teachers and parents, the layoff notices that are going to be issued, can be a severe compliance issue. we know that the states have regulations of student-teacher ratios. i also want to comment on what was made regarding t.k. it does not denote quality. i invite all who are interested to come and witnessed real education in progress at our school and other gave you schools in. -- other bayview schools. [applause] >> i might go over the two minutes but it is not out of disrespect.

sandra, rachel, heidi, kim, norman, you have been at my school. i had to take a moment. we have to keep our promises to students and families. some of you are my colleagues, some of you are my friends. some of you i just passed by or see on the website or on tv. these three goals, theory versus

practice, with service versus implementation, and high was one of the students -- i was one of the students that those kids in mlk and the zonews ignored. i was one of the students who fought in school and got kicked out. my mom told me that education can never be taken away. i loved what you said. i am not a politician and eight -- but a parent and a grandmother. that is what you said. one teacher, i remember him. he touched my heart. in middle school, i slept in his class. he took a ruler and slammed it

on the desk. "with yourself up because education is too important." i was a failing student. i raised my grade to a d from an f. to this day, i love history because of him. one book, now i apply it. you know what? i was very skeptical. my education was organizing.

>> hold on a second. so, i'm, trying to do some flexibility, but i really need us to keep to the time limit as much as possible. >> how can an english teacher be wordy? i hate to do this, but i brought

you some gata. the class sizes are significantly larger. the dollars we spend per student are at least, at least, $1600 lower than spent in the zone schools. in the three-zone high schools combined, there are 1,556 e.d.y. students. at galileo there are 1393 students. skipping seniority replace instability at the zone with unacceptable instability elsewhere. our contract with you is not the way to fix this. all right, one last comment.

if you don't reverse your opinion, congratulations on winning the unconditional, the unconditional support and congratulations of michelle. [applause] >> she gave it to you publicly and it's all over. >> shame on you! shame on you! shame on you! shame on you! shame on you! >> i'm a teacher at the early education school for the last 15 years. i want to particularly thank ms. maufas when your truth was not

favored by others. when it is ok to protect the teachers in the zone and i happen to be a teacher in the zone. so i applaud you for your bravery. secondly, i would like to speak to -- as a teacher in the early education school, the proposal to address the budget dilemma by cutting over 200 educators, para professionals and teachers would greatly compromise our program and put it out of compliance as well as the teachers our students will once again be subject to turnover. in the last 15 years that i have been there, there has been constant turnover. and that makes me sad. not only does that make me sad, but it also it belies the truth -- your statement that you are in the best interest of the child. that you make decisions based

upon that. that is incongruent according to your actions. last year, i lost an innovative, intelligent creative paraprofessional and chose not to wait around until the layoff notice was rescinded. i'm forced to provide the same level of education without that intelligent, creative, innovative paraprofessional. i ask you to make cuts as far away from the classroom as you can. be as creative as you can. i know you can do it, because again, according to you, we are making decisions in the best interests of our students. thank you. [applause]

>> good evening board members. i'm julie travis. i'm at chavez school. we are funded by state. also we have funds that we are using to staff our schools. but i really want to speak up for those people that are not in the zone. and i have been at this school district for eight years -- well as a parafor three years and teacher for eight years. seniority is seniority no matter what. i have never received a layoff thank goodness. i'm always in the protected ranks and happen to be at a zone school where my colleagues are going to be protected but what

happens to the people that are not in the zone school? they are working just as hard with the same demographics as we are. but the last thing i want to say, what happens when the money runs out? what is the plan? what is the plan? [applause] >> good evening, my name is susan kitchell and i'm a school nurse. i have worked at schools that are in and out of the zone. i can tell you from my experience at my my district high schools too many of my students come to school hungry, poorly clothed, without supervision and mental and physical health needs. these students attend schools and come from all our neighborhoods. their needs are not

geographically determined. it creates further inequities and destabilization. they need equal support in all our schools. [applause] >> good evening. i'm a teacher at a community school. i have been a para and this saturday is my 20th anniversary working for the school district and i'm happy to be here. tenderloin community school, community is our middle name and it extends beyond our school walls, into our neighborhood and throughout our school. and tenderloin community stands with all teachers and support staff at all of our schools. because we are san francisco unified school district, unified, we are unified as is our name. i'm asking on all our elected representatives respectfully to rescind your decisive decision and stand together and work with

us and i give a shout out to sandra fewer. we are a community, let's work together and help our children achieve our full potential. they are marvelous. you know that, we know that. let's work together. thank you. >> good evening members of the board. i'm the secretary/treasurer of the northern california district council of the international longshoreman and warehouse union. i'm the parent of two graduates of the san francisco unified school district and member to a graduate of the san francisco unified school district and live across the street from rosa parks. we are a city that has values. we are a community that has values. we are a city that has history. we name our schools after people who are significant. i have the privilege of living

across the street from one of the great americans, rosa parks, who we stand on her shoulders. we heard from martin luther king and we stand on his shoulders. but it's not just about standing on somebody's shoulders but right now you are standing on people's back. you have to walk the walk whenever there is difficult decisions to make. it's where we stand in times of adversity that matter. we, as a community, look for civic leadership and i'm proud to be in a room full of civic leaders who stand with each other and stand for the good of our community. and unfortunately i'm not looking at them right now with the exception of one. it would be really good to embody the values of the workers who work for your district, which is respect for each other and no divide and conquer. you respect seniority. it's what matters. [cheers and applause]

[inaudible comment] >> i stand before you representing hundreds of unsung heroes that work for the san francisco unified school district. we are devoted to students and families and come to school daily to work despite the cloud of layoff that looms every year. we are working with the teachers. we are the student advisers in the yard and calf teryass and changing soiled pants and restoring confidences and providing resources for housing, food and uniforms. we are the security guards who help to keep our children safe. we are educating families on the importance of daily attendance. we are the liaisons between families and schools because of

our trust. we are the mothers, fathers and grand parents who have children in the district. who are we? we are paraprofessionals. stop para layoffs. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> my name is james contendy and i teach third grade in room 17 at sanchez elementary. the windows in room 17 face east. we look out over into the zone. you see, there's just a cyclone fence separating our community from the zone. even though 92.6% of our student body is socioeconomicically disadvantaged, a percentage than a dozen of the zone schools, i guess we are just on the wrong side of that cyclone fence. even though 23.3% of our students have disabilities. more than any school in the

zone. we are on the wrong side of that cyclone fence. on the other side of that fence, my colleagues and i would have more job security, but because of arbitrary delineations, we are on the unfortunate side of that fence. why are our students less deserving? why are the efforts of our dedicated staff less worthy? what message do you send to everyone in our community? such arbitrary divisions do not foster the spirit of a unified school district. but we are united educators and cyclone fences or not, you will not divide us. thank you. [cheers and applause] >> my name is rebecca morrow and i'm vice president of the r.n.

community chapter and public health nurse. i'm a product of the san francisco unified school system and my son was and my mother was. so i want you to know -- my mother is gone and i look to her for wisdom even though she is not here and i never seen anything like this in this union town since i have been here. it appears that the board has forgotten their history and look up thursday, 1934, look at those workers who died fighting for unionism and remember it happened in san francisco that we believe in it, that this is a union town that i vote in this union town and i will vote you out of office, you board members. i'm not kidding. seniority is a key part and we aren't going to let go of it. when children fall through your cracks based on zip codes, they end up shot and i have to case

manage them and try to put their lives back together again. [cheers and applause] >> my name is tara ram omp s and teacher at the paul revere school. i would like to make two points to exclude teachers from receiving layoff notice and give them priority over other teachers. one, it is true that the zone may be disproportionately affected by layoffs because of its hire concentration of less experienced teachers. to me, the solution to this would be for the board and superintendent to first investigate why teacher turnover is higher at the zone schools and then to work for changes at the zone schools so experienced teachers will want to work there. my second point is that this

policy seems to give priority to teachers who don't even have a credential over credentialed teacher like teacher america teachers. not yet credentialed teachers in the zone will be able to keep a job from another area. i encourage you to investigate the number of not yet credentialed teachers in the superintendent zone and compare that to other schools in other areas. if keeping a higher concentration of not yet credentialed teachers providing students with equitable access to highly qualified teachers. that's my question to you. thank you. [applause] >> i'm a teacher at mission high school and read you a petition that we passed around our school today that was signed by 60 teachers, paraprofessionals and others. we are in a zone as you know, a

school in one of the superintendent zones reject the phony social justice of imposing 494 unnecessary layoffs while it sits on $78 million in reserves. if it was truly committed to social justice you would not send out a single layoff notice this year. if it would not force furlough days on our schools hurting our poorest families the most. it would not have a history of closing schools in communities that serve people of color and not eradicating our classified staff whose members come from our communities we serve and have a high percentage workers of color. we see the attempt to impose layoffs as an overall attempt to intimidate members into accepting deep cuts to our schools next year. we see the attempt to protect the zone schools like ours, not motivated by social justice but an attempt at union busting by

showing divisions within our schools. we believe that social justice should hire more teachers and paraprofessionals. we reject the imposition of any layoffs to our members throughout the district and demand rescinding of all layoff notice immediately. [cheers and applause] >> and this is for you guys. >> good evening sisters and brothers and the labor union members and citizens who have joined us tonight. some things cannot be passed over in silence. some things have to be named. and a number of speakers have named them tonight. we heard the name michelle ree

and the superintendent said no, what are you talking about? what does michelle ree recommend? she recommends using the fiscal crisis and the rounds of layoffs that are hurting teachers and paraprofessionals and school communities from new york to california and says use this opportunity to bust the unions. and what a shame it is. we have five commissioners who join the rambings of michelle ree and those who want to destroy the public school system in this country. so let's name what has happened tonight and two weeks ago. well, we don't know what's going to happen tonight. what did the board two weeks ago? they showed disunity and disaffection and created an echo

of things we named before. before my time when i was working up at a group home, my brothers and sisters wept on a long bitter strike. that was the same part of the massacre of thousands of teachers as they got laid off, destroying people's careers. there is an echo of the massacres. two weeks ago, you guys joined them. when i started out as a new teacher, we had a new superintendent. he instituted what was then renamed as reconstitution. in a sense, a dominoe effect of your superintendent zone skit is returning us to the years of those days, it doesn't matter where you place teachers, they are like bank tellers. you have dehow manized teachers like that old criminal

superintendent did. and then we had the dream schools. the dream schools which led to a nightmare year after year in this district. dream schools set up special zones for special schools and special money, special working conditions which destroys the young career of teachers. we have been through this before in this district oh too many times. and we have named it before. we named reconstitution, layoffs, dream schools and more dream schools and now we name it the superintendent zone. what you voted two weeks ago to protect 14 schools, at the end of the day, you probably will not have saved one teacher's job and don't care about paraprofessional. you want to have helped one student? you will disrupt a number of school communities by voting for

the unnecessary almost 500 layoffs where you have $78 million in reserve, $56 million is unrestricted which could be used to single every single job for next year. that's what that reserve is for. so some things must be spoken, some things must be named and unfortunately san francisco has joined the michelle ree's, the tea party activists, those folks who blame the teachers what's wrong in public schools. we call it union busting and we call it anything but what san francisco stands for, which is equity and equality for all. i think it's time for us to walk out and leave the school board to its own design. >> shame on you! shame on you! shame on you!