that all students are supported to meet those standards. that is why credit recovery is such a crucial piece of the promise that the city made to their youth. the success and college access and career readiness for all students. the promise is tenacious due to the deep cuts. and securing credit recovery for the students is a necessary step in fulfilling our promise. we are aware that we live in challenging sometimes and mun municipalities across the state are tkling issues. this appropriation is an investment in our youth and as a youth worker and advocate for all students, i humbly ask you to support our students and approve. >> miguel, you are in another set of speaker cards.

i will call other speaker cards remaining. monica florez mrs. yong. rene antavares. please approach the mic. >> hello, i am the education advocate for chinese education. and i work with a lot of chinese families with english learners. and the data shows that 69% of english learners in 11th grade are missing requirements or off track to graduate in 2014. and that's overwhelming over 500 student. and because of the additional english classes the students have to take. they are unable to fulfill the requirements and therefore they

need the additional funding for the credits. the families need the guidance for the necessary requirements to graduate and apply for college. we are here to ask for the committee to support this supplementation for credit recovery and for the resources for class 2014. so that all students get the necessary resources and opportunities to graduate. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, i am kevin bogus and i work with advocates for children youth. you am here to speak on behalf of families and youth in san francisco.

we are in a crisis where close to 50% of the students that are juniors in our high school are preparing not to graduate on time. and possibly fail out of school and not complete their education. as a city we have a responsibility to make sure that these students get every opportunity and chance they can to get their diplomas and graduate with their classmates and be productive citizens to the city of san francisco. i appreciate the difficult questions you are asking of the school district regarding their reserves and how they allocate the funds and use this money in the future. we appreciate that role in the process. but we don't want your concerns and questions to prevent you from supporting this. but it's important that the students know they are supported by the representatives in the city and on the board of

supervisors. so they know that we all care that they graduate and have an opportunity to go to college and be successful. we ask that you today support the $2.7 million for the school district to make sure that these students have an opportunity to graduate. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, i am ken tray, from the united educators of those that work in the classrooms. we are here to speak in favor of the 2.7 million for the schools. having said that we appreciate the concerns of supervisor chu of whether or not the district in the past has made a-g requirements a high enough priority. our concern is with the programs for credit recovery there are real life opportunities working

with the students. and studies show that when you have a real-life teacher helping them catch up, they do far better. and some folks are surprised at the high numbers of the students going through school and not receiving a diploma. the teachers in the classroom are not surprised. we have been aware that the crisis is looming. and why we are so in support of the legislation to give the district the support it needs. and our students should not be left on a limb. and this is a time for the city to rally around the district and the schools and the students and their teachers. and certainly the political support for san francisco is in the schools. and the overwhelming vote for prop "a" and 30 demonstrates that. >> thank you.

>> i am here to speak in support of this proposal and as someone from the schools and i relate to statistics as undercredited as i was going to balboa, and i wasn't able to graduate on my own. i was able to graduate due to support and because of mentors and counselors and programs and tutor that supported me to try to get me. not just graduate but to go to

college. when i first heard about the a-g requirements and the affect that we are making that the new standard to graduate from high school. i was super, super excited as someone who found out about the a-g requirements in my senior year. when i first heard about it, i was very, very enthused. and also with that i was very concerned. because i know we can't just raise the bar on our young people without the necessary support to meet that. with that, i would like to say that i hope you support this and pass this appropriation for sfusd. and i also thank you for the critical questions, because i also agree that we need to be critical and take this maybe as an opportunity to work with s u

sfusd that in the long term they are keeping the students on track. but hope you support this as the young people need the support to graduate. thank you. >> good evening, i am christi nguyen a commissioner for the youth. we are to identify needs of the san francisco youth. and this is an area that is very important to us. and with the budget cuts for the past years it's very difficult for students, including myself, to get back on track and to take the courses needed. and personally the budget cut has affected my also. so i have been staying extra long at school taking extra

courses. because there is no after school or summer school. and to get back to track the students need the resources along with me. and every student deserves to graduate. and they should not be held back because of the lack of resources. and it's important to fund the san francisco credit recovery options because we want the youth to be successful and to be productive in school and the communities and san francisco. and like paul said, we are in support of this proposal. thank you. >> thank you for being here. >> good afternoon, i am della walker, i was not planning to speaking this afternoon. i was in a meeting with the mayor. and heard about the concerns about the school district and their not using the reserve

funding. as a former policy maker we know it's not wise to go to the bottom and utilize our reserve. but i think that's a valid point of priority of where the school district should place their efforts to move forward. we are at a point that it's an emergency, it's a 9-1-1 situation, we have a couple thousands students that we see how to support them and to go into adulthood. and before you go into adulthood hopefully you have the opportunity to a high school diloamd diploma. you have at great opportunity to not support the school district or the community, but to support the students to make sure they have the opportunity to succeed. and in addition the accountability that we are worry

where the $3 million would go. you have the unique opportunity to hold the district accountable in ways they are not held accountable in other ways. we hope you not only support this legislation but you give an opportunity for us to work together closer with the district in coming up with innovative ways for not just the class of 2014 but the classes of 16 and beyond. there is work to be had before we continue to give money to the district each year. but this is an emergency situation and we have students that we have to support. >> thank you, any members of the public that would like to speak? seeing none. we can close public comment. thank you, seeing no other public commenters. colleagues we have this item before us. thank you, i did want to take a moment to thank some co-sponsors of this legislation.

along with our office and supervis supervisors here. i think there is philosophical questions of how we spend our reserve if you went. i think the purpose of this fund. we do take time to use this reserve fund to fund priorities of the city. whether it's a resolving loan fund for small businesses that are a priority of the city and county of san francisco. because they generate jobs in the city. for me personally coming from the board of education. i know how important it is for us as a city to fund the schools.

sfusd is in a far different situation from the county because they have five furlough days. because the city supports our schools and we see the voters pass things such as prop "h." that is set aside for programs and the raining day fund. this is a priority to continue to augment in the school district. to clarify when i approached the school district it was because i was alarmed by the number of furlough days they were expecting in the school year. if prop 30 had not passed the supplemental would look different. which is why we had come after election day. but the priorities would have changed if prop 30 had not passed. thankfully the voters in the state of california pass that allowing us not to move to 10

furlough days. that would be tragic for the students. for me the school continues to be a priority. it's a priority for our district and our city and many families. and unfortunately we made i commitment to the class of 2014-15, not just sfusd but something as a city. and to allow our students in our first two classes not to graduate at these alarming numbers. and particularly in the african-american and latino community would be a travesty. and i am certain that the district here on out would be committed to reallocate that the classes after 14 and 15 would have a different structure and set up of the budget. that decreases every year unfortunately. so i am going to make a motion

to move this forward with recommendation. >> thank you, a motion to move forward with recommendation. supervisor oblos. >> thank you, i will second this motion and speaking as someone who has worked in the school district as a counselor and has parents in the school district. has children in the school district and is a partner as a teacher in the school district. i know first hand what it's like to work and send your kids to school. and second hand what it's like to go to school in the school district. we are facing tremendous challenges financially. i am really glad that we have the opportunity to provide funding and support to bring flexibility to the budget for the school district. i am glad we have a plan in place to target the funds to provide. hopefully we will.

targeting students at risk not graduating from school. to me it's critical. and matches a lot of policies we put forward as a city. at how we make the investments and be sure that we do the prevention work for young people to find success in our local job market. there is a discussion about reserves and other funding and choices we make as a city. supervisor kim mentioned the revolving loan fund, and we made a decision to provide loans for small businesses. that was a decision that we made with our funding as a city. actually very interesting today and later on the next item is about the hotels in san francisco. to be able to tax themselves, to create a funding stream to support the building, the renovation, not the renovation but the new center they will

build close to the existing. that's our city money and that's the hotels deciding how to spend their own money. the money that we decide to be spent on supporting our kids is our money as well. and to make that decision is worthy of us today to move forward and make sure that we support this in next week at the full board. i will be supporting this legislation. and i look forward to our vote at the board. i hope we have the mayor's support as well. >> thank you, supervisor. know there a motion and a second. today i am not prepared to vote for that. but i want to explain why. did you want to add something? >> there was a recommendation on this item. >> okay, let me get to that in a second. in the coming week i would like to commit to speaking with the school district to really understand your budgetary issues.

i have a very strong feeling that when we -- how it is different from how we prioritize for small business loans, and we made that decisions in context of the budget, and knowing that we put aside a certain amount of money for state and federal reserves and cuts down the pipeline. i know we have serious sequestration issues from the government. and we have unfunded items from the state that we have to deal with. and not unusual for a school district to ask funding for cuts like you are at this moment. but what is rubbing me the wrong way, i don't see a reflection of the school district putting in some of your own funding to deal with the issue. while you are asking for the city to take from reserves. i don't see a commitment to tap into the reserve to do that. and the last speaker spoke and

it's not good to spend down to the last of the reserve. i agree but the fact is that the school district has the entire amount. and that's the question i have, that it's a big priority that you would use some reserves to pay for dealing with this one-time problem and emergency that i heard comments made. and that's what i want to get to with the school district from the week that follows to the board of supervisors. and that's something that we want to see, and last time there was a request for $6 million in addition to other things that may be coming down this city's and board's committee job to analyze. and so i don't think that it's a bad purpose. i think it's a worthy and good purpose to make sure that our high school students graduate and that our kids graduate. and they are able to succeed and

move forward with the requirements that they can go to a post-high school education opportunity. but i am not sure that i see the same commitment from the school district. i am aware that the city has better news and we may be required to put additional funding into the rainy day fund. which the school district has access to. and i would like to explore whether this is a priority for the school district and use that funding to play for the s-- pay for the supplemental. it won't get all the way there but those are the questions for this week. >> if you call the roll. >> budget analyst. >> we did recommend if the board of supervisors were to approve this they amend the proposed ordinance to require the school district to prepare written

reports on expenditures and including course descriptions and materials for the program and detailed program budgets and expenditures to the budget. and the number of students participating in the program and the evaluation of participating students to see the results of the programs. >> thank you. so colleagues we have a recommendation from the budget analyst, take those without objection? >> i want to commit that they are committed to make the written reports to the board of supervisors. >> we have that motion and take that without objection. >> was there also a motion to reduce the dollar amount from $3 million to $2.7? >> i would like to make a motion from the original amount from $3 million to $2.75. >> okay, we can do that without objection. and to the underlying item, roll

call please. >> on that motion. >> avalos. >> aye. >> kim. >> aye. >> chu. >> no. >> motion passes. >> thank you very much. item passes and goes to the full board.