classes. so i really thank them for having me part of their program. thank you. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. thank you so much for this opportunity. i hate speaking after her. and peer resources, you have done it on your own and incredible support for hundreds and hundreds of students at mission school. you want to talk about joyful learning, go into a peer resources class as you did the other day and see the students learning and how to advocate for themselves and talk about health and learning how to be advocates for their community. there is so much impact that peer resources had at mission high school, from little things like make a friend day, which is

an anti-violence day and walk around and trying to get to know other kids or the peer resources where they created plays and stories they presented to the community. at mission, we have the phenomenal mytv program and go to our resource web site and they talk about what is going on in the community and the school. when carlos santana visited, they helped me interview him and help me connect and make the deep connection between his presence and thinking about going to college and success important our students. peer resources is a place where students find their voice, find their passion and find their vision which helps carry them on in the future and i'm thrilled we have peer resources at mission high school. thank you.

>> i'm going to focus on one program of the program and i will stick some amazing data. i'm most proud of our site's commitment to the commitment of discipline practices, of which the peer resources program plays a significant role. so last year we were able to cut our school suspension rate by more than half over the previous two years going from 106 suspensions in 2009-2010 school year to only 45. and that is a school of over 2000 students. peer resources have been key in these efforts. just this fall semester we had 40-led student remediations and

they provide a meaningful consequence that addresses the issues around the conflict. we average about 40 mediations per semester. and you know, it's interesting, students are involved, but parents have been involved and even teachers. we have had mediations between teachers and students at lincoln high school. for me peer resources represents exactly the type of program that our students need to feel that they have a voice that is heard in school and respected and have a positive influence in their school community. >> i'm a senior at lincoln and conflict manager. last week there was a fight on campus between two boys that i had got between to i had broke it up like probably a couple months ago, i probably wouldn't

have done that. i would have been watching or one of the people in the fight. [laughter] >> peer resources had helped me grow like, because before, i don't know like -- i had problems and i used to feel and used to be in a program that i used to be in trouble and get mad and morgan would say you can't be doing that if you are in the peer resources program and i would say take me out. take me out. but they kept me in the program and bagely worked with me and helped me become a better person and a role model.

>> i was ditching class and didn't want to be in spanish and involved in support groups through peer resources and strategies for success program and my senior year i was on the other side of the table and i was a mentor and peer educator and i was the positive influence. i was a role model and i decided to go into this as a career and i'm glad that i did. it's amazing. i have an amazing job and i think one of the things i have learned most in peer resources was communication skills and information and the ability to talk to others my own age or adults like she mentioned about things like domestic violence, sex, suicide, racism, sexism, social justice, bullying, things

that you know about as a teen but don't know how they are called and don't know how to talk to other people about them. when a teammate of mine, one of the captains of the football team killed himself in high school, peer resources was a place i could go to where i had support and talk to support, where i could learn to talk to other people about this and this is before wellness septemberers were around and peer resources was the place. at lincoln, i get incredible things, horrible things and wonderful things, but mostly, i feel confident that i have the skills now as a teacher, peer resources teacher because i was a part of the program and because i benefited from it. i'm happy to be back as a teacher, fourth year at lincoln high school and glad to have wonderful students as well.

>> i supported in creating united players with my facilitation skills in the 1994 riots. so i believe that schools are here to give you options and peer resources has given me many of them. my first job was cleaning bathrooms as a high school student for a dentist office and i remember being 19 years old and being able to tell my mom

that i didn't have to do that. that i could get paid to facilitate work shops and facilitate retreats. i was getting paid to speak at stanford university doing star trainings and peer resources literally gave my mom the hopes that she wanted for us at such ar young age.

>> and i really believe in peer resources. i've never once not felt like it was part of any family and today being able to come out and know everybody and feel the connection that everybody has, i feel like, it is a very special part of san francisco unified school district and i really appreciate that you guys took the time to listen to us. so thank you. >> morgan, i met morgan when he was a freshman and i had my eyes on him then that i hoped someday he would become a teacher and i feel blessed and lucky he is a

peer resource teacher. one wanted to be here but could not and she is a graduate from 2003 and now a journalist for a magazine and writes, it's not possible to -- impossible to restate this. i was lonely and drifting and peer resources gave me real social support and outlet for my creativity and way to channel the energy to better my school community. it was this positive feedback group. the more avenues it gave me to build a strong community of friends and other peer leaders and more that i could see that it was helping others, the stronger and happier that became. i learned that participating in my community and advocating for others was a way of empowering myself and i trusted my voice. to this day, i think of about how i can get more peer

resources in my life. i treasure how excited peer resources makes me feel. it's something i carry around with me always. thank you. >> really that's it for us and thank you for having us especially at the end of this long night. we encourage you to come visit your school sites and ask commissioner maufas. she has done six and seven more to go. reflections on relevant teaching practices at o'connell, please come out. thank you for your support. president yee: thank you, commissioners. questions. >> could you name the school? >> i have the list on the

attachment. >> commissioner wynns: i give a little history. you know, i -- and we talked about the funding model and what's good about it and what makes it a little weak in some places. and made some reference to a time when we actually were part of sponsoring a bill in the legislature that would have funded peer resources, not everywhere but made funding available and actually we wrote it for us, because we thought that conditions that existed in schools in peer resources in san francisco, like full-time teachers and having a class which you got credit and other things, you would get state

funds if you had some of these things unlike an after-school program. sadly, it was when that bill was hijacked by the legislature after columbine to turn into funding that was available to everybody. they used it as a funding mechanism and used by most schools and we were grilled at the time, why didn't you use it to buy metal detectors? we said we believe in human relationships is the best way to make a safe environment for students. i would like to have a peer resource program in every high school and middle schools. but it's the strategies we use and the issue about students being such an enormous resource

that we should be talking more about. and even though i have been kind of critical for the we just fund it with p-15 and we have cut back and schools have cut back. but you know, i have been thinking about it, that it's still an isolated program, not integrated enough and that is what i would hope we would talk about. i would like to see more of these kinds of efforts going on in more schools. but i think we need to talk about not just like we need a peer resource program and it might look like that in the end and don't talk about that or say what are the effective strategies that we have seen, how can we integrate them into our programs? what's the purpose? what's the effectiveness? i hope as we continue to do our re-examination of our planning

processes, what our district plan looks like, what our goalsr that we would talk more about this. and i would like us to stop thinking about peer as a program that some people like or have and have it part of our integral work. never to give up an opportunity and his real claim to fame is that his brother sat in this chair for a couple of years. so for this board just so you all know him actually or his family, actually, i've known him for many years and i'm honored to know him. >> commissioner murase. >> it's clearly a very valuable program. at the end of the last school year over the summer, we got an amazing report about the number of suspensions and ex-pummings

and a significant decline. so it would be great to see to see if those are the schools with peer resources and the kind of impact it has. secondly, thank you for focusing on impact. we are gathering stories to support it and i would join commissioner wynns in trying to find institutional ways to make sure that all students have access to have very valuable program. finally, i just wanted to ask that if the skills that are being taught, acquired by the students are hard skills, marketable skills? and whether the peer resources, staff and students are connected to real life careers because there are a number of really great institutions in san francisco where retired judges ingauge in alternate

skills to see people using those skills every day in their career. >> thank you, president yee. i just want to quickly tell the board members that after talking with su because i totally value what peer resources is doing for our students and i see it all the time and just the level of -- of discussion and ability to communication intellectually and communicate emotions in an intellectual way and not that that's the best way but sometimes it's needed when you're in a hurry and you need to translate ideas, by the students it's mind-blowing. even just listening to so many kids every single day, i get just a different level of discourse and i'm just amazed

and proud. i can say that i am proud. these students are reflections of sfusd and go out into the community. and i have heard you speak elsewhere. i am a living witness an i can attest to your abilities of being able to communicate, what's going on with you and so many adults desperately want that but don't even know how to articulate i need you to communicate with me so i understand. sorry it's selfish but i only have so much band witt and for some reason i can't hear a young person the way i should. peer resources students and mentors and jump start with all the different categories that students are in can translate for adults and we get it. and that's what i really value because so many students are out here in the adult world and stressed and to be able to have

communication by a young person about the really important things is amazing. we have two fine examples of principals how the resource has benefited the entire school community. and i have seen it at both schools. i think it's it early amazing and it's not just the students and it draws other teacher and students into the peer resources sort of family at the school and it's sort of like another level of school community that's happening. an it's facilitated by the peer resources program. again, i self-ishly posted some of the visit on fastebook. -- facebook. i thought all of the community there was utterly fantastic. i have to note myself watch mytv from mission high school. is there like a specific

address besides my tv. where can they go? >> missionhs.org. the new episode is always up front. and all the others are archived. although we keep a special place for the carlos santana visit. >> and the day i was chastising you about being sick, i had come from mission high school. and i was so scared that touching my board colleagues would be near them. i had got all of that from mission high school students. it taught me how easily we could pass the flu through germs and door han ls. they were enengaged in that. they were writing the music. it was great. i am so excited not to say this one more thing. i went to james lech middle

school yesterday and was blown away by an activity that i have completely been ignoring as an adult. any time i pull up my browser it pulse up to c.n.a. and i've been looking at this name, joseph cuney. but when i was at james middle school, that class watched a video. and the video portrayed very clearly the atrocities that have been facilitated by this monster of a person. and i have to tell you there was a little bit of chatter at the beginning of the video but when it came to the moment where the person speaking said and this is what you can do -- you can hear a pin drop. the room was silent and all of those students, eyes were glued to the front. so were mine. but i just wanted to check because it was so quiet.

and everyone was waiting to hear what can i do as an individual to change this for the rest of the world. and i tried to get back there today to see what they were going to do but unfortunately, i got on the free throwway which was a huge mistake and i just stayed there. but i definitely want to go back and visit because i want to hear what they're going to do. and they were so engaged. and that was in middle school. so we're starting this at middle school and it's showing such impact about students. i am one single student and i can make a difference. that matters. that matters. and when we can empower students to know that and embrace it and understand it on an every day basis, we have got to figure out, how and where and when we can find money. and that's really the premise of why i wanted to visit every single peer resources program. so when i go to people and they ask me what do i care about

besides teachers being laid off and what we can do about that, i keer cairo about that peer resources program and what it's doing for our students an please help me fund that. please direct your money to help sfusd continue to fund that at every single school because if i can see it in high schools working and at middle schools working, why isn't it in our elementary schools? it's a no-brainer. why aren't we doing that? and that's just a capacity building effort that we have to take on. so that's why i'm visiting every single program so i can talk intelligently about the program and what i've seen and tim packet that it is having on our students. so i appreciate just the discussion about what can we do to institutionalize this program in all of our schools. and i deaf anyly want to take it -- definitely want to take it to elementary schools because it helps kids understand what to do when they don't know what to do.

that was amazing. thank you. >> commissioner mendoza? commissioner mendoza: thank you. i just want to say thank you and congratulate you for keeping this up. i know the city has funded it in the past. i don't know if we continue to do that but i'm just -- as a parent who has kids at james lincoln, i see the benefits just on a personal level. you know, i've had mr. conversations with you about students at other schools and how you handle things and pure -- peer resources is always the resource of advice to me. so i know what you guys are doing in our schools is really making a huge difference. my daughter is a little bit of an introvert is at a large school. came from a school that has 500. she had three friends. and this year she has five.

that's how she rolls. at a parent you're concerned that that's not how she should be rolling. i remember a time when there were a lot of suicides happening unfortunately, in many of our high schools, both in our public and private schools. she was telling me about this presentation that she had to do on suicides and the kind of permanent solution to a temporary problem and i thought that was one of the most profound things i'd ever heard and that's kind of how she approached this whole thing and had to do a presentation for the first time in front of a large group and it was just remarkable to see the command that she had on the group because it was a very intense conversation amongst a group of kids where this was actually affecting them very personally and it was a couple of times.

and so thank you for that. i know that many of our opportunities are really seeing and feeling and learning from the impact that you have. and i know at james lech, also our kids are a great bunch of kids. but i tell you the advice does come from each other and really from the young adults that they trust. and i think that just makes a huge difference. so thank you. >> vice president norton? vice president norton: so i want to ditto everybody. it's a really wonderful program. i told the story before. i told it to you. thank you for tall work you're doing. one of the greatest -- my greatest peer resources story is when i came on to the mission website one day and saw this wonderful interview that

peer resources students had done with students in your assisted communication class there. it was really great because you hear our students with profound disabilities had profound disability handicaps and are not, are using all sorts of devices to help them communicate. and the whole video was about how the -- the special education students and the noneducational students found a way to communicate together. and this was really cool. he can play music on his box that he has on his wheelchair. it was a way of introducing the students to their classmates at mission in a very kind of equalizing way. and i really appreciated that. my thought that that was such a -- a great -- a great use of the program and in a great way. it's such a service to both sets of students because now they saw each other as friends

instead of these students are different from these students. so thank you for all the work in the program. i really appreciate it. commissioner wynns and i were talking about wouldn't it be great if we could figure out how to fund this at every school because it is such a great, great program. i don't know. can we put that on the list for a grant write tore do? -- writer to do? >> commissioner fewer? commissioner fewer: i want to thank you for your presentations. i was on the peace committee for years. worked really closely with the family with peer resources, saw the data. i think it is a very well-loved program in our district. it is a wonderful gift to our students. and so, i conquer with all my colleagues about how do we get

stable funding for it. yeah, i would love to see -- i think it was sort of -- it was a very hard decision to say, should we take some of our violence prevention money. a lot of that money that i know was used at school sights to actually help fund pure resources, or should we put that money into something systemic that might change the culture of discipline that we have in a district. both really needed. both would impact severely the use that we're really trying to target, you know? i think it was a very hard decision to do. in hindsight i think we did the right thing. but i think our commitment then should try to be to find the funding somewhere else to fund you at the same level that you were at before. i love that you're in middle school. i love that the work is starting earlier. i think this is such a lifelong skill that students learn to -- and can bring into