here with these three subgroups listed, african-american, latino and samoan is you see four columns after that. whether they're on track, you see a c. these are students who are getting a c or better in the a through g core sequence. that means they're taking courses for california state university or university of california eligible. so, these are students who are on track for doing that. these are our present juniors in high school right now. you'll notice that we have 2,122 students who are on track. it's not a typo. we have the exact same number of students based on sort of our best data today that are not on track. so, that means we don't have a c or better in all of their courses on that a through g sequence. in the third or fourth column where it says on track or off track d, these are students who are getting a d or better in that same core sequence. so, they can get a d in the a through g core sequence and meet district graduation

requirements because they're taking the core sequence that they wouldn't be eligible to apply for a csu or uc school. so, what you're going to notice in the fourth column which is sort of the most alarming one here is these are students that are both not finishing school uc or ucs eligible and not graduating san francisco unified school district with a diploma if this pattern persists. so, just to call it out, for our 2014 class, african-american students, those are 246 kids today not on track. these are students that are not performing with a d or better in their required courses and only 76 that are on track if you look at the minimal requirements. if you see the 2015 class, you see that number there. now, of course, as they become juniors and seniors, you'll notice that the sequence gets even a little more stringent. so, the big question is what

are some of the strategic actions and interventionses for closing this achievement gap, which is persisted for generations? >> commissioner. >> excuse me, deputy lieutenant. i have a question or clarification on the last slide. does that include students that are just in our regular schools or does that include our county schools? >> good afternoon, bill sanders, director division of curriculum instruction. it includes all students in that grade. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you. it's good to have you back up. -- your back up. >> so, a few strategies and interventions for tackling the issue here is a big push in our district at the moment becoming oriented towards implementing an english language arts and core curriculum. one is very focused on the common courses standard for

different level of rigger. it's a different level of practice and something our teacher and principals at the moment are becoming familiar with. it's adopting materials. we just adopted new k through 8 language arts materials for students. so, again, getting better quality instructional materials to teach those standards. we're also expanding our use of assessments to inform instruction. so, more and more steps are being put in place by teachers so they can learn whether where students are at&t any given point and monitor progress thou they're doing. it's access to the course. it's one thing to have standards and practices, but it has to be accessible to all students. and how do we deal with the readiness to learn issue? how do we better align pre-k and elementary? that's a big push for us. how do we differentiate our instruction? so it's culturally relevant? so it's accessible to students with special needs, students who are second language learners, how are we inclusive in that fashion? and then how across all of our

schools are we dedicating time per allowed plan for english language development? so, we have a specific time during the day when instruction is being provided in eld or specialized instruction. and all of it, if we're implementing standards and we're differentiating our instruction, how do we monitor who is doing well and who isn't? and how do we respond and react? so, how do we make more robust multiple tiers of support and intervention for students that are not achieving? and, so, what are some of those targeted interventionses and supports for our prioritized subgroups which i refer to as african-american, english language learners and students with disabilities? these are targeted in our lea in the district. we said algebra 1 is required. we have more students taking that. we are enhancing grade 9 bridge program. so when we notice there are issues with eighth graders as

we're going into school, they're getting additional remediational support with study skill to be successful and something that's shown a lot of promise for us is putting in place an early warning indicator system so we have much more accurate means of tracking which students are falling off track. if we look at a variety of factors, attendance, suspension rates, grade performance, et cetera, we should know right away who early on is in need of some support. so, you see some of our high schools who are enjoying some nice results. it's because they're paying attention to our early warning indicator system and for these sets of students, for example, who are creating mentor ships, additional targeted supports for these subgroups of students. and then the kc, the kc is an exit exam. you have to pass it to graduate. so, what are the tutoring supports we're making available to students who need that extra help? and then of course how do we make credit recovery and learning options available for students, not just during the summertime which has been great, but we've been able to

maintain alive thanks to the city, and during the school year a blended learning option. there are also lessons learned from what we see double and triple the rate of acceleration for these subgroups. specifically in superintendent zone schools where we did see a rate of improvement that was much greater than the san district. there are a few things we paid attention to leadership development, engaging parents and families and community partnerships, raising the capacity of our teachers to be successful with students, making sure the learning environments were equipped with the material and coaching for our teachers. also, it bears mention that there are a lot of places around our district where there are some very valued partnerships. this is not an exhaustive list, but just an example of ways that we're also engaging the community who works with families, who we need to be in alignment and partnership with. i'll just rattle off a few.

naacp back on track, african-american honor roll, wonderful event, public a cheervs, mayor's public housing, p support, et cetera. these are all examples and i was really glad to hear in the earlier presentation because i agree, it's going to take that kind of collaboration and coordination around a shared set of goals and outcomes and it's going to take a multi-prong strategy if we're going to really accelerate and make an impact on this achievement gap. just a few examples of actual schools that are showing results so we know it's possible. i'm not going to read off this whole list. we recently had some of our principals list some of the strategies that have garnered them double digit growth with student subgroups, for example, new traditions elementary. it's a school that's been recognized for closing the gap for african-american students. it's narrowing that. and there's a few things they're doing. they're engaged with their

colleague principals on the topic, focused on exclusive practice for daunts with special needs. there's a lot of collaboration happening with teachers. they're using a lot of assessments to gauge how student's learning is progressing. they're having family events in the evenings based on math, same thing with charles drew, higher expectations, bringing in supplemental programs, software; focus on literacy and lots of collaboration time for the students -- the teachers to plan together. and then the secondary schools again just to name a few examples, you see some similar elements, some common planning time for teachers, enhanced after school and summer opportunities, enhanced student support, mental health, et cetera. so, some of the slides that didn't show tonight we showed to our board on tuesday night, there are other indicators. suspensions have gone down dramatically. our attendance is going up dramatically. so, we're definitely on the right track. i think the question of the day

is we may be narrowing the achievement gap. however, we're also in a bit of a crisis mode because if this pattern persists we have an unacceptable number of students right now who require a much more robust intervention right now. where do we go now? continue to deepen our practice on support, our interventions, state standards driven, make sure we're reporting out to parents so they hold us accountable about the progress of learning in school. these are tough economic types, but stay aware of investment and funding opportunities out there, much like the [speaker not understood] able to show impact and we're in our final year there. i think there's a real scenario here with prop 30 and 38, the outcome of that is going to be super critical. that could be a big setback. i know that one of our supervisors has an upcoming resolution as well. that will help us kind of fill

the gap with after school and other credit earning options. staying alive for some of these same subgroups of students. and then this is a working title. how do we get more strategic about assigning leadership support to this topic as a district so that some of those elements and some of that outreach with some of the groups in the community, so that we can expand on the strategies that are working in our city and our schools with our kids and make that much more, much more collaborative service provider model. we've shared and aligned academic goals and supports for students and family. thank you. >> thank you to our deputy superintendent. i know supervisor cohen had a couple of questions. supervisor. we have been joined by president chiu. >> thank you very much. i had a question, if we could go back to the slide that discusses partnerships with city and cbos. on the second bullet we've got

back on track/naacp mou. can you please inform us what naacp mou? >> we have in our midst [speaker not understood] who can provide lots of detail. >> thank you. supervisor cohen, last year martin luther king had 200 suspensions, and there was a number of staff changes and meetings with the community. and one of the things that came out of that was a person by the name of bob ivory who had come out from ohio. and this summer we came up with an mou of the program. in fact, they've got a big open house tonight. and last year they had 30 suspensions the first month of school, this year it's down to one.

so, there are activities that are going on. the academic programs are just getting started. students are being referred through the counseling office to him and, so -- and also this year we're going to probably this summer have program of freedom schools that will connect with that. >> thank you. thanks for describing to me the functions. could you talk to me a little about maybe a little more of the mechanics of the m-o-u, the goals expressed? is it set up to minimize suspensions? >> certainly suspensions. there are field trips. there are meetings with parents. as we speak, i think the two things we've mentioned with african-american students in particular have been the achievement gap and outmigration.

last year there were 105 african-american students at martin luther king. this year there's 92. so, again, the outmigration is evident that's there. >> how does the outmigration tie into this, the m-o-u? >> it really doesn't. it's just the fact that the school -- it will be less students to be working with. and with that in mind, we feel as though we should be able to have a lot more success because we have less students we're dealing with. >> is there a budget associated with this m-o-u? >> this budget is beings raised by the group itself. and i know they're working with wells fargo, bank of america. and at this point they have only had groups that have shown interest, but no money has been raised as of yet. >> so, what happens' the projected budget, which i'm sure -- what is your aspirational goal? >> i think it's around 100,000 or $120,000.

>> is that for one academic school year? >> yes, one academic school year. and also in mind how to be expand totion other schools, particularly in the bayview, thurgood marshall, and as the funds come in. >> so, the purpose again of the m-o-u is to provide support for teachers and the administration to address suspensions? specifically the achievement gap. >> i would say the person who runs it, bob ivory, is considered a linkage coordinator. and what he does is he works with different groups such as the teachers, community groups, and in doing that, try to focus on the individual need of each of the students. it's going to differentiate as to what each student needs. >> is bob ivory here today? >> no, he's not. >> okay, thank you for your time. >> okay, all right. >> thank you.

supervisor olague? >> we'll come up with solutions and recommendationses after the hearing. it seems like we've gone from horrible to less horrible, so, i'm not feeling the, you know, joy, i'm not jumping up and down at this point. [speaker not understood]. so, i mean, the starting point, the jumping point was [speaker not understood] pretty bad. we are where we are, it's not acceptable obviously. i just want to know how we get there. hopefully we'll get, you know, some good positive conversation going. and if it means developing a task force to really focus on this, it's not a bad place to go. i mean, the one good thing to about the task force we established there was a sunset pointe. i like the idea of sunsets because at least it's action oriented, you know, or

achievement oriented. i was just a little bit alarmed. >> commissioner maufus? >> thank you, supervisor campos. supervisor olague, to your point, i think what you see presented before you today is what the district is doing in recognizing [inaudible] has been happening and not turning a blind aye, and taking some very purposeful, very direct, very intent action and including our staff, our teacher -- [multiple voices] >> i don't want to disregard that. >> also, in particular the very, very strategic about how we bring our students along so they are not falsely led to a place and a path to nowhere. but really, truly, to a path and pathway to somewhere and

that at least they have an opportunity to make a choice. but if they didn't have those opportunities to even get to the place to make a choice, then we truly are at fault. and i would agree with you and the concern of others here, and probably everyone in this room, of our history and how somehow this has been so prevalent for so many years of intentional activity taking place by those in power and positions of power, as a district, as a board, and in our community to thwart that understanding and find solutions. so, where i think you see presented by our deputy superintendent guerrero is although intentional and purposeful activity to change that ma'am i can and essentially change the lives of our students and their families. * dynamic i believe clearly the commissioners that sit on this committee have been -- [multiple voices] >> a part of that and do not

turn a blind aye to facts that have been glaring at us. we have come up through this system ourselves and know full well many students who have not been able to participate in college education. and even in [speaker not understood], because by the way, you have to be academically ready to ascend and not just be at the labor reer level. -- laborer level. so, i'm happy, supervisor cohen, and president chiu, you understand where we are at and we are not turning a blind aye to this issue -- [multiple voices] >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner fewer. >> yes, i'd like to comment a little bit about looking at the state. quite frankly, when i saw this data, i myself was very, very shocked particularly about the students not on track for graduation. supervisor, i share your concern.

i think as far as the pathway, this is a pathway to nowhere. so, i just want to emphasize about the difference between feel better and do better. i know if you're not really in this conversation all the time, what does it really mean when we give two sets of data that say, on track c or better and on track d or better. on that track d or better is a lie, it is a lie to all our students because we instituted an a through g graduation requirement to do two things, one is to give access so that those students that never had access to the a through g courses that were missing eligible for college or university, would be given access to these classes. these students, african-american, latino, islanders specifically were not given those classes, integrated science or integrated math which could get you to graduation, but could never get you to college. that a through g graduation requirement gave them access,

so, that's one fabulous thing about this graduation requirement. the other thing is it gives them opportunity. quite frankly, d or better gives them no opportunity. a d or better says will not get them into college. a d or better. and quite frankly it's even cs and d at some colleges. so, d or better is actually not an adequate, i think, level to say that we have graduated with all fairness, have graduated our students prepared to college or a job because d or better is not prepared for college or a job. so, as a board i think if we're going to be looking at this graduation requirement should it be c or better or d or better. we're giving the numbers for both to see how much work we have to do. i think you can see on the chart even with the d or better we have much, much more work to do. this talks with black migration, african-american migration, outmigration.

this is a huge factor. you are absolutely right about education, african americans cannot come back to san francisco if they don't feel confident that we can educate their students at a very high level. their children at a very high level to give them opportunity. so, education is a key part of this outmigration. and i think we should have a stronger partnership, really between the human rights commission that is working on this and our educational system because if you look at outmigration, we also have a part in that because when you look at these scores, anyone -- any middle class african-american person would look at these scores and say, i'm not moving back here because there's nowhere i can educate my children. and that is a very real reality. so, just to get back to also what our deputy superintendent is saying, we are trying to upset the culture that we've had for many decades in the school district. as you know it is like turning

the titanic around. it is hard to change a culture. it is hard to change an infrastructure that is very, very traditional in this district. and, so, i think that these small gains that we've made -- and i think we have made some gains but i just want to say when you look at the overall achievement gap, i think that's what we need to really look at. we have a very long way to go. i say this, though, i'm hoping that community groups will hold us accountable to it and that we are not seen as an isolated bureaucracy that nobody can come and say, you should be doing better. i think that everybody should be saying to us, you should be doing better, and you can do better. we are trying to do better. our budget has been cut 20% in the last couple of years. and if prop 33 -- we are looking at big early budget cuts. i think it is correct to say that we are proud that we have no gains, even though we have the budget cuts. but make no mistake, we have a

huge achievement gap. and if we are to ready our students prepared for the 21st century, they must be properly educated and be able to survive in the 21st century and be viable participants in the 21st century. and i think we have depended heavily on the generosity of the people of san francisco, particularly at city hall. i mean, prop h has been huge, dcyf supports given us. i think the one thing, what is sad about the san francisco family is we understand it takes a village to raise a child here, and definitely san franciscanses have embraced that. i think you will see coming up that we are in a panic mode also about -- we know that we can track certain students and how we can get them ready, but the 2014-2015 class is in need of crisis mode, i think,

because these students are juniors now. the acdc deputy superintendent mentioned sequentially gets much more rigorous. we could be looking at much larger numbers come senior year. this is daunting, it is extremely daunting. it is the thing i think that keeps all of us that work in education up at night. we may be coming to you for support again. this is a difficult task ahead of us, but don't think we take it lightly. all of us in education take it very heavily. we weigh all the factors. we are trying our best. i have been an advocate for 8 years at the school district. and now that i'm on the school board i have been very humbled by the work our district is doing, how hard everybody works. but i am glad you called this for a hearing. i think the conversation needs to continue. it needs to be ramped up. and everybody needs to hold us accountable. >> colleagues, just to remind you, i know coleman at some

point is -- [multiple voices] >> okay. supervisor cohen, did you want to add anything before coleman presents? >> thank you. thank you, mr. chair. i would like to ask a couple more questions to the district. if i missed it in a slide, maybe you can direct me to the slide. i want to know what the drop out rate has been the last 10 years and how have we increased our decreased. i'm looking for the drop -out rate the last 10 years. >> 10 years of longitudinal data? anybody want to speak to that? >> if there is somebody in the district that would have that information, we have an analyst that could crunch that. >> we can forward that to you, the 10-year trend data. >> do you have the last two years with you today? >> today we have the last two years.

we don't have it here today, but certainly that could easily be pulled up for you. >> okay. so, a little bit -- my portion -- the reason why i requested this hearing was there was a report that came out sometime ago about the high school drop out rates for marshall high school and burton high school. i want to ask questions specifically to these two high schools. how do they compare with other high schools in the city? i'm just talking about the specific drop-out rate. >> there are certain variability. we could look at the overall rate, but one thing we are of course interested in is how subgroup performance is. that also varies. >> when you say the subgroup, you mean broken out by ethnicity? >> correct. we have high schools that have greater graduation rates for african-american students, latino students, samoan students. we do have those examples where

schools are getting traction. >> can you share that with us today? that is exactly what i'm trying to extrapolate in the hearing. >> i don't have a high school by high school rate with me today. i don't know if any of our staff may have that today either. >> looks like you have some homework. >> looks like you gave us some homework. >> okay, everyone, i'm going to hold you all accountable. my next question is -- and this may be more of a philosophical one. i'm just looking to get some insight. what does the san francisco unified school district believe are some of the causes of this high drop-out rate? you mentioned outmigration. what are some of the other causes? what are the symptoms, why are we so sick? >> well, clearly the american high school drop-outrate -- we don't have a monopoly on that. * it's the case in most urban centers and even rural districts. so, the factors, they are complex. certainly we have our students during the school day, but it's hard to not make some

correlations to sort of the other social economic factors, community factors, you know, people were saying sort of the slogan it takes a village. it takes a healthy village. some of the things we notice makes a difference is when we help students and families sort of meet some of those challenges. so, things that have proven successful in getting kids to better rates of proficiency, making mental health services available, making sure there is academic and enrichment opportunities in the summer and after school, making sure they are involved with a mentor, making sure that they're involved in advisories with a principal or staff member they can relate to, making sure that every single one of these students has an individualized success plan that somebody is monitoring and checking in with them. you see pockets of success where we have some commendable improvement happening with subgroups of kids. and, so, how do we expand on those. >> okay. so, you said you've been on the team eight weeks? >> yes, ma'am.

>> is there anyone here who has a little more institutional knowledge that might be able to help me out here? what i'm really trying to understand is that like this gap existed even when we were in flesh times when the economy was doing well and we had money and there was surplus, yet there still was this gap that still existed. and i know i actually -- this is the first time i met you. i'm a product of a public school. every bit of my education has been k through 12 has been through public school. so, i'm trying to figure out at what point -- what point do we start to lose this battle? that's why i asked for the longitudinal study the last ten years. it would be great if we could go even further back than that. i'm going to -- mr. arm entrout, i want to ask you to follow-up to get the answers to the questions that i propose here today. this last question really is -- i'm just looking