ebony scott, i personally know her, i came here and i spoke to you about that. i'm not the only family that was affected by that co- location. the lockout story, i have been told that many times. i am here just -- today to say thank you to take the time out and tell us what is going on. i am not saying they are good or bad but can we find out before we subject our children to this process, without involving the community? let's do a study, take a step back. nobody is talking about your charter if it doesn't fit. but what we are saying is we don't know anything about your school his. as a community, we need to know what is going on with our children. thank you. [applause] >> can i get your name, please complete ? thank you, tommy. >> good evening. [inaudible]

>> i would like to point out that both creative art and our self -- they could participate -- to hold local board meetings by state law. they don't have to have -- [inaudible] >> it is part of what is lacking -- three times a year. so thank you for this resolution and thank you for the charters you have commented and who have -- hopefully we will be the best practices and others follow

shortly. [applause] >> can you all hear me? hello? [laughter] >> my name is alicia robinson i'm standing here on behalf of african-american parent advisory council. i am the cochair. the african-american parent advisory council supports the increased protection and rights under the resolution for our students and families in both charter and public schools. the passing of this resolution will allow families the rights to fair treatment, transparency at every step, based on feedback from our members. we know that some of students with behavioral and academic challenges are not provided with appropriate and responsive services within the charter school system. having deeper accountability around how students are receiving access to essential support and the vehicle to

advocate for the resources needed, is vital to the success of our children. the resolution also supports and protects current sfusd families from the intrusion of additional charter schools. it would give a voice to the community and allow us the opportunity to partner with the districts and co- location that is being considered. we implore you to pass a resolution and create -- that will create an opportunity for our families to advocate what is best for their students, regardless to whether their students are in sfusd public school systems or in a public charter. [applause] [cheering] >> hello. can you hear me? hello. sorry. my name is leslie. i am -- i work at m.l.k. at middle school and they work with close the gap. and part of the work we are doing with the coalition is not to work on this resolution around charter schools but to also advocate for community

schools. i am here to talk a little bit about the impact of the community school strategy on the community. i have some handy-dandy one pagers. some of the things you have seen in the implementation, and some of the things that we have seen us we have had suspensions go from 118 several years ago, to only 22 last year and the year 14 and 15, we had 2100 office disciplinary referrals. last year we only had 126. in the last three years, our scores have increased nine and ten%, which is significantly higher than the district average that is including our african-american youth and our students -- we have also seen increases as well. some of the other impacts that are harder to measure is that we are one of the two schools in the school district that offer a full dental clinic on site.

and 100% of our youth have been seen in this clinic and have had gum disease. which means that they are not receiving regular dental care. and they are now receiving that. before, we only had 20 students that were eating breakfast daily at school and now we have over 200 youth eating breakfast daily every single day. i think some of the things that are really important for us is we are focused on teaching and learning. we are not wraparound. we are focused on destruction. we have partners that are filling in gaps for our youth. we have multiple partners working to implement project -based learning. i am in awe of community partners working with issues of literacy in all of their programming. we are specifically working with a cultural identity class and are mandated class to provide in class health supports and career awareness as well as arts integration and civic learning in our school. i really want to be -- >> thank you. [applause] [cheering]

>> good evening. my name is gaby. i am the school social worker at hillcrest elementary school in san francisco. i'm here to continue the discussion of what leslie was sharing about the impact on the community school model. thank you for welcoming us to speak today. we are here because we want to be part of the conversation starting in sfusd around community schools. i want to take a moment to share some history with you. hillcrest is actually the original community school in san francisco. [cheering] >> i know right? we started our journey without even knowing there was a name for what we are trying to do. 2004, with a new administration and large-scale turnover, we began to move towards a model. >> i'm sorry to interrupt you. this is about the charter schools. not about community schools. i don't have a card on you. >> i thank you are under the community schools under the public comment. >> i had said --

>> but it is not under this. this is about tractor school specifically. >> we are coming with close the gap coalition to talk about some of the other aspects of that which is for us, the community school model. that is the answer that is what we have seen academic growth with. >> i have you under general comment. finish your thought and i will pull you from the general comment. >> thank you can work so we realized that we needed to move towards a school model that viewed authentic partnerships and families, community partners and city agencies essential to our success. it seems the best and logical way to support students and families so that high-quality instruction can take place in the classroom. that work continued in hillcrest was awarded in 2013 the national community school award for excellence. in 2014, we lost our community school coordinator and that loss had significant impacts on our progress --dash progress and

alignment as a community school. we are 85-95% free and reduced lunch. we have over 30 of our students living in hope and staff housing am i allowed to continue since we had that discussion? thank you, so much. right now, over 19-20% of students are classified as homeless. we are currently looking at that our model is robust and we have 35 plus partners right now and we really need someone to coordinate and align the services. we know part of the conversation that is happening right now is around the prop g. community school funding and we want to humbly come to you and ask to come into the conversation. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] [cheering] >> and leaving, commissioners and student commissioners and superintendent matthews. i am susan solomon, we are

making this link. i'm speaking in favor of the charter school accountability resolution. thank you. and we are making a link between charter school accountability and community schools. because, as part of close the gap coalition, we like to present solutions and not just problems. we feel that accountability for charter schools is very important. we also feel that sometimes what families are looking for are the kinds of services and education that students can get in a community school. so we are looking forward to being able to look at school plans and budgets moving forward to. we think community school coordinators are a helpful way to bring us to where we need to be. thank you, very much. [cheering] [applause]

>> it is on? >> yes, speak into it. >> hi. my name is rosalyn. i am in the seventh grade and we are from children change. we would like to talk about charter schools. we want to make sure that charter schools share with their students and their family and community about the school. and how it affects our community [applause] >> we want to know that our

friends and siblings that charter schools are being disciplined and good ways and our parents know about everything that happens then. we are also concerned about how pacific schools do not have enough supplies and we have to share with charter schools. we want what is best for all students. [cheers and applause] >> we want to learn about how charter schools are affecting students, especially students of colour. this is important for them. [cheers and applause] >> thank you for listening. [applause] >> annabelle king. we want to say thank you for

this resolution. we ask for your yes votes on it. i see you have heard us say, it is not we are taking a position -- [inaudible]. [applause] >> i am a -- representative for charter schools. i'm here to read a letter. [inaudible] we are proud of the work we do. and to provide new and different methods of educating.

[applause] >> i am around a margin. parents for public schools of san francisco. i am here to announce the board has taken a position of resolution. we really support anything that brings parents more tools to understand the choices that they are making for their students. we don't take a position for or against charter schools but we love anything that brings transparency and more information to parents. along with that, we would propose that their preamble of the resolution be made a little more value neutral because we think we need to collect some more data before making assumptions about charter schools. [applause] >> good evening board members. my name is patrick walsh. representing the charter schools association. prior to joining --

>> order, please. >> prior to joining, i was on the other side. i was in authorizer. i lead charter oversight and special education and federal programs for the state of louisiana. i closed down more than ten charter schools for failing to perform. failing to meet their academic expectations. [inaudible] >> a commitment to transparency and accountability. [inaudible] >> they are not shirking their responsibilities. they want to be held accountable with fair oversight. this is why i was so taken aback upon reading the initial version of the resolution in june. the resolution lumped all charters together and broadly attacked the great and good work happening across our schools. i appreciate that commissioner sanchez was willing to adjust some of the language and reduce some of the tensions in the -- evident in the original version.

i also appreciate the time and the experience of the families here. i will make myself available if i can help work with other charters or build bridges they are. but i do want to remind the board that there are thousands of families choosing charter schools in our cities every single day. [inaudible] >> first, the wear as a clause that charters do not track and publicly report data. [inaudible] >> i will ask you to remove that resolution. prop 39 is misleading. [inaudible] >> the prop 39 regulations are wonky and time bound balance. the additional hurdles and additional requirements on the staff -- [inaudible]. >> we ask a charter representative be specifically named on the oversight committee

it states different communities. all we are asking for is a charter representative on that committee and we hope you will agree to that. >> thank you. >> good evening. i am the principal of cape san francisco college prep. i want to thank the board for our capacity to work together both as my time is a founding stop -- staff member. we opened in 2013, and during my tenure as principal when i started last year. i sat before you ten months ago with the renewal for our school which you unanimously approved. [inaudible] >> being in front of this audience around this petition because i do understand that there is a prevailing thought as though charter schools, specifically charters in san francisco, are trying to shirk responsibilities or not be transparent around it. i was thinking last night around when i was trying to get the charter renewed and i was thinking about the comments of

commissioner norton who thanked us for our genuine engagement and discussion and explore in the collaboration. and commissioners who had made comments about having a longer conversation around partnership. i'm thinking about commissioner cook. he explicitly said you were -- you wanted to open the door to building community with all of us. i'm thinking about what really is resonating with me is this particular note. if we are working together versus working against each other, we would have innovation. what this is doing is causing division and causing something that is not sustainable. i would love for us to really work together and bring that to our students. and while i wish i could take credit for those words, those are not my words. they are yours. what i was thinking about last night as i was preparing for this, i was thinking, what i am hearing, really, is the board asking for collaboration and community, which i have absolutely problem with. do you remember the way i closed

my speech last year great telling you that the door is open. we have had to remove the cone for lockdown reasons but you can come on in any single time that you want to be able to see what we are doing. but what i want to say here is i will be very quick. we are welcoming. [inaudible] >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> hi. i am a parent. [inaudible] >> i think this forms a basis for more cooperation. without transparency and accountability, we can't really have the kind of conversation that makes everyone feel comfortable with all the cooperation that will happen. and in fact, last week we heard

about for kids being ready to be kicked out of a charter school. [inaudible] >> this is the kind of thing that happens and no one wants it to happen. when we get this information, we can look and see what happens. [inaudible] thank you very much for sponsoring. [applause] >> ok. i have a few more cards but if you are not speaking, we will close public comment for this. questions and comments from board members, please?

>> ok. no questions or comments. >> thank you, very much to the community for coming out. this is clearly an issue that a lot of people have very strong feelings on. i did want to ask about their provision that charter schools are not provide -- required to put track and publicly report data to the same standard as sfusd schools. i understand from the charter school, this is the issue that they are required to provide these things. i. i wanted to ask the office whether additional reporting requirements that you are thinking of, or is that something that we can compromise on? >> ok. there are things that we require of our schools to report on. interactions with police, and other types of data that charter schools don't have to do that we demand of ourselves.

that we would like that charter schools to also provide to us. we get this annual updates from the department. those are important data points for us to look at. we don't have those for charter schools. i don't know if there was others but i spoke with council about this and i don't know if there were other areas that we mandate out of our own schools in reporting data that charter schools don't have to. >> the only other data i can think of, commissioner, is the intense data dive we do around student discipline. and did socioeconomic divide and type of offences. it is pretty robust and much more than what the state requires. >> thank you. >> thank you for that clarification. i do want to commend those schools that do follow the brown act. it is really important that school communities know when the board his meeting and what the agendas are. and there has been numerous

proposals at the state level to require charter schools to follow the brown act that have not been successful. so i am really encouraged to see charter schools in san francisco step up and do that and take that additional step in terms of transparency. i do think that we have responsibilities to have more accountability and encourage more transparency among the charters. i understand that some charters have taken a step forward. i would like to see all of them, uniformly, take a step forward towards more transparency and accountability. it sounds like there are quite a few schools that already -- they already do some of these things and they don't disagree with the spirit of the resolution. so i will be in support of the resolution. >> commissioner norton? >> thank you. i also am going to vote in

support of this resolution. i want to first say why. i also have some concerns. i think we should continue to think about and consider these concerns. in my ten years on the school board, i have gotten increasingly frustrated with the way that the state's charter law and the board of education ties the hands of local school boards it does not allow us to address the concerns that we heard from the malcolm x parents tonight. we are so strictly limited in how we can conduct the prop 39 process to offer safes to charter schools. there is no way to engage communities around that. and what results is that communities who are already feeling somewhat abandoned by us

, suddenly find themselves having to share their space with another school with all the difficulties that that entails. that is just one example of how frustrating this situation is for a local school board member. i read recently that california is the second-largest charter authorizer after l.a. and this is the same start -- state of california that says that they celebrate local control and created the local control funding formula and the local control and accountability plan. it is just talking out of both sides of their mouth as far as i'm concerned. i am just tired of it. we need to do something to fix state laws on this issue and we shall level the playing field. this resolution definitely attempts to do that. that is why i am supportive. i also am concerned because i think i hear the objections of

some of the partners in the charter schools that we have authorized and charter schools that i have voted for, including reauthorizing tiff and gateway public schools. and i do not think our charter partners are perfect. i do not think that we are perfect. i have tremendous respect, in particular, for sharon oakland back at the gateway public schools that have engaged in a lot of very productive dialogue. i think she shares our commitment to equity and social justice and wants what is best for kids. when sharon stands up and says that she had some issues with this resolution, i take notice. so i am just noting that we paint all of our charter partners as villains at our peril. i don't think that we want to start a war with our existing charters.

while i have really strong feelings about new charters coming into the school district, and i also have strong feelings about transparency and about kids being pushed out, which is why i will vote for the resolution. i do want to speak to say that i don't think all charters in our district are created the same and there are charters that are doing very good work with students and people who care very deeply about the work they're doing with students and that needs to be noted. thank you. >> thank you. any other comments? >> i wanted to thank everyone who came up for public comment. especially all of you with young children and the students for speaking. [applause] miss ebony ebony for sharing your story. since i have been on the board,

throughout my career i have had a lot of issues around what seems to be a strategy of pushing students out and making yourself look good to compete with enrolment. this resolution is in the spirit of trying to address that. when you constantly hear stories of people systemically being pushed out, the assumption would be that we have created this narrative that that is happening , but this resolution tries to bring together is it happening or not? should we have control or not? should local parents have control? so i'm excited we are trying to accomplish this with the resolution. i appreciate the advocacy from coleman and my cosponsor, commissioner sanchez. having grown up in the city, a lot of my personal ties are connected to the people that went through charter schools. schools like leadership high

school, it we public schools, i have a lot of great professional and personal relationships with people that are associated with those communities. so all of you, as a cosponsor, i say keep up the good work. i love you dearly and i hope we will work more together. and like one of the sisters in public comment said, if this you don't fit -- if the shoe don't fit. [laughter] >> this is the start of a new way -- a new era of transparency i am looking forward to seeing what it brings about. and of course, i will be voting yes. [applause] [cheering] >> commissioner sanchez? >> thank you. so i referenced at the beginning of the reading of the resolution that i have been in conversation with some of the charter school leaders. we did change some of the whereas language so it didn't try to paint all charter schools

the same. with the same wide paintbrush. by no means do i think that all charter schools are evil. i taught at a charter school for seven years. i approved every charter school from 2000-2008. i'm not an enemy. i do think that the rules that govern the charge and does charter schools deftly disadvantage disadvantaging on charter schools and districts like ours that disapprove of a charter school petition, and then they go to the state board on appeal and they rubberstamp the charter. and then they have to be co- located, at this point, with schools that are fragile and vulnerable like we just heard tonight at malcolm x academy. and then, we are all measured by the same measuring stick, which is the state test. and the charter schools, inevitably say, and again not all charter school say this, but they say look how well we are doing compared to your kids?

that gets into the issue of who is served by charter schools? charter schools -- [inaudible]. we are not measured by the same measuring stick. and that gets into the issue of who is served by charter schools charter schools, some of them, at least, will definitely appeal

to the state and go over our heads for approval by the state board of education. they want to serve. it is a nuanced issue, i know. it is real. at all so, when one of the speakers referenced to being counselled out or pushed out of charter schools, the students that are pushed out, where do they go? they do not go to another charter school. they come to us. we are happy to serve them. it then again, we test them and they invariably do not do well but they have been pushed out of the school and we are compared again. by our state test scores. it is not fair and there is no reciprocity. when i was a principal at cleveland education, if i did ever council a student out of cleveland, i could not counselled them to go to a different school or to another school. they would end up in a school that was nearby to their home to have room with a lot of other

kids that were in crisis. so there is no reciprocity. that law needs to change as well until charter school -- community members realize this is an uneven playing field and that we are losing in that battle as the noncharter school, as a board that serves our schools, i feel like we will be at odds. i really think the charter school school folks need to step up. marielle booker is astroturf inc. their way through the city to open up another charter school. it will be colocated in the charter school -- in the bayview it is wrong. it is absolutely wrong and we need to do something about it. the anguish that has been driven last year and what will happen in the future is what is driving this reform effort that we are moving here tonight. i want to thank close the gap and coleman advocates particularly for working on this

resolution with us. the san francisco family unit and parents for public school board. the community advisory that spoke tonight in the san francisco democratic party. as well as alison collins who has worked on this with us for their efforts to make this as good a resolution as possible for us to move forward. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. so i have a few comments myself. you know, in our district, we actually have a reputation of being pretty tough on our charters are having charters be approved in our district. when folks in oakland -- they have over 35 or 40 charters in their district and, you know, we have good relationships with many of our charters. we have challenging ones with some of our charters. and with the resolution, i think a lot of what we are asking for

it, or many of the issues that come up during renewals anyway. so that they are things that we had concerns around with regards to fiscal management and so his you emotional impacts on students. and then how that relates to us as more traditional schools, is something we have never been able to lay out. so we would like to -- there is also some things that really impact us that we are not -- that are not part of the conversation. and that is when we have charters that are contemplating expansion. but we are not part of that conversation. so that creates a lot of really challenging situations for us because we have an ongoing planning through facilities on where we will be between now and the next 2-70 years. we don't take into account -- we do do a margin of placements for charters if need to be, but it

is not because we know. because charters are talking to us about their desires to expand but because that is how it has been historically and we are often times left out of the conversation. this idea of cooperation is a really critical one. you do share space with many of our schools. i have to tell you, for someone who has supported charter schools over the many years, particularly those that work really well with us, we have also had opportunities to do cooperation. i have to say that i was extremely disappointed in one of the charters that we worked with when that was the basis of the place we located them, that was the basis of the renewal that we did with them. at the end of the day, the cooperation on partnerships that we talked about never came to fruition. and you can't do that to our kids. they are counting on these opportunities at these relationships and these partnerships to a large degree.

when you want to talk about it from a cooperation perspective, and when that doesn't happen, that trickles down. we have also done things when we have had shared efforts around the parcel tax and some other things. we have also have had some challenges with many charter schools that we do not approve. they are out there and in our district. that we end up having to accommodate. if you think about the number of charters that we have actually, not approved, it is a significant amount. we have standards that we are looking to. i think that what is in this resolution dot my colleagues have crafted, really speaks to that. i thought that the comment about new orleans and closing ten of the schools, when nearly all of the district in new orleans are charter schools, speaks volumes

about what is happening in many of the other cities. create -- where charges have come in, and, you know, i have talked to the superintendent about this and we worked on this and we are working on the parcel tax. we had these conversations with very key charter schools where he wanted to talk about a couple of things, actually. one, which is that innovate has -- when they came into this district, they came on full board they stood behind a lot of the charters you did not know that they were part of what innovate was talking about. and so they actually -- that was the first time they had even heard about innovate and that innovate was pushing forward discharge or conversation that they were not part of, nor did they agree with. that was a really important conversation for us to have. because it really did speak to who was showing up in these spaces who are not in collaboration with the school

district. so we are seeing more and more of that. but what we talked about recently was this m.o.u. that he had in san jose with many of the charters. that enabled conversations that broke down some of these barriers and these misperceptions about charters and enabled the school district and charters to work more closely together. i think, as we start to move towards information and data gathering like this, we can get closer to the m.o.u. that we have talked about. and then the last thing i will say, partnerships are really critical. i have spent my entire career on the school board building partnerships and i think those are really important. and just a couple of days ago, i referred a family to gateway because of their particular way of dealing with students and this particular student would have been a perfect fit. and so we have -- the way in

which we think about opportunities for our kids, i think are really important. education is very personal for our families. we often times are out there advocating to prove to people the public education is a cornerstone to democracy and that public schools are critical but i have also heard that if we continue to have charter schools coming into our school district the way that we have, without putting any measures in place or any accountability in place, then this is not going to be sustainable. and that was from another commissioner. he is absolutely right. we cannot continue to have the kinds of relationships that we have without some accountability in place. because it is not sustainable for the district and it is not sustainable for our kids and families. so tonight, i will be supporting the resolution as well. [applause] >> any other comments?

>> roll call vote, please. [roll call] [applause] [cheering] >> thank you. ok. so this item was taken out of order. if you are hanging around for other things, great, if not this is a good time to transition while we go into section c. which eyes our consent calendar. i need a motion and a second players -- please. >> second. >> thank you. i don't have any public comment on any consent items. if you could leave the room

quietly, please, our board is still in session. any items withdrawn by the superintendent? >> no. >> thank you. any items removed for first reading by the board? seeing none. any items suffered by the board of superintendent by discussion vote tonight? seeing none. roll call vote, please on the consent calendar. [roll call] >> thank you. section e. is our proposals for action. item one is being postponed and will be heard in the october 9 th meeting of board policy student assignment and board policy of local high school admissions policy. i tim two, employee travel

expenses and board policy, employee property reimbursement was moved and seconded at a prior meeting. could i get a report for the september 6 meeting? >> the rule for this on that date and forwarded to the full board with a positive recommendation. >> thank you. superintendent? your designee? >> general council danielle huck >> this item asks that the board approved board policy 3350 employee travel expenses and board policy 4056.3. >> thank you. we have no public speakers on this. any comments or questions by the board of superintendents? do you have a question? no. ok. seeing none, roll call vote, please. [roll call]

>> thank you. section e., item three is board policy 514 h. childcare and development on board 5148.3, preschool childhood early education. this was moved and seconded at a party meeting. >> it was also discussed and forwarded to the full board for a positive recommendation. >> superintendent? >> once again, general counsel, danielle huck. >> great, thank you. roll call -- comments on the board or superintendent? roll call vote, please. >> thank you. [roll call]

>> thank you. ok. and then i tim four has just been approved. -- and then item four has just been approved. our next item is section f. public comments. all right. so we have quite a few items on this. if you are still here for board policy 5120.1, which was the lowell high school school and the student assignment issue, and would still like to speak, this is the time for you to speak, which is public comment. john, or cs, deborah, mark,

sarah, annie, gabriella, and marie show. or any of those folks here still this evening? ok. come on up. >> good evening. i'm speaking on behalf of of the african-american parent advisory council. and we wanted to address the board in regards to the e-mail that we sent earlier. they said it would be reviewed and have it noted on record we stand by supporting the amendment. to add a preference for students attending willie brown middle school who meet the delayed out our requirements. and just a reminder, at this

point in history, in 1957, the little rock nine had to be escorted into school so they could access education. it was rightfully there is. they were not getting at the schools that they were at. his to the ears that are listing in the eyes that are watching are keeping a reminder that history does repeat itself and things come back up but we will not stand by quietly and watch if that change needs to be happening. that is all. >> thank you. [applause] >> i have another set of speakers. these are on a couple of different items. i will call out all the names and you are welcome to come on up. kevin, peter, esther, jessica, ignacio, grows -- rose, paula.

did everybody leave from monroe? ok. come on up. if your name has been called please come on up. naomi. let's see. tommy, siobhan, jordan, lydia, tracy, roberto, valerie, mildred josh, knowledge, and then i have alex and.

come on up, you guys. >> good evening. i am a parent. [inaudible] i am coming here to you devastated today. my son is here with me he is right there. he was at the gun incident that happened on august 30th. i was on campus at 11:50 am in communication with the principal

-- [inaudible]. >> i have yet to receive an apology. i got a thank you letter -- [inaudible]. >> the gun went off -- [inaudible]

>> my family is torn apart. [inaudible] >> good evening. my name is lydia sanchez. i am roberto process and the mother of the child that was incorrectly criminalized in the balboa gun incident by the media due to the improper handling of the incident at both sfusd and sfpd. upon meeting with the administrators, we requested a letter of apology so that my son 's name could be cleared. the document we received from the superintendent adds insult to injury and did -- and is

disrespectful at best. we request that this letter during our mediation in which we asked for an apology for what my child was put through and allowed to have done to him. he had it pointed to his head. instead, we got an ambiguous response with no inkling of an apology but an acknowledgement of an unfortunate experience, which is lacking responsibility and accountability. in addition, the document assigned me homework for me to provide the district with the information of the media outlets that showed his image so the district can send communications to them. there's a department that can handle that on its own. what i request from you are two things. assistance in enforcing already existing policies, as well as a thorough assessment of the incident so that no other child is criminalized and traumatized in the way my child was. in addition, three other black and brown children, which all of

you tonight have claimed to be very concerned about. lastly, please assist in providing the apology my son needs to begin the healing process and to clear his name. please assist and do not be part of an administration that is only concerned with covering your behind and worrying about a lawsuit. worry about the families that were affected. [applause] [please stand by]

on how to repair the heart. intervention tomorrow. thank you. [ applause ] >> hi there, i'm josh davidson, chapter president here in the school district. we also with the city and county represent the mother of the impacted child that we're talking about tonight, and i want to say a couple of things. in particular, there's no reason to make an mou with sfusd if we're not going to protect them. it's crucial that we don't parade innocent children in handcuffs in front of the media. i can't believe i'm saying that sentence, so this is san francisco. our children deserve to be treated with respect. our parents deserve to be notified when the police detain their children and to be present for questioning of minor

children. the parent of this child was already on campus. the principal knew it. the child was questioned without his parents present. it's wildly inappropriate. i'll also say this, sciu has been asking for a district emergency response committee to deal with issues exactly like this for years. it is now my understanding as of a meeting i had on an unrelated topic last thursday that such a committee exists now. they've not been invited to participate. i would encourage you to extend that invitation at the earliest possible moment. thank you very much. >> thank you. my name is naomi aguilar, and i'm a coleman school advocate representative. i'd like to bring to your attention our school district, an issue we are facing as parents and grandparents.

the students and the fifth graders started, it's overcrowded and understaffed. it has been this way since we started the school year. we don't have a plan in place to solve this issue at monroe or any of the other teachers' classrooms throughout this district. we have loose students from class at an alarming rate, and it has reached a crisis level for me. if we had only lost one, however, we have lost quite a few more, and that's unacceptable. please, i ask you, take care of this immediately. thank you. [ applause ] >> good evening. i'm here to update you on a situation that i talked to you

about at the last august board meeting, where i shared my frustration and asked for your help in addressing the inequities and injustices occurring in room 227 at monroe elementary school. my son was in that fifth grade class with no permanent teacher, no instruction, and what i can only describe as chaos. when i left here that night, i was hopeful that someone would come to our aid, that someone would help, that we would become a high priority for the district and the board, but this did not happen. nothing changed. in fact, my son, like many other kids from room 227 began to take the blame for the chaos. trips to the principal, trips to other classrooms, amid other various forms of punishment became the norm for him and his classmates. just last week a student was suspended. subs, staff, and administers have made it clear to the kids and the parents that the children are to blame.

they have been called bad, poorly behaved, and all of this while the administration and staff refuse to take responsibility for their own mistakes, behavior, and actions. i left my son there for as long as i could, but decided to move him out of the district after a string of unacceptable incidents that the principal has yet to address. in fact, the principal has stopped responding to any parent concerns. my son is one of 12 children, 12, from room 227 whose parents have had to make the difficult choice to leave our beloved monroe. 12. from one class. and we can't ignore that ten out of these 12 are boys. many of whom were subjected to punishment in lieu of support, stability, and structure that they so badly needed in those first weeks of school. the educational injustice that this community of mostly latino

children has faced is criminal, and i urge you, our elected board, to treat it as such. your job is to oversee the district and defend your constituents, the children of sfusd. they are waiting, and they need you. and now i'd like to introduce the rest of the parents. the following few will be in spanish with an interpreter. thank you. [ speaking in spanish ]