and this is the first annual because it's our intent that this will become a yearly event where we will all run a 5k in the fourth grade setting the example that good health starts early. they let me an old guy like me jog along with them. i was very happy to do that, and i'd like to thank gloria and michelle for putting that together. you've recently heard me mention [inaudible] not just the sixth grade, not just the seventh grade, but the entire middle school will run their annual restoration run for roosevelt midding school. dle school. we'll be starting at chrissy field and will be running a 5k this friday. better me than you.

[laughter] so the point in my comments where i've been waiting and i'm just so excited to introduce the individuals that we have with us. this afternoon commissioner norton and i had the extraordinary honor at being at san francisco the arch, the graduation, and we have a wonderful partnership we have with them for or transitional age students after the age of 22. the arc does a phenomenal job, but we have a few teachers that also work there and just love those students, but train them and help them be prepared to be successful. they also had a video that they put together, which is a remake of the song brave and we're going to show you that video tonight, but before we do that, i'd like to honor this evening, if they would honor us, the

students from access the arc and again, their wonderful teacher, their head mistress of korography. we're going to feel good starting our meeting tonight. heidi, could you come forward please. [applause] >> hi, thank you guys so much for having us today. in the spirit of our transition program for young adults, being about self determination, i'm going to hand it over to the guys behind me. >> hello. we are so proud to be here representing all the students in our program at the arc.

access -- before access i'm doing so much arc, i never really liked school. act cess is the community based program for students between ages 18 and 22 with disabilities. it helps us increase our independence and become self advocates. access is so awesome. i feel like a real adult since we are not stuck at a high school it really is cool. >> hello, i'm daniel.

we don't just do stuff in the classroom. san francisco is our campus. and with the advisory [inaudible] writers with disabilities. >> we get to try out new things like making projects, learning claymation and music videos like the one you're going to see tonight. >> i really -- i really like seeing videos of myself on youtube. i think it's pretty good. i like it.

all right, at access i have the opportunity to discover all sorts of things i never even knew i liked. never before did i learn to use a camera or specialized computer system to make music. it is so awesome. having a disability and communicating and expressing my feelings is not always easy. it is not. the arts gives us an opportunity to express ourselves, communicate and communicate what makes us special and unique. this sxhunty inspires us to step outside our from everybody? lights, camera, action. [applause]

[music]

[applause] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, these are our students and we're so

proud of them. i think you would agree this is the definition of what joyful learning looks like. if i can ask heidi to come to the microphone just one last time. would you mind sharing with us what happened once this video hit youtube and who the special was that contacted us and what that person did? >> so we were really fortunate when this video hit youtube and it couldn't have happened without ashley sax, sarah, the singer came forward and put it on twitter. it was really empowering for our students to have us to be tweeted about and caused us to join twitder and thank you to rachel for our tweet today. it's been really awesome. if you want to check out more videos, access sfusd the arc on youtube. we have about 20 different videos to talking about what's

important to us and our drama plays so come and like us. >> i think it's safe to say we not only like you, we love you guys. thank you so much. >> thankout. if you see on youtube they love to read comments to give some positive feedback on those comments. thanks. item c, recognitions and a come nations, none tonight. item d delegate's report. >> thank you. so -- the asc is currently doing student leadership election so we're making buttons, printing flowers -- printing fliers and working with next year student leaders on their campaign and we'll know by about next week or within the next two weeks are new student delegates and sac

members will be. thank you to all the principals and administrative staff out there in the schools working with us to help us make sure the ballots go out and teachers letting us use your classrooms as places where we can take surveys. and do the ballot stuff. we're also working with commissioner haney on the expansion of the sac program. and what's been really exciting is that the sac will be working with the -- working and helping make our school safer through the street demo day that will be hosted at lake shore, monday may 19 and the 20th from 9 am

to 3:00 pm. so the students will learn how to play video games and cross streets . they'll be looking at the video and how to navigate our streets safely. and we're extended a really special thank you to associate superintendent for making this possible and making sure that our students learn about street safety. and everyone is welcome to join us, including all elementary school principals, the mayor and commissioner mendoza will be there so, you know, special appearances, special guests. it will be fun. >> hi, so recently the sac's been working on the e cigarette proposal that's going to second reading tonight so i guess we'll get to that later. and finally the entire sac team will reunite for our last meeting and reflect on our

accomplishments this friday, may 16, and awards will be provided to the student leaders for their hard work. thank you. >> thank you. counsel report, none tonight. public comment, there are none. consent calendar, can i have a motion and so he could please? >> second. >> thank you. any items that you [inaudible] by the superintendent. any items removed for first reading by the board? any items severed by the board? >> i have a question about one item. it's not going to affect my vote. i don't know if we can just -- i feel bad. >> are we allowed to address that question now? >> you are, madam president. >> okay. so if you don't mind -- >> i'm wondering on k 21, the soft order process, the national school lunch program application, is that a new

program or is this something we've been doing and if you don't have the answer right now, you can get it to me later in the meeting, please. >> yes. >> okay, so mr. steel, you'll take note of the question, please. >> i will. >> thank you commissioner norton. any items severed by the board of superintendents for discussion of vote. seeing none, the roll call vote will take place under section o. item 8, it is a recommendation for amending board of education updated current version to include changes and additional language. this is already heard in committee on april 16 and was given a positive recommendation from the committee. reading of the resolution by the superintendent is [inaudible]. >> yes.

>> great. >> thank you very much. good evening superintendent and commissioners. i am donna, and it's my pleasure to read this action, this resolution, number 144-22, superintendent's proposal number 1. i want to give a big shout out to the sac for helping to present in april to the rules committee as well as to the board. so thank you very much. this is the recommendation for amending board of education policy on the use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs to update its current version to include change and additional language. and the requested action is that the board of

education of the san francisco unified school district approve and support the actions to amend the current use of tobacco, alcohol and other drugs policy, to prohibit the use of products containing nicotine, such as electronic cigarettes and all vapor emitting devices with or without nicotine content, including hooka, which mimics the use of tobacco products. >> any public speakers, i see none signed up tonight. comments on the board of superintendent. seeing none, think we're ready for a roll call vote. >> thank you. miss [inaudible]. >> yes. >> mr. logan. mr. haney. >> yes. >> miss mendoza-mcdonnell. >> yes.

>> thank you. miss norton. >> yes >> miss wynns. >> yes. >> that's seven is. >> item i, this is moved and seconded on march 25, 2014. the committee report from curriculum committee, commission erer maufus. [inaudible]. >> therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district update the

student and handbook for the 2014, 15 year to allow schools to set their on policies relating to hats, caps and other head coverings in school and remove any district wide restrictions on these items provided they do not restriction on student head coverings for religious purposes, allow students to wear hats and other head coverings in the schools and outdoor spaces as required by state law and remove any irrelevant provisions of the dress appearance standards and remove add language prohiblting the use of suspension or policy. therefore be it further resolved that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district request that the soup soup prior to the beginning of the 2014, 15

school year principals and provide the principals with training and consistent application of the standard and provide support to principals in the collaborative development of these standards. and further be it resolved, the standards should be including students and staff and provide the principals with training. be it further resolved if schools have different dress codes that these be disseminated to all studented rs eds and families. >> thank you. no public speakers signed up. >> commissioner norton. >> i have a couple questions. one specifically, how would you determine what were irrelevant provisions of the student handbook? what standard are we using for

that. >> at the committee meeting we went into [inaudible] the that would be stricken from the record. i don't have that with me now, but i'd be happy to share it with you. >> i imagine there's opportunity for input on that because the resolution itself doesn't really say which lines are stricken. >> that's correct. i think the spirit of that line is that we want to try to capture the spirit of our community values and since the last time the policy was updated has been quite a number of years so we want to be as current as possible. >> i guess this recently came

up in a household that i'm familiar with, a teen that i may or may not know well. [laughter] -- was unhappy that the skirt length rule at her particular middle school was changed from the length of fingertips to -- i can't remember what it was. but it did seem like there's still a lot of opportunity for inconsistency. while i approve of the balance you're trying to set here, which is let school communities have standard, but at the same time i think it would be good if we can go through and make sure that there's at least baseline language that makes sense on a global level because i think there's a lot of opportunity for inconsistency and arbitrary decision making. >> commissioner wynns.

>> seems to me that one of the big issues is about hats and wearing them outside. and there are lots of stories about principals having issues with this and so i completely agree that, you know, we haven't update -- we haven't paid attention to the issue of religious and other practices that require head coverings to be worn all the time. i don't want to go through every school and it's not our job. our job is to make sure we make it easier, not harder to have those decisions be made clear at the school and to make a decision about who's going to make the decisions and what they're going to be. i want to know how much discussion there's been with the principals of the secondary schools, deans, people that actually deal with this, what they think about this, if anything.

i'm betting they have thoughts and opinions on this. and also where has that gotten and ifitis it's going to be happening going forward if we can be updated on that one, because i know that's where the tension's going to lie, i think. >> you are correct. there's a wide variance in policy and practice across the district. i think the nice thing about the way it's being put in this policy is that schools gets to make their own -- get to have the conversation of the community and come up with what's right for them. having said that, i think there will still be issues with the individual hat here and there because it's something that does get people very upset, but the hope is that the commissioner norton talks about will be avoided when the

community has a full discussion about what the expectations in each school community are. >> i just -- you know, as those conversations take place, what's clearly happened is that, you know, we used to regard wearing hats as something that you only did outside and not as part of, you know, fashion or outfits, except for non school occasions, so i would be interested in what kind of discussions take place about that and especially because i'm also going to anticipate that questions that really do affect policy that will and should be interesting and germane to our discussion should come up in those discussions and would be good for us to hear about them. >> commissioner wynns, commissioner norton, i think you bring up good points here. part of our theory of action is to engage our site leaders,

counsels, communities. obviously there are situations where as a matter of student safety there may be certain articlings that students shouldn't wear, but communities are best situated to have those conversations and we think they'll come to some agreement. i think the best way to characterize our a preach as going forward would be in more of a defined autonomy. there are certain standards that we want to make sure that everyone has in the district and within those standards, that there is some autonomy for communities to make their decisions, but given that this is a new change, we fully anticipate we will come back to the board at the beginning of the next school year and through a committee that we identify, make a report to the board. what has happened, have we made any major changes, what's the feeling temperature out there. >> commissioner haney. >> yeah, i really appreciate that comment from the superintendent. i think that this is going to

be an evolving conversation and part of why this is brought forward is because it's been a changing and evolving conversation in our schools. there have been a number of schools who have brought forward a process, included staff members, students, parents and decided to change their dress codes, as related to hats particularly. and we now have the majority of high schools who have moved in that direction by setting up inclusive processes. what this polg say is intended to do is reflect current practice to say that that's something we want to encourage, something we want to support in our schools, for them to have those conversations as school communities and not dictate as we have been doing, even though not everybody was following this policy, clearly, that there was a one size fits all approach to this. i think what many schools were findsing -- and again, now, there's also a challenge with a

difference across the schools and that's where i think there's going to need to be continued oversight and in the future we may as a board want to decide there are a little more consistency we want to create around certain standards, but at least when it came to hats and head gear, there was a growing recognition on the pard of our schools that there were many valid reasons for students to want to wear hats. some cultural, some religious, some personal. those voices were being brought to the table and processes set up by schools and they made their own decision that what was right for them to no longer prohibit hats. some schools actually felt they couldn't go through that process because there was a district wide prohibition. they told me directly that we might want to do this and have that conversation, but we can't because there's a district wide rule around that, so that's why this is necessary, but also some clarity related to the

religious piece, the outdoor piece and then ensuring that students aren't sent home for this. there's a lot of things we do in schools, but our educational purposes is clearly the most important piece of what we're here to do and i heard feedback from teachers that they want to enl kate students, talk with them about their homework and about whether they're learning, what's being delivered in class and not have to focus all of their time on minor rules that maybe are not the bes for that school community so it's also important to respect our staff and respect the realities that they face everyday and the pressures on their time. that's where it's coming from, but for the commissioners points around the challenges of consistency, i think that's something we need to continue to be aware of, but that with this particular question, the folks who are in the best position to answer it are the