they gave up a lot to have their crazy dead -- dad fight this movement for children. thank you very much. [applause]

president yee: ok. thank you superintendent garcia for your words. i would like to take this opportunity, this will be his last meeting here as officials superintendent of san francisco. i hope, i personally hope and i am sure the rest of the board would hope he will come back every so often and spur a son and remind us why we are here. -- spur us on and remind us why we're here. i would like to give the school. -- school board members an opportunity to say something. does anyone want to start? commissioner maufas: thank you. i will speak first this time

because i think when we voted you in, i may have spoken last and it was to cast a no vote for carlos. it was not so much about him. i was not sure about our process and how we came to the decision and i was not ready yet and i had stated that. but today, even telling the community, they would ask me, do you like him yet and it was not so much about that. it was, this is our superintendent and this is the gentleman i have to work with and i have to work with him with the community as well. i have to tell you, it has been up from that moment. up and all the way. and want to thank you for your service. i know there have been lots of tensions, pushes and pulls, but that is the part of the deal. we are supposed to have that and it is healthy. there was never a time when we

could not come to the table and have a discussion, whether i was fighting for my committee or on the side of labour and paraprofessionals, you were always able to hear me. even today. to see the walls are barer because richard is moving in and carlos is leaving. the moment of transition. i want to tell you, thank you. thank you for your service to san francisco. i appreciate you coming back here to end your career and do that well. >> congratulations on concluding your successful tenure. lots of good things that are happening and i think you have a very promising career as a motivational speaker. as everyone knows, carlos is a very effective spokesperson for our children and the school

district. one of the things you have said in previous remarks is that if the schools are not good enough for your kids, they're not good enough for any kids and i have taken that to heart. we're in this business because we want to make opportunities available to all of our kids. thank you. >> it has been a real honor and privilege for me to not only be on the board when we hired you but to work closely with you over the last five years and i want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being just incredibly honest and ethical, and always working hard for the kids and your sense of humor has always been such a real treat. it has broken up a lot of our very intense meetings. i also want to thank you not only for being a great superintendent, but also being a great partner with the city. in my position as the mayor's education advisor, you have built an incredibly strong

relationship with the city and we could not do that work without a superintendent who was willing to come over and take advantage, actually, of all the resources the city has to offer. you have always open your arms to that and it wanted to thank you for that. we have not always agreed on everything but you have always been incredibly respectful and i will not have to call you any other names that we have called each other behind closed doors. it is again an honor and privilege and i wish you the best of luck. we have been colleagues but also friends and you cannot get rid of us that easily. we look forward to spending more time with you on the outside. congratulations and our best and well wishes for you and your family, carlos. >> this feels like a very sad day and also a very happy day. there is a lot -- you have definitely broke me up.

i was not sure you are going to be able to get through it and you did. congratulations. i have appreciated so much learning from you in my term on the board. your keep -- the passion for kids and improving the school. you never -- you have always been able to keep your priorities straight. you have always really stressed to the staff and the board that you still need to enjoy life. even when the problems seem really big and insurmountable, you need to enjoy life and enjoy your family and i am -- my mental image of your retirement is new and your family planning -- playing yout in the wilderness. i will miss you very much. >> we have known each other 25 years or more and i, we were

friends before you came here. i was pleased you were interested in this job when it came up. i appreciate so much your -- i think the greatest asset you brought us was the ability to communicate with the public and to essentially have made, this is always such a challenge. we're always back here say, we're doing that, we need you to understand this. it is hard to engage the public and the internal constituencies, the teachers, all the school employees, the administrators. we do that and some people do well and some people do a better than others and frankly, i think at this time in our development and life, that has been your greatest gift to us.

that we have been able to communicate our message so much better than we have in the past. i think that has been your personal talent that has allowed that to happen. i appreciate that. we have made great progress. this has been a sort of continual evolution. i think that we have -- the sport has always said to our new superintendent -- this board has always said to our new superintendent, that we wanted to move forward. we did not want a do over and that is hard to do. it is hard to make sure mark, be clear what you're doing and what your leadership brings to this kind of an effort without saying everything was bad before i got here. i think that all the boards and have served on which is -- i have served on which is a lot, tried to have agreement about this and it has been a challenge for us over time.

we really mean that and follow it through ourselves. i think that has been -- that is our greatest strength. it will continue to be and i thank you for adding to that and really nurturing that foundational philosophy. really the most important thing you have done is to help us clearly articulate to people how much we mean it when we say this is about equity for us. i cannot tell you how many people have said to me, this is the first time we have the chance to really talk and plan and work clearly through the equity lands. even the women did before. i do not think we communicate that well enough to people and i do not think people believed it before. since that is our universally held, most important value for public education, in san

francisco, i think we could not have done that without you and we're much further along the road then we were before you came. i think you for that and for your friendship, for your work, for your commitment, and for all the fun we have had come into -- had, too. we love you and we will miss you. >> so, carlos. i feel like this is sort of a very profound, and also. -- profound moment also. i was a chairperson of the citizens' advisory committee to select the new superintendent which everyone wanted a say in

what they wanted the new superintendent to be. i remember standing at the podium, pushing back on the school district, of course. after having written the first educational equity platform with advocates for children and youth. you unveiled a strategic plan and i then went up to the podium again and it just was in tears that this was the first time that i had heard in this district that somebody had the courage and the vision and leadership to call out our racial achievement gaps for what it was. and some people may be angry now. they may decide to run for the school board. i thought this is something i could sign on to. this is something i think with

all integrity, i could do and i could sign on and support it. this was the direction i think i could go. i think your biggest contribution was having the courage and the vision to be so bold as to call out our achievement gap and not always focus on us being a very high performing district in this state. and that it was not enough that we're high performing when not all children are succeeding. i love that you get mad about the right things and i rarely have seen you mad but when i have seen you mad, it is over that injustice, it is over inequity. it has been over the right things for our children. so i will thank you and your family for all these hours of school board meetings. i know that you and i look at each other, we're like, another hour. it has been a great contribution

in these five years you have given to our students. it has been a light at the end of the tunnel. public school children and their parents and everybody else in the community, i want to say thank you. i hope that in your retirement, we will play a game together. my husband and i really like that, too. i hope that you and i can take many motorcycle rides together and the -- enjoy each other away from the board and the work of the board and the work of the school district. carlos, good health, good luck, much joy, much love in your retirement. thank you. >> so, carlos. you are right. in san francisco, we do have freedom fighters. we had them before you came and we have them now.

and we will have them later. the biggest thing you brought to us is that we have a lot of freedom fighters that have no leadership. we were really just doing our own thing and everybody had their definition of what they should be doing and what you brought was that leadership that brought us all together. it is that emotional -- i am talking about. people believed in what you were saying and were willing to get behind the things that you wanted to do to fight for our equity for the children. i am really proud that when you came in, i was in the leadership on the school board. and almost come full circle five years later. here are at -- i am, the president of the school board and i have to see you go. it is a sad day. it was a happy day when we

brought you in. it has been a real great right for me -- ride for me to work with you on all these issues. i can speak for -- they all spoke already. we feel real good about what has happened here in the last few years. refinished? we're not finished. that is where we have richard carranza here. this is what i want you to do. i want you to go get some rest, take a long vacation, not too long, but unlike everyone else, i do not think you should be retiring. you should not be retiring. you have too much fire, and you know something? we cannot lose you in california. we need somebody like you. the next job is to create a movement and create that fight

where we will challenge -- a change -- will change california's way of thinking. we want california to start valuing our children. you take the lead on that and i will be right beside you. carlos, come back and fight for us. thank you very much, carlos. president yee: let's move on. item c. item b, student delegates' report. >> do you have -- we had our olast -- our last student advisory council in may. this is my last as well. it has been a really great term

and i have some words to say to mr. garcia. i want to thank you for your hard work. i am a 17-year- i am b-17-year-old girl, so i do not know how much of the means to you. but an thank you. before i was a student delegate, you were a signature in e-mail occasionally. i realized how kind and hard- working you are. the is really nice to be reassured that you care about the children, and everyone else does here. fed could easily be forgotten, through the budget and the money issues. it is really nice to know that, and thank you perianth now to thank you. president yee: you are destined to lead. you have a four year free ride to uc-berkeley. you will be a leader.

it has been great having you as a student delegates this past year. good luck. i know you are going to shake it up over there. commissioner? commissioner wynns: i wanted to say we are not letting her get away either. we have not had a chance to talk about our and our other student delicate, because we did not know if would be privileged to have them here tonight. with respect to all of my colleagues, elected and appointed, my favorite part about serving on the board of education is working with students. in has been a privilege this year, and for many years in the past, to be able to do that. we expect to stay in touch and see great things from you, and offer or how for anything we can do. president yee: next item is the

parent advisory council report. ruth? >> good evening. this is a really difficult act to follow. i staff the parent advisor counsel to the board of education. for people in the room who do not know that, the mission is to provide parent perspectives to inform board of education policy and strength and implementation of district practices. i just want to say also that we really are grateful for your leadership that you have provided in the last few years. i was sitting here thinking, how many superintendents have gone through while i have been doing this work? i think four or five. to repeat something commissioner fewer said, it was not until you

came on that people were willing to acknowledge the hard realities. committing to equity has been the underlying value, but it has changed our work to save those are the priorities of our work is devoted to. thank you. we also really appreciate the incoming superintendent of accessibility, and always be willing to try to answer our questions, which i know are relentless. we are trying to do this on behalf of not just our personal children, but all the kids in this district. thank you for your ongoing work. i want to give a brief summary of the pack's works -- pac's accomplishments. i sent you this chart. i am not going through the whole thing. it lays out the details of some of our specific goals and things we actually got done.

the board of education knows this, but for the folks in the room who do not, i want to point out that all the members of the parent of kaiser council are volunteers, like all the advisory councils in the district. i have the privilege and honor of working for the pac part time to coordinate behind the scenes. at the end of the school year, members of fire rated their work for this year. for a small group of volunteers, the accomplished a lot. members felt very positive this year about their success in engaging hundreds of parents and community members in discussions a restorative practices and improving school climate, and also hosting community meetings with the superintendent and district staff leaders to talk about student achievement data and learn more about the strategic initiative. the members were really happy that we surpassed our specific

goal for the number of people we involved in these events. we also felt that working in collaborative partnership with district staff around restorative packages -- practices, and planning about aligning after-school programs -- the work went very well. they felt their work to bring parents perspectives was having a direct and positive impact on were happening in the district. despite that success, people had mixed feelings about their ability this year to engage -- to actually influence how some of the most pressing issues are unfolding in our district, specifically how to how bring parent and community perspectives to ensure that our woefully inadequate budget is aligned to support the priorities we all agree with, with how to engage performance in implementing the new

corporate standards and strengthening changes to the second education, and completing the parent engagement plan of the district. past members felt, to some extent, they were not sure how apparent forces could be part of those initiatives, but felt the biggest challenge was in trying to provide meaningful input, was not having access to a lot of specific information, knowing how to give constructive input. people felt that staffing in the district contributed to this, but also are committed to continue working on these issues. we want to follow up to make sure we can support those initiatives to go well. a specific change we are making is to change the day we meet so we can align with the his

schedule. you are going to have so much fun at our meetings next year. we have really good meetings. it is carrying over for this year into next, especially expanding and supporting restorative practices in the district. we are meeting with some people who are on vacation and are still going to meet because it is the only day everybody was in town. we are continuing to work on the after-school program so it is a collaborative effort that expands access, and trying to complete the district of engagement plan. there are so many new members coming on. we might take on some new projects, and we are very excited to see you again at the table in the fall.

president yee: thank you, ruth. i just want to note that the pac's importance to the school district, as evidenced by the fact that two of the staff members who are on vacation felt it was important enough to meet with you -- it really tells you a lot about how low staff and the rest of us feel about your contribution to the discussion in the district. thank you very much, and think all the parents who are involved. commissioner? commissioner murase: i want to recognize ruth for her critical goal -- critical involvement in keeping the pac going. you have been renewed for funding, and i know there is another grant in consideration.

the message of the school board supports 100% your work, hoping to sway some decisionmakers on that. thank you personally for all the work you do. president yee: thank you. we will move on to public comment on consent items. just one speaker, president kelly from the uesf. >> thank you very much. congratulations, a new superintendent. and mr. garcia, congratulations on getting out with a bloodless transition. it is not something which are

used to here, but it is something we appreciate. sorry. do you want this on general items? president yee: comment on consent items. you had it for k135. >> the item on page 135 is a matter of adding yet another law firm to the roster of 17 or 18 that you already have. it is encouraging that you will still keep the outside law firms and your use down to slightly under a million dollars, in addition to what you spend on in-house lawyers. the fact that you are adding yet another firm indicates you must have some other specialty that you are considering. it may be of interest to know

what there is on your pocket as a board that is not covered by the other 17 or so law firms you already have, but makes it necessary to add yet another to them. there are several other comments i have on other items the will be coming before you. i thank you very much. w27, oh, yes. on this night when you are praising carlos -- the shakespeare said it backwards, he would say that you came to praise and not to bury carlos. something you are truly doing right is on item 3aa. after years of hearing complaints from folks about the inability to put a driveway in, going over to the jongh campus, it is encouraging to see that all it takes is a 2/3 boat by

you to cut a driveway in, bypassing city regulations. it has been a long time coming. we are proud to have figured out how to do it. thank you very much. president yee: item g, consent calendar. is there a motion to second? any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent? >> we have three we would like to withdraw from the agenda. we would like to make a correction to an item on page 91. we would like to make a correction to the appropriation number. it should read 21-