concerns over her professional consolidation and the allocation process with the district. my daughter's professional is amazing. if it weren't for sure, there are days when i feel that my daughter wouldn't even be able to stay in the classroom. there's cognitive issues but also trauma as a result of all the medical intervention she's had. she's just terrified. i'm very concerned to have lost pair professionals from roof tops. this academic year. i'm concerned about the policy of allocation based on just a number and not on the number of children who have i.e.p.s and even though that's a federally protected status for our students to have equal access to

education. i am just expressing my concern about that and asking you to reconsider that decision-making going forward. thank you. >> hi, i'm also from rooftop. you will hear more stories about this as well but i think i have two simple asks. one is to reexamine the formula that was put together for how you staff pairs. i look at r.s.p. staffing. and really the impact of this is that pair and r.r.s.s are two distinct support services and school sites, not just rooftop, are struggling to provide varying levels of pair support. they're linking the number in every pair side to the number of r.s.p. based on people's

i.s.p.s. i think since s.f.u. is a driven district i ask the board request an official state of inclusion report that includes aggregate school sites. that includes special academic instruction hours, pair hours, number of r.s.p. and school sites and cohorts. as well as the percent of staff with emergency credentials. these are hard positions to fill and there are a number of first year people in there with emergency credentials and boy that's a hard job. they do their best but it's clear that retention of people especially is really important. they can make a huge difference in educational access for kids with special needs. and ideally we can make this information public and something that's updated quarterly or by yearly so we can track and see how this is going through the district. with that i'll bow out.

thanks. >> to commissioner cook, vice president, someone said the public education is best when we see our students sitting here at roundtable. to all the other board commissioners, to dr. vincent matthews, student delegates, lydia blank and susan all the members at uesf. to our beloved esther, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, i'm ver require marshall vice president of the san francisco of black school educators. what is the news. i have some good news to share. where should we all be one week from today. it's called call and response. we should be where? saint mary's cathedral for our african american honour roll

celebration. we have 1200 students. we'll celebrate 1400 students of african american dissent. i got you to ring the belfour that. who have earned a 3.0g.p.a. or higher from grades 3-12 and our elementary, middle and schools. we want to thank this board for rearranging your schedules. we normally have this on a wednesday or thursday but could not get the facility as we have done in the past. we thank you in advance for coming out to support your students, our students. we know that one day, they'll be some sitting in the seats where you are now. and we also always want to thank dr. morisi for helping us with sponsors and we ask you to look in your little black books or your ipads and iphones, and help us with sponsors. we must raise more than $15,000 to put fourth these events and so we're working hard for that.

we cannot ever forget the district for your support. on particularly the third floor and kevin and his staff and don of publishing and reproduction. i want to say thank you, have a booklet. this is last year's booklet. it's a masterpiece done by a retired business teacher. so again we're working on this now as we speak. please come. bring your families and friends. and we need donations if you ar. if you want to give a donation, i'll take your tax-deductible checks made out the san francisco lions black educators. thank you all. what was your name?

>> good evening, board of education. commissioners and superintendent. my name is erik is choi and i'm a parent with the rooftop. i'm here with rooftop parents because there's a shortage of pair professionals supporting our special education students. we need you to address this urgently. the special education students are being consolidated into classes and we feel that this is the segregation and it is illegal and it's a violation of this individual or the individual disability act. this practice is shocking. questions terring the students with disabilities is wrong. i have a child at rooftop that had a 504 floor plan. this is close to me. i urge you to please use your

leadership to help our school to get at least one more pair professional at our school. thank you. thank you. that concludes public comments on general. what was your name. >> ta harry reynolds. >> i call taharry renalds. jessica. if you are here please make your way to the front. go ahead. >> my name is taharry renalds and i'm with san francisco kids versus big tobacco, which say coalition of doctors, parents, health organizations and community groups working to protect our children and youth from the addictions of candy-flavored tobacco. on the june 18th ballot, the residents of san francisco will vote to up hold the trail blazing an unanimous decision of the board of supervisors to restrict the sales of candy

flavored tobacco products in the city. the research and evidence is clear flavored tobacco products have a adverse impact on public-health. money is power and the tobacco industry has a lot of it. we are asking all bay area elected officials to stand with us and reject tobacco money. on february 20th at 10:00 a.m. on city hall steps, we will be having a press conference where we will share the list of bay area officials who have come together to reject money from big tobacco. put san francisco kids health above tobacco company profits and join the american heart association, san francisco marin medical society, the san francisco parent pack, supervisor malia cohen and many, many more. thank you to those who have already voiced your support and i look forward to the support of others. i'll be following up via e-mail. thank you so much. >> my name is ken orcharder, i'm a parent at rooftop.

my son has epilepsies. when he was little, he had 2,500 sees. he has fought back to do work at rooftop. but he has an i.p. and he needs pair professional support. we faced discrimination all over the city of san francisco. we've had our registration money returned to us by multiple summer camps and after school programmes. this is the first time we've learned of discrimination in sfusd against students with disabilities. i don't come to ya'll lightly. what happened was last semester, we had a pair cut bringing us down to five. we did a petition. the petition got no reply. a couple of us went to a kak meeting to ask the deputy for special he had. five pairs, 24 classrooms. kids at each grade level who need support. how can that be enough.

we were told we misunderstood the formula and she would e-mail it to us. she did and it's right there. it's a 1-28 ratio. it has nothing to do. it's not what is in the i.e.p.s. so we replied saying this is a ratio. how this can be enough. and her replay was, apparently you are not intentionally grouping students with disabilities in classrooms to maximize pair professional support. those are the words the deputy superintendent used. intentionally grouping. so what this means is that other kids work don't have disabilities, when teachers get together over the summer, they place them based on what's the best combination to promote their learning. not kids with disabilities in many schools. they are placed in the classrooms not based on learning but cutting pair professional costs. my son can be in asfusd classroom, where he is not given equal access to the curriculum

because he is being intentionally placed in a classroom with more kids with disabilities than kids who lack disabilities. it is discrimination and a violation. this is a type of things that leads o to o.c. r. investigationing and i ask you to pass a policy rebuking this guidance from sfusdw. we also have one parent who submitted a card an hour ago and she has been waiting patiently. can she please testify. >> i'm sorry but feel free to end e-mails to us and we'll make sure it gets to the appropriate person. we have section g, that's all the speaker cards i had in front of me. jessica. she didn't come up when i called her name. >> i did, i came up. >> thank you.

>> i didn't speak. >> thank you. that's not how it works. sorry. >> so my name is jake, i retired in june of 2017. i want to talk about is actually, i want to educate you many of the process of becoming a sub in this school district. by the way, i did not want to be a sub in this school district. george washington high school, the a.p. called me. councilor was seriously ill and left and she asked me to come and be a sub. because i know the councilor really well and the other four councilors that work with them i decided to do that. i didn't do it for the money. i don't need t i did it because they needed help. here is the process that i had

to go through. if you think this is ok, it's unbelievable and it's probably been this way for 30 years. ok, so i go down there and i'm supposed to write a letter. a letter because i was retired, i didn't have to do an application. i i wrote a letter. five or six days go by i hear nothing. i call up, oh the person won't be back until january 29th. oh january 29th. ok, no one else can do anything. everything is on hold. ok. january 30th they call and saying well you can't be a sub, you don't have a teaching credential. well i want to sub as a councilor. there's a job there. remember this is not about me. this is the process i'm talking about. you need subs. you have people teaching in your classrooms that don't have subs but you need a teaching credential to be a sub. i have teaching credentials

anyway. ok, so then you need finger prints. and then you need t.b. tests. fingers prints and t.b. test. my t.b. test is good but there's a break of employment six months. you have to get a t.b. test test. if i was on sabbatical for a year i won't need a t.b. test when i

. >> the empathy factor, the kindness makes a lot -- that's very important for a child to blossom and i've seen a lot of kids when they have a special teacher with them, they interaction and the confidence of what these teachers 'em part is priceless and i think interaction with other students also is required because they really blossom with the interaction and the exchange of ideas and just being together. thank you. [applause] thank you. actually i didn't call your name. maybe i just miss pronounced it. you didn't hear it.

thank you. >> so section g. special order of business. we had a motion to second on the initial proposal from sfusd through united administrators of san francisco presented on january 23rd. mr. lee, do you have a des i guess knee to read the recommendation to the record? >> yes, i do. this is chief of labour relations carmelo scarleto. >> good evening, commissioners and staff and students. so tonight i'd like to read into the record the initial proposal from san francisco unified school district to the united administrators of san francisco to initiate our bargaining with them. we'll require your action on the matter. >> ok. i don't see any public comment on this item.

or is it mr. -- any comments from commissioners? seeing none. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> yes. >> mr. cook. >> yes. >> thank you mr. haney. >> yes. >> dr. morisi. >> >> ms. norton. >> mr. sanchez. >> yes. >> mr. wallton. >> we now present the initial proposal for united administrators of san francisco at sfusd. mr. lee, do you have anything? >> yes, still chief of labour relations carmelo scarletto. i would like to read the initial proposal from the united administrators of san francisco to the san francisco unified

school district. the sunshining article. >> we have public comment on this item. richard mcgee, you have two minutes. >> well, happy fat tuesday everybody. i'm sure you want to finish this meeting so you can go celebrate before the ashes come early tomorrow morning. i want to remember our brothers and sisters in new orleans and our labour partners there who are still going through a lot of katrina issues. just like them, we are a laboringization and we want to bargain in good faith. we submitted our proposal as required by the policy of the

school district. we're looking forward to negotiating a fair wage settlement and working conditions and i was a little put upon by some of the suggested dates, which include spring break, so while all of you are vacationing in maui, we'll be struggling to try and get a good contract, a better contract. we have a solid contract and so i want to acknowledge that. improve our contract for our hard-working side and central office administrators. thank you. >> thank you. can i have a motion to second on the san francisco united school district audit report for the year-ended june 30th, 2017.

>> moved. >> second. >> mr. lee, do you have a des i guess knee to read the recommendation into the record? >> i do. i believe it's rita, our chief financial officer. i see her making her way up to the staff table. >> sorry about that. good evening, commissioners and deputy, superintendent. i'm here to present the resolution to accept our annual audit for the year 2016-2017. and as i think we have in past years, we have on hand our

c.p.a. from our accounting firm v.t.d. in case we have any questions from either the board or the public. should i read the resolution first? >> ok. >> so the resolution is that the board of education accept the san francisco unified school district's audit report for the year-end of june 30th, 2017. i might also add that we did a little preview of our audit at the budget business services committee last week. our audit is posted on the district's website and we have copies for the board and we have copies out in the lobby for anyone to read it.

>> i'll just give you very quick, time is limited. you have a lot of stuff on the agenda. just very quickly. my name is nathan, i'm the independent external financial auditor for the school district. so what you have are the financials and our audit report for that fiscal year-ending jun. i want to quickly go over a couple of things. the scope of the audit is to validate the financial statements. to validate the revenues throughout the year. to validate the expenditures to assure they are appropriately accounted for and made available through the financial report for users of the financial statements. one thing that we do not do as part of the audit, nothing in the audit talks about management or does the board or does anybody do a good job with using the district's money. the financial statement opinions states that the audit record is what we call a clean report. which means the financial

statements are fairly stated. there's no doubt about that. it means the information available to the users are there and the information is appropriate. it's really up to management and up to the members of the board and members of the public to read the financial statements and understand them and make decisions based on those. so, the summary of the audit of opinion is basically that it is a clean report. there are some findings and i'm happy to go into them in detail. none of the findings should be looked at as any indication of the financial statements other than barely stated. the financial statements are correct. that's basically the bottom line of the audit. but that said, i'm happy to answer any questions. i can go into this in more detail. it's really whatever would please the group. >> no public comment on this item. >> yeah, i wanted to just ask about the findings related to instructional minutes and also

attendance. i understand -- i don't know if it's related to and maybe you can answer this question, i understand the state sent us half our schools a letter saying they thought our attendance data was faulty. i just read this on ed source. assist related to the findings for attendance in the audit. >> if there was a letter that was sent to schools, that i'm not aware of. that's something unrelated to this. i haven't seen myself. >> ok. well then, since we're at the audit is on the agenda and that issue is not, could i get some more information about that issue please. >> yes, we will follow-up with you and report back to the board. >> can you explain the issue with attendance that you did find? >> ok, yes. the issue with attendance is something, one of the requirements for recording attendance and the way that the

lcff funding formula works is a substantial portion of school district funding is based on average daily attendance. kids going to school. every day a kid is not in school is less money for the school district. to support that, the district has to have certain documentation in place. for the most part they do. there's a process that the district has, it's been refined over many years and it's working. there was an issue we identified in doing the attendance of it that involved substitute teachers ensuring that that attendance they recorded on pieces of paper were translated into the electronic attendance sips tom. that's where there was a breakdown. there were documentations that we had asked for to support attendance in the audit that was simply not available to us. it doesn't mean that the attendance was wrong it just means that the district couldn't support all of the attendance. it's a relatively small number of the over all total attendance for the school district.

over all, the attend hans been work worked through the process and it's fine. it's a relatively small portion of the over all thing and it is also something that was identified about this time last year and things have been additional procedures have been put in place subsequently to hopefully ensure that that finding does not happen again for fiscal year 2018. >> and then the other question was just about -- was only one school was found to have a charge of instructional minutes, is that correct if. >> yes. so one of the things we look in the audit are state and federal compliance. instructional minutes is also a compliance issues. the particular thing here, there was one school that decided to do something, they had the best intentions. but the end result was that the

number of instructional minutes and there's kind of a definition of of what is an instructional minute versus just having the doors open at the school, the number of minutes wept below the state required minimum for that one school and that was something that was identified by the school district and they brought it to my attention and said hey, you looked at this whole thing and we pick samples of schools to recalculate and this particular school was not part of our sample. it was identified and corrected by the school district and as a part of their own internal reviews. it's not a system. it is one school and it's been addressed for that school. for 2018. yes, interest, as a result of the minutes dropping below the statement. there's a pinnality that is associated with it and there's a formula to calculate that. it's noted in the report. >> it's $138,000.

so do we owe that money back to the state of california? >> yes. i mean, at some point the report gets submitted to the department of education to the state controllers office, they follow-up on all the audit findings and i imagine they will send a letter to the school district saying hey, we want to make sure it's fixed and give us back the money. it's misleading to look at only the penalty because the result of it impacted a couple other things too. so there was an actual increase in funding on another side and the penalty so it is $90,000 or something like that. >> thank you. >> commissioner. >> thank you. when the state sends that bill, can we send the bill back to them for all the state lottery funds and everything they owe to the district? >> yeah, i mean, hey. whatever the school district does, you know, hey. >> i don't think we need an audit to send that letter, we

can do that. >> commissioner. so at the budget committee we heard this item as well. that is the audit that is opened. what happened and i'd like some more information because it was a high school, from what i understand, had three fewer days of instruction essentially because of what they did. i don't understand what they did. but i was appalled because i can't imagine how that could happen. because we monitor minutes every year and principals submit their minutes for the subsequent year after year and so i don't understand how that could have happened. especially at a large high school. i'd like some further information about it. >> we can follow-up with staff and report back to the board about what happened and how we're preventing that moving forward. >> i am not a member of the budget committee, could i get a

hard copy of the audit? >> it's attached as well as something that looks like this was placed in your mailbox. you have that? >> no other comments? roll call vote. >> thank you, commissioner. >> yes. >> yes. >> thank you. >> mr. cook. >> yes. >> mr. haney. >> yes. >> yes. >> ms. norton. >> yes. >> there sanchez. >> yes. >> mr. wattson and that is six ayes. >> thank you, section h, discussion of other educational issues.

superintendent. >> yes, commissioners, this is the annual report regarding the radio station 91.7fm and we have our general manager of the station matt martin here to make a presentation. >> thank you. thank you commissioners. i'm a radio person. i don't have any visuals this year, i can talk so this will not go on longer than 10 minutes. but i do want to let you know this is going to be the last state of the station report they'll be making to the board. in october, i announced i would be leaving the general manager position at kalw and we are searching for the next leader of the station. i will talk briefly about my departure later but in these remarks i've been asked to specifically address how kalw is serving the educational mission of the school district. i am very glad to make that the

focus this evening first, because it made me sit down with the educational work that we are doing at kalw to appreciate what we've grown and in particular working with district students. and second, because it gives me the opportunity to talk to you about the need to think strategically about the relationship between kalw and sfusd and a community as set held by the district. so i'll begin with a couple of straight-forward ways that kalw serves the mission. first we broadcast these meetings. and that serves the parents and staff and the whole range of people who care about public education in san francisco. and because it's broadcast on the radio, at the same time we broadcast, the people who would not seek out the broadcast of a public meeting end up hearing this democratic process in motion on unfittered. i think that's really important. second, we use our air waves to

promote district programmes and initiatives. if you were listening to klaw a couple of years ago, you would have heard about concerts which we publicist through our station, social media and our e-mail. if you would tune in this week, you will hear promotions for the sfusd path ways programme that helps bilingual educators get their teaching credentials and the approaching deadline for applications for that programme. later this week, as we kickoff our campaign encouraging businesses and non profits to host summer interns. we've done those announcements for the last five years and we've seen them result in summer opportunities for students. and yeah, we broadcast the school lunch menu. listeners love it. we have also grown consistent in high-quality opportunities for district students to be exposed to audio journalism and do it themselves. we have expanded our summer internship programme at the station for students in the media arts academies. in 2016 we had three students,

last summer four and we're committed to six this upcoming summer. i want to emphasize these are real educational opportunities. we hire journalists to giving students a course and work with them to produce original stories that are broadcast on our news magazine. this school year, for the first time since i've been at this station, we're taking our audio education curriculum into district classrooms. in november, two of our producers did sessions with students at gala laio teaching them about interviewing, editing, mixing, how to get good audio and april we will have the same courses with students in doug singer's class at burton high. each of the students in these classes will produce a piece we call my mix tape. a regular feature on the station where we ask people to talk about a song that's important in their lives. the best work will end up on klaw and i heard about one i'm excited about. a student who is a native arabic

steaker and talks about a song that helped him learn english. that to me is fund mental and by the broad audience. we partnered with scores bay area on the radio. the poems are lovely and the voices of the kids are bold, funny and beautiful and vulnerable and i'm proud we can bring them on to our air. i want to make sure you understand the commitment of leadership at the station to the educational component of our work. recently, it was time to start working on our next grand proposal to support work with district students. it was me, our development directour, our news directour, and the managing editor of kalw news. these are kalw's leaders.

he was wagelling over the specifics with the work of students. and thinking about how we can productively fit our work with students into our broader public service mission. educating students is not our only concern but it's something we put energy and thought in week in and week out. the station is committed to education that goes beyond work with district students with the specific purpose of diversifying the voices heard in our media. that's why five years ago, we began our audio academy and nine months tuition free training programme for adults in audio journalism. fellows from that academy have done award-winning reporting at kalw and the graduates can be found in jobs throughout public and commercial media diversifying the voices in public media and the staff at kalw. it's become a model for journalism education in public radio and i'm glad to say that it's going to be continuing and the application window for next year's class will open in march.

and it is also because of this commitment to education that we partnered with oakland voices. which is a programme from the journalism education on sights and sounds of east oak man. where we help train community based reporters to use audio to tell the stories of their communities. it's also why we collaborated with a group of prisoners, men incarcerated to launch the san quinton prison report where the men tell the stories of prison life and the lives of prisoners. some of the participants had done journalism before. an quinton has the oldest prison newspaper in the country. but none of them had done audio reporting before this. so for the past few years, our reporters and editors have been teaching and giving feedback and in 2017 with support from the cdcr we can formalize that training and expand it to work at a prison in vaberville. the stories the men at san

quinton have reported and produced are amazing. they have response from our listeners and this past year they won the award for community journalism from the society of professional journalists from northern california. we have made the educational component of our work. because we love sharing this knowledge and empowering diverse communities to tell their stories and because we know that with that empowerment they can do great and important work. in audio journalism and public interest journalism many of i think that is the perspective that we need to bring to kalw's educational efforts going forward and as we think about kalw's future and developing strategic relationships between the station and the district. everything that we do needs to feedback into the core mission kalw has as a community broadcast service, informing the community and letting us hear one another and engaging as citizens and human beings. i think if we start with the

question, what is kalw doing for the sfusd, we will be missing a huge opportunity. and if the station editorial independence is called into question, we risk the trust and good will of listeners that is essential to its survival. but if instead we ask how does kalw support the mission vision and values of sfsud, i have no doubt this partnership can go further and do much, much more. if kalw is seen as what it has been for the 16 years i've been fortunate enough to be part of it, which is unique and valuable community as set, held by sfusd as part of the broad educational mission, i know we can do great things. my passion, what has driven my efforts at kalw is the desire to demonstrate the creative potential of community based non commercial media. at the end of last year, i participated in a brainstorming conversation about the planning for the new sfusd arts centre. saying in that room there was

excitement about the potential of kalw being part of the project. i was ex sighted about that. my mind starts racing when i think about creative collaboration in a space like that. opportunities that could serve students, and the listening public. as excited as i am by those prospects, i am stepping down as general manager. i've come to the conclusion at this point klaw needs more than a station manager, it needs an executive who can lead it as a critical community institution. and after a lot of reflection i came to the conclusion i am not that leader. in my packet of materials that we handed out to you i have the fall programme guide where i explain my decision and an essay where i talked about the job of being kalw's g.m. and what i see ahead for the station. it will give you a good idea of where i'm coming from. as you begin work with a new general manager, i strongly encourage the board and district

leadership to take care with this creative community enterprise and take a long view of its relationship with the district and educational mission. i want to thank all the people at sfusd i've had the public to work with. and specifically the staff and teachers at burton high where i've been working on campus for the past 16 years. i truly say i love coming too school at burton and i'm grateful to have worked with two supportive and enthusiastic principals. and finally i want to offer any thanks to the district liaison to the station for a decade and the decade has been a friend and alli to the station. thank you. >> thank you. >> i just want to say a few words before we take your questions and you just heard a sampling of some of the ways that kalw expands the educational mission. from its inception, kalw has been about educating future radio professionals and under matt's leadership the station has carried forward that work in ways its founders could have

never imagined. about a decade ago, kalw partnered with burton high school students and set out to report the stories of local veterans. i see some of you remember that. that was early on in my introduction to klaw's relationship to sfusd and i was impressed by the high-quality interviews conducted and edited by our sfusd students. i was excited by the work of kalw and the fact they were part of the bringing the staal enters of the students together with the community. what i've come to learn also, is that behind every one minute of good radio is at least 20 hours of work. in the case of this project with student reporters, someone on the klaw staff wrote a grant to pay for staff who worked with students, someone met with the teachers in advance to plan the lesson, someone found the veterans who would be interviewed, someone listened to dozens of interviews to help guide student editors and that is just a shortlist of the many

steps involved in ink ing the high-quality sound that we hear on klw. in short, it takes resources to produce great content. as matt martin said, tonight is the last time he will come before the board as klw's station manager. matt has been a phenomenal leader, who is well respected by listeners, staff and the public radio community across the nation. under his charge, the station has cultivated and grown diverse local talent that was first heard here on kalw and can now be heard across the nation. this is been possible because matt embraced new ideas. he has gone above and beyond to be responsive to listeners and to sfusd while staying true to a code of ethics. for over a decade. matt and a half dated to the uncertainty of a major recession and through changes in how people consume media, including an explosion of channels people

can dune into to for news and arts reporting. matt has managed to keep kalw strong throughout all of this. without compromising its commitment to being commercial free. so we're in agreement as we search for the next general manager that a big priority for that general manager needs to include generating the resources necessary to help klaw sustain and grow its educational and community mission. but tonight, on behalf of sfusd i want to thank matt martin for leading klaw in a panther is consistent with our core values of being social justice, diversity-driven and fear less. matt, you have dedicated 16 years to our 77-year-old community treasure that is klaw radio. our community thanks you for your stewardship.

>> thank you. commissioner sanchez. >> yes, i'd like to thank you for your commitment and your years of service with klaw. making that link stronger with our district and our students. i think it's so important. i also want to thank you and others who brought us the daily menu for our lunches. which ask us to suspend our disbelief our school lunches are that yummy. it's wonderful to listen to. when i see it i say what it's not the same thing i just heard. i also want to thank you for making connections with my favourite teachers and it's wonderful and i didn't realise you were working with scores, which links poetry and soccer. and having our students that are basically poetry slam winners share their poetry on your

station. thank you again for all your work. >> you are welcome. >> commissioner norton. >> well, you know i think we're going to just go around and everyone is going to thank you because we're all, i think we're all grateful for your time at klw. and i want to say you know, i think it takes tremendous courage, really, to sort of decide that it's time for someone else to take the stage and particularly after a very successful tenure at klw. i want to commend you for that. inform you to see maybe there needs to be a new leader to take it to the next level. i have really appreciated working with you and particularly just the close relationship between our schools and the station and i'm always amazed that people who don't have any connection to the school district will say oh, yeah, i heard you on klw the

other night during the meeting. it's amazing to me that people would listen to our meetings that didn't have to. apparently they do because they love klaw and their car radios are tuned to it. i just want to ask if you have any thoughts, i mean, you know, my concern in looking at the financial statement are that there's been a deficit the last couple of years. and i know that you've worked really hard to try to get the station on firmer financial footing. i wonder if you have any thoughts on where the station should go under a new leader and in order to get itself on firmer footing? >> so, one of the things i provided to you was this article i wrote for current. and i think it lays it out plainly. one of the primary things is

that, i've been coming to you talking about it for a couple of years is about getting basically what we call a friend's group. a 501c-3 that fund raises for the station. i think that given that we're part of the school district, but our governing board, you all are great and i'm glad for the relationship, you are not in a position to take that on. but that's really the fundamental thing. for me, one of the primary reasons that i've decided, maybe it's time to have someone new come and do this work is that i've known that for a few years. that really is the under pinning thing. without that organized support, or under resources development effort. it's not going to be -- we will keep going, you know, we will make it happen. but the station won't reach its

potential. i've gotten to be part of incredible growth at the station where we have a glimmer of what's possible and lots of great things have come out of it. as a community and institution it's not where it needs to be under my leadership. i don't think it's real magical what needs to be done in those terms. we have done what lots of non profits do. you go for the programming, right. that's where you put your resources because that what you love and that's what you value and that's what people respond to. the development infrastructure behind that hasn't been committed to in the same way. so the next leader will have to do those things in a certain order. obviously none of the things aren't going to happen in 18 months. it will be a process of doing those things but i that's that's where it starts. >> sunil agnihotri, i wish you well and keep us posted on where you are next. >> thank you, very much. >> just to say i love a klaw. there may be ways i'm involved in the future. it's not wanting to be there but

it's a question of saying it needs a new leader. >> i want to thank you for the many, many long hours you spent on really bringing this station back from the brink. seven years ago, i was a shiny new board member, one of the first issues was whether we should extend the station a line of credit. i got many e-mails saying what is the school district extending a line of credit to a radio station. it was the right thing to do. i'm very proud of the broadcast license we had. one of the oldest licenses in the country. and just want to really thank you for being open. we made some suggestions at that time about reaching out into the community for additional resources for support which you followed up on and really did bring this station back from the

brink of financial challenges. and then several years ago when we were at this meeting, talking about ways to deepen our relationship in terms of the educational opportunities that kalw had to offer at that time, you did not have opportunities for our students and you have now made it an important component of the programming at this station. it's really so amazing to take something that was an idea and to create these opportunities for students, particularly on the eastside of town, where there are fewer opportunities. i think it's so important to make these kinds of very unique opportunities for exposure to media important. and finally, as we are facing

kind of precarious times for ideas and democracy and discussions, klw continues to be an important part of the community and a lot of this is thanks to your leadership. so thank you very much. >> thank you. commissioner walton. >> i just want to say thank you so much for your work. i think that we definitely hear you in terms of the direction that the station could go with some of the things we also may be able to do to make it more vibrant and more thriving and some of the innovation that we can add. i appreciate that. i wish you the best. >> thank you. >> commissioner haney. >> i also want to say thank you and congratulations for all of your hard work, not just keeping this station afloat but making

sure it thrives. i know that every time you've come in front of the board since i've been here, people have always asked you how we make sure our students and bringing them and their experiences and their voices into what you have to offer. and sharing that and i have definitely seen a progression where each year you bring more and more stuff to us and this year you just went straight there and led with it. in what we were i do one thing. as commissioner said, sort of someone unusual situation in relationship that we have. and you sort of alluded to the fact that that relationship may have in some ways made parts of what you know needs to happen

and more complicated and somewhat more maybe didn't exactly structure in the way that maybe you think it needs to in the future. is there something that you would say or leave with regards to the relationship with sfusd? do you think -- i'm not saying you did say that. i'm wondering -- >> i'm trying to get a little closer at what you thought i said. >> you were saying that what needs to happen in terms of a friends of or more built out development to support the station and that it's not something that we would take on and sort of a normal board for a station or number of structure for a station might allow for that. is there a sense that maybe in the future you could see a new type of relationship with sfusd or even more independent or is

that something that you feel has only been a benefit to klaw. >> just to give context from elsewhere in public radio, right, so i mean it's not uncommon for public radio stations to have --[ please stand by ]

. >> -- and in the fact that we have access to both the talents and the ears of the students of this district potentially. i see there being a -- you know, i can see -- i haven't been able to bring that into fruition in a way that i might dream of, but i think there's great potential there in the way that the relationship with the school district could be an asset in the long-term, but it will require a different kind of thinking than we've done on either side of this relationship about what that --

what that might mean. and we have to keep in mind that this is an enterprise unit. that we receive great in-kind support from the school district, but it's been 25 years since any cash has flowed into kalw from the school district, so that means we have to keep the people who listen and who support the station in mind, and that means that any kind of thinking about oh, how do we deepen this relationship, how do we make it something more strategic needs to keep in mind they're supporting a broad public, and they need to support the station. i don't know if that gets to what you're asking, but i don't have one answer for you, but that's kind of the landscape i think about it in. >> i want to add something to that response which is also in looking at other models across the country, there are models where the licenseholder is either a district or a university and yet there's also a sort of friends of type of

group that helps to bring in revenue to support the station in a way that, you know. this used to exist for k alw, but it hasn't existed for sometime, so i think that is one of the priorities for the incoming general manager to setup, and at that time we can go into deeper discussion about that. but the other thing i wanted to sort of put an asterisk on that matt mentioned is in the conceptual organization of the art center, there is a potential for kalw to be a partner in that work and to use that as a place for our student talent to be showcased; also for kalw to have more proximity to the arts corridor, as well, and to the city center, and so

we -- there's a lot of discussion about that, and i hope that the board might learn more about that and think about that in the possibility as well as also the chance to have kalw as a capital campaign which could boost the station's interest and the art center interest, as well. >> got a few comments, but i'm going to excuse our student delegates. >> can i say one thing before we go? >> yes. >> i just wanted to thank you for your service tonight to k -- kalw. although i've never been a personal listener, i think it takes a lot of respect when to realize to step down for the greater good. as a student, i really love that you created opportunities for my peers and for