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tv   [untitled]    April 13, 2013 10:00am-10:30am PDT

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clearly and that that's what i want to see. and i've heard that over and over, time and time again. we have heard from our parent advisory council, school sites, we've heard from community members that want to be a part of school site and make it a community hub, talk about restorative practices, so i can't say it enough that -- please when people can us what can they support, let's direct them to this because we know it works. we have data that says this is working. this is working in helping build the relationships and keeping the kids in the classroom to learn. so i want to make certain you all know that and it's very clear in the areas that i've been looking at that we need to support really with purpose. that should not be a question
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for us. we have data showing it's working and we have people demanding it. those are the two primary reasons that we should be doing it and helping it grow. the last thing i want to talk about -- the social workers and school nurses came to prevent -- they came last year. knowing these folks are doing treeage across the dis/treubgtd and i district and i think that is part of the thing that i considered glue. they keep the school together. they help keep kids healthy and in the /khraz room classroom as well. so when parents don't know what to do and teachers don't know what to do when
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they're sick, we depend on our nurses to get our kids feeling well. the on call nurse of the day -- am i saying that correctly? can you imagine a call and they have to support the entire district on the phone, school sites calling for help. if we can do something about that, this is another thing we need to think about supporting and help expanding. we have kids who get sick. can you imagine trying to be at school sick and get through the day and learn. these school nurses are a god send and i want to thank them for the work they do, but how can we make certain that this is representative of all schools instead of having to make a call of one person to support
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all schools. i'm hoping we can address that. those are my comments. again, i'm really glad to see these /kh-pbgs that we suggested at the committee as a whole has been taken into deep consideration so looking for more money for peer resources, restorative practices and our student support professionals. and i see many folks, but at the top of my list are school nurses and i would like us to really address that. those are my thoughts right now. /ha*rpbg thank you president norton. >> i'd like to thank our staff and committee. i know you put in a lot of hours on this and time and energy, particularly with the increase of funds that we were able to get from the city so thank you for all your time and energy on that. i had
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a very different experience on this, which is that everything that we increased or that we spent a lot of time on, i felt fell under our strategic plan and i think that's helped keep us together in terms of the way in which we manage the success of our students. i feel like there was a lot of energy put into building capacity and it was nice to see there was an increase in actual bodies, particularly around our arts and really seeing a number of physical bodies going into our schools so that all of our students would have access to the arts and that was really important to me as well. but the ct, restorative practice were also areas that i was really appreciative. there was
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funds in there that you heard us when we asked for an increase. but this is clearly an area that we're always talking about so as much as i appreciate having the cow as an opportunity for us to share with you that these are the kind of places we would have liked to see dollars, it would have been nice to see the larger amount already in place instead of asking for it. but i am glad to see that in particular with the career tech education. be /tphaoeugs to have aeroperson in there to help us work that out. and that's been a long time coming. the other thing that's been really important to me around this process is that everything that we're putting out there in terms of the public dollars is that we're going to be accountable and we can show outcomes. i have think that everything has been recommended
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are all accountable and outcome driven additions to this budget. and i appreciate that our reserve is where it is because not everybody can say that. there is something about having that cushion that allows us to be able to be a lot more innovative and think about what we really want to do for our kids without having that pressure of a low reserve. and then the last piece i want to say is around stem. the superintendent's been talking about this from the moment he became superintendent and i think that in addition to just bringing our own technology into the 21st century, this was part of the curriculum that he wanted to be able to provide to our kids. so i'm extremely supportive of the stem piece that has been put forward and from the -- i'm just going to
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speak for you for just a second because it's -- for him it's really seen. it's the arts, in addition to science, technology, engineering and math. i appreciate those are the two things he's talked about consistently that our children are going to have an opportunity to stay competitive with everybody else in the bay area. forget other countries. i think it's been a long time coming and we have so many resources in our backyard and we haven't had a place for these resources to actually tap into and so this is going to be a really great opportunity for us. so those are my comments and just again, a lot of appreciation. we sit /p in a very /hrubgs nice place to be
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able to allocate many dollars to or kids and schools. we're happy to spend our dollars. then the last comment i want to be able to make is a procedural comment and that is as we vote on this budget moving forward, there was an item that i did pull for consideration, which i think staff needs to get a little bit more information so it's going to come forward in two weeks. i wanted to just be able to note that. i want to vote on the budget as it is, but note that there is an item that's on the budget that needs a little bit more information so i don't know how we do that procedurally, but that is -- >> the procedure will be that staff will withdraw that piece of the budget they will automatically lay it over for
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two weeks, return and hope the questions that the commissionerers have will be answered by then or if the modifications that need to be made will be made by then. >> we're going to have to vote on it as amended, and the item is the athletics portion, correct? >> correct. >> so we'll be voting on everything except for the athletics portion of the budget. >> our date of submission to the city for the final budget is the 15th of april so i don't know if that impacts our ability to meet that requirement. >> i'm happy to talk to folks over at the city to let them know the situation and we can still leave that one item out and that it's upon approval and that will be submitted
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forthcoming. >> okay. >> we're going to rely on mr. mendoza's juice and if there's any issues then we'll try to schedule and emergency meeting of some sort. >> i just want to know -- i understand that this is the spending plan and so the way we're spending the money is what's at issue. there'll be some clarification about the actual expen /tkeu expenditure, but can't we write that this some way -- wouldn't that sort of take care of your
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problem? especially because of -- sorry. especially because of the different distribution of money that is what formerly held back money when the trigger was pulled so it seems to me it's an important piece of information that we include in this to the board of supervisors so that we know how much money we spend on sports and athletics, but we can reconsider the specific items. wouldn't that be easier. >> i would say is yes. i would say we would be able to write readjust the spending plan. we
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need to speak to our city partners about that expectation. i think we need to do that so there's a clear vote, this is the allocations with more detail to follow on that one item. >> can we state clearly what the issue is for the public because it seems to me we're not being very clear about what the issue is. >> so as a chair, the buildings and ground committee, i requested that i get more detail on a field allocation that has been requested for dollars to build out a field at school of the arc and i want to make sure it properly is brought forward again. >> that is the question and we are going to vote on this with the understanding -- i'm just stating what my understanding is so that hopefully it's not just your understanding. so we will vote on this,
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understanding that you are going to revise the language somewhat to reflect that there may be some adjustments within the athletic budget, but the total amount devoted to athletics will remain the same. >> yeah. a is arts. yeah, whoops. >> thank you for that clarification. yes, we can do that. >> the amount going to the department is not going to change. it's just that particular spending component of it so that can be submitted without an itemized budget. i don't know if we can do that, but it ooo be fine. >> we still are voting on this as amended, but the specific amendment will come later. >> i really want to thank the community advisory community who's put in many hours on
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this. i also want to recognize staff. this has been a moving target. the latest budget proposal is 1.15 million more than the april 2 budget and 51 million dollars -- 16 million dollars more than the january budget so i really appreciate the hard work that staff has put into adjusting the numbers. i want to i light a couple things that i think are very strong in the proposal, very glad to see in physical education that 100 percent of elementary schools will be covered. also in arts and music that 100 percent of every elementary school will benefit. i think we have some ways to go in the libraries, but it's something to keep in mind. restoretive practices -- i'm concerned about this. i think there's some places where it's working really great and other
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places where it's still bumps in the road and would love to see this investment go to making sure that there's more consistency in restorative practices. i do have a strong commitment to stem, as commissioner mendoza noted this is a priority for the superintendent and school district. i had one question, which was about the level of the reserves. so in the current budget we're looking at a 7.6 million dollar reserve, of which there's been an addition of 787 thousand. how is this number generated? is this typical number, are we in good shape, bad shape? i'd like to be able to evaluate the level of the reserve. >> i'll try to address your question. i want to provide a little bit of contextual
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information about this line item. this was introduced as a line item in the third third when the state began to fall very short of its funding responsibilities in terms of deficit factor becoming a very significant element of the state's budget. and just to recap for folks who may not know that term by heart, as i unfortunately do, in the state's decision making about its budgetory priorities, the primary way schools and districts receive funds is through the revenue limit and when the state is in times of fiscal distress as it has been,
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it has certain mechanisms to reduce the amount of funding from year to year that it should properly pay the school district. and the biggest indicator of that is this factor. what that means is for every dollar of revenue limit, the ada funds, the deaf sis factor represents the amount that the state is not paying for every dollar that they should be paying. so in 2007, 2008, there was no deficit factor so the schools received the full amount of the revenue limit that they were entitled to and over the next several years, that deficit factor increased to more than 20 percent. it remains at 22 percent so for every dollar of revenue limit we should receive, the state is only paying 78 cents on the dollar. the ago -- in that context,
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and i think all commissioners and most of our community members are very aware of the very deep cuts that the district has had to make, and in that light unfortunately a few years ago it was deemed necessary in order to protect baseline funding for our schools to have some of the peek dollars partially offset that really significant funding from the deficit factor. this represents about 10 percent of the impact of a deficit factor for our budget. the total amount is high, but the am that it absorbs from the impact of the cuts is actually quite
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small. over time, if and when the state is able to reduce that deficit factor and replace it with the local control funding formula, in one way, shape or form, to approach more adequate levels of funding for schools or more appropriate levels of funding for schools, we would hope we can reduce the amount of overall spending program that is spent in this way, but as yo all know, we're not at that point yet. so if we were to eliminate this amount from the spending plan, then the consequence of that would be that we need to significantly reduce our baseline funding to the schools or find other cuts. right now it's hanging steady at about 7.5 million dollars, more or less and over time we do hope to be reduce that. sorry, i
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gave you a really long winded answer. >> is that the end of your questions? okay. miss lee. >> i was on it last year and i know how much work that goes into being part of this committee, the dedication, the commitment to figure out this proposal to submit to the board and i just am really grateful for the extra support that we've gotten this year. that's one thing i'm so happy to see that has gotten funding. i will come back to see the number of students on track for graduation. i'm excited for the stem programs being more involved in the school district. so thank you for all your hard work and dedication.
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>> i want to say thanks. i was on this board for many years. i know there's a lot of hard volunteer hours and a lot of work. i want to thank the staff as well. thank you very much for all those questions being answered. and i want to say thanks to the city and the city of san francisco for being so generous to the school district having said that, i see some things in this budget that -- i want to mention first
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that -- so glad to see that cte, building our pathways and building a real internships and full pathways for students -- this is a fabulous thing. glad to see we're bringing on another fte for that much needed hard work. when i'm looking at the a through g support, i have to mention this, i understand that we have put aside money for this and i want to commend the district for doing so. as you know, the class of 2014 and the class of 2015 and the class of 2016 and from then on will have to graduate with these very rigorous graduation requirements, the acg sequence of classes. so while i think this fund -- the catch up, meaning students who actually are not on /trag ly track -- that i feel more money should be put into this for more preventive measures. if we know there are certain gate
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keepers for a through g then i think money should be put toward support for students in passing those classes. we have much better success when students pass it the first time than rather having to catch them back up after they have failed the class once. and so while i think this is a really good effort to put this money toward getting your students on track -- the ones that are off track -- this does nothing to prevent them from getting off trackment and we know some things work. we know lower class size works for these very rigorous courses. things like chemistry -- very difficult for students to pass in this district. it shouldn't be 40 students to one class. it should be 25 students to one class. we no longer have to reduce classes for graders.
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that was very successful too.
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>> i'm just going to make an amendment to this budget because i feel like i must. at the committee meeting of the whole, i reminded the board that in 2009 and 2010, we had 9 /#1911,294 being put towards [inaudible] our vehicle for violence /pr*efpbs. and so at
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that time the board elected to allocate -- last week you hear me saying i didn't think enough money. so i'm so glad you heard me and allocated additional funds to this. however, the additional funds i was asking for was 274 thousand dollars. you upped this, which i think is great and very generous. also to this budget, can meet the 911 thousand dollars that was originally planned for this. i heard the talk about restorative practices, but i feel like they were trying to do it on a shoe string budget. i would like to make an amendment that we
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allocate up to so as you know, this is an expensive endeavor. it is very expensive to try to ship around. it is changing the culture of our schools. we're on the tip right now of doing that. i think we wanted to see it actualized that these additional funds -- not a lot of money -- 43,430 extra to this budget. so i'd like to make the amendment that we bring up the total funding of the restorative practices to 911 thousand. >> you have made a motion. >> yes. i have. >> we have a second. now there is a motion on the floor for an
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amendment to the budget. so just to state it clearly, you are proposing that we add another 43,000 to the restorative budget. >> from where? >> it'd be helpful to know from where. >> i would take that from the reserve. so the reserve would be minus 43,430 dollars. >> it's possibly an unfair question, but can you sort of give us a sense of what the impact of taking money out of the reserve and putting it back into something else is? >> i think the best thing for me to say is this is symbolic
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decision either way. i think it's a policy call for the board to make. the unrestricted general fund balance is really another term for the reserve. as you know, the test that we have to meet every year and for two years following the budget year is that we are meeting all of our financial obligations and maintaining 2 percent of our budget in terms of expenditures. we have a large budget and 43,000 dollars will need to come from somewhere, and it is something that, at your direction, we will find a cut at some other part of the budget to offset that. so i think ita