believe that early childhood teachers are not given enough credit but they need more education so the compensation pays them well. and it's all about that relationship building, right at the core is at the heart of the preschool. i do a lot of advocating for my family ins the program, this is the first year we've gotten the families together to have a family advisory committee which was a long hall. i bring -- the experience i bring to you is i have a child psychology degree, i have a quick wit, bad humor, compassion for the children and family and is teachers in my program. i do believe following rules and ordinance that i support all walks of life. i can analyze facts and make quick decisions. i see the bigger picture i'm mri applying for the credentialing where they want to revamp the system because i see a lot of the top that needs to be corrected. i have a strong understanding

of children, i do a lot of social, emotional work on people especially on the population that needs it. we do a lot of behavioral support plans with our children, i do not believe in expelling preschoolers which is common, we keep the children, we work with the family and we work with the program and these children successfully graduate. i've been fortunate to have a mentor my entire life that taught me what i was doing. i can tell you i do what i do because someone gave to me and i believe it's time for me to give back. my employers will tell you i am the heart of the sentencing i love my children, families and i do love my teachers too. you'll hear me in the halls saying children before chores first, if i see a messy classroom, i know the children came first, it warms my heart, and basically that's who i am. i mean, and that's why i'm running for this seat. >> thank you, and i really appreciate your work,

especially no expel policy which is really significant, especially with the population you work with, that probably has on the island may not have places to go close by, so i think that's really important. there are a lot of applicant and is we're short on time so we're going to go on to the next one, i do appreciate you coming here and getting out of your comfort zone and come and speak before us. thank you. >> thank you. next applicant is yohana quiroz. >> [inaudible]. >> okay, next up is fonda david son. >> good afternoon, i understand that two of the applicants need to leave the proceedings before too long and i would like the ask if it would be permissible for them to present to you at this time. >> i appreciate that, yes, if there are applicants would need

to go soon for this item, we can open it up for them and we can come back to you. >> certainly. >> so, who -- >> i think it's the next item, supervisor avalos. [inaudible]. >> so, i don't want -- yes, thank you for that information, so i don't want to get our items confused but why don't we call item number 8 as well so we can have those applicants come forward and then we can deliberate on them at the end of the meeting but i think for the mayoral appointments, we're just hearing them, so item number 8, if you can call it, please, madam clerk. >> item number 8 is a motion perverting or rejecting the mayor's appointments of carla

bryant and september jarrett, terms ending may 1, 2017 and meredith osborn, yohana quiroz and gig yeah stebbing terms ending may 1 2018 to the office of early care and education citizens' advisory committee. >> i just got a call that my daughter had a fever so i appreciate you hearing us. i'm a san francisco resident, i grew up in san francisco and with my husband, i am raising my two daughters, ages 1 and 3 here in the city. i often turn to my mother who still lives here and ask her, how did you do it. one of the answers as to how we do it is with quality child care and preschool which we were lucky enough to find at

the south of market child care which -- i've served as the care and the fundraising care of the parent advisory committee there and through my involvement in the center over the past two and a half year, i have learned a lot about the challenges that the other challenges that the staff and teachers face. i began my service as the san francisco youth commission back in 1998 and after coming back to the city, after getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees, i worked as a deputy city attorney, i'm looking forward nr this role to serving the city again and particularly addressing the need for quality early childhood education and child care for all of the children in san francisco, i understand it's a huge need, i understand that personally and also, you know, through being involved in the city in numerous ways. if you have any questions, i would be happy to address them, but otherwise i'm just eager to

get going and get working and also get to my daughter. >> thank you. thank you for your presentation and let's see what's happening with your daughter, okay. >> thank you. >> okay, thanks. >> was there anyone else who had to go for this item, please come forward. >> good afternoon, i am carla bryant, chief of early education, thank you so, so much for allowing me to go out of order but i do have a 2:00 that i have to facilitate. i come to you as a person who has over 30 years of experience in the early education department or early education, i know i look 20 or i think i do, i'm not really sure, but i come to you very humbly with a very interesting past in early ed, in my earlier career, i had

an opportunity to work with a group of moms who unfortunately through various circumstances found themselves incarcerated and one of the things they had to do before they were allowed to get their children back was to go through a class with me on parenting skills and i have to say the lesson they taught me that everything is a two-way street, that the great thing about teaching is also the opportunity to learn and i took that lesson throughout my career which has been kind of interesting. i had ten years of work in head start and as an administrator over services for children with disabilities, services for children with their health and also an opportunity to run in a very amazing program that was later acknowledged for its work in education because of what we were able to do with the group of children and fair families in partnership.

that work i took with me to the city of see -- seattle as a strategic advisor, and i got the earlier learnings from that with a group of individuals who were looking to see what did it mean when preschool family, child care, the city, the school district came together to collaborate on one issue and what we called it was a problem of praktsz, and the problem of practice that we decided to study was what did it mean to do citywide professional development for individuals who had the same vision but were going at it in different ways, and we took a good two years to look at how we could do things together, how we could leverage our strength instead of spending time talking about what divided us. we took that also to create a

second group collaborative which was around assessing children which is really tricky and emotional for people with children from 0 -5 years of age, we were able to come together that whatever we decided to do around assessment, it would be culturally competent and open for review at different times as we went on with the process. i now am fortunate to be here for five years to work with some amazing in the city, first started with first five. i cannot imagine what the work would look like with the district if first five had not taken on that mantle with what the preschool for all looked like. what i am looking forward to in the next five years is how do we as a city leverage all of our learnings and build on our strengths. this city has so many strengths and especially when you're able

to compare the amount of funds that come here to other places, so this committee is an opportunity to do a -- i'm going to call it a redo, a restart, to start talking about, is it really an issue of slots, is it an issue of quality or can we not have a discussion about how to have quality slots, is it an issue of child care, is it an issue of child care, or is it can we really not have a discussion about what all children deserve and not be contingent about the behavior of the adults. i'm not sure what will happen on the this committee because it's new, i hope for my sake is start it out in a positive manner by identifying all we can do to together and what we can all do in a way that we all walk away feeling we have accomplished something for our children and our families in this city. thank you.

>> thank you very much, i appreciate your presentation. >> questions? thank you. >> thank you. okay, so for item number 8 which is the same body, we'll go back to the same order we had for item number 7. my voice is not all here today. fonda davidson, please come forward. thank you for sharing your time. >> so, good afternoon and thank you for hearing about my interest in qualifications to serve as a committee member on the community action committee for the new office of early education. my name is fonda davidson, i serve as an executive director at the cross cultural family

sent e we serve over 350 children at 11 child development centers in various neighborhoods in san francisco. we serve -- we have four centers in visitation valley and what w we'll soon be opening a new center at the 50 raymond community building within the next few weeks. >> [inaudible]. >> we have two centers in the tenderloin, the western adashing, a center in haze valley castro and two site ins the richmond valley neighborhood districts. four of our centers serve children 0-3 and our other centers serve 0 to preschool. throughout the past years, i've had the opportunity to serve son a number of initiatives and advisory committees pertaining to early education, some of which are the psa advisory committee. i had the opportunity to serve

on the initial advisory committee even before the program was funded and later i continued to serve on the committee representing child care provider programs. i also have served on the karis advisory committee which is an initiative that provided incentives and reward for professional development that would lead towards certification and on many of the elements of that program have folded into our see wages operated through the department of human services and the new office. i also served on the workforce think tank in i believe it was 2009 that went in depth on issues and concerns about how to retain and properly compensate early education teachers and caregivers. most recently, i have served on our city, our city stakeholders group representing the ece community of center based providers and currently i'm

working with the state standard reimbursement rate initiative steering committee and we are working with child development agencies who are state funded throughout the state to address the serious issues of the funding crisis that we have with our state dollars for state preschool and early education in general child care. as a member serving in seat 7 and/or 8, i would bring the voice of preschool providers throughout the city representing views and issues from a practicetysing naer's perspective and to help craft strategies and solutions to provide goals for providing quality education that is equitable and just for all our children. i feel very fortunate to live in the city of san francisco and to be able to do most of my career's work here. we're a city that cares deeply about children and we've worked

together very hard through the various departments and communities to garner all of the resources that we can to show that san francisco is a model city that cares for its children and young families. should i be appointed as a member of the oece, my hope would be to work collaborative with all the voices represented on the advisory committee, to build upon the strengths and achievements on those organizations and departments that have brought us to this point. those organizations that have laid the foundation for the new office of early care and education. some of those are the san francisco first five preschool for all program and you've heard quite a bit about that this morning and this afternoon. but this organization has accomplished so much to increase the quality of early care and education in our city and serves as a model for many

other communities in our state and across the country. the department of children, youth and families in its part in working with early education funding and professional development over the past many years. the department of human services has worked on workforce development and now operates the see wages and has worked with access for children to live in high risk neighborhoods and communities and our san francisco unified district child development division who has been a trend center in developing strategies of excellence to address some of the critical needs to serve the needs of children in our communities. my interest in serving on the advisory committee for the new office is to help with the design of systems that will support high quality programming for young children and reach all of the children in our city. a system that is affordable for families, a system to build and maintain the capacity needed to

meet the needs of our young children 0-5, this would include facilities development helping to make them safe and healthy as well as the development of our workforce. a system that prepares all children to be ready to learn when they go the kindergarten so they can have successful elementary educational experiences throughout their education through high school and for long life learning, a system that's equitable in termser of access and one that supports our most vulnerable children and their families and the centers that are in the cross cultural family center are located in many of these communities in our city and last and certainly not least is a system that values the professionals who work in our field of early education, our teachers, and gi garnering all of the resource that is are necessary to support equitable

wages for our early childhood teachers, all of these are important as we move forward. thank you. >> thank you very much. thank you for your presentation. we'll go on to the next person before that, you talked about that it's great to see that there are partser of san francisco that does have a concentration -- even if those place that is have a concentration, it's not enough, easier and umi were scarce of family care centers, while i have many people who are in the early childhood education field, it would be important for me to say that in front of this audience right now, i want to plug that and thank you for all your work. >> thank you. >> okay, ms. wong, please come forward. >> good afternoon, supervisor

avalos, supervisor tang, my name is candace wong and i'm applying for seat number 8. i am the patch here of the childhood planning advisory councilor, worked in the city my whole career basically, over the last [inaudible] years, i worked in early childhood education, i think through my work, i'm currently the director of the california child development programs with the low-income investment fund which is a community development financial institution, interestingly enough, i bring a very broad and deep perspective that's different that would be valuable to the group. i work through a community development lens in which we look a lot at how we look at building whole communities and hearing some of the speakers this morning, through that work, trying to -- how are we planning for, i think the perspective i bring is i try to look at least three to five

years out if not more, we know we're going to have a growing population in san francisco, we're talking about housing development, how does housing development and affordable housing development go hand in hand and how we're building communities, whether it's our schools or open space but also child care. hearing over and over again, i think we hear a lot about -- what is it about the seats? unless those seat ares there and these are licensed quality spaces, we need that in order to serve kids. it's not like we can just slap a coat of paint on the facility and open it up and you can serve kids, these need to be state license facilities and i hear over and over again through my work also of the director of the child care facility's fund, across the city, i think there's a need for development and where we can find space and be mindful and plan for it, how is it we try to leverage both public as well as private dollars in order to expand and build the

needs that we need to serve all the kids we need serve ined all the city. i think i bring a broad perspective around community development, around business, i have a background in finance as a fiscal direct torx i worked on how we're helping to strengthen child care businesses, how do we support them, i think we have some really great leaders in ece, i think i can provide a deep and broad perspective, you know, not only around ece and those needs but also around community development and the business side, i think that could advance our work at the city. thank you. any questions? >> thank you very much, ms. wong. i don't have any questions. thank you. we'll go on to our next applicant, sandee blechman.

>> good afternoon, supervisors tang and avalos. my name is sandee blechman, i'm proud to be here. briefly, a little bit about myself, i'm a 37 year resident of san francisco, mostly in the mission district. i'm a mother of three adult children all of whom were raised in san francisco. i'm a san franciscan by choice tracked here by the wonderful diversity and acceptance this city is known for, as someone who raised my children haoe, i feel strongly about san francisco remaining a place where diverse families and children can thrive. as a professional who worked full time while raising my chaining i also appreciate the importance of quality child care x the challenges that so many families face and figuring out how to afford the child care they need so they can work and support their families

while giving their xirn the developmental experiences they need. i have devoted by career to san francisco non-profits, i spent 13 years as ceo of the jewish community center of san francisco, a large private provider of preschool, after school camp and recreational programs for children and teens. for the past four years, i've served as executive director of children's council where we're devoted in making quality child care and early education a reality for everybody in our city. children's counsel helps people understand their children's options, helps low-income families to pay for care, manages the city's subsidy allocation list, maintains [inaudible] and works closely with government funders and community based partners to

build the supply of quality care. our work supporting child care providers is focused on the 700 family child care home ins the city. we provide -- our staff helped child care providers establish their businesses, we provide basic and ongoing training in child development, health and safety, business management and other topics and provide coaching and technical assistance and the city's quality network which is designed to design quality options for low-income children. in my four years at children's council, i have become a strong advocate for public investment in child care and early education so all children will have the opportunity to succeed. i've developed deep knowledge of the system, the support for families and people carrying for and educating their children as well as the gaps. for the past three years, i've been ak timely involved in the community coalition that helped with the prop c ledge slaix, i

played a legislative role with cpac, i'm excited about the work that oece will be leading this year in collaboration with first five and the ece community that will serve as a road map toward our collective goal, a system of quality ece for all san francisco children. thank you for your leadership and consideration and i can answer any questions you may have. >> thank you for your presentation and interest in the committee. we're going to go on to the next person since we're pressed for time. we'll go on to the next applicant. we have ie nem number 8 open so, we'll continue on with the applicants for item number 8 which is the same committee which is yohana quiroz, i tem

number 8 is the appointments from the mayor's office. >> my name is yohana quiroz and i'm excited to be here. we serve about 230 children every year, birth to 6 including children with special needs so we're the largest inclusion program in the city, i believe one of my parents were talking to you at walk around the block. my relationship with the field of early care and education act, we started a as teen mom, i was a recipient of these services 18 years ago and that led me to get really involved in a field of early childhood

education because i feel it did a lot for me personally and for my daughter who's now a freshman at san francisco state pursuing a degree in nursing who i understand personally what the benefits are of receiving these services. i'm currently the division director and i oversee multiple programs including two child development program and is services for children and youth. if i'm selected for this seat, i hope to draw on my personal experiences as well as my professional experiences, as a provider and a leader in my organization, i'm constantly looking for ways to leverage our resources to ensure that children are really benefiting from all that they can benefit from including the families. i'm an active agent fi change through leadership and

advocacy, i believe advocacy is key if early childhood education and it's our job as educators to be advocates for the voiceless which i feel are those who are not sitting at the table xh kh* are the children, the parents, the staff, the providers. and the leadership roles that i have held formal and informal because there's always that, i always try to be a mentor to my staff and encourage them to pursue higher education. we know that so many things have changed over the past 18 years around degree attainment and teachers are feeling the pressure of earning those degrees and i know that that's a big challenge. i'm a graduate of the advanced program that is funded by the city and different private foundations as well and i got my b.a. in child development and i'm currently at the university of san francisco pursuing a degree in organization and leadership and

education. my vision for this new office which i'm really anointed about, the 9 seats that will be represented are critical in sort of creating a system or strengthening the system to continue to work on the strengths and successes that we've had over the years, leverage our resources, san francisco is rich with resources so we have to continue to find out how to leverage those so obacker our families can benefit, increased access, particularly for children with special needs, nr's a focus on continuity of care, a lot of the children that are in my program that have special needs, we figure out by leveraging other resources and funding to continue to provide those services to our children so they can benefit from the continuity of care who we know it's important for these people.

breaking the silos among city departments and aligning our vision, we can str*erjen the vision among the early child education field and education system. through this new office, we can really strengthen that, as well as support the degree attainment and the way we can raise the wages for early childhood educators so i feel honored this will be both a personal and professional challenge that i'm willing to take, so thank you for listening. any questions? >> thank you. i think we're okay and i think you've already taken all the personal and professional challenges already, but thank you for your interest in this body. okay, i believe september jarrett is up next. >> good afternoon, supervisor, i'm september jarrett and there are some hard acts to follow here