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 their own personal lives to live harmoniously among their pierce and their loved ones too and their friends and family. thanks very much. >> yeah, thanks for coming, especially the -- the students from mission and lincoln, right? sorry it took you so late. i'm glad you came. it's a program i've always supported since my younger daughter was a peer resource educator. i keep on thinking it was at hoover but it wasn't. it couldn't have been at hoover. it was in 2000. >> it was. >> i think -- i think -- maybe it was at hoover. >> yeah, i think it's hoover. but i don't -- but i remember she used to come home and talk

about what she did in the resource environment. it was just amazing for her to be talking to, not only the people that was providing the resource -- peer resources but also to the ones that needed to speak to them and so forth. and i thought it was so powerful because that's when i just bought into the program saying we've got to have this in every school. and one of the things i'd like to do, i mean, i realize it was anecdotal. i heard her stories and i've heard other student's stories through the years. do you happen to have an annual report of some sort where you collect the data of all the different pieces of the peer resources that your students are involved with and what kind of a result you're getting?

>> yes. we do an annual preand post evaluation. so we get that qualitative data about what's change. we also collect data in terms of service provided, the number of students served, that kind of thing. so we can put something together. >> when do you come out with the report? >> it will be in the summer. >> in the summer? >> yeah, in the summer. >> that would be great because i think that report, in addition to the anecdotals, it's going to be powerful in terms of going forth in the next few years to get the piece refunded. and -- to me it's -- it's not one of these either or type of situations. i think like my colleagues on the board i believe that we should have peer resources fully funded as well as the

justice piece. i also think -- if it's not done yet, i don't really know. i see peer resources program as a strategy to justice. if it hasn't been done, i think that's one way to incorporate -- commissioner wynns was saying incorporate it into our school programs. and also that will eventually -- as we talked about institutionalizing it that it may become such an important part, we just don't want to not fund this piece of it soon. that's one thing. and so i will join others on the school board to see how we could fully fund and expand the program in the next four years.

thank you for coming. do we have any last comments? >> sure. >> commissioner maufas? commissioner maufas: so i want to thank the leadership here. i so appreciate the generations of you all. in my time it's been brian stanley, elizabeth and now pri ling and morgan and patricia because things don't happen by magic. we'd like to think they do but they just don't. your vision aren't what pure resource is and if it stays really as pure as possible from the original vision, i appreciate that. and again that carries for generations. it will hopefully be going long after i have like five grandkids. but one more now and i'm grateful that you all exist. so hopefully she'll experience some of this. but i want to thank you as well because leadership matters and the right leadership is very, very beneficial and it shows.

thank you president yee? president yee: any last comments? >> no. president yee: thank you. thank you -- is it aisha and jasmine? >> keona. president yee: moving on. we're going to go to calendar and consent resolution of item o vote on consent calendar. ms. casco, roll call please? >> thank you, commissioner. ms. fewer? ms. maufas? >> yes. >> ms. mendoza? dr. murase? ms. norton, >> aye,. mr. yee? >> it's five ayes. >> the superintendent's

proposal, none tonight. board member's proposal, first reading for in support of the center for sustainable gardening by commissioner rachel norton. is there a motion? ok. so there's -- there's been a request to suspend the rules. so there a motion? >> motion to spped the rules. >> roll call please? >> thank you. ms. fewer? >> yes. >> ms. maufas? ? >> yes. ms. mendoza? >> yes. >> ms. wynns? >> aye. >> mr. yee? >> aye. >> six ayes. >> is there a motion for a second introduction? >> can i second my own resolution in >> sure you may. reads reading of resolution by

superintendent or designee? i must have misread that. commissioner norton? commissioner norton: thank you, in support of the center of sustainable gardening. as the school district has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the botanical society working together to teach students about conservation and where over 10,000 school children 90% are from san francisco have a unique opportunity to visit the botanical garden free of charge to participate in educational programming and where as the educational activities of the san francisco botanical garden society provides at no cost to the school district include botanical, horticulture that includes science and teaches students about water conservation and appreciation for environment and where as

the botanical garden society was built in the 1906's and impairs the garden's ability to san francisco's public school students and where as the garden societies plans new plans for a new nursery to enhance the society's ability to support the educational activities offered at the garden and enable students of all ages and backgrounds to learn about horticulture and measures they can take in their own garden to preserve the environment and where as the botanical garden society has agreed to pay for and construct the project and will donate to the city and county of san francisco as a gift in place once it is complete and where this project will directly affect san francisco unified students providing them with the tools they need in a significant, comfortable environment. therefore be it resolved that the san francisco unified

school district supports the center for sustainable gardening project and encourages them to move the process further. >> any comments from the board? seeing none, roll call, please? ms. fewer? >> no -- >> ms. fewer? >> yes. ms. maufas? >> yes. >> ms. mendoza? dr. murase? >> aye. >> ms. norton? >> ms. wynns? mr. yee? er, cuse me? >> aye. five ayes. >> thanks for bringing the resolution. item s board member reports any standing committees. >> yeah, so the curriculum and program committee at the board of education was held on monday maverpblg 59. we had three informational item an update on transitional

kindergarten and the review of the fifth l.e.a. monitoring report. so concerning the monitoring report this is the -- this is the fifth monitoring report but we're in the third year of implementation. as you know san francisco unified school district is an improved district because we are not meeting our target latino, african-american and students with disabilities free lunch program. our report, i think was, well, i don't know -- i don't think it was a good report, really. it said -- it really said sort of we're in the right direction but there are certain things that need to be done concerning education and one of it was that our budget was not aligned with our goals for special education and that it has a heavy emphasis on compliance

rather than service and that we need to look at our instruction, professional development with our special education teachers. and also we heard that also -- the county school system that we received also is in the first year improvement, again, not meeting the targets for our african-american and special education students. that's a little bit dispinting. we heard about transitional kindergarten. there are two sites that are able to offer to parents. leo havrard and mcclern and there are about 280 families and there is room for every single one of them at the sight. mcclarn is a brand-new,

brand-new, beautiful site. we hope that parentss will choose to send their children there. and then we also heard about an update on the a through g requirements and had a deep discussion about what it might take for all of our students to graduate a.c.g. which is -- at this point not looking very good. but i think there's a couple of things that we can do and one of those things that staff reported back was that we could align some of our after school ex-sem fund for credit recovery or to make up classes that we can also make some accommodations for our english language learners so that they are able to take an extra english class and also meet the a through g requirements.

our next meeting will be the first monday of april. and i believe that is april 2 at 5:30. thank you. >> commissioner wynns? >> thank you. i'd like to report of the ad hoc committee of the student assignment which met this week. yes, today. and we had three informational items and a report in the way we did them. the first one was an update on transitional kindergarten. but notably it was -- most of the board was there. i want to thank members of the board which was an augustmented committee but not members for coming -- actually commissioner yee and maufas if you don't have all this information we'll provide it for you. so we have a -- there's an amended information for transitional kindergarten and just new dates an so that information, in case it sort of completes the information about

transitional kindergarten from the perspective from the student assignment prapro says. so we were happy about that and also in relation to what commissioner fewer just said, i did want to say that some of the remarks that were made earlier this evening, i wanted to -- i think that we ought to, in our outreach be clear that the mcclarn sight is not only beautifully rebuilt but up on the hill and very accessible from the west side because of the way the -- the, you know, the road accessibility from the westside. if you just looked on the map of san francisco, you think oh, it's difficult to get sort of remote neighborhood to get to but it's not. it's easily accessible. we should be telling people who haven't gone there and don't know about how easily accessible it is, not to mention the condition of the facility and the program. >> and people who live in the bay view apparently can access it -- >> no, that was the other one.

>> sorry. i'm sorry. >> the second thing was about -- was about the changes to the student assignment system that have been made in relation to the assignment of twins and multiples. so all of us got -- you know, heard people talking about this and how it was difficult and they didn't quite know what to do. of course, we understood that but contrary to what people said, it's not that we weren't assigning students together but when one twin or multiples gets assigned to a school as we all know during the assignment process, the commuter process, the school's full after that's done. and so it's not just a matter of will to say, oh, sure we'll assign the other twin or the other kid to the same place. there has to be room for them and there has to be room for them for the clear restrictions

of the class size restriction because after all we're talking about kindergarten here. based on discussions with the community, our own discussions last year and what has been said by others, what is done now is that during the application process, parents are allowed to link their multiple kids together so that they will be assigned together during the assignment process instead of what happened before which was that the assignment process was all completed. then the sibling priority kicked in and we were trying to assign more kids when the schools were full. i should caution you because you might get phone calls are from parents saying they're too full. by the way, there's a q&a of

frequently asked questions. so that should be made availability -- any of you should be able to make that available on the website or community organizations who have questions about this. but parents have to choose. do they want to take their chance, if they have kids and they don't link them together in the assignment process, they may get two chances at highly competitive school but then getting the second kid in there is going to be harder. >> i'm actually pleased that we've done somethinging that really fixes this and it's under the control of the parents. if they want to know that they can go to school together, they can choose to link them if they want to take chair chances, they can do that. but we should have far fewer of the oh, this is to terrible. why don't you put them together? and last, we reviewed the annual report, the first annual

report of the new student assignment process. we're -- we couldn't find it on the website our staff last night. so we're hoping it's actually been post and make sure that it is. deputy superintendent lee. very lengthy. it's not too much to read. lots of charts, graphs, things that make clear some of the questions that we've been asking. so i commend to you and all of the members of the public that they ought to look at -- you know, understanding this complex policy issue as well as the technical details of how the is works are really hard and understanding the results as we know are really hard too. so we think -- everybody in the room including members of the public was really pleased with d report and happy with the information and how much information we have there. and then the most important thing i'm going say which i

think i'm mainly saying ifer the public and for commissioner maufas and commissioner yee who were not there. is we have to make some choices here. we've got to say what things are we going to continue to collect the same data on because it was so much. we needed -- this was baseline data on a huge number of questions. all the information, it's interesting and compeling to people and we all express that we would like to continue doing everything. and then also it was -- we were told that, first of all, if you remember we had grant funding for research related to an assignment policy. second, the huge amount of staff work was basically done on people's own time that's all of sthrem the same jobs. these the same people who are doing the -- actually serving our parentses in the educational placement center and in the weekends and the

evenings they were creating these maps an chars and we can't do that. we can't impose on them in the same way. it's when they don't have the research component. we have to decide what we want. it has to be more manageable. and then we have to figure out what resources it would take to do that. >> if it's any consolation to you, commissioner wynns, i've been here a lot of saturday. i just want to tell you sorry that i did. i'll try to make it to the next meeting. i have seen e.p.c. staff when i've come in. >> yes, i wasn't just repeating everybody said when there were five of us in the room but we have a reason to do that. last, i want to say just to switch gears, the rules committee will be meeting on the 21st here at 6:00 next wednesday. and our new legislative

advocates the people with the school innovations anded a vosevowcassy that we just -- advocacy that we just contracted. and their team will talk to about it. so this is the chance of the board. the meeting will be augustmented and the community will begin to develop a relationship with our new advocates. wednesday, the 21st at 6:00. >> who's on the rules committee? >> i am. emily. >> but you're all welcome. and so we want to -- >> deputy superintendent yee? >> i got an e-mail from one of our colleagues about the student assignment monitoring

report. it is on the website. so in case people are looking for it or listening to the meeting still. it is on the website. it's in the enrollment section and it should be locateable in that section and we can send the link to all the commissioners so you can find him. >> so i just briefly wanted to report last friday, i attended my first meeting as the newest member of the csba advocacy committee or is it the legislative committee. i was kindly appointed by the president of csba who i happen to know. but of particular interest to this board is that a number of bills have been introduced that have to do with student discipline issues and suspension, expulsion issues. we did not take any positions yet on those bills.