on june 14, we have professional development. it will teach how to replicate his success. he was a national merit scholar, the was the first black to get a ph.d. in applied science from stanford. if he was able to do that, we need to look at what were the factors that helped him to be successful. this professional development on june 14 will look at the successes and characteristics of african-americans so that we can make sure our students are prepared for the demanding field available for them in the city. thanks. [inaudible]

president yee: two minutes. >> eyes forward, everybody. a check i learned when i was a teacher. -- a trick i learned when i was a teacher. i had a nightmare that my son was going to a school that was replete with problems academically at the lowest point it could be. as problems with a child molesters hanging around the school. has problems with being tracked in the school, that is to say, some of the kids a are on track to be for failure. also, a school replete with corporal punishment, which was

in the news. i could go on and on. when i woke up from my nightmare, i tried to call somebody. i tried to call this school board, the aclu, i tried to call the national lawyers guild, my ex-wife. all of the above did not answer the phone. so i am here right now to let you know i am trying to get my son out of this school because i know how the system works. it is part of the education we are not getting. this school is part of the system that make sure -- let me put it this way, the guy who they made a movie about to, the pursuit of happiness. chris gardner. he is a stockbroker now. horatio alger story.

now he has at the top of the game in the stockbroker industry. i asked him, what happens if everybody has a job and is gainfully employed? he said i refuse to answer that question to. the truth of the matter is, and he knows the answer. many people are being trapped to be on the bottom. most of them are black, latino, my son is not going to be one of those people. i am here to lobby for the other black folks, for people, and the like to have to go through this situation. -- who have to go through this situation? president yee: pastor charles smith. >> mr. president, mr. superintending, my name is sophie stockholm and i appreciate being able to talk

tonight about substitute teachers. i have spent nine years in public schools with teachers -- in the past 12 months, at least keep it below -- two substitute teachers took a child away to safety. this incident was reported. my child was denied five full days of education because no substitute came to school that day. in the past few months, twice a substitute supported -- reported for work three hours late. there was no substitute available to take my oldest son's class after the parent was hospitalized.

yet my oldest son who did not speak one word of english -- he only spoke chinese to their amusement and entertainment. yet we parents except to the decision of school enrollment and class assignment. all of the children are unable to give us a teacher for the day, denying us the right to check if they should take care of our children. as a parent, i am not even asking for quality but i expect legal babysitting for my eight children on campus which means a legal ratio of adults per student. as a parent, i respectfully

request you conduct a survey of the district and have a list of substitute teachers to lead out people who are not worth your paycheck and are a liability and a threat to our children. thank you for your time. tell me how i can help you. >> after pastor smith will be rev. roland gordon and maurice edwards. press the button.

>> my name is pastor charles smith in the bayview. i was called to date to come out to a -- today to come out to a press conference. i was shocked. there was a gentleman removed from a school in the marine and placed in charge of mlk. this particular gentleman, after reading the press conference and reading the witnesses about it can statements, i come to find out this man is a child abuser. how can a child abuser run a school? i do not understand it. not only does he run the school, we pay this person to run the school. something is very wrong here. i was totally shocked at reading this information concerning a child abuser in the school, the top man of a child

abuser. it is way out of line. if you had a chance to read this press conference, the paper work, i could not believe it. i am totally appalled. how many others closes is going on in? why are our kids not getting a proper education instead of being abused by those in charge? >> sir, you have made some serious allegations. i will tell you, first of all, whatever information you have, i should clarify we do not -- anybody who is tired and needs to be fingerprinted. sir, i listened to you, give me the same courtesy. anybody can make an allegation. we will follow up but i will tell you this school district

would never allow anyone who has a record of what you said to run anything or even to work in the district. we will follow-up on that. >> is it on? ok. superintending, members of the board, and thank you for this opportunity. i just got back from a trip and then about two weeks ago i was visiting my homeland american samoa. i got back, getting into things and then i fanned out across the street from the there has been some changes. i am concerned because the changes affected the pacific islanders. we have one bilingual staff that has been there forever and she was let go. i have -- i am not clear on why

but i attended a rally and there were some real concerns. i am concerned. being a chief from the samoan people, i represent them. i want to make sure they get hurt. we cannot have the kids go to that school and not have somebody they can relate to. we will have a big problem. i monitor my everyday job working on those buses. we encounter a lot of kids as they did on the 54, of the nine, or the eight express. if we do not have a polynesian people there, we are going to have a problem. i am concerned that in all of your studies and your background histories on people that this was not taken into consideration to your did you

know the problem school districts have. we have all worked on it together. as other people said, everybody whether it is african-american, latino, asian, every group and not represented is at a disadvantage. i am asking the board to reconsider that order to look into it. we do not have that many pacific islanders looking at the schools. at martin luther king, the population is big. you are surrounded by public housing. that is where most of them do well to read if we do not address it, they will be on the streets and they will be causing other type of money we do not need. we only make up 1.5% of the total population in the city and county. almost 10% of the juvenile population to syria that is alarming.

population -- population. that is alarming. this is not just about one group. this is about all. being the chief, i have to air that with you. i have sat down at the table with you, superintendent. i appreciate the support you have given us. i look forward to continue to work with you to make sure that the people get represented. please reconsider that. if we do not have anyone to go to -- we are going to be in trouble. i have a problem and i need your help. please consider and losses to all of you. -- blesses to all of you.

>> my name is sandy thomson. i wanted to have a word before i leave because my son has something else to say. we have had a rough time at martin luther king for the year. this year. my son started school. i still do not have all of the answers i needed from the school and the administrators. i have not heard anything back. i am going to be working on the next year even though i am trying to transfer my son. i have not heard anything about his bullying or his safety. i have not heard anything. i wanted to stress my point that i know at the end of the school year they need more support at martin luther king. the council is they got rid of,

and they need to bring them back because they was the best thing because they did more where it then the administrators. they need to get rid of the administrators because they are not doing anything. they are standing back getting a paycheck. i feel that is unfair to the counselors. the security has been hurt. i have been up there. i got kicked off the premises while i was there. i was asked not to come back. i was not allowed back on the premises when the officer i called to the school, they told me i should come back. as long as i was a concerned parent i could come back source are going back up there and i was asked to leave by the administrator, by the principal. i told her that i am up here as a concerned parent because my son had got hurt and you are not

doing anything about it. my son is upset. he wants to say something before we get out of here. tell them your name. >> i am a student at martin luther king and i feel all that i have been disrespected by most of the children, most of the staff members. i do not feel safe at the school because the vice president of-- principal [beep] >> we do not mention names. >> i feel i have been disrespected by most of the people at the school. i feel unsafe because i haven't seen many pipes at my school and teachers have been letting it go down.

they be letting it go outside right in front of the school. they bring all kinds of weapons to my school and i have seen one in front of me before and i do not like to be in that situation. also, i would like to add that i have been trying to transfer for a long time and i have not done no transcripts or nothing like that syrt. it has been hard because i have not had any help. i have been getting hurt. i had a knife pulled on me at my school. i was on the yard and a kid came to me and pulled out a knife and said don't you tell no one or else i will, for you. they threaten me in a bad way. i did not feel safe at that particular moment so i told someone in the office and nothing has been done about it. he brung the same thing next

week. i had to call my mom to leave the premises because i was afraid he might hurt me. and lastly, i have been seeing people in the hallway having lighters and smoking all over the premises and that teachers have been walking by and letting it slide like it is nothing. i do not appreciate that because i am a student at has asthma and i always have to walk through the hallways with all of that smoke around me. i do not appreciate that. they have been cutting class and may have been threatening and talking about they are going to kill people and all of that. i do not feel safe at the school and i think something should be done about it.

>> superintendent and board members, i am the pastor at the presbyterian church. i am a longtime observer and supporter of the martin luther king middle school since the good days when my friend james taylor was the principal. my observation now was that the middle school has suffered tremendously throughout the school year and is at its worst state historical. the new administration placed by the school board was about -- without consent. the school was formed in came into existence in 1984 as the result of a mandated court order from a lawsuit filed by the naacp.

as a result of a mandated court order filed by the naacp. staff members were selected by a committee consisting of staff, parents, and community members. staff was to be the most qualified and most experienced. this was not the case. the recommendation for this year was ignored with no regard to what the community felt was a crucial component to the education of their children. the first choice was an african- american from the bay view community. the only candidate with experience to work with black children, the basis on which the school was founded. there needs to be a connection with the students, staff, parents, and community. without a connection from the leadership, all of our children , all ethnicities, and their

education will continue to suffer. i recommend you take a look at that situation from the top. thank you so much. [applause] >> there is a problem at mlk and everyone is aware of it. the administration set in place is not working. the parents and teachers, everyone is speaking out against it. there must be some truth somewhere. it needs to be looked into. mr. superintending, spoke of graduating seniors. not at mlk. out of the 80 or os supposed to graduate, only 60 are allowed to walk across the stage. not because of bad grades but

because of tardiness. something that happened last year. i do not think this is legal. this is something that this administration has decided they wanted to do is to stop young kids from graduating, take a way a proud moment of their life to receive a diploma. there are serious problem at mlk. the administration is laughing about the staff members that were let go. highly inappropriate. laughing about giving out pink notices in the middle of teacher-parent meetings. you are aware of the problems. you have been there. if you ever decide to run for superintending, i will help you get the votes. i will give to the parents.

you know the problem. if everyone could listen to the parents, we will be successful there. if you allow west to put in place who we want, and it does not work out, then you can say we tried it your way. now we are going to do it our way. thank you. >> i would like to ask the board for some permission sure if this is my fault. i had the privilege of listening to a young senior student on monday when he was graduating. he did this knock out poem. i was so impressed i was hoping that if i were to ask, even though he just graduated on

monday, that he would come here and recite his poem. i was hoping to have him early on when we were doing the superintendent's sought, but he was sitting in the back and a trauma. the light is in your face. -- from up here the light is in your face. his name is nicholas smith. he is a former student and he graduated on monday and i was there and he gave a poem that he wrote, "my race is extraordinary." if you do not mind giving him a moment to recite his poem, i would love him to come up.

thank you for your patience. he was here for almost two hours. i told him 6:00 and i did not see him. >> it is ok. my name is nicholas smith. my poem is called "my race is extraordinary." they asked me to write down my race and i thought why? maybe i should write down the line. -- down a lie. then i thought about a truce. what could stop me? nothing. i want to make my mark as i embarked on what the world has to offer. i want to trouble near and travel far. i want to stand on an ma, ba, and a ph.d. for all the world to

see. i want to assist the needy, a peace treaty, i will not settle for less. my race began for me. my race makes me proud to be. my race allows plenty of time to elevate the mind. they asked me and i wrote it down. they asked me and i wrote it down. my race is extraordinary. thank you. [applause] president yee: this is nicholas smith, an extraordinary sr.. where are you going next? right. thank you for having so much patience and good luck in the next stage of your life.

let's move on to the next item, item k, board members, appointments by board members. item l, special order of business, at 9 tonight serious discussion of other educational issues. superintending garcia, which you like to call the speakers up? >> i would like to call on our deputy superintendent. last week we got the revised from the government -- the governor's proposal. we thought it would be appropriate, i know our deputy

just one for a training of that comment so it is hot off the press. this is the latest of what we know where our budgets will stand. i asked for this presentation this evening. >> i know that after i am through, the next item is going to be another informational item about the steady around our student nutrition program. consider this your recommended daily allowance for bad news about the state budget and just to spare everyone a long presentation, we will keep this short and i will go through the most basic information in the

course of five slides and then we will address some of the topics i am not going to go through but i will mention and to save those for another evening unless any of the commissioners want to engage in a deeper discussion. the may revised was released last monday and this is just an updated, i was here two weeks ago at your last board meeting and this is just an update on some of the aspects of the revision to syria and the governor is now estimating -- revision. the governor is now estimating the budget gap of $16 billion. that is up from $9 billion. there are several factors behind that increase, the largest in the budget deficit. the largest of those is that, as

we have alluded to before, the statewide revenue collections have been lagging compared to the forecasts that were in the january proposal. that is several billion dollars and that doesn't with patrons -- that has implications for 2012 and 2013. another category of the budget assumptions going awry are that the federal government and some court decisions have blocked specific cuts that were reflected in the january budget proposed by the governor and, to some extent, legislative actions. for example, there are metical cuts and cuts to in home support services that were proposed and they have