how we also, our understanding of the things that happened in the past that may affect people for generations and even centuries to come. so i want to thank our commissioners for that. this process is going to definitely bring some good conversation. probably some deep conversation. but again, to do the right thing sometimes, it takes controversy to make that happen. fully supportive of this resolution and looking forward to the education that comes along with it as we move forward. thank you. >> dr. murase: thank you, i wanted to recognize ms. flores and the people who came forward from the first nations to really speak about the resolution. really appreciate your engagement with the process. i want to thank the authors for bring this forward. i want to thank commissioner haney who took a lot of beating

when he first proposed rethinking of some of the high school names. i think this is very good way to proceed. i also want to acknowledge reverend amos brown, who from his hospital bed when he was ill, urged the school board to rename corbett school, because he was a governor of california who when he was a politician in oregon called for the extermination of native americans. the legal beating of african-american, horrible stuff. became governor of california and we had a school named after him. there was a lot of awareness raising in bringing the community along and explaining why it's important to rid the school of that name and instead,

honor the first african-american principal in sfusd, which is really in keeping with restorative practices and the values of the district. and finally, i think we stand for critical thinking, we encourage critical thinking every day in our schools, so it's important for us to take a look at time-honored conditions and look at them critically. but i do recognize there will be resistance. there may be a lot of resistance to change. people have adopted these names. they have lots of clothing and other things that reflect some of these names, but i'm hopeful in the process that is laid out in the resolution, that we will again use it as an opportunity to educate, raise awareness, bring people along to understand where why it is so hurtful, why the change is so important. so again, i want to acknowledge

the authors. thank you. >> thank you. rachel? >> ms. norton: i think this is a really good approach to trying to start this discussion. and i'm pleased to support it. i'm curious if we've done any thinking and maybe we haven't, about how we would set up the blue ribbon commission that would be appointed and kind of what parameters they would have? have you done any thinking about that, or waiting for us to vote on it? >> i'm thinking about it. we talked about this at the meeting and we have examples in place of where they have done this. we don't want to recreate the wheel if we don't have to. so there are opportunities out there to take the best of what they've done to put the commission together. >> thank you, my apologies

commissioner norton, i meant to say commissioner norton, not rachel. >> ms. min: i would like to say it's important that our students feel safe and supported in our schools, so i would like to ask if sfusd delegates could coauthor the resolution, because we find it's important for us as well. >> vice president cook. >> mr. cook: i want to thank my coauthor commissioner sanchez and hail leadership. i knew that he took a lot of heat for that.

but at its core, when you really stand for the social justice, that kind of comes with what you believe. and so partnering with commissioner sanchez to put this together and thinking about how to engage the community around the history we have to reconcile, we all came to this place in different ways. and i think the type of backlash that we've seen thus far is a result that people are trying to hold onto lift that isn't inclusive or welcoming to everybody. having a heritage in this country that connects back to slavery and looking at the constitution and seeing that my people were 3-5th human and now to be elected member in the city like san francisco, speaks to some progress we've had as a country. and we have to continue to reconcile a history of people

that were committed grave harms to humanity. and so, what is in a name? what does it mean for a city that proclaims to be progressive to carry names of people who committed mass murder? or who didn't believe in the full humanity of their fellows? i think this is long overdue and i really appreciate the comments of people that at public comment, because -- i apologize, it took us this long to get to this point. i hope that people that have also had criticisms about us doing this when we also have an achievement gap to reconcile, what i would say to you around that is that part of changing the narrative around what it means to be in school is building a place where people want to be there. and all those things need to happen in tandem. we'll continue to do that. we hired a superintendent we will hold accountable to address that. we're partners with him and will

be partners with all of you as we consider how to go about changing the names of some of our schools. i will finally note that maya angelou was a graduate of one of our public schools. i think she needs a school in san francisco. [cheers and applause] not to front load the work of the committee. also, james baldwin did incredible work through a documentary called the hammer, where he spoke to kids at lincoln high school, and if you haven't seen it, it's on youtube. it's about the african-american students at lincoln, asking them one day if they could be president. i encourage you to watch it and hear his response to them. which was to paraphrase, it's

not whether or not you can be it, but if you believe you can, you believe what they've told you about yourself. so you've already lost. so with this resolution, as we consider renaming schools, i want us to tell something powerful to the students that continue to be marginalized in our community. we take one step forward in that direction if my colleagues support this and we pass it. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner sanchez. >> mr. sanchez: thank you, president. so, it is a long time in coming. and i apologize as well, this was never taken up on my first two terms in the board, 2001 to 2009. sometimes status quo gets in the way of progressive and that is one of those cases. i think commissioner haney was brave and bold, tweeting at the

time, that we ought to look at the names of the schools and engage community in the process to perhaps rename some of the schools that we have that are named after folks that enslaved people and others that created long-term humanity -- damage to our humanity. thank you to commissioner haney for that. that's the impetus for this in many ways. also what is happening across the country. we've seen white supremacy condoned by the president, and that has led to a lot of resistance throughout the country and to a call for not just renaming institutions, but also taking down statues across the south to ensure that history isn't put in the face of the people who have been harmed by that history and the misdeeds by those in the past. this resolution was also inspired by the work done by the

pa paloalitio unified school. they have two middle schools that were named after proponents of american eugenics and a 7th grader did research and surfaced this information. i guess they didn't know. and so the school board impanelled a commission that took its time and was deliberate like we're proposing here, and intentional in the process to research the issue and come up with recommendations to the board of education for renaming the schools. part of the eugenics movement and the work the two men did, led to the sterilization of latinos at the turn of the century. their names were graced on the schools until the school board engaged the community, including

the students at the schools, to make those changes. so moving forward, again, i expected this panel, which the superintendent will establish -- does deliberate, slow, intentional work to engage our communities to make sure we surface names that merit more conversation. to have that conversation and then look toward names that are better fits for the schools with the communities' input as well. i'm thankful, it looks like the board will pass the resolution. i want to thank vice president cook and commissioner haney for adding his name. i appreciate the first nations folks for being here and speaking to the resolution. your voices need to be heard throughout the process as well as other communities that have been so harmed over the history in the united states and in california and san francisco. thank you. >> thank you.

so i also want to thank all the coauthors on this. i think this is a really important discussion for us to have and for someone who attended george washington high school and never thought about it in that way, i think it's really important for our young people to recognize where they're attending and who it represents. and i think about the other schools that my children attended, fairmont, james lake and lowell and there are some really interesting pieces of history that i think need to be discussed. and we want to have positive images for our young people. and what better way than to have it every single day that they're attending a school that holds the name of somebody who we can honor and who was positive. so, i, too, am grateful for all the work that was done on it, for the later that were taken, for the continued work we'll do on this, this blue ribbon panel will allow us to be methodical

about how we look at the schools in general and not just randomly pick schools, because there are communities that have said we should or shouldn't. i would guess we would like to have all of our names on this, just to recognize the support that we'd like to provide to the resolution. so if you could add everyone, including our students and if we could -- seeing no further comments or questions, roll call, please. >> min yes. ong yes. cook, yes. haney yes. norton yes. walton yes. mendoza-mcdonnell yes. >> seven ayes. thank you very much. [cheers and applause] thank you for all that attended

and spoke. so our next item is section f, public comment on general matters. i have several speakers. so if i call your name please come up. margaret, karen, marianne kramer, steve, richard, carole, james cunningham, valerie, francisco, casey, chris, and lawrence. could i also just remind everyone 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 claim, you may submit it to the supervisor. our first speaker, please state your name. you have two minutes. >> thank you to the san francisco school board and the doctor for the opportunity to speak tonight. i'm a teacher here in san francisco unified, my employee number 18505. i'm here to request the superintendent and president honor article 39.6.8 in the contract that simply states the

program should be reviewed annually. i put in a public records request to review the annual report and on february 12, 2018, the legal department stated to me that the district does not have documents responsive to my request. earlier that month on february 5, 2018, the president sent me an e-mail that stated that since she has been president, there has been no annual review of par. given that it's almost a $1 million a year from prop a, an annual review seems reasonable. i respect that the sfusd act in accordance and review par and publish all results. i request that they publish a response to the december 26, 2017 whistleblower letter received by the board and the superintendent and the union,

stating that par is discriminatory. i request that you publish a report about the million dollars a year that par syphons from the parcel tax. i request that you publish a report about the 15-year abuse about article 39.3.7 and.8. those two articles state that all par coaches must going back to the classroom and they cannot use it as a way to build their career. and get into district management or district supervisory roles. i request that you publish a report regarding proposition a. i respectfully request that sfusd publish a report -- [bell ringing] -- and i also request that sfusd publish a report

regarding the alleged violations of 5.7 nondiscrimination. thank you for your time. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, my name is marianne kramer, i'm a teacher. and i'm here to talk about a situation at our school that i wanted to bring to your attention. basically to give you a quick brief outline of our school, as it has been. i've been there for 24 years. we're located in pore tella neighborhood, we're the second largest elementary school in the city. we once were the largest, but the program had to be phased out due to lack of space. we're highly diverse student body, free lunch for students

and have many programs that have been at our schools for many years. spanish literacy, to chinese literacy. special ed, et cetera. we have been a calm, safe caring school where staff and students felt safe. we had a professional working environment, highly requested school by parents and teachers. and we received over the years national blue ribbon school award, the california school recognition, distinguished school program award, the title one academic achievement award from the california department of education. and we six years ago -- that's the background of the school. six years ago, after having

three principals probably over a period of 30 years, stabilize our school, and having strong leadership and all of these parent involvement and staff, we had -- we have had four administrators, bilingual pathway created and then a second program put into the school. >> thank you. >> good evening, board members, i'm karen lee. i'm going finish up what my colleague is saying. so, our school right now is in a very chaos way. i just feel that it's very --

everything is falling apart. we've outlined how great our school is and now everything is just falling apart. because -- because the program wasn't implemented the way -- the way it was implemented was the teachers weren't informed and it just, everything collapsed onto us. and so now with principals who are inexperienced and new, we're trying very hard. we embrace change. we embrace a lot of programs and really try to work with the students at the soar program. even just recently, the director

of the special ed said that the program isn't working. so they're phasing it out. but we just heard news last week that they are going to put in two new programs, up to six classes. k-2 and 3-5 with 12 students each max. so, we are here just to kindly ask for your compassion to just give us a break. we are just trying to -- the students at the soar -- [bell ringing] -- will continue to be there, we just want them to graduate first and have time for our students in the general ed program to service those kids, so i'm speaking on behalf of those students in the general public. >> thank you. >> they also need services, too.

thank you for your time. >> next speaker. good evening. my name is carole tatum. ive lived in san francisco since 1955. i am a member of the providence baptist church. and i am a community volunteer and advocate. mr. walton, i know him, so i hope it won't be disrespectful, but i'm here out of a grave concern. i have a 5-year-old great granddaughter who is in kindergarten and who has been

traumatized. she is in a classroom that is a nightmare. i have gone there as a volunteer and when i leave and go home, i am exhausted and i believe that every kid in that class is. the classroom, of two classes, one in the front and one in the back. please stand by.

>> -- the boys are allowed to taunt the girls, to insult them, as i said, call them names. they are encouraged to fight between the older girls and the younger girls. >> miss tate, your time is up. >> all right. that i can hear from somebody regarding some of this? >> we'll have somebody from lead speak to you. >> miss tatum, i'm sorry, did you hear the superintendent? he said he's going to have

somebody from his staff speak to you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> yeah, steve seltzer, of changes education now. you also voted to bust up the malcolm x academy which is an african american school and bring in k.i.p., run by a racist john fisher who owns the gap foundation in san francisco. that's going to disturb the students at that school, but obviously, you don't care goabt that. i would say let's focus on defending the students and the teachers. this whole thing about the p.a.r. program, it's a reaction program used to bully teachers. and also, i think allegedly used to get rid of teachers who are in opposition to the union leadership. so you have managers here in the school district to use this politically, this p.a.r. program, not only to get rid of

seen i can't remember teachers, african american teachers and latino teachers, but also using it politically to get rid of op ponents of the union leadership. this p.a.r. program is not unique because in school district's all over california, it's being used more and more bure bureaucratically over and over. one more thing about the parcel tax, they're going to pay the same thing as a homeowner in homeowner in prop g. we should be taxing the billionaires and wealthy in san francisco. they should be paying for education in san francisco, health care and transportation. i protest the fact that the union, while they say they're against charter schools are actually supporting the ballot pop significance g which is

going to give tax money to these schools in san francisco. that's really what's going on with proposition g. it's not unique. it's going on in other school districts in california. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, one and all. my name is richard ellig. i am a proud retired teacher and also a hard working parent. last night, i attended an arts education town hall at burton high school. i came away from the event with two major realizations. first of all, i released that -- [inaudible] >> -- in the summer of 2023, five years from now. just as importantly, i realized that in the interim time and in the future beyond, arts education, especially in the elementary schools needs to be

strengthened and constantly reinrigorated. i have a strong conviction especially during this time of staffing shortages, we need our most talented educators of all disciplines working directly with students in the classroom. ideally we need arts instructors in all our elementary schools. the quality of arts education is woefully superficial and under emphasized in many elementary schools. to truly 'em bed arts into curriculum, each arts educators would work to implement and of the ommize an art curriculum for this will schools -- and

optimize an art curriculum for schools. they are not exclusive of each other, and deserve equal attention and resources. and i know i've heard the board say for years how committed we are to arts education being a big part of our curriculum. >> good evening. my name's casey pathmore, and i'm a teacher on special assignment. but i actually run a school. i run an outdoor school. it's called the sfusd environmental science center at fort funston. we have over an 8,000 square foot classroom, hundreds of acres in our outdoor classroom. we serve over 1300 students a year, mostly from title s schools, and the ese has been

around for 40 years serving our district. we've always had a teacher on special assignment running the district -- running the program, sorry, along with classified naturalists. suddenly, within the last few weeks, curriculum instruction which is where we're housed, even though we're a school, so maybe we should be in lead, c.n.i. decided that a teacher on special assignment is no longer necessary, so their plan is to have only classified staff running san francisco unified school district's environmental science center. as a t.s.a., i work with the -- all sorts of s.f.u.s.d. departments, building and risk management, and more in order to make sure that our facilities and programs are safe and successful for all of our students. i lead a team of two amazing

classified naturalists to modify and adapt our curriculum to meet all of our students' needs. i work closely with teachers who attend our classrooms. i also help those classroom teachers support the students and families that might be uncomfortable with their student spending a night away from home for the very first time. we talk about how we can modify our program to support all of our students. and i of course support them throughout the program, including overnight, you know, i am on call throughout the night when they are there with their students. it takes knowledge of both outdoor education and the classroom to run the program. you'll hear from others. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hi. my name is valerie fernandez

and i'm a fifth grade teacher at bessie carmichael elementary school. i'm speaking in support of keeping the teacher instructor at fort funston. i want everyone in this classroom to imagine they're a ten-year-old boy from the philippines. one day, your mom puts you on a plane. the next, you're in my classroom. for a month, i don't know what your voice sounds like, and i were you you on that camping trip. at the end of the night, you decide to speak, and your words were, miss fernandez, this was the best day of my life. tell my mom. that field trip could not happen without the organization of a full-time t.s.a. i couldn't make it happen on my own. i was going to have an anxiety

attack multiple times. the t.s.a. is the person in charge, and she made that trip happen. in 30 years, i know that student is going to say to his friends, you know, first month i was in america, i went on overnight camping trip, and that was the best day of my life. i think we need to keep this position to future sfusd students get to experience this. i know my time's running up. i want to quote you, superintendent, right now. earlier, you said sfusd needs to show our students how much their culture matters. that night, my students ate in a dinner with their hands, and they got to share their culture, and we ate on banana leaves, and cleanup took one minute. that was an environmental science field trip, and in that

filed trip, a new immigrant from the philippines got to learn his culture could save the world. thank you. >> good evening. my name's chris weiss. i'm a fourth grade teacher at sfusd, and i've supported four over night field trips to fort funston. i'm here to support full-time t.s.a. position for them. the t.s.a. is the heart of this field trip. as you've heard the previous speaker say, the field trip does not happen. if the t.s.a. was not there, yes, we could take them out there, but they would not have one of the most unique and powerful experiences they have as a student. as the t.s.a., the students are connecting with people who are connected to the environment

there. i remember i had a student at our beautiful closing circle, someone who had been diagnosed with anxiety disorder. when we share our favorite things from those two days, his favorite thing was just feeling accepted. for teachers, the t.s.a. answers every possible question or concern that could pop in the head at one in the morning. you can text a t.s.a., you will get an answer back. i don't know how many of you have taken 33 students on an overnight field trip? great. the check list for a one-day field trip does not exist. the check list for this field trip is three pages. there is so much to think about, to be worried about, and the t.s.a. is there to hold your hand and guide you through it and tell you it's going to be okay, and your students never know of all the sleep you lost. i urge you to do what you can as a board to intervene and to keep this position. thank you. >> good evening. my name is jay cunningham and

i'm a science teacher at visitacion valley day school. i utilize the science center day programs for my sixth graders. i also teach a credit recovery program in the summer for biology students. to get in my program you have to have failed both semesters of biology. what we have learned in research with science is that the kids learn by doing and being in the environment itself. we need a strong credentialed person out in that field at that particular site. what i want you to know is that last monday, i was at a three-hour meeting with the other like minded science teachers in the district, talking about how we can represent san francisco unified school district at the jerry brown climate change summit which is going to occur in san francisco in september. we're talking about all the wonderful things that the sfusd

is doing, and two days later i hear oh, we're moving the t.s.a. out of the environmental science center. we just spent four hours talking about the values of the district and how important the climate change and the carbon footprint of the district is, and to hear that they were moving the only credentialed person out of the environmental science center just seemed to contradict everything that this district believes in. i think it's a poorly-timed decision. i don't think it's well thought through. the importance of the credentialed person out at this particular facility is critical. i would not have been able to develop a curriculum that we have five field trips for my high school biology recovery program utilizing that facility. couldn't do that without k.c.b. in there. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners

and superintendent. i was not planning on speaking to this point, but as a parent of two kids who went to the public schools who both went to the environmental center when they were at school at b-- it was buena vista back in the day, and i was a classroom teacher at mon coney for five years. that credentialed position at the environmental center means that every classroom teacher who goes there is coming into a well planned out developmentally appropriate standard space learning experience for that class. and i just checked with the current t.s.a. she sees about 1300 students over the course of a year, and each one of those field trips is a unique experience for those kids. it's probably going to be the one time they're going to do it in their time at sfusd, and for some, it may be the only nature

trip that they get. i saw that at moscone. those are those little transformational times in a kids' life, and we i live in a time when connectedness to nature and the community can happen at different times. this is something within our own domain. it's our environmental center. we're not paying extra to have the kids go somewhere else. it doesn't involve gobbles of fund raising for the kids to go somewhere. i would say find the money somewhere else. thank you. >> i feel a little bit nervous, nostaljic because this reminds me of student government when i had to sit through meetings. any way, i just want to speak.

i'm a fourth grade teacher at bryant elementary. i'm in my second year teaching. pretty much a brand-new teacher, and i can't emphasize how important this t.s.a. position is. imagine how stressful it is for a fifth year or sixth year teacher. imagine how stressful it is for a second year teacher to go and not be able to depend on a t.s.a. teacher there who has experience who knows how to work with kids specifically with behaviors and things like that. i think me as a brand-new teacher, it was so nice to have someone just like casey in our -- just available for any needs that i had as a second year teacher. i wasn't able to do fort funston my first year teaching just because i was dealing with all the problems as a first year teacher. when i was a second year teacher, i was like yes, my students can go on a trip to fort funston, and i don't know

if i could have done it without casey. thank you. >> good evening, board. my name is lauren, and i'm one of the amazing naturalists that worked at the sfusd environmental plan center, and i'm here to advocate for not eliminating the t.s.a. position because i can speak from firsthand experience that the naturalists, the classified staff does an amazing excellent job supports our students but we do not have the experience, we don't have the capacity to actually support our teachers. and the t.s.a. supports the teachers, so if we eliminate the t.s.a. and give that position to the naturalists, the classified staff, we can't ultimately support our students. and that is the biggest goal for sfusd. so i would ask for the -- to reconsider that. now we reach -- it's been mentioned before, we reach

about 1300 students? we actually only have three staff, and the t.s.a. is the lead role in coordinating all of those field trips. as you can imagine, over 1300 students is a lot, and one person is coordinating for that whole -- all of those students, okay? so that's with three staff, and we're completely under staffed, so to eliminate this t.s.a. position is ultimately eliminating this amazing program for our students. as you can hear, the teachers see so much value in it, and it brings out a new light in our students and we're able to help our students that are underserved. this program is completely free. it costs nothing. the only cost is for food. that's it. so i'm -- i just really want to advocate that this -- if we eliminate the t.s.a. position,

the environmental science center can no longer move forward, and it's been around for over 40 years, and we've been doing a great job. we prioritize serving our title one students. >> being okay. thank you all. public comment is closed. our next order is ongoing business. i need a motion and a second for classification of english learners. >> so moved. >> second. >> thank you. superintendent, do you want to introduce the designated -- the recommendations into the record? >> yes. reading the -- into the record will be kristina huang. >> thank you, superintendent. good evening, commissioners, student delegates. the resolution number is 18522

so 1, approval of reclassification criteria for english learners. whereas under california education code 313 f, each school district must reclassify a student from english learner to proficient in english by using a process and criteria that includes but is not limited to one, assessment of english language proficiency; two, comparison of the performance of the people and basic skills; three, teacher evaluation including a review of the pupil's curriculum mastery, and four, parental consultation. [inaudible] >> -- for the reclassification of english learners based on the above california education code requirements. whereas the california department of education requires that the san francisco unified school district school board approve a revised classification criteria that includes k through 12 grade levels and the new assessment of the english language

proficiency, which is now called the english language proefficiency assessment for california. therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district here by adopts and approves the following reclassification criteria for english learners. one, demonstration of english language proficiency with grade levels k through 12 elpac raw scores, moderately level skill score, two, demonstration of basic skills in english that includes grades k through 12 using the following assessments -- [inaudible] >> -- or reading particular scores at a particular grade levels. the third is student report cards, grades, k through 5, an average of 2.5 and above for english language arts or

english language development, and grades 6 through 12, grade c or better in either english language arts or english language development. and four, parent guardian consultation notification. notification of impending reclassification includes a sign off sheet for parents and guardians to return if they do not want their child to move forward with the reclassification. therefore, be it resolved that the board authorizes the superintendent to make any further changes to the district's reclassification criteria if needed to comply with state and federal law. i do have a brief presentation for you and you should also have those handouts? let's see. so today's agenda i just wanted to share some preliminary reclassification out comes. we haven't currently processed all the reclassification forms for this current school year, but i do have some results from

specific language groups. also i would like to go over the proposed reclassification criteria for the school year 2018-19 and provide you with a comparison of this year's reclassification criteria. so for some preliminary reclassification outcomes for this school year of 2017-18, here are some of the outcomes for -- by each of the language groups. so we have the number -- the different language groups are major group of arabic, spanish, filipino, and japanese. and then we have the number of approved classifications, the number of e.l.'s in this school year. the percentage of e.l. reclassified as of may 17, and we still have a number of pending reclassification forms. these are forms that the multilingual pathways departments have sent out to school sites to complete the process. we also have some forms that

may come in that were initiated by the school site. so the next is the proposed reclassification criteria for 2018-19. so the state requires for e.l. reclassification as i had read in the resolution, the following four components, and this is our current sfusd e.l. reclassification criteria. so the rationale for why we're changing the criteria is that c.d.e. is requiring us to include the kinder level. as you see in our current level -- in our current criteria, it only includes grades first grade through 12th grade, so we are including kindergarten, and it is timely since we could have a number of inclusionary kindergarten classrooms, so they may have the opportunity to reclassify

as well. we're also transitioning? this is the first year that we're implementing the english language proficiency assessment of california, so it's a new assessment that will -- that has replaced the celt. we've vetted the proposed criteria before the district english language advisory council, also our own internal oversight committee, and we're trying to build in more ways for the parents to be engaged in the process as well. so you can see a side by side comparison between the proposal and the current process. for criteria one, we're changing it to kindergarten. in the past -- we're including kindergarten, and in the past for grades one and two, we had a -- we required exceeds

expectation. we're trying to stream line it and actually have it at just meets expectation for all grade levels k through 12. [inaudible] >> -- only grades tkk -- [inaudible] >> -- the r.i. scores will remain the same, the cut scores, we did adjust the smarter balance english language arts assessment to 2.5. it was at 3, and we believe that a scaled score midway between standard nearly met and standard met was appropriate. for student report cards we again stream lined it. it was at 2.7 for the elementary levels. it just made sense to have it at 2.5, given that the new report card has been revised, we are also including both e.l.a. and english language development remarks. and for parent notification, the specific change is that we used to just provide a parent

notification without -- with opportunity for parents to respond and to request a meeting, but this is an additional to have them return if they would -- if they do not wish to have their child reclassified, so this is the biggest change. another change, too, is that we used to have a teacher evaluation form that was only for fifth grade and up. we've increased or expanded that opportunity to include all grade levels, so there is that flexibility to ensure that just in case the marks don't meet or the assessments aren't quite at the bench or the standard mark, they have the teacher evaluation form, especially if a student is able to perform but they're not making those particular -- sorry -- particular marks. okay. any questions at this point?

>> thank you, miss huang. i do not have any public comments -- i'm sorry, any public speakers signed up for this. comments from the board? yes, commissioner walton. >> thank you, miss huang. i appreciate this report tonight. just a couple of questions, and if you may not know this off the top of your head, but if we could definitely get -- how do the out comes that you presented on slide four compare to the last couple of years? and then, on slide eight, with the switch in the tests, what -- why are we switching the test? what's the difference between the test? >> so when the final numbers are available, we can provide a

four-year trend. right now our preliminary analysis shows there is an increase for all of the groups, and a slight increase for spanish speaking males but significant increase for all the other language groups. and then for the switching of the tests, it's actually -- the original california english language development test, it's a stayed wide assessment that's mandated by the state board of education, and so they made a determination to switch the test to the -- or we -- create a new test, the lpac because we have also changed our english language development standards, so the new test is aligned to the new standards. >> so the slight increase, would you say if we're at 12% across the district in terms of reclassification rate and at 17% for our chinese and vietnamese english learner is, what is your opinion about the

reclassification rate or can you get that later? >> i can get that later. >> thank you. [please stand by for captioner switch]

we have started examining a lot of the reclassification data. and the work of the oversight

committee, their highest priority will be addressing the needs of spanish speaking els. >> commissioner sanchez. >> commissioner sanchez: thank you for the presentation. a couple of questions. surrounding the difference between -- i've asked this before actually -- the difference between the outcomes for reclassification for latino as opposed to chinese students. can you explain why there would be such a vast margin between them? >> i think i've mentioned before, there are multiple factors that we're examining. a lot of it is looking at consistent -- there may be turnover in classrooms.

examining the instruction, looking at best practices and where the best practices are implemented. and so we're examining all of that right now and taking a very serious look at that. >> so that has never been examined before? >> it has, but we're trying to also look at how english language development. we're in a transition year of looking at how english language development is being implemented and we have looked at a number of classrooms in the last number of years. with the transition, we're also looking at -- we developed a framework, the district has developed a framework that professional development has happened. right now, we're examining different options for eld materials as well, to create more consistency. that's something that a lot of the teachers and schools have asked for. this week, we have invited teachers to three focus groups to take a look at the different

options. that's a commitment that i believe curriculum instruction will be making. so we're focussing on that and making sure that teachers have the tools and resources they need. so we're taking steps towards making sure that there is quality and consistent implementation. >> commissioner sanchez: my sense is it's not about that. i think there are other factors at play between that. you have outcome of 20% being classified with with chinese, 5 dialects and spanish is 7%. there is a lot of things going on obviously. have you researched the different pathway models in terms of outcomes from reclassification? so for example, the chinese pathway, or cantonese or mandarin, dual immersion and then the spanish pathway and dual immersion for outcome

includesification? >> we're -- classification? >> we're doing that right now. where instruction is happening in the primary language. we're finding that even if there are some classrooms, they're providing consent instruction, in the primary language and either cantonese or mandarin, they're performing at a higher level than the spanish speaking els. >> is there a comparison made amongst students who have become reclassified between them and they're in a dual immersion or not in one of the programs at all? >> yes. well students that are actually, we did have a study that shows that students who enter a pathway, comparing them to just those in general education, they do outperform the students in gene