of 2010 there was an effort to create such an office through a transfer of functions looking at housing and office of early childhood education at the department of youth and families but under the department of human services agency. at that time, i do not think there was quite the level of consensus that is that we needed to have in order to make that office in 2010. in the past year and a half or years since then, i have been working with members of the community in the child care provider community and early childhood education committee to look at how we might create this office. we met with a number of folks, including the president of the

school board, folks from public children's council, folks prepare a voices. folks from the child care providers association looking at family day care providers. a number of organizations came together. we will look at at a process of how we could create a office of early childhood education that would be independent. i think that is a word that i perhaps have not really utilized enough in talking about how we would create such an office. my vision that a lot of folks came together on about the early childhood education office is one that would be streamlined office. we would have a place where a lot of the funds would come through in one single process we

are carrying out the functions of making sure we are promoting the highest quality education in our various facilities and areas of care for children. that we are getting kids are ready for education, that we recognize 0-5 age, especially infant care, if you are receiving earlier higher crude -- early childhood education, it has the greatest and advantages of lifelong learning and the best outcomes of the future. these are issues that have not been lost on anyone that is coming together around this office. i think the difficulty in creating this office in the past is there have been that many different points of view and great work people have done within the point of view that have been hard to merge together. we really need to make sure

we're taking the greatest leadership possible. i look at the board of supervisors providing the leadership, and the mayor's office and staff providing leadership to make sure all of the expertise we have in the human services agencies can come together to create independent office that could really lead to a shifting how the early childhood education services are rendered in san francisco. we have a lot of state. there is a lot of lives that will be improved by the creation of this office. through the process i went through with community stakeholders, we interviewed department heads and people within the field, the human services agency and the first five commission. we actually came up with where we would expect the creation of the office would be placed. a lot of folks landed on the

human services agency as a place where the office could be derived from, but i want to emphasize that while the human services agency could be a place where there would ultimately be the back room function, administrative function for a sharing office is moving forward and is created, that this office would be an independent office that would have major input from the other stakeholders, as well as the schools, and possibly other agencies that would have an influence in the early childhood education field that would make sure everyone feels there is something they contributed to, that there is an overall shift in how services are rendered, and that we have an agreement on how to move forward. today the mayor's office has taken a great step in moving this office will work. later this afternoon we will

meet with department heads about how to really bring people together and a common vision to create an independent office. really happy to hear that is going. i was concerned about how that was moving forward, but i feel comfortable that there is a real commitment to make this office happen. i just want to welcome people from the departments who are here to speak about how to move forward. chief among them is mendosa, one of our school for commissioners it also in the mayor's office working in education. i believe he will walk us through some of the steps coming forward. after he speaks, if there are other department heads that would like to, i would leave the microphone open to them, but then i want to hear from the folks in the community and what their visions and concerns are and what principle they may have

about how to create an office of early childhood education. supervisor chu: think you. i want to say a few words very quickly. i want to thank you for your leadership on this to really try to bring together the city family around this very important issue. i think it is more pressing as we seek potential cuts coming down from the state level and how we should escorted make our scarcer in scarcer resources. that is why i am very proud co- sponsor of the resources today. i also want to take a minute to recognize people i do see in the crowd on this issue. we have already introduced the mayor's adviser on education and board member. norman yee, president of the board of education is also here with us today. i did see laurel from first five

in the room. if there are other department heads or commissioners i have missed, my apologies. thank you. >> good morning. thank you for having us. costi am happy to be here to tak about the direction we are going in. i really want to thank supervisor avalos for taking a leadership role in this. this has been lots of conversations, and i think the community is clear that this has been many years, and not just from 2010. so are really appreciate all that you've done to make this happen. over the past several years we have built in the city and early care and education system that has addressed many of the very challenging issues that we have. there are three different departments that have been helping to serve our kids across the city, and our thought is we

really want to be able to bring the quality of care education facility affordable wheat and accessibility for all of our families. the current investments from the department of children and youth families and from first five are enormous, and we would be remiss if we did not include san francisco unified in the bucket of work that they do. we should actually include them as we get deeper in the conversation. what we're looking at is yet another wonderful opportunity. it is to bring the office together to do a number of different things. i think from the mayor's perspective, not only is he concerned about the child care issues that the city is faced with, as well as the achievement gap, but the efficiencies we have all been working towards, and i think having this conversation in the budget committee.

we also want to create a government structure that is flexible enough to act quickly. and i think a lot of the challenges are we have multiple departments doing multiple things. a lot of shared money into individual money and how will we cross all of that over and make sure the goals of serving all of our kids in our entire city are met through this one at a very independent office? we want to make sure we are leveraging early indication department at the school district and increase transparency. we want to reduce administrative burdens on the city, which we all know is costly. we also want to reduce duplication of fiscal and compliance monitoring and fiscal oversight. i think all of the department's head would say that there were would very much love to be able to do that. we are now working through the vision of providing high-quality care and education so our kids are given the best -- the start

to a healthy and educational career while providing families was a quality care for all of our children. i think what we really want to focus on is providing the greatest and best opportunities for all of our kids. you have already noted the challenges we have had with the various priorities. i think it is safe to say for each department rightly so because that is why the work currently lives where it lives. i think we want to start from not where will this lives, but in order for us to move forward, what is this? the meeting we will have this afternoon with the department heads is going to be posing that question, what is this? i think when we talk about where it is foreign to live, it creates challenges in terms of moving forward, so we want to provide to you a proposal that is a joint effort with feedback from all of the departments and understanding on every step of the way come out reach and

community engagement efforts will continue to occur as the arctic have been. -- outreach and community engagement efforts will continue to occur as they are ready have been. in june that we have already been in contact with our budget director in making sure that in the mayor's budget, this independent office will be included in the budget from his office. in later in june we will come again together to develop a job description and pose a position and interview qualified candidates for the executive director position for the new independent office of early care and education. our hope is to hire a new director and launch a new officer sometime after october. we're hoping to have this up and running before the end of the

year. we're very excited. i think from the mayor's perspective, he has heard from a variety of different stakeholders, just as you have. understanding the challenges of bringing all of the perspectives together, but we're very committed to making that happen, and we're committed to having an independent office of early good -- early childhood care and office that will support all of our children, regardless of their needs. we are making it possible for parents to have opportunities and options for all other kids. >supervisor avalos: thank you. i appreciate you coming together with the folks that are involved in delivering early childhood education services. i was looking at this budget process as a place where we

could really do the work of the consolidation of the office, knowing mid-year would be would we would actually go live with it. there is time to make that happen, so i look forward to hearing the progress in debt. for this hearing, we talked about perhaps a little bit of public comments. we would actually continue this item to hear back from what kind of progress is being made at the mayor's office. clearly the mayor's office has the greatest flexibility and resources to pull the departments together for the vision in process. i appreciate the work being done. samsupervisor chu: i know there were other department heads in the room, and if you would like to speak, you can, but i did

think they give us summary of the past for work. if you feel compelled to speak, you could do that, but we will continue this item. >> thank you. thank you supervisor avalos for leading that out so articulately and hydra. i am the executive director for the commission, and we are ready to roll up our sleeves and work towards this vision. there are some governments things we have to overcome, but i think as long as we have the vision that children under kindergarten are ready to learn, that is something we will keep doing in promoting and working together to achieve. thank you. >>supervisor chu: are there

members of the public that wish to speak on this item? i only received one speaker card, and that was for norman yee, so if there are other members of the public that wish to speak, please line up in the center aisle. first speaker, please. >> good morning, supervisors. i am the staff person to the child care planning and advisory council feedback. this is a feedback that is appointed by the board of education. it was initially engaged in conversations and discussions around the potential alignment of city-wide services. in october 2009. representatives met with the mayor's office at that time and were asked to report back in 30 days with recommendations for what this office might look like. so although no formal position

was taken regarding for the office might be housed, which the permit would be in from members voted and approved guiding principles for early care and educational alignment at the feedback meeting in november 2009. no public agency representatives were present at the meeting, so it allowed people to talk freely about what this to look like. i actually have copies of those principles. i hope that any conversations that take place around the alignment and consolidation take some of these into consideration. i would like to give these to supervisors. thank you. >> thank you. i will call the names i've just received in terms of cards as well. donna k. hilkayhill, gretchen a. >> i am the chair and director

of the san francisco child care providers association. i want to thank supervisor avalos for all of your leadership on this issue. these discussions about creating office have been happening for nearly three years now. during in which time the family child care association, san francisco child cares association and voices have come out in support of the office. there has been a lengthy commute of the process -- community process. obviously having an office will create efficiencies in the system. if this will enable us as a city to better leverage funding for the system, which is particularly important given the enormity the deficit we're facing. this will best serve the families in france for it -- but in san francisco.

we need now more than ever to create -- unite around the creation of this office. these false economies hurt the field come and give it to create unnecessary division. the office will include all of these aspects of early childhood care and education. we cannot wait another year for the creation of office. a lot of time and energy has gone into this, and there is an emergency for this office to be created out. i also of a couple of parent letters that are in san francisco advocating today. >> good morning, supervisors. and norman yee, president of the school board. i am here as an individual advocate today. i wanted to thank supervisors of a loavalos and chu and others tt

this office together. it has really been of long time coming. i was brought into this discussion several years ago when people were talking about needing to have this office and whether my perspectives as a former executive of an organization that rallied around child care programs or being on the first five commission or being at the code-share of the preschool for all program in san francisco, this resolution makes sense to me. creating this office makes sense to me. we need to reduce the confusion that is happening in the field in terms of what direction we want to go in san francisco. we need to make things more efficient for the government, and for those reasons alone, it

would dictate we need to create this office. i am glad to hear from commissioner hydra mendoza, my colleagues on the school board that this will be budgeted in the mayor's budget, because without that, we will not have this office. i am here to support it. i want us to follow the guidelines that the community has brought out already. this discussion has happened over and over again, so i am looking forward that this will be a quick discussion to see what office looks like, but we must have one. thank you very much. >> good morning, supervisors. can this long, director of the low investment fund. thank you, supervisor avalos for your leadership in bringing

forward the creation of office of early childhood education. it takes exceptional leadership to engage the mayor's office and colleagues on the board to move this forward through the process. i also ask that you respect the process and recommendations from the community. i want to thank the co-sponsors. thank you in advance supervisor given as a good idea when you hear it and i trust you will support it. there was three years of discussion in the bay, and the convening of a joint community and city task force. i believe creating the office under the of human services agency is good public policy, government, and business. it is a logical place for the office. it will exist as the part of the city and county, and the department or most of the state funding flows. this is the department that looks like the whole system of care.

the centers in the school district. under the leadership of director trent roar and martha rutherford, we've grown to meet the needs of families. they have had the vision to ensure all children have access to quality early learning and garments to prepare our children for school in future success. this is a department with experience for families in does sound policy and planning to build a sustainable system to serve them. this advocates to protect city and county interests and is mindful of innovation at the state and federal level with recognize credibility. as we are speaking today, parent voices and sacramento standing for children to advocate against the child care. the early care in digitation system continues to face the devastating cuts of over $29 million in san francisco alone.

i ask that our colleagues in city government and that of community come together in the best interest. thank you. >> good morning. my name is priced schofiebryce . i fully support the ece with the central office being housed at hsa. i have gained a fully -- full understanding of the needs of the community. every city government has personality shenanigans come and i know our city is no different, but what has unfolded in this process has affected negatively and the multi-department systems do not serve the very children

and parents in the best way we can. there have been several mysteries put forward by some affected stakeholders. we no change, even when it is obviously the smart thing to do can be difficult, but like many of their current policy landscapes, a minority of the community has repeatedly attempted to undermine forward- thinking change by using tactics. for example, child care, early childhood education is not education come and we need to keep these things separate. this is a silly idea to me. the second, community input. after three years we have had many opportunities and venues to bring people together with them as they calder's through the community, yet repeatedly it has been said that we have not been trying to bring people together, and there has not been a voice. emotionally-charged decision making has no place is in the

field of education using the definition that includes 0-5 population. integrity in trust and honoring our children does have a place and responsibility. it is not only the department and serves poor people. this agency looks at the bigger hole, the historical agency gives me and many others the confidence that the new office will not only better streamline the system, but will also relieve the serve our family and children. supervisor chu: thank you. >> my name is donna kayhill, executive director of holy family day home. 50 percent of our children are extremely low income, and another 20 percent signed, their parents make a few dollars above the thresholds for scholarships above the 80% line of the state median income.

a fall 70% of the families are extremely low income. because of that, we have to fund raise $800,000 every year, so the bulk of my time is raising money, while my staff is closer to the children and parents. we depend on partnerships with all of the departments in san francisco with the state, federal government. any way that this can be streamlined is critical to the ability to serve our children. office of early care and education is not a new thing. the department of aging did this many decades ago, i believe, and it is an obvious next step for

the city that has worked together so collaborative way. you will not see many directors in line, although you will see a few of us, because we want all of our funders to partner with us and be happy. it has been a difficult journey going through this, and a very stressful journey, and we are looking for this to be solved. i speak for the lion's share of directors for the chip -- san francisco child care providers association. we really want office of early could relate -- early childhood education. supervisor chu: thank you. two more names. >> my name is [inaudible] i am an independent consultant. i want to thank the supervisors for their leadership on this issue. i have been an early childhood education for the past 25 years. i am familiar with this process

and all the players that are here today. i want to first of all acknowledge the leadership in this room from first five, cpac, ddcyfdcyf, is to the leadershipd coming together that we have been able to make progress we have been able to make today on these issues. however, this process is not enough. the field of early childhood education is under attack. it is a field that historically characterized by fragmentation. we do not need more fragmentation. batf office of early childhood education simply makes sense. it makes sense because we need leadership on this issue. it makes sense because hsa has

the infrastructure to provide leadership, and it makes sense because the personnel have demonstrated a willingness in the priority of vision to provide the leadership. the first step of creating the office is actually a bit easy step, and that is the step that stymied the process to date. the real hard work comes after the creation but everyone has to collaborate and work together. i support and urge this process to move forward, and to streamline the system further and make further progress, acknowledging all of the great leadership in the room today. >> i am gretchen aimes. we evaluate the quality of child care, and have an initiative to support the quality, and i would like to start by saying think you so much for bringing us this issue. i