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 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