commissioner: all right, the regular meeting of the school board for august 28, 2012, is now called to order. could you please call the roll? secretary: [calling roll] thank you. commissioner it: please join me in the pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance]

can we have a motion, please? >> i move. no corrections? thank you. ms. -- secretary: ms. fewer, ms. wynns, mr. yee. 5 ayes. commissioner: thank you. oh, you did not call the students. now, it is time for the superintendent for this evening. superintendent carranza?

superintendent carranza: good evening, and i want to congratulate you on the "r's." they get better every evening. i want to congratulate all of our faculty staff, parents, and all of our schools for a smooth opening of schools. i think i had heard some parents refer to it as silky smooth. i was pleased and proud of what i saw. schools were welcoming. students were eager and ready to learn with their new backpacks and pencils, and teachers were energized and ready to go. of course, i did get to see some that were anxious about going to a new school. i did not see many kindergartners crying, but i did see a few parents.

i can also relate. the first night, i rushed home that night to hear what she had to say about her first and middle school and was relieved to hear her thoughts on the day and her saying how much she liked middle school. congratulations. while everyone pitched in to make sure it was a smooth start, i want to thank a few departments. our construction -- instruction department, to make sure that we had textbooks, and i also want to set daisy. with the adoption done in the spring, it was a late night and weekend that we had to do, and it was mission accomplished, and i also want to congratulate our facilities department. these are oftentimes are unsung heroes, but they made sure things were clean for the first day, and every school i visited

looked absolutely spotless. i also want to thank our human- resources department. this is an incredible feat that i am about to share with you. we had a 99% teacher fill rate on the first day of school, so, ladies and gentlemen, what that means, with the 8000 employees we have, we were only a short three teachers, -- we were only a short -- only short three teachers. believe it or not, this is an exceptional four school districts, given that inevitably they are moving on in less than a week before school opens, and last but not least, i want to thank the voters of san francisco for investing in our schools through a veint ahrough the prop a.' and this summer, we had over $62 million worth of improvements

done at 18 bonded sites and another $10 million of various other improvements at another 36 schools sides. for our students, that means our schools are more accessible. they are more apt to be used to support technology. they are healthy. they are safe. there are outdoor gardens that support learning, so they q2 them for investing in our schools. now, some business. the whopping cough booster, and immunization. i want to provide a quick update. the legislature passed a bill requiring all incoming seventh and 12th-grade students that must show proof that they have received all of the whopping cough booster shots, also called

tdap. you have to make sure you are vaccinated, or by law, we cannot allow you in the classroom. including our school nurses, counselors, learning support professionals, and school administrators, they are all worse enclosed -- working closely to provide families with vaccination options. this is a good idea to take out a piece of paper and pencil if you are at home. i have some information if you have yet to receive your tdap vaccination. there are flyers outside, in the same information is filed on our website, -- and the same information is found on our website. first of all, you can go to your own doctor's office or clinic. you can also visit the adult immunization of travel clinic on grove street, room 102. you can also visit the maxing

hall health center, 1301 paul pierce street, or the -- the 1301 pierce street, the youth centger, -- center, and some of birds. -- some others. it will be held at the following dates of times. tuesday, september 4, 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., thursday, december 6, 2:00 until 6:00 p.m., and september 11, 8:00 a.m. until 11:00 a.m., three free health clinics. students must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, and parents, you should bring the child immunization record. this information is available on the website.

we do not want a single student to lose precious time this year because we do not have the vaccination. and then last but not least, this friday, we're going to hold a press conference at 11:00 a.m., which we are going to release our state test scores for the 2011-2012 school year. i went to and the report this evening with a teaser. we have received our data, and i can really talk about it until friday, but i will give you the teaser, and that is as you know, these are state tests that we are required to administer to all students in the spring, and while i cannot share details, i will say that when they shared the preliminary results with us and with me, i think i and all

of my staff went to bed for the next three days with a huge grin, and i think you will see on friday that the district is continuing to accelerate student learning and continuing to work the achievement gap, which is really the focus of our plan. i nice little teaser of view. you can read about it, but we are very proud of our parents, students, administrators for what they have put in in spite of the budget environments to continue to support student growth in our district, so with that, i want to say thank you for being here this evening. >> good evening. my apologies for being delayed today.

resolutions of commendation, and we will call on the superintendent for the awards. >> thank you, president yee. superintendent carranza: welcome to our meeting, president yee. i would like to welcome some to present our distinguished award recipient. >> good evening, everyone. it is my great pleasure -- pleasure to announce the distinguished award recipient, ms. amy yu. ms. yu is a first grade immersion teacher and was nominated by a parent at our school for her dedication to students and positive support of

her colleagues, and she goes above and beyond to assure alders students learn in a meaningful way. she is affirming, funny, and innovative in your work with children. throughout the school year, she individualizes the instruction for each learner. and an example is she strategically balances things with learning in mind. at the kidneys immersion program, they often have a native speaker in the language, bilingual, and english only. by encouraging learning from others, in addition to her support, the students get a sense of accomplishment by helping each other. her strategy is a definite win- win for everyone. her colleagues often ask her for teaching tips. she is always willing to lend a hand.

i offer congratulations to you and for all that you do for the children and family for the school district. [applause] >> thank you. well, i want to say, of course, thank you. i am very surprised. i do not want to say other than i am very grateful, and i actually learned a lot, from a lot of colleagues that i learned with, and that he was my very first mentor during my first year of teaching, so it is a good cycle that i came back to her school, so thank you very much. [applause]

superintendent yee: -- president yee: there as someone in the back that i wanted to acknowledge. how are you? ok. the next item here is an accommodation of the backpack giveaways, and this is a resolution offered by commissioner murase. is there a motion and a second? a reading by commissioner murase. commissioner murase: i would just read a couple of paragraphs. while this was co-founded with community-based organizations to create collaborative community building after its that improve the quality of life of

neighborhood children, youth, and their families, and a sister organization was found with similar goals for the western addition neighborhood, and where they have an newly organized back to school events to not only equips students with supplies but also to educate their families about community resources for student and academic success that would otherwise be difficult to access. they distributed 1200 backpacks, conducted free health screenings, a committed to barbecue, and partnered to challenge the school to prison pipeline, and whereas on august 14, they distributed 3000 backpacks and partnered with a

charitable foundation to distribute free poland uniform shirts, and therefore, be it resolved that the school district recognizes the founder, the group executive, and the other executive director for their tremendous contributions to supporting san francisco public schools and their families through their back-to- school event and throughout the year, and he is here to accept the honor. [applause] president yee: before you -- go ahead. we should vote on it and then present it. commissioner murase: i do not know if this will pass. it will be a nail biter. [laughter]

president yee: commissioner mendoza? commissioner mendoza: i dissed want to commend them. there was a time when jeff started this whole backpack, many of us could remember sitting there talking about it, try to figure out what was there to give them. it was sheer exhilaration, and i just wanted to give a heartfelt thanks for continuing to support our kids and helping many of the families out, not only at the beginning of the year but throughout the year. president yee: commissioner maufas?

commissioner maufas: i also wanted to extend my congratulations. i have attended. they are wonderful. it is not just a backpack and give away. you all make it a huge community event, and between the community-based organizations and the nutrition folks that come out, it is just wonderful, and that is through your leadership, and i want to congratulate you. thank you so, so much. president yee: i also want to commend your efforts, because this means a lot to children and their families, knowing that people do care about them, so without any other comments, roll call please? secretary: thank you, commissioners. [reading role]

mr. yee. president yee: aye. secretary: it is unanimous. >> president yee: -- president yee -- pictures first? commissioners, jeff could not be here because he is vacationing with his family in yosemite, but i know you very much appreciate your taking time out of the meeting to recognize his efforts. he started the first program in 2004 at the urging of then supervisor mirkarimi. he expanded the program to the western addition, and what has been so successful about it is it was not really meant to be

other than helping them work better together, and, of course, this backpack program was a very visible way to bring the community together, to get young people excited about school. it tries to emphasize literacy and community, and so we are very excited about it. i will let them make a couple of remarks also. thank you. >> i just want to formally and publicly acknowledge, and think you for this great opportunity to be acknowledged and to say how great it is to come to the board of education and be saying nice things to each other. again, we enjoy the opportunity to work with the district and really work with the school and the community in putting those pieces together, and i just want to acknowledge the for us, it

has grown, really talking about supporting kids to go back to school prepared, so there are the health screenings, and we are distributing books, and we are talking about what it takes to help children succeed in schools and really working with the parents. it was great to have the restorative peace shown, to be able to put materials from the school district in there, and i was talking with someone from the mayor's office, looking at how we can replicate some of the worked doing, to make sure the community and the school district and families are all working together to make sure that we close the achievement gap and that kids are able to stay in school versus being channelled into the prison pipeline. it is so much more than that. [applause]

>> hi. i think cheryl said it best. it is more than just the backpacks. this is vital to their needs, so thank you once again. [applause] president yee: so, i am d, the student delegates' report, me gan wong and jaedon brassil. >> we learned what is done and how we work as an advisory body. there were also workshops on youth and adult relationships, professionalism, and personal narrative. we also participated in idea --

in a diversity workshop led by dave from sf state and berkeley. we also played games, and during the retreat, the eagerness to get started in the school year, i am really excited to get started. >> and i have to report that our next meeting which will be held in september, we will be electing a cabinet positions and a new student delegates who will be taking my spot. thank you. president yee: aw. thank you very much. item e, the parent advisory report, pac. >> my name is -- i am a member

of the parent advisory council. as you know, we do not meet during the summer, so we have not had any regular meetings, but some members have had an opportunity to do a few things over the summer, and i would just briefly report on what we have been doing over the summer. one of the things we had the opportunity to do was have a meeting with claudia anderson and another to talk about the upcoming year and how we might be involved more in restorative practices, which is something that we were delving into last year and have a great interest in as a pac, so lovely, we will be able to work with them and find ways to engage parents with everett's for restorative practices. we also hope to continue having discussions in the coming year

and already have two schools to have expressed interest in having as, , so hopefully we will do that this year, going out and getting back on how to restore to practices, and giving information, and we also were really honored to be asked to be involved this year in facilitating some restorative circles that the administrators institute in august, and i was not personally there, but i hear that was a great experience, and we are just pleased that the pac was able to be involved in that. also, in terms of community involvement, for the first time, the pac was involved with one of these backpack giveaways, and one of the members was there and found out that it was a wonderful event, and we hope to be a part of the projects in the bayview, as well. the other thing we are really excited about, we launched a

survey that is now live on our website, so anybody can go there and take the survey that is mostly about communication with families and how families are feeling about that, and it is in english, spanish, and chinese, and, once again, if you go to our website, it is accessible there, and also, we just wanted to say that are coming year, it is actually tomorrow night, wednesday, august 29, and we are going to have 10 new members and some continuing members, and we are really excited to have superintendent carranza coming to discuss the challenges, and i think it will be a great meeting. we will also be working on setting our priorities for the year, and all of these meetings

are open to the public, and if you want more information, you can go to the website, www .pacsf.org. president yee: thank you, ms. martin. any comments? commissioner: what is the pac website? >> www.pacsf.org. president yee: commissioner murase? commissioner murase: how long will this before, or is there an impending deadline? >> there is no deadline. i imagine it will be open for the next few months. president yee: you might have mentioned this, but is the survey in different languages? >> yes, including cantonese. president yee: thank you very much. i'm going to ask superintendent's --

superintendent carranza to make a slight introduction here. superintendent carranza: we have had the pleasure of having susan b. our board liaison, and she was recently chief of staff, and being the talented person she is, she is going to be an executive director in our early education department, where she will really work with strengthening our after-school program and servicing many of our students, so we are very proud of this evening to introduce to you, and she is here doing this transition work, the doctor who will be taking over the board liaison duties, so if she can wave to our audience -- [applause] she will be a critical part for

the school year, so welcome aboard. president yee: let's move on to item f, public and set on consent items. -- public comment on consent items. is there a second? commissioner: 2nd. president yee: before we do that, i actually skipped a step here. there is a speaker signed up for public comments. it is either dennis or susan. >> i am not usually confused with susan, but thank you for that compliment. i would like to comment very briefly on five items that are in your packet. let me identify them by page number, starting at the back of the agenda. you have an item where there is over 21 $2,000 given to a school

site given to a body that is not very well defined, that are not going to a minister programs at that school. it says that this work is contracted out to a body, so it is essentially supplanting the work of some employees, presumably administrators, but not our unit. the question is is where is the oversight on this money? there is no oversight here. the only oversight that you indicate on the agenda is that they have to complete their tasks. page 97, actually seven other pages that could be cited, you spend to leonard and $16,000 to provide -- you spend $216,000 at eight different schools. you do not use district employees or credentialed teachers. you use a program, which is a decent program, called play works.