and now if we step back two steps, this is a major crime prevention strategy if we want to link in to connect the families and children back to together. like it was, 20 years ago. so we are stressing and asking to you bring it to the table and put us on the agenda and set us up with a small community to talk to on a day-to-day basis so that we can make this change thank you. >> next speaker? >> good evening. good evening, my name is reggie higgins and i am also the vice president of the wat foundation and i am also the chair of the committee up there in hunter's view and i also work for the navy brother's construction and i am building part of phase one and two and if you look at them pictures you will see a difference and you will see the look that we are supposed to have and also, we write up a business plan for this park.

and this park for the next 30 or 40 years and, we are going to stop all of the crime and the drug using and all that have and we have over 100 and some youth that have no parks and no after school programs and right now we are writing up a business plan and to solve that problem and i appreciate very much and my name is reggie and thank you. >> thank you. >> the next speaker, please? >> my name is leon and i am also a member of the committee and i am also a peer leader in the hunter's view area. and all communities need a functional neighborhood park and as you know our neighborhood is expanding and we are the families, and we are family neighborhood with children and they need a robust park and the committee youth park known as mbs was a valuable asset and there are no discussions around the park and we need to revisit to insure that the children can develop

the healthy physical skills they need. and i myself grew up. and we need to also, continue to promote the higher education. and let them know that their education can help them escape the poverty and bringing along the services and the programs up to the hunter's view park or to the things like that and it would really help and so i am also here and in support to open up a discussion on what to do with the park. thank you. >> next speaker >> good evening. >> to the superintendent and board my name is mary twigby

and i am the president of the national work at fi delta capa in san francisco. and we will have our 49 regional conference this weekend on friday march 14th, through sunday, march 16th, at the embassy suites 150 ansel boulevard. and on saturday morning, from 8:00 a.m. to 10 a.m., we will have a vital issues forum, and where the topic is positive factors, resulting in the decrease of african american male students graduating from high school and model programs in the bay area to help break this cycle. dr. joe marshal will facilitate and he will be discussing the live and free program. brian gasden from the urban education saturday program, which is for elementary students will be here. we will have a representative from 100 black men from

oakland, and dr. anthony anderson is going to talk about the omega... and a representative from oakland unified program campaign for black male achievement and he will give a historical perspective and our superintendent will be present to give greetings and to provide informative facts on topics on this topic from the unified school district's perspective. saturday night, and we will honor, miss emily wade thompson for her 35 years of service and education as a teacher, principal, supervisor with the bay view zone and mrs. brenda jackson who is a dean who has been in the district for over 30 years and she is a dean at roosevelt middle school and her work with youth and... the

church. >> i have tickets if you like to attend and see miss wade thompson or miss jackson. >> thank you. >> good evening superintendent and commissioners, i am here to help to frame the conversation around when you guys start talking about para pay with the upcoming contract negotiations i am here to lend my support to the paraprofessionals and i have been one and i am a liaison and i am privy to the storis that the students hold around the city's affordability crisis, many of the families are marginalized by the immigration and language capacity and limited income, so these issues make for a stressful existence but with the housing crisis the families are concerned that they will be displaced from their homes. one thing that we know about children and when they feel anxious due to social issues outside of their control it gets in the way of the ability

to self-regulate and focus which keeps them from learning. while dealing with the impact of secondary trauma has been part of the work in the school communities, our city's.com boom has stress among the vulnerable. the staff is working to address the immediate needs. and our teachers hold together the classrooms of the kids escalated by the social inequities directing them to to things that are less, urgent as to where they will sleep. they are there to support and address the challenges of many others come to school upset due to the stressors at home and family liaison try to meet the needs of the families by connecting them to resources that build their capacity and we are holding an event next wednesday, and that squarely addresses the housing crisis

and you are all invited. so every day, all educators working the hardest to be sure that the students have a safe and happy place to learn, and we enjoy the kicks in the chins from the kids who ran up to give us hugs and we tell the parents the truth about the behavior and economic progress and we come under fire for that honesty. and the difficult choices that our parents have made. and we do this understanding that it is a great privilege to serve our children, we do this because we love our kids. >> i think that your time is up and your name. >> claudia moran and if i could summarize if one sentence i would say that para professionals are in the same boat as a lot of the familis that we serve and if sfunified is about equity and then we need to extend that when we look at contracts for the professionals in the future.

>> well she just led the way for what i have to say, my name is mary lavala and i am a proud paraprofessional. i don't want to be a classroom teacher. i like what i do. i was born and raised here in the city, but unfortunately, i have been pushed out of the city. so i have to move to daily city and from there i had to down size even more and move to an inlaw apartment in south san francisco. i have had to take money out of my retirement twice in order to live for the summer and to get a car so that i could get around. and so when she talks about the children that extends also to the workers, we love our kids. we love our job. obviously we do. or we would not have stayed in it as long as we have.

without getting a raise in 8 years. i want you to think about yourself and your jobs. when you last time that you got a raise? in eight years, my rent has doubled. and i just recently had to move from daily city from a nice apartment to an inlaw which i am thankful for, but it wasn't my choice, so now i am out of san francisco, away from the children, and the neighborhood that i grew up in, i live in visitation valley. i live in sunny dale housing projects, yes i needed to move but i didn't want to move away from the children and the families that i have known all of my life. so here we are. we are at the point of where we can as adults live what we preach to our children. we preach equity. we need to show them how to be equitable by giving the

paraprofessionals a raise. i am only one of 1600. but i know plenty of others that could have been here today stating how they have lost the place to live. so i just urge you to support paraprofessionals in this, remember, eight years without a raise thank you. >> thanks, mary. >> mr. superintendent, and madam president, and members of the board of education, i'm dennis kelley and i am the president of united educators of san francisco. and you heard mary, and clauda and you may not now her but mary you have seen around for a while and you know her good work. claudia just recently put together the literacy and employment night at brian, and she worked with the mayor's office with superintendent

campos and with us and with the school district and in order to put together something that was incredibly innovative and well received, this was the kind of work that folks do. once again, we need to make the point that teachers and paras cannot afford to live in san francisco. if you have not seen the story of the family that is in the paper there, there was an article, in the chronicle but also this is the teacher's union paper where we also carry that story. and if you have not heard the testimony from salia about what happened when he was burned out and then all of a sudden had to find a new place, i urge you to look it up and hear it. tonight you have heard from two para professionals who cannot buy a home in san francisco and they can no longer afford to rent an apartment in our city. we have had another para in our office just today who is homeless, and is trying to balance his responsibilities to children, with the need to

simply survive. the median home in san francisco now costs $925,000. the median home. apartments are soaring into more than $3,000, the average teacher makes $62,000, the average para professional makes $25,000. housing can easily take up all the money a para can make. easily, half if they are careful. a teacher contributing 40 percent of his or her income can afford less than half with the median home costs. 450,000. teachers and paras who have to commute, spend less time working with the families of our children. we are here tonight to say that the people who do the work, must be a priority for you as an employer. and we urge you to take every opportunity to make it possible for them to live where they

work, thank you. >> thank you, mr. kelley. >> public comment? >> next speaker? >> please press the button, mr. rice. >> my name is jeff rice and we have just received notice that there is some additional data that will be coming soon and so we would request that we could postpone our comments until the next meeting. >> we look forward to see you in two weeks, mr. rice. >> public comment is now closed. >> thank you. >> item k. advisory committee reports? i believe that our san francisco has a report? on the annual bond audit report? >> thank you, president fewer i would like to ask david golden to please come forward with our

guests. >> hello, mr. golden. >> good evening, president fewer. >> members of the board of education and i am david golden, and i am the chief facility officer, as you all know, there is an annual time of the year for the prop 39 facility bond audit over the past decade we, have passed three bonds and in 2003, and 2006, and 2011, and each of them with 55 percent, plus, one, needed to pass, and everyone under the requirements of prop 39. and which require that every single year we have a financial and performance audit to be sure that we are spending the money the way that we are supposed to be spending the money. and they are supposed to review

that audit and be sure that it is true and just and we are all supposed to report back out to the board of education. so i have with me, tonight, mr. len dana of dtd which is our audit ors and also, the regular district auditors and i have nancy who is a member of the bond oversight committee and with that i will turn it over to mr. dana. >> and thank you, david, and good evening, everybody and this is another time to get in front of you and the board to talk about the audits and this relates to actually there were three audits for each bond issue and a 2003 which is just about closed and has in fact closed now. the 2006 bond issue and now the 2011 issue, and we take significant numbers of transactions from each one of those expenditure details and

we test primarily to make sure that they were spent for the intended purpose. and that they met the bond election guidelines and so, we have also presented those reports to the citizen's oversight committee and we have discussed them at length and we have finalized those report and we are here to say that we have no findings with any of the bond issues that we tested. and the amount of testing that we do, by the way is something in the order of 75 to 80 percent of all bond expenditures and so it is fairly significant. and we also do different things such as testing for retention, releases and bids and awards and so forth and so there is a number of other procedures that we do perform that we have spelled out with the david and his staff. and over time. and we have no findings. and so, again, this is your one time for to ask any questions that you may have about it.

and obviously, we have an additional presentation, to be made, but it has been the clean audit for all three of the reports. >> wow. >> the first any comments or questions from the board? >> commissioner wynns? >> i would just like to say thank you. and congratulations, to the staff, and you know, i remember when it was not so. so, i do too. >> i appreciate this as i think every member of the public should, this is money that we hold in the public trust and it is really, remarkably gratifying that we do so well now. and i really appreciate the work of the staff and so thank you and congratulations. >> commissioner murase? >> i just wanted to thank everybody who made this clean audit possible and it is really good news and solid ground for the school district and i

really want to thank everyone. >> thank you. >> yes? >> i would like to take this time to let the board know, what a wonderful job that david and leonard tom do in advising the board on just how to read, i know that reading, writing and arithmetic but reading statistics is a whole new balance game for me and they have been wonderful in leading all of the board members to be able to respond to the portion of the bond and it is exciting and very gratifying, but thanks to david, and leonard and the staff. >> thank you, nancy, it is good to see you again, superintendent? >> yes, i would like to also add my voice to the chorus of thank you to the staff and oversight committee and for the audit as well and having actually worked in the school district where we had a $2

billion bond for construction, i can honestly say that i have never seen a rigorous process for insuring that the public dollars were spent for what they are intended to be spent on. and i would like to thank mr. golden for his leadership and mr. tom as well and i want to thank the staff for the diligent stewart ship of the public dollar and we thank the taxpayers of san francisco to entrusting us and we thank the staff for making sure that that trust is well placed. >> thank you, superintendent. >> if i may, could i just say one more thing? >> i wanted to thank the committee and actually i wanted to add and i thought that she was going to make a presentation, and i would wait until after that. i wanted to sort of ask you how you think that the committee is going. i know that this is a very not only time consuming volunteer position, but also, it requires developing expertise, in the area and entirely new area, and i appreciate that so much.

i know that a lot of people have served on the committee and the advisory committee for the bonds over the years and it is a lot to do, actually my husband was a member for several years. so if you would tell us how you think that the committee process is working. >> for me... we are continuous learners and certainly that holds true for me, serving on the committee. but i think that the most rewarding part of serving on the committee is to find the due diligence of everybody on the committee to make sure that every thing is scrutinized and some hard questions to david. and leonard and he always takes the time to clarify even the mundane of questions. and i have enjoyed it because i am learning and growing again and that is saying a lot for a

retired teacher. >> if i could ask one thing about the committee. >> i know that the prop 39 requirements are quite specific about who are supposed to be representing and in the past we have had the trouble getting the requirements don't seem to fit our community very well, in some areas. and so do we still have a problem with that? i remember that one of thefm was representative of a tax payer association. we don't actually have active tax payer associations in san francisco. and so we will have fixed that or could we manage it or ignore it >> on the record, by the way. >> of all of the positions that are the positions are filled with the exception of the tax payers organization and they are quite frankly very few of them than in california and very hard to fill. and we have been unable to fill

that one. >> we are not the only one that have trouble filling that. >> state wide it is continued to be. >> thank you. >> thank you, all. >> thank you, very much. >> item l. special order of business, none tonight. item m, discussion of other educational issues. >> we are short on colleagues in physical attendance tonight and so we just make quorum with four of us and so be conscious when you are leaving the room because it makes it tight for any of us to take a break from this meeting tonight thank you very much. >> item l, special order of business none, and m, discussion of other educational issues, superintendent? >> thank you, president fewer and so this is a special place in the agenda, last board meeting we talked about the common core, english, language arts and math. and today we are talking about what happens after our students learn all of those wonderful

facts. they have to be assessed. and as you know, california is adopting not only the common core, state standards, but also a new assessment system called smarter balanced. and part of this is going to require if anyone read the op, ed that i wrote for the examiner and i talked about the context of which smarter balance will be implemented. but, there have been a number of questions as to how are we positioned and do we have the technology, and what is our status and so to give the public a very, very quick, update on this, we have assembled a stellar team led by dr. cona and dr. kensy and they are going to introduce our folks as well. >> is there a powerpoint tonight? >> no. >> thanks goodness.

>> we have the theme, technology and dawson and superintendent announced john from assessments. and me from research planning and accountability. so we do have a hand out so this is just a quick update, so i hope that you all have the hand out. >> yes, i believe that we have them in our packets. >> commissioners? >> yes. >> and okay, so within this, we are going to win with the quote from the superintendent, which i will let the superintendent read and i will feel embarrassed to read in his presence. >> sure. >> sfusd along with all

california school districts is required to participate in the new state wide assessment system beginning with the on-line field testing this spring. our students will gain experience with the computer based assessment and the teachers and administrators will understand the test and administration and logistics and our district will learn where the gaps exist and what needs to be accomplished prior to the 2014, 15, full implementation of the assessments. >> thank you, superintendent. so this is an assessment for learning. and so, with that in mind, when will the test be administered? the state has released the dates, so for elementary school, it is april 7, to may 16, and middle k, 8 and high schools it will be march 18th, to may 16th. and next tuesday is when they start, who will participate? and what the content will be was covered last time in the

powerpoint and still remains the same. and the additional thing that within that section, is that now we know the names of the high schools that will be par participating and so we have included those within the hand out. and so there are eleven high schools in san francisco that were selected to be in the scientific group and the names are included >> i would like to say a special thank you to all of the sites because they are the ones bearing the brunt of this both the planning and implementing it and so we do, it is our job to support them and so we provide them and we have been providing them with weekly updates but also, just be our internal district website, the information that is available to all, starting next week we will begin weekly or daily e-mails to the district staff as well. and we are having complete in

our test coordinator meetings this week and we had one in february, and tuesday, wednesday, and thursday, of this week, we have been meeting with all of the test coordinators to review the final implementation and planning. and tests, and it is a test administration manual from the state but we have to customize it a certain amount to make it usable for the site. and all site administrators test coordinaters have completed a practice test session and then, we are kind of making a little bit of a plea, of the head sets are required, we are supplying head sets, but, students are allowed to bring their own, so we are asking sites, and all listening parents tonight, to encourage their students to bring their own head sets for the test. >> and then, along with the support, so the support for english learning with iep and we had a few questions on it last time and i wanted to make

sure that in the context of the assessment that everyone understands what supports will be available and that the state is taking a slightly different tact on what they are calling accommodation and modification and so if you look at the hand out on page 2, there is universal tools, that are part of or that every student is allowed to use. and regardless, and then, and then, a smaller set, that are called designated supports, and those can be assigned to any student, but of the group of adults or have to decide, that that will be useful tool for the student to use. and then, the smallest box on the hand out that you can see are the accommodations, and those accommodations require an iep. >> and then, so, and as with any accommodations modifications, the support that are designed and are used in every day ininstruction and

local assessments and those can be used on the tests such as a glosserry and extra time and the other ones that are listed on the list there as well. the state said that the iep do not need to be rewritten this year. but that the parents do need to be informed that the testing has change thised year and so the special education department is working on sending out those letters and then research plan and accountability is continuing to work in collaboration with multilingual pathway department and the special education office to inform the test coordinaters and the classroom teachers about the supports that are available. >> good evening, commissioners my name is matt and i am the chief technology officer at the school district and i am going to give a brief overview for the technology readiness, and on the back of the hand outs you will see a matrix that just go to the high level and the shows the number of schools that through survey and we have

identified a right to test and then, the schools and in the yellow are the ones that will require the extra support from our purchases that we made over the past few months that helped them out. and so, within those schools, we have completed the installation of all of the brosers necessary to take the assessments and we are following up and the schools are finding issue and sometimes the schools are bringing in the donated equipment and so we are following them and to see if we can get the browsers on the equipment and as we were initially planning for an april 7th start time for the window, we are running tight, on when the equipment is going to arrive and most of the equipment is going to arrive this week and so we will be fiercely, figuring out the last, 2 days of this week and what equipment needs to go where. and the school sites are currently developing what their schedules or their testing schedule are going to be for the next few weeks. and because, they were