tv Government Access Programming SFGTV February 24, 2019 8:00am-9:01am PST
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today. [applause] i was hoping you will join me in brief version of happy birthday. you cool with that? [singing happy birthday]. now the black version -- [laughter] just joking. >> commissioner collins: thank you. >> president cook: we start this meeting in great american educator and activist paula barbara jordan who said for all of insecurity, we cannot leave
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>> president cook: superintende. >> good evening everyone. i like to begin by introducing our new deputy superintendent of instruction anikia ford. [applause] deputy superintendent ford has served as the district's assistant superintendent for the bay view schools if the past three years. she serves as chief of schools in oakland and began her career as a teacher and principal. ms. ford is a strong equity-minded leader who embodies our core values in commitmenting to serving our students. we look to our leadership to realize the graduate profile and
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to ensure that each and every student has what they need to thrive in 21st century. we're excited to have you join us and welcome. [applause] i want to express my deep appreciation to mayor breed and the san francisco board of supervisors for considering our request regarding the educational revenue augmentation fund. we're very thankl thankful to a1 members who set aside eraf funds for proposition g over the next two years. this is a huge relief to our entire san francisco district community. san franciscans know how important public school educators are to successful city and in this eraf discussion they learn about the challenges our schools face as a result of
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chronic underfunding. which prop g was meant to help address before it was challenged in court. after all, the state funds us through the same formula as schools in the central valley and in other lower cost areas which makes local funding solutions incredibly important. i want to thank you uesf and labor partner and the p.p.a., p.p.s., san francisco family union and numerous staff, parents and students for sharing your compelling stories with our city's policy makers. up shared about why we so badly need eraf support. it is clear your individual voices move and motivated our city leaders to include our educators and schools among the many significant needs that these funds must reach. we thank you. last week was a national school counselor's week. we want to take this time to
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offer our deep appreciation in helping students achieve academic success, social emotional development and clear planning. national school counselors seek sponsored by the major school counselor's association. we're proud that all of our middle and high school counseling program have i lined their school program to the asba school counsel roaors. february is black history month. san francisco unified schools will celebrate in many different ways. in the past few weeks i had the pleasure participating in read allowed this month. there's a wonderful celebration on february 21st, which is the 24th annual african-american
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honor roll and candle light ceremony put on by the san francisco alliance black school educators and the african-american community. third through 12th grade, african-american students achieved 3.0 or higher will be honored. all participating students are gather at 5:00 and the program will begin at 6:00 with the reception immediately following. this event will be held at st. mary's cathedral. finally, all san francisco unified school district schools and offices will be closed this monday to commemorate president's day. president cook, that ends my thoughts. >> president cook: thank you dr. brief note about speaker cards before the report. speaker cards for the regular agenda if you wish to address the board of education, members of the public are reminded individual can complete a speaker card prior to the item being called and presented to
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our executive assistant. importantly according to board rules and procedures, speaker cards will not be accepted for item already recorded. >> good evening everyone. last night, leaders from the youth commission presented their preliminary budget. the youth commission will also host a tabling session during our upcoming annual youth summit. thank you presenters. next up on the retreat. city leaders will be partaking in a team bonding retreat on saturday february from
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10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. we would like to celebrate our work from the past semester, provide leadership training and team bonding. plans for our upcoming youth summit and relax and enjoy. this event will take place at goldengate park. next up, i really love my spot on the board and i am excited to work with our wonderful board members, i guess it's time for me tenants that application for next year's delegate is open now. it's a great leadership opportunity that enables the students who represent sfusd student voice and build a better sfusd. it is a fun and rewarding position. i can't tell enough how much i learned. if you like to apply, please see your representative for an application. the deadline is march 1, 2019. our next meeting will be on february 23rd at 5:00 p.m. in the board of education room. it's a public console and anyone
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is welcome to attend our meeting. if you like to attend and make a presentation, please contact our supervisor. thank you. >> president cook: thank you. number 4, recognition of resolutions accommodation. dr. matthews. >> this evening, we will begin our -- we are recognizing african-american students excelling in advanced place in stem courses. i'm proud to introduce this recognition this evening. president cook will explain. students aren't here this evening. we're recognizing these student who excelled in advanced placement, science, technology and engineering and stem courses. i like to pass it over to president contact to explain the
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students. >> president cook: the past three years wive -- we've been highlighting african-american students that gotten three or above on the stem topic for a.p. classes. those students are not here tonight. i'll read their names. [reading student names] certificates will be handed out to them at their school. [applause] b, recognizing the state champion lincoln high school varsity football team. [applause] >> also tonight we're recognizing the lincoln high varsity football team for winning the california federation division, 6a state
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championship. this fantastic team defeated orange glenn who is the san diego division 5 champion and this team also made history not only was that the first state football title in lincoln's history, it was the first championship game ever played here in san francisco. and to top it off, they had a perfect 13-0 season. i like to invite sherry to introduce the coaches and the team. >> good evening dr. matthews board president cook, board vice president sanchez, board commissioners, deputy
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superintendent and of course all the parents in the audience tonight. i want to talk to you about the young men. not only they are student athletes they have the average of 3.0 g.p.a. not only they are leaders on and off the court, the most importantly, they have a heart of gold. they are very respectful when people need help in the schools, they are first ones to help us out. i thank you for that. they will be amazing young men. i want to thank the parents, the coaches for all the support you've given us. i like to introduce the coach. >> thank you for taking the time to acknowledge our great school and our great team. it wassal prett -- it was a prey
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amazing year. in regard the level of football played was unsurpassed. it wasn't wasn't just one person. it was 33 people working in unison. amazing thing we want to teach our kids about being yourself, being comfortable within yourself to take maybe a lesser role. i'm very fortunate to be these young men and women, our managers and our great principal and great parents. i have one kid is like a legacy. we're going to miss him. he's been with us for 15 years. his older brothers, both played for me. they won turkey day championships. it's pretty amazing to have a guy who's been with our program
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since he was like five years old come out and play for us. it was so many great stories i couldn't tell you anymore. i wanted you guys to get along. thank you very much. i really appreciate the support and hopefully we'll do better things next year. greatest thing we're doing it. thank you. >> good evening everyone. i'm that kid that coach was talking about. i have been part of the mustang family for most of my life i learned a lot of responsibility.
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it taught me a lot. this season was really special. lot of the guys were four-year players. some my best friends i made ever sisince my freshman year. as we kept winning, we really -- there was lot of pressure. once we got to that championship, we knew we were untouchable. coming into state, it's a new experience for all of us. i don't think any of us played in front of that many people before. it was really an honor and it was a really fun experience to represent our city and become the champs. thank you guys. >> comments from commissioners.
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tenderline elementary school. she has made the honor roll you want to thank you for the support. i like to welcome commissioner lam. the pac welcomes appointed commissioner jenny lam to the board of education. we hope to meet with her soon and looing forward to working with her to serve sfusd students and families. the pac has been working with our community partners from the local control accountability plan to develop the stakeholder engagement campaign. this year marks the sixth year of community out reach to share information about the budget process. the objective are to increase transparency, understand and accountability about "pistons half-timsfusd'sbudget process.
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it encourage families to participate in the planning process at their chosen schools. for the past few years we saw the stakeholders connecting the dots. during stakeholder engagement, we draw parallel to connect the dots between the following. l-cap and balanced score card, how the state fund, public schools and the way "pistons half-timsfusdallocates resource. focal students prioritized in
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our district. thank you. >> over the years, we have heard from 2000 family and community members about the resources, promising practices and support on making a difference. at the same time we heard about the challenges on the ground and it's not always evident how issues are being addressed in way that can goes with the goals identified in the outcome. for this reason, one of the objectives for stakeholder engagement is to strengthen the implementation of l-cap. the intent is to bridge a connection between the feedback we get across the district to improve implementation of key strategies, services and practices identified in the
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also recognized there are families that will not attend school meeting or a townhall gathering. to which some of the families, we corroborate with communities who are working with these families. for example, last year we met with the families leaving at the hamilton family centre to learn from their experiences. in the past, we have reached families who are foster parents and the ymca in chinatown. each year we reflect on who we have heard from and who is missing from the conversation. we prioritize schools that have a significant number of focus students including the schools
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>> happy birthday. happy birthday to you. >> i wanted to give a brief update and let you know that the l-cap task force will be providing a presentation to the budget and business services committee on march 6th and have a more in-depth conversation about budget planning and l-cap process. i wanted to provide that update. >> ms. collins: i appreciate the report and the time you put into it. one of the comments made at who is at the table and who is missing and being intentional about outreach, that's an amazing thing. i just appreciate you're being to thoughtful, including community voices. so thank you. >> we are so glad to work with
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all of you to make a better district. >> president cook: thank you. >> thank you. >> president cook: just a quick heads-up, okay, you can go. [laughter] announcement about the changes in the agenda, so after 6-c, i'm going to move up a presentation from my brothers' keeper initiative. i'm going to move public comment after that. i see a lot of folks with young kids here. so you can say what you need to share and go. get back home. after 6-c, my brothers keeper and then public comment. so now we have b, report from community advisory council for special education.
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>> good evening, superintendent matthews, president cook and commissioners, welcome commissioner lam. the community advisory committee on special education appreciates that opportunity to present updates to our 2018-19 priorities. the cac advocates for effective special education programs and services and advises the board of education on special education priorities. the cac is a state mandated
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organization and the cac must sign off on the local plan and budget before it can be sent to the california department of education. we hold monthly meetings on the 4th thursday of every month. our remaining meetings for this school year are february 28, sfusd special education department will give overview of transition for every level, pre-k through college and career. march meeting is a community meeting with aapac and kal with w, special guest larry p will share his experience as a student of color and still struggles to read to this day. on april 25, the cac will hold the advocates worthy of excellence award.
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this is a special evening and we invite you all to attend. community members can nominate individuals who are going above and beyond to support our students in special education programs. additional topics we will cover this year include the sfusd budget and service plan. the caa is currently seeking nominations for board members for the upcoming year. they're open to any current cac member. >> good evening. the community advisory committee is actively involved in collaborating a district and others. they partnered with advisories groups and the family engagement
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team of the unified school district to host the second annual family alignment summit. this helps the cac build leadership skills and strengthens our alignment with other committees. also in november, they partnered with the african parent advisory committee to host a cafe. the cac has been able to increase outreach to parents of african-american students. on december 3, sfusd kicked off inclusive schools week. support for families with children of disabilities helped us cap off the week by sponsoring a screening of the film, intelligent lives, by dan habib. the cac will participate in a
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resource conference for the support of families with children with disabilities. we'll participate in a resource fair and host a panel discussion. this is a free event and all special education community members are invited to attend. on may 1st, the school district will join other cac members from across the state to lobby our legislators in sacramento for special education funding and legislation. it's a great opportunity to meet face-to-face with representatives and lend a voice. on may 4th, the cac will provide a workshop at the expo in oracle ballpark. previously at&t. this is a free annual event that focuses on the 1 in 5 students with learning and attention differences. this event combines guest
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speakers, workshops and resource fair with a celebration on the field. bring your kids and let them run the bases and play out in the field and catch balls. >> we want to point out this bright spot. on saturday, february 2nd, the first annual sfd was presented at city college. this was a meaningful day and kicks off a much needed annual event for our district. the cac would like to thank dr. matthews for his support and participation. city college of san francisco for hosting. and the sfusd for their implementation of the event. dr. matthews shared inspiring
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stories and moderated a panel discussion with individuals who spoke of empowerment and their experiences with college transition. in addition, over 25 college disabilities representatives and post-secondary resources from the bay area and out of state joined us and shared their knowledge with families through workshops and resource fair. feedback for this event was excellent. before today, i felt like my child and i were all alone. now i know there are lots of kids out there with similar struggleses and we don't have to give up on our dreams of college. community members can access the resources shared at the fair at the counseling and post-secondary success website. additional kudos to cnps for all
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their help and giving help on this. a lot of families were very excited about it. thank you. so just to recap, our priorities for the 2018-19 school year. to improve outcomes for students receiving special education services, reading intervention, social-emotional support and staffing stability. these priorities also align as was mentioned earlier by the l-cap stakeholder engagement team and the other advisory committees and their priorities. so, to follow up on reading interventions, some of this is a recap of what we gave you back in september. we're excited. this is the first year we'll be presenting to you three times. we present normally september
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and june and we're excited to add this mid year presentation as well. so reading intervention, this has been a really -- talk about bright spots -- this is another one of them. we've been working for a couple of years with curriculum and instruction and the amazing work they've been doing to improve the efficacy provided. particularly focused on students with learns differences resulted to the law ab-1369 that went into effect three years ago. i think it is. just wanted to point out a couple of things. so we started with the pilot program last year. you can see the data on the screen in front of you. we've been doing -- we, as a district, the royal we, have been doing a whole lot of training of staff around better screening for students to the
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effect of almost 800 children have been screened and identified for needing additional either assessment or intervention in just the early years, kindergarten, first and second grade. so the pilot has been really beneficial in that area. the cac would still love to see a program addressing middle school and high school student. that is still an area of need. and we have a big question with the 800 students who are undergoing further screening, what is going to happen if they're identified for further intervention? are we planning on hiring more staff? how will we take this to the next level? i have to commend the curriculum and the instruction department. they've been fantastic in working with us, in working with
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decoding dyslexia and addressing a all of the concernses that have been raised throughout the program. that have been raised throughout the program. thank you. social-emotional support. we've had a lot of bright spots around social-emotional supports, too. it's important to focus on the positive. we've had great amount of success this year, the cac, working with family engagement and empowerment. they've been really supportive of the cac and taken a lot of our feedback into account, the spa, the sfusd partnership category and they're working on a module around special education. that is going to -- the spa as you know will be rolled out at various schools to address needs related to parent engagement. we've been invited to attend and
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participate in the wellness and attendance work groups and been providing feedback on ways to disrupt some of our systemic status quos and move forward. so while there are bright spots, there is definitely areas where we would like to focus as well. we're excited to see some of the work that is coming out of student family support division. one of the things you'll find in your pact is the tiered fidelity inventory of school-wide pbif. we find socially, emotionally some of the greatest challenges in the data we see that is concerning surrounds our students receiving special education services. and better implementation from a school-wide standpoint of social-emotional supports is
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needed. we have quite uneven implementation at our school sites. so providing something like the tiered fidelity index along with the score card could be great way to help our schools focus more on social emotional supports. i also wanted to point out as a highlight, inclusive schools week, we appreciate everyone's participation. one of the things we do every year, we have a spreadsheet -- there is a whole bunch of information that goes out to every school. there is a pact, a letter from dr. matthews, pact from special education. this year, julia martin walked to every elementary school and made sure they had the information related to inclusive school week. but the follow-up spreadsheet, last year, 75 schools filled it out. this year, only 28.
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inclusive schools week for us is a good barometer how seriously schools take their models of inclusive practices. so that's very concerning to us as caa. -- cac. and professional development, we wanted to point out, we appreciate that everyone's time is very valuable. and, frankly, the conversations surrounding professional development days that were held around the instructional calendar concerned us quite a bit. one of the areas of need that we feel for staff, particularly general ed teachers, 76% of them sit in general ed, so we think that professional development surrounding inclusivity is critically important. in fact, we'd like to see -- we understand the challenges of getting subs, scheduling time out of the classroom, so we would like to even propose that some of these trainings go directly to the school site,
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rather than having the employees take time off, get subs, develop the lesson plan. it's difficult to train one person from a school site and have them take it back to their school site and implement something school-wide effectively. so moving right along. >> special education is a focal population issue as you know for sfusd. we wanted to share key statistics that we received both from our special education department and from our student support department. we are 12% of total sfusd population. breaks down to 7,000 students. i'd like to point out there is an additional 275 students in charter schools. another 200 students who receive
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special education supports in parochial schools and 150 in nonpublic schools. those numbers are very small, as lee said, 75% of our special education students receive the services in general education classrooms along with their general education peers. graduation rates for the students in the special ed programs have jumped up in 2018. it was 66% for 2017. new numbers are 73.5%. so this is a gain. but we would love to see those numbers higher. 88% is a graduation rate for our general education students, so we'd like to be closer to that level. and just for your notes, our numbers do not include students on certificate track, so that is not included in our percentage. the other thing we want to point out is that students of color
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are overrepresented in sfusd by 40%. they are referred into special education at a much higher rate. in these cases, just as in the case of larry p, many students are mislabelled and do not get the intervention they truly need. the high number of absences and suspensions in the charts below, so the blue lines that are jumping way up, those are chronic absenteeism by grade level. i'm sorry, it's not showing on the bottom here, but the numbers at the end, the higher numbers in the chart are middle and high school rates. so the numbers, for example, for absenteeism for our students are relatively small in elementary school. and you have a lot of special education students like my own, for instance, that have medical issues that keep them out of school. but what happens as you move
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into the higher grades is what we're seeing. we have lots of documentation we'll be sharing with you that students become disenfranchised. and anxiety and other things kick in. so you might drive them to school, but they don't want to get out of the car. we had many days in front of that school, my child's anxiety kept him from attending. it's happening all of the country, and all over san francisco. we get parents contacting us all the time with this issue. and the courts are actually starting to hear some of these cases. in a recent california office of administrative hearing decision, the garvey school district was found to denied to a student by not addressing the student's anxiety. because of his anxiety, the student refused to attend school and didn't make progress. in that case, the court found on the side of the family. so we provided that case
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information to all of you in your packet. again, we want to emphasize the importance of social emotional supports in our schools and they be implemented with equity and fidelity. it's not about being touchy-feeley with our kids, it's that we let them know that their teachers and administrators believe in them and believe that every one of them has the ability to succeed and a place and belongs at their school site. staffing is still a challenge at our school site. we're still hearing about staff leaving and shortages and, you know, there is a lot going on. we're really, really happy the funding came through for our
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teachers. that said, there is still pieces we need to be -- feel need to be picked up. one is really looking at case loads and how our special education teachers are being supported. so we are still hearing a lot about teachers feeling that their case loads are unmanageable and hearing of burnout. so there has been some discussions about a case coordinator position. somebody who would be responsible for scheduling iep meetings and some of the back end administrative work. this would free up some of our special education staff so they could spend more time with students. again as lee talked about, professional development is really important. we are -- one of the things that the special education department is doing and encouraging is to have the school site administrators be the representative at iep meetings.
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this helps with scheduling and can be a useful tool, but because we have so much turnover, we have administrators that don't yet know special ed and what is available at the district. so again making sure those individuals are fully informed before we send them into meetings is crucial. the other they're we would like to -- area we would like to see is implementation of ieps. there is still inconsistencies on procedures. we're aware that special education services is working on a handbook which will speak to policies, procedures and regulations. and we're very thankful this is happening, but we would also ask that more information about special education policies and procedures be included in the family engagement handbook which is already updated annually.
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and i think that's it. so i would like to -- oh, there was one more thing. lastly, the 2010 urban collaborative report which i think we bring up every time we're up here, has a bunch of ideas about how to restructure special education, sfusd special edition that addresses a lot of the case load concerns and implementation concerns we have. we have again printed out excerpts from that report and included those in your packets. so now we would like to thank you for your time. and we look forward to coming back in june. >> president cook: thank you. we do have a few people for public comment on the cac sped report. you'll have two minutes. meagan.
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[reading of names] >> hi, my name is meagan, i'm a cac board member. i am an analyst with the school district and active on our sped committee meeting and i'm here to talk about my weekend job when i was a teacher in the district. on the weekends, i would get up really early in the morning to complete my weekend job which entailed checking e-mails about things i did wrong, reading memos and then sending e-mails to make sure everybody knew i was doing what i needed to do,
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looking at data and make sure i crossed my t's and dotted my i's. and then that supplemented my regular day job, which was being a teacher. so i did everything you would expect a classroom teacher to do. i planned my lessons, i would get there early, set up my materials, teach for six hours. i would sometimes eat lunch not in the bathroom or with my kids and then i would spend the rest of the afternoon meeting with principal, collaborating with teachers, cleaning up my classroom, talking to parents. what you expect a teacher to do. and then during the weekend, i would go back to my weekend job making sure that i did the thing we like to call compliance. because that was really important and that's what most of my e-mails and inbox were about when i was a special ed teacher. my weekend job was about 10-12 hours a week regularly and a lot more during grading periods.
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so i'm coming here to support the idea of helping our educators to drop their weekend jobs so they can focus on the really important job of teaching students with special needs. honestly, i miss being in the classroom and miss being with with those kids. i do not miss being a case manager. so i'm here to ask that we consider the proposal by the cac, continue with an existing committee that usf and the district created to look at this position of case coordinator. and -- >> president cook: thank you. >> hi. my name is meagan. i'm a volunteer with the grassroots organization decoding
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dyslexia california. i co-lead a support group of children with dyslexia and my 10-year-old is dis-alexic. it affects 20% of the population and represents 80-90% of all those with learning disabilities. these guidelines describe the type of instruction children with dyslexia need to read. which is referred to as structured literacy. while it benefits all children, it is essential for those struggling due to dyslexia. i'm speaking today out of concern that sfusd's response to the legislation is not in alignment with the guidelines.
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ensuring that schools operate in compliance with all state and federal regulations. thank you for your time. >> my name is will patterson. i'm the co-chair of the special education committee. i'm also here to thank the community advisory committee for in concluding, in their report, the case manager to support the position or the case coordinator. right now, we have a major compliance commissioner in special education. we have hundreds of unsigned i.e.p.s and thousands of missing progress reports, dozens, hundreds of late meetings. it's a horrible situation. i say that because i hear the complaints and the concerns from special ed teachers who don't know how to go about getting
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their caseloads caught up. we're under a lot of pressure. when we go in and face our students, we don't have the resources to schedule the meetings that need to happen. personally, we're trying to share some of our personal stories. i worked har part-time. i cannot maintain my santee taking a full time caseload without support from the work that has to be done. i want my i.e.p.s to be compliant. when i surveyed teachers, when our committee surveyed teachers, more than 70% acknowledge having i.e.p.s out of compliance. nobody wants to work in a job where you cannot complete your job and feel good about the work that you do for your students at the end of the day. so we're faced with the dilemma. do we make our i.e.p.s compliant or provide services for our students? i'm glad to say our teachers are currently providing services to the students. but if the district wants the i.e.p.s to be compliant, you need to provide the resources to
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bring those i.e.p.s into compliance. i would charge you, if you could, to supply and coordinate a meeting with six people from this committee. all six being present during the workday within 10 days. when you can do that in the 20 minutes to 30 minutes that you have, for prep time in the school day, you will start to understand the problem we have. a case coordinated position would keep us in compliance, it would save millions of dollars from the school budget and settlements you are paying out. it would help us feel so much better about the job we do. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i am susan solomon, president of the united educators of san francisco. i want to thank the advisory committee for their incredible advocacy on behalf of our students. and also to thank the uesf educators who are also
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advocating for our students. thank you, very much. >> thank you. >> yes, a few questions. my first question, nice to see you all. thank you. i wanted to just -- i was glad that she gave public comment. i did get some outreach from decoding dyslexia. they're concerned for the reasons that she mentioned about our approach to the dyslexia pilot. i appreciated the positive comments that you made about the dyslexia pilot and the work of the curriculum instruction. i just wonder if you have any thoughts about that criticism or if that's something that you are kind of thinking about studying more?
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>> well, first of all, every time we've approached any leader or any department, they've been exceptional. they've offered data and gotten us any information we wanted. it's been fantastic. so, i think we're trying to move mountains with a shovel. here is the problem in my mind. i think that there are best intentions all around. i completely agree with the concern that structured literacy should be the focus. i'm sat in i.e.p. meetings to completely agree with what meghan said, where, specialized academic instruction is being blended between l.l.i. leveled literacy and wilson reading. above and beyond what mowing an said, to fully implement the wilson readings system, a teacher, a cin
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