program to address equity achievement gaps. to make sure that students are getting out of ccsf within two years, not six years. so, by all means, as a board and as a people that are part of the city, you have to look at the power tripping that is going on at ccsf. there is a lot of that and you need to fixed this college. stop plaming people for our mistakes when we could have done it six years ago, 14 recommendations that were added to us we could have avoided them if we all did the work collectively. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. nobody going to clap? (applause) hi, my name is lena carew. i went there from 2006 to 2011 before i transferred to u.c. berkeley. as a city college student i started students making a change that is -- focuses on leadership development and civic engagement, which raul and christie are part of. i started that program at city

college because we want to directly address issues impacting equity, impacting low-income, students of color to achieve and to help us overcome barriers that make us feel like it's our fault. so, so, you know, when -- we can stand here and say there are some -- that there are lots of different issues that either exist or don't exist by people on different side, but no one can stand here and tell me students have access to wi-fi when they need it. there is no one that can stand here and tell me we didn't have issues with shared governance. that democracy has to be hard, but it doesn't have to be impossible. i really urge the community to come together in a real way and that if we actually truly love our college and our community that we'll be the number one critics of it and do everything we can to fix it. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) >> i'll call a few more cards before the speakers speak.

marco [speaker not understood]. fitzgerald. stephen farr, i believe. [speaker not understood]. [speaker not understood]. jaime [speaker not understood]. and roy son eisner. hello, supervisors. i want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to be here and have my voice be heard. one reason is because the student trustee of city college shanell williams, she was barred from the chancellor's search committee meeting last week or a week-and-a-half ago, she was the only person who was barred, and she is our voice. she speaks for 85,000 students. and she was barred by the city college police. i'd like to go on and say it is

hard to believe why our community college is being sanctioned foreperson at conflicts between campus ceos and the employees. why the campus is being sanctioned because they are legally prohibited for violating negotiated collective bargaining agreements. accjc is a non-state agency lacking adequate state accountability and has unleashed authority to oversee state funded community collegeses. it is also a bureaucratic mess of contradictions. while the community college faculty staff and administrators are being forced to ban their normal student and campus responsibilities in order to comply with unsubstantiated accjc mandates. when did a community college become based more on the institution's governance process, which is -- thank you -- dedicated by california

state laws and less on the quality of education being provided? these are important questions that we believe the state audit will answer and i'm honored to be joined by [speaker not understood] in this effort to examine whether our community colleges and students are being treated fairly, consistently and without bias. we ask for your support to ensure our safe public community colleges are not being forced to waste [speaker not understood] through the fees and taxpayer dollars. [inaudible]. >> thank you. >> thank you. (applause) hello, my name is marco low be and i'm a current ccsf student and i'm going to be a future college student there. ~ lopez if the community did not have the opportunity to attend city college and all of its programs, we would not have the means to change our choices in life. this freedom of choice to

attend ccsf and the process of education is a tool to help many inspire and focus towards goals. excuse me. many of which seek focus from and is a means to inspire youth and adults of all cultural, religious, sexual backgrounds, and various incomes that a public needs to obtain equality through education that should exist. without this opportunity, many students and teachers would be without the means to better themselves financially and socially and would result in a devastating change in environment. economically and in our quality of life as a society. this would be a direct result from discrediting our past, present, and our future students who have graduated, will be graduating, and would graduate in the future. this lack of education will promote crime and doubt success in many minds of elementary and

high school students, both public and private, who do not have a means to pay for their education as a direct result from the belief that they do not have equal opportunity to higher their education no matter their financial situation. without programs such as city college, students with disabilities would not have the means to assimilate into our culture and be themselves as being equal. one of the main points of the constitution of the united states of america states that in order to form more perfect union we need to promote general welfare. the declaration of independence states all men are created equal under life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. if our use for -- excuse me. if our use [inaudible]. >> thank you. >> thank you. that's your time. thank you. (applause) >> next speaker.

[inaudible] current student at san francisco state. i'm taking classes at city college to fulfill some requirements because there are some classes i am unable to get at san francisco state. so, if city college were to close, some students from san francisco state would be adversely affected. it's not just some, however. i'm also taking -- well, let me start this again. i ask that you guys do all that you can in your power to ensure city college remains open in its current state and form. not [speaker not understood], not privatized. city college serves a diverse range of demographics. not only for those who transfer, but newcomers who don't yet know english. my mom is one great example. not only -- also those who are trying to get certificates to enhance their careers. i won't be able to complete my geographic information system

certificate at city college closes because i have to take pre-requisites for classes at state ~. so, basically, my mom took esl classes three times in her life when she was in san francisco. she'll be starting her third round of esl classes in the fall. and she wants to master english in order to have a better life in america, and she won't be able to do that if city college closes. my brother is also starting city college in the fall and won't be able to if city college closes, won't be able to achieve what he wants to do, and he wants to study law. i've been humbled by my experiences at city college and it's nothing like what my high school teachers and media have told me. i regret [speaker not understood] many of my [speaker not understood] as they will not transfer out in time because time is of the essence to study and be the most

successful student and i guess i'm out of time. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. my name is dawn moore. i'm alumni and current student is the ccsf. the accjc commission members did not reveal their hearts, goals, connectionses and how they got their position. but accjc wants to close ccsf or reduce ccsf in spite of ccsf, san francisco's people and our elected board. accjc statements that ccsf would and then they could and then they would lose

accreditation and, therefore, our enrollment stopped rising. and it's worked at compton junior college and they used that as proof because they didn't have an elected board any more, they eliminated, that compton junior college was not wanted and it was closed. many students want classes that are not [speaker not understood] classes yet they're important for san francisco. i am in a trauma recovery prevention certificate program. this is the only such program in california in a world of traumatized people. the students left out of ccsf will have to go to an expensive private school which will charge much higher fees, but provide a lesser quality education, findings by members of my own family. to the bankers who will be happy to provide expensive

loans with very high interest fee, and then once again, the bankers will be bailed out. and i think it's all about money for accjc. and it's simple as that. i don't think accjc cares. >> thank you. about other people. >> next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak. getting a college education was something that was very important to me. and i had my ged and i wanted to find the best place to do that. i moved from [speaker not understood] san francisco, partially because of the reputation of city college being affordable and also a good reflection of what the city actually is, a very difficult verse population.

something i really felt like i could grow well in. hearing how some people tend to talk about improving city college, you know, yeah, i want to voice my intensive -- my support that city college be preserved as it is a an institution that serves a lot of different age groups. two years ago i went to sacramento to see the -- to go be part of a hearing for the student success task force. there they talked about helping out the kids and how all city college of california, they kept talking about kid. they saw someone from the mayor's office talking repeatedly about the kids of city college. i think anyone who spent any time at city college can notice

that the average age of most of the people at city college is like 30 or so or plus. so, if i'm a kid, i guess that makes me a kid and i'm very happy to get that vote. but i think it's a shame to see where they intend to take city college. thanks for listening to my stumbling. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. next speaker, please. hello, my name is jaime [speaker not understood] and i at that time taught esl at city college until last semester. i was also esl coordinator at mission campus for eight years. when i started that job we had over 100 [speaker not understood] of esl noncredit at the mission campus. when i left at the end of last semester, there were 66 sections remaining. seven of my colleagues retired from that campus. many people retired.

i retired because i saw some very ugly handwriting on the wall and i recognized that the writing was by accjc. i sympathize very much with students who understand that there are problems at the college and blame the college for not solving those problems because i cannot [speaker not understood] problems when i was working there that i wish could have been fixed. but the bottom line in all this is do we really want opportunity for students who don't have the means to assume student loans, who don't have the high school grades to get accepted directly into a four-year school? most of the people i taught esl to were never going to go to college. they were immigrants. they wanted enough english to get a survival job. but i'll tell you, over the years i have met so many students who have come up to me all around san francisco thanking me for the very little bit that i did and telling me

how they became police officers, firefighters, bank vice presidents. these people are the people that have what it takes. and if we take away their opportunity, if we let the accjc take away that opportunity, we will be conspiring with one of the biggest criminal conspiracies against public education ever perpetrated in the united states. (applause) >> thank you. [speaker not understood]. i'd like to make this very clear first off that i definitely grew up on the wrong side of the property line and you can fill in the rest yourself. i worked my way through high school and in summer 2007 after i graduated a freak explosion in dolores park left me severely injured. for three years, i had to have surgery, physical therapy, that kind of thing. city college allowed me to work around that schedule [speaker

not understood]. i didn't take a lot of the classes that were general ed and pre-requisites. i took [speaker not understood] professors that were designed by them because they're passionate about it and in 2010 i was accepted to transfer into columbia university in the city of new york which was really exciting. i would not have gotten in if it weren't for columbia -- city college because my program is for nontraditional returning students. city college as it was, mission statement as it was, allowed me to be nontraditional. and had i taken the sort of course of action that accjc seems to think is appropriate for students to take to return to work, there are no credits that would have transferred to city college. [speaker not understood]. the quirky classes that were offered anywhere else [speaker not understood] were the ones that got me -- were the ones that helped me find out what i wanted to do once i got to university and also saved me money because there is not that

much in grants and i just think that there is so much [speaker not understood] the accjc, i understand that they and i have a totally different idea about the role of community education. but thinking that one course of action and spending six years is wrong or that taking these quirky studies classes is somehow not working to further educational goals is naive, [speaker not understood], i don't understand the way that education works. and i think how can we possibly be the quality control in this sort of situation [inaudible]. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i have a handful more cards. lalo gonzalez, [speaker not understood]. shanell williams. and after that i'm out of cards. so people can line up along the wall if they'd like to speak. >> next speaker. my name is karen [speaker not understood].

i'm past president of the academic senate and i did have a card in earlier. i had to be way when the card first came up. i was here at 10 o'clock this morning and i listened to the earlier presentation you had about the bad health effects of sugary drinks on the population of san francisco. you were listening to a project about making water available to help that problem. there was some mention made of educational aspects as well and i'd just like to point out, too, what city college offers in regard to that. as you look at this, you can see pages 38 to 39 we offer courses in nutrition. we have a whole program in health education that includes youth worker certificate and community health worker certificates to help people help their communities. in the child development area there is introduction to child nutrition. we also have nutrition cover one of the tov ix among others within the noncredit child development course he. there are health courses for older adults. health nutrition is taught in consumer education program and

that one is at 36 location around the city and some of those classes are taught in spanish or cantonese. and, of course, there is the credit and noncredit culinary programs that help people figure out how to eat better as well as drink more water and less sugar and so forth. i just wanted to -- i thank you very much for taking the time to look into what's happening at city college and to really understand the depth of what they offer the city. the faculty and staff of city college, as you know, are passionately devoted to providing education at all of these different levels to san francisco. you know, we work very hard at advocating. we're working equally hard on meeting the accreditation standards and we're working equally hard -- in fact hardest of all, on continuing to offer the very best education to students that we can for the coming semester and for the spring semester. thank you very much for your time.

>> thank you. (applause) hello, thank you so much for being here today and listening to all of us. obviously this is incredibly important. my name is annie and i'm a city college student and full-time public high school teacher and i'm here for many reasons. on a personal level i attended city college for 2-1/2 years after high school before transferring to s.f. state. spending those two years at city college helped me if i can out what my interests were and gave me the opportunity to learn how to navigate productively through the post-high school world. ~ i know i'm not alone when i speak about the importance and impact of those years. on another personal level, i gave myself of the gift of going back to school concurrently as a high school teacher. it has not only benefited me greatly personally, but also on a professional level. i'm an art teacher taking art classes to benefit my practice. my decision to go back to school part time has been one

of the best decisions i have made in my adult life. it would be a shame if people like me weren't given the opportunity or option to do the same for themselves. city college is affordable and accessible. there is something for everyone and campuses all over the city to make it possible to attend to. again, it would be a shame to lose this treasure. finally, i'd like to address last and probably most importantly that i'm here, i'm a public high school teacher working with students from the excelsior, bayview, and sunnydale districts. my students and their siblings will be most affected by the loss of accreditation or any downsizing. many of my students from low-income communities can't afford to go straight to a four-year college. they have families to support, jobs to maintain, and simply need city college as an option instead of nothing at all or going into lifelong debt. a 12th grade student can take a class [speaker not understood]. what would they do if city

college close e what would we all do if city college was gone? thanks. (applause) ~ hi, my name is patty chung [speaker not understood] i'm a city college counselor with city college of san francisco. i'd like to thank you for holding this hearing today. first of all, i want to let you know my dad attended college city college of san francisco in 1951. it was because of city college he was able to learn english, find a union job and support his family. if it wasn't for city college of san francisco, i don't know where i'd be right now. but i am a counselor with my advance degree so i am city college. the other -- i wasn't planning on speaking today, but i really wanted to get up here and share with you something that i found very distressful. i think it was like the second semester when our interim chancellor was at our college. it was a staff development day

and all of us were called in to a huge auditorium and we had a speaker that sang the praises of university of phoenix. and we were told that we needed to offer more classes like them, online classes, putting more students so we could offer -- we serve more students by offering online classes. so, although that might be appropriate for some of our students, that's not representative of our whole student body. and i would like to keep city college accessible like the rest of my father and provide opportunities for people who otherwise would have none. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) >> next speaker. >> next speaker. hi, my name is angela mitch em and i'm a student at city college. the experience i had in the last two semesters since i

started city college is that the teachers there are amazing. they care about me as an individual. they care about my unique -- what i might have to bring that might be different. and where that might bring our community. the classes i've taken are trauma in the arts and i've done composition and i look forward to taking classes like sexual politics of violence and joining city college project survive program where they go into high schools in san francisco and teach about healthy relationships. this is something very important that city college offers to our community to educate youth and peers and their own quality of life and furthering their own education and becoming better citizens.

i say that if city college has to downsize, these programs will not be available. and the hope that people will be able to give to their own community and gain their own empowerment to be who they want to be suffer. >> thank you. they might not have that respect. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. (applause) good afternoon, supervisors. thank you so much for calling this hearing. my name is shanell williams and i'm student trustee for city college of san francisco. i also represent the student center for california community colleges and their communications officer which represents the 2.4 million students in the community college system in california. so, i just want to say that city college of san francisco is amazing institution. it's been serving our community

for 77 years without sanction, without, you know, it's given so much to awful us. no matter what accjc says about our college, we know that it will be a devastating, devastating loss to have this institution close and displace 90,000 students. you know ccsf was once the largest community college in the nation and now we've seen declining enrollment, about 15% decline enrollment and [speaker not understood]. without the college i wouldn't be able to pursue my educational goal. i'm a former foster youth. i grew upright here in san francisco, was very active in my community and came back to city college to now pursue my degree and my future and, you know, i don't know any other guidance program like the one at city college in the state. it would be devastating for me to lose the opportunity that that program provides. i mean, it provides a safety net for me as a student, to be able to get my books, to get housing assistance, to get transportation assistance, and

that's just one of the programs that ccsf has to offer. i mean, this school is a gem. i mean, we are the model school for the nation. thank you. (applause) >> thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. my name is [speaker not understood] simmons and i am the [speaker not understood] president of downtown campus. i am here on behalf of almost 10,000 students and also on behalf of the 85,000 students. i would like to speak about our students who are immigrants who need city college so much. as a native speaker for esl, for low-income people, for people that struggle in jobs and [speaker not understood] courses to better their lives

and better their jobs, and for us city college is like mother of all. it's like mother that is raising children of the world and this is how we see and how we feel about city college. it's one of unique schools that exists. we love city college. we are passionate about it. it only provides affordable education, but high-quality education, that we have the best teachers, the best programs, and without city college we have no future, our students would have no fewerth. ~ future. and we are asking for your help to support this school, supporting the [speaker not understood] life. thank you. >> thank you very much. (applause) >> our next speaker is our sheriff, sheriff mirkarimi. if you're in the room, i did not see you. i apologize. i think you may have been in

here. i would have called you sooner. >> thank you. supervisors, it's a pleasure to be before you. ross mirkarimi, city and county of san francisco. city college and the san francisco sheriff's department and our jails deserve a robust relationship. and i was stunned that in last december we reached out to city college in partnering on a $500,000 grant that city college had declined to participate with us on. it squandered the $500,000 opportunity. and the reason why that we reached out, and we're going to continue to assert that this relationship really be memorialized and implemented is that we have the first charter high school in the united states in our jail system thanks to my predecessor, mike hennessy. we have one of the most educated jail populations, in-custody populations because of how effective it is in providing a ged, diploma, or

high school certificate. but if there is no pathway beyond the high school for people who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, we're stuck. and considering that the san francisco sheriff's department books approximately about 35,000 or 40,000 people per year, even though our daily jail population is one of the lowest in the united states per capita, it is my worry that if we're talking about public safety and crime prevention that what is not mainstream in this discussion is the relationship to city college and the criminal justice system. we need city college to be built into the jail system and we need our programs to be affiliated with city college outside the jail system. and when the sheriff and/or anybody tries to nurture relationships, i think it's really critical that we don't squander those opportunities so that we foster what i think is on all of our minds, and that is how cost prohibitive san francisco is becoming. but think about those that struggle just to maintain access to city