seeing none -- oh, commissioner cook? >>commissioner cook: again, really, really compelling, passionate testimony, and i was actually prepared to vote no, and your principal is really impressive. so i just don't want to close your door on her coming to work for the school district. if i could be open about -- and that's really what i believe as officials for this institution, what we have to be able to do is be up front and very focused and aggressive around getting the right people to work in our community. so i love james baldwin, too. you can teach it to the school, to the students as some of the other schools if you're looking for an opportunity. and the bars by the young man

who rapped for us. so -- so you know, i want you all to know that we -- that i do listen, and i think it's a very different thing to try to close an existing school and then open a new one. that is fu fundamentally different to me. students in the high school, you're getting an up front view on how your local government work, and i invite you if you don't like the way we make the choices, to also run to be up here. that future is as available to you as it was to me. that was instilled to me in thurgood maernrshall on the same side of the city. i want you to feel you have not aagency for improving schools in your community, for those

reasons, i plan to support the staff's recommendation to approve the charter. >>president walton: commissioner sanchez, then vice president mendoza-mcdonnell. >>commissioner sanchez: thank you, president. thank you, kipp high school college prep. you're awesome. for the similar reason, i'm going to vote to approve the charter renewal. commissioner cook, it is fundamentally different to close a school than to open a school. opening a school, a new charter school, i think for the reasons i put forward earlier and what other commissioners said is a whole different situation, but to close a school which is a community center, a hub, a beacon is the wrong thing to do in my book right now for the school. also, it had a positive staff recommendation for renewal as well. this school board, in earlier inkarnation approved

the original charter. do i do want to reiterate there are problems with charter schools. whether you want to phrase it as pushing out students. students do leave charter schools. they don't get pushed out to another charter, they get pushed out to another public school, and we gladly take them, but if i push as a principal at my school, cleveland elementary school, and i pushed out a student, they're not going to go to a charter school, they're going to go to another school. there's no reciprocity, and that has to change. if charter schools can cancel out and have students leave for one reason or another that's not going to make it, it's not fair that

noncharter schools can't do the same. i think that's lost on a lot of people but that is fundamentally different thing, and it needs to change, but i will support this renewal. >>president walton: vice president mendoza-mcdonnell. >> thank you. i want to thank all the people that came out. i think the most powerful testimony we have comes from our young people, and i appreciate your honesty and ability to share the challenges that you've been faced with and what the school has done to support you in your efforts. i will -- full disclosure, my goddaughter is a senior at kipp high school, and i'm really proud of who she has become and what she's been doing. she actually went to a parochial school and didn't do well, and

kipp accepted her with very open arms, and she'll be graduating and going onto college, and i'm really excited to see who she's grown into during some very, very challenging family times. i have supported kipp, as i've said in the past, when we talked about the high school, we had a lot of questions and i appreciate all the efforts that have been put in. these are the -- these are the chances that we take, and it's always wonderful when we see the outcomes that you've been able to put into this and so i know just from stories from other young people that have either worked in my office or that hangout on my street or my own goddaughter, that the quality of teaching at -- at kipp is -- high school is top notch, and the support that many of our

young people receive there has been incredibly supportive, and for that, i will be supporting the renewal of kipp this evening, and i'm really looking forward to the continued outcomes that kipp has been able to produce, and i want to thank the principal for being passionate and taking care of your school and your children and being the role model that i think we all, as women of color in particular, want to see. thank you. >>president walton: commission commissioner merase? >>commissioner merase: i think we heard examples of demonstrated success, and i too was moved deeply by the testimony i heard. one of the concerns i've heard about the charter school movement nationally is working

conditions and compensation of teachers. generally, the charter schools are pretty hostile to our labor unions. we have a couple of charter schools in our district that are unionized, creative arts charter school and the five key school, and i've suggested at some of the meetings i've had with kipp leadership that they might consider a different approach to unionization, but i have not received complaints about working conditions at this particular kipp school, and i know that there are very limited reasons for denying a charter, and the staff analysis has concluded that the charter petition has met district requirements, so i will be supporting this petition. >>president walton: student delegate? >> i'd like to thank the young people today who came out to speak on behalf of kipp.

i sit here representing student voices of public school students, and when i hear your testimony, i feel like our goal to provide a suitable education for students and prepare them well for college also speaks in your words and i feel that closing down a school that has -- as the other commissioners put it, is a community hub, and to show that it can provide for its students, that also feels like that's going to be something that's going to be taken away from our city, and because of that, i'll be voting to support it. >>president walton: commissioner haney? >>commissioner haney: i just really quickly want to say how

impressive the young people were who came up and spoke, especially the young man who came up and told us to put or phones away. >> that is bold, that is bold. that is bold. >>commissioner haney: and i have -- i've seen that just a few times, but maybe the first student who'd come up and done that, so thank you for holding us to a high standard, as well. we should all be held to that standard. and also to the young woman who said she moved here from el salvador in 2015. wow, that was really impressive and just showed a lot of courage. so we appreciate you all being here, and the way that you showed up tonight, and i'll also be supporting this petition. >>president walton: thank you, colleagues. one thing i do want to say, of course, is i'm very excited about the young people here. the passion you have for your school, and the way you feel about your school, and you will

be up here one day, you will actually be in certain positions and conducting meetings, etcetera. always excited about young people holding us accountable, but there are also things that do happen in real-time that we have to respond to, which is actually supportive of running a meeting. i would never want to disrespect none of our young people. i have children, and -- in high schools here, and -- well, graduated high school and middle school here now, but the point that i'm trying to make is it's always a pleasure to have young folks among us and coming to speak. just two points i want to make so that we talk about this bayview talk, and folks saying bay view, bay view. i just want to give you a little lesson about kipp high school. when i first got elected to the board, i had a conversation with the leadership of kipp

high school, and they were trying very, very, very, very hard not to be placed at the gloria r. davis site. they are working very hard to not be placed at the gloria r. davis site in bay view, and my conversation with kipp at the time is if this school is so great, our parents, our families, and the communities will embrace the school because of what you're providing for our young people, so i want to give you a history less an so as you continue to push forward, as you keep the pride in your school, i want you to understand that that was not the first choice. i have to be honest and up front about that as we continue to have this conversation about people using bay view when it's the buzz word, and when it's the time to use bay view, but i want to be clear about what i know and what has actually happened and what took place. second thing, second thing i want to say is our young people are amazing, but i do want you to know and understand this:

there are a lot of people that have graduated from sfusd that are doing a tremendous job for the city and doing very, very well. members of the board of supervisors, members of this board of education, members -- lawyers, doctors, judges. i want you to understand that the top job in this school district is occupied by a graduate of san francisco unified school district, so just the narrative about not being -- not being able to be successful, you might want to try something else, because we have very successful people day-to-day that continue to come through our public schools. with that said, i am going to support this school because one, i've had conversations with school personnel, i've met students, met young people, and we're not about tearing apart things that are working, that exist, and people that have

developed the school community, but let's all work together to change that narrative about what's really happening and focus on the positive aspects of what we all can do as we work together. roll call vote please, miss casco. >> clerk: thank you, on 1710 sp 2, renewal of the contract for kipp sf charter school. [ roll call. ] >> clerk: that's all for unanimous. >>president walton: thank you. and please try to -- please try to leave the room quietly if you are leaving. we still have more business to attend to this evening. item 1710-24 sp 1, revisions to board policy 5101, student

assignment, moved and seconded on october 24th, 2017, heard at the committee of the whole meeting on november 7th, a positive recommendation was given to this policy by general consent of the board. superintendent please, may we have a designee for a representation of reading it into the record. >> good evening, superintendent, and commissioners. the recommended action is that the board adopt revisions to

board policy p-5101, student assignment number 71024 st 1. >>president walton: thank you so much. there are no public speakers signed up, are there any comments from the board? commissioner norton? >>commissioner norton: i'm going to support the special order of business, but i want to renew a request that was made -- i can't remember where we made it, actually, if it was curriculum -- oh, it was the committee of the whole, and i would like to -- to explore perhaps an up coming student assignment committee meeting, dr. merase, or expanded form to some of our selected high schools, so how we could expand this preference to school of the arts and low ell. i know

that's not the recommendation that's before us tonight, but i think that we should explore it. >>president walton: commissioner sanchez. >>commissioner sanchez: yes, and it's been some kind of a preference for willie brown. >> so thank you. so i support this policy, as well, and i support commissioner norton's suggestion that we -- in our student assignment, ad hoc committee that we explore this option of having it include lowell, and just explore that option. and also, i think president walton had mentioned in some other forum the -- the notion of exploring having certain elementary schools having a preference, as well, for middle schools, so that certain vastly under enrolled elementary

schools that almost yearly come up for discussion about being closed, if we can look at those elementary schools and give them up coming kindergarten schools, for example, if they go through the entire school through 5th grade, and go to middle schools, that their options are expanded, that they have a priority to go to a high preference middle school, as well. >>president walton: commissioner merase? >>commissioner merase: i just wanted to note that the next ad hoc committee meeting is set fore december december 7th, and we can see if at that time if we can accommodate commissioner norton's request. if not, the next meeting would be february 8th. >>president walton: seeing no other comment, call the role, miss casco.

>> clerk: [ roll call. ] that's six ayes. >> thank you, miss casco. board policy 6461.6, identification and education under section 504, moved and seconded on september 12th, 2017, report from the rules committee meeting of october 30th, commissioner sanchez? >>commissioner sanchez: part of the positive recommendation to the full board. >>president walton: thank you so much. superintendent, designee to introduce the recommendation into the record. >> this'll be introduced into the record by our general counsel, miss houck. >> the recommended action this evening is is that you approve board policy 6146, identification and education under section 504. >>president walton: thank you. no public speakers signed up. any comments? questions from the board. seeing none, roll call vote please, miss casco. >> clerk: yes.

[ roll call. ] that's six ayes. >>president walton: thank you. miss casco, board policy 3260, fees and charges, moved and seconded november 12th. >> as well, this board policy was approved by the committee and forwarded to the full board. >>president walton: thank you, commissioner sanchez. superintendent please have somebody read this into the record. >> once again this will be read into the record by general koungs miss houck. >> the recommended action this evening is that the board approval policy 3260, fees and charges. >>president walton: thank you. there is no public comment signed up for this item. any comments, questions, statements from colleagues? student delegate? seeing none, roll call please, miss casco.

>> clerk: [ roll call. ] that that's five ayes. >>president walton: thank you. -- [ inaudible ] commissioner sanchez report from rules. >>commissioner sanchez: it was forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation, that this is the only policy that i think merits some conversation, so maybe counsel can illuminate a little bit of this policy houck houck sure, so this policy is being recommended for revision in order to address our appeals process for student expulsion, so under the education code, the county board of education is typically responsible for hearing an appeal from a district decision to expel a student, but of course, we are a single district county school board, and so we are recommending that we amend this policy so that if the district

expels a student, the student would have an opportunity to appeal to a neutral body cde through our uniform complaint process. >>commissioner sanchez: because the appeal would just normally go back to the full board houck houck our recommendation is we offer students a meaningful opportunity to be heard by a separate body and so cde is our recommendation here. >>commissioner sanchez: thank you. >>president walton: thank you for the clarification. any other questions or statements from colleagues? commissioner cook? >>commissioner cook: yeah, i'm in favor of the suggested change, and i just wanted to mention overall, i think that we have to do a more thorough examination of our own expulsion policy. we have far too many african american latino students being expelled. i just wanted to put that on the record that i want to see expulsions reduced overall, but

having another opportunity to debate it, i think, is a great idea. >>president walton: seeing no other comment, roll call vote please, miss casco. >> clerk: thank you. [ roll call. ] that's seven ayes. >> thank you, miss casco. board item 9323.2, moved and seconded on october 26th, 2017, report and rules kmitiy commissioner sanchez. >>commissioner sanchez: this was for the recorded by the committee with a full -- by the commission with a full recommendation to the committee.

>>president walton: thank you, miss houck. any questions, statements from colleagues, or... hearing none, roll call vote please, miss casco. >> clerk: thank you. [ roll call. ] that's seven ayes. >>president walton: thank you so much miss casco. once again, i want to thank everyone for being here tonight. i know it's already been a long meeting. believe me, it is for us, as well. i want to apologize for the time that it's taken, but we did have to get through certain items of business. as you all can see, there are a lot of people here this evening, so we are going to continue to try to move as fast as possible.

with that said, we are going to move item h up before section f, and part of the reason we're doing that is because this is the superintendent's report out from his 90 day assessment, and so we want, of course, to have our -- our families and the public represented as you hear about what the plans are and what superintendent sees, so we are going to ask the superintendent now to give his

that is around the african-american students and then the next step. so why the plan? the purpose of the plan as you can see, these were the all of the purposes. it was t to ensure a smooth transition of leadership, to develop the clear relationship with the commissioners, to create opportunities for me to listen to the stakeholders, to ensure all voices are heard, to build enthusiasm for the vision mission, which is the vision, the statement of 2025. the strategic plan and to make sure activities were in place that successfully in our last school year because i started in may to ensure we had an outstanding begin of the opening of the new school year.

that is the why of the plan. when you think about the mission it is each and every day to provide each and every student with quality instruction and support to thrive in 21st century. the 90 day plan was to answer these questions. how close are we? what are the challenges to make it alive? do all shareholders share that desire. the expected outcome of the plan was that i would visit at least a quarter of the schools by the end of 90 days. we would have an energized district about the focus and direction of the district. that i would give you a 90 day report out that contains observations and findings. that is happening now. the outline of the process that moves us forward. what is the structure of the plan? it is the initial impressions

around these five areas. observations and recommendations around the governing team as a district, organizational capacity and alignment, how we look at data, analyze data and actually review the documents, as many as possible throughout the district. engage the community and find out what is working well and what are the areas they believe we need to improve and review our giving initial observations and recommendations around operations and finance. so this next list gives you a sense of all of the people our groups interviewed from the commissioners to our union representatives. you can see the number of packs and the student activities council, the mayor was interviewed. the faith based leaders this is

all of the information that i have gathered the information as possible regarding what is working and what is not. so now, i want to go through each area and give you initial impressions, observations and then recommendations. i will begin with the governance team. initial impression the board is focused and places well-being of students as a priority. the board works well as a unit. the perspective is the board committed to student achievement and eliminating gaps. and they use transforming learning and lives to drive the decision-making process. the recommendations in this area and i am not giving all of the impressions or recommendations in any of the areas, but the top

ones so that you as the board and the community have this. this is the powerpoint of the summary of some of those recommendations and impressions and observations. the full report is now available on our website as well as this powerpoint. the summary is available on the website as well as the full report. the recommendations are to continue the semi-annual team meetings and retreats. the board can consider exactly what types of data we the governing team will review throughout the year and annually. the board should review the board generated resolution process to determine if this process moves the district forward in alignment with the strategic plan. the next area is organizational capacity. in this area the initial

observations are the department of curriculum and instruction has that division and sight on achievement important every child. the capacity in the finance and operation departments are the deaf nit strength and the strategic plan is for them to receive skills. the recommendations focus on the rigor and instructional effectiveness in the classroom. it should be reviewed and alivement modified as appropriate. one of the areas that staff must address and answer these questions how are we developing leaders, how are the leaders held accountable and what data do we use to assist us to know if we succeed of every child meeting or exceeding district and state standards? in the area of data analysis,

the initial impressions student achievement has remained level. the achievement between african manned and white andatio white n students are the same. our strategic plantar gets professional growth and fiscal alignment. principals have come to expect a certain data set at the beginning of each year. it is not consistent how data are used. the recommendations in this area in the area of data analysis and document review should be increased district level to the strategic plan, district and

board are needed a clear picture what data the community can expect to see from year to year. increased equity focused professional development, district level audit of the benchmark practices to answer the following questions. are there effective processes for communicating the benchmarks? what are the quality of the assessments? do they provide feedback? how effective are the assessment tools are we using the results effectively. you heard earlier tonight a committee is formed to answer many of the questions. in the area of community engagement, i want to start by telling how the community was engaged. seven community wide forums and the list is of the sites where they were held. there was a proactive effort to meet with the stakeholders.

these three with the focus. the strength, the areas of needed improvement, opportunities we are missing. then also i was able to visit school sites as you heard earlier. my goal was to be able to get to at least one quarter of the schools by the end of 90 days. i visited 57 schools. i exceeded that target of a quarter of the schools. i engaged the principals and support staff and walked through the schools and get perceptions where we are and what instruction looks like in the district. at the community meeting are the number of people who are at those meetings. this is the breakdown who was at the noting. mostly the parents and families,

smaller chunk with staff members and the breakdown of student, community and cb os. after asking the questions about strength from the community, you can see the strengths the district has and this is from the perspective of the community. the district has shown fiscal responsibility. we offer a rich variety of programs for students. we offer in support of the parent outreach. we are focused on student chiefnent. instructional staff is a strength. the data is a strength. equity and social justice is a focus for the district. the district is increasing the efforts at parent partnership outreach. have that again. there are rich arts and athletic programs. the repeated areas for growth

struggles to meet the are needed of african-american students, not doing enough to remove poor performing teachers. there is a high cost of housing. the district are needed to do a better job of including parents in the decision-making process. in community engagement, i am continuing -- those are the strengths. the growth. here are the recommendations. the district are needed strategies for the out comes for african-american students. as i said earlier, normally the process that i followed is to deliver this report and then a few months letter deliver the

detailed plan. in this area just this one area tonight i am going to deliver the detailed plan for this recommendation and then later on a couple months from now, i will come back with the detailed plan regarding the other recommendations. that is why that is underlined with the a the asterisk. the district are needed to develop the strategy for retaining teachers, the educational placement center should continue working with the board. to bring a well articulated policy to the board. districts in the office of community engagement and voice and interpretation unit and they need communication policies and practices. finally, in the area of operations and finance, the

initial impressions. there is a procession that the central offices struggle to recognize sites. customer service is inconsistent. currently the management salary schedules are disconnected. the district continues to develop effective recruiting and staffing fo for teachers. there is work to be done to retain staff. the fiscal department is a strength. the district has made fiscally sound decisions. the recommendations in this ar area. are the superintendent's team should improve services to school. district wide customer service standards. develop equitable and

sustainable salary structure. present financial data in a transparent manner, clarity in expenses growing. the district are needed major cuts to meet current obligation. we need a plan for increasing revenues at the local level. we should build the retention strategy for teachers reflecting the diverse population and continue leverage alternative staff and programs. the residency programs as innovative solutions to recruitment and retention issues. as i said earlier. i want to spend some time in this area detailed plans for african-american students and out comes. as you heard earlier a recommendation that came out of the 90 day plan. in the book good to great, jim

talks about good is the enemy of great. the reason he says that is because being good can assist institutions from having a sense of urgency achieving the mission. when you think of the mission of every student receiving instruction and support necessary for the 21st century. if you look at our central data number, the percentage of students proficient we are higher than any of the other large eight urban districts in the state of california. on all of those districts we are on top. many people look at the district to say this is a good district. being good as you see from the quote can give you or prevent you from having a sense of urgency from being great. if we are going to be great we have to make sure that every student receives instruction and support necessary to thrive in 21st century that is where it

comes from. we need specific strategies to address the outcomes for african american students. i want to talk about the barriers to equity. if you look on the right side our goal is 21st century skills and have students thrive and the skills to thrive in 21st century. those are the student out comes. if you look at that schools especially the schools in the southeast and you look on the left side, we have racial segregation, we have as a system what we are trying to overcome is bias and oppression. when you think about those schools also we have usually new and either inexperienced teachers or leaders. i will give you data to back that up. the districts overall attempt to remove that barrier is in

through our support we give additional resources which ends up being more coaches, the social workers, more professional development is an attempt to remove that predictive power of demographics. that is our attempt as a district to remove the predictive power so we end up without comes that students are receiving those skills to thrive in 21st century. in some cases we have seen and we have heard this tonight as people were talking that we are seeing some areas where things are beginning to change but a few i guess a month ago when we saw the data presentation, i think the board expressed it best in saying that no one was excited about the data and we really want to see changes

specially for students who have not received the outcomes that we believe they deserve. where should we interrupt the barriers to equity? when we look at schools my belief in the work that i have done with this district and with rpa and thank you to rpa for assistance in moving us forward is we have two cause types of s. schools that have not been able to deliver the outcomes for students. when you see those are underserved schools. then schools with high equity gaps. if you look at and right now i am focusing on k through 8 schools. those two sets of schools, those are 20 schools in those two types of schools. that making up half of the

african-american schools in our k-8 population. if we target those schools, one thing we heard earlier about the resources. i showed the resources we poured in. i am recommending that additional resources go into these schools. i will talk about the how and what that would look like. as you continue to look at the schools. as i said there are two schools. under schools and high equity gap schools. if you look at the underserved schools, what you see is three main combinations of factors. there is racial concentration and out-migration, racial concentration combined with high poverty and racial concentration with high poverty and high teacher turnover. these are the combination of factors that exist in some form

in all of these schools. as you look through the chart you see the number of african-american students. you see the percentage of students that are part of the focal group. that means over 5% of the -- 75% of the students are african-american, hispanic, latino or samoian. over 70% of the students on free or reduced lunch. the average teacher experience is less than six years. in the district the average teacher experience is 12 years. less than 30% of the schools proficient see rate on math. those are the characteristics of historically under served school. the historical part comes from the you look in the last 17-years auld schools on the

list have been in the bottom 25% at some point in the last 17-years. so that is one cadre of under served schools. the second cadre are high equity gap schools. these are schools that might excel with a certain group of students but exhibit large out comes between the highest and lowest performing groups. it is over the last three years we have identified sites with differences of 50% age points or more between the highest and lowest performing racial groups which consisted of african-americans in english language art and math. if you look at the central number, you would probably say

it is a good school. if you look at the gap in the schools there at least a 50 point gap between the highest performing subgroup and lowest performing subgroups. lowest were african-american students. why the focus on african-american students? why not latino or special ed students? based on analyzing the gap between schools it is historically under served schools. the within schools are high gap schools. african-american schools have the largest achievement gap district wide between and within schools. it is persistent in the last 25 years. it is back to the star test, all of those tests back 25 years,

the results 74% of the african-american students are not meeting standards. if you analyze within schools nine tenths of the highest gaps are between african americans and white students or between asian students. between all climate measures the gap is greatest for african-american students. with all of that, what do i believe or what am i recommending we do to interrupt the barriers? you see on the side the letters and i call it with the help of as i said research rpa, it is pitch and this is what i believe. if you look at the second column. those are the historically under served schools.

third are the high gaps. they need to be in place in all of the historically underserved schools and in the i, t, c in the high gap schools. i will go through each. these come from the five essential supports. inclusive leadership. parent school, community ties. professional capacity, student centered learning and instructional guidance. then go to pitch. pro special capacity is number -- professional capacity is number three and number five. the t is transforming mind sets the number four. the c is the collaborative culture. the h is high-quality staff.

one and three in the work. you can see what that professional capacity instructional guidance and couple turand high qual-- culture and high-quality staff. the activities we would want to engage in around both of these cadres of schools. underserved and high gap schools. the way i look at it first column is around the entire structure of the school. this means putting additional support into the schools. one of the areas i recognize as a supervisor soup is if this is to move forward it is part of my job as superintendent to raise the necessary resources in order to put this in place and part of this began a couple weeks ago at a spark event. it is begin to have the

conversations what we need to do to interrupt the barriers. it is around the structure of the high underserved schools. then in the high gap schools around instructional guidance, transforming mind sets and culture. it is around the culture in those schools. african-american student, it is around the choice as an african-american parent? is it to go to under served school or if you say i want to leave hunters point and go out to -- outside. are your options really better if you are at a school where the gap is as large as we have seen? these are the what my recommendation for over these

cadres of schools. this covers 45% of the k through 8 students. i believe this is a starting place and it gives us the opportunity to focus before moving out. eventually the goal would be to cover all of the african-american students then move to other subgroups who we as the district struggled with. i believe this increasing resources in this very strategic way will get to the place where we are eliminating that gap and providing students with the skills to thrive in 21st century. next would be to between now and end of january prepare a detailed growth plan. present that to the community in january and february. in february on ward began

implementing the strategies. the character on the screen is supposed to be me. with that i open it up to questions. >> i know we have a lot of speakers for public comment. we are going to start with public comment on this item. i will start with the order i have received cards. doctor amos brown, pat scott, phil stone, daisy ozene, devon

bracey, doctor walker. i will read the rest of the cards after doctor walker. pastor brown. public comment es. two minutes everyone. >> i would just be giving my introduction with two minutes. (laughter) >> seriously, mr. president and members of the board and superintendent, friends in the audience, as i said i want to commend the superintendent for the courage that he has exhibited to tell it like it is. i just hope and pray this board

will exhibit the intestinal fortitude to not talk about we got to have time, doctor martin luther king said. the time is always right to do the right thing. i want to repeat that. the time is always right to do the right thing. but the superintendent has given us a very comprehensive, clear, concise manner. it should be applauded by this board. it not that the children are failing. i am using the pronounce we. we are failing.

this board is failing. this city government is failing. you have professionals in the school district who have failed. they have come to respecting the worth and dignity of african-american students. now it is time for us to fess up and show some fruits of repentance. at the top of the list declare a state of emergency. if we don't do that, we are going to be back where we were 40 years ago, and i passed out a document to you some time ago about one day boycott that we

had to have in 1978. it is time for us, as nike says, just do it. stop talking about the problems facing black children. with all of this money around here, the city alone nine to $10 billion, silicone valley, all of this high tech around here. even if the school district doesn't have it. we are serious about this. it becomes politically correct. that is one of the problems. it is not politically correct in this town to do anything for black folks. everyone else gets user friendly, group specific help

but us. i could go down the line. you would be surprised. i know how to do my homework. data that the superintendent presented you, i have known that for 50 years. my predecessor had to bring martin luther king, junior to san francisco to challenge san francisco to be kind, be consistent in how it treated black folks. the school district remember doctor haynes' wife was the first african-american woman to

serve on this school board. they were battling back there in 1960. i beck you to, number one, put at the top of the list the psychosocial emotional are needed of these black children. we need intentional mental health services. we don't new to reinvent the wheel. it is already here. we let it be killed students of promise at martin luther king school. that program was thriving and doing well. it got bogged down in politics. yet that program is excelling all across this country. number two, what we need to do

is to assess all of these programs that are claiming to deal with the problem. hold them accountable, all of them, talk to each other, be engaged. don't be scared to say how we feel. finally, we should -- you talk about transparency, mr. superintendent, let us know what you are doing. how you are spending the money. who are you recruiting to help with the problem? we do that we might be able to say that we have done a good j job. never leave it until it is done.