>> good afternoon and welcome to the september 27, 2012 meeting of the joint meeting of the san francisco board of education and the san francisco board of supervisors. the city and school district select committee. my name is david campos and i

am the chair of the committee. madam secretary, if you can please take the roll? before we do that i wanted to thank the following members of sfgtv staff who are covering the meeting today. mark bunch and bill dylan. madam secretary. >> did you want me to read the first item? >> roll call. >> roll call. we haven't had one. supervisor campos? >> present. >> supervisor olague? >> here. >> thank you. supervisor chu? >> he's in route. >> [speaker not understood]? >> here. >> [speaker not understood]? >> and commissioner mendosa. >> here. >> thank you very much. madam secretary, if you can please call item number 1. >> thank you, supervisor. it's item 120 3 93, hearing on the student drop out rates as introduced by supervisor cohen. >> this is an item that has been introduced by supervisor cohen. before i turn it over to

supervisor cohen, i want to thank her for being here. i just wanted to sort of just make a quick note about these items, number of issues that we'll be discussing. you know, my experience having been on the other end at some point having been an employee of the san francisco unified school district, my hope and my intent as we tackle some very difficult issues which impact all of us is that we do so in the spirit of how do we work together as a city and as a school district to address these issues. i know that in the past some folks on the school district end had felt the prior discussion that has taken place in this committee has been about pointing fingers, and i really think that while it's important for all of us to be accountable, that the goal here is to figure out solutions for these very complicated issues. so, it is in that spirit that i hope we have this discussion. so, with that, i turn it over to my colleague, supervisor cohen. >> thank you very much.

good afternoon, everyone. it's nice to see you. i thank you for hearing this item today. both supervisor olague and i express concern and desire of to better coordinate the work being done by the school district and other school -- excuse me, and other city departments, to support and -- to support and increase african-american students achievement and prevent students from not completing high school. originally i introduced the hearing that looked specifically at the drop out rates at marshal, thurgood marshall and burton high school both of which have a number of students from the southeastern neighborhoods. in particular i want to do better, in particular i want to have a better understanding of how the school district tracks high school drop-out rates and how those at thurgood marshall and burton high school compare with other schools throughout the city. now, collectively we as a city and as a school district and more importantly as a community, we need to do better to ensure that the academic success of all of our students,

particularly those coming from vulnerable communities who we see time and time again disproportionately struggling in our public schools. and i'm looking to the school board members to decrease that struggle. i'm hoping this hearing will yield a creative solutions and tangible steps that we can begin to take to subsequently address these challenges. i believe that these two hearing items share many common things and i look forward to the presentations today. thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you. thank you, supervisor cohen. and i was remiss for noting the following. unless there is any objection, if it's okay with my colleagues, to combine items 1 and 2. so, if i could ask the secretary to also call item 2. >> thank you, supervisor. item 120 6 28, hearing on the african-american student achievement strategies. >> and again, item 2 is a hearing that has been requested

by supervisor olague as well as supervisor cohen and myself. so, supervisor olague, if you would like to make any opening remarks. >> first of all, i'd like to thank you all for attending this very important hearing. as i am sure we are all in agreement that our children all deserve the right to a good education and all the opportunities that follow, it is a major priority for our office to see that our communities of color graduate and are afforded every opportunity to reach their full potential. i think i can safely say that's what we all collectively want for every person in our society. that is why the african-american student achievement gap is truly disturbing and a very important discussion to be having, and i especially want to thank ms. cheryl davis from mo magic and from the human rights

commission for asking us to host this hearing today. and obviously for supervisors campos and cohen for co-sponsoring. today in advance, i'll let you know who will be speaking to this. we will have opening remarks from cheryl davis, guadalupe guerrero will present from the school district and share with us the status and the current initiatives, followed by max roach a from dcyf to speak to the programs they fund to support academic achievement, and then finally we will wrap up with neva walker from coleman advocates to speak to their research on the a to g requirements. so, that's kind of the line up. >> great. unless there is any objection, if we can then begin the presentations. and, ms. davis?

>> hello, everyone. let me just first formally thank all of you for being here and then for actually moving forward with the hearing. and i do want to echo supervisor campos' comments that this really isn't about finger pointing. this is really about how we come together to look at what the issues are and we work together to do that. so, i just -- i'm going to go really quickly because i did want to have -- david, i think we passed out some reports of things that david has combined or compiled from the human rights commission. and i wanted to kind of set the tone for why i made this request. on the human rights commission we have been doing some work around the outmigration of african americans. and i think to some degree we've had this kind of what came first. did people start leaving first or did things start to go wrong and that's why people made the decision to leave, and how do we begin to address that. and over the years there has

been the unfinished agenda, which there is some information in the packet about. the african-american outmigration task force was convened under then mayor newsome and there have been all these conversations. and one of the things that continues throughout that is this idea of the achievement gap and what's going on. and for a city that used to at one point in time have over 25% african-americans to now be looking at less than 6% as a population, we really need to start looking at what's going on and what that looks like. so, i did want to share with you some of the things that the human rights commission has been doing over the last year to begin to look at that. not just in regards to the academic piece, but also by and large what is going on with african americans and what that looks like. so, one of the first things we did earlier this year was to convene a group that was self-selected, people were allowed to participate in that. the african-american leadership council was meeting once a month and that group came

together and developed some goals and strategies of things that they'd like to see. one of the first things that the group did, which i will leave with you all, is they created a tracking tool because, basically as i mentioned, there have been dozens of reports. there have been tons of findings. and the problem was that people said we don't want another report. why don't we look at all the reports that have been done and let's see what kind of implementation has been done, what's been happening with that. so, the group created a tracking tool. and basically when you look at these pages, these are all of the recommendations that have come out of every report that we know of. and we're starting to look at what has actually been done in this department and that department and whether there has been any action. so, it's something that if you wanted to look specifically at education, you could look at the education recommendations and see what was done or not done. we created subcommittees within that and the subcommittees each came up with their own goals. and, so, the education

subcommittee, i'll just tell you really quickly, they wanted more academic support funding. they wanted more round credit recovery, develop an outreach database around academicses and education to really look at not just what the city funds, but what else is out there, what are the resources that could be availed to folks. and then there are some other ones that again, you can look at those and see what that looks like. this summer they started a human rights commission initiated a brown bag series. again, understanding that it's not just about the school district, it's not just about home, but the importance of networking and making connections and having a context. when we start talking to people about the importance of school and education, if we have generations of folks who have maybe not graduated from high school or don't have geds or have had a hard time with getting a job and you say you need to go to school to get a job, and that's not something that they have a context for, it's about creating these internships, but also these mentoring opportunities, brown bag series where people come in

and share their stories of how they ended up where they are and what that process looked like. and i think for me the most memorable one was when we did it with mayor brown, and he talked about it was right time, right place. that there was somebody that was there to help him. it wasn't because he had this really great plan did & it was all in alignment. he went to san francisco state and somebody took a chance on him and said, this is a program, you're going to be on probation. but if you don't make it, if you don't do what you're supposed to, it's on you. and that really resonated with a lot of the young folks that we had there. and then i also have for you a copy of the summary of the goals of the work sheet for where we are with that project and where people feel like we should be moving towards. i also wanted to just have david and salina come up and share with you really quickly. so, david nyree is staff for the human rights commission. >> thank you, commissioner

davis. i consider this a groundbreaking day for the city and county of san francisco and the african-american community as we go beyond reports and studies and continue to put forth a real action toward addressing important issues that impact the african-american community as it relates to both retaining the african-american community in san francisco as well as attracting the populations of the city. historically education has been an essential and key component for many african americans toward backing the cycle of poverty and creating opportunities to succeed, flourish, thrive, and be empowered. and i thank the supervisors and the members of the board of education for fostering this important public dialogue. over the past year the human rights commission has dedicated -- has been dedicated to addressing and implementing many of the findings and recommendations found in the equity reports spanning two decades, including the much talked about unfinished agenda and the african-american outmigration reports. a critical analysis of these

reports conduct bid staff at the human rights commission found that action on the part of city leadership and experience a realistic collaborative with the city department was the number one asked and the most essential element toward effectuating real and tangible outcomes to again both retain and attract african-american community in and to san francisco. i believe this hearing is a vital advancement to that end. i am pleased to share with you a progress report on the hrc implementation efforts will see we have already taken on a variety of projects that highlight the intersection between the role of education and the personal and professional development of african-american youth in san francisco. the hrt realizes that it does take a village, as the saying gos, to effectuate positive outcomes and i hope this hearing signals a real commitment from city leaders to foster more collaborations toward empowering the african-american community in san francisco to succeed, flourish, and thrive. with that the hrc is proud of the community collaboratives we

have already established to date to continue our efforts on implementing the findings and recommendations of the various diversity reports. we have with us today salina from the santa and juvenile criminal justice who will briefly comment on the school to prison pipeline, particularly the high criminalization of african-american girls in san francisco. i give you ms. salina tiji. >> hi, thank you very much for having me. as i was introduced, i worked for the center on juvenile and criminal justice. it is a nonprofit base in san francisco, we provide services, technical assistance and [speaker not understood] analysis. i know a there are a lot of people who can really speak to the educational gap a lot better than i can so i'm going to limit my comments to justice involved youth and really make the connection because it is important to think about this issue not in a vacuum, recognizing that a lot of youth who have educational barriers also have mental health issues,

public health issues, child welfare, there is a lot of cross over to youth, dependency system and really struggle with educational barriers in terms of getting access to the school system. and, so, cjcj has been studying arrest trends in san francisco for decades before the board of supervisors multiple times in the past on those. so, i just wanted to share with you that educational barriers, specifically for youth of color, is also sort of mirrored in arrest trends in san francisco. the latest study we did was in april 2012 and, in fact, less than 9% of the city's youth population is african-american and they actually comprise 56% san francisco juvenile drug felony arrest. that's a huge, really unusual disparity that actually is more unusual than elsewhere in california. and especially for female youth. so, the city's african-american female youth account for over

40% of drug felony arrests for african-american female youth in california, 40%, and have a arrest rates 50 times higher than their counterparts in other counties. now, why that should be is really an issue for the public safety committee, but i would argue also for this committee since educational barriers also contribute to those kinds of trends. you'll know about the school-prison pipeline. other things to consider in terms of, you want solutions based in this hearing, so i just wanted to mention a hearing that cjcj participates in we provide to juveniles in san francisco as well. the san francisco public defenders office has a legal education advocacy program, leap, which cjcj partners with that provides legal advocacy for juvenile justices, juveniles in school hearings, school board disciplinary hearings. they've had a lot of success getting students back into public school. i know that is a huge barrier.

if your justice involved, getting reinvolved in public school is a huge barrier for a lot of youth. that's a program that's had a lot of success, sb 10 88 was signed into law this year. hopefully providing also some smooth transition with youth coming out of the justice system enrolled back into school. so, i think the arrest trends that are highlighted in our report, and i would be happy to get you copies of them, is sore of worth a hearing in and of itself. but i think in terms of especially as you discussed barriers, making the connection between all of these and maybe we need a multi-system approach to ensuring that youth get the education that they need because often barriers occur. those other systems that are not necessarily immediately educationally related. so, thank you very much. >> so, again, i just want to thank you for really convening this hearing and moving forward. and i know we've gone over our

time, but, you know, to try and consolidate the work that's been done over the last 40 years to address the issue, it's really difficult. i did just want to leave you with a couple of things just in terms of what we've considered and discussed within the african-american leadership council and what we've talked about with regards to the human rights commission. and something that i hope will come from this hearing is that from this there is some kind of task force or some committee or some convening, much in the same way that you all spearheaded the lgbt senior task force to address some of those issues, that there is something that comes out of this. that people who have been following this for the last 40 years and feel like there's been nothing done have a voice and a way to check in. and then also just the idea around better coordination, whether it's of opportunities to network and to exposure, or between funding programs and agencies and stakeholders, and then also just around setting up standards around expectations and what is what

the deliverables are. i feel dcyf are going to talk about some of their programs. but what does it look like for a service provider that's offering support around academic -- addressing the achievement gap, whether that's a check-in attendance. if it is an after school program, students should be going to school and coming to that program after. if they are not doing that, then there is no connection. or, you know, what does it look like in terms of number of minutes spent reading or time doing things that support that effort. and with that i actually submit to you just a device that we are actually using to work with san francisco unified around the programs that we've done during the summer. and whether we are tracking where folks know in the school district ho numbers, whether we can actually look at the students that are in after school programs and what that impact is on their school day. and doing more trainings around what the state standards are,

the schools know them. the school district knows them, but what about the service providers? what is it that the kids should be do at the end of the day, what that should look like. so, again, thank you for this and i look forward to seeing what comes from it. >> thank you very much. and i believe now we'll be hearing from our deputy superintendent. guadalupe guerrero. >> good afternoon, commissioner, and supervisors. guadalupe guerrero. i think i'm in the eighth week for deputy superintendent for instruction, innovation and social justice.

glad to speak on the topic today. let me switch over to our powerpoint. there we go, thank you. today's presentation there's a few things i want to be able to speak to just at a high level reminder of the school districts' vision and goals for all students. but more importantly, share some data with you today and some outcomes for some of the targeted student populations that are the focus of conversation today, discuss and share with you some strategic actions and interventions that are showing promise in some of our schools that can only benefit to expand on and highlight some of those promising partnerships that are occurring. san francisco unified school district's vision for student success, we do expect that every student who enrolls in our schools will graduate from high school, will be ready for college and career and be

equipped with the skills to be successful in the 21st century. san francisco unified adopted a bold strategic plan with three goals focused on access and equity, student achievement, and account ability. -- and accountability. and there are six key milestones our superintendent has laid out toward measuring our progress and student goals. there are a few in here i want to highlight. they're kind of chronological starting with the first milestone, and that's the percentage of students who are ready for kindergarten. and that's important to today's topic because 30% of our students, based on our assessment, are actually showing up ready for kindergarten. so, that is a point of input. we then have a fourth grade milestone where you see that number after a few years has gone up a bit to 70 and 72% for meaning in which language arts and math standards. similarly you see our

milestones for eighth grade. and then a 10th grade we have a graduation exit exam, the kc exam. we have 80 and 84% of students passing the content areas. and then for our percentages, seniors that are actually graduating with the a through g sequence, we see a number of 52%. and then we have graduates in post secondary at 79. this past tuesday evening at our board of education meeting we spent some time going in detail through a lot of our district summary data. but today i'm going to focus on our student subgroups, most relevant. this first slide is based on our performance on this past testing cycle of state tests, cfc. this first slide is on english language arts. these are the transfer proficient level. these are students who score at proficient or advanced. for a few student subgroups, these are for grades 2 through 11 test graders. let me start off by pointing

out in the top right corner you'll notice the overall trend in san francisco is a 10% growth which double digit growth. so, we did show at our board the other night while there is a lot to be commended and san francisco is back on top as the top performing district. but while we enjoy that title we have the widest gap. it is something we are being attentive to. african-american, latino, native american and samoan. and while the district overall trend was 10% growth, what you notice over a five-year trend is african-american growth has bested the district average of 13% improvement, latino at 10% equal to the district's growth, native american at 14%, and samoan at 11%. the next slide is similar, but in the content area of mathematics on the state test. again, 8.2% district overall

growth trend, african-american comparison 13% growth over five years, latino 10%, native american 7, and samoan 11%. >> superintendent, i'm just wondering if there is anyway maybe later on to get the numbers of where the anglo and asian-american students are. >> okay. so, maybe in this next slide, we get to that point. so, this next slide is actually on the english language arts achievement gap. so, what's highlighted in this one are two line graphs, one for african-american/latino, and the top line graph actually represents the district average. and what i want to point out is, again, a different way to represent it over five years, you'll notice that there was -- there is a persisting achievement gap, the first thing you'll notice. but if you look at the district average of 50.5 in 2008, you'll notice that 28.3 is one

subgroup's performance and the other one is 22.6. there was quite a margin or gap there, 22 and 27%. if you fast forward to 2012, our latest test results, you'll notice that one really hasn't budged in the english language arts and the other one has shrunk by just a few percentage points. so, in this next slide, instead of actually comparing to the district average we've actually disaggregated in this line graph, the top line graph actually represents our chinese and white students. so, you also see the achievement gap illustrated not just in comparison to the district average, but actually in comparison to those subgroups. and what you'll notice there is that the achievement gap actually gets even more significant. so, five years ago you saw 43.4 gap with one subgroup and 37.7 with one. and while there's been a slight narrowing, that gap persists and is still wide. so, it's worth noting that

everybody's performance is going up. the african-american and latino is narrowing slightly but there is still a persistent gap there. this slide is similarly shows the same trend only it's in mathematics. you see a little bit more growth in some cases. again, this one is in comparison to chinese and white students on the top line graph. you see an even wider gap when you don't factor them into the district average. so, you see 54% performance achievement gap five years ago, narrowing a bit, but still persisting. this next table is high school success and retention for two student populations, latino and african-american. just looking at the first row there, the latino state demographic graduation rate is 70.4 with a 17.7 drop-out rate.

11% of those students still engaged with their school districts and perhaps a fifth year of credit recovery program. in san francisco that graduation rate is at 67.2 for la tin owedx, 18.6% drop out and 14% still engaged. * latinoses at thurs owe good marshal and burton, those were pulled out, specific schools we want to shed light on statistics for, thurgood marshall 38% overall graduation rate, 5% still engaged with the school in some fashion. at burton 68, drop-out 22, still enrolled 9. for african-american state graduation rate of 62.8. the district pretty much on par with that rate. at marshall, you see it a bit, a few percentage points higher than that. and burton actually has been enjoying a bit of or a greater succession than the district average, 82.6%. but still with the 17.4

drop-out rate. so, here you see sort of a comparison from 09-10 to 10-11. so you can see there how that graduation rate has improved in a one-year difference there in our state from 74 to 76% and the district from 77 to 82%, which is a 5% improvement at burton from 78% to 78.9, just slight increase, but at marshall, 75.6 has increased to a 77.8% graduation rate. so, since we're talking graduation, it's hard to separate that from the actual requirement. so, the board adopted a through g requirement. it is important to notice whether we're on track or not as students who are falling under that policy are going to be enjoying success. so, what