>> the meeting for april 14, 2020 is now called to order. role call, please. pair (role call). >> it looks like we're missing one board member? >> miss collins. >> do we know why?

here we are in this virtual world and i hope the public is able to access this meeting and future meetings. we'll do our very best to make sure that that happens. i also want to say that meetings by our advisory groups will get started up again, hopefully soon, as well as many committee meetings by the board. but we do have capacity issues at the moment, but we want to make sure at the same time that the public is engaged and that we have a transparent process for all of our decision-making processes. board minutes, section b, of the march 24, 2020, we need a motion

and a second. >> so moved. >> why don't we just assign two people to do the motions and the second. anany objections? seeing none, role call. (role call).

>> good afternoon, everyone. it's great to see you all. i would like to start tonight with a couple of thoughts and then i'm going to show a quick video. so first of all, beginning wednesday, april 15, we are opening two additional meal pick-up sites. these sites will be open from 11:00 to 12:00 on mondays and wednesdays and each site will have the capacity to serve at least 175 children each day.

if you want a list of additional pick-up times and locations, visit our website, which is sfusd . edu/schoolfood. and second, a reminder that the enrollment deadlines for the '20-'21 school year have been extended to april 17th. i want to remind everyone the enrollment deadlines have been extended. if you not have yet accepted your school placement offer, you have until april 17th. students with on will lose their if parents don't register. you have until april 17th for round two. with that said, yesterday in the family digest, we sent out a video and it's described the work that we're doing. it's a little bit over five

minutes, but i think it gives the entire community the opportunity to see what our priorities are and what we're trying to accomplish during this closure of school sites. so with that, i'm going to add mr. still stihl, if you would st that video.

we're having technical difficulties right now. it looks like your sound is on but it's not working. so with that, this video is on our website and it is on -- if you look at the family digest, it says a video here and it describes our priorities which are to make sure that students continue to learn, as well as we do everything we can to support the needs our families and so, please, please make sure that if you have the opportunity, it gives you a very detailed explains of all we're trying to do here in san francisco unified. one of the things i ask, all panelists, make sure if you're not speaking to turn off your microphones so that the

background noises aren't there. so with that, president sanchez. >> i want to try one more time. i think i may have figured it out. >> ok, take two. (video playing). >> schools will be closed through the summer break and during this closure, you have two priorities, you want to support your child and your family's wellness and health and we want to support your child to continue to learn. this video gives you the information about both of those. [ ♪ ] >> while schools are closed, we want to remind you that our teachers, paraeducators tha care about your churn. children.

they'll be checking in to see how you're doing and how children are doing. if you need support, they can connect you with services and you can find many resources to support you. we have distributed more than 8,600 chrome books to students so far and our deploying devices the week of april 13th. if your third through 12t 12th-grade child doesn't have access to to a computer for learning on online, go to sfusd suppose edu/device. you may be wondering about wi-fi? some familiars are offering free

wi-fi for the next three months and if you don't have wi-fi, this may be the fastest way to get it. you can get it at sfusd.edu/internet. your student's safety and security is a top priority as we transition to learning in a more virtual environment. our districts have selected a suite of tools we recommend based on the safe and secure experience that is possible with these tools. we are providing recommendations, training and support for teachers and staff in order to prepare them to safely facilitate digital learning experience. [ ♪ ] >> it is important to us that your child continues to make progress in their learning. phase 3 of our distance learning plan begins monday, april 13t april 13th. this is when teachers will be leading learning activityin actr

humanitarian. children. students if pre-k, kinder will use kits and each family should pick up a learning kit at any of the elementary schools. the list is also posted on our website. each family should expect communication from their teacher to provide lessons and activities for students using their learning kit. some pre-k through second grade teachers may do lessons and activities on computers or tablets and phones. teachers of students in 12t 12th through third grade will begin teacherring lessons on monday. if your child doesn't have a tablet or a smart phone at home

or you may prefer they not do online learning, your school will communicate with you by receiving printed learning materials to do at home. whether your child is a kindergarten student or a high school student, they should receive four hours of schoolwork to do each day. this includes lessons from the teacher and also independent activities that the teacher gives students to do. if your child as an iep, the teacher will modify the lessons according to your child's eip or will provide support. special education teachers will be connecting with each child to develop a distance learning lan. for any work the teacher wants usual child to turn in, students working with an electronic device can use that or see-saw.

take a picture or text the work to the teacher. we understand it can be difficult to supervise your child's learning. you may have to work yourself or you may be taking care of others. whatever you can do to support your child's learning is wonderful. we're all doing the best we can understand the circumstances. call our email your child's teacher or principal if you have questions. we are also working on setting up a phone number for you to call for support in the event your child's school principal or teacher is not able to answer your questions. you can find more information about this next week on the website. we are here to help you. thank you for working with us during this pandemic. be well, stay healthy and please let us know what supports you need. >> thank you so much. i have one final thing,

president sanchez. as you had the opportunity to see what we're trying to do, this is a 250-year-old educational system that we are trying to change. it's been a month now and so, we absolutely as a staff recognise that they're going to be mistakes made along the way, but understand that -- my hope is that we will assume positive intent and as you saw with our priorities, we're trying to make sure that students' well-being and families are taken care of as well as educate. as we try to move forward, we know that missteps will happen, but please know we're doing the best we can. >> thank you and i echo those sentiments and thoughts, dr. matthews. this is going to be a challenge throughout and mistakes will be made, have been made and will

continue to be made and we have to give each other a break here. everybody is trying their hardest and i know you and your team are. i'm on those calls every wednesday and friday morning with you and i know the hard work going into keeping the system going and at the same time, recognising that our students and families are many times in crisis right now and that needs to be recognised by everybody in the school system. and with that, we're going go to item 3, which is student delegate's report. we're happy to have our student delegate's list. we missed you. >> hi, good afternoon, everyone. it is so good to see all of you. it has been so long and i'm definitely going to miss teaching with dr. matthews every other tuesday.

we're happy to announce the survey/delegate elections is live and will continue to be live until may 8th. the sac has created a video highlighting each candidate so that they can campaign which can be on any virtual platform. we are happy to see the leadership is continuing. our goal is to continue leadership and engagement. the petition gives students the platforms to advocate for student's needs and concerns and it is an amazing opportunity and we urge every high school student to vote for the next student delegate. we would like to thank mr. sal and mr. quan for creating this subway. survey and good luck to all of the candidates. >> good afternoon, everyone. it's good to see everyone is doing well. our second item is the sac and

student outreach. last night, we heard our representatives who have concerns and questions of their own, as well as peers with the current crisis. we created a google survey and circulated this to our peers to gather for thoughts and concerns. afterwards, we conducted a round round-table discussion. as a council, our goal is to answer these questions and inform students or parents and would like to emphasize that not everyone in the district is on the same page and we should work on communication to relay information more effectively. we would like to thank everyone from staff to teachers and parents who are working so hard to provide resources and support for students in our district during this pandemic. and please stay safe, everyone. our third item is a lock and liberated resolution update. so yesterday during our sac meeting, we had the second

reading of the gun safety solution which is entired block and liberated. this would replace blocks with column bincolumbine locks to ads schools. this is to promote safety and action to combat gun violence. we would like to provide mr. sal for providing a platform to proceed in and the city and district accountability committee for working hard on this resolution. we would like to thank commissioner lam for providing our feedback and guidance for future actions. our next meeting will be on monday, april 27th, 3:00 p.m., via zoom. thank you and that concludes our report. >> thank you, student delegates and thre thank you for hanging n there and keeping the work going, as well. the next item is resolutions of

common takesecommentcommentatio. >> i am excited we have an extinguished service award to suzanne baldwin who is a teacher at abraham lincoln high school and this will be presented by the assistant principal and world language department who will be presenting. so congrat luggageses congratuln and mr. tihori, you can take it away. >> thank you for allowing this opportunity to honou honor one f lincoln's greatest teachers. design baldwin, she actually taught at the kindergarten level at the school for many years and prior to coming to lincoln. and it was really -- i truly

believe that being a kindergarten teacher and starting at the kindergarten level, moving all the way up to the high school level is really what made her so effective with our students. she was a spanish -- she is a spanish teacher here at lincoln for many years and she had this unique ability to touch the lives of students in their hearts, academically and being a kindergarten teacher, i think it gave her the ability to break things down, to make things very, very manageable for our students and i just really want to praise you and thank you from the bottom of my heart, miss baldwin, for all you've given to our students for many years. so when you think about it, for the last 32 years, she's touchdown thousands of students here in san francisco, both at the elementary and at the high school level. so miss body win baldwin, i cone

you on your retirement this year and we'll miss you so, so much and our students, i know, are going to miss you the most. so congra congratulations on ths well-deserved rave award and thank you to all of you for giving her the opportunity to be awarded and honored today. thank you. (applause). >> would you like to say a few words? >> yes one hav, i have a speech prepared, if that's ok. >> sure. >> first of all, i want to thank everybody who nominated me for this award, those who wrote the

letters and i really -- i mean, it's wonderful that you do this and i hope that everybody else feels inspired to recognise the work of teachers in the district. so after hearing superintendent matthews' video, i think my speech makes even more sense now. so i want to dedicate this award, and i'm going to try not to cry, to my fellow teachers who yesterday started on the biggest challenging of their teaching careers. it has been really inspiring for me and for everybody else to see all of the teachers up to occasion. the email threads were into the horizon like i have never seen before. we were trying to figure out how all of this will work and listening to colleagues cry on

the phone, endless hours on chats, social media pages, video conferencing and imagining a new way of teaching because this is what we do. and so i have never been more proud to be a teacher in all of the years that i have taught. but i also want to dedicate this award to our students who are engaging in this endeavor in overcoming impossible odds. last week i helped a student with language skills set up a district laptop and we used video and i know we're not supposed to use social media so, but it's a platform my students feel comfortable with. it was incredible because i was looking at the shady, grainy image of her laptop, while little kids were screaming and

coming in and out of the frame and she persisted and we kept at it and we were finally able to set up her laptop and get her online. and it was just the most remarkable victory. and in all my weeks and everybody weeks have been accumulation of small victories like this, that is what's keeping us going. parents are also heroes in these trying times. i cannot imagine the sleepless nights with the financial woes in our future. so to our students and parents, we're here for you. we're not going to abandon you as a teacher and i always believe that equity and justice meant being the best possible teacher i could ever be for my

students, to work hard for them and to show them respect that way. and i tried to continue this in this spirit during this special period. and so, i'll leave you with the modified verses that were going around online this week. i will teach you in a room, i will teach you now on zoom. i will teach you in a house. i will teach you with my house. >> i will teach you here or there. >> i will teach you because i care. thank you. (applause). >> so suzanne, so very happy that you got this rave award and it really resonates, your speech, with me, as a fourth grade teacher going through the struggles of trying to zoom my meetings with my kids. it is the toughest time in my life as a teacher and i'm not

adept at technology, so this has been really, really difficult. so new again and new, lance and i want to thank the staff for doing rave awards, even though we're in this virtual, weird environment. so thank you again and we'll go on to the next item which is section c, public comment. but i have to read the protocol for public comment first. please note public comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board's jurisdiction and we ask that you refrain from using employees and student's names. if you have a complaint about a district employee, submit it to the employee's supervisor in accordance with district policy. as a reminder, board rules and california law do not allow us to respond or comment or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. if appropriate, the superintendent will ask for the speakers. so public comment?

>> so, we'll go to public comment now and each participant will have two minutes. but i need to remind the public that you need to raise your hand, the raise your hand button on zoom, so i know you would like to speak and then i will un-mute you and you can announce your full name and then you have two mints. minutes. so please raise your hand if you wish to speak. >> and can you go over the process for translation, since we have it provided here? >> yes, so we do have chinese and spanish translation on standby right now. and so, if you do need translation, it will be made apparent when we call on you and i'll interest the interpreter chime in. they'll jump in once they see it's necessary because they're on standby right now. >> mr. steel, they're not going to know that this is

available, necessarily. >> i'm sorry? >> if there is a speaker who does not speaker english in our telecomment period, how will they know there's interpretation? >> ok, so maybe -- >> maybe we can trouble-shoot that for next time. >> that was to be a part of your announcement to start. >> in meetings, at the beginning of the meetings. >> i could ask our tran late trs to make a brief statement right now. (speaking spanish) great, thank you. >> and chung, were you able to do that in chinese right now. (speaking chinese).

>> president sanchez, should we proceed? >> yes. >> ok. hello, cici, are you there? hello, cici, are you there? >> yes, i don't have a question or a comment. >> oh, you do not, ok, thank you. >> holhello, are you there? would you like to speak at public comment?

i can't see the name and i think the last name might be widow. moving on, maurisha. >> yes, can you hear me? >> yes, you can go ahead. >> can you hear me now? >> yes. >> perfect. hi, good afternoon. my name is maurisha robinson and i'm coming today speaking on distance learning because nobody has really asked me how it's going. and so the weeks have passed and my family and i are beginning to adjust to this distant learning and we've now embraced it with open arms, understanding that the plan was made public. i know what the expectation is for my daughters and what it means for us as a family. i'm thankful that schools are

adhering to this at the usb guidelines and meeting families where they are. while this looks different from site to site, it is still happening for us and as an educational entity, we provide in the best way possible. i'm also grateful for what is happening thus far. as with all things, there are areas that need improvement, but that does not mean halt learning all together. it means get critical from all stakeholders, make adjustments and keep going and we have to remember to keep students in the center and from being able to meet with the class via zoom is priceless and it creates a sense of routine and connectedness. she's able to maintain her learning second language and get information from her classroom teacher and this would not be possible without sfucb. i can say i struggled trying to

mimmick her routine and having a schedule. having my children engage in academic learning has helped my family and as a school district, i thank you for your job and continued learning during this time. >> great, all set? thank you. is this obviously weatheris thi? you have two minutes to state your full name, please. is this julie? >> yes, this is julie

roberts-fung and i want to start with some of what this has looked like for me and some of the families. i've been deeply educa greatly e educators and families, but i feel like the remote learning roll-out has highlighted the equity debts we already have and also our district's struggle, our central office struggle to shift to shared leadership and shared planning. and it's been interesting to see the difference in schools that have community school coordinators and strategies and schools that don't have that infrastructure. one of the things that i've noticed is that where there isn't planning with the first step on a ladder is missed for families. so we'll get access information for a google classroom without any information about the link

to where google classroom is to start with or there won't be translation provided for families and we're finding that educators are kind of heroically working it through with their students or families are spoutinsupporting each other and filling each other because we don't have a systemic approach. last week, there was a plan and i asked that close the gap be one of the coalitions included to make sure the groups are included through us are a part of planning and we haven't had any follow-up from anyone about that request. i've especially appreciated commissioner lopez's response has been looking to close the gaps and i would like to to keep that in mind as we think about remote learning, food and other

access needs. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, are you there? >> hello? >> hello. can you state your full name? you have two minutes. >> my name is nina louise and i'm a senior at mission high school. i'm here to talk about something that myself and fellow -- you were just talking to my classmates a minute ago. but basically we see all of the work usfsd is doing and we have respect for that. but we feel the reality of what this pandemic has caused is very different from their previous realities and as a result, for some students during these times, it may be more difficult

to perform academically or even in consideration to the fact that distance learning is virtual for many students who are english learners or have other situations within their home environments that may prevent them from grasping the materials and participating as they would have done before the effects of the pandemic. so my intent is simply to present this information to you guys and to speak on our intentions for putting this together. we are asking that distance learning persists because we believe that it is important for education to continue and for every student to have equal opportunities to education. with that being said, we are asking that the grades system as it is be removed in order to

remove stress and consequences for students who may have struggles or obstacles that are beyond their control. that's all i have to say. >> great, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> miss fisher, you ar are you . >> i am here. i am alita fisher and i'm the past chair of the advisory committee for special education. first of all, thank you everyone, but particularly thanks to all of the special education teachers, case managers, service providers, related service's providers and everybody who has reached out to families receiving special ed services for learning plans. this has been a huge effort and as we hear often, we're building the plane as we're flying it. but the amount of collaboration

here as been immense and we really -- teachers are building websites as they're reviewing iaps and as they're talking to families and it's a huge, huge list and we're so grateful for it. but we're hearing a lot from families who are concerned about what's offered in the distance learning plans and we have a whole a lot of question. for example, what i does specialized economic instruction look like? we're not seeing a lot of individualized service with families and there's a lot of questions about the roles that paras fill in ieps? do they have all of the information they need and how service providers will offer teletherapy. we're grateful to have the opportunity to work through all of these challenges with district officials and we're

really grateful for the collaboration and we hope this will continue as we move forward and ask a lot of detailed and specific questions to make sure they're individual adviseized fe students who need the most support and needs. >> thank you. hello, is this effron? >> yes, it is. >> good afternoon, everyone. i would like to provide testimony to the fact that my -- i have two kids in the school district and this has been a very interesting learning experience for all of us. i actually want to appreciate my kids' teachers, to adapt the curriculum to adhere to

different learning platforms, especially my son's teacher. my son has special needs and the school has made a tremendous effort to adjust and differentiate the learning and, also, to provide the option, my son getting passing grades on the classes because he really struggles logging into, you know, via the zoom meeting. there's been a tremendous amount of confusion among families accessing the zoom meetings and they don't know how to support their kids calling in, logging in. and so there's definitely a lot to learn from and i will be speaking in support of the resolution that is coming before the board later on today, but i want to highlight that this distance learning process has definitely been very tricky but

i'm grateful for the educators who put in 150%. so thank you. >> thank you. >> circling back to the email b widow, i believe it is. >> can you hear me? yes. >> i'm deborah femmers and my kids are in kindergarten and third great go to the harvey wright's academy and i'm a parent recommending the public school. i want to give public testimony, also, to reiterate what some of the people -- i feel like the educators and the administrators and the para-professionals and the social workers have been doing amazing outreach. in addition, the kind of outreach that the district has

done trying to get kid's technology, access to wi-fi and food resources has been tremendous all in such a short period. so i want to thank everyone for pulling together and making this happen in such a short period of time and i specifically want to thank commissioner lopez and president sanchez for meeting with us. thank you. >> thank you. >> are you there? >> this is gynj. >> hello, can you hear me. >> yes, i can. i'm jan gin, and i'm a district employee for the god department and a president of the local 21 chapter for the sfusd. and i just called to say that in

dot, we are actively handing out a lot of computer devices and all of that for people to use, but i just wanted to make mention and give my props to those of us that are considered essential, most namely the help desk, which is the phone support for the dot department. and there's only about four employees there that are actively answering the phones and the phone calls are coming in hot and heavy. of course, every time a student or parent or staff member gets a new device, they call in, you know, and they need to know how 40 ge40to get this to work and .

i would like to give props to those who are working on the front line, in that they're giving out devices and interacting with people in real-time in order to support them. so yeah, that's just something i would like to say. i did meet with some of them at a previous meeting and, boy, i could see by my camera just how hard they're working, just trying to field all of the calls coming in for people that need help with all of their new devices. that is students, parents and staff. ok, thank you, and that's all i have to say. >> thank you. >> hello caller with a 973 area code, are you there? >> yes, i am. this is becky, the policy director at compass services.

i wanted to register the call to plan with families and students and labor and ceos as partners. evacuewe've seen a lot of the vs surfaces in the crisis, specifically those connected to our childcare center, which families also have students enrolled. and we've been working across our programs at compass to make sure that we're deploying all of the resources that we have at our disposal to address the equity gaps. we have deployed teletherapy, activity kits to keep children engaged and we have also partnered to help partners access to the free food resources that they're distributing as well as chrome books and we're grateful to have

the resources, as well as the ones we're able to leverage with private dollars. i did wan want to underscore the importance of partners with the ceos and families to understand the barriers that the students are facing. and we've got a lot of families that are doubled up, overcrowded, extremely unstably housed and distant learning is difficult, if not impossible, under those circumstances. and those families are the ones who know best what they need in order to begin to bridge those gaps effectively. so i would just underscore that with the needs that we're seeing. thank you very much. >> thank you. is this laura? >> laura, are you there. >> yes, this is laura reynolds.

can you ahead m you hear me? >> yes. >> i'm the parent of a first grader and i wanted to say thank you. this is a challenge putting together the distance learning in such a short amount of time. i wanted to highlight if you thought about. as a working full-time parent, my husband and i are struggling what is something to give a first grader that he can go independently versus what he needs additional help. so have you thought about any plans about rolling out distance learning only things that can be more hands-off for parents who have high demanding jobs? just something to put out there and for parents who can dedicate time to be with the younger children who need more help. so i wanted to put that out there. >> thank you.

>> mary? >> hi, this is mary cheli, and thank you. now i wanted to ask first about the resolution i heard mentioned. i wasn't able to access an agenda or draft resolutions and so i'm not aware of what that vote is and i may address what i'm about to say. perhaps i'll just make any comment. i work at new teacher's center but i'm here mostly in my role as an sfusd parent. i have two seventh grade students and the distance learning plans are working great for them. but i wanted to speak another role of child trauma and toxic stress and how that impacts cognition and learning and the ability to perform academically,

coming behind what several other commentators have said. there's biological reasons the kids who are most vulnerable in our district will have a difficult time being able to access their education distant learning subjects even if all of the resource availability were perfect. there will still be stress and anxiety and fear among our children. perhaps increasingly as this proceeds for some kids that we have in our district, i'm very concerned with that in mind about the issue of assigning grades and i really think that this is a difficult -- this district is in a difficult position with this and i understand that, but to think about assigning letter grades in this situation, in the middle of a kind of complex and cascading disaster that we're looking at, where we have such tremendous inequities among the children in the district, i think is just the wrong way go and magnifies and increases inequities, but perhaps, more importantly, it places a bigger burden of stress and fear and anxiety on our kids

than is at all necessary. it just seems to be like the wrong moment to do that and i hope that the district will address that. thank you. >> thank you. >> this is kevin robinson and i'm a parent with a kindergartener in the district. the profs and the people doing the heavy work during this critical time, i want to call out the inequities as others have pointed out to. it took me a long time to find out about the board meeting

being on zoom as opposed to the radio station. i'm sure a lot of people don't have access to zoom or a computer and so that that speaks for itself. also, the roll-out for the packets from pre-k through second graders, that something to be addressed, as well, because the whole northeast side of town where i live, seven schools without packets and we had to scrounge for those. one school in chinatown was reluctant to get out the packets they had, so that's something that has to be addressed moving forward. the previous caller talked about childhood trauma and things along those lines. nadine harris was at the station the other day to talk about the same thing. that is an issue. i've said before and i keep saying it, we have a radio

station within our resource to utilize. the surgeon general could have been on talking about this same issue. hopefully going forward, the status quo will not be the status quo and we want improve upon this. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, nancy? >> hi. can you hear me? >> yes. >> cool. hi, everybody, i'm nancy trong and i'm here on behalf of the chinese association as a community organizer and i was intending on making public comment for the resolution to establish policies and procedures for sfusd for trauma-informed care, but unfortunately, i can't stay for the rest of the meeting so i'll make my comment now. i want to say that we believe this resolution is a step in the right direction to support youth and families at this time and we want to thank the board of ed for taking the time to draft

this revolution. resolution. we're asking for time to slow down and connect with teems an s and youth before pushing academic instruction to begin. we especially want to uplift the call to center of mental health and social and emotional learning plans in the curriculum. in my work, working with high school students, i'm seeing how our young people are juggling their families' challenges and losing next and work and having to support their families to apply for state and federal benefits, while navigating challenges family dynamics and having to spend the majority of their time at home. their general feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about what their future and education looks like is probable for me. our young people need space to process their feelings and create meaningful connections

with their teachers, peers and to learn tools to navigate challenges and we believe students shouldn't be punished right now and we want a call for everyone to graduate and end high-stake's testing for the rest of the year and we're called upon in in momen this mod we think they're responding to that call. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. is this carla. carla? >> yes, i'm a parent of an eighth grader and senior in usfsd and para at an elementary school and my comment is, first of all, i would like to applaud everyone for coming together, especially on teachers and all of the educational staff in san francisco. it feels like a first-year

teaching on the last two days and yay, we're pulling this off. my comment is more from a parent's point. i think after we launch in this weekthis,this week, they could a phase four, after launching a phase three after assessing how we can bring our students up to speed in the fall or in the summer and i think that would help aleave a lot of anxiety that are we feeling our kids? are we feeling our students and are they going to learn? i think if there was a way to do surveys or a way to have a committee -- and i, too, want o put more work on anybody -- but people are looking into it and how will we bring the kids up to speed so people can feel more comfortable about what's presented right now. i know our seniors, we won't be

able to do anything with, but the next phase is how are we going to meet our students where they are and help them to progress when school resumes, hopefully, in the fall? thank you. >> thank you. >> president sanchez, that was the final speaker for public comment. >> ok, i would like to thank all of the public who came out to virtually speak with us. that was very helpful. next is the advisory committee reports and i don't know if any board members have any appointments, but if you do, raise your hand. i sent out about the advisory committee, to get them up and running and i want to ensure that we keep that tapped into and that we can learn and grow from them.

section 8 calendar. >> so moved. >> second. >> i don't see any public comment. any items withdrawn or corrected by the superintendent? >> mr. steel, could you read the items, please. >> thank you, dr. matthews. one item to be withdrawn from the consent calendar and k resolutions 204-14k3. thank you.

>> i was asking for discussion, so do you want to do you want to do that now? go ahead. what was the item. >> this is related to the service agreement with comcast communication's management and it is -- i'll read the background. so the background is during the covid-19 pandemic, the city of san francisco was ordered into sheltener place foshelter. they announced all schools be closed due to the safety of students until further notice. they will be working with various companies including

comcast to all students have access to the internet. comcast i is offering affordable services, comcast essential, to low-income families during this time. the department of technology will promote codes that meet comcast criteria to begin the internet service and the district will assume all service costs within the duration of the agreement. this can be found on the comcast website. i wanted to ask our chief technology officer, if she could give more detail around what that may look like, knowing that the district has been -- is committed to visual equity and i know staff has been working around the clock to address those needs, particularly around internet access. >> thank you.

superintendent matthews? >> should we vote on the calendar? >> no, we didn't vote. >> we don't have to. >> no, i don't think so. danielle? >> so are you -- is she on this? >> yes. >> would you like to address that? >> good afternoon, commissioners and thank you for the question, commission lam. so as part of expanding technology access for students, we're looking at expanding internet access to the greatest extent possible and to do that, we're drawing on a number of different strategies to help sort of blanket access and increase access because there's

no one solution or strategy that really does meet our needs. as dr. matthews shared in the video, we have posted free and low-cost options that are for families and we've been working with the city on strategies and we've been distributing hot spots based on availability and so comcast essentials is another opportunity for us to expand access and this is a little bit different than thed the same available through the internet essential's program but enables us to sponsor the program so that we can support families who want to use access internet through comcast so that it can help expedite that process and we are able to then cover some of the costs for that, as well. and so it's a program that

comcast has made available to school districts during this time. so we wanted to bring this into our toolkit, if you will, of strategies that we can expand access for families. >> we know that given the urban terrain, it does provide a blanket of complexity to getting that access to our students, particularly most in need and so, just thoughts around how long it might take to get that comcast strategy scaled up if we do need it in particular geographic areas. >> thank you for that question. yes, it is a complex challenge that we're facing in trying to work as quickly as possible and once assuming the board moves forward and approves this, we

probably need about a week or two and i'm guesstimating on the time because this opportunity, there are some conditions that need to be in place in order for families to leverage this strategy, so it will require some outreach to families based on those who have indicated need that we can then figure out what is the best right option for them based on their context. so it ends up becoming a very personalized experience in terms of how to expand access. once we have this available, we can do outreach with the families that have contacted us and let us know that they need assistance and we can see whether this is one of the strategies that we can help en. we've had conversations in how important it is at that time that with any type of access to internet connectivity, we don't

put our families at greater economic eventually underrability vulnerability. we're learning every how, everyday, how complex this broadband access is and we'll need multiple strategies to address the gaps that we need n. i know the the city is committed to this, as well. so if you can comment, the safeguard that it puts with the district-sponsored initiative. >> right, so the district sponsored initiative, the district is assuming the costs associated with it and if there are a number of different strategies that make it easy for a family if they're -- my understanding if they're a -- if they have cable, there is not an installation that's required. the equipment gets shipped to them. if they're not currently a comcast cable recipient, there

are some additional steps that are taken and that it's for a limited period of time, similar to what the hot spots that are available and then if the router that provides that wireless connectivity is not returned, rather than the burden placed on the family, we build that into the overall district sponsorship and cost. so to your point, we're not looking to put added burden on families through this. >> thank you. >> any other comments or questions on this item? commissioner lopez? >> i just want to know what the message is that we are giving to families who don't have access to wi-fi right now, who are now missing out on the learning that

has begun. what has been shared with them or what are we telling them during this time? >> thank you for that. so we have been encourage families to explore and access the free and/or low-cost options available through the number of providers and on our website, we have four or five different options that are available and some require a sign-up and some are locating free hot spots that are available. that is also through comcast, as well. and we're working closely and we have a number -- the city has what's called a fiber-to-housing program and makes fiber and wi-fi available in a number of hour housing locations our housing developments. we are letting them know they have access to free wi-fi and we've been working with the city

on that and then as we have been sharing, we have a limited number of hot spots and have been prioritizing our students who are either in shelters or homeless, also within public housing that may not have the fiber 2 housing program, making those available and we've been able to distribute just over 1400 of those. so it's a lot of different strategies that we need to draw upon and we encourage families to check out the options that are available on our website for sorforabscess. the comcast takes a week turn-around once it's submitted so giving a sense of what that timing is, as well. >> right, and i appreciate all of the option. i just wonder, the messaging that educators are sharing with those families who have not been

participating because of that lack of access, is there anything specific that they are sharing in that sense? >> families and students who engage as their circumstances and resources allow. last week, they were doing phone calls to families and in those phone calls, it was checking on how they're doing but asking questions about access and they need to happen now so that we can both identify the folks who have devices but don't have access and try to mitigate that, but for the message to come across so that if you don't have access, there is no penalty. we understand that we're still trying to meet that need and students should engage as they can. >> great, that's what i wanted to hear, that they no there's no penalty given the circumstances, thank you for asking. >> any other comments or questions? roll call and consent includes the items that were covered

pre-discussion. >> thank you, this includes number 19, correct. >> yes. (role call). >> there are seven ayes. voting on separate consideration, we just did and section g, there are none tonight. and although we do have something later. section h, special order of business, this was item 203-10

203-10f01, certification for the san francisco district and for the county office of education and that's fiscal year 2020. superintendent matthews. >> no presentation tonight, but we do have a chief financial officer, megan wallace who is available if we have any questions. >> ok. thank you. are there any -- i need a motion and a second? >> so moved. >> second. >> thank you. so this has been late for a number of weeks now and i don't know if there are any questions. we've had presentations already. >> i just had a comment which is, i really appreciated commissioner lam leading the budget discussion and one of the questions that came up was, we're going to be looking at cuts to central office staff and

i think both board members and community members made the request that process be transparent. and so it's hard, but we need to make sure that folks understand how we're doing that decision-making. and then, also, as far as planning for the fall, based on new needs and new expenses that are coming up around the covid crisis. so i'm just making a request, you know, there's a list of items like maybe we want more school nurses or maybe we need different things now than we did before. and so, i don't know what that process will look like, because it is harder for us to meet, but it is really, really important for me personally to know how those decisions are being made and, also, i know it's very, very important for the public to have that process be transparent. so it's an open question and i'm putting it out there. it really, really important that moving forward, it's really clear how the public and the

board is involved in decision-making around next year's budget. >> thank you. i neglected to call for public comment, so if there's any public comment, please raise your hand. and mr. steel will note that. >> i see a bunch of documents that were uploaded which haven't been presented to the public didn't why there isn't something

to the public and that might be something to weigh in on. thank you. >> any other public comment. >> that was the only one. >> we did have a presentation on a budget and i want to thank commissioner lam, as well, for heading up that discussion. iwas that press made public? >> i wasn't able to find any of the recorded meeting meetings as told we would be posting those for public and i couldn't find them on the website. they may be there, but that's another question. >> so we're trying to get this kind of technological thing. >> the presentation was uploaded and available at the budget committee meeting. >> was the meeting -- we were told the recordings would be public for the curriculum committee and i can't find them.

>> so let's answer that off-line. and if somebody has an answer right now to that. and that i hear you, commissioner nort new yorton, te items were posted on board docs. >> role call, please. (role call). >> that's seven ay session.

superintendent matthews, this is a discussion of graduation policies due to covid-19 health crisis. >> there's provisions to the graduating policies and what we did tonight was that we are not bringing a recommendation, but we are putting several options before the board so the board can have a discussion. our goal, though, is at the end of the discussion, ha we hav the a clear path in the direction we're going in as a district. so tonight, our deputy superintendent will be presenting with her team and like i said, at the very end, though, at the end of that discussion, we want a clear path moving forward and we'll be looking for cohesiveness around the board's discussion. >> thank you. >> so good afternoon, everyone.

presenting with a team taking on a whole new meaning. i'm asking my team to please stop me and chime in whenever they feel that it's appropriate. so going to the next slide. so as you heard today in the comments and i believe you've been hearing ever since school closure, grading is on everyone's mine minds. and so what we would like to do is engage you in some of the readings, conversations and thinkings that we've had and provide you some of the foundation to inform your discussion that you're going to have today around our grading policy. and we recognise that grading is on the forefront of everyone's mind and we want to approach this conversation through a lense of equity and access and that teachers see how students work and engage and help students and parents know about progress and identify supports. so we understand there is some

need for this ongoing feedback. the question that we will pose is what will that look like and if grades are the way to provide the feedback. we recognise this is happening in a broader context and that calls into the health and wellness of students and families given our current context and resonates with some of the context we heard. as dr. matthews said, we hope at the end of your discussion, we hope there will be clear guidance on how to proceed. next slide. would i would like to show this visual, as we think about distant learning, we want to stick to our district's values and mission around each and every equity and we called out things that we thought were critical as we think about engaging in remote learning. in the center of our diagram, we have the hearts and people in the two-way arrow expos arrows.

we know this could be a time where students and staff alike feel isolated and we want to make sure we leverage the relationship piece and hold the relationship of the heart and humanity of this work and continue to leverage content and how to interact. so whether you are engaging digitally or non-digitally and we think it's important that we have this ongoing interaction and our students know the adults who still care for them and coming to check on them and not just learning but they are stationed well. during our distant learning, we want to leverage advocacy and move from being a dependent learner to independent learning and thinking were projects and research and that we also facilitate the distant learning giving students opportunity for crate cacritical thinking and pm solving and in a way that's

personalized. we start with that because we know that in itself is complex and that the ways in which teachers would engage students looks very different in this remote time didn' and we want tr our educators who are trying to make all of this true. and no longener the schoolhouse, that they're used to doing it in. the first couple of slides, we just wanted to provide some context specific to our distant-learning plan this far that can allow for foundations for grading. in my learning guide, we call on responses to the distant learning and i won't read the whole paragraph but it says that we have to be responsive to the needs of our students about what this will look like even though we have a framework that will be different depending on home, and all of the points of diversion. and whatever we do, it must be

designed to meet the students where they are. justin? as mentioned, we have said to our teachers and to our educators and have tried to message to our families and students that we're expecting students to engage in our distant learning plan as resources and circumstances allow. and we want to be mindful of access and in our guidance, we define access. i wanted to define the part in yellow, there are students do to not have access, we will not hold them accountable. this is support from a trusted adult physically and psychological safety and minimal family responsibilities and we are aware there are many students taking on additional duties because of the situation. we know that as a staff and as a system, the current covid-19 pandemic has resulted in additional stress in the lives of our students and that their lives should not be negatively impacted because of that.

sfusd has instructional staff and consulted with university officials around grading and referenced resources from the td, et cetera and we all agree our grading practises need to be equitable and supportive and make sure we list that during this time. and that our thinking, our offering is that offering traditional letter grades during this time would be challenging. a pass or not pass grade might allow for flexibility for teachers and the students to be responsive to the current context and the needs. anwe wanted to share what we've said thus far in terms of grading, the question on everyone's mind. so pending your decision, what we've said in our guidance is that teachers should provide written and oral feedback on student's work to monitor advanced learning. if we've been thinking how to

leverage feedback, that is ongoing to support students and not so much depending on a letter grade to determine learning. we encouraged to give feedback to the students both in terms of supporting them academically, as well as emotional and social development and we may it clear, there should be no direct or indirect penalty for students who are unable to participate or complete their work during this time. we just wanted you to have that framework even though we're waiting to see what you will say going forward. evacuewe've engaged in a numberf different readings and research and wanted to highlight just a couple. there was an organization group, grading for equity, sharing three principles that resonated with us in terms of distant learning plan as well as grading in particular. and what those principles were

with that stress related to corvid it would negative impact grades and impact the ratio resources. teachers are asked to provide high quality learning. they are shifting to increased critical thinking and engaged remotely is a different way of teaching and learning and we know even the most -- the teacher that has the most agile with technology is a list and a shift. those are three thingses we were holding an. the article really caught up a need to provid focus on the abid

connection and empowerment and we know that in a regular situation, grades can sometimes be dehumanizing and dis-empowering and we want to take advantage to start to use feedback instead of grades to empower our student as learners. those articles were link to the power point and so, though i'm giving a summary, the board of education should have access to the full article. this has been a question on mines around colleges, the uc communicators, they are relaxing some of the undergraduate policies to ensure high school and transfer students are not penalized by the inability to earn letter grades and also, they have suspended the letter grade requirement for a-g courses provided in the spring of 2020 for all students, including the uc's admitted

freshman and the course completed with a pass or credit will satisfy the requirements. and then the final thing to consider is that cde also provided some guidance, very general, and basically says the decision of whether or not to require graded work from students is a local one and that it urges lea to consider a number of factors and considerations before making that decision including proceeding with a lense of equity with a bill of first doing no harm to students and reiterated that university systems are accepting credit or no credit. again, we've shared all of that just to hopefully give you foundation and form your discussion. we also, again, have engaged -- justin? we've been in conversations with different groups and i wanted to sure some of the things that have come out of the conversations to inform your discussion. so as we think about grading, we have thought about it with two lenses. the pk5 lense, as well as the

secondary lense 6-12. some that have come up with pk5, teachers before school closure had sufficient information around how students were doing and that could be a baseline to provide feedback going forward and if the student has made progress or improved. that could inform what other types of assignments and work the teacher is asking students to do. and that educators can use grades in that first marking period as that base line and that any student not meeting minimum standards can use this time to make up work. if they got an a or b or c, it wouldn't be anything lower. we also talked about for students in tk and pk5, that

they get feedback at the end of the year in a report card or progress report and no grade at all. justin? >> so for 6-12, the various discussions, these are the kind of key points that surfaced for students in 6-8, they would receive an a or incomplete for the spring semester of 2020 and alternate instead of the letter grade, students can receive a pass and that's for the pass, not pass and that's been common coming up and for students in 9-12th grade, similarly, the options could be an a or incomplete or a pass instead of an a. and we had a lot of conversation that if a student is unable to meet the requirements, we ask students to engage as resources and circumstances allow and for whatever reasons, they should receive an incomplete. we did not stick with the not pass, instead of incomplete for the course and when schools reopen, provided with sufficient

opportunities to fulfill requirements and that students receive incomplete could have even beyond the summer to the fall of 20 to make up that work. and then there's a conversation if that work was not made up, then, perhaps, then, a not pass. again, we just provided you with a list of ideas for you to consider. we now want to just sit back and listen to you discuss and, perhaps, answer any questions with the hope, again, at the endch youendof your discussion,d to our guidance and released some of the anxiety we know folks are feeling around this topic. >> just to clarify on the last slide. if you can go back. the one about -- it said in the midalternate students receive a pass instead of a letter grade, all students get a pass -- it wouldn't be a pass/fail but a

pass. >> that was something that calme up, that everybody gets an a or incomplete, similar to pass. but another suggestion was that instead of a letter grade to just say pass. there was concern around the letter grade and what it means to both students and fames. fam. (please stand by).

. . . . -- it takes on a whole other level here in distance learning. particularly when we're seeing students have the amount of services that can the provided during distance learning, what's being offered in the distance learning plan is that is significantly reduced compared to what they have in the classroom setting, yet the needs are at the same level or in some cases higher. i guess i am really curious about the second part of the last slide of the presentation where it mentioned there will be opportunities to make up this work in the fall. for a child with dyslexia, for example, who is missing the spire or wilson hours, does that mean more of that will be provided over the summer or into

the fall? and i would have a whole lot of -- we look forward to working with district leadership and being a collaborative thought partner as we work through some of the details. >> thank you. >> hello. is meghan there? >> hi, yes. i am probably going to echo what the previous speaker said, but i also have concerns about the incomplete or the option to make up work in the fall for students whose access issues are ongoing, students who are struggling right now. there is no guarantee and we definitely having planned for and we haven't planned for the access issues for the fall. and i guess i have strong concerns because that as an

option in the fall and we have no control over the situation whether it's a disability or situation in their home or lives or just the stress of having a pandemic. i don't think that the option of asking students to make up their work in the fall so they don't have a fail, i don't think it's a good option for our learners right now. thank you. >> president: thank you. is julie there? >> hi. julia robert fung and i am not sure if the folks from legal services for children is on the line right now, but one of the things they made in the close the gap coalition is that students who are facing expulsion right now are not

being -- are not able to access any of the communication with teachers and the direction that legal services has heard from the district is that students can pick up a laptop and aren't entitled to have anything beyond that because of the loophole in california and breaking the health code to be interpreted. i would like to advocate for this conversation to clarify that in our district students who are facing an expulsion hearing right now should be entitled to the same kind of contact and communication with their school remotely as any other student is. as some more issues come up with students who are ending in incarceration right now and wanting to make sure that they are able to access learning even though they may not be connected with the school at this moment, and it might be difficult to

shift the instruction that they may have been getting while incarcerated over to instruction support provided by sfusd. and finally, the question of whether everyone, whether we should have a's for everyone or a pass, and i echo the concerns that pushing work off doesn't relieve the stress. i definitely am very stressed about the bills that are being delayed and not eliminated. i am curious what the student delegates think about that and how having a's might impact the g.p.a. as opposed to having passes. thank you. >> president: thank you. hello. is meghan there? >> i already spoke. i don't think i have anything more to say. >> my apologies. susan?

>> thank you. this is the president of the united educators with san francisco, and i want to thank you for the presentation. we have been in frequent conversations and existence and making sure students don't face greater fail and is very important hearing concerns about the incomplete. and what i do want to offer is the commitment to address the needs and how can we as educators support students who need that support. it is not a question radically

and about how to support our students but is heightened during the crisis. and if students were to receive an incomplete, we would want to do everything we can to help them regain with the goal to see no student fail as a result of this pandemic. and school closures. thank you. >> thank you. nicole, are you there? okay. hello, is matt there? matt? >> yes, this is matt, a parent

of a junior at lowell high school and a freshman. two things. one, i just want to shout out to not only the entire educational community but particularly the school leaders t a those two schools for the amazing communication around and all the issues around. and what folks are facing. and two, thank you for this thoughtful conversation and weigh in on the specific question about grading for high school students to say i think it's important that even in light of what you are hearing from higher ed about how there will be dispensation for students and make every effort to make sure the students are not disadvantaged going forward. particularly the idea that was mentioned a couple of speakers ago about listening carefully to student delegates and other students about how they think an a would be seen versus how a

pass would be seen when they are applying to colleges, looking for jobs, going on to whatever the next step in their lives are. so the natural, right thing is to offer an a to students just by virtue of keeping them as competitive as possible, but certainly listening to students. thank you very much. >> thank you. circling back to see if nicole is there. okay. hello, joe? >> hi, can you hear me? >> yes. >> sorry, i jumped the gun. my daughter has had a couple of teachers tell her that her grades in some classes will be pass-fail-pass and perhaps they jumped the gun, but i want to make sure there is a policy that

is uniformly applied or to the extent there is an option for a letter grade that it's a student choice and not a teacher led choice. i am afraid if it's a teacher-led choice that some classes have grades and some don't and that kids will be penalized and classes they might be doing well in and will be getting a pass grade and then classes they might be struggling in and they might be getting an actual grade. so i just want to make sure there is a uniform policy and that the option is up to the student if there is an option. thank you. >> thank you. hello, kathrin? >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes. >> a my name is kathy melvin, a teacher at lowell high school and i want to strongly advocate

for giving the students either a letter grade of a or an incomplete. here is why. this epidemic happened to them. they should not be held responsible or harmed by a pandemic that changed their ability to prove their success. so with an a, we acknowledge all the hard work that the students did prior to closure. we also give them credits for how extremely difficult and stressful this material is in an online situation that not a single one of us signed up for. and personally, i am not trained to do it. i am a teacher at lowell high school. the incomplete as opposed to a fail is really the same conversation. how can we possibly fail our students for a pandemic that happened to them as opposed to

in a normal year when a child could maybe fail a test. this is not that situation. this is not normal. i hope you will consider really as some of the other speakers said a uniform policy of a letter grade of an a or an incomplete and we can resolve the realities of how to clarify and complete. thank you. >> thank you. >> i am here. can you hear me? >> i just had a question about students who are in credit recovery. i don't recall them being mentioned in the presentation, and how they would be affected by all this and how they would push forward to finish recovering their credit and being able to graduate. >> okay. thank you.

president sanchez, that was the final speaker on public comment. >> president: thank you. and thank you, mr. steele for letting the public comment. >> you're welcome. >> president: thank you for that time. and we want to hear from our student delegates and commissioners. raise your hand or let yourself be known. and i will try to run this. vice president lopez can help if she needs to. mr. sandoval. >> hi. thank you for the comments, everyone. this is -- before i talk about grades and stuff, i just want to point out some of the values in the distance learning. as i look at the slide, i see interactive and collaboration, which are great, i think, and we see a lot of it through o you are zoom classes, right? it is cool to see we don't have a time limit anymore.

but speaking on collaboration and this is from my experience and my friends, but as student, we can't make our own meeting as of right now. it is, like, i guess, a big part of it is when you are learning, we go to teachers for most of our education, right? but aside from that we also learn from our peers. it is harder to in this time especially to interact and collaborate with people when we can't even have our own meetings. just room for improvement that we could do in the future, if that is possible. and if there is anyone who can answer that to allow students to make sure own groups and do homework together or give them the access. >> president: students can open up their own zoom accounts?

>> right now with our school accounts, we can't make our own meetings. >> if you open your own zoom account, you would be able to invite your friends? >> yes, but it wouldn't be unlimited. it would have a 30 minute limit. >> i see. or 40 minute. >> i don't know, superintendent, not that you want to maybe see if chief dodd can respond to that question of whether student cans get zoom access that is unlimited so they can -- particularly high school students. >> we have increased the security protocols based on a number of incidents that have happened over the last few weeks. ms. dodd, is there -- we just heard there is a 30 minute limit. there is a way to set up groups outside of that? >> hi. currently within our sfusd zoom domain, no, we have that turned off. again, for to address sort of

the security and safety and having unmonitored groups or meetings. so we are looking at what some different options -- how different options could work and would we be able to separate that by grade span level and so maybe for high school yes, but younger kids, no. we are still working through that. we are also looking at other tools that can help, for example, within our google suite. google meet to be able to allow for still using your sfusd log in, not having a time restriction, but having some safety and privacy and monitoring controls in place. it is on our list and we're working on that. >> president: thank you. student delegate, would you like to comment on this item? >> yes. so they get comfortable because

this will be long. first of all, i do want toing a -- to acknowledge all the hard work being done at the district level and the admin and teachers working really hard to set up this distant learning for students. however, i don't think it's really effective. kind of like a lot of the public comments said earlier by my friend, this isn't really a way of learning, especially for people who come from low income backgrounds, undocumented families. it is really hard and is a difficult situation if we are putting students in a situation where we are now being concerned about our grades. i know right now my teachers are telling us, at least at mission, that we're still going to receive letter grades. and because the past few weeks leading towards schools being shut down, i was sick and i wasn't able to go to school and try to find ways to make the

grade go up and now i don't know if i am going to be able to pass in certain classes because of that situation. i know there are a lot of students not just at my own school site but at other schools who are struggling with this, too. in addition, with the senior, we don't really know what this is going to look like for us. we don't know if we're going to be graduating. we know we're not going to have a celebration, but we don't know how us being able to complete high school will look like. none of our teachers have told us. no admin has told us. we haven't received any information. our families haven't received any information about that. this is just stressful because we don't know. we have no idea what is going on. and being told that we're either going to be passed or fail, i think that is not fair for a lot of us. so it's stressful because with everything that is going on, some of us are worried about how our families are going to get through the day when our families are no longer working, especially for undocumented families. they are not going to receive a

stimulus check. and just knowing that and knowing how sfusd is built to me hearing this and we're going to have to do a pass or fail and i think is just putting such a big burden on students and families who already have so much going on. and i just don't think it is equitable for our students. and that is all i have to say. >> president: thank you. >> can i ask a quick question for miss herrera? i guess i would really love to hear from you and mr. sandoval what you think is fair to students who are admittedly experiencing all measure of stress and different depending on the family situation. so if you got to tell the district what the policy should be, what should the policy be?

>> go ahead. >> i will just go. i personally just think everyone should just be passed just because we already know that we have families and students who do not have access to the technology. we're saying that we are not going to hold them accountable either, but we also have the situation where we're all stressed out and i think the best way to -- personally my own opinion and the best way to handle the situation is to pass all students. we can still have this virtual learning, but just the constant thing of we don't know -- we're just kind of stressed out on how we're going to be able to complete the work, especially seniors. we are really stressed out because we just don't know how it is going to look like and being told we're going to be pass, and that this will make us

feel safer when we're going into college. i don't know if that makes a lot of sense. >> it does. do you want to add anything? >> i think i agree that students should be passed. having the choice of not being passed affects a lot of people in the district, but then again, i also see the perspective that students who -- with distance learning, it is harder and i already see that when people are passed, a lot of students will drop distance learning all together since what is the point? when i already passed. or it is going to de-incentivize, i guess, the work or the amount of effort put into it. so maybe there is a way to put not a value, but i guess value on students who give options to

students to continue to work and maybe not a grade, but some sort of, yeah, some way like that. if that makes sense. >> it is tricky. definitely tricky. commissioners? commissioner norton? then commissioner lopez. >> commissioner: thank you. thank you for your input. i guess i think i am good with that. i actually think that the whole thing about in general the whole idea of grades and what do grades really mean, right? do they mean achievement or accountability? i think it should be self-directed. we want students to want to learn and do well and excel in the material because they are motivated to do so.

we know that sometimes that is really difficult for them because of the situations they are coming from. there is all sorts of things that intertier with that that are not of their own making. i think this is an unprecedented situation. this is -- i really appreciate the educators that spoke up and said, i am new to this, too. i don't know if i am very good at this. we're all learning. and so to introduce -- to continue to have grades as an accountability system of our students really attending classes and doing what they need to do and doesn't really seem to meet this moment very well. it really -- i am much more comfortable with an approach that acknowledges that learning, that hopefully people will do and student wills do whatever they can to access the material

and learn from the material and move on to the next level of material next year. ultimately if someone has access to the technology and has teaching and the materials they need and chooses not to be engaged and not to do that work, then that is on them. that is ultimately at the end of the day and that student is hurting themselves rather than the rest of us. and yet on the other side if we have students who are experienced at levels of stress and anxiety and barriers to access that we're hearing about, then adding to that stress or forcing them to try to work within a system that is chaotic and maybe not ideal based on the situation that we are in doesn't really seem to work either. i guess that is a really long way of saying that i am -- i

would be okay with giving every student a pass in high school for the subject matter, especially since the universities have indicated that they are okay -- that they are going to give relaxed -- they're going to see this semester as different as a unique situation. and maybe then we can all sort of take a deep breath and do our best to continue to move students through the material that they need to learn for their benefit. and so if it doesn't work, there is no harm, no foul. no penalty if students will not be penalized for the failings of adults or the failings of the system and the fact that this incredibly unique and unprecedented situation hit all

of us. and we weren't ready for it. and the country wasn't ready for it and there is no surprise that we the district weren't completely ready for it. it was be interested in hearing what others think. >> hi, thank you. i appreciate hearing the background to give us a firm foundation and to help lead this discussion. it is no secret that i have been -- we have been having talks about report cards and grading for some time now and for me just given how subjective they could be depending on the teacher has been my primary issue with it. i think given the circumstances, it seems like we're all aligned in this idea of having a pass

grade especially because the universities are sort of allowing for that to happen. i just want to share if that is the process and if that is what we are hearing and that is our understanding, making sure that students are safe with their applications in the next step of education f we do land on that. i think what this is really leading to is real, individualized learning for our students. that could support them achieving and learning that grade. and we are finding unlimited ways to support them during that. i also want to make sure there is a centralized message. i have heard a couple of times and outside of this conversation that teachers are still telling students they will be penalized if they are not engaging with the work or not participating.

i think that is separate which is to make sure that students are safe and healthy and well before anything else. it is contradicting our overall message. if we can make sure that we're delivering that all the way through, then we will continue to say that this is our ultimate priority and learning is especially a priority as well. but not in a form to hold students accountable in a harmful way. i had a question about the messaging that has gone out so far around grading and you were sharing how teachers are saying they won't hold them accountable, so i think i want to hear how and when that message went out given that we are hearing cases where that is not happening.

>> go ahead. >> i was going to answer the question. >> i'm sorry. i want you to -- if supervisor matthews agrees for you to answer that question, that would be great. >> yes, go ahead. >> quickly, commissioner lopez, the first three or four slides i showed was referencing the sfusd distance learning guidance where we tried to say in a number of different ways we didn't want children to be penalized -- what are you laughing? oh, you can hear the horn. >> to show what we have communicated. and what we have learned in this situation and is that there is communication takes on a whole different form when you cannot get people all in a room together and talk about things, etc., and there is a lot to come and we have been trying to

highlight different components of our guidance both in the updates that we have been sending out as well as our principal messages. i would say once this decision the made not only do we update the written guidance but make sure to make that clear in the family guidance we are drafting as well as make sure that always principals and teachers know and do some check for understanding and monitoring, if you will. >> i am happy to hear that and i think we should really enforce that communication and the way we are sharing it with people because, again, it is, like you said, is in different ways and people interpret it in different ways and we're still having these issues where we're putting families in really stressful positions given how open and mindful we are attempting to be. i think that is another reason why including our outside partners are really important because they have those connections and they can funnel that information in a safe and

productive way n an accessible way, so that we don't encounter these issues especially during this time. thank you. >> president: commissioner lam. >> thank you. i am really proud to be part of the school district, to even have the discussion we are having right now, i am landing on guidelines like the considerations of giving all the students a's or a pass and the opportunities for the differentiated learning through incompletes. i just want to say that to acknowledge all the comments that have been made earlier. absolutely, i think this is just unprecedented, right? and that students should not be penalized given access inequities that we know exist. a couple of follow-ups, is unwith, i am sure staff is already working on it, but i

have been hearing so much on a daily basis about graduating seniors and the stress they are facing. i think the sooner that we can land on some really initial guidance for graduating seniors, the better because every hour that goes by, the anxiety rises. i would appreciate just kind of hearing from staff maybe as a response on the time frame or what this looks like for us to land on graduating seniors as well as students that were in credit recovery and what the opportunities are. i think my question would be more down the road beyond this spring and into the fall and as we get back to recovery is then how would we know where each of the students -- and again, i am not a proponent as i have stated before around big state assessments and all or nothing, but i am curious then what educator wills need in order to

then start the following year, whatever that timing looks like, and how d we insure the system that the educators have the support that they need in supporting the students. if we will be adopting a letter grade and a proponent of the letter grade because i think there is letter grade of a because i do think that will also offer students some relief there as well around the opportunities. and the incompletes i am just curious and glad to hear our labor partners have been working with the district staff closely in the conversations because i think as it opened up that differentiated learning and will be key then in how students get to recover their supports there and making sure that it is not going to be if a student is incomplete and are they just going to say, okay, then i am

going to drop out. that is something i want to be mindful of, too, is what that pushout may look like. >> commissioner collins or faauuga moliga or cook. >> thank you. i really appreciate this discussion and i want to say i appreciate being a member of the board. and just also sfusf in general. i wanted to read a public comment that was emailed to me because for whatever reason the person was not able to make it on the call. they were waiting and were not called on. it says, my name is nicole and i am an education advocate at lsc, legal services for children. i am also part of the close the gap coalition. at legal services for children, i represent students who are facing expulsions. i understand that sfufd has

suspended expulsion hearings until schools physically reopen. during this time students are not being included in the synchronous learning opportunities because of a loop in the california education code and i would ask that students with pending expulsions and exiting incarceration have the same access to oral and written feedback, access to classes and contact with education and support from staff. so i just wanted to share that. and i guess there are two conversations that we need to have. we've got grades and we also have graduation requirements, right? those are two separate conversations, and i think the presentation addresses grades but doesn't address graduation requirements. if you -- first off, i wanted to tell folks i have done work in post secondary access and just so folks know, that u.c.s already take a variety of factors into account when they look at grade. an a in one school may be

different in another school or if you take a class, for example, if you are taking an a. pvm class, an a in that class is worth more than an a in a class that is not an a.p. class. so you admissions officers already take factors into account when they view grades. they look at the whole picture, not just the g.p.a. so it makes sense to me that obviously they would take into account a pandemic in terms of looking at how students and how the grades are going to look and whether our district is the same or different from another district, they're going to be looking at the fact that this whole spring is all over the place. and i think if i am an admissions counselor, this is a wash. it doesn't matter. so for folks who are concerned and i was getting an a before and i want it evaluated, there is a lot of anxiety, but from what i understand in talking to advisors across years, we're

always looking at stuff in context. and this context is pretty serious and i don't think anybody would argue. with that in mind, i feel like the questions that were really looking at is, okay, should it be a grade or should it be pass -- i am hearing those two questions. i think i would lean towards why not just give students a's? why not? and then additionally, as far as the incomplete, i think that is another issue. this is personal for me. it took me seven years to get my master's degree because i was dealing with a health issue. and i think it brings up a question of, how do we support students and families in trauma not even now? i want to also ask in the future. when kids are dealing with death and in their family or dealing

with life threatening illness or those kind of survival issues, i think having the space to kind of do the work without the stress is something i am hearing from also the students. students don't need the additional stress and especially seniors. so with that in mind, at this time i would argue for just giving all students a's. and not having an incomplete because i feel like that is additional stress. if we gave, for example, seniors an incomplete, then they had to make up, then does that prevent them from graduating? it has the implication for the graduation piece. by just saying, look, let's consider this a wash. let's give all students a's and not worry about incomplete. as far as learning, there is obviously a concern about gaps in learning with students being

outside of school. and messaging, i want to say thank you to commissioner lopez for talking about messaging. i think i am seeing from some teachers they are doing an exceptional job of messaging to students every time they message out they let them know i care about you. most important is your well being. and they are staying i don't expect you to learn stuff on your own. i don't expect you to learn stuff i didn't teach. kids should not be expected to teach themselves physics concepts they never learned before. so it is important we acknowledge that kids are not going to learn in the same way and they can't learn the same amount. and we have to shift -- i have been listening to hammond and we should haven't the same learning expectations. kids can be doing background knowledge and increasing their vocabulary and a lot of things they can be reading and things they do independently, but some things that are teacher dependent. so i think i would be comfortable with giving all students a's.

no incomplete. just get the grades you get. and then we do really need to have o robust plan for the fall. but i also want to say kids always have this. teachers, right? president sanchez, vice president lopez, kids are coming in and are undocumented and never been educated and they are coming in without taking -- without having the content we taught the year before. there are always -- our classes always need differentiation and we always need to find ways to make sure that kids that weren't getting it or learn differently are getting the content. it is definitely a challenge but i don't think things will be -- we're still going to have kids with huge disparity in where they're at in terms of the content mastery. that's always the case. it's going to be a bigger challenge, but i don't see it as different. so i am advocating for all a's,

no which uncompletes, give kids the credit in high school to move on. if they are graduating, that is the gift we can give them. that is something we can do and superintendent matthews talking, but they are worried about graduation and celebration and then -- and then as far as planning goes, this is a separate conversation, but looking at ways that we can maybe expand distance learning over the summer to help folks in terms of mastery, help folks get more support for longer so maybe we can front load for the beginning of the year to make sure that -- or maybe during the year even what are the expanded supports we're going to offer to make sure that kids are maybe making up for some of the direct

instruction that we are not able to provide them right now. >> supervisor: you started and asked the discussion and one of the things you said is what is the downside of giving them all a's. and palo alto was having this discussion maybe about three weeks ago. they were the ones who came out of the box with the pass-fail. and then they switched it to -- or wanted to switch it to a or fail. the downside and i i want to give you this and to have all the options out there, so this is why we put them all out there. the u.c.s have said they either -- systems -- they will accept that systems have to go to grades which is all grades a through f, or they have to go to pass, no pass. those are the only two they will

accept. it doesn't mean we have to do that. i am telling you what they said. those are the only two they will accept. there aren't hybrids out there. for example, palo alto was trying an a and then fail. and they said, no, they wouldn't accept that. it is either grades or pass-no pass. at least that is what they said they would accept. >> i was in high school and you can give them a no credit, which is like an incomplete. that is not a new structure, right? >> that is correct. >> commissioner: the question is if we give them -- i mean, i don't know. this is a labor question, too. my understanding is that teachers have the right and the teachers have a right to do grade attendance. that is your right. and that is your domain.

and if you mandated something, i wanted to call back on susan solomon and maybe she can answer that, too, but she wanted to speak to this item again. is that okay, justin? >> thank you, president sanchez. >> i will unmute her right now. >> thank you. >> susan? >> yes, thank you so much. thank you, president sanchez. there are many members watching this meeting right now, and i wanted to let you know on behalf of those members and myself in uesf that we would stand in support of giving students a's. this has been an ongoing discussion among our members and we are very determined that this should be about doing no harm to

our students, so that is something that we could support. sound like we will have to figure out the steps, but sound like definitely a step in the right direction. thank you for this really important conversation to all the board members and the student delegates. i really, really appreciate it. >> thank you, susan. commissioner cook or commissioner moliga. okay. i want to consider -- i would like -- students right now are the least powerful in this entire situation, so i would like to give them some power and let them decide. if a student thinks they would earn an a, they should assign themselves an a. if it's a b or c or d. we should trust them to make the right judgment. and that way it is not a pass-fail. it is utilizing their own will

to make the decision for themselves in a situation where they have very, very little power. i think a lot of students will choose to give themselves an a knowing they didn't really deserve an a, that's fine. that's on them. a lot of students will make the right decision. i think most students will make the right decision for themselves. >> and provided by the district and these were shared in the facebook p.l.c. and one of the things that is coming out in the research is it says don't leave the choice of grading to students. it says several units and colleges are allowing students at the end of the smeser to decide whether a -- at the end of the semester whether it should be a pass, no pass, or graded a-f and this perpetuates any inequity because it gives students with access to technology and resources the advantage of being able to earn the letter grade, while less

resourced student cans not realistically exercise that choice. and for reasons stated above, incomplete is preferred to no pass. >> i am saying the students would choose the letter grade. it wouldn't be about a no pass. >> the problem is if i am a student and i am not going to class at all and i am feeling guilty i am not doing that because i feel like i should be, i might be more likely to give myself a lower grade instead of, you know what i mean? honestly, i believe we should do a straight across the board system. and that is -- >> everyone should have the same thing applied. >> and there are other people who want to weigh in as well. commissioner norton? >> commissioner: i had a question for the superintendent. in the guidance that u.c. and other colleges have given to us or other school districts, do you have to choose one grading

system for everybody? or along the lines of what president sanchez is suggesting, and i actually think commissioner collins makes a really important point, too, so i am not sure how i feel about the suggestion, but i just am wondering, could one student say i am going to choose a letter grade and another student choose a pass-fail? or would that vary by classroom? or did u.c. say it has to be all letter grade or has to be pass-fail? >> as a system we would have to have one system for them to evaluate students as they are coming in. so we would either have to say all the of the students were on a pass-fail. all the students -- according to them now. i am just telling what they said. all the students would either have to be on a pass-fail or all the students who have to go on a letter grade. so that they could be able to evaluate the systems coming from -- i'm sorry, the students

coming from san francisco unified school district on that same scale. on a district wide scale. >> i prefer what i am recommending but also happy to give everybody an a as well. i just think that students should have some control in the situation. i think they are going to make the best decision for themselves. go ahead. >> this is my first time hearing about the whole u.c. thing and how you have to follow certain procedure to grade or give grades. i think as a student, i really value that it is nice to know my grades i decide will be valuable for my future, so if deciding a or fail, and knowing that it

won't apply to u.c.s or other schools, i think it really is based on the fact that we should be complying, i guess, with colleges so that we can get our students in college, i guess. >> student delegate herrera. >> i think for me and a lot of people that the idea of giving the students a's or pass is kind of what is best fit for a lot of student. i am thinking of students who don't really have the best relationship with some of the teachers or don't really know how to communicate with the teachers if they have been having a rough time. and being able to pick your own grade might not really work with certain teachers because of the relationship that was built if it is not a reliable

relationship and students having to communicate with the teachers about their needs during the time. and telling them and i know i have been struggling the past few weeks and i haven't really been coming to the class because this and that. kind of like what commissioner collins was saying and be like, i deserve this grade because of this season, but we don't have a good relationship and also don't know how to communicate this with you. and kind of also i feel like it can be stress to feel a lot of students who don't have -- who don't have that communication. >> maybe what we could do is -- >> i have a comment. >> go ahead. >> my hand was raised. >> sorry. >> it's all good. >> go ahead. in terms of credit recovery that was happening right now for students trying to graduate obtime because we have the existing classes, credit recovery happening, and this

includes all of that for seniors, correct? >> i think that is what we're saying, yes. >> commissioner: okay. because they already had an online option and i wasn't sure if our district or our schools were given the grades or another entity was giving the grades. but -- >> president: right. >> commissioner: and this is just for high school? this is k-12? i know we talking a lot about u.c.s right now, but -- >> we are kind of focussing on the high schools, yeah. >> commissioner: and so are we also putting on the table k-8 all a's? >> in k-5, they are not letter grade but we need to think about k-8, and i think our focus and in this discussion is sent on the other hand the high school students because of the high

stakes. so we should include that, too, but i think let's get an understanding of what we want to use for high school right now. >> commissioner: okay. when we started the discussion, it was my understanding that we were trying to figure out how to give guidance and this was going to be the discussion where it happened. but i will speak on high school. i do think that we should be talking about k--- if you are not talking about k-12 right now, let us know when we will have another conversation about k-8. because this sounds like it is about high school. on the high school front, my question for dr. matthews was regarding the collaboration that was happening across the six counties. and if something could be done with that in a response to the u.c.s about what all a's would

mean in terms of giving -- our kids not having a competitive advantage if we do all a's versus a-fail? if we went in that direction. supervisor matthews >> supervisor: oakland, west cantra, san jose and san francisco because we have been having conversations, and they because of the u.c. -- and it's a different spin on what is ms. solomon said regarding doing harm. the conversations that we had is it would do more harm to not put them on a playing field in competition with other students. they have all moved towards the pass-no pass because of what the u.c.s have put in front of them. they said this is the way you're going to get into a u.c. or

c.s.u. and then that if you basically if you are not playing by those rules, the feeling was that you are doing harm. i know that at least the three other big ones are moving towards pass-no pass. >> superintendent, if i could add to that. i believe they have put out guidance on this area, and the option of giving all a's is not one of the approved ways of handling this so if the board wanted to pursue that, i think it would be really important to follow up and find out what the consequences of that would be. and then as the superintendent just said, we are not aware of any other district that has done this in california. it is not clear to us at all what impact this would have on our kids applying for school. i think if this is something the board wants to do at the next

meeting in terms of your decision, we would want to find that out so you could make the most informed decision. >> president: that makes sense. commissioner cook. >> commissioner: my question or to open the door to dr. matthews was about with willingness or being able to do organizing with the districts to move in the direction like this and if that is feasible. i know you are saying because of the u.c.s they are taking that guidance and moving in that direction. what do you think the chances are of having a discussion across several districts to present this option? do you think that is viable or not? >> supervisor: it is not just san jose unified but the entire santa clara county has gone pass-no pass. that ship has sailed.

west contra i believe is not this week if they haven't already, it is this week and they're going pass-no pass. so to answer your question, it is pretty much that ship has sailed. the only one that would be left is oakland, and i know that is where they are leaning. i don't know if the conversation, of course, could be had, but i know the other two have definitely, san jose for sure, and not just san jose, but the -- all the districts in santa clara county which i believe are 21 districts if i remember correctly have all gone pass-no pass. so like i said, west contra was headed that way. just leave oakland. >> the last thing about what danielle said about this not being an approved option. the approved options are all either/or. either credits or fail.

>> or straight grades, but it would be a-f. >> commissioner: a or fail is an option. >> a or fail and also put forth the option that you could allow -- and i think this is represented in the deputy superintendent's slide deck, and you could allow students to have a minimum of whatever grade they had on the date we started sheltering in place and only go up from there. so that is a version of a letter grade. >> commissioner: so we have to find out if this a option and that is the direction we were going is even possible, legal, but internally if we select an option that gives one or the other, what is our capacity and ability to just go with the a?

hey, state, we're doing this. and danielle, you know what i am saying. >> i do know what you are saying, but my concern about that would not be necessarily the impact to the district, but it would be the impact to the individual students who are seeking admittance to four-year schools because if those four-year schools have told us already that they are not going to accept this system, we could be creating a huge bureaucratic hurdle for our kids unintentionally. >> commissioner: i don't have the secondary entry rates in front of me. i know they vary based on the site and who is going to four year versus who is going to the j.c. so that would be interesting to explore. ultimately what i am trying to say is that i think less than 50% of the students that are graduating are going to be --

especially in the trend and maybe someone correct me if i am wrong and based and forfour-year entry requirements and we have 80% that go to the post secondary option but of the entire graduating population, under 50% enroll into a four-year school. so what is the -- trying to get an idea of what the percentage of students who are graduating will be affected by entry requirements. >> supervisor: i know bill, once again s bill a panelists? >> i see him. >> supervisor: bill, do you have the percentage of our student who is go on to four years and especially u.c.s and c.s.u.s? >> i don't have it off the top of my head. i would need to look that up. i have responses to about four other questions, but not that one. i will look it up, though.

>> commissioner: that was my last question. i'm sorry i missed you. commissioner moliga and commissioner collins. >> commissioner: i have a quick question about the u.c.s and do we have any idea around what are the admissions for private schools? have they given any sign of which direction they are going to go? do we have that, dr. matthews? >> i don't know that they have each specifically given direction on it. i think, though, the issue is the integrity of our grades. and so what we're going to have to be answering for is how does any institution of higher learning assess our students' grade during this period of time.

and if it looks as if there isn't a uniform way for them to either discount it from the g.p.a. or treat students equally, it will cause issues. but i don't know, mr. sanderson, have you heard from stanford or some of the other private institutions and whether or not they would permit this? i tend to duoubt it if the u.c. have said no, but that is just a guess. >> there are a couple of private schools. there is a group of us from multiple districts that have been working on this for about three weeks now. we have reached out to multiple universities including private university, and all seem supportive of the pass-no pass. and that is before the ucop released their direction, there were several of them that were

in support of that, and that is pretty much the direction that ucop actually followed and came out with. >> president: all right. commissioner collins and commissioner norton. >> commissioner: this is like we are in a pandemic, people. it is a national emergency. people are dying. and on some level i am glad we are able to have this conversation. in new york people are freaking out. i am talking online to educators because they didn't -- good for us as a city and as a state that we are sheltered in place right away. we're not seeing as much of just like what this all means because we are not all -- some of us are touched by this and many of our students and families are touched by this, but it is not as visible maybe as other places.

but i just -- i already know that grades all over the city are not standardized. teacher rs aren't getting together and checking the grades. they are inflated in some areas. they are totally unfair in other areas. that is currently what's happening. let's -- this is not a time for us to act normally. this is not a time for us to think about what is what would normally happen because that is inequitable and it doesn't make any sense. currently i am not aware of any systemic way as a district, in any district in this country, maybe there are some, but i work in ousd and nobody is doing work to calibrate grades across the city. we are not doing that already, right? so grades are kind of totally all over the place already. then we have a pandemic. so if u.c. wants to say and they want to throw down and say, you know, you have to do it our way, they're already looking at our grades and evaluating them based

on a whole bunch of circumstances like home life circumstances, where kids come from, how high they are in percentile wise in the school they are in, and an a is different at galileo than burton than lowell. that is something that currently exists. if they can't look at us as a city and we want to give all a's and just deal with it, if they can't deal with that, you guys are heartless. that is what i have to say. i am for all giving all a's. i am ready to deal with them. i think children should be focused on surviving this pandemic and learning as much as they can when they are not. and that is what we should be doing as a city. udsf is pushing on this. there are educators and i love them and they are raising money with their money they are getting from the government and barely can survive, and they are going to give it to undocumented families. i am proud of us as a district and proud of our educators.

and they are saying they support this. i think everybody else should. so i am going to, like i said, i think this is kind of getting into the things and it is all kind of -- these are conversations we should be having anyway. what are grades worth anyway? they don't make kids work harder. they don't really give feedback. i am not about acting normal right now. let's rethink the system. let's make it better. and for right now let's take a pause and let's give all the kids a's and let's focus on next year. that is what i want to do. and i support and i am respecting all the opinions and decisions. >> commissioner norton and commissioner lopez. >> commissioner: sorry. i would like to know that we are not -- if that is, i originally

came out for give everybody a pass but all a's and that is the opinion of the majority of the board, i don't have really an issue with that. i do want to be sure, however, that we are not putting our students, our individual students, in any jeopardy by doing so. so i do think we should do some due diligence with cde and other folks at uc doorways and other places to be sure we are not unintentionally creating some problem for students. the other comment i just wanted to make is just commissioner cook brought up what are we -- what are we talking about for other levels? and i think this conversation is rightly focused on high schools but i do think we're going to start to hear from parents of rising seventh graders because they're going to be wondering about high school admissions and in particular lowell. we need to as a school district

think about what is going to be our policy as far as lowell admissions particularly because we're not in control completely of the whole class of folks who come to lowell because there are private schools and they are doing whatever they are doing, so we need to decide what our approach is going to be there. commissioner lopez? >> commissioner: i agree with a lot of what has been said and i think i am having trouble with understanding where u.c.'s stance is and their inability to see the current crisis. i am trying to process that. it is upon us to push and secure and defend our students when they are going through this process with higher education,

even if we have to saddle with universities. i just can't agree with their choices right now. so i am also for a's for everyone. i don't want anyone to have a fail or incomplete. i think that would be completely unfair. >> president: thank you. we are not voting on this and we are giving direction. i am favor of giving all students an a as well. do you want to -- >> i just had a quick clarifying question. if all students were to be given a's, this would also impact seniors right now into the u.c. system or this would be for the rising seniors?

the grading policy is for the entire system. and the one to end up for is for the entire system. so i am in favor of all a's. i prefer students who don't prefer an a and if a student is absolutely like, no, i don't deserve it, this could advocate for not taking an a but that would be a minority amount of students. i want to be clear and one of the things i will come back to

is clarity. one of the things we are talking about is the entire system. just to be clear, you want -- it sounds like you want staff -- because we will have to bring you back a policy around grading. you are asking for a policy that says all students during this pandemic or during this time period would receive all a's. >> in high school. >> and middle school, too? >> we haven't discussed that. let's get the high school out of the way. >> i agree we have to discuss k-8 as well, but for high school and the majority of the board is for giving every high school student an a during this period. >> with that being brought, it sounds like you also want and what a couple of you said and what the ramifications of that would be, for example, and what u.c. says about that and c.d.

and you want that investigation to go into it with all open eyes. >> sorry, president sanchez. and if there is any research and various policy institute from the staff in the next couple of weeks to understand the research based or evidence base thus far. >> one more thing, and to the deputy superintendent's areas to research and get more information and make sure the questions are answered so there is no lack of clarity to do. >> i was clarifying that this

conversation and we were asking for guidance for k-12, not just the high schoolers but i understand from commissioner sanchez we are taking them in chunks, if you will. and another xhe and the guidance as well as the pass, not pass and part of the council for great city schools and is the trend. to have guidance for if a grade should be assigned. if you haven't read that, i would suggest reading it. >> pass-incomplete is what they are suggesting. >> thank you. that is what we suggested as well. thank you for that. >> and helpful to check in learning policy institute as

well. i don't know if folks have had a conversation with them. >> i have not spoken with them yet. that is the direction for that. do we want to tackle k-8 or hold off? >> i think we can do middle school because that is easy or no? there is no credits associated. and is easier than high school. >> it is really only around lowell, right? that is where we are going to hear it as commissioner norton said. >> if we're going to do this to the u.c.s, we should do it to ourselves. i guess the issue, though s other systems? that what you are raising? >> i am totally good with that. >> with a's? >> yes. if there is no objection, let's go for middle school a's as well. for k-5 that is a different

system and in my district we are going to a narrative system --. >>s sorry. >> which we should have done -- >> go ahead. >> and we have talked about report cards for some time and different schools have different systems that i don't think measure students effectively or fairly. the only thing that i can think of that would help do it is with the assessment and pain and without assigning it the actual

number. and to share with opportunities and families in the written form to go from three to four. to talk about the next meeting. and we didn't make many recommendations and focus on feedback which is the narrative and no letter grade and no pass. not pass at all.

and dr. vincent matthews will address and bring us before the next information. and the standards and guidelines. we will definitely bring that back and add one more thing to be remiss if i didn't. when we first went into march 16 and we put a number of learning options to address learning in their own time. we made sure that it was clear that it was optional. i think during the first couple of weeks and like i said, i would be remiss if i didn't share this, that is the area

where we had the most pushback because it was optional. from parents and what parents said is that it made it much more difficult to get their students to engage in learning when they wanted them to engage in learn. we also heard pushback from teachers who said we're trying our best to create lessons and do our best for students but because it's optional, students feel like they don't need to engage. i want to make sure you know going in that if every student is going to get an a, and i just want to make sure -- like i said, all eyes are open, there definitely will be, we will definitely hear from parents and from teachers because it basically begins to recreate, if every student knows they are going to get an a, for many learning becomes optional for them. i want to make sure, as i said,

as we are going into all of this, i want our eyes to be wide open. >> and just a suggestion and if we give all students a's or pass, the virtual learning for students and to boost the grade and to boost that and keep that with the incentive and continuing to do that and continuing to do the work. a lot of students knowing they are receiving an a kind of want to do something besides watching netflix or making tiktoks. and in my classes today, everybody showed up and was so

happy to see each other. i usually am not really that big of a fan of waking up early, but i was excited and see my favorite teachers and classmates and interact with them. a lot of people and be encouraged and giving them something productive to do and to check up on each other and use zoom and just catch up. i understand why a lot of people are saying students might feel like i should don't this work anymore because i am receiving an a, but i think because of everything that is going on, it is actually encouraging us more to show up for the classes and do the work because it is giving us something productive to do.

>> as a parent of a middle schooler and seventh grader, i think that that structure and not just grades has been helpful to have the structure, to have the organized leadership from the site administrator and educators. i would want a little more time to process and get tom feedback and insight from stakeholders as well.

>> right now students are so bore and seeing the teachers and classmates and stuff. today we had choir. we sing, so we ended up talking and catching up again for an hour. students will pick up something and it is hard to stay indoors all the time. commissioner collins said we could pursue other things and read a book not related to a course. maybe other way of education. if we should continue distance learning into the summer and it is important to keep offering

methods of learning. and at student, we can't make our own meetings and can't catch up. it is hard. not yet. >> we are extremely happy to be on the board and appreciate all of you guy. >> i will definitely miss you all when i go to college, but definitely keep my hardest to come back and stop by the office and say hi to everybody, teach dr. matthews a thing or two. i am just so honored to be the student delegate and to have been able to meet and with all of you individually and in board meetings. it has been an honor. i can't wait to see who the next delegates will be. but i can tell from the candidates that they are really amazing and i know you will love

them. hopefully i am your favorite delegate, but i don't know, hopefully they could be your favorite delegate, too. >> what's that? >> president: commissioner colin. >> commissioner: i want to say grades -- it is kind of a false idea that grades are the reason why kids go to school. i want to shift that narrative because kids want to learn. i think sometimes we get in the way as adults. but especially when they are at home on their own and they want to see their friends. there is community. they love their teachers, too. let's shout out to the teachers that they miss. and they want to learn. and so i think it's on us as educators to really use this time and say it is weird now. let's use this in a new way. what do you want to learn? what books do you want to talk about and can be content related but i don't think kids going through crisis right now is going to go, oh, i am in crisis

but i don't want to get a bad grade. and i don't want to show up online. i don't think that is motivating kids and i think structure is important and i love as a parent, i do like having the schedule because my kids are now on their own showing up because they want to see their friends and see their teachers. i like the structure but i don't think the grades is what is making them do the work or show up. >> i want to second that. as a teacher and going through with my kid seasoned a such a bright part of my life even though it is difficult doing the zoom meetings all day and night now, but it is great and they are all showing up. okay. shall we move on? commissioner lopez? >> i also love seeing the pointing, though. it makes me feel like i am all over the place. >> the brady bunch. >> i didn't want to respond to that because i know families' concerns especially when we went

into shelter in place at the beginning as far as this optional piece. i hear that, but i also, we were in such a different place just three weeks ago. a lot of our efforts were behind insuring that, again, families and students had the resources necessary so they can engage. so i think comparing those two now where we are today is going to be completely different. i hope that families who are pushing these efforts and trying to stay away from the idea of it being optional fully understand the circumstances and see that we're also leading with this wellness lens. we are also shifting how we're checking in with our students, how we are making sure they have the ability to access learning and this is an effort to make it really individual sized for our student. and how we can take advantage of it and how we can use that in the future. even when this is back to where we're going. this is something we need to

keep in mind given that we were able to do it and building on it and prioritizing it. hopefully we will get families to continue to engage and support this process while we're learning together. >> president: all right. thank you, all. can we move on? okay. all right. section j. is discussion and vote on consent calendar items removed at a previous meeting. there are none tonight. section k. is introduction of proposals and assignment to committee. so we have a board policy 5131 on student conduct and 6143 courses of study. board policy 6178 career technical education. we need a motion and a second for first reading for those policies. >> so moved. >> second. >> okay. do we have any public comment?

for this? anybody out there in the public want to comment on these? >> sorry to interrupt. we have one hand up. >> let's do it. >> hello, phone caller. are you there? >> caller, are you there? for public comment? hello, is this lena? >> yes, yes, it is. >> go ahead. >> hi. thank you for giving me a chance to offer my comment. i am a parent of a seventh grader and i have to say that it was incredibly disappointing to start off this week in what we were really looking forward to being a different phase and a more substantial phase of learning this week to instead find that my kid has almost no

homework presented to her, no work, there has been no instruction from her teachers although they do engage with the teachers and go away. it is almost going in the opposite direction and to the point that superintendent matthews made and several of the students have already amplified, i think at this moment in time having the structure of schools is incredibly beneficial for a lot of kids. and while i also really support sfusd being as flexibility for the thousand of students struggling in various ways, it feels like we are from this conversation sort of giving up on the rest of the this term. and that feels like the absolutely wrong direction to go. it feels like we doubling down not on more homework or higher pressured expectations but more about engagement and giving kids

a sense of connection to schools and connection to the community and teachers and to learn. thank you for giving me a chance to speak. and i hope you keep that in mine as you make future policy. >> all right. thank you so much. that was for the last discussion. >> we have a for mu hand up now, president sanchez. would you like to take those? >> only if they are on the item. >> i will determine that momentarily. >> hello, are you there? >> you know i am. are you speaking to this item? >> i am. board policies, right? all right. again, aleda fisher and past chair or the community advisory committee for special education. just wanted to comment specifically on the student conduct policy, 5131. i see in some of the notes we have other policies and code

that are referenced. for example, i see due process rights for students and with ieps, students with disabilities is mentioned only as another ed code or policy reference. there is nothing specifically in these policies that references the special and unique, i guess, rights and responsibilities that students have to make sure that the disability isn't used against them for disciplinary reasons. and i think that would be very important to highlight in this policy e police sitly rather than -- explicitly rather than obliquely referencing another ed code or another policy. if there is any way to update that considering this is first reading, we would encourage and respectfully request that. thank you. >> thank you.

>> anybody else? >> we can't hear you. >> a trying to get the caller. caller, are you hear to speak? going once. thank you. all right. that is it. >> thank you. and unless i hear otherwise from legal counsel, i am going to refer to these items to the famous rules committee. a lot going on. section l., proposals for immediate action and suspension of rules. this is board policy 204-14a1 to accomplish policies and procedures for the san francisco unified school district to provide trauma-informed coordinated care and promote resilience and healing during and after the covid-19 pandemic, which is being introduced by

commissioners faauuga moliga, gabriela lopez and alison collins. >> so moved. >> second. >> this is a lengthy resolution. commissioners who are authoring, do i need to read it into the record? >> should we do one page each? >> you can decide how you want to do that. >> mr. chairman? >> i am so sorry, but we need a vote on suspension of the rules please. >> the first thing we need to do is suspend rules to vote on this resolution tonight. >> that is what i had a motion and -- i thought i had a motion and second. >> that was my bad. we need to do role call. >> thank you.

>> yes. >> a yes. >> a yes. >> a yes. >> a yes. >> mr. sanchez. >> yes. >> on suspension of the rules please. thank you. mr. sandoval. thank you. >> all right. then the process is we will have this read into the record, public comment, and then voting on the resolution. >> commissioner lopez or collins, would you like to start it off and i can read the resolves? >> i have it pulled up. so on resolution number 204-14a1 to establish policies and procedures for the san francisco unified school district to provide trauma. informed, coordinated care that promotes resilience and healing during and after the covid-19

pandemic. whereas on january 31, 2020, the u.s. declared a public health emergency in response to the spread of novel coronavirus, covid-19, later declared as a pandemic by the world health organization on march 11, 2020 posing a serious health threat to our nation, the city of san francisco and the world as a whole. and whereas, on february 25,2020, mayor london n. breed declared a local emergency noting extreme peril to san francisco residents and visitors due to covid-19. and whereas, on march 16, 2020, due to covid-19's unprecedented risk to public health, mayor breed issued a shelter in place order for all san francisco residents, closing all san francisco unified school districts schools in addition to other drastic and necessary public health measures. and whereas, on april 7, 2020, superintendent vincent matthews noted the unprecedented and

challenging times and life-changing events of covid-19 and informed our district communities that, to provide the best education in these difficult times, school properties will stay closed for the remainder of the school year and instruction will transition to distance learning. and whereas, as noted -- commissioner colin. >> whereas, as noted, in recent report from mckin skszsey and company the covid-19 pan dem sick a threat to our population not only in risk for human life and ensuing economic distress, but also for the invisible, emotional strain. daily reports of increasing infections and deaths across the world raise our anxiety and, in cases of personal loss, plug us into grief. there is uncertainty about tomorrow, about the health and safety of our families, friend, and loved ones. and about our ability to live the lives we love, creating

widespread distress and unprecedented threat to the current and future health of our society. and whereas, the california health care foundation, which has been tracking mental health across california during the covid-19 pandemic, noted that at least 20% of californians surveyed say their mental health has gotten a little worse in the first week of april 2020 alone. and whereas, sfud will continue to prioritize the mental health and well being of its stoounts and families, educators, and staff in this historic moment in keeping with its mission to provide each and every student the quality instruction and equitable support required to thrive in the 21st century. and whereas, in recent assessment of families at dr. martin luther king jr. academic middle school, 48% of the students or families, prime ministerially 1 in 2, identified one or more of the following

need. food, tech, divice and/or wi-fi, housing, supplies, for a baby, or mental health supports, with 37%, more than 1 in 3 identifying food as a need. and whereas -- >> you want to go the >> you looking at me? >> i am looking at -- i don't know. you can go or we can do thirds. >> i can go. thank you. whereas trauma can often adversely impact young people and in the midst of the ongoing public health crisis, it is especially important for educators, administrators, and other staff to attune to young people's possible trauma and focus on healing practices for students and families. and whereas, educators may suffer additional stress in the transition to online learning on top of the aforementioned difficulties during the covid-19 pandemic, with some studies of middle schoolteachers putting their rate of extremely high

dress at 94%. and whereas, educators with children now have to teach and parent at the same time creating new and unexpected stressors for district staff. and whereas, structural racism and disparities in wealth and access to health care have exacerbated the covid-19 crisis for the district's most vulnerable population, including young people and families in public housing, undocumented youth, and individuals experiencing homelessness. and whereas, to date the district is engaged in covid-19 supports and initiatives to ensure that all student, families, educators, administrators, and staff receive the mental health and other supports they need during the crisis. and whereas, additional policies and procedures can strengthen the district's ongoing efforts to ensure care is coordinated, trauma-informed, high quality, and responsive to the community needs. therefore, be it resolved the

board of education requests that the superintendent of schools work with staff and report back to the board by friday, april 17, 2020, on -- a coordinate nation of care plan. this plan will reflect a system-wide commitment to holistic care policies and procedures for students and families. work on the plan will be divided into multidisciplinary teams, education, behavioral health, public health, social work, community partnership, and city and county departments. students and families, as well as everyone serving them, interfacing primarily and secondarily, including but not limited to staff, administration, school site, staff, and community partners should have access to wrap-around services, in order to prevent the retraumtiization of students, families and staff and promote holistic well being, the coordination of care plan will include an analysis of needs, triage, referral and linkages and measurement tools to assess effectsiveness. the plan will be designed with

an equity lens and cultural humility. but it further resolved, sfusd will develop and implement a needs assessment process where school communities will create and implement an assessment plan to evaluate the needs of students, families and educators by april 17. school communities will assess their own readiness to implement a needs assessment and what steps need to be taken to be ready. school communities will map internal and external resours available to them. sfusd will develop a plan for itch complementing schools' needs assessments to meet the meet the needs of student, families and educators. sfusd will triage, link, and case manage the needs surfaced throughout and after the process is developed. further be it resolved sfusd will build in organizational practices to proactively promote resilience as well as provide organizational support for all

educators and staff and administrators around burnout and secretary traumatic distress. be it further resolved, sfusd will provide wellness mental health support during the covid-19 pandemic for educators and staff. these supports should be developed by april, 17, 2020, with the following priority. trainings tailored to individual school sites during covid-19. and all trainings should be administered during the educators contractual work day and in partnership with united educators of san francisco and service employees international union. trainings should be developed in collaboration with the community stakeholders including youth. staff support groups catered to school sites and community. individual wellness check-ins held once every two week. ongoing and consistent mental health coaching from school site administrators and educators from clinical and community-informed providers with expertise in mental, emotional, and behavioral

distress response both acute and chronic. >> the final, further be it resolved, sfusd will support and cull activate the pre. existing crisis team and include social workers, health workers, nurses and community partners to address ongoing school crises by may 1, 2020. crisis planning will intersect with department planning and school safety planning throughout sfusd. and crisis team will develop a plan to provide direct crisis service support for students, families and educatorses during the covid-19 pandemic. be it further resolves, in order to best meet the need of our sturnts and families during and after the covid-19 pandemic, sfusd will develop a comprehensive, school-wide plan to transition student, families and educators through the summer and back into school with a focus on wellness and using healing-centered practices by friday, may 1, 2020. this plan will be co-created by stakeholders including but not limited to students, father and

mother i will, educator, labor and community parer ins and san francisco city and county departments. sfusd will utilize the uscf hearts core guiding principles for creating trauma informed schools understand trauma and stress, cultural humility and equity, safety and predictable, compassion and dependability, empowerment and collaboration, and resilience and social emotional learning and will utilize needs assessment to assist in creating programming and shift instructional practices to further support the development of healing-centered schools. awe thank you. all right. so i don't think there was a scott presentation, but is there any -- superintendent matthews, is there any comment by staff? >> yeah. i would like to come on. we have some concerns especially around the timeline and some of the reports were due this friday

so i know she entered or asked for some language to be added but that language wasn't added. we just wanted to be transparent not about what is in the resolution and much of it we are either doing or consideration but more around the time frame and the time slot. >> all right. and since they weren't read into the record, if you want to make comments that you were making. >> thank you, president sanchez and commissioners for the opportunity to present at this time. i don't need to talk too much about the other information that we were asking essentially what we wanted to do is sort of add whereas that filled out what we have been doing on the district side of things in terms of the coordination care plan that we have in place. that does include some of these

elements and certainly has growth areas that we are pivoting towards. mostly i wanted to just mention that today is tuesday, april 14, and friday is april 17, and if we're being asked to have a coordinated plan, that includes a needs assessment and analysis, that is going to be pretty difficult to do in such a short period of time particularly since the resolution really seems to call out that we want to do this with people and in coordination. and we don't have anything set up to do that in the next couple of days. we've got work that we're working on to be planning meetings and forums but not in the next 24 hours and have something on friday. that would really speak to the needs assessment with a large number of folks contributing to it.

that is a concern on doing something in short a short period of time. the work being asked to do by may 1 around the re-opening of schools, that is another discussion that does need to be very robust and include all of our partners, labor partners, family, students, and our city partners. and by may 1 we could have an idea of how to have the conversations, but again, we don't know what the social distancing -- there is a lot of things we don't know on how we would have to open schools. we could certainly have an idea of sort of who is at the table and how we are making the decisions and things like that. i don't think that we could have actually a plan about re-opening schools in that short period of time. >> is that the extent of comments? >> yes. i think what the superintendent said, there is nothing in the resolution that we don't believe

in and have been working to hold true in our heart and working towards, so the resolution is something we feel like we are moving on now and certainly could be better at it, but it is more of the timeline. >> okay. back to the whereas clauses that you had drafted and as suggestions, can you make sure that commissioners get those? >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> there was a lot of stuff and things happening already that are called for in the resolutions. we want to make sure that staff is appreciated for the work they are doing already. so going to go to public comment right now. if anybody who is out there in the public in the virtual public world want to comment, please raise your hand. >> hello, meghan.

>> hi. yes. >> two minutes. >> i am a behavioral analyst is with the school district. i strongly support this resolution. i work with a lot of students and staff on wellness and ensuring that students can access learning in the normal school environment. i don't feel like our priorities should be any different. i think it is just what we -- how we reach our goals is going to be different. i think as everybody has mentioned over and over again that we are just highlighting the issues for our students and their family. this is a very important statement to our community that we're prioritizing their wellness and that learning happens best when people are at

their best and feel cared for and putting that in the forefront is the key to ensuring that our students have access to their learning. and that our families feel safe to support the learning and support it and supporting the learning. and i think that this should have happened obviously before right now when we already started the learning but we can't reverse the past as we learn as we go. we're doing the best we can but i do believe that the work that needs to be done needs to be done as soon as it can be done. i think pushing forward with it as quickly as possible is really important. thank you. >> thank you. >> martha. >> i am dr. martha merchant a

clinical psychologist and i have been working with hearts that is referenced in the resolution for eight years. both in sfusd. we at hearts support this resolution and appreciate that it recognizes we are all being impacted by the current trauma by supporting both families and students and also educators and others who support our students and families. we believe that the resolution provides unique opportunity to both mitigate the immediate effects of the current trauma and also to consolidate all the trauma-informed work that sfusd has been doing for more than 10 years. we believe it could prevent a second silent epidemic by putting into place lasting, sustainable changes going forward. this crisis will hold differently on folks who have already experienced trauma whether that will individual or sociocultural trauma as racism,

sexism, and other structural inequities. we put those traumas front and center and if we are not focus and social justice we are missing the boat on trauma-informed care. we at hearts are ready to support sfusd as it moves forward and if there is anybody who is looking for more information about hearts itself, you can find us online at hearts. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes. go ahead. >> i am from the mission neighborhood and want to speak in support of the resolution. i commend the three commissioners for drafting such an amazing and needed resolution. i specifically want to highlight

the piece on the planning with families, students, labor, community-based organizations, true partners in the key decisions that need to be made as part of the resolution including the different aspects of the needs assessment, and the delivery of educational content, and the plans to return to school. in order to ensure the support and language for immigrant families. many of our most families in need are at a disadvantage from the gitgo, so this resolution really addresses those needs from trauma-informed care. i want to make sure that all the partners are brought to the table to ensure that the solution and how to address the needs that are coming up from the assessment but they are included in the decision making process. thank you very much. >> thank you.

leslie, are you there? >> hi. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> great. thank you. my name is leslie and i work at m.l.k. middle school. this is the 13th year in san francisco unify. i really want to start off with hoping that everyone is making sure we're practicing good self-care because we know that putting on our own oxygen masks are important in this time to care for our baby. i am supporting this resolution because i have seen firsthand the positive impacts of what this resolution is aiming to do. when healing center practices are prioritized, students and families feel more connected to staff and schools. and in neural science we know that these connections are relationship and can actually be part of healing for people. and that is why the healing practices and the framework can

be part of what we are participating in. another part of the resolution that is another powerful one is if we collectively engage in the hope and need assessment of our students, families and educators, which this can guide how we respond and do school moving forward and centering their voices and analyzing the data, we can be strategic in responding to feedback and allocating resources in a more intentional way. in fact, i wonneder if we can collectively, positively, possibly use this data to advocate city wide to possibly the mayor and district supervisors around these needs that we are seeing from other families. i really do believe that this resolution can support our students and educators and families with compassion and with results. and i know that we can all do this together to do this work. i think in closing i really want to express gratitude for all the

work that everybody is doing. gratitude also is another science-backed strategy around supporting all of us and navigating this crisis. i really want to express that gratitude to everybody here. thank you. >> thank you. >> jennifer, are you there? >> yes. can you hear me? >> yes, go ahead. >> my name is jennifer caldwell and a mentor social worker and supporting the elementary school social workers in sfusd and i wanted to speak in support of the resolution and i believe creating an equitable school environment where all students have access to the resources they need is a social justice issue and sfusd and school health programs had been

actively speaking to support trauma support for over a decade. but i feel like that's become more imperative as we are all experiencing that collective trauma. and while we know that not everyone impacted by stress and trauma will be affected in the same way, we do know that when of the most important environmental protective factors that can support students and the resilience and recovery after being impacted by stress and trauma is social support. and schools are a critical part of the support network. that is why it's important to create school environments where students feel safe, supported and ready to learn. i believe it is the responsibility of us as educators straittors and school staff to education ourselves on how stress and trauma impact the brain and human behavior and to use this knowledge to make instructional changes in schools to support youth and families better. i think this resolution brings the emotional well being of students, families and staff to the forefront of our work.

and as educators this will help us better navigate the current crisis aftermath and hopefully create needed shifts in the way we think of education moving forward. thank you. >> thank you. susan? >> thank you. susan solomon again, president of uesf. i want to echo and left up what the previous speakers said and thank the commissioners for creating this wonderful resolution. i am speaking on behalf of uesf as well as myself. there is reference to training on how to do needs assessments and i wanted to let the board know that staff members and

educators including previous speakers megan and leslie have already provided training to at least 30 educators in sfusd on how to do needs assessments. and so we are all in and we want to do everything we can with sfusd to make this areality. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> julie? >> hi. julie roberts fong on behalf of close the gap coalition. i want to express appreciation for the commissioners for this resolution. i have seen how this needs assessment has rolled out in some of the whole community schools and how it has positioned families in a much better place than other schools working just as hard but without this resource. there is a couple of amendments that folks wanted to offer as

mentioned earlier. we want to make sure we are explicit about students facing expulsion and exiting incarceration being included in the needs assessment and coordination of care plans. we'd also like to make sure that it is clear that instead of creating a new needs assessment or have different needs assessment site by site, that sites should use the existing needs assessment so we get consistent information across the city. and finally we would like to ask for there to be public reporting back to the board and that shows families' needs desegregated i will race, income, gender, sexual orientation, school site and grade level. as other speakers have mentioned we know that this pandemic falls differently onto different families. and the experience of latin families might be different than white families or more affluent

families. we also think that desegregated information by school site and grade level will help us look at neighborhood gaps and meet them and better plan for meeting students' needs as they return in fall of 2020. thank you nor and appreciate in our conversations that commissioner lopez mentioned we should make this a regular process so that we know what the needs of our families are in an ongoing way not just when there is a pandemic. thank you. >> thank you. >> president sanchez, that was the final speaker on this item. >> all right. thank you so much. so we open it up to commissioners if you have comment or questions, this is the time. commissioner lam. >> commissioner: thank you to the commissioners for putting together this really important resolution.

one question i had was, what is the budget implications or has that analysis occurred? again, it sound like there is much of the work is about leveraging the existing systems and closing some of the gaps. i am curious around if there is any budget implications and what goes into it? i want to make sure we understand commitment and responsibilities and making sure we can deliver on those. >> so i will chime in, commissioner. i would invite chief smith to add on. i would just say as she indicated earlier, we have not fully gotten all of the details mapped out about the specific steps, in particular with some of the dates that are identified here.

there are some items obviously that represent existing work and some items that represent additional or new work. i would expect that much of the -- especially with the timelines that are identified here that a lot of the near term work would be done or would have to be done by existing staff. we don't have a lot of time for these dates to hire additional staff orring an for additional -- or arange for additional costs or contracts or things like that. i think there is an a little built of interplay between the timeline and the additional cost. but in general i think she and i would meet and other colleagues would need to bear down a little bit more to have fine grain detail for an exact budget analysis.

>> do you want to add anything to that? >> sure. yes. thank you, deputy superintendent. that is correct. we haven't really been able to dive into this to think about what work we're going to have to take off our plates to focus on this work and to look at once the plan is in place and if it involves training and who can do the trainings, and how we either have additional staff or reassign work for folks because it can't be added to people's plates. there is a number of things that we currently are not providing so we don't know what that would cost with staff support groups and individual wellness checks held once every two weeks and ongoing and inconsistent mental health coaching for school site administrators, educators and such. we are not sure what that would encompass and then if there are both the resources in terms of what the cost would be and also if we have the human capital and

the people who can provide those services. so that is all the information that we have not been able to suss out and would have to be part of the planning process to see what that would cost. it would be hard to determine that because we want to do a collaborative plan with all the partner. it is difficult to know what the cost would be. >> okay. >> i think as -- can i comment? >> yes. >> z the staff goes into the next steps around looking at this coordination plan, i would encourage the staff to really think about exactly if there are ways that we can either hit it or pivot or re-organize because we all know we have different pieces of this from public comment and the partnership and work has been happening for a decade. and how do we -- this work should be happen this way in delivery and i think for me top

of mind since we made decisions for school closures and seen amongst the colleagues in the larger school districts like new york city and l.a. unify and denver that there is going to be a significant -- a significant portion of our students that we're just fot going to have been in touch with. i think this resolution is also going to be critical in addressing that gap in the interim. i just wanted to at least name and hear from both commissioners as well as the staff around the potential fiscal implication. and just being mindful of being a budget chair, i want to make sure i least lifted that up. >> can i respond to that, mark? >> m.l.k. did this on their own right away. some of that had to do with the fact they were already set up as a community school, but i participated in the webinar and

what they did is not rocket science. it is what our schools should already be doing. it is assessing needs of kids and doing resource mapping and f figuring out what you have. there are schools who are kind of already doing this in their own way. the problem is every school is doing it differently but the actual act of asking your kid and family what is do you need and figuring out what you have is something good principals do. i think what this resolution puts in place is a systemic and structural way of us to do it the same way across the entire district. but that shouldn't cost anymore money as far as needs assessment or things like that. it is honestly what we already should be doing. if we are not doing this, i an i degree with commissioner lam we should be shifting and pivoting. as far as new stuff as far as in terms of increasing support, mental health supports and things like that, the other piece is we have m.l.k. and they

identified kids needed food and went to the marter ins to raise money to get safeway gift cards. this plan is also about creating an interconnected -- understanding how we interact with our partner, city agencies and things like that. right now i am talking to the city agencies and supervisors and they are saying they don't know how our kids are doing and families are doing city wide. i talk to the leg aid of norman yee and we are the only citywide agency that actually has access to really reaching out to every single family in the district. i think in partnership we can't provide them everything and that we are already providing meals above and beyond what we kind of are budgeted for, i think it

shows this is the opportunity to partner and where we can't meet the need as far as maybe some mental health supports or department of public health, there are city agencies that should be supporting our families but we need to be able to give them the information that they need in order for us to partner with them. any kind of financial implications that come out of this like, hey, we need to be providing this and we are not, it is we as in collective we and some of that is on the city and some of that is on the business sector and all that stuff. immediately i don't see any immediate impact. i think long term we will see where maybe some budget impacts and then we have to say is that something we should ache on the as a shift in our work or something we should go out and look for money for. that is just my read of it as somebody that is looking at it from an institutional framework. i think immediate is not a big lift. long-term, possibly.

and we should be having that conversation anyway, if that is what our families need, we should be having that conversation and lifting that up to city partner. >> vice president lopez. then commissioner norton. >> great. thank you. >> i really want to appreciate you commissioner moliga for leading this and including me. this is a lens that you have utilized since you have been on the board and seeing this move forward is something i am excited about. i want to appreciate chief smith you and your team's tireless work to make this happen quickly. just to know, the dates on the resolution i know that it is something that is fairly quick and again a lot of work that we have already been doing, but i think it's just to highlight the urgency behind this need and to ensure that the school district is leading with this wellness lens. i am also very appreciative above all of the educators and

uesf members who have provided a stage for this to become a reality for us to utilize a lot of good resources and methods that we have been doing as educators for many, many years and make ate systemic process that the school district can use to make sure that our families are safe. this is also highlighting how much we want to support our educators. and the process that they're dealing with during this time. the need they have during this time especially educators who are also parents and having to balance all of that, meanwhile taking care of the students, meanwhile leading the school district. so i know that this is a lot of work that we have already been doing. and that we have the positions in place in order for it to happen and we need to shift our priorities so that we can continue to lead with that now and moving forward.

thank you. >> thank you. commissioner norton. >> thank you. i do agree that it is really powerful for us to make a statement as a district that we want to first and foremost approach this crisis by meeting the needs of our students at the most basic level and then working open from there and incredibly disparate impacts on the community from the crisis and we should all center that absolutely. i guess i have some concerns about the process. i think the timeline is incredibly challenging. will be incredibly challenging for the staff to meet. i just want to encourage the

authors -- i appreciate vice president lopez what you said about the dates in there being there to acknowledge the urgency and i agree about that urgency and agree that these are -- many of these things are things we are already doing or should be already doing. i guess i would just say we don't know as board members all of the millions of things that our staff are doing right now. this is an unprecedented time, we keep saying. to kind of throw this down with this kind of aggressive timeline, i think could be interpreted in some corners by people who are already working day and night to try to address the crisis and turn the ship to address this crisis that we

have, i think it could be counterproductive. so i guess what i would like to encourage the three of you to think about is, is there a way that this resolution could be as strong statement of our priorities and our determinations and meet family where is they are and to really focus our priorities on wellness and supporting our families who are really struggling, but also acknowledge that three days is really not a realistic or reasonable amount of time for schools and the school district to accomplish this work with caring and as comprehensively as we would all expect them to do. i also think that i am glad to hear commissioner colins that you don't think there should be budget impact of all of this,

but i don't know. i guess i am in general just given what our budget situation is and now with added uncertainty, i would feel more comfortable if this goes through the budget committee and gets that vetting. it is disturbing a little bit to me given all of the uncertainty and all of the challenges that we were already facing financially before this crisis hit for us to sort of say, okay, we're going to start this new strand of work and we don't think it will cost us more money. we don't know. we need to staff to really tell us these are the things and strand of new work. these are the strands of existing work. and this kind of a timeline does not allow us to really ascertain that. i would be more comfortable if

we could together before we vote think up a more reasonable timeline that allows us to have a sense of any fiscal impact that we should consider and at the very least give staff a reasonable chance of doing what it is that we expect them to do. because i think in three days is not enough time for them to do what this resolution says they should do and what we all, i think, want them to do and expect them to do. >> commissioner moliga and then cook.

>> can you give us an estimate past this friday to accomplish what the resolution would take? so in tresponse with the additional language down? to have a couple of weeks to understand what is happening and where we are pivoting and how we could get that done. i want to be able to engage with our partners and with the time

to do that and difficult in a short time but if we had a report back at the next board meeting about our progress on this and our plan, and i really need to understand more exactly when we say we want something by april 17 or in two weeks what the board is looking for and engage with partners how to get that collectively. i would ask for two weeks. that is helpful. it is important to involve our community partners. we know that labor is interested because uesf, educators, co-sponsored this resolution and endorsed it wholeheartedly.

so we have their partnership and have sf informed this document d i know that a lot of organizations are in support of this as well and the needs assessment and to ex-tend it another week is reasonable as far as the assessment piece. there may be other aspects that are more time intensive like doing reporting back and reporting on the results. that would definitely take more time. there is an urgency and part of the reason it is reflected in

this is this should have been done as soon as we closed. waiting another month is what i am hearing but go through budget and come back again and approve the plan, we are really talking about a month. we don't have that time to waste. i am talking to supervisors now who are like, what can we do to help? it is district to district or anecdotal and there are teachers calling homes and finding out how the kids and families are doing, but as a district we have no idea what is going on district wide because we aren't doing that. we can't move forward with a distance learning plan either if we don't get immediate data on where the kids are at. i would propose that the

assessment -- the needs assessment piece, that needs to be urgent and needs to be right away and we have a model from uesf and maybe need to extend a little time to our community partners that are not uesf can be involved, our families and we have parent advisory committees, and we also have a lot of our close the gap and those kind of organizations. but maybe other parts of it like reporting back with the parts, but we are already behind and even so it is one snapshot and in there is a model and beyond

why that has to be slowed down. it is not a new thing. we are just formalizing it and making it district side. >> system wide. >> thank you to everyone, thank you to the staff. as you all know, the health department, and i am excited because it is not like we don't have and if we didn't have health in the school district and we have the tools in place to make this work very well and

very efficiently. the reason san francisco is flattening the curve is we have been super aggressive in taking care of our folks. as a clinician the first step in a crisis is the assessment. the timelines and we have been working on the time lines and thinking in my head, i know they are tight, but check it out. we are going into summer by the end of may. so if we are going to start assessing next week, we're not going to understand the needs. and let me say this. as days go on, we are trying to prevent is long-term harm to our kids and educators. i can say this because i work in the field that we get calls every day at my job about kid who are now wanting to commit

suicide because they are in the house. i am talking about sfufd kids. they are being admitted to the hospital because of the crisis. we don't really have the time. we have the skills and expertise to knock this out of the park and trust the gang to do this and i know the pieces are there. back to the budgeting question, this isn't a budgeting thing but a reshift on how to move forward. there might be some budget implications in there somewhere. you might have to add additional staff, but we are not there right now. this is a reshift in process of how to do things. there is an area to push back on

and what is it to launch the school year. we have so time around there. that we can and in terms of summer coming up, we cannot let the kid and families go into summer without understanding what the needs are and we have to link every single kid and the families to something. if we don't do that, we are dropping kids and they are in situations now where talking from the social work and folks in vulnerable situations. we have to service this. and i'm sorry, president sanchez, ma i ask a question for my own clarity? commissioner moliga, are you

saying that by friday you want us to have completed a needs aassessment, analyzed is and brought that back to the board? i want to be clear what you are asking for on friday. >> thank you. i appreciate the question. we should have a needs assessment to be launched to schools by monday and by next friday to have the needs as many kids as we can get from the schools. i think we can finish this assessment by friday. >> when you and i say by friday this, friday or next friday? >> next friday. >> you are saying is that you want a needs assessment launch plan by prid friday. you want a needs assessment to be rolled out by school sites to start assessing the needs of the

family and have that data collected by the following friday which is the 24th just to put dates in my head and a time in which we have to assess and analyze that data and work with students and families to look through the data to see because if you have -- unless you have a large group of people looking at data, we can skew data by looking at various people looking at the data and we have to design a plan. is that what i am hearing? >> my sense is what i am hearing commissioner moliga say is figure out how -- we already have a model. we have a model that working and exists that social workers are using. if we are not going to reinvent the wheel. we expand that to a district

wide and figure out how to deploy that model in other schools. we could potentially launch next week and be collecting data next week and we would have raw data and that will inform cutting and slicing the data over a period of time but i think we will have immediate data and be able to see a presentation by the next board meeting and baseline data. it is not rocket science. basically do you have enough food? do you have a computer? and some basic things like are you safe? i have parents emailing me and i am concerned and some kids go to school to be safe. they go to school for community and because they are depressed at home. if we are not asking a baseline

question like are you safe? is there violence in your house? that is happening inform france they set up immediately a system for women to wink at a pharmacist and get safety. that is what the commissioner is talking about is really baseline life and death kind of stuff. we need to be asking right away, are you okay, are you safe? we can refine as we go. and at a baseline level. these are not rocket science questions and if we are not asking right now systemically we will lose kids and if you are not asking next week, we have to start the process. the other piece is coming up with what we do with that plan and how to slice and dice data are things we can play around

with, but basic, do you have a computer, do you have access, do you have food. are you -- how are you doing? are you safe? those are things we can start next week. >> that is true. >> i agree with you and know that is happening at many schools and we are creating systems immediately. we probably have data now we haven't been able to cultivate and pull. that makes sense to me and is helpful for me to get clarity on what you are asking for. i appreciate that guidance. >> it sounds clear around the timeline. any other comments or questions regarding this resolution? >> go ahead. student delegate herrera. >> i i want to thank the

commissioners and with commissioner mol incompetentga brought this up in the rapid response learning lab and appreciate all the work that has been done throughout the week to do that. and the people and families are well taken care of mentally and physically. that makes san francisco so beautiful is all the work that is being done right now and i think we are very unique and city. and so and see all this stuff being done and undocumented families and low income families and is just amazing to and everybody here in this meeting is taking care of themselves

right now, making sure that we have been on this call for a long time and making sure everyone has had the time to get up physically and move your legs and your arm. do breathing exercises. get water. so i want everybody to be doing that for themselves. >> all right. thank you. appreciate the commissioners for this resolution. the plan is comprehensive and get data to the data and i

appreciate the concern around the budget and i would like to know what the budget impacts are. when we have a report out at the next board meeting, hopefully that can be presented as well. with all that said, roll call. >> this is as amended, correct? >> there was not a formal amendment, as far as i know. >> should we amend it to say to report back to the board on friday, april 17. you were saying they would report just the plan for implementation, right? >> yeah. >> that needs assessment piece. >> that is the amendment. >> all right. okay. thank you.

ms. colin. >> yes. >> mr. cook. mr. cook. >> not there. mr. cook. >> he said yes. >> thank you. >> ms. lam. >> yes. >> ms. lopez. >> yes. >> mr. miloga. >> yes. >> ms. norton. >> mr. sanchez. >> miss herrera. >> yes. >> thank you. mr. sandoval. >> yes. >> that is unanimous. thank you. and section m. is board member reports. following the virtual meetings have taken place since the last regular board meeting.

curriculum and program which is monday, april 6 is 3:00. commissioner collins, do you have a report for that? we spent just to clarify is the recording of that meeting located anywhere for people to view? or just the presentation? i am asking staff. >> do you know? >> no, i don't. that was a virtual meeting, correct? >> we had a virtual meetings for committees be recorded and those be posted on the website, not board docs. we have the board docs and the committee meetings there with the presentation notes and the power point, but we wanted the

full conversation and board recording posted on the website. is that posted anywhere? >> yes. we are aware of that recommendation. i know that the offers and along with myself and are working on putting that together. regarding the two committee meetings that have already met, zoom is automatically recording the meetings and sent the curriculum to me because i am host. they did not with the budget committee. i am trying to get that one for whatever reason. the curriculum meeting we had technical difficulties so all those comments are posted right on the front page. we started 20 minutes into the meeting and i am trying to get that edited. i was not comfortable throwing that up and we have a plan and we are planning on doing it just as soon as possible. >> i have a quick idea and i can work with you on that in terms of take a box over the comments

and you can just drag objects over things and i can work with you on that in you tube or -- >> i am happy to help. >> definitely on the priority list and getting this meeting up and running has been my priority today and yesterday. but go right back. >> i can volunteer to help out. i can take work on me. i appreciate that. i want to share because i think it is a good conversation. people can look at the presentation and see the overview. i do want to say that i was kind of upset to learn that there had been kind of a learning plan that was shared with principals and also uesf and labor which i think is a good thing, right, but it was not shared with the board and it was not made available to the public during the meeting. since then it has been shared, and i think it was in an examiner article and was even

linked to. it is on the website, i believe. i am not sure if the full plan is on the website or if -- because some of the -- is it on the website as well? that is a question for superintendent matthews. >> it was on the website temporarily but has been taken down. it was never intended to be on the website. i shared with you all that we were trying to make a version that was more appropriately public and family facing and that one got into the weeds. it was up accidentally but it was removed. in terms of sharing, yes, a draft was shared with principals and ue and received feedback and made revisions and shared again just with principals and when we got the thumb's up after sharing it with the curriculum committee and conversations with ue we shared wit staff and staff updates. >> so what i am asking is that

it isn't appropriate for general parents or whatever because if i want to know the plan, that is too in the weed, i agree, but as far as the transparency issue in terms of a meeting, i do want it posted. because there are folks who do want to get into the weed and i do think it is our plan and there is nothing in there that is to do with student information or anything like that. i think we should be posting what we are communicating to site leaders so that we can -- as we say, we will be evolving and if we are not sharing that information with parent advisory committees and not sharing that information with community partners and who want to know, and they can't participate in the conversation. and the presentation that you provided doesn't give them that kind of information. that is my request. i guess that is my biggest commentary from the meeting is

that i feel a little disappointed that my intention was to convene the curriculum committee so that community members could inform the plan. i feel like that hasn't happened up to now. i am trying to make that happen. i really want to see that commitment from central office to plan with community and in partnership and at least share what we are communicating, and not have a public facing version and a private facing version. we do have to -- general family who is want basic information and should make it easy for them and not read through a whole document br for the community partners i do want that obaccessible to them. i want that so that they can provide input. that is my biggest takeaway and i am hoping that the other thing i am a little disappointed about and this is going to be a long meeting so it makes sense, but i

wanted to have a dialogue, all of us, about just the roll out of the distance learning and how it is going. and so we don't have time and it is not -- like zoom and hearing things going on with that. we heard things in the meeting abwhat was going to happen with zoom and that changed. so as we are doing this distance learning plan, there was no opportunities for parents to inform how it is rolling out for them. for some parents it is going really great. for other parents with multiple kids in multiple classes and the it is like overwhelming. and there is no organizational way for us to gather input from families right now. individual schools can get it or individual teachers but systemically. i don't know. i guess i am asking president is

sanchez and superintendent matthews and i am getting feedback and there is no structure for how this is rolling out and i want us to be listening so we can adapt and adjust. >> supervisor: the system that we have set sup the board meetings. that is where people come to give their feedback to the district. it is even more set up now in a way because before people, say, some people it was a struggle to get to the board meeting to share your viewpoint. now it is set up in a way where you actually can be at home and still have the opportunity to share. so the -- what you just said there are people who have been sharing with you, but sound like you want to either, some type of more robust system. >> an i am talking about a

dialogue. how can bewith in dialogue with community instead of getting random emails and so maybe i'll have another committee meeting because i am also hearing that the pacs will be suspended indefinitely. if that is the case, that is also a venue for us to listen to families and them saying, hey, as district english language learners committee, this is what we are hearing from parents and you need to change this and create access here. and that african-american advisory council, they are all hearing thur suspended indefinitely and no place for them to input. >> as i shared with you, they are not suspended indefinitely, so they have been contacted. we are getting information from them now to find out what is the support they need and hearing from some they don't need support so they will be able to move forward. when we sent the messages out, what we told them is we wanted to -- we didn't have the capacity at that point but we have reached out to them to make

sure. so like i said, as i shared before, they are not suspended indefinitely. >> i guess my report and i don't mean this to be in negative way. there is no set time when parents can show up and inform our distance learning plan that we have unless i schedule a curriculum committee meeting. i guess i will schedule one and whoever wants to show up, maybe we can do one in a few weeks because i feel like we need feedback and parents indonesia to know how to use technology tools to help the kids. i feel like this is an important conversation. i will be scheduling. >> go ahead. >> i wanted to respond. commissioner collins, as i

shared with you, i have met with the advisory board of all the pacs and cacs and last week and again today and exchanged ideas around how we can improve on including our families in feedback and co-creating and helping with the evolution of this. prior to memo i did schedule to speak at an apac meeting on thursday intending the results of the feedback that justin asked for. i do anticipate going to various meetings to engage families directly. i wanted to add that piece in addition to whatever we do with curriculum committee. and clarify and apologize if i misspoke. i community saying that to not post the guidance to board docs as a part of the curriculum committee. we took it off the main website as it was causing a lot of confusion until we got the parent facing one together. >> i respect and understand that. it was great if something was in board docs and that would be a great place.

>> also add with so much going on and just slipped my mind, but in agenda review, we had -- i forgot what the subject was, but we changed the subject for next week. it is now going to be distance learning. so that is the opportunity for, as you said, people and you have been hearing a lot and there is opportunity there for people. >> thank you. i appreciate that. >> i accidentally forgot. >> that was our opportunity. thank you. next committee was budget and business services which met on wednesday, april 8. commissioner lam. >> thank you. so we reviewed the second interim report and megan wallace was able to look at the historical trend. that was a request both from our discussions at the board level to understand where have we been

historically from 2015 to the projection of the end of the fiscal year of 19-20. and anything overall and some of the highlights no surprise. it is an ongoing conversation for a month now about essentially revenue growth has flattened this year. we have been operating in deficit spending. operating deficits since 2016-2017 and how we arrive at the current imbalance for the fiscal year. part of the discussion, too, was also wanting to dive deeper and more into not only around the salaries or costs of personnel, but to understand more about the services and breakdowns there. that is where the historical trend landed at. we got an update of the second interim report and positive movements in the net change and

fund balance which we approved tonight. earlier today. and then the other really key piece of the second agenda item was to understand the fiscal impacts of covid-19 not only within the district, but also looking at how this is going to impact local revenue impasse and how this will also have a state budget implication and really what the opportunity is now to be in discussion with other state delegation and understanding what that is looking like. so it does found that from for megan to weigh in that the state legislature is still on task to pass a budget, a state legislative budget in june, by june 15. so governor newsom will be

forwarding the may revision in coming weeks. part of that will also have from my understanding on the federal level congress will be looking at a force or the next revision of the cares stimulus package, and that is where we're all trying to understand what this looks like between the city, county, local and federal levels. we closed off the meeting with looking at the budget process calders and some key dates. that is where commissioner collins and i and norton talked about the importance of how do we in this virtual time and shelter in place, how to build out more of that public engagement and transparency. more to come there around key dates in the next two months.

that should be the presentation should be loaded up onto board docs and as justin mentioned, we need to get the recording available as well. >> thank you for that report out, both of you. we are building up capacity to be able to hold more committee meetings. the only one we have scheduled, though, right now is budget and business service which is wednesday, may 6. so as other commissioners feel necessary for the committees to meet, we will coordinate with staff and myself to have capacity for the meeting as well as i said earlier canvassing the advisory groups and mentioned by superintendent. and we are getting information from them and how much support they need so they can meet. we are committed to all of them

eventually meeting and having capacity to do that because we want all their input and full transparency. so thank you for that work, staff. section n., other informational item. there are none tonight. >> i had a question. >> just real quick question. just a question around china town. a curriculum question because folk have been emails me about packets and delivery in china town. i think there was an update but if there is one, i would like to give it to families now. i don't know if there is. >> good evening, commissioners. i haven't had a chance to say hello. and hello, everyone. commissioner collins, there is an update. there was a distribution in chinatown at gordon j.'s today and another one tomorrow from 10:00 to 1:00. and they had printout today and plenty of packets still for families tomorrow and continue to call those families that

service neighboring schools and to let them know that they can still come out tomorrow and if we had a need, we will continue the next day. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. commissioner lopez. >> with that, i have been wondering what parents are doing with the packets when they are done? what is the protocol to return it or to have it assessed and how we're supporting them in that? >> we have asked our teachers to check in with the students around their packets. teachers have copies of the packets in the google classroom. we have made it available to principals so that they can share with any teachers who might not have that access. we have not directed them to necessarily collect the packets, but teachers as we have talked about can use opportunities to encourage where we want students to start with the baseline of learning and the floor and not

the ceiling as we continue to say. if teachers need a starting point, that is why we want them to do and certainly if we want the kid to have opportunities for enhancement and that is available there and our main purpose as we get in every packet are books to make sure that we provide students opportunities for grade level reading. we want to make sure we encourage that process in the absence of the classroom, traditional classroom. we have not made it a mandatory turn in your packets to your teacher. we are using teachers the flexibility as an opportunity to how to use the packet with their students. >> thank you. >> section o., memorial adjournment. there is none tonight. and at this time we will take public comment for those who wish to speak to closed session items. i don't know if anybody has

public comment but if you do, please raise your hand so mr. steel can see it. okay. >> seeing none. section p., closed session. will board will go into closed session and thus i call a recess of the regular meeting. we are going to migrate to another platform for this. do you want to speak to that? >> this is for board commissioners and staff who are invited to participate in the closed presentation. we will be -- you want to end your zoom call and close out and go to the calendar invite i sent today. that is a google hangout. it was between 3:00 and 9:00 and we are going to log on there and have closed session. and we will allow for a few minutes to make the transition as usual. but we will have the closed discussion there and once that

closed session discussion is over, we will end that meeting and then we re join this meeting with the same log-in information that you received today. >> all right. >> all right. thank you. we're going to leave now and go over to the closed session.

>> hi mayor. >> good afternoon. my name is dr. emily, the director of the san francisco department on the status of women, the only department on the status of women in the nation. since 1975, san francisco has been the home of the strongest commission on the status of women in the nation. it's my pleasure to welcome you to the annual women's history

month celebration. this year we celebrate the national theme of valiant women of the vote. we honor the brave women who fought for suffrage rights for women and those who continue to fight for the voting rights of others. i'm very pleased to say we're joined by many members of the family. if you could hold your applause, we'll give them a big applause after. carmen chu, board of supervisors norman yee, catherine stephanie, sandra lee fewer, and fire chief nicholson, and police chief william scott. so let's give them a big round of applause for showing up today. [applause] >> i also like to recognize women's commissioner sophia and

julie from the commission on the status of women. [applause] >> also joining us is president linda calhoun, and lisa of the friends on the commission of the status of women. [applause] >> and i just want to thank my associate director carol for her exceptional support for today's event. we are also joined by many women department heads, raise your hand if you're a woman department head. [cheering and applause] >>, as well as many women leaders serving on our commissions and boards. can we have a wave from our women's commission and board members. [applause] >> so we mark 100 years since the passage of the 19th amendment. it's important to remember that as the sixth state to ratify the 19th amendment, california has

played a major role in the suffrage movement. newly uncovered historical sources put together by the neighborhood history project indicates that san francisco was a site of the first ever suffrage march in 1908. over 100 years ago, suffrage leaders picketed the white house, went to jail, endured intense personal suffering in order to secure the vote for women. i do want to note, this is my last women's history month as the department head. i will be leaving my position at the end of the month, after 15 years of service. i had the honor to serve former mayor now governor gavin, the late great mayor ed lee, and the first african-american women and the second woman to be elected to be the mayor of san francisco, the one and only london breed. she has made equity for all, including gender equity a

hallmark of her administration. she's working everyday to achieve a vision of san francisco that is inclusive, fair, and compassionate, one that stands up and supports all its residents. she has a great team and i want to thank two members of her exceptional staff, senior policy advisor nicole and appoint secretary who helped with today's program. [cheering and applause] >> finally before i bring the mayor out, i want to thank the hard working staff of the mayor's office of neighborhood services who makes these celebrations so special for the entire city. so, please join me in welcoming mayor london breed and happy women's history month. [cheering and applause] >> thank you emily. i don't know if you all heard emily say this is one of her last women history month events as director of the commission on

the status of women and she has done an incredible job leading this department for so many years. let's give her a round of applause for her service. [cheering and applause] >> and thank you to all the women who are here. they are not just women commissioners from the commission on the status of women, they are women commissioners who serve in various capacities in this city that has joined us here today to celebrate women's history month in san francisco. we know that there are still a number of inequalities that still exist for women. in fact, as a woman mayor, i still believe it or not, experience some of those when i'm even in meetings, even today, dealing with the challenges of the city. questions that i get asked i know if i was not a woman, i would never get asked. the fact is that we made a

tremendous number of gains. i look around and i look at the fact that so many of you serve in so many capacities. even think of the history of our police department and we see now deputy chief and the other leading women who are basically running the police department in san francisco. [cheering and applause] >> we see members of our board of supervisors, our fire chief, jeanine nicholson and so many other incredible leaders who continue to lead this city as the director of departments, commissioners, president of the commissions, and we also know that it shouldn't take 30 years to have the second female mayor of san francisco. so while we come a long way, we know that there is still a long way to go. as emily has said, we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving the women the right to vote. it is time ladies that we

exercise that right to vote. we know there is power when we serve on boards and commissions. we know there is power when we are at the table making the decisions that impact our lives. just think about it. the fact that we are even discussing in the year 2020 a woman's right to choose and we have to get out there and defend that, even in 2020 is absolutely insane. it means the work that we do now is important, more than it has ever been. i mean think about what san francisco has done. significant policies that the rest of the country is following, including our paid parental leave which people are still excited and talking about today. [cheering and applause] >> things that address the challenges of motherhood that people who may not have babies understand what mothers have to

do in the workplace to of course make a living and take care of their families. there is still work we need to do. today's honorees represent san francisco values at their very best because the work they do highlights the need to do more, to get people to register to vote, to get more people interested in causes and policies that impact women, to help understand how our voices are important. when we come together and we vote, we make magic happen. we make change happen. we make the kinds of policies we know need to be here, even when we're no longer here. we don't want 20 years from now the next generation fighting for a woman's right to choose. we don't want the next generation fighting for the same policy that should already exist in this city that protect and support women. so today's honorees represent,

as i said, incredible women who really have focused on advancing the rights of women, who are spending a lot of their time trying to get women registered to vote, to address what we know, even in san francisco as we see a lower voter turnout, we know disproportionately that it impacts people of color and women. so getting women registered, getting them to turn out to vote is important and having organizations that are dedicated to that cause is also significantly important. our first honoree is a local american woman of color who is a child of immigrants who came to the united states. she worked tirelessly to engage women, register them to vote, and connect them with volunteer and civic opportunities. have you ever come across people who say what do i do?

how do i get involved? what's the next step? people have no idea what to do. nadia has been doing this work to help motivate and get women, especially women who have not been actively engaged, engaged. she volunteered a lot of her time during the 2018 midterm elections, traveling and california, speaking with people across the state and educating communities on how to get involved and how to register to vote. she has been working to bring women together and to take action. so please ladies and gentlemen, help welcome nadia roman and she's this year's woman i'm honoring for black history month. [cheering and applause]

>> thank you so much mayor breed. thank you for being a pioneer and modeling leadership in every way for girls and women in san francisco, especially for girls and women of color. mayor breed's work to cut red tape in city hall, take on the city's housing shortage, and end homelessness in san francisco ensures that this city can truly be a home for everyone. thank you for everyone who came out to participate today. it's great to see this balcony be full and see many familiar faces in the crowd as well. thank you for participating in the celebration of women's history month. 2020 is such an important year in so many ways and there is a lot to celebrate and look back on, including 100 years since the 19th amendment was added to

the u.s. constitution, finally giving women the right to vote. so securing that right to vote, we heard a little bit about everything that went into that. so the formal women suffrage movement start in 1848, 72 years before that amendment was adopted into the constitution. 30 years after that, in 1878 was actually one of the 1st amendments that was introduced and it failed. finally in 1920, a 100 years ago, it was adopted. women and their allies secured the right to vote. so as we look ahead into the rest of 2020, we're already in march now. i ask that we all be attuned to the time that we're in right now. mayor breed did a great job of talking about how our civil liberties are under attack and that's particularly affecting women and also women of color,

specifically. so let's be intentional on how we choose to spend our time this year. it's of critical importance that we pay attention and do the work of winning elections for people that share our values. san franciscan values of equity, inclusiveness, and radical acceptance. if the suffrage that worked towards their goal for decades, for 72 years in a formal way across multiple generations of women and men, we can commit to eight months to get us to november 2020, right? yeah. [applause] >> so i'm going to conclude my remarks with and ask of you all. please push yourselves harder this year. pay more attention, be more informed, push yourself to

whatever your personal commitment to civic engagement looks like. that can be calling a friend or a relative tomorrow to remind them to vote in the california primary. that can be canvassing for a candidate that inspires you in a swing district in california or a swing state somewhere in the united states. let's all commit to being as informed and engaged as possible this year and let's hold on to that beyond november 2020 so we don't find ourselves back in this place ever again. if you ever think about tuning out or turns off this year or in the future, please think of those who worked for decades for the right to vote. thank you. [cheering and applause] >> thank you. so, the next honorees for today

are a group of incredible, inspiring women who decided after the election in 2016 when the other 45 was elected, i don't know about you, but that night i was campaigning for my re-election for supervisor district five and i was walking around the neighborhood and i ran into a young woman who basically was in tears and so many people were hurt. i mean i won that election, but i was still devastated by the results of what happened as a result of that election. as a result of that, these incredible women got together and they said you know what? we're going to do something because i don't eastbound -- even want to talk about what we all know that this president has

done, that has not only been offensive to women, but continue to roll back many of the gains we have made. they came together and they really started a movement. the women's march has really been a place that has brought so many women together for inspiring speeches, to connect with other women, and yes there are some men that show up too. they're always welcome with open arms, but what i notice about the men that show up, they're showing up with their daughters. they're showing up with their moms. they're showing up with their family members in solidarity for what we know we need to call attention to the challenges that women continue to face in this country. it's clear that no matter what political spectrum you are on, there is a sincere need for women to come together for the purpose of talking about the things that matter to us the

most. so this has created a platform, the women's march has just really taken on a whole other dimension. it's not only expanded to other cities throughout the country, where they even had a women's march in napa. i was thinking because i love wine, i was going to join them. i was already committed to san francisco. they're not just focused on a women's march, they're focused on advocacy and support year round, in helping to outreach, to get more women registered, to get more people actively engaged, to make sure they're turning out. so they are all volunteers spending their time in order to provide a platform for women all over the country. the people here in san francisco. they do it with a lot of love and lot of complaints from other

people. [laughter] >> but they still try to provide the opportunity for people to be heard and to be recognized, and diverse community, and i know it's a lot of work, but you still do it every single year, even though sometimes it may feel like oh, i don't want to do it again this year, it's a lot of work. we're with you, we appreciate what you're doing and as long as we're here in san francisco, we'll be there to sported -- support the work you continue to do. ladies and gentlemen, at this time i want to invite up one of our commissioners from the commission on the status of women. sophia andari and ann to say a few words and to really thank them along with there's a bunch of women who helped to coordinate this event every single year. so after these ladies say a few words, we're going to ask them to come up for a photo.

[cheering and applause] >> good afternoon. my name is sophia, i'm a founding member and cochair of women's march san francisco. i'm joined by founding member elizabeth, kelly, martha, heath heather, janet who is here in spirit, she's working, and cochair ann. we have other leads of women's march san francisco as well. we're all right here. on behalf of women's march san francisco, thank you mayor breed for this incredible honor. thank you so much. a group of 10 women came together right after the november 2016 election, not knowing the impact that we would have on each other and our

communities. over 100,000 marched on january 21, 2017, in the pouring rain. >> pouring rain, yes. >> to affirm our commitment to women's rights, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice for all. since then, we have partnered with numerous community organizations to continue that work through events, marches, and action to keep our communities civicically engaged. stressing the importance of voting, getting involved in local and national campaigns, and empowering women to run for office and take on more leadership positions. commissioners, more commissioners, now regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, we cannot afford to be idle anymore. we need to show up with our

votes for our most marginalized, elect more women, especially women of color, run for office, and take on more leadership roles so that women take 51% of seats in local government in the senate and the house, in boardrooms, and in all rooms where decisions are being made. [cheering and applause] >> thank you again for honoring our team to the mayor and the mayor's office and the commission on status of women. i'm going to hand it over to my cochair ann. [cheering and applause] >> again, thank you so much for everybody who's come out today. i'm the co-chair of the women's march with sophia. as sophia highlighted, none of the women's marches

accomplishments over the last four years would be possible without the volunteers and the partners we had working an organizing on nights, weekends, and any other moments of time we could find. i would like to thank our leadership team that we have here today. crystal, robin, ariel, and all the talent and hard work you bring to this organization. i also like to express our deepest thanks to the partners that helped us put this together. this includes planned parenthood of northern california, the women's building, the js c.f.s., glide, care f.s., and the league of women voters in san francisco. [cheering and applause] >> our mission is to empower everyone that stands for human rights, civil liberties, and socialing -- social justice for

all. we will continue to organize to march because the most marginalized among us is defending all of us. in 2020, this marks 100 years of women gaining the right to vote. the women that demanded this right were extraordinary in their conviction and ordinary in the fact that it was a critical mass of people coming together to demand more. to all the women that marched for us, who were arrested for us, who gave their lives for women to have their voice and votes be heard, we honor you today and we promise to humbly continue in your footsteps to all among us achieve equity. thank you all for having us to celebrate. thank you mayor breed and happy women's history month. [cheering and applause] >> so thank you. as the women who are on the board for the women's march come forward so we can take a photo together. i just want to take this opportunity to thank all of you

for coming out today to celebrate these incredible women, to kick off women's history month. tomorrow, the board of supervisors will be hosting their owner is moan -- ceremony starting at 2:30 where i know they're going to be honoring some phenomenal women like we are today. so thank you all so much for being here. after this photo, i also like to take a photo with all the women commissioners and women department heads that are joining us. i want to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. you know, i know that it feels like there are challenging times ahead of us, especially in san francisco and throughout this country. when i look around this room here today, when i think about so many of the incredible inspiring leaders that are with us right here on this balcony, i can't help but be excited about

what we are going to do to change the future for the better because we know that we are stronger when we come together. there is nothing we can't accomplish. so we want to keep that in mind as we move forward with these challenges. we are going to take it all head on. we are going to do it because you know what? when women are in charge, great things happens. [laughter] >> thank you all so much. [cheering and applause]

good afternoon, everyone. i'm san francisco mayor london breed. i'm joined today by the director of public health, dr. grant colfax, as well as the director of the department of emergency management mary ellen carroll, the police chief bill scott. the director of the department of human services, trent rhorer. and the department of homelessness and housing, abigail stewart-khan. i want to thank you for tuning in today and joining us to talk about a few updates we have related to covid-19 here in san francisco. as of to