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 and i'll be brief.

i'm honored to be considered as a mayoral appointee to the new citizens' advise have i committee seat 4 representing philanthropy, currently serve as program director [inaudible] our sole mission at the foundation is to increase access to high quality early education for san francisco low-income children and families. since our inception in the 80's, the foundation sought to work in partnership with providers, with families, with the school district and with the city to create high quality system of care for children and families. just briefly, my work at the foundations fathers a decade of public service. i had the challenge of serving as the director of policy and planning and being one of their early human service coordinators for them mayor

newsom's initiative. [inaudible]. i would say it's notable for this convening that hoover the most exciting and flourishing parts of my career, i founded the child care facility's fund during welfare reform and under my tenure, we created 12 new state of the ater early learning centers and 48 family care child services throughout the bay area in san francisco and that work continues today. i want to speak of my personal experience as a parent raising two sons in san francisco including one with special needs. i think the personal experience of being a working parent in san francisco is also something to bring to bear at the table. i'll say briefly at this stage of my career in life, i believe deeply that quality education opportunities for every child in san francisco is exactly the work we need to do to address our city's affordability and ek waited issues. if selected to serve, i aoenl very excited about contributing

to a new city wide lan that the office will forward which will ensure quality services for all children and continue to focus on the most vulnerable. as many of the wonderful talented people who have been here today, san francisco's done so much in early childhood and we have so much more to do and i hope my personally and professional experiences will be considered to serve the new office and their vital charge. i thank you. >> thank you, ms. jarrett, thank you for your service. next up, lygia stebbing. >> i'm glad to be here today representing higher education, my name's lygia stebbing and i've been working here in the city of san francisco for the past 15 years in the field of

early childhood education, i have my graduate degree in early childhood education and my drokt rat in social justice and educational equity. for the past six years, i've been working in san francisco state in conjunction with city college and creating pathways to support the incoming early childhood workforce in degree and attainment. san francisco's early childhood workforce is incredibly diverse, unlike the k-12 workforce, it is representative of the children here in san francisco and so as we've been increasing these degree attainments, it's been our mission to ensure we maintain this diversity. our institution of higher ed they have incredibly high access rates but we have very low completion and graduation rates, therefore we've been looking at how can we remove the barriers and create a student first perspective to ensure we have graduation rates. we have a variety of pathways

we've been implementing over the past five years with both institutions and that has result ined a 95% graduation rate for all students, if you look at the current graduation rates at first time freshmen in san france, it's 53% and we're looking for 36% at transfer student and is that's not looking at first generation transfer [inaudible] i love the work that we did, i'm passionate about helping the early childhood workforce and forging relationships with the city and the organizations to ensure that higher ed is preparing our workforce to meet the needs of the field, so thank you for allowing me to be here. >> thank you, and i do appreciate there's been a theme that's been going through here that education for the educators is a big push for the

sector, so it's really great to see that represented here in the room. thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. so, i think that's all the applicants and nominees, so we can go on to public comment, i have a few cards and if you filled out a card, please come in the order na your name is called and then after ward, if you haven't filled out a card, you don't have to you can line up at the wall, this one by the door would be great. (calling speaker names). >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is melissa laraya. i am an early intervention mental health consultant with the homeless children's network and it's been my pleasure to

work with kathie autumn with a year and a half now, it's been interesting working with kathie and it's been interesting because i can tell her things she doesn't already know, she's committed to training and continued education for herself and her staff. i have had the pleasure of witnessing her passion, spunk and tenacity for providing services for all, families struggling with homelessness, domestic violence, navigating the prison system, unemployment, substance abuse issues and disabilities. her thoughtfulness in regards to being as inclusive as humanly possible with the students at her site has been really a beautiful thing to witness. her thoughtfulness regarding

the different physical, social, intellectual, developmental needs of every child at their different ages has been extensive. she is passionate and creative when it comes to individualizing interventions and planning support and behavioral plans for different children to continue services and is to have no break in that, you know, because when you come to our child development center where she's the director, relationships are being built and forged so she is extremely nurturing, she has a relationship with each and every child that walks through that door, to say she puts kids first would be an understatement. she is thoughtful, she engages in evidence based practices, knowledgeable, she [inaudible]. >> thank you. >> okay, thank you. >> obviously you have a lot to say.

>> yes. >> okay, next speaker, please. please come forward. >> good afternoon, supervisor avalos, my name is isabel [inaudible], thank you for letting me speak on behalf of kathie, i'm very excited when she expressed her enthusiasm to be part of the ece advisory panel, she has the passion to serve as a candidate for the seat. i have known kathie for the longest time and we started with of course variety of training and workshop and meeting and every time i get in touch with her in a meeting, that makes the meeting bearable, we have so much fun and i learn so much with my experience with her, we mentor under the city college of san francisco and i strongly believe why kathie's a strong

candidate for this, as a graduate, it makes her a strong advocate for children and families who are at risk and underprivileged. i cheer for her when she took on leadership to be the director at the treasure island and i've seen and witnessed how she turned that program around from the challenging program into a real high quality service, you know, she had the same passion for the same quality for those who are low at risk. i strongly believe with her passion and love to serve in this field, she would make a strong candidate and i know she would make a great asset. thank you so much. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of kathie autumn, if you are looking someone with passion, knowledge, thoughtfulness and

persist tans, kathie would be a great asset. kathie is a strong advocate for children, families and also for the teachers. i have been working at treasure island as a lead teacher for almost two years and through my previous experiences with other directors, i have never met a director with so much passion and knowledge about what is best for the children, i'm extremely expressed with the way kathie runs the program here especially since this is the diverse, high risk population where most of the families have experienced homelessness, domestic violence, substance abuse and/or poverty. i wanted to say something about kathie when she was talking about children who have high behaviors that she does not expel them and this year i have experienced that, i am one of the teach esinger of a child that was homeless and did have very high, high behaviors, and dear kathie's persistence and figuring out the solutions that

would help out this child, we were able to come up with these wonderful ideas through understoodbacker understanding the social, emotional behaviors of the child, understanding the families and truly understands what this child needs individually, that this child has grown bounds and leaps since the beginning from when this child started. so, thank you. >> thank you very much, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is nela gonzalez and i'm a vision director from charity, san francisco and i am kathie's supervisor, i'm here to speak on her behalf but i think i need to say you have a wonderful pool of candidate, i have worked with many of these people in the early child education field and i don't envy the decision you need to make, but to get back to kathie, i'm here to recommend the appointment of kathie autumn to the office of child care and education advisory committee, i've had the

pleasure of supervising kathie for five years at the treasury island child development center, she need today do a lot of work to get to the staff and the curriculum to mere yor best practices. we were approached by the city in december, we opened the center in january and we were struggling until kathie came on. once she got there, it has become one of the most recognized centers in san francisco, the list of accomplishments is long but i would like to high lying the achievements qualify her for the seat. kathie was able to strengthen the early care staff by hiring early childhood development but worked one on one with the teachers who need ted education and motivated them to getting their higher edge ka* casing. she's continued to further her education in training and early child care education by becoming a director mentor for the childhood mentor program, an assessor and a member of the

inclusion network for the community of practice. i have a lot more to say but i'm going to end by saying it's with great enthusiasm that i recommend kathie for the seat. i believe she would not only be an asset to the committee but i suspect a lead and information for resource in the group. >> thank you for your time, next speak e please. >> good afternoon, supervisors, i'd really like to thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of kathie autumn, i myself met kathy as a parent at the child development center and throughout that time, i was just thrilled to see all of the positive changes she brought to the school. my daughter, while she was enrolled there lost two of the most important people in her life so i was really excited that kathie really worked with her through all the social

emotional work, through the strength of family training she had, my daughter was able to remain strong and always exemplify resilience. kathie, there's so much to say, but i'd like the thank her, she's an awesome example of a person who has helped nurture and raise some of the most resilient, intelligent and most amazing children in the bay area, now as an employee of treasure island child care as well, i believe that kathie would be a perfect person as a member on the oece advisory committee. thank you so much. >> thank you very much. please come forward. >> good afternoon, supervisors, my name is erica may bound and i'm the coordinator of the san francisco planning and advisory council of cpac, first i would like to take a moment it's been

great to have the opportunity to speak if front of you so many times lately. it shows the commitment of san francisco's voters and legislators and strengthening and creating improved cities to support our children and families. it's inspiring to be here for people who are dedicated to early education in the city. today i'm here to talk on behalf of sandee blechman, [inaudible] the person must have a citywide perspective and understanding of the diversity of needs of early care and education in san francisco and has demonstrated leadership and experience in policy and planning. nominations were accepted, a

ballot created and sandee blechman was chosen, as a current chair of cpac and last year as a chair of our public policy committee, i am confident that she will represent cpac and be an asset to the committee. i wanted to note that half of our members of our committee are [inaudible] information shader will reach beyond cpac to our community at large. as i take minutes, these are shared with our lists that are sent out to over 500 people in our community. i thank you for your leadership and the community process in developing the office of early care and education citizen advisory committee and you appointing sandee blechman for seat number 9.

>> thank you, right on the bell. >> my name is lynn maris, i'm standing as director of the [inaudible] i wanted to strongly support fonda davidson to be on this committee, fonda has worked with me for the last 8 years but she has been a leader in early childhood education for 30 plus years. it is not an accident that fonda dividers and cross cultural family centers have taken on some of the centers in the city who have been in crisis and the city and the state department of education have called on fonda to serve this city and the title five families who go to those centers. she is one of the best leaders

in this city in early childhood education. it's been an honor to have [inaudible] as part of the model centers and we will continue to support her in all the work she does in all of the neighborhoods in this city. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, are there any other members of the public who would like to comment? no? anyone else who wants to come up, come up here by the wall too. thank you. >> good afternoon, supervisor tang and chair avalos, i'm barbara [inaudible] director of the [inaudible] education, i want to thank you for all your time and effort in working to appoint our committee and thank all of those who have applied. we couldn't have been happier with the pool of applicants, we look forward to the work. >> thank you, ms. carlson and i appreciate your work and coming here in san francisco to run the office, so with that, we will close public comment and now we have the very hard part

of going through our pool of applicants, for the mayor side, it's pretty easy, very qualified applicants and one person per seat, but for the appointments from the board of supervise source side, we have more of a challenge. before we start our discussion, i do want to mention some of the work of my office over the years with many people in the room to work with the mayor's office and kind of put it on the table to create the office of early care and education. it was about maybe 2010 or 2011 that we were meeting with some folks who are in this room, candace wong and erica bay baum who was working in my office at this time, september jarrett was part of the meetings, we laid the ground work on how it

would be light and put some decision making, and we had to hold meetings at the board of supervisor and is the budget meetings and it created this office where we can have the kind of coordination this city needs when we have so many different funding streams and so many different types of early childhood education settings so we can have a focal point of that. it was last year or two years a we started the office with barbara carlson who's here who just spoke, this meeting is coming full sickle that we were going to create this advisory circle of members who will be providing this kind of input on how we can have the finest network and coordination of early child care education services ins the kuntd ri that's going to happen in san francisco based on your work, so congratulations in getting us this far, now' eel go

through the difficult decision of who's going to serve on the advisory committee. supervisor tang? >> thank you all so much to all the applicant, combined and collectively, you bring so much experience to the table, it's just amazing and even if you're not appointed to this committee, you will continue to do everything you can in your very fields and jobs to provide for our community, so with that said, i agree with supervisor avalos, you know, no issues with the mayoral appointees for item 8, i think those were fine and wonderful. item 7, i know that we have seat 6, 7, 8 and 9 up and we had several people who withdrew their applications as well, made it slightly ease ye, i'll start with seat 9, sandee

blechman, i'll make a motion to put her in seat 9. over the years, i work witched candace wong, i could not speak more highly of an individual wall who dedicated her life to this work, so candace wong to seat 8, seats 7 and 6 are a little more difficult, i would say that again, i would be thrilled to the have any of these applicants take over seat 6 and 7, i would say that for seat 6, i am very compelled to appoint ms. kim garcia-meza to that seat, especially given my background, immigrant parent ts, chinese was my first language, providing for that cultural -- or bilingual opportunity for the young students, i think, is really important tosh able to preserve

that cultural heritage but allow them to assimilate into a new country, i appreciate that focus and i would be happy to see kim garcia-meza in seat 6 and in terms of seat 7, i'm really torn, i like both kathie herrera-autumn and fonda david son, they bring different experiences but both are good to this committee, so supervisor avalos? >> well, thank you, and you actually with the seat 7 was the one that was most difficult for me and i do appreciate the work and the experience of both patricia sullivan and kim garcia-meza and because of her background in bilingual education, i thought that was going to be a useful, important aspect to have on the

committee, on the advisory committee, and i'm familiar with her work as well, so but personally, so i was going to be supporting kim garcia-meza and it's tough because i felt ms. sullivan would be great on the committee as well, and then i was -- based on the work i did with candace wong to create the office of early childhood education, she was part of the planning effort, so i thought i would want to support her for seat 8, sandee blechman for seat 9 and seat 7 is the difficult part, and yes, ms. herrera-autumn has like wonderful experience within the child care setting and to be able to apply to a place where you work directly with students, you work directly with teachers, you work with

the families and you also have an understanding of the setting and all the requirements that are in the field as well and that is an incredible per specie to have on the body, and then ms. davidson has an amount of experience as well, it would almost be a coin toss, and my hunch would be to focus on center based care that kathie herrera-autumn experienced, that came loud and clear with someone that would be a strong asset to the advisory committee, so i propose that we support her for the seat. >> alright, i'll publicly say, i'm fine with that. >> so, if we -- our motion, if that's okay, to kim garcia-meza for seat number 6, kathie

herrera-autumn for seat number 7, candace wong for seat number 8, sandee blechman for seat number 9 and as proposed by the mayor, seats 1-5 to support those -- a motion to approve those. >> motion to approve. >> to amend and to approve those recommendations from the mayor as well as a motion to approve the ones i just mentioned -- >> coming out of this committee report. >> and coming out as a committee report. >> i second that. >> and we can take that without objection, thank you. madam clerk, do we have any other items before us? >> that concludes our business for the day. >> okay, we are adjourned. thank you for your support. (meeting is adjourned).