and that this is -- one of the areas why we are so concerned and we want to address this, and you'll see in just a moment what were the inputs to try to immediately address this data that we receive. because we had this data last spring. and this is why we made the decisions for the inputs we did last summer. in just a few moments you'll see some of our successes from the inputs. so you'll see that. but we agree with you. >> it seems to me like there needs to be a robust program. not just in terms of how the school system deals with it but even above and beyond that. >> that is correct. and, therefore, i really do appreciate the attention that all of you are giving to this. because it is -- it is an issue for the greater community, we believe. supervisor campos: mr. sanderson, president chiu has a question. supervisor chiu: to follow up on the data, if i'm trying to understand what fraction of say ninth grade students are on

track but not on track to graduating, and the graph that talks about the importance of the ninth grade year, you say that's 17% of the entire ninth grade class, and failed two or more core classes. and failure of two or more core classes, is a national indicator of not completing high school, and then the next page, you go through, english and then algebra data, could you -- do you have apples to apples data around how to compare by different ethnic categories, the overall number of how many students are failing in the ninth grade, two or more core classes? >> yes, we do have that broken down. we have several other data points. for example, we can tell you by school. we can -- we have that. but today, i can get that to you. i don't have that in front of me. supervisor chiu: and it's one thing to know that again, as supervisor olague pointed out, these numbers are pretty staggering, and i'm just wondering collectively, how many students who are

african-american or latino or asian are failing two or more classes in that definition of either being on track or not being on track? >> i don't have that number from this -- the class of 2014. we do have -- we do have some current data on the current class that matches this and i don't have it off the top of my head but i can get that to you. supervisor chiu: that would be great, thank you. supervisor campos: colleagues, once you're doing speaking, if you don't mind deleting your request to speak. commissioner fewer has a question. commissioner fewer: i wanted to comment that although this shows the f's, it does not show the students that receive d's. so i think it's important to remember that. because this is ninth grade. so if it does not indicate mastering actually the subject matter, and much of this is sequential. so we're looking at math, that our students will be required to take two more years of math,

college -- a college level. so that's geometry and advanced algebra. so wanted supervisors to know that it does not include the d's. and i think that when you asked about where are these students, we have an achievement gap at every school in san francisco. so we can't really -- i think that -- i think all of us, not concentrated -- the gap isn't just in one school or a couple of schools. the gap is -- everywhere. supervisor olague: thank you for that, yeah. >> that's very helpful. mr. sanderson. >> thank you. let me bring this into context for newcomer student data. because i believe that it's an important group that we call out. u.c. only considers one year or 10 credits of courses out of the 40 needed to complete english.

so, for example, if we have a newcomer student coming in, in ninth grade, there is the potential that that student could take four years of an e.l.d. as required by law. only the final year of that course actually counts toward a u.c.b. credit. so just put that into context. a three-year data review, most newcomer students do not earn 50 credits. their ninth grade year, the first year they're in high school. in only 30% of newcomer students actually graduated within four years under the former graduation requirement that are in place now for classes of 2013, 2012, etc. the other thing is that of the approximate 800 ninth through 12th grade students that we had

come into the direct last year, 300 of those were actually in the ninth grade. so it is significant that 300 of that number were actually in the ninth grade when they entered our schools. so i've given you a really an outline of the problem where we saw the problem. now let me give you an outline of some of the inputs that we did with the city funding that we received for last summer. over 1,000 ninth graders took 1,724 courses last summer with the funding from the city. approximately 25% of all ninth graders in the district took part in a credit-earning summer program last summer.

42% of courses taken, so 42% of that total 1,724, were taken by african american, latino, and samoan students. approximately 962 courses were in the city-funded ninth grade courses of algebra, biology, english, and e.l.d. courses. so remember those were the four areas that came out as the concern. and so we immediately were able to start addressing that. in addition, we also were able to provide a program for 42 eighth and ninth grade transition students that were in danger already the warning indicators were already going off with them walking out of middle school that potentially they would not successfully transition to ninth grade. we were able to do a summer

program of those students in e.l.a., english language arts and mathematics. let me go over a summer of each of the city-funded courses that we were able to offer last summer. ninth grade english one and two, so just so you know, there are two semesters of english in ninth grade. 371 of the 412 students that took those courses received a passing grade of a d or above. that was 90% of the students. of that number of students, 324 of those, and this is where commissioner fewer was bringing about the d, because i wanted to bring it out here, of those 324 received an a, b or c grade, 47 received a d, and 32 an f.

in biology one and two, which was another critical area, just on a side note, it is sometimes difficult for a biology class, some of the options that we have out there for credit recovery, such as online courses, etc., are difficult with laboratory sciences because a wet lab is required for these by the university of california c.s.u. system. so of the students that took biology, 101 of the 109 received credit. 94% of them received a passing grade. 86 of them received an a, b or c. 15 received a b. and four received an f. >> before you continue on that, do you know what the ethnic breakdown of the 32 f's is or -- and in english and of the

four in biology? >> i don't have that with me. i can get it to you. and i have all the details of this we do have. >> i think the question for me is to the extent that this disparity is playing throughout the regular school year, is it then playing out in summer school as well? >> correct. and that -- that data would tell us that. ok. algebra one and two. 263 out of the 300 students that were enrolled in algebra one and two received credits, 88% of the students. 204 of those students received an a, b or c. 59 received a d. and 29 received an f. in algebra one and two. in english language development courses, again, one of the

reasons that we would do this is that we would give these students an opportunity in summer school to potentially take a course that would offer them room during the regular school year to take a course that is actually meeting the a-g requirement. 138 of them received credit. only 14 were d's. and three were f's. so 98% of the students. supervisor campos: speier olague. -- supervisor olague. supervisor olague: i was wondering what the economic breakdown is. whether they're children from families whose parents have college degrees or not. that sort of thing. trying to get a sense of that. >> ok. i can make a note of that and pull that. all right. any other questions before we move on?

ok. so you see from the data from previous years of what has happened in previous years in summer school, in 2008 we offered a summer school. 75% of the courses actually earned credit in that summer school. in 2009, it moved up to 82%. of the courses we were able to offer last summer with the city funding, 93% overall of those students taking the courses actually earned credit. so the approximate -- there were courses that were city funded and courses that were not city funded. we actually -- the city funded were 91% and coupled it with the other courses and the total is about 93% there.

so we are -- the summer school that we have been able to provide, we are having a greater success rate as we move up in summer school offerings. just earned credit is really all examples of courses that were completed with a grade of a d or higher. thus getting five credits posted to the transcript. ok? so you've seen the pattern here of us identifying the problem. we did inputs with the summer school program last year. and these are the results we had. at this point in time, i'm going to turn this over to helen ying who is going to go with the same pattern with our ninth grade students for this year. what they looked like, first semester. and what our -- what our inputs will be this summer and then

hopefully we will come to you with a greater number next year than actually 93%. and a reduced number of students that are actually failing our courses is where we eventually want to go. helen? supervisor campos: thank you. >> good afternoon. i'm helen -- commissioners and members of the board of supervisors i'm helen ying, executive director for the high school division. and along with brent stevens, who is the executive director of the elementary division, we have been charged with coordinating summer school for this school year. and so i will be maybe talking about the secondary portion and the dcyf funded program for this school year. and although we realize that summer school is not the only vehicle for students to meet the a-g requirements, we realize that it's also an important option for students to make up those courses that they have failed for those a-g

course requirements. so when we were planning the summer school, it is all in the context of students meeting the a-g requirements. so we have to take a look first of all at the picture. and notice that we're not -- not just looking at the english and algebra. we're also looking at geometry and biology. and you should also note that a big effort this year at the high schools has been to ensure that students who have taken algebra in the middle school have access to geometry, to high school. so they have a head start into actually starting getting into higher level math classes. so if you look at the breakdown of the subgroups, how many students are actually placed into these classes, so, for example, the chinese students, 40% of the total number of students who are enrolled in

english are chinese. 8% are african-american. these are ninth graders. just ninth graders. we're only looking at the ninth grade data. so as you will look at all across the subject matters, you will see the percentage and the breakdown of those students. ok. so now we get into some hard data about -- that focuses on the total number of apps of the ninth graders broken by subgroups and the number of students who receive those grades. if you looked at the previous slide, this is actually a slight improvement from the number of f's. so, for example, the african-american students, last year, 29% of african-americans received f's in english, this year, 22% received f's in english. very slight. although the numbers are still not good.

so the -- last year, 23%, this year, 18%. e.l.l., 19% last school year, and this year, it's 13%. so we did -- i don't have the numbers right now for special ed for last year. but these are the numbers that had received f's for this school year. so in algebra for last school year is 8% received f's, but this year, 9%, for chinese students. with african-americans, for an algebra, last school year, 39% received f's. this school year, in the fall, 30% received f's. for latino students last school year, 30%, this year, it's 26%. for e.l.l., 26%, last year, this year, 20%. so it's gone down a little bit. so we also want to look at the geometry and the biology. because those are the courses

that we will be offering for credit recovery for this fiscal year. because we want to make sure that students have the option to make up those classes that they received. these are all important a-g classes. so for this school year, for this summer, we want to have a continued focus on the ninth grade credit recovery. as bill has said, ninth grade is an important year. we want to make sure that those students who have received those f's get to make them up. supervisor campos: before you continue, supervisor kim had a question. supervisor kim: actually, looking at the fail rates for geometry and seeing how they're relatively low in comparison to algebra, has there been discussions in terms of changing the sequence for math? in ninth grade? and maybe routing -- >> a couple of the high schools are doing that. supervisor kim: if there isn't a sequential reason to have geometry or algebra first, if

we know that the students are succeeding in geometry in the ninth grade, and we want to help ensure that kids are not falling behind too early, it looks like the data is showing here that geometry for whatever reason is a subject matter that students are not failing in, whether you're an english language learner, african-american, latino, it seems really interesting. and also curious what is it different about geometry from algebra and how we can learn from teaching geometry or basic concepts on geometry we can use in other math subjects? >> there has been discussion of changing the math sequence and changing the science sequence. there has been a bit of discussion. i will tell you that one thing that really is a roadblock is this. there is a test that is attached to the california standards test called the early assessment program test. many of you know about the eap. it is something that is used that was -- a number of years

ago, attached to the test -- the student has to meet two criteria. in mathematics, the student has to be in grade 11 or higher. and they have to be enrolled in advanced algebra or higher. so, for example, let's say a school wanted to change the math sequence to go from algebra to advanced algebra to geometry. and that student landed in geometry in 11th grade. then that student automatically would not be able to take the early assessment program placement test for -- because they were not enrolled in the appropriate course to take the appropriate test for the c.s.t. so it really is, i think that

we as educators and the mathematics teachers in the district are open. we are curious about that discussion. but there are some limit tations -- limitations that are placed on us that really we don't want to -- we really do not want to take an advantage away from a student. because through the bridge to success program, we have been able to work with city college in recent days to accept some of those e.a.p. tests as their placement tests. so we really don't want to give students a disadvantage of not being enrolled in that. so it is a complex issue that really goes beyond us and all of that said, we are open to discussion about that. supervisor kim: and i'm just going to ask a couple of quick questions because i can't stay for the whole hearing. but i remember when i was on the board of education, i believe that marshall high

school there was kind of a pilot program in terms of how we teach algebra. >> algebra project. supervisor kim: algebra project which i got to visit and seemed fairly successful and was able to teach algebra and a more applied sense. and also in a more con isn'tual sense, i think -- conceptual sense, i think. and with how we word word problems and all that can also be challenging. english language learner in particular. and i'm just curious if there are lessons you can learn from geometry or the algebra project that can help us teach algebra. i think it's important for us to fund summer programs. and i want to continue to do that but are there ways we can improve teaching algebra so we don't get to the point where students are failing and better ways of teaching the curriculum? >> yes. and i believe -- i believe the algebra project has some really valuable lessons. and as we roll out the new common core curriculum, i believe that it really will open doors for us to have those discussions. because the way the common core curriculum for mathematics is rolled out, or even designed,

is much different than the traditional standards that we have had in the past. >> and is the project only at marshall still? >> yes. that is correct. it's only at marshall right now. supervisor kim: what is the subess rate for students at marshall? do they contribute less to the numbers that we're seeing here today? >> i will have to pull the data for it. when i pull the data by school. supervisor kim: if we have programs that are successful and we are seeing less ninth graders fail in algebra at marshall high school because this curriculum exists, clearly i think it's important to duplicate that curriculum to other schools as well. thank you. supervisor campos: i'm wondering if i can have a followup on the issue of geometry. because while i definitely see that, the performance is better, i also see that the enrollment is also lower. that you have a smaller percentage of african-american students that are actually enrolled in geometry than you do in algebra. so i'm wondering the extent to which that also -- that changes

the analysis. >> we actually pulled the students -- remember, these are ninth grade students that are in geometry. these are not necessarily 10th grade students that are in geometry. some of the students that actually -- half would be in algebra approximately. and half would potentially be in geometry. go ahead. supervisor campos: does that change your analysis of what's going on here? or not? >> it does change some of our analysis. because we have to look at both basically. when we look at ninth grade. supervisor campos: commissioner fewer. commissioner fewer: yes, i just wanted to note supervisor campos that in order for a student to enter high school at ninth grade and take geometry, they would have had to pass algebra in eighth grade. and so many of our schools were not offering algebra for all eighth graders. i think that we are pushing now that almost all of them are

offering. again, not all of them passed algebra. in eighth grade. and so, therefore, that's why we see these lower numbers. however, to answer your question, supervisor kim, in los angeles, where there are a lot of english language learners that what they found in some cases, schools are teaching geometry before algebra. and actually having a much better success rate on algebra and geometry. just because it gives the english language learner another year to beef up their english skills since algebra is so much more reading and problem solving. supervisor campos: thank you. continue, please. >> for this school year we are going to continue the ninth grade credit recovery program. and the eighth grade transition program. last school year, we only offered two classes for the eighth graders, but this year we will be offering four.

we also want to continue the newcomer e.l.l. students who are providing them e.l.d., because we realize they're the ones that actually need the additional e.l.d. and the beginning e.l.d. classes don't -- don't meet a-g requirements. and we want to give them a head start on that. but this year, we're going to extend the program to include 10th graders. so 10th graders will be able to take credit recovery classes. and we're going to address or include for the e.l.l. students the long-term e.l.l. students, not just the beginning e.l.l. students. so long-term e.l.l. students are students who have been in the united states for six years or more. but they have not been reclassified to english proficient. so these are the students that need a lot more higher level e.l.d. classes or much more sheltered strategies for the english classes in order to address the linguistic needs they have in order to be reclassified.

so we will be offering english nine and english 10. algebra, geometry, biology, and english language development. and we project that the number of students to be served would be about 11 -- would be about 1,190. so we -- this is not the -- this is a district funded program. we will still continue to offer the summer graduating seniors program. these are for the 12th graders who were potential may 2012 graduates. but perhaps failed the graduation requirement. so we are going to offer -- and we've done that in the past, that will allow these 12th graders to make up these course that is they have failed so they can graduate in july of 2012. we're also going to offer k.c. prep classes for students who have not passed k.c. if they haven't passed k.c. they can't receive a high

school diploma and they will be considered the k.c. test in july as well. so our expected outcome for this year is that we want extended opportunities for the ninth and 10th grade students to make up their failed classes. we want opportunity for summer graduation for the 12th graders who didn't make it in may. we want to support the summer schoolteachers to promote quality instruction. as you no, in summer school, these classes are two hours long. and it's really important that the teachers know how to teach for that length of time and they're offering enough strategies for students to be engaged the whole time. we want to align them with excel and other city programs. and we will talk about those other programs as well. any questions? supervisor campos: one thing i haven't heard mentioned is the seventh period.

can you talk a little bit about that, the extent to which you're using that strategy. >> there is no doubt that seven-period day would greatly expand opportunities for students. in our schools. we used to have a number of schools that were able to offer a seven-period day using their weighted student formula. as resources have continued to decline, schools have not been able to offer a seven-period day. at this time, i believe that we have thurgood marshall and burton that's offering a seven-period day still. other than that we don't have schools that are able to offer a seven-period day. because that's been an additional teaching period to the day.

and schools would need to be able to -- what it does is it increases the number of sections that students take. and, therefore, you have to have additional teachers. and you would need to fund that out of your budget. supervisor campos: so is there right now any plan to incorporate a seventh period in any of these schools? i'm obviously thinking specifically about my district. but i know that that would be the case in other neighborhoods as well. >> i believe that if we were to be able to fund a seven-period day, a large majority of our high schools would take that opportunity because as we have gone in to the fiscal crisis that we have been, we are currently in, many of them are looking for more and more opportunities to be able to offer courses to students.