>> thank you. and so just in terms of the 3 recommendations sound good to me. i just wonder does department staff want to weigh in on this and let us know their thoughts? >> did you mean the staff from dph or hsa? >> either one >> we [inaudible] shelter monitoring officers quarterly so we work through these changes and agreement with all of them. >> great. just for the record [inaudible] >> sorry. >> great. [inaudible] >> howard chin, policy analyst. [inaudible] assistant to dweckter of health will coordinate with dpa and hsa. he is out of town but

can forward questions or concerns over to him. >> thank you. colleagues any questions or comment? that thank you so much for your work and department staff. we'll open up item 5 to public comment. i think mr. walter left. no members of the public for item 5. this was a hearing so if we have a motion to file this hearing. >> so moved >> thank you. >> second by supervisor cohen. the hearing is filed mptd mr. clerk do we have any other items before us? >> no more items, madam chair. >> okay thank you. meeting is adjourned. [meeting adjourned]

>>supervisor aaron peskin: good

morning and welcome to the government audit and oversight committee meeting. my name is aaron pes kin. i want to thank sf govtv for live streaming this meaning. madam clerk, do you have any announcements? >> yes, please silence all electronic devices. items acted upon today will appear on the board of supervisors agenda. >> thank you. please call the first item. city clerk: [public works code - clarifying graffiti prohibition and establishing administrative penalties] sponsor: peskin ordinance amending the public works code to clarify that prohibited graffiti extends to all public property, including all city assets; establish expedited notice and hearing procedures, create administrative penalties for an offending party, and renumber code sections; and affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act. city clerk:

[public works code - clarifying graffiti prohibition and establishing administrative penalties] sponsor: peskin ordinance amending the public works code to clarify that prohibited graffiti extends to all public property, including all city assets; establish expedited notice and hearing procedures, create administrative penalties for an offending party, and renumber code sections; and affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental city clerk: [public works code - clarifying graffiti prohibition and establishing administrative penalties] sponsor: peskin ordinance amending the public works code to clarify that prohibited graffiti extends to all public property, including all city assets; establish expedited notice and hearing procedures, create administrative penalties for an offending party, and renumber code sections; and affirming the planning department's determination under the california environmental quality act. thank you. p is 1234 i want to welcome >>supervisor london breed:. the city has seen a string of bad actors and the city attorney has taken action against this and most recently the recording company for justin beeber, universal music group. when it laid paint throughout the city, my colleagues offices got complaints who felt that corporate interest were getting off too easy and that we could combat

this blight and injury. the city pays more to remove this type of graffiti and at all public as a tremendous job to prepare these services by preparing sidewalks and street removal and street cleaning. the department of public works needs stronger tools and this will allow banning on all public property and expediting this process by establish administrative penalties of up to $1,000 a day for parties and to include the well funded entries that have made this kind of vandalism a profitable tactic. i would like to ask rachel,

director of public works to offer any comments about the legislation. >> good morning. presenter: good morning supervisors and thank you for sponsoring this legislation. supervisor breed last year sponsored another important tool to combat graffiti vandalism. we are very much in favor of this proposed law. we have seen that companies have had a complete disregard of laws to protect the public right-of-way. we see the gorilla advertising as blight and sidewalks are not to be used for public billboards. it's another in our arsenal to combat this problem. >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you. are there any members of the public who would like to comment on this item. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public

comment is closed. >>supervisor london breed: as ms. gordon mentioned, last year any other office sphere headed what it was a reform of our graffiti policy in the city and county of san francisco. it gave the office the ability to go after those individuals who had regular offenses civilly so that we could collect damages on public property. we are talking about in excess of over $20 million annually that the city is spending to abate graffiti here in the county and city of san francisco. the more tools we have to make this clear about our policies. i want to be clear that someone who is a former executive director of an arts organization, graffiti

and without permission is vandalism. we have some amazing graffiti artist in the city and county of san francisco who get the permits, follow the rules and work with property owners to do some amazing beautiful artwork all over this city. but vandalism is a whole other issue where you vandalize people's property. you are vandalizing the sidewalks, you are vandalizing city muni bus and other public property. that's just something that we have to be a lot tougher on because it is costing not only the city millions of dollars and property owners as well. this is a movement in the right direction. i wanted to not only add my name as a cosponsor for this legislation and thank supervisor peskin for working on this issue. >> thank you. supervisor breed is a sponsor of this

matter. with that, colleagues can we send this to the board with a recommendation. that item is moved. next item. city clerk: [noe valley community benefit district - annual reports to the city - fy2014-2015] sponsor: wiener resolution receiving and approving annual report for the noe valley community benefit district for fy2014-2015, submitted as required by the property and business improvement district law of 1994 (california streets and highways code, sections 36600, et seq.), section 36650, and the district's management agreement with the city, section 3.4city clerk: sf 21234 >>supervisor aaron peskin: good morning. i want to say that i'm delighted that you are in front of us today. mr. koergs, the floor is yours. >> good morning, my name is chris koeshgs with the office of economic and workforce development. i'm with the cdb program. one minute. 1 minute i need

to get these slides over. >> take your time. if not, maybe we can use the overhead if you are having trouble. >> there we go. fantastic. thank you. so, the noe valley and all community districts in san francisco are governed by two legislations highway code 36600, the 1994 act and the regulation code article 15. this resolution will cover the report for fiscal year 2014-2015 for the

know valley cbd. o ewden insures that all c bd's bids are meeting their management plans and staff conducts an annual review of annual reports and cpa. noe valley is found in the corridor and contains 211 parcels. a property base budget. it was established in 2005 and will expire on june 30, 2020. the executive director of the cbd is debra neeman. she will be presenting on the programmatic achievements. it includes the areas of public right-of-way and sidewalk operations

and district identity and street improvement and administration and corporate operations component. it included noe valley bench marks for oewd. benchmark confirmation that noe valley received 5% of it's budget and confirmed that noe valley's cbd budget and benchmark identified for carried for and projects designated for carried forward. so for benchmark one, noe valley met this requirement as their annual budget was in variance points of all service categories in its management plan. for their assessment revenue, noe valley cbd met this requirement as 10% of their revenue was

from non-assessment sources. for benchmark 3, was in 10 percentage points of their budget. noe valley also met benchmark four as they identified their carry over from fiscal year 2014-2015. for your record cbd's typical carry over the operating budget for not receiving the assessment funds of the first 6 months of the new year. the findings and recommendations for the know valley cbd is that noe valley met all of their expectations and requirements by state code and administration and seeking funding for the long-term streetscape plan and identified the neighborhood and tracking visitors to patronize district merchants and

implemented the oewd's recommendation from fiscal year 2009-2015 annual reports. in conclusion, noe valley has performed well in implementing the service plan and continued to produce the events such as the harvest festival and easter egg hunt and attended several subcommittees. are there any questions? if not, debra is here to report on the programmatic achievements. presenter: good morning. this will be quick, but it's show and tell time. noe valley is 10 years old identified with the castro. andrea will talk to you about it shortly. we want to give a shout out

to scott wiener and duffy who helped us obtain this funding. the smallest cbd in san francisco since the mission is no longer functioning. >> right. >> unfortunately. we have two street porters who work 7 days a week from 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.. we do ten steam cleanings a year. the only cbd that does this and along with mgm to remove the gum off the street. we did a long term strategic plan where we invited the community and asked to vote on various streetscape options and have been writing this plan for the last 10 years and have been successful for the plans that we have written. it's primarily what cbd's do to create really good street improvement. we planted 137 trees. we did

four sidewalk gardens. 16 planter boxes. in the initial phase of the program. we got 24 flower baskets and the high visibility crosswalks in the castro which are very busy pedestrian crosswalks. we also funded three bulldogs and planted planter boxes. we didn't like the city's bike racks so we wrote a grant and received a funding to put in our own bike racks. which came along with the strategic design in terms of design. we have new benches. if there is a merchant that wants a bench in front of their store, we split the cost. we work very well with the merchants association. they are our

true partners. we also work with the friends of noe valley, the key of residential group. we now have the town square which is going to be managed by recreation and parks. we do a lot of events. it doesn't look great if you are not go to activate it. we activated with three events in june, harvest festival and december we do 24 holidays and we put reindeer in the park woods which the department probably doesn't like, but that's okay. you have to tweak them occasionally. we are 10 years old. thank you. >> happy 10th birthday. thank you for your incredible work. you are the model cbd. >> thanks. that's what i heard. we are the press conference about that. thank you very much. >> thank you again and

thanks to your partners and to all of the 200 plus members who pay into that cbd. without them you couldn't do all that work. >> good property owners devote to tax themselves it took 18 months and 15 neighborhoods to do it. norman knows that. it's a very tough thing to do. >> we are trying to replicate that on polk street and reviewing those that are promising. perhaps we'll repeat that in north san francisco in the months ahead. >> you have two strong leaders in polk. you will do there. >> thank you. is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, can we have a motion to send this resolution to the full board with recommendation. >> i move. >> moved by supervisor breed.

without objection, that is the order. madam clerk, please call item no. 3. city clerk: [castro/upper market community benefit district - annual reports to the city - fy2014-2015] sponsor: wiener resolution receiving and approving annual report for the castro/upper market community benefit district for fy2014-2015, submitted as required by the property and business improvement district law of 1994 (california streets and highways code, sections 36600, et seq.), section 36650, and the district's management agreement with the city, section 3.4city clerk: sf 31234 good morning. as you know the governing district is governed by state law 1994, and local law article 15. this report will cover the castro cbd market community benefit district annual reports to the city. we provide the board of supervisors with a summary memo regarding the

cbd's accomplishments and benchmark results. the castro cbd is found along the castro corridor and the longest in the city and contains 279 assessed parcels. it is a property based cbd. it's initial assessment budget is $413, 500 and is also set to expire on june 30, 2020. the director of the castro cbd is diane ayalo. includes public rice and sidewalk operations, district identity and street improvements and administration and corporate operations. it reviews cbd in the city

and for the various amounts of each category 10% points from the management plan. benchmark two castro upper market cbd came from other than assessment revenue. benchmark three for each service category 10% from the actuals and amounts carried over from the current fiscal year and designated projects. for benchmark 1, the castro upper market did meet these requirements as they were in ten variance points from their management plan budget. for benchmark 2, the castro upper market cbd exceeded this requirement as 31.6% from revenue from non-assessment sources. from their management plan, for their actuals, they did meet this

benchmark as all variances were under 10% variance points and for their carry over, the castro upper market did receive this requirement as they indicated any amount and what that money would be spent for in the coming fiscal year. for the finding and recommendations for the castro upper market cbd is the castro upper market cbd did a fantastic job of raising non-revenue. currently they have only one staff person and may be able to hire and additional staff and it is also their anniversary. so they will be having a celebration to celebrate the fantastic work they have done over the 10 years of operation. in conclusion. cbd has continued to successfully market and produce events like live in the castro and harvey milk day. they have increased opportunities to

work with community stakeholders and municipal agencies and continue to maintain an active and diverse board of directors and diverse robust committees. any questions? >> no. sounds like they did a spectacular job and have a lot of carry over funds. ms. ayolos? >> good morning. i'm glad to be here today. my report is actually on last year, 14-15. not our full 10 years. although we are having a party on sunday which all of you are invited to celebrate our annual event and that should be a lot of fun. this is our map as chris showed you. we are long and it's a real challenge to take care of such of a

very, a lot of cbd's are square or angular and ours has a lot of nooks and crannies. it's a lot of work. our communities we have executive committee finance, streetscape committee, service committee and land use committee. we really couldn't do half of what we do without partnering without our wonderful neighborhood organizations and also the city organizations. we have a really strong relationship with the castro merchants and the triangle neighborhood association, safe ways and active partners of care programs. i can't say enough about the great work that ecology does to

help keep the neighborhood clean and captain is part of the leadership team and to be part of the team on castro and on market street is a testament to his commitment. our current grant is not current. it's from last year. where we had a grant for oewd and retail strategies grant and funding through merchants and residents. so, cleaning is a biggest part of our budget. we have people who sweep the sidewalks and guters from 5:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. everyday of the year, 365 days a year. they pick up about 250 bags

of trash a month. we did an analysis and that comes to 11824 pounds of trash a month over the span of 10 years. so we did this because it's our 10-year anniversary. the amount of trash that has been collected is equal to the weight of three statutes of liberty. if you can imagine that, it's pretty incredible the work that we do. as far as the safety piece of our management plan, we hire patrol special police to patrol the neighborhoods. this is a collaboration with the nighttime businesses in the neighborhood. they are in the district walking a foot beat or driving around weekdays from 4:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. and weekends from 4:00 p.m. to

3:00 a.m.. we put in our strategies and landscaping and additional agreeing strategies and district identity falls in there and marketing. so, what we do particularly in the castro is we have as chris said where over the weekend although in the summer we are getting new funding for next year and rolling out soon. we are going to be filling up with the events and live entertainment in the plaza. we have ambassadors between may and october and welcome visitors. they welcome about 10,000 visitors a season. and we do landscaping and plaza and management and maintenance in the harvey milk plaza upstairs and the jane warner plaza and retail

strategies. we finished a research report and we are about ready to implement those recommendations in the next month. >> some pictures of keeping the district clean. graffiti abatement. someone who was mentally ill turned over a planter and we were there. we are always steam cleaning the sidewalks. we never stop. whether it's spot cleaning or our regularly scheduled steam cleaning. we are always out there cleaning the sidewalks. this is an example of live in the castro. this is the flagers from flagging the park. they come up and perform in the castro. these are some of our

volunteers and ambassadors. we hand out maps, information about what to do and see in the castro and that is available in six other languages. people are shocked, delighted. you can imagine some people from japan and we say we have a handout for you in japanese. similarly the challenges are the assessment some people are living on the streets and some are mental disabled and substance users. we have a number of people who are really troubled. the commercial vacancies are double the city's average and we

have dangerous situations on market and working to address. our opportunity, we have formed this incredible collaborative to address the homeless issue and people who are at risk and living on the street with dedicated homeless services and dedicated additional law enforcement. that castro care pays to have additional dedicated sf hot workers on the street and additional dedicated patrol special police and officers. we'll be implementing the retail strategy program very shortly and as i said we are collaborating with mta around vision zero. we will be working to improve pedestrian safety, for pedestrian

bicycles, motorcycles, cruise vision zero. we are addressing some of these big challenges and collaborating with the jane warner plaza. it was promises when it was developed that it would not become a homeless campment. it kind of has and we are working with the city to make improvements there. and then as i said, we'll be implementing the retail strategies project. thank you, if there is any questions. >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you for your work and i also want to acknowledge the individuals who came to the front to allow you to do that for the last decade and happy 10th anniversary. >> thank you. >> are there any questions from committee members? is there

any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. may you thrive until 2020 when we will reauthorize you. you do a great job. thank you and with that, colleagues, can we send this to the full board with a recommendation. mr. korgis, any last words? seeing none, supervisor has sent this to the full board. without objection that will be the recommendation. madam clerk, item 4. city clerk: [administrative code - san francisco homicide reward fund] sponsors: breed; cohen ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the san city clerk: [administrative code - san francisco homicide reward fund] sponsors: breed; cohen ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the san francisco city clerk: [administrative code - san francisco homicide reward fund] sponsors: breed; cohen ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the san francisco homicide reward fund. city clerk: [administrative code - san francisco homicide reward fund] sponsors: breed; cohen ordinance amending the administrative code to establish the san francisco homicide reward fund. >>supervisor aaron peskin:

supervisor breed has brought this item forward. >>supervisor london breed: thank you. i wish i didn't have to bring this item to talk about today and i wish nobody has had to experience this. i hope that we can solve murders and in doing so maybe even help prevent them. my hope is that we can help. colleagues, this legislation creates a permanent city reward fund to compensate those who provide information leading to an arrest and conviction in an unsolved murder case here in the county and city of san francisco. in the past 8 years, we have averaged between 50-80 homicides a year. each one is a tragedy, and each one is a loss to a father, mother, a friend, brother and family member. each one should be brought to justice. the city has at times offered rewards in specific cases but it's done so on

an ad hoc bases and there is no specific codified fund or process. so my legislation creates a permanent fund for rewards of up to $250,000 to help solve and prosecute unsolved murder cases. so, rewards are limited to cases in which the police have exhausted all investigative leads and for which the chief of police has in his or her discretion determined that public assistance and an award is necessary. the recipient of the reward cannot have been involved in the crime. while the chief of police gives a very broad discretion in offering a reward, anything over $100,000 will require the approval of the board of supervisors. the reward fund is open to annual budget appropriations by the mayor and the board with money from previous years carrying over

and the fund can also accept donations. all in all, this will require a small amount of taxpayer money because thankfully we are talking about a small number of cases. but in those cases, this reward can make a world of difference and in those cases we should be doing everything we can. san francisco is according to most matrix the wealthiest city in the country and with that wealth comes obligation. like the bible says, to whom much is given, much is expected. when it comes to crime, we should put the city's wealth to help the families and get the most violent offenders off the street. i want to thank the police department for their assistance and we have former police

captain, greg is here from the department and i want to thank tom owen and parents. ms. mattie and miss car let. with that, i have one amendment to my legislation. specifically i would like to move from page 2, line 15, letter a. i would like to completely remove letter a. >> remove no one has been charged with the crime from 1 year of the date of incident. >> yes. >> and letter b. we won't need at that point. in his or her judgment that the police department has exhausted all investigative leads. >> we need a and b. >>supervisor london breed: no. only remove letter a completely. >>supervisor aaron peskin: right. because we will read letters

a and b. >> yes. thank you very much for that clarity. i would like to move a and b. specifically when we looked at adding the amendment to look at no one has been charged with a crime for more than 1 year, i think that you know, it's not fair to wait that long to provide a reward fund. so i didn't feel that was the best way to do this legislation because what we are talking about that happens in the case of these crimes, you have the department. they come out and do an investigation. the investigation may take several weeks or several months but oftentimes should not take a year. i think after all of these investigation leads are exhausted, there comes a time where this reward can be offered. so that's what i'm trying to get at. i'm trying to get this reward on the table as quickly as possible

because the longer you wait, the less likely we will be able to prosecute anybody for these crimes, and ultimately it is important that after all of the loss that we've experienced especially in the african american community, that we do everything we can to make it clear that no matter who is killed in this city, that we are going to do everything we can to put that murderer behind bars, and that is the most important thing here because what we don't want to see happen, we don't want to see that person kill another person, and you know what? we don't want to see anything happen to that person either. and at the end of the day we want justice. we want these crimes solved and we want our community to be safe and the next generation of our kids to grow up in a

safe, healthy, thriving community. that's what this is all about. so, again, i want to thank everyone for being here today. i want to thank my colleagues who have been very supportive with this. with that, i would turn it back over to the committee and i'm looking forward to hearing public comment on this item. >> thank you, supervisor breed. would you like to hear from commander mckakrin. he actually was our captain at northern station. it's hard for me to call you captain. >> it's not hard for him. >> he was captain for 3 years. we had a great relationship and i want to thank you for the work that you have done and what you often did

prevent crimes from happening and getting people off the streets and going after these crimes in anyway shape or form. you have been a great captain. congratulations on your promotion. you know what it's like with these investigations and how they don't necessarily lead to convictions. we owe this to the families. please give us your take on what's happening with investigation now, no. 1, and no. 2 your comments regarding this legislation. presenter: thank you very much. first of all good morning, supervisors, thank you very much. as mentioned my name is greg mckrek on, the commander of the san francisco p.d.. i'm here speaking in support of this legislation brought forth by

supervisor breed. as mentioned, the purpose behind this fund, i apologize if i echo what you said but i believe it's important is to establish these funds in an amount up to $250,000 at the discretion of the chief on these homicide cases that have gotten the reports that are at thend of their leads and we are looking for assistance to try to solve those. there are a few things that the department has looked at. in the first is the homicides have a significant impact in the safety and well being of a community especially when they go unsolved. some of biggest challenges we have with that is that we see that the community remains most at risk. when the community remains at risk there is obviously the

opportunity for additional violent activity to occur. we have seen that the community oftentimes remains in fear because of the continued violent activity by the individuals that remain outside and we are trying to assist in alleviating that fear by making the additional appropriation when appropriate. the third thing that we looked at is our overall goal is to reduce the homicide total throughout the department and as supervisor breed mentioned, we average about 55 a year and some are a challenge and the goal is to reduce the homicide totals. we are challenged at times because of the limit of the award that can be given to individuals who can offer some significant information. supervisor talked about a financial impact and i think that is a component that the police

department has looked at as well. while, you would hope that an individual who has information on a homicide would come up with that information out of shear responsibility, we would be wrong to not think that person would fear and not come up with that information. if you are a witness to a homicide and looking to provide information but are concerned about your safety, this might help you to locate within another area in san francisco and be able to support yourself and your family beyond what is currently allowed. if you want to be able to relocate that becomes an assistance as well. one example of a prior case that i think is important to kind of highlight is that a number of years ago we had a federal

prosecution of a number of high level gang members within san francisco that was prosecuted on a federal level where we had assistance from an individual. there were five homicide that were solved and a number of shootings in san francisco as a result of the testimony that the individual gave. we were able to offer a reward for that person but at the time it was $20,000 for a person who solved five murders and other violent activities. there had to be something else done to relocate that person. in that instance, had we been able to offer a larger amount for that individual, it would not only have given him the opportunity to relocate and feel safe, but the opportunity for him to feel that he can get away from a location in a violent activity to continue. it's an opportunity for us

to further that approach. what i think in my last . that is important for the police department and on a personal level is how this will affect the community and the police relationship. as you know, the police department has faced challenges recently with the community and the relationship that we have with the community and we are doing a number of things to try to do that and be partners with the community. this gives us an opportunity to do that. you know, there is two women sitting behind me that i know come to a number of meetings and there are more than two, but i know of two of them specifically that i have dealt with in the past and i have a personal knowledge of violence that occurs in the community that i live and others. ms. brown and -- they are looking for information on the murders of their family members. there is nothing more than the

department would like to solve that and any other families, brothers or sisters that are victims of violence and give closure to them because they come to these meetings. every year they come to the city hall and police commission meetings, and it's important for us, not only the police department to let them know it's important for us to solve that crime for them but as a city government to tell them it's important. the san francisco chief of police and the san francisco police department is in support of this so we can help solve these unsolved cases and communicate with the community and the support from the community for these unsolved cases. thank you very much. i will be happy to answer

any questions. >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you and congratulations on your new job. if there are no other speakers, let's open up for public comment. first speaker, please. public speaker: good morning. my name is paulette brown. and thank you commander. i'm glad to see you here and >>supervisor london breed: thank you too for implementing this reward for the homicide posters. as a mother who has been on a battlefield for the last 9 years, i just want to say april 6th, of this year will be my son's birthday and august 14th of this year will be my son's anniversary. it's been 10 years, it will be 10 years for my

son's case that has not been solved for 10 years now. it's really hurtful and painful for me that i have to live without my child for this long, my only son. but i want to think this is being implemented because it gives other mothers and fathers hope that maybe someone is going to come forth, and i think things even though this is coming forward, i have $250,000 reward which i would like to use the overhead, please. this is my son who was murdered august 14, 2006. he died saving someone else's life. he was shot 30 times to a semi automatic gun. i have a reward $250,000 for the last 9 years now and no one has come forward. i think something should be changed in the way that victims and people

have to testify so they won't be afraid to implement this money or try to get this money. and i want to bring up that they have the perpetrators that killed my son. they are right here, all the names. people have come forth and given these names. thompson hannibal, paris moffat, andrew videau, jason thomas, anthony hunter. how do we change the fact where people that want to testify they are not afraid of retaliation. >> they say the people know who killed her son, no witnesses. that's what the issue is.

if we can change the issues about people coming forth, maybe someone will come and implement it and try to get the money for their award. i bring up that i not only fight for my son, there is other mothers and father out there who have lost their children and all of these cases in san francisco are homicides that have not been solved. these mothers and i, we all stand together. we run a healing circle group called the soul support group for mothers and fathers who lost their children to the homicide. after the funeral is over, who is left? it's us grieving and we are still grieving. please don't forget our children. i want to thank everybody for bringing awareness to this. you are giving other mothers and fathers hope that we can change this system.

>> thank you, ms. brown. >> thank you very much. >>supervisor aaron peskin: next speaker, please. public speaker: wouldn't want to be swept away, far away from the one that i love. hold this item tight. government oversight. make it through. i want everything to be well. ain't no sunshine when you are gone. only darkness everyday. ain't know sunshine when you are gone and sometimes you are always gone. make it turnout right. don't make it wrong.

>> thank you, next speaker. public speaker: good morning and thank you so very much everybody for being present here. president breed, members of the board, commander. my name is maggie scott, the founder of healing for our families in our nation. i'm just so elated that this is finally going forward. on july 17, 1996, my son was killed and this marks the 20th year anniversary of my son. we have represented over 500 parents in this city who have lost their children to gun violence. i stand before you represent is those mothers who are not able to be here today and the fathers as well. it's been a 20-year journey and i'm not

alone, we are not alone. we want to thank you supervisor breed and others. like alma jackson lane, ceo of the civil service agency, elizabeth torres, kaleta jackson, and so many people who have been on board with us for a long time to help us stop the violence and stop the killing and start the healing. i also want to say that we are so grateful that chief suhr and officer commander endorsed our next of kin program. charles ramsey of philadelphia and in charge with help and in greater support of non-violence. i know we

have to work together no matter what. how we feel, i guess i have been angry for a long time, but i have generated my anger in a positive way and look forward to supporting you through all of us. thank you very much for everything that you have done. we are in it to win it and we are going to win this world on violence. public speaker: i'm not going to get up here and talk political crap. this is about our children that are being murdered. get down with why we are here. it's a shame. my son right here. they found the worst damn picture. excuse my expression. that boy was trying to cash his check working at the japanese restaurant. i ain't got time. solution

or revolution. i was told about being here. i wasn't prepared to talk to people. my son was shot down. i have been talking about these unsolved homicide that's been in this country from generation to generation. we are not going to rest in the justice is done. i'm not going to beg you to solve our murders. i don't have time for this. it's about the black agenda. it's time for our reparation. every nationality can get up and speak on this and nobody wants to acknowledge what's happening with our people. i am tired of talking about all of this political crap. it wasn't an award until i fought for 3 months and demonstrates. don't play the game with me. i'm sick of it.

the bottom line is it's been 2 years and my son's case is not solved. if you are not going to respond before, you are not going to respond for one. i want you to know about the memory of my son. his birthday, a documentary is being done on him. he was in the star rise program being paid by the fortune 500. mentored by willie brown. i want you to know what's going on with our boys being shot down. you don't have to wait a process for a case to be solved when that white woman's case was solved in 2 weeks. don't try to put this pressure on us and tell us that we are supposed to wait. it's talking about circumstantial evidence. black lives don't matter. i'm not waiting on you. i'm going to do something

about my son being murdered. i'm going to do manage about it. i'm sure you want to do the right thing and put it in place for all these children that don't have a reward in place when they are shot down because we realize you say that they put this here. they found the worst dog gone pictures. you found the worse picture that you could find of my son when he was 15 years old. what about when he died in his uniform at benihanas that night. so this is the reason why you don't have the rewards now because you say they are all gangsters. if they are gangsters, why are you not calling on the rico act and st putting the sensors on the cars.

it's all about gangsters and bringing the fbi and cia. i bet you would bring it if it happened to the chinese and caucasians. i know you are going to do what's right. if you don't do what's right, you are going to pay the price. i'm not begging you for nothing. >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you. any other members would like to testify? please come forward. public speaker: my name is clet a jackson. the director of the foster family service agencies. i have been in san francisco since i was 5 years old. i went to

-- our foster family agencies has been in business for 26 years. i want you to know i'm here today to commend you, supervisor breed, for actually trying to set up a system whereby we have a permanent way of doing homicide reform. i want to use the exact phrase you used. sorry about that. what i wanted to say is our agency was healing for families in our nation and working with san francisco unified school district. the point by this having these rewards , it gives the message to the children that their lives do in fact matter. they are watching the

homicide and wondering if anyone is going to do anything and they have to feel safe. when the chief commander was speaking, he talked about the effects of violence on the community. and what it really boils down to is the constant fear. so when you have a fear that turns into a rage like what just happened before i came to this podium, it let's you know how real and desperate this situation in. so we as a san francisco and you as leadership, we do need every possible mechanism to move forward. i just wanted to say, in terms of san francisco unified, we have so many children that are in foster care who are coming from violent situations. we have parents incarcerated, members of family who have been lost to gun violence and they know the actual children they went to school

with. so we've had recent shootings in the western edition by mcdonald's, the quadruple homicide and a woman losing her life in the mall. what it says is not only do we have this black on black and brown on brown crime, but we have younger and younger ages of children losing their lives. this is an opportunity to say, yes, we have the mario woods case, we have the alex nieto, in terms of police shootings. but our community needs to know that the deaths that are occurring and the previous case of unsolved murders around black on black crimes are just as important so these mothers and

residents of san francisco just like me who have one son. that they can feel that their life here and their children's lives matter. we commend you for this opportunity to have the reward and for it to be permanent so it's not just a hit and miss because our community needs to heal and we need to have a good relationship with the police department. thank you very kindly. >> thank you. next speaker, please. public speaker: can i get this, please. just real briefly, i want to you see this picture. i want to thank supervisor breed and yee and peskin for taking action on this. i want you to see my brother.

i have been doing this for 20 years. at the executive director of brothers against guns. and as you see the mothers paulette and maggie scott and as you see, i was once like that 20 years ago. i was angry, upset, mad. didn't want to hear anybody and didn't want to know what anybody had to say, frustrated. unfortunately the young man that killed my brother was caught and arrested. 4 years later my second brother was murdered. that homicide has still not been solved. so i stand here and say $250,000, that's a start. we can do better. we are one of the richest cities in the united states, and we commend you guys for taking the lead on this.

we appreciate this, but i think we can do better because i see the frustration and as the mother's grieve and fathers grieve. i'm a brother. no longer is my mother or father here or my brother. i'm here by myself as a brother who started this organization of brothers against guns. i understand the hurt and pain. just recently i lost a cousin the other day in the tenderloin who was murdered. so i understand the grief that these mothers and fathers go through. at the same time, i'm going to keep pointing this out that we are one of the richest cities in the united states and we can did better to support these families, these mothers and father. i have been on the battle line for 20 years fighting this and i'm dedicated an committed to this where there is city dollars, foundation dollars, whatever dollars, i'm going to continue to do this brothers

against guns until i leave this earth. as you can see this grief going on with these families, they are hurting and they can never get passed it. every birthday, every holiday, every time they see a kid that looks like their kid, it reminds them of what their child should have been and would that child been here. i save that everyday and as i work with kids everyday and deal with kids on that level everyday, i feel the heart pain what these families go through. this is a start and a beginning, it can be more done for these families. i understand that these families will never ever ever forget about their loved ones and this pain will never go away. there is not enough money in the world to get them to do

a way with what they are dealing. as you see these mothers grieving, don't take it personal. take it to where you understand. i have told many mothers, fathers, brothers and aunties and cousins, get involved so it doesn't come to your doorstep. i say this to you supervisors, pass this. make it work for families. i keep saying this, is that $250,000 is a start. but as one of the richest cities in the united states, we can do better and support these families a lot more and a lot better than what we are supporting them by giving them the comfort to get this frustration out and let them understand that it's okay. so i support the families.

i support you supervisor breed, peskin, supervisor yee. thank you, guys, for pushing this, but look deeper and do better than what we are doing. >> thank you. >> about the other unsolved. >> i can't let you up. we let you go well beyond. i'm not allowed to do that. >> i just want to show you what mothers and fathers are suffering from. i just want to show you this. can you show this at least show this. this is what we have left of our children. can i put it over the overhead real quick. please. >> this is about our children. >> i totally understand. >> this is my son laying on a gurney lifeless that we have 9 years later. i'm still in pain. i need you to know this. you talk about rage. it's a mother's rage. don't cut me off, please.

i'm still in pain. 2 minutes. 10 years that i have to deal with this. yes, i advocate for other mothers, but when it comes time to myself, it's hard for me because this is what i have left of my son. take that into consideration. acknowledge my pain. >> we do. >> that's why we are here today, right? so please acknowledge my pain. >> we do acknowledge it. >> solve these homicides. i'm tired of coming to the police commission supervisor's meetings every wednesday and tuesday standing in front of city hall and screaming from the top of my voice. listen to us. >> we are. that's why we are here today. are there any other members of the public who would like to testify on this item? is there any additional public comment? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor breed?

supervisor yee? >>supervisor norman yee: thank you. i would like to thank everyone for coming out and expressing your frustration. thank you commander for your support of this legislation. i don't take it personally. i take it as a way for me to continue to be motivated to help anyway i can. president breed, thank you for bringing this legislation to us and i would love to be added as a coauthor and support this. >>supervisor aaron peskin: colleagues, we will list supervisor yee and myself as cosponsors of this measure and if there is no objection, we will send this item. >>supervisor london breed: thank you. i want to thank you all for your words. as mattie scott would say,

oftentimes, her people -- hurt people. too many people have been hurting people in our community. when we lose people in our community, we lose a lot more than just that individual. i know that many of you mothers who have lost their son even if it's 2 days ago, 1 year ago, 20 years ago, it still hurts. and part of what we have to do as a community is come together and heal. we have to pray with one another, we have to support each other. yes, we don't need to be apologetic or acknowledging people or say the kinds of things we need to say. you don't have to apologize to me for anything . i grew up in the western edition. i have lost friends, family members, loved ones. we talk about this when

stacy got killed in the tunnel when i was 12. stacy who was a good person. stacy who always had a dollar for you. stacy, the kindest person you ever want to meet. why stacey? ? why does it continue to be our young african american boys and men. part of what we have to do as a community is we have to come together, we have to hold one another up and lift each other up in prayer. we have to hold other people accountable. they know what their kids are doing. they know what their kids are doing. we know some of the people in the quadruple homicide. i talked to some of those parents directly. i talked to the department. i want to see those crimes solved. consuelo and i talked about this when

we were kids. we played together. this is important to me. this is not just about being supervisors. this is about trying to use this position to do everything i can whether it be legislation, money, resources to try to correct a lot of the wrongs of the past in this city. this is a hard job. let me just also say this, before i was supervisor, my whole life has been dedicated to changing lives in the community, to working with people's kids to making sure that before they even get to a . point where they become involved in crimes that we give them the

positive encouragement. i have seen violence, crimes, i have seen drugs, despair and all the crap that we have had to endure far too long. nothing is more important to me in doing everything i can in this role whether i'm in this role or not to change this city, to make things better for us. to make sure that not one other person has to go through what we have all endured for far too long. know this is not enough. know it's not enough. we have to do more and i'm committed to continue to work with you all to try and do more. you know, this is one tiny step in the right direction. we have a lot of work to do. i know this. and there is not a day that goes by that i'm not trying to do everything i can to make sure that we are not losing. to make sure that we have a

voice in city hall. that we have a voice in this city. we might have few in numbers, but together as long as we stand together, we are mighty. you know, not every mother is here, but there are enough mothers here representing those mothers. that is mighty. that is mighty and we are going to continue to do everything we can in this city as long as i'm on this board of supervisors to change our behavior, to change our legislation, to change our attitude towards how we support and protect folks in the african american community. i'm committed to that and i want to thank you colleagues for your support. i ask that you support my amendment and move this to the full board with positive recommendation. >>supervisor aaron peskin: thank you, supervisor breed. we have a motion made by supervisor breed to amend at page 2 line 15 to remove

clause a and reletter clause a and b and clause c as clause b. can we take that without objection and recommend to the full board without objection.

>>supervisor aaron peskin: madam clerk, please call the next item. city clerk: [hearing - chronic absenteeism at san francisco public schools] sponsor: yee hearing to discuss chronic absenteeism within the san francisco unified school district (sfusd) and preventative strategies to reduce absenteeism; and requesting the sfusd to report. city clerk: sf 51234 >> thank you, madam clerk. supervisor yee, this is your item. would you like to make opening comments? >>supervisor norman yee: thank you. colleagues, i'm calling this hearing today on chronic absenteeism because there is a permeating crisis at too many of our schools that are not receiving enough attention. being absent at schools is affecting our most vulnerable students. there is an effect as many children who are absent and not

meeting grade level expectations. studies have found that as students move through to middle school and high school years, there are several predictive key measures associated with high school graduation. that's including attendance. however, we see chronic absenteeism and too often people don't understand what it is. i have to say this is a definition for chronic absenteeism. it's not truancy. this is basically looking at those that miss at least 10% of the school days including preschoolers. now, what does it really mean 10%? it doesn't mean for some, let's quantify this. of the 10 months of so that you go to

school that means that you miss at least 1 month of no school. for educators and parents alike, they understand, we all understand if you are not in school, you are not learning. when you are not learning you fall behind. when you fall behind, it's very very difficult to catch up. at some point, students get frustrated to the . where they stop coming to school. they drop out. now, there is no strong research that's telling me that, but for someone that's been in education and working with children for over 40 years, this is what i have seen over and over again. so if we want to improve our graduation rate in san francisco, we need to focus on chronic absenteeism. it's a strong indicator. i'm looking forward to the most current data being

presented. but at 40% of our elementary schools and 67% of our high schools have a rate of chronic absenteeism we have to act now. as i look at the data, 20% had a rate of higher than 15%. one school alone had 40% of students defined as chronic absent. 40 %, and guess what, those schools that had the highest chronic absenteeism rate were schools that were failing. when i looked at the data then and looked at the schools that are not

failing and succeeding. all of these rates. if we want to do good for students, we need to address this issue. that's when i offer the resolution for the san francisco unified school district to focus on this and make it a priority. in fact, for following the resolution, some of the rates actually went down. so, now 6 years later, i'm eager to hear the current data. i have been out of the school board for 3 years and to see what's been implemented in our school district to reduce chronic absenteeism. i have a list of speakers today and i would love to have them come up. i will start with katie chang, who is

the director of attendance works and i would like to say that it was about five or 6 years ago when nobody heard of chronic absenteeism and brought it to my attention. i said, oh, my god! people should know about this. this is something she was trying to bring attention locally and allow has become a national movement. katie chang, thank you for coming. presenter: thank you for all of your championship over the years. you know, this story, i run a national initiative. we are working nationally with the u.s. department of education and working as part of my brothers keeper because chronic absenteeism and it's not related to the conversation we had before because when kids

aren't in school, they can't succeed and their hopelessness results in the kind of violence that takes away important lives. this quick story because supervisor breed, this is a story that is connected to a school because my kids went to public school here in san francisco in your district. my son graduating from lowell, when he was starting in elementary school he had a little boy in elementary school. he had everything my kid had. he was bright, he was excited, but he didn't have, and he had a caring mother. his mom lived in the projects and maybe you knew her. she was struggling to get off welfare and struggling to raise her son in the projects. when he was in sixth grade, his mom

died. and he got placed with his aunty downtown and i saw his attendance plummet. when i take a look at kids missing too much school it's a sign that they were not on track for success and school in life. at the time, we all cared. we didn't know enough about this subject to figure out how we can turn it around. i spent the last 10 years figuring out what it means to turn this around going across the entire country. what i know though is that i'm still a resident of this city and what i do nationally i have to come home. as for the african american brothers and sisters and families you are not alone because this is a problem that all of us together have to solve and it's affecting this entire city regardless of who you are. when one young life doesn't

make it, we all suffer. le me say through a couple of quick slides. as norman said, chronic absence is more than 10%, which is the chronic absence defined in california as miss is 10%. i don't care why a kid is missing school. if they are not in class whether it's suspensions, excused or unexcused absences they are not learning. this has been a long time, norman. you will recognize this slide. when we first got to this district to look at this data, you saw truancy and we need to start a different metric to start this action. we know from national

research across the country, if kids miss too much school starting in preschool, by second grade, they are offtrack for reading by the end of third grade. if you can't read by the end of third grade, you fall behind in all of your subjects, you are higher risk for suspensions. by middle school you have scaffolded subjects like algebra, if you miss, you are far behind and you are not going to graduate. you can, but if we identify it earlier we can help them graduate. we have not been using the data to be able to identify kids, provide them with the supports they need so we can turn it around before they actually are offtrack. but we also know that turning this around requires not what i

still worry about this data the first time the first thought is that's because families don't care when it is not the case. what we need to do in order to turn this around is figure out why kids are correct me if -- correct me if -- chronically absent. some of the barriers of chronic disease and parents responsibilities. trauma is one and chronic absence is the highest in our communities that are the most violent. it can also be aversion because if families didn't have a good experience in school, sometimes they actually avoid school because they don't want to be subjected to where they are feeling embarrassed and they are not being supported. poor school climate, our school suspensions issues, this is all connected. some of it is engagement because we have failed to make schools. the places that are vibrant

for places particularly for middle school and high school kids should see why they should be there in the first place. when we figure out why the kids are absent, we should figure out the solutions. we should know about taking a tiered approach. we are using this data and recognizing improved attendance and noticing everyday the kids that have the most challenging in attendance to engage these kids. the kids should be motivated about school and because they are excited to be there. and we know that what brings kids back to school is when they know that someone in that building misses them and they will help be a provider and support. and then we have had some of this in

place. it's our legal supports, our coordinated support and deep services. the problem is that san francisco like so many other places has for too long only because we have looked at truancy only been in that responding when the kids are in the deep end before and we don't take advantage of the opportunity to take the much less costly, much more inexpensive effective solutions by investing in tier one and two. what we know is we need to build a system to do this and positive engagement to make sure that caring relationships and positive school climate to motivate climate actions and we need to take actions as early as possible and we need schools and our community partners to work together and we have shared accountability and we are using that accountability to promote these actions. it starts with our school

districts and i'm so glad that our school districts have been a partner and working on this vision and it also takes responsibilities. it is not just up to our schools to change that. our schools alone don't have the capacity the do that. as a community we can send those kinds of message to help students know we believe in their future and willing to work with them, with their families to get them to school to help them realize our future. thank you very much. >>supervisor norman yee: as you have gone from one place to another beyond san francisco, how are you seeing other school districts prioritize this issue and are there lessons learned from other places where we can apply this in san francisco. i'm not just talking about

this school district, but i'm talking about this city as a whole? >> yes, first of all it's about using our data in a way that we are strategic and targeted. chronic absence is not a problem everywhere. i know that our district will talk more about this. it's about some schools and some neighborhoods. we need to get the information and figure out where and partner with kids and families so we understand from their perspective. they have to be part of their solution so they can give us insights and some of this is actually, and this is being started in san francisco and we referred to but like walking school buses where you engage the community in being in those solutions. what i have seen is the communities that have made a difference when they share their data, they use it to target and look at both messaging and addressing real barriers and it's also a long standing commitment. this doesn't get turned

around in just 1 year. it's a longstanding an on going commitment. one other thing that i will just say, is the office for civil rights at the federal level is going to be releasing chronic absence data in may and in it will be chronic absence data by school district level and state and that is going to, i think, have a galvanizing effect on our country and we need to be prepared to leverage that effect to call for greater action here in san francisco particularly in the communities most affected. >> thank you very much for your presentation and thank you for your work on this issue. as you mentioned, i'm a strong believer that the more we can do upfront in terms of helping our children get in the path of being successful, the better off we'll be at the end. thank you very

much at this time i would like to bring up jill harris. she's one of the few elected officials that really is an educator and she got this issue and understand this. it's a really big deal. when we brought this issue out to the attention of the public in 2010, she was right there right alongside us saying yes, this is what we need to focus on to ensure that our kids succeed. the floor is yours. presenter: thank you very much, supervisor yee. thank you for having me here today.

i'm jill, as you mentioned this work began when attorney general harris was district attorney in san francisco and learned that of the homicide victims of the city that were under the age of 25 years when they were killed, 94% of those victims were high school drop outs. those drop outs had begun to miss too much school. many of them were missing up to 80 days from the school year. attorney general harris partnered with the ymca. i want to share a couple of resources

from the attorney general to san francisco to help continue to move this forward. first of all attorney general harris, the most recent report was released last september. we commissioned data from across the state to look at this issue statewide and identify for the first time how many of our elementary school students are chronically absent and at risk for academic set backs as a result of their absenteeism. some of those resources that are available for data is this about why it matters. 83% of students who are chronically absent in kindergarten and first grade are not able to read at grade level in the third grade and as a result they drop out. in california, we see that nearly a quarter of a

million students miss school each year. so many children fall behind. we see a disparity in income levels. 75% of students are low income and disparities along racial lines particularly among african american girls and boys. we urge every school district in the state to collect and monitor the same data at the district level to identify who individually and across subgroups is missing too much school and at what grade level to mobilize resource to help those families. we have data of suspension across the state to see across the gender and race disparities. that's important not just because of the racial discrimination disparity issue about school push out but also important from a learning

perspective that as those kids that are not in the classroom, they are not learning from the instruction they should be getting. one resource i want to share with the board that we just published a week ago is a positive parent messaging tool kit. we partnered with entities to release a tool kit for parents on the impact of early absences and getting kids to school everyday. we conducted research with parents cubed -- across the state and talked to them about addressing this with their children and how to address this across the state. our tool kit includes research findings, tip sheets and other tools for parents, educators and community based organizations.

everyone who works with parents on a regular basis and strategy recommendations for things that you can implement at the local level to work directly with parents. as a snapshot we learned the many reasons for absences. some are traceable to misunderstandings that parents have about early attendance and most importance about early absences. they like many of us tend to assume that absence in the early grades are not as important as in later grades, that a few grades here or there will not result in academic set backs and absences are fine as long as parents sign off. those understandings we need to avoid absences and we reinforce some of these myths by sending in only personal letters to families and not having the teachers address this with the parents and families. so families get the message that attendance isn't the

most important issue and absences is not a problem for their children's academic development. a few things that we found that are immediately applicable to the school district and anyone working with families is that message about absences are more effective at communicating with parents and messages about attendance and they assume that's what they are already doing. as they are missing from 10-20% of the school year they are missing to 90% of the time. and focusing on the child and what they are missing academically and what needs to be corrected and what resources are necessary to help that family and address the misunderstanding of how many days have an impact on children. most parents weren't aware that just missing 2 days could have an

impact on children. these are tools that we can correct to move on to the resources, gynecological cancer -- engagement to help the families. >> thank you very much. >> are they in other languages? >> they are in spanish and we are working on other languages. >> thank you very much. >>mayor edwin m. lee: next up is san francisco unified school district. we have robin -- and kevin. thank you for being here,

kevin. chief student and family of community support division. you are one that understand this issue an has been working on it. i'm glad that you still are working on these issues and trying to improve the situation. at this moment, i have my reading glasses on. sandy fewer, i think you are here. presenter: thank you for allowing us the opportunity the talk about the work that the school is doing around attendance. and i appreciate that headey got up and talked about this earlier and the work we are doing with attendance work. it's really important in some of the message that were

addressed. the things that we are looking at are really about the barriers to school attendance. what we see happening is later on those attendance, when the students are becoming disengaged in learning because they have been absent, we find later in the later grades that students find other ways to get out of class because they have missed class and what happens is they start contributing to suspensions. we noticed in the district that for particularly for african american students, even though they make-up only 9% of our district, they make-up 50% of suspensions and at the high school level we see average african american students miss 19 more days than their high school peers. the problem is that more than 70% of those were in regards to suspensions. we are finding ways that even for many of our african american

students, even if they wanted to come to school, we were telling them you can't because you are suspended. what we have done which has been very helpful is that we did pass a resolution for safe and supportive schools that ban the use of willful de -- and that students are acting up in class. unless i'm providing access, i'm going to act up a little bit more. we are now providing that to teachers so it doesn't lead to suspension. it comes down to attendance and starts in the very early grades. i'm going to bring up thomas

gravns. his office over sees chronic truancy and absence and you will hear from hope sf which is an important program and we have a this program that has been very successful. thomas? presenter: good morning, supervisors. i'm going to take you through the data real quickly. we talk about chronic absenteeism. i don't want i have to go through this definition. when you see chronic absenteeism. we took a really careful look at last fall and made sure we went through every section in our new information system and got a very accurate picture. this is for last year. it's very recent data. you can see we have a high disparity of

chronic absenteeism with some ethnic groups triple the generate which is 8% overall. you can see the groups that are sometimes double that. here you can see that within the chronic absenteeism group is there are significant portions of those chronically truant. there is a challenge within the challenge so to speak. i'm going to show you the greater rate for chronic absenteeism >>supervisor london breed: can i also

ask a question. i believe the numbers are very helpful, but do you have the percentages of the numbers as an example? >> yes, that is a very important distinction. for our schools we do it by percentage and number. we can get that for you. we didn't do it in this presentation. >> that would be helpful to know because when we look at the percentage as you had noted earlier, we look at the percentage of african americans that are actually in the school district and the number of african americans, they have a higher suspension rates, the higher drop out rates, the higher, the attendance is problematic. it would be helpful to understand that actual number. are we talking about out of 4,000 african american students are we talking about maybe 200. that kind of information would be

helpful. >> very good point. i want to talk about this topic, last year the schools received the data on chronic absenteeism including the percentage of the overall schools, the percentage of subgroups and the number and every school above 10% in any one category they wrote their attendance target and what their strategies were going to be and we broke that down by percentage and they got it in their profiles and we included that and suspensions also by percentage and individual number of students. i appreciate you bringing that up. >> thank you. >> we can bring that back up. we do that all the time, that breakdown. i apologize for not bringing it today. i will get it to you. so, when you look at the chronic absence by grade you can see the pattern that these previous speakers refer to that in kindergarten is

higher and talking about educating folks about why kindergarten is important. when you look at grades 6-12, that is a little misleading. we know that the chronic, the challenge here is that we measure the chronic absence by one single period. if you are there for one period, you are considered present for the day and we amount the areas where they are missing. we have that but we don't have that for you. we were hoping to have it for you today but we don't. i want you to know that secondary chronic absence rate is a little misleading when you look at it this way. here we are looking at

absenteeism by grade. you can see the ethnic breakdown with the pretty alarming self-evident rates. similarly when you go to the secondary level you can see even with the limitations of this particular secondary school you see the significant proportionality and these numbers jump out. at this point i want to bring up one of our senior truancy persons in the district. tiana who has been working on truancy. >> good morning, i'm a drop

out prevention specialist and child welfare for the district. where there are seven of us. i have to say that it has been quite an adventure. the shift that has happened from just focusing on truancy to looking at absenteeism, all absences has been an eye opener for us for a long time in our department we focus on the highest tier of absenteeism and truancy. we focus on a lot of the kids who are chronically truant. now being able to look at all absences has been very eye opening, not just for us but our schools as well. what we are doing to start addressing chronic absenteeism. the best thing that has happened to our department is being able to have access to data and to have

data and to have access to. in that system they are able to pull up reports for their own individual schools to identify the students who have needs, not just for behavior or for other issues before attendance as well. we are using a 3-tiered approach and aligned with what we are doing with tds. the team was the last team to get there because we were still looking at truancy and not absenteeism. but the great thing that's happening is there is a great conversation at tier one. what can we do for whole school, we are talking about climate, incentives, things like that to reengage our students. what i hear from my students is the school doesn't care if i'm here or

not. so now we are showing them that we do and that we are paying attention. we are also making sure that we are giving them the most updated information to our students, to our parents and to our staff at the school sites. there are attendance workshops being held at the school sites and we are having conversations with all of our families, especially in the elementary schools because that's where the habits are forming in our k-2 students. and we are really really pushing our positive incentives with our families. this is some of the data that is available in our new system that the school sites have access to. they have the information on chronic absenteeism by grade level so we know where our efforts should be

really targeted at and broken down. at the bottom is a snapshot of an ex- cell report and who are these students that these numbers represent. what i like about these reports is you can use the same system to see if there have been any interventions to students on this list so they know who they should be focused on and this is information that they will bring to their meetings when we are talking about school wide concerns. this is a really nice resource that was given by attendance. she's been working really

closely within the year 1/2 together. we did an activity with some of our leaders of our schools where they were coming up with their own attendance plan at their school sites. so each school was given their numbers. the number of kids in tier one, tier 2, tier 3 with their attendance and then they were coming up with different activities they can be doing in each of these tiers. they are finding it very helpful to be able to find it this way to work with all students and not just tier one and 2 and 3. it's all students. we are going to continue to flush that out more. we do collaborate with the courts of san francisco and coming up with a program. initially it was to combat

truancy. it is called, truancy action partnership. it's a pilot program happening in three elementary schools right now. brave hard, valley and el dorado. it's through superior court and san francisco sd. we are working with families at the school sites who are having challenges with absenteeism. the purpose is to identify the barriers with kids coming to school and helping to give support. it's not just about giving referrals to say to do this, but walking out through this and we had families who had kids at different schools and the ability to take their kids to school

and through challenging things like domestic violence because the mother was afraid to bring her kids to school. and we had a mother who was homeless and was living house to house with different families. they were very grateful. it's creating this family's care team. they meet weekly. it's not just one time. they meet consistently for weeks. we continually ask them. what are your barriers, what do you need in order to support you. what can you do. we hold ourselves accountable and hold them accountable and looking at their attendance along the way and watching the gains that are happening and we also are talking with the students and watching their behavior and academic. it's really small right now. we are

only seeing about 5-6 families at a time. we are hoping to expand it. we are going to look at how that's going to happen. it's going to be really positive program that's happening. >> i'm looking at five people in the photo here. what are the roles again. >> it's a collaboration. so you have the superior court of san francisco. there are two judges there and then we have our administration at the school site. it's the principal and social workers at the table an then you have your child welfare at the district there to support. you have someone from the department and human services at the table and someone from the department of mental health at the table. that makes up the care theme and then with them is

also the family. >> district supports that we have, like we have our child welfare attendance liaisons, there are seven in the district. there are four in elementary, one in middle school and two in high school where we give supports to the schools. it's best practices around attendance and incentives and interventions. we are part of the school review team and the teams. we do attendance workshops, school wide, intervention home visits and represent the district at truancy court and we have truancy officers that attend the hearings at the district office and come to truancy court. with truancy superior court and the judges joins us through actions and partnerships. this is the start of our

plans in the school district. i'm going to have mr. graham to talk about other initiatives. >> okay, we are at this . where we have a good solid data system. it's really a point where we know almost in realtime. this is a huge step forward for us and it was a lot of work to get it in place. the challenge we have is how can we be accountable for every kid that is chronically absent. and so, we want to take and also support all kids in attendance. we have this campaign that we are putting together and we are talking to you a little bit about it now. the first step is we now have the ability to generate for every school on the 10th of every month, celebratory certificates for

attendance. this is difficult to do individually because it has to calculate perfectly and kids get excited about, they are very precise about holding the school accountable over who should exactly get the certificate. this is something welcome do with technology and we are asking every site to celebrate attendance every month and that's part of our collaboration with attendance to understand how important celebrating tier win -- one attendance is. section two is going to be a game changer for us. we want the school to contact the chronically absent and ask each family what the questions

and barriers are for non-attendance. we want to compile that data in a searchable way to look for more, a bigger picture things for asking what comes up a lot on what is holding kids back from school whether it's transportation issues and do we have issues where families are not as comfortable come to our schools and we would like to use the system to identify that. at the same time, we want to, when ever we agree to an intervention and use that tracking system to hold those accountability and intervention. we want to ensure every principal gets a report for those who finish the threshold for each