francisco unified school district board of education. it's tuesday, march 6th. roll call, please. [ roll call ] thank you. if you would, please join me for the pledge of allegiance. [ pledge of allegiance.

] thank you. section a is accessibility information for the public. section b are opening items. item one is approval of board minutes. there are none tonight. as has been announced in the past few meetings. members of the public, if they wish to address the board of education, an individual can complete a speaker card which looks like this, and they're located in the foyer right there. prior to the item being called. and presented to ms. casco. it's important that speaker cards will not be accepted for an item that's already before the board. as part of our new process, we're also including closed session items, so we will not be hearing public comment prior to closed session. we'll be hearing once we go into

closed session, but we'll be hearing it during the board meeting before we call closed session. so if there's anything on our closed session agenda and you would like to speak, please fill out a speaker card and give it to ms. casco prior to us recessing into closed session. item two is a superintendent's report. dr. matthews. thank you, president mendoza. good evening. as i mentioned last week, we had our school planning summit this past saturday at everett middle school. i would like to thank everyone who participated this year. it was great to see everyone working together to plan for supporting our students. we had over 700 participants representing all schools in our district early on a saturday morning. thanks to the entire planning team and all community participants for your work on this year's planning summit. last week, march 5th through

9th was national school breakfast week. in honor of this, the district joined forces with revolution foods to celebrate its annual 1 millionth breakfast event. this event raises awareness of the importance of breakfast and the breakfast after the bell model used here in our district. i had the pleasure of attending this event at hillcrest elementary school on monday and was able to enjoy cereal, fruits, and yogurt in the classroom along with the students. the 1 millionth breakfast celebration is a week long celebration for students to participate in games and fun giveaways to promote healthy eating. school breakfast is crucial for many students to have access to nutritious meals that fuel them for a fuel day of learning. students who are properly nourished perform better on exams and achieve better academic success overall. in the past school year, our

district has increased breakfast participation by 6% in our entire district and at hillcrest, breakfast participation has jumped from 16% to over 80% after implementing breakfast in the classroom since 2014. the next item is if you're looking for something for your student to do this summer, you can check out the 2018 san francisco summer resource fair that the department of children, youth, and their families is hosting. the fair is a wonderful opportunity for summer programs, classes, camps, activities, and other service providers to meet and connect with san francisco children, youth, and families. it will take place on saturday, march 10th, from 11:00 to 3:00 at the county fair building in golden gate park. the summer resource fair is free to attendees. just show up on march 10th between 11:00 and 3:00 p.m. and and you your family will be in

for an informative, fun time. next week from march 14th through march 21st, is our district's art festival. the art festival is for visual, literary, media, and performing arts hosted by the asian art museum in the civic center. it will be open on monday, march 19th, for school groups only. for the past 32 years, this unique san francisco event has been a point of destination for families, teachers, artists, and community members from san francisco and beyond. the promise of equity and access in arts, education for all students pre-k through 12 during the circular day made real by our district's ground breaking arts, education master plan. it finds its points of destination all who attend see the creativity in all of our youngest san franciscans.

festival admission is free, and includes access to the museum's collection and special exhibition gallery. president mendoza, that ends my report for this evening. >> thanks superintendent. item three is recognitions and resolutions and commendations. tonight it's african-american students achieving in stem. i would like to pass this over to mr. cook. thank you, president mendoza. i'm really excited about tonight's honorees because for a long time -- well, actually more recently, the school district passed an initiative to expand computer science education in k through 12. and my initial entry into the conversation about the lack of computer science, lack of access to the sciences in general is that african-american students

were not participating at the same level as their counterparts, and an article i read in -- an article i read back in 2014 showcased that just with computer science, in 11 states in the country, no african-americans took the computer science exam. when we looked at what was happening in san francisco, in the last ten years that we had on record that was the exact same thing. so it made me ask, how many african-american students are taking and passing the computer science -- ap exam in any stem field, and just recently, we had our first student pass the ap computer science exam. we have students that have passed the ap exam for chemistry and some of them are here tonight. so when we talk about elevating the incredible stories of our young people, academic excellence, black students

achieving and making sure that we tell their stories, tonight is about acknowledging and up lifting academic excellence for african-american students in stem fields. science is an incredible powerful tool that people are using to help direct the direction of our world. and these students in high school are excelling in those fields. so tonight we have, i believe, three incredible young people that got a 3 or higher on the ap exam in the stem field, and i am going to call their names. right. there are 13 that passed ap computer science exam in a stem field. we have 4 here tonight. so we're acknowledge all the

students that did. we have ke kiana reynolds. [ applause ] aaron king. [ applause ] simoke akuzu. [ applause ] how do i pronounce it? did i pronounce it right? i have to say her name right. get me in trouble. and who was our 4th person? golden von jones.

[ applause ] i just -- if you all could briefly come to the podium and just say the exam that you took and passed and what school you attend. just press the button. >> hi. i attend washington high school and i passed the ap chemistry exam and calculus. [ applause ] and my name is kiana. >> thank you. >> hello. r. hi name is aaron king and i passed the ap computer science and ap environmental science exam. [ applause ] hello, i am from abraham lincoln high school. i passed the ap biology exam.

my favorite subject. hi, everyone. i'm a student at low he will high school, and i passed the environmental science exam. [ applause ] reyna melvin.

[ applause ] i'm reyna melvin and i passed the ap computer science principles course. [ applause ] >> any others?

this is the first time we've acknowledged students that passed an ap exam in stem. it's something i would like to make a standing item every year because it's important that our city sees you, the narrative around you in school does not reflect what we celebrated tonight, and you are helping to create a new narrative. thank you for committing to academics. i wanted to let you know that

what -- that we are proud. we hope to invest in companies or be using your products or that you will come back and help inspire more young people to do what you've done across our city, across our country. so i hope you start to see yourself as leaders of our country because you're passing subjects i didn't want to touch when i was in school. somehow i got here. so thank you all for coming tonight. [ applause ] thank you vice president cook for honoring our scholars. it's kind of like that holiday commercial with the m & ms and they say they do exist. it's very important that we highlight your accomplishments. a lot of times the media, a lot

of times we have -- even adults who focus on the things that are negative in the narrative that is negative around our black students or our minority students, and it is always a wonderful opportunity to be able to celebrate the things that you are doing very well and to commissioner cook's point, you are excelling in subjects that have been difficult for everyone, and to demonstrate your success and to expose the entire city, expose your peers, expose all of our families to your great accomplishment is something that's important. i want to also commend commissioner cook who works in the stem field on a daily basis, exposing our young people to technology and opportunities in technology, but, again, i just want to say congratulations. continue to work hard and thank you to all the parents and

caregivers who came to support. it's important to have that support here. thank you. thanks so much, everybody, congratulations scholars. keep up the good work. item four is our student delegates report. >> well, speaking you have youth leads errs, i would remind you that the youth summit is approaching on march 16th. if if i of you have gone up to the third floor, we made school banners and they're like six feet. they're pretty noticeable. so i hope everyone can come. our theme this year is operation make your mark, and we want to cultivate youth leaders through the informative and interactive workshops and inspire our presenters. we invite everyone to come.

thank you, dr. matthews to being our keynote speaker. we hope for magic tricks. >> the youth summit marks the date where the delegate campaign kicks off. we have invited our candidates here to make a quick introduction to the board of education and these are the candidates that one of which will be replacing us on the board. so our time is nearing its end, but i trust that all of you all standing in front of us today have more than enough capacity to carry the torch forward. so go ahead and introduce yourselves. good evening, president, superintendent, board commissioners, and student delegates. hello, my name is steven gong. that's steven with a v in case you are starbucks baristas.

i'm a junior at lowell high school. i'm also the president of the lowell student association as well as a student delegate on the council and -- whoa. and i'm also the lead organizer for the 314 and 420 lockouts in response to the parkland shootings. [ applause ] >> thank you. and what really drives me to be a student leader, i sort of envision it as a stack of dominoes. i want to be this first domino. i want to be the change that inspires our youth and tells people that we are here and we are here to represent you. and so i look forward to working with you guys hopefully within the next year. so thank you. [ applause ] good evening, president,

superintendent dr. matthews, board commissioners, and delegates. i'm a current junior at the international high school. coming from china, i moved to the united states two and a half years ago. myself is an immigrant. something special about the school is this is a high school that is purely consisting purely of international students, and so that's why i'm proud of my school. as i'm standing here, i'm a student leader from our school. i'm a student delegate from our school and i'm the vice president for youth engagement. so what driv drives me to becoma student leader. it's like being a magician. i can help with my peers if they have anything they want to talk to me, if they want to share their personal stories, yeah, welcome to do so. and also, since our school is an

immigrant school and there's a lot of change, we need to -- for example, we need to maintain the diverse environments, which is why i'm proud of it. third, i think being a magics, i can disappear without a trace. [ applause ] hello, everyone. hi. my name is camilla brown. i'm too tall. i'm a junior in high school. i'm born and raised in new orleans. yeah. so i am bsu president at the high school. i'm also seo scholars ambassador, and impart of sac myself. what really drives me as a student leader specifically is actually being the minority. i have experienced myself being the only african-american in a classroom, you know. it's really like crazy and -- i don't know. i felt out of place.

so, like, no one should ever feel that way. me running for student delegate, i'm coming out of my comfort zone. yeah. that's it. yeah. [ applause ] hello, everyone. i am jessica chen, and i go to burden high school. i'm a sophomore. i live in the excelsior district where you can also get very good food. i am also part of sac. i'm a representative. i am the vice president of my class of 2020. what drives me to be a leader is surprisingly enough my parents. they drive me to be a leader because i notice that they didn't get the proper education in china and stuff. they also didn't have the resources and the opportunities to succeed as students. i want that to -- i want to

ensure our students here in sfusd to have the best education as possible and to have the resources right there in front of them and not for them to look around for them. so thank you. [ applause ] good evening, president, mendoza, superintendent dr. matthews, board commissioners and student delegates. i'm clarissa reno i'm a junior at lowell high school. i was born in palo alto, but i'm growing up in the bayview district. i'm currently the vice president of the lowell student association, student advisory council representative, student advocacy committee chair, and i was also the director of outreach for the hack-a-thon which happened last weekend. what really drives me to be a student leader is that i strongly believe that as a unified entity, student voice can make such a huge impact in today's society as well as for the future generations.

i really want to be the catalyst that plunges our voices ahead of where it is right now. that's what drives me to be a student leader. thank you. [ applause ] i am very, very impressed by the quality of our student delegates that are going to be here next year, and i wish them all the best of luck in their campaign process. i think all of y'all have so much potential to serve here on the board, and i think you all are going to be great student leaders in the upcoming year. moving on to the next item on the agenda here for the student delegate report, we have the ss

never again proclamation update. our proclamation was voted on and approved by the student advisory council at our march 5th general meeting. and our goal remains the same. we would like to stand in solidarity with the activism of our peers and our proclamation is on schedule to be delivered march 13th at the next board meeting. we would like to thank mr. truett and the vice president for helping us author this resolution. thank you. the next item on our agenda is our update on the board policy 6145 extracurricular activities. recently as yesterdays rules committee meeting we had our sac president and public relations officer present the sac's findings to the rules committee and we would like to take notes from this meeting and work with them to implement the process that we presented on.

the student representatives will report back to the rules committee with further data on may 7th, and we would like to, again, thanks mr. truett and sanderson for the leadership advice. our next meeting is on the third floor cafeteria room. the sac is a public council and everyone is welcome to attend. if you would like to attend, make a presentation or like a copy of our up and coming agenda, please contact or sac supervisor, mr. lopez-barr. that concludes our report. commissioner walton. >> thank you for your report and thank you for your active involvement and policy 61 h 145d bringing the sac together. this is an important piece of policy that we're working on and just having your input and having real student voice at the table means a lot. thank you for taking the lead on

that. thank you. and i want to thank you for your report as well. we look forward to spending time with you at your youth summit next week, and i want to thank the students that shared their reason for wanting to be a student delegate and student leader. it's great to have you here representing. so thank you all for being here this evening. our next item is item 5, recognition of valuable employees. our rave awards. we have none tonight. we have lots of valuable employees just no rave awards tonight. let me be clear. item 6 is our advisory committee reports and a appointments to advisory committees by board members. we'll be hearing from the parent advisory council, but -- no, we won't because they're not reporting tonight. the following report on any board a appointments to advisory committees. thank you.

see how valuable our employees are. thank you, dr. matthews for moving my computer. so seeing none, section c, consent calendar. a need a motion and a second. >> so moved. >> second. >> are there -- i don't see any public comment on consent items. any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent? >> none. >> thank you. any items removed for first reading by the board? seeing none, any items discovered by the board or superintendent for vote tonight? seeing none, thank you. if we don't have any, so roll call on consent calendar, ms. casco. [ roll call ]

[ six ayes ] vote on consent calendar for separate consideration. we didn't have any. section e is or proposal for action. there are none. section f is our public comment. i have several speakers this evening. just a few actually. just to remind you that public comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board's jurisdiction. we ask that you refrain from using employee and student names. if you have a complaint about a district employee, you may submit it to the employee's supervisor in accordance with district policy. as a reminder. board rules do not allow us to respond to comment or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. if appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow up with the speaker. so at this time, i have -- let's

see -- actually, i have no public comment. i don't have any speakers for general public comment as of this time. wow. i think that's like a first. can i get applause, please? no public comment tonight. [ applause ] thank you. item g is special order of business. there is none tonight. section h is a discussion of other educational items. superintendent matthews we're going to be discussing the local landmark proposals for three district schools and a discussion of superintendent's proposal 182-27fp1 public expenditures. dr. matthews. >> yes. good evening. we'll have deputy superintendent to introduce this item. >> thank you, dr. matthews. i am scanning the row. there are -- there they are. okay.

so this -- let me just provide a little bit of context, commissioners, for the eye them, and then -- item and then i'll introduce and guests and colleagues from the department of planning at the city and county who'll be providing a presentation on the item. so we were approached, the district, board of education and staff were approached by our colleagues at the department of planning. this is probably summer of 2017, i think, regarding proposals to designate three of our schools. this is roosevelt middle school, washington high school, and the sunshine school where hilltop school aged families prom is --m is currently located as local

landmarks. there were a couple of discussions at the billings and grounds committee. so if i can just summarize the sequence of the meetings that took place, there was an initial discussion, i believe, in october at the buildings and grounds committee when the planning department staff came and described the proposals. at that meeting, the members of that committee as well as district staff who were also on hand had a discussion in which there were some clarifications about the proposals and some questions and a couple of concerns were raised by committee members. the discussion led to a more thorough staff vetting of the proposals, and that took place a couple of months later. so we had a very helpful meeting with two of the staff from department of planning that i'll introduce in a moment and a few colleagues on the staff of the

district, and we had a very helpful clarifying conversation about the context, about some of the proposals and the implications, and i will say -- i'll leave them some of the details to the presentation, but one important thing that we learned in that staff to staff meeting was that local landmark designation that was proposed would not be binding on the district, wouldn't have -- wouldn't prevent the board or the district from making alterations in a controlling legal fashion. however, we did discuss that, of course, a designation could change the significance that community members or stakeholders attached to any changes that would depart from the elements in the proposals that are featured in landmark proposals themselves.

so then we went back to buildings and grounds later that month, in january of 2018, and we reported out from that meeting that we had with the staff, and the members of the committee engaged in a discussion again and raised some additional more continuing concerns about the -- so they understood the -- the members of the committee understood what we were sharing and had some lingering questions about whether the district and the board should propose the nominations, even so. so then, there was a suggestion to bring the item and the topic to the full board, and so that's why we are here with our visitors from the planning department and so they're in large respect going to present some of the same information that i think they presented at the october buildings and

grounds committee. let me just say one additional thing substantively before i introduce my guests, which is -- and i have shared this with planning department staff adds well -- as well. also, i believe in late january, there was a presentation from the american indian parent advisory council that happened to speak to some of the murals at washington high school and commissioners may recall that some concerns were raised about the depictions in some of the murals at washington. so i shared that with the presenters that you'll hear from in a moment. they understand that, and i think they're ready to make a presentation. we will ask commissioners to resituate yourselves. i think there will be a powerpoint. so at this time, let me -- >> i'm sorry. deputy superintendent, before you begin, there was a question by a commissioner.

>> thank you, president mendoza. i guess my question is, before we begin, i'm just trying to grasp, what is the intent after this presentation? what do you want from us? >> thank you, commissioner. so we -- after the two buildings and grounds committee meetings, we as staff wanted to have sense of the board about -- and the city as well wants a sense of the board about your collective support or reluctance for the proposals to move forward. so tonight is an informational item. it's not being presented to you for an action, but we do think that this is a good opportunity for us to hear from you about what, in general, you would like to see happen with these proposal, whether we as staff should represent on the

district's behalf that you support the proposals or whether there are enough concerns that we would recommend against the proposals proceeding. >> so we really want something on record in terms of what the opinion of the board is aside from our inability to take any action and aside from what some of us did bring up from building and grounds? you really want us to say no we oppose this or no, we don't want to move forward or yes, we want to move forward with support? >> that would be helpful, commissioner, and as a next step, what we ascertain from the discussion tonight, we will memorialize in a letter to the planning department staff and likely to the members of the board of supervisors that will be taking this issue up next. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so with that, let me introduce desiree smith and tim

fry from the planning department. thank you for being here, and the floor is yours. >> good evening, president pen doze a mcdonnell and members of the board. my name is desiree smith, and i am a preservation planner for the city of san francisco. i'm joined by our city preservation officer, tim fry. we serve as staff to historic preservation commission. today, we are here to discuss the three school district properties that have been nominated as san francisco landmarks. it does include george washington high school, roosevelt middle school, and the former sunshine school. the landmark nomination were put

forth by san francisco heritage and were funded by the historic president ration fund committee which is overseeing by the mayor's office. the nomination for george washington high school specifically was also funded by a $10,000 -- the landmark designation reports were prepared by historians. this is our first time presenting to the full board, however, as noted, we presented to the buildings and ground committee and met with staff several times before. since then, the historic preservation commission held two hearings on the item and has voted to recommend approval of all three properties for landmark designation. this evening, we hope to leave you with four main take aways, first, that local landmark designation has no regulatory or financial effect on state property.

second, we respect the process that the school board and community will take in determining any decisions related to the mural at george washington high school. it's not the intention to get in the way of that process. landmark designation of the schools is intended to be a positive way of acknowledging these buildings as architectural gems, as enduring learning environments, and as important part of our history locally and nationally. we hope to clarify the landmark designation process and answer any questions that you may have. currently, the city of san francisco has 275 individual landmarks and 13 historic districts with dozens more in the pipeline. among those designated are several sfusd properties including the im scott school, the former high school of commerce at 135 van ness, balboa high school and mission high school. the first of the three nominated

schools is theodore roosevelt middle school where the tower is a striking design by a master architect who you may know from the pacific telephone and telegraph building he designed, the castro theater as well as the paramount theater in oakland and alameda theater on alameda island. roosevelt middle school is the only building in the city possibly in the entire country that's designed as this unique architectural style known as dutch or german expressionism. it also contained three well-preserved murals on the interior. next we have the sunshine school located in the mission district. it is a testament to san francisco's commitment to education and well-being of children with disabilities. it was constructed for sfusd by the public works administration and was planned in consultation with public health professionals and teachers. the school was the first purpose

built public orthopedic school build west of the rockies. it has a barrier free first floor level and it anticipated by decades passage of the architectural barriers act and americans with disabilities act. the spanish colonial building displays art deco detail. and last we have george washington high school which is an important anchor of the richmond district. this school was also a new dealer a project and the work of a master architect. it's an excellent example of art deco architecture. it contains several historically significant art works. all three schools are excellent and well-preserved public schools constructed during san francisco's golden age of school construction in the 1920s and 1930s. so what does landmark designation mean? city does nateed landmarks are listed under the planning code.

once a property is designated at the local level, any building permit triggers a specialized permit review process. however, properties owned by the san francisco unified school district are considered state land, and therefore, they're exempt from the san francisco planning code. as a result, landmark designation will not change how these properties are maintained or upgraded by the school district. local designation of public schools is honorable. it's meant to represent architectural ties. it serves to amplify the pride among students, teachers, and the communities who use those schools every day. if designated, the commission and planning department can be available to provide technical assistance if and when our consultation is requested, but again, there's no obligation for you to seek our input. it's our hope that the designation is useful tools for the school district and staff

and that they offer insight to the building's history. lastly, historically designated properties provide opportunities for teaching, learning, and dialogue. for example, the history documented in the landmark designation reports could be incorporated into curriculum or used to create educational materials for students, visitors, student orientations, et cetera. there are countless models across the country for interpretation of historic sites. we were asked by staff to adjust the landmark says designation as it relates to potential alteration of the mural at george washington high school. as a point of clarification, the local historic preservation commission and staff is not involved in any decision making related to the treatment of this mural. the inclusion of the murals in the landmark designation report does not affect the outcome of whether the mural remains or is removed. as he mentioned previously, the

preservation commission and staff are here as a resource for you should you seek our input. there are a number of possible approaches and we see value in an open dialogue that considers all viewpoints, but there's no requirement to include us. landmark designation will not change the regulatory process associated with removing or altering any part of this mural. to the second bullet point, our understanding is that these and any murals in the state of california are subject to the california art preservation act, which is a state law regulating the potential physical alteration or destruction of fine art. landmark designation would not affect compliance with this act. i would like to end the presentation with a brief overview of next steps. this slide outlines the steps required for a property to be designated as a landmark. as of today, the historic preservation voted to recommend

to the board of supervisors. next these items will go to the land use committee of the board of supervisors followed by two hearings at the full board. any comments that you or staff provide to us will help us inform our information at the board of supervisors. to reiterate, we think the buildings can be designated without does representing the mural at george washington high school. ultimately, the hand mark designations will show how special these schools are. many we hope you will support the legislation. thank you for inviting us and please let us know if you have any questions. i'm here with our city historic preservation officer. we also have the project sponsor from san francisco heritage and historian who worked on the reports. wonderful, thank you so much for the presentation. before we go into board

discussion, i want to get a few folks up who have put in speaker cards for public comment. donna graves, mike bon -- i'm sorry -- bueller, robert channery. you'll have two minutes each. okay. thank you very much. mike bueller, president and ceo of san francisco heritage. we're a nonprofit organization founded in 1971 citywide organization. sf heritage is the sponsor of three city landmark nominations before you this evening for the three schools. with funding from the san francisco historic preservation fund committee, we've also commissioned a citywide study documenting san francisco's rich legacy of new dealer a art, architecture, and

infrastructure. without question, these three schools are among the best examples of the new deals artistic and built legacy in san francisco. the nominations themselves are in depth, comprehensive, and meet the highest scholarly standard. the nominations for george washington high school, for example, is over 100 pages in length. from this project's inception, our hope was that the nominations serve as an educational resource for the schools they document. as will be noted or as was just noted by planning department staff, designation of the schools as san francisco city landmarks does not impose any additional restrictions on the school district, does not subject the school district to the jurisdiction of the commission and does not incur extra costs. in fact, it would enable the school district to take advantage of benefits and flexibility under the california historical building code. the california historical building code would allow them to have performance based -- the

school district's disposition of the murals is a separate matter. the board's ultimate discretion and authority would not be impacted by city landmark designation. nonetheless, heritage fully recognizes the sensitivity and potential offensiveness of what they depict especially today. although you are not deciding the fate of the murals today, her tinge invited don graves to discuss some ideas for how the murals can be contextualized and interpreted for educational benefits. don is a nationally known expert in the fields of historic preservation and public art. she's on the board of advisers and has directed numerous award winning projects that document and interpret the histories of many underrepresented communities. with that i'll introduce donna gaves. thank you. >> thank you, mike. thank you, president, superintendent, and members of the board.

as was stated earlier, i'm one of the two historians working on the citywide historic for the new deal and youth are 0 of these three -- author of these landmark nominations. because of my training in art history and earlier work as an art professional, i've taken on the new dealer a art project for these nominations. when i start -- just address the mural issue. these murals of the life of george washington are the largest project from the new dealer a and they're a powerful series on the life of the nation's first president. i'm hoping that you've been either been able to see them or have images shared with you because we don't have any. so i hope you can bring those up in your mind. we understand that there's been communication recently about how some people feel about the mural that shows the body of a dead native american man. i'm here to acknowledge those

sent independents and offer thoughts for remedy. i, too, was shocked when i first saw that figure. i must admit. especially when i heard there had been a tradition at the school for students to say, let's meet at the dead indian. i hope that such cavalier statements were due to ignorance rather than racism. i feel certain from studying the painting, that the painter's motives from more positive. the figures depicted over that prone native american male are on their way to settle the western u.s. and they're painted in kind of ghostly grays. they're the only deathly hued people in the sickle that covers thousands of square feet in the lobby. the leftist political views

likely led him to -- >> how much time do they have for public comment tonight. >> we're at 2 minutes. >> that was already two? forgive me. bob, can i take -- >> you need to wrap it up. >> i would like to say what my ideas for remedy are because that was why i came. >> you can't take more than two minutes. you can provide that in a written statement. your two minutes are up. i need to have the next speaker, please. robert. thank you. >> yes, my name is robert. i'm a professor of merits from san francisco state. last spring i published a biography, and i made some copies of some relevant parts for the members of the board because i know i don't have time in 2 minutes to read them to you, but i hope maybe you'll take the time to take a look at

them yourselves. i have given you some information about three of his murals, one he did before george washington high school, the george washington high school mural and the one he did afterwards at college station, texas. the most controversial of these apparently is the one that shows the so-called dead indian. but in all of the large murals at george washington high school, he presented a counter initiative to the prevailing high school textbooks of today. in two of them, he put native americans in the center. in the third, he put enslaved african-americans in the center. in a fourth, he put working class americans raising a flag in the center. in all four of those large murals, george washington is on the margins, and it's other people who are in the center. he put enslaved african-americans in the center of the mural on mountain vernon.

to demonstrate that george washington was a slave holder, something that was left out of many of the contemporary textbooks of the day. he wanted to make it clear that george washington had profited from slavery. in the mural in which he depicted the march of the white race from the atlantic to the pacific, that's a quote of his, he put those gray pioneers literally walking over the dead body of an indian to demonstrate that the settlement of the west was an act of conquest that involved the slaughter of native americans. that was a very bold effort on his part to counter the kind of textbooks that students were seeing and we hope -- i hope he won't be penalized for that in the future. >> thank you. thank you for the public

comment. commissioners, no comments? okay. commissioner walton. >> so the things that we're being asked to separate here tonight, one of the very -- one -- thank you to the planning staff for your report this evening and for coming out and explaining the details. one of the -- there are a few major issues i have with the landmark designations. one as a district, regardless of whether or not state rules apply to -- city rules apply to us as state entities, we all know their public processes when we want to do anything with our schools particularly when a school has been designated as a historical landmark. we're dealing with that right now as we talk about 135 van ness and the art center and things we want to do. it does change the process.

it makes it more convoluted for the district to move forward with anything. so that would also apply to these three sites. whether or not even i agree with our elementary schools and they are amazing sites, we get five, six years down the line and there's something we want to do to improve or schools or that the district feels will improve the schools, that the student population and the parents feel would improve the schools, there's a process we would have to go through that would be convoluted and different than if we were just making a decision for our school sites that were not historical landmarks. i'm really playing about how i say any next few statements because i don't understand how people who are not affected by the depiction of a mural can come in here and tell us how native americans and indians should see the mural and what's

on there. when they came here and told us it was offensive to them and they said these murals caused problems and issues for their community. i don't see how people could tell us how positive that is or what's the positive point of view is. it is insulting to me that anybody who is not affected can come in here and try to do that. that's why i stopped at 2 minutes. i was tired of being insulted and i was tired of the community being insulted when they came here and said they depicted their community. that is insulting. i don't want to see slaves on the wall. so i'm having a hard time understanding why we're having this conversation again. i will tell you, i'm not supporting this. plain and simple. i hope nobody else comes into this school district, at least while i'm sitting here and tries to tell us how we should not be offended and particularly people who are not depicted on these

murals telling us how people should not be offended by somebody's art. it is not art to some people. [ applause ] >> thank you, commissioner walton. any other comments? commissioner sanchez. >> well, obviously i couldn't put it any better than commissioner walton, but just to add my two cents, i'm not inclined to support this because we're in the middle of a discussion about washington high and the mural and i don't want anything to muddy the waters in that discussion. so it might be something that i wobbling to discuss -- would be willing to discuss later on down the line. as we encounter this issue, for example, we haven't heard from the washington school site council as we were told that they were going to be meeting about this issue and apprised about where they stand on the issue of the mural. we obviously heard from our

native american community as commissioner walton referenced, and this has been something that's not just been on their minds recently. it's come up over and over again over time, and the school district one way or the other has found its way not to listen to them. and i'm going to listen to them right now. so i think we should at the very least table this item. >> thank you. okay. hold on. commissioner norton, student delegate, and then commissioner murase. >> i most of you know that my daughter's attended roosevelt and washington which are stunningly beautiful architecture. i'm really happy that the school district has taken care of those

assets and i don't -- at this point, i'm not prepared to support this. it feels like this is very much a conversation that needs to happen still particularly at the washington site. it also just feels unnecessary to me to add this level of protection. i think we are proud of the beautiful architectural assets that we have, and we have demonstrated that we can take care of them in our community. i'm just not sure that this is necessary. >> thank you. student delegate. >> thank you. thank you, president. i would actually -- i was actually in attendance as a washington site council meeting at the end of february where they discussed the implications of the mural in question right now. and at that point, the school site council did not think it was a site issue, that it was, instead, a district wide issue

that should be addressed at the board of supervisors because of its pending designation as a landmark. they thought washington school site council would not have the jurisdiction to take action in terms of removing the mural. instead, they suggested that plaques or signs be put up to acknowledge the atrocities committed in the mural and basically provide context for the images depicted in the mural. that's what i heard from the school site council upon my visit to washington. because of the concern being brought up by my fellow commissioners and the discussion that is on going, i also feel inclined to table the item and not make a decision on it at this date. >> thank you. >> thank you for the presentation. i, too, like