invitation for everyone it join us on january 4th, since this is our last meeting of 2012. >> commissioner yee? >> yes, go ahead? >> just an update, we wanted to remove an update on student nutrition services and will be taken up at a special meeting next week. >> thank you.. so i will move on to item c, recognition and resolutions of commendation. the first one is an commendation of "the world as it could be," human rights education program on the occasion of the 2012 international human rights day. offered by commissioners murase and mendoza. >> is there a motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> reading of the resolution by commissioner murase or mendoza. >> whereas san francisco

became the birth place of the united nations with the signing of the u.n. charter at the war memorial veterans building in 1945 and annually december 10th marks international human rights day to celebrate the universal declaration of human rights, the first achievement. united nations. and whereas the san francisco-based foundation founded by the legendary rock band the grateful dead has advanced education about the universal declaration of human rights among youth and adults called the world it's could be." and whereas by delivering human rights curriculum to the creative arts the groundbreaking curriculum is designed to engage youth, inspire learning and critical thinking and positive social interaction, encourage youth who are often marginalized due to learning or physical

differences to enjoy participation in school-wide events, engage the broader community to celebrate accomplishments of youth and showcase the importance and value of creative arts to personal development and vibrant culture. providing collaboration opportunitis among non-profits, public universities and schools. and commissioner mendoza, if you would like to read the rest it of a will read the next one. >> it also offers a three-day summer institute, hosted by usf annually and free of charge. i am hoping that teachers are listening to this program tonight, so they can sign up so learn for example teachers of academic subjects, social studis, language, arts and how to implement arts into the teaching of the universal declaration of rights. therefore be it are resolved

that the san francisco unified school district board of education commends that "the world it's could be," supporters and organizers on the occasion of the 2012 international human right s day. [ applause ]. >> let's us vote first. roll call, please -- or any other comments on this? commissioner mendoza? >> i wanted to thank sandy and the recs foundation and if you think about as something this complex can be interpreted through the arts and performed by students on the stage in the auditorium, you walk away breathless and it's remarkable. it's an incredible interpretation of some amazing work that we have done in our

country and i just want to appreciate the translation that you have done of the work, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on our schools. >> if you haven't had a chance to get out there to see it, please do [stkpwhro*-frplt/] thank you, roll call please (roll call ) six ayes. >> thank you. >> is there a presentation of the certificate, commissioners murase and mendoza? >> i am sandy, the executive

director of the recs foundation and it is a great honor to be here tonight to receive this. i want to start by thanking commissioner mendoza. i was actually in the spring in 2006, when we came to her office and said we have this idea. it's an original production that we wanted to raise awareness about the human rights framework and we wanted youth to be the teachers and we were showcasing the terrific work of high schoolers at destiny arts and youth speaks. it was commissioner mendoza who called over to balboa high school, and said would you be interested in hosting this presentation? and so began what has now led to this incredible evening. and the whole idea has been we've learned in our work that the universal declaration of human rights that eleanor roosevelt shepherded and

adopted bit general assembly 64 years ago is actually not known by a large proportion of our population. and we also found that when youth and adults found out about it, they got very excited and, in fact we got the name because someone said my goodness this document spells out the world it's could be. it has been the creative spirit of the administrators and students at balboa that have really brought this to life. we're now, i just got to see on friday, their third student-produced assembly about the universal declaration of human rights and it's breathtaking to see how their whole culture has taken on this path and that they are setting an example for how to help us bring forward eleanor roosevelt's work and make it continually relevant to the world today. i would love to have you here from kevin curr, the principal

of balboa and oxy trejos, sr. to explain what it is to them. thank you so much. >> good evening commissioners. superintendent. you know, we live in kind of a high-stakes world in high schools. whether it's the california standards test, ap testing, sat. these are very important parts of just kind of growing up as a student now in our kind of complex world. but it's nice on occasion to kind of step back, and remind us of what life is really all about. and this idea of really teaching kids that human rights is not just something that lives in a far-off, distant land, but something that they need to shepherd themselves and protect in their own communities. so i couldn't be more proud of the work we do in regards to the universal

declaration of human rights. i cordially invite you, a little less than 350 days from now, to attend our next assembly. it was really an incredible experience for all of us. there was a moment when we had our choir sing the last selection from "les mis." that was enough for me and i had to step out and compose myself because it was such a moving experience. i did bring with me today oxy, who is a senior and who was our master of ceremonies at the assembly and i wanted her to talk a little bit about her experience with the universal declaration of human rights. >> hi, guys. i don't know the proper way to say hi. so i'm just going to say hi to all of you guys. so i was the mistress of ceremonies, and it was a little

hard, because you know, as a student in the assembly myself, i never really understood what it was about. i understood that i had rights and i made it my personal mission to make sure that students in the assembly knew exactly what they were hearing and didn't leave with questions. what we did was we played videos and we had people from pathways -- we have pathways at our school that have specific goals around the same purpose. and a lot of people were really engaged and had a lot of students usually at our assemblies of course. there are students who don't understand, but at this assembly, everybody was paying attention. people were engaging. people were moved. i think that teaching students this on a regular basis every year as part of their classes is something that should happen, something that shouldn't be just at balboa or in san francisco, but all over

the world. you know, because these are our rights and people know that they have rights. they just don't know what they are and because they don't know what they are, they take them for granted. this assembly really brought up a lot of points that people needed to know. our students now, i hear them talking about it all the time in the hallways. they are like oh, my god, oxy, it was amazing, but what does this mean? they will come to me and saying we have these rights and i am, like, yes, you have these rights, guys. just because you are minors doesn't mean anything. so i think it was a really good thing that this program was founded and i thank you for that. thank you, guys. [ applause ] >> if i could just say thank you to commissioner murase, who took the time to learn more about the program and went through all the effort to recognize us. thank you. we look forward to being part of the school district work in bringing the arts and human

rights together. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. there is another commendation here. this one is for the world savvy and their work supporting students and staff at the san francisco unified school district, [pr-ebts/]ed by commissioner mendoza. >> so moved. >> second. >> reading of the resolution by commissioner mendoza. >> thank you president yee. so this evening i would like to honor world savvy and their work supporting students and staff at the san francisco unified school district. where since 2002 world savy has

delivered youth engagement programs for global compentecy through project-based learning, collaborative problem-solvinging and experiential and service learning and international exchange. all of world savvy's youth engagement programs include coaching for partner educators whereas the world savvy program brings u.s. participants abroad for a cross-cultural exchange. these schiansing unite u.s. students and educators with residents of host countries to explore one another's culture and critical global issues such as climate change food security. additionally, the program is provided at no cost to the participants and is funded by the world savvy and u.s. department of state. whereas world savvy has reached

more than 250,000 youth and 2000 educators, 90% of teachers surveyed agreed that students' knowledge and understanding of the complexities and interdependence of world events and issues increased through participation in the program. a total of 80% of educators indicate an increase of the world's geography and saw significant growth in their students' critical thinking skills. whereas world savvy has honored the find sf students and educate colors have completed a very competitive process and accepted to the international leadership exchange, where they will have an opportunity to travel to bangladesh. three of the students chosen nationally came from sfusd. . ( listing students )

i just wanted to acknowledge amanda, who was a recipient last year and jasper, a teacher at mission high school, also known as jay. so i would like to -- well, therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district recognized world savvy for its contributions to san francisco unified school district and the global community. and we congratulate our youth leaders and teacher and wish them a safe and exciting journey to bangladesh. and we have to vote on this first and then i will introduce who is going to come up. >> roll call. >> miss lee? >> yes. >> miss wong? >> yes. >> miss fewer? >> yes. >> miss murase? >> yes. >> miss mendoza? >> yes. >> dr. murase? >> yes. >> miss norton.

>> mr. yee. >> seven ayes. >> i would like to bring up laura, who is going to be traveling to bangladesh and is the project coordinator on this and also amy, who is here based here in san francisco. and i would also like to ask the students to come up and join them. they have four days before they leave for bangladesh. they leave saturday morning to washington, d.c. to meet their other colleagues, 30 other students out of the 120 that applied. and they will go from d.c. to -- you guys are flying into -- to dubai and from dubai into dhaka. and they will spend four weeks in bangladesh, two weeks with a

host family. a week in the man groves in the forest on a boat and a week doing service learning. congratulations. dana, or laura, if you would like to come up and say a little something. >> hi. i am the international program manager at world savvy. i was introduced to this organization because my roommate several years ago pulled me out of bed on a saturday at 7:00 a.m. and when i got there i was amazed at what i found. it was excitement on young people's face as they talked about food security and nutrition internationally. they were high schoolers and it was the world affairs challenge, which is now called the world savvy challenge.

the program that we are represent right now is our international programs, our newest program as stated is a fully funded program for youth and educators. at it's highly competitive. so the students going on this program are truly amazing and we're lucky to be traveling with three students from san francisco unified and one educator from there. and just to highlight a few of these things that students will be doing, really stepping out of their comfort level to live as commissioner mendoza said with their host families in bangladesh and will meet nobel laureate mohammed hamas. among many other interesting

things. i will let them speak a little bit about their excitement about this program. >> hi, i just would really like to thank world savvy for this wonderful opportunity. i know i will learn so much not just from my host family, but from kids in a different country, which is just so amazing. not only a different country, but across the country and across the bay. so thank you. >> good evening, folks. thanks for having us here. we're just honored to carry on the great work that san francisco is doing into another part of the world. san francisco has been a leader in sustainability here in the u.s., and we're going to go and carry on the wonderful work our community, as well as our educators and leaders have been doing. so thank you for the honor. thank you for recognizing us. thank you world savvy and we appreciate and we're honored and thankful. thanks again. >> and just in closing i wanted to give my heartfelt

thanks to commissioner mendoza for the commendation, but for the many years of championing the work that world savvy does in the district. thank you. [ applause ]

>> okay. thank you commissioner mendoza. our left commendation is in recognition of lowell high school for attending the national blue-ribbon school recipient award. superintendent carranza, would you make the presentation? >> thank you, president yee and we would like to recognize lowell high school as a national blue-ribbon school for 2012. and here this evening is the principal, the remarkable, dynamic, super principal of

lowell high school, mr. andy ishibashi. andy would you come forward and accept this certificate of recognition, please? [ applause ] also joining us is the science department chair and the lead author of the report that led to the blue-ribbon designation. so congratulations as well. [ applause ] >> go cardinals.

>> do you want to say a few words? >> sure. i would like to thank the board of education, richard and all the outstanding student superintendent and staff and pta and i would like to give a shout out to dakota and jim and allison. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> i wanted to wait for all commendations to take place so that i don't take away from this, but what i would like to do is have some privilege here and maybe make last comments

for my last general session after eight years of serving on the school board. i have to say it's been a real privilege to have been here for eight years in this capacity and working with everybody in the school community. i think we have done a lot in eight years. we have accomplished a lot. we have steadily gone uphill in regards to student outcomes. people are beginning to trust us a lot more now in regards to the public in terms of sending their kids to the public schools. we have reversed that trend three years ago, even though we have done that for three years, the general public still does not really know that yet. and i constantly have to remind them that this is what has happened. and this was even happening before the economic downturn. so it wasn't about the fact that people didn't have any money to go to private school. they were already choosing our

public schools. so we have a report every meeting to talk about the positive things in the school district. and so i won't go on and on and on. for me, all of these things are really important to me. this is why i entered the school board eight years ago. this is why i entered education when i was 20 years old. so some of the things that i felt very good about and very positive about and probably have some direct impact were around three issues. one of them being the fact that we recognize this district not just a k-12, but pre-k-12 and there is a continuity and we're all building to that goal. we need to recognize that and take advantage of those situations. i am also proud to have been involved with increasing the awareness and importance of

parent engagement, and even though we have a long, long ways to get to the point where i felt that we could get to, we're moving in the right direction in terms of engaging all parents from diverse backgrounds, not just one set of parents. and the other thing that i feel good about personally about is the whole issue on the chronic absenteeism. it took me several years to convince people, in particular in the school district that this is an issue worth paying attention to. if kids don't come to school, and there were a lot of kids that weren't coming to school and i am not talking about high schoolers, but i'm talking about elementary kids and if they don't come to school they are not going to learn. it's a simple fact and if you look at the correlation of those who weren't coming to school and who wasn't learning theres with a straight 1:1 correlation. when we focused on it last

year, we captured 50,000 more school days for kids coming to school. so that is not peanuts to me and on top of, that we get more money. i think all of these things didn't happen by themselves, in isolation. i want to thank the parents, all the parents involved individually. but in particular the parent groups whether it's the pac, our own pac or advocates, parents who contribute and challenged the school board was really important for us to be able to step up and say yes, we are hearing certain things and we want to respond to. it so thank you parents. students, again, these accomplishments wouldn't have happened without the students also caring and wanting to improve themselves. and we're just so fortunate to

have these 55,000, 56,000 students ready and eager to learn and hopefully we'll present them the opportunity to learn. again, i have had the opportunity for eight years to really see the faces of the brightest and best and the leadership of our students, the people that students who sit on our board of student delegates, including windy and megan. i have seen some remarkable students come through here as student delegates and if i had more time i would rattle their names off as accomplishments and the student advisory council has grown from struggling eight years ago to a very remarkable group, who is always coming up with new ideas as a group.

thank you to all the students an to the teachers and support staff the without them, the student accomplishments would not have happened. all of these groups contribute to the welfare of our educators. these same groups support teachers to promote themselves or to move to another position as administrators, encouraging them. the best administrators in my mind in the districts are former teachers. and without that, we wouldn't have a core of people that understand what happens in the classroom. the administrators, again, i want to thank all the administrators, in particular this new batch in the last few years have been very, very focused, providing opportunities, leadership and giving the services and really focusing and asking what is

necessary to move the bar? the principals, all the way to the central office, very important. to me it's been so rewarding to be able to work with them, and for them to respond to things and for us to be on the same page and saying we do care about kids and let's see what we can do to improve things. also superintendents, i have had the luxury of ushering basically three different people to run the district. and i think that is what has made the real big differences in the leadership that they provided whether it was gwen chang or carlos garcia and now presently richard carranza. i would sa