april and may, follow the feedback, and a request for service process. that basically refers to an effort on our part, the transportation department's part, unlike what we have had in place for a long time, to have student-level information in the form of requests that are submitted by every family that is seeking to have transportation for the routes that are maintained. that would be on a request basis, and that is different than what we have had so far.

with respect to the middle schools, there have been some developments this year. in november, 2011, we shared information about middle school services next year. this is consistent with our intent to support the middle school feeder pattern spread that -- middle school feeder patterns, hoover from monroe. you may or may not recall, but this is based on a number of criteria about the distance from the elementary schools to the middle schools which they feed, whether there are at least two transfers that would be required by muni, how long it would take a student to make that trip by muni, etc. in march, we intend to share

route-specific information, and then redesign existing services and add services to marina. in mid march, with the elementary schools, we will issue a memo to principles explaining the rationale, all of the school principals that stand to be affected have received information, but not real recently about this overall plan. like i said before, we would develop multilingual materials for families, including a letter, out faq's, a feedback reform, and information about alternatives to the yellow bus. we will engage a family input process, and we will be in close communication with our non- sfusd school providers that may

be impacted. >> deputy superintendent, thank you very much for this presentation. i have a couple of questions. one is i think i would like to see the numbers of riders on buses for elementary schools. also, are you sure you have an accurate number of students or actually writing the school buses to the schools? i have heard there are some discrepancies about it. i want to ensure we have an accurate number of that. also, you are talking about finalizing this in march, is that correct? so would it be possible at all, deputy superintendent, to postpone that or lay thin to may be approving does not in march, but is there anything to prevent

it -- approving it in april or may? or is there a specific time line? the deputy director may have a comment on that, i don't know. i just think that i'd like to have a discussion may be with you about this, and also look at -- ok, i'll be frank, i am concerned that maybe we have some schools with one student or two students, and i am wondering if these patterns if we still will or we want. but these elementary schools been served, i want to see how many students are on each school bus, that kind of thing. i just thought maybe we would be

really busy during the next month or so, if we could do this, maybe push it back to april? or is date -- or is there is specific reason for the time line? >> let me go back a couple of slides, to hopefully provide a little reassurance. i did not think our plans are totally out of whack with what you are suggesting, commissioner fewer. in our time line, in the next two weeks, we are intending to basically finalize brought-level and staff-level information, and disseminate information to engage and inform families. between mid march and april -- sorry, i am referring to page 14. between mid march and april, we would be collecting feedback, gathering feedback. i should say that in our

thinking, this would not be to necessarily test whether our thinking is sound, because i think it is a little firmer than that, the need to make budget reductions. but if there is something we have missed, if there are some information that has really been a blind spot for us, that is the time and process that would help us identify that. and the april/may time frame, we would basically finalize the routes. so it is a little bit of both. but we do intend to disseminate information and march. that is the plan, unless the board but like to give a different direction. then we will certainly adapt. but part of what is at stake is that we have an interest in being clear with all of the families that currently utilize transportation services about

what will happen or is likely to happen this fall, so they have time to make their plans and adjustments as appropriate. commissioner fewer: part of my consideration, before we announce this to parents, looking at alternate muni. it would be great to be able to say, you know what, we are eliminating transportation. i think it would soften it a little bit for those parents who depend on this. we know that muni is expensive for most of our families, especially those with him multiple children a. i was thinking of that, but this looks good. you are looking at april and may to finalize. thank you. >> to address the question of the numbers of students on each bus, we do have that

information by school site and we can multiplied that to all of the board members. the methodology is it is basically an occasional cow that is updated, a snapshot that is updated. we do not have in place, at this time, a swipe card that allows us to know if students have actually ridden the bus. that is something we are exploring. the methodology we rely on right now is occasional snapshots of the counts. just to continue and we will wrap up our part.

in terms of options for family input, we have a couple of different options in mind for families to identify and give us information. one is through the principles and site managers and the other is through the transportation department directly. if they provide information and feedback to the principle and site managers, our administrators could also confirm that affirmation to the transportation department or the executive director's. ultimately, all of that information will get to this team plus orla, the project lead. it will be collected, compiled, synthesize. the alternative to the yellow bus