city as well going forward. >> there are no additional questions. this concludes today's press conference. thank you, mayor breed and aseser to chu for your time. if you have questions, email the mayor's press office at sfgov.org. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you again. . . . >> for january 26, 2021, is now called to order. roll call, please. >> thank you. thank you very much. [roll call taken]

>> thank you. so in this space, we want to make sure you feel welcome and heard especially during a time when so much pain and hurt is persisting. highlight there are a number of changes to this board's agenda to help continue to include the voices who are often unheard and acknowledge where we stand physically and metaphorically as a community. section a, general information. section b, we are going to begin

with a land acknowledgment. and sorry -- please welcome greg castro, principal, cultural consultant, who will address this item. mr. castro, thank you for being with us today. >> thank you so much for having me. indigenous language of my ancestors who have been in this san francisco bay area, greetings to my relatives. i'm greg castro, i'm from the tribal community, and principal cultural consultant to the association. as indigenous culture survival,

humbled and honored to give proper respect to my relatives, especially the home lands that were once called yulom. ancestors were the first victims of colonial genocide and gentrification on the west coast many generations ago, never ceded or lost as the original descendants and caretakers of their birthplace, including the gathering place of what is now called san francisco. for california indigenous people, caretakers given to us by creator when placed us in the origin places, never relinquished or extinguished, and the ancestors are going into modern times. while here, we can choose to

learn and care for not only the land but each other, for all bound up in the basket of life that creator has weaved for us, so we now must take care of that basket and have wounded, we start this healing by showing this care to one another. thank you for inviting me to give this acknowledgment and enjoy and be enriched by this meeting. thank you very much, >> okay. we are moving to section c, opening items. approval of board minutes of the regular meeting of january 12, 2021. a motion and second. >> so moved. >> second. >> thank you. roll call. >> thank you. [roll call vote taken]

thank you, seven ayes. >> to superintendent's report. superintendent matthews. >> thank you, president lopez. good evening, commissioners, and good evening, or afternoon to all of our audience and members of the staff and community, san francisco community, welcome to you all. january is national mentoring month and the san francisco unified school district will hold a mentor appreciation event to honor our district's mss mentors this thursday.

here in the san francisco unified school district, 400 students getting extra special attention, a time personal connections are complicated with covid, staff and community members have gotten creative to show they care by virtual cooking activities, puzzles over zoom and more. join us in honoring mentors who go above and beyond. thanks to linkedin and americorps members, special honorees at the virtual national mentoring month appreciation event. take our hats off to mentors on january 28th from 5 to 7. i would like to announce some resources for students and family. you can learn about the covid-19 vaccine information and how to sign up to be notified when your eligible spot, and posted on our

district website. there is also a new searchable library for sf loves learning clips. search, and you can search for any segment by typing read a loud, daily lessons, etc. educator, graduate profile, key words and more. if you need tech support, many resources for families including webinars, tutorials and more, sfusd.edu/familytechnology to access these resources. and sign up for personalized session with a trained volunteer. visit bit.ly, so you get a personalized training session with a volunteer. and you go to that website, to sign up for a free 30-minute

session in nine different languages. incoming, sixth and 9th graders, submit -- you can make appointment or call the education placement center at 415-241-6085, education placement center at 415-241-6085 to get help. finally, the 27th african american honor roll celebration will take place next month. this year the celebration will be virtual and will honor all san francisco unified school district students of african american descent, 3-12, fall

2020. event spread out over three days for elementary, middle and high school, elementary students will be on tuesday, february 16th, at 5:00 p.m. middle school students on wednesday, february 17th at 5:00 p.m. and high school students will be thursday, february 18th, at 5:00 p.m. more information to come on how to join the celebration. president lopez, that ends my announcements. >> thank you. we are going to move to item 3, student delegates reports. >> hi, everyone, meet and greet welcome session, topic, student-led organizations, q and answer session with new commissioners, goals to focus on relationship building and trust. last night our team held a meet and greet welcome session with

commissioner alexander and commissioner boggess. this meeting happened during thursday's meeting. commissioner and student representative jessica yu for holding that session. >> we have the committee updates. committee chairs updated the general council on the project in process. works on works on projects for each student. i just got -- is everything ok, or should i pass it on to shavon? >> it's ok. i got the same notification. >> sorry, let me continue. the committee meets to work on projects such as our last fundraiser fill a students' heart, resolutions, podcasts and

much more. kudos to our committee chairs. >> our third item is covid book project. topic student resource response. student-run project that focusses on peers in need of resources to help. one-stop shop helps peers find access to mental health, job opportunities, food, clothes and etc. when students contact they mail they receive automated message with student resources. when and where, ongoing student-led project balboa high school student government for this academic year. we would like to thank and give our kudos to representative maria angum for providing resources to our students. >> youth innovation summit.

the youth innovation summit, entitled improving distance learning, representative lam would like us to share it all, tackling distance learning issues, curriculum, racial justice, inequity, justice and much more. we would like to thank representative lam for taking the time to lead our youth. >> fifth item is student in mass project. topic, creating masks for students in different organizations. goal to partner to use technology using cloth free masks and 3d face shields to distribute to vulnerable communities and looking for sewing machines and printers to borrow. when and where, until the end of the academic year. thank you and give kudos to

s.a.c. historian agnes lange to take the time to lead our youth. >> our next meeting february 8th at 3:00 p.m. via the zoom meeting. s.a.c. is a public council and anyone is welcome to attend our meetings. if you would like to attend, make a presentation or make a copy of our up and coming s.a.c. agenda, contact the s.a.c. supervisor, and that is our student delegate board update. >> great, thank you to our student leaders. we always appreciate hearing from you, and i'm getting the same message with the internet. item 4 recognition, none tonight. item 5, rave awards. supervisor matthews.

>> thank you, president lopez. this evening we have a rave distinguished service award and a rave special service award. going to begin this evening with the rave distinguished service award, and this award is going to go to laura palafio, a teacher at lakeshore elementary school, and presented by matthew hartford, her principal. >> good evening, commissioners, student delegates, colleagues, students, parents and friends. it is an absolute honor to introduce mrs. laura palacio, long time educator, dedicated herself to a child-centered equitable education at lakeshore. ruthless advocates for the community, sister of the city and works very, very hard to give back everything that the city has given her.

this does not begin to speak to the amount of fun that kids have in her classroom. she's one of the classrooms i love to visit when stressed out by the things the board of education makes me do, so i stop in her class to get the cup fulls of love she gives to the students every single day. my honor to introduce to you mrs. laura palacio. >> thank you. thank you, mr. hartford, thank you board. i want to say really quick, i was raised in san francisco and while there are so many districts around, i will always stay here. this is my district where i was raised and i love teaching the kids and i think a service award and i would like to dedicate this to my dad, who i lost last month, he actually served on the board of education and many commissions in san francisco and raised our family to be service members and to serve the community and i love teaching. he got me into teaching.

he was a teacher for san francisco unified and i will continue his mission and try to make learning fun for our students. so thank you, i really appreciate this. >> thank you so much. well-deserved and we really appreciate all that you are doing for our children at lakeshore. thank you so much. our second rave award is a special service award. this one is going to maria yap. she's a student nutrition worker at garfield elementary school, presented by jennifer lebarre. executive director of our student nutrition department. >> thank you, dr. matthews. good afternoon, president lopez and commissioners. it is my great honor to introduce you to marie a yap, our dining services lead and rave award winner at garfield elementary. maria has worked for student

nutrition services since 2014. she started her career, and during the 18-19 school year moved to garfield elementary. moved, literally. helped with the move when they moved to sarah b. cooper. created a warm and inviting lunchroom that welcomes the children and embraces our commitment to ensuring students have access to meals so that they can thrive inside and outside of the classroom. commitment to student goes beyond the lunchroom and mentoring students at garfield since her time there. maria has also been a key member at our largest grab and go distribution site since april, and at that school we serve over 500 meal bags a day. so really bringing and serve rng the community through our covid pandemic crisis. and so with that, i would like to welcome and introduce maria. congratulations, maria.

>> thank you. thank you. first off i want to thank the nomination for the rave award, it's a big honor and grateful to receive this award. i'll accept the rave award, not only for me, but to my fellow student b nutrition heroes, and to all members of sdau1021, working since the pandemic started and they still continue to work tirelessly and sometimes even though it's thankless. right now we bag thousands of meals every week just to serve the children of san francisco. and i want to thank all our custodians who keep us all safe, making all our schools and central sites clean. all these people deserve this award, too. so, i share my recognition of this rave award to all the

student nutrition workers, custodian, the clerks, rkow radio announcers and the members, and all who have the courage to stand up and show up to work every single day in spite of the pandemic. thank you. thank you for having the courage to do the right thing. this rave award is for all of us. thank you so much. >> thank you so much, and as you said, our student nutrition workers are our heroes and have been on the front lines and so you are deeply appreciated. thank you so much. and congratulations on your special service award. president lopez, back to you. >> congratulations. now we are on section b, public comment on nonagenda items.

i'm going to read the protocol for public comment and also share that this is a new protocol that we are going to include our sfusd students, which i will explain in a moment. please note that public comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board's jurisdiction. we ask that you refrain from using employee and student names. you have a complaint about a district employee, you may submit it to the employee's supervisor in accordance with district policy. as a reminder, board rules and california law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. if appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow up with speakers. now, to item 2, these are -- this is going to be a space for

sfusd students to share. we will hear from you all, from sfusd students who wish to speak to any matter. students will have up to two minutes to speak and up to 15 minutes of the general public comment period, and this could be on any topic, including what's coming up on our agenda. it does not limit you to speak during this time if you would like to make public comments further down during our meeting today. but we do want to set aside a time for students to be acknowledged, to be heard, and to open up a space to hear from you directly so we are going to do that now. if we can -- >> thank you, president lopez. reiterate, right now the space is for students, and speak to any item on the agenda. please raise your hand if you care to speak right now.

seeing eight so far, president lopez. >> ok. let's do two minutes each and again, if you want to share during a different item, during public comment, you are still welcome to do so. >> okay. thank you. email pickasor, sfusd pickazor. >> i did not raise my hand. >> ok, thank you. hello, kevin. >> yes. my name is kevin vance, and i am an announcer at kalw.

>> kevin, this time is only for students. >> okay. i'm waiting for that part, thank you. >> can you lower your hand and raise it again when it's time for public comment. >> got you, got you, got you. hello, jenna. >> hi. i'm wondering, i mean -- i mean, i'm kind of -- never mind. >> ok, jenna, if you care to speak again, raise your hand again. hello, dara. >> hello. good afternoon. my name is dara, a fellow with coleman advocates, sfusd student in high school. i'm here to call for action to use the coleman advocates equity

framework, prioritizing black, brown, low income and special education students and families, if you are listening and want to join our efforts, text equity at 474747, thank you for your time. >> thank you. hello, caldwell. >> i'm a local student. i would like to speak to an incident i and one of my black peers confronted about repeated racist actions. after attempting to turn it into an educational opportunities, he defended his actions. we took it to the administration. one thing about the conversation stuck with me. when we told the student we were bringing it to ad min, he said that he didn't care. whether or not this was a tactic

to make himself seem tough, i don't know. but i believe it speaks to the historical lack of punishment for racist behavior, makes him feel he had nothing to worry about. something that needs to change. students should be aware their actions of consequences, particularly repeated racist actions. next i would like to address issues surrounding a lack of transparency for the school renaming. the public is not being given concrete time estimates about how much it will cost, let alone where the funding will come from. from the deficit spending and the fact we are in the middle of a global pandemic with educational inequality, among black and brown students, it seems formative at best. they would use the money to invest in proven successful programs that help the students in the time. black star program discussed at the meeting on january 12th. the board of education owes the constituents transparency in the forms of cost estimates.

i would also like to say that i understand that the school renaming council has partial autonomy. at the end of the day, the board of education is the body that moved that committee into existence and the body that is the final say on their decisions and therefore i believe that it is the board of education job to effectively coordinate with them to get information to the public. thank you. >> thank you. and president lopez, that concludes public comment on this item, or this section. oh. actually, one hand just popped up. can i grab that one? >> i recognize the name. it's for a different -- >> ok. >> so i did, i do want to reiterate the gratitude for students coming out and sharing. i know it's often not easy to be in these places but we want to make sure you feel welcome and heard and this is the first of

many opportunities to do so, so we will communicate directly. thank you for those who spoke. >> i think we have some more hands raised. >> yes, i see that. can you double check if the few that are raised are students, recognize the names, no, they might be just -- >> i don't recognize the names, but i can't say for certain. >> i recognize the names. >> ok, ok. thank you. >> ok. go ahead then, move forward. >> yes. >> oh, sorry, to hear from the hands that are raised. >> yes. >> hello, filoma. >> adult time yet? >> it is not. >> sorry.

hello, nancy. >> nancy garcia, from lowell high school, a senior. reiterate what cal said and really add some of the feelings and what we have been seeing at school, and response from ad min. we feel like there isn't enough from administration. a lot of what they are saying that they are trying and they might fail. i mean, failure is not an option. we need to see something from administration, and need to see something done about the racist acts that have gone on for years and years on end. one thing that i really want to -- that i really wanted to say, and i've heard from other people, is that what they are saying about this, this would be a hacker, or the language they

have used really seems like they are trying to point fingers at somebody outside of the lowell community and seems dismissive and that they don't want to admit that lowell and students can be racist and can commit these acts. so i just feel like there should be more accountability and action from them. yeah. >> thank you. >> hello, ryan. >> hello, can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> hi. i just want to say like first of all, thanks for having me on here, but that this -- let me introduce myself, from the class of 2015, this isn't like you know the first time i'm hearing about this, this is multiple years i've heard about this, and

you know, it's something that like personally hurts because as someone who is latino, i've seen it happen to my black friends when they were in school, happen to latino friends in school, and it's not one person, but multiple people doing it. and as the person said before me, we could put the blame on anyone, but it happened over years. so personally it hurts me, and when i see things like this on the news, comes a point i don't even become surprised anymore, it's happened to me personally and my friends personally. so it really hurts my heart when i have to go through this for four years and now other students younger than me have to go through this four more years, that kind of sucks. it just hurts my heart, like deep within and you know, that's all i just wanted to get off my chest. >> thank you.

hello, nora. >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes, we can, go ahead. >> i have a friend that goes to lowell, and like obviously on social media and she would be talking like and it just, like been going on for like a while, and you just keep seeing it, and it adds up, and they bring it to like, you know, like administration, like the principal, i don't know who they bring it to and nothing is done. and it's just -- it does not make sense, you know. like -- they are doing all the work and still don't listen or do anything about it. that's all i've got to say. >> thank you. >> micah. >> can you hear me? >> we can, go ahead. >> hi, my name is micah a lowell

sophomore and add to what nancy said, calling it like a hacker distances the lowell students from the actual ramifications and having to take some sort of responsibility for the posts on the tablet and also wanted to add that some of the really disgusting posts were liked by the people on the tablet, so students, so i would ask the board of ed and also lowell ad min to take into consideration there are students at lowell who thought the posts were funny and cool and liked them, shows there's a bigger problem than just possibly hacker or one person that posted this. it's people or students at lowell thinking it's ok and no ramifications or consequences. so thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, joanna. >> hi, good afternoon. joanna lam, i'm a junior at lowell high school. i'm also a part of the student

government at lowell and i'm sorry if this comes out completely jumbled, i'm still floored by the events that happened this past week and i'm making public comment to call for absolute transparency from the administration and i'm here to recognize we have had multiple incidents like this in the past and it's something that needs to change. i'm here to recognize and support our student groups that are advocating for this change, particularly the lowell b.s.u., and i am calling for a culture change and asking for support from the board of education in making these changes. i second everything that lowell students have already said on this call, particularly cal. thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >> hello, marvin. moiran. >> hi, i'm a freshman at lowell this year. and i just wanted to request that everyone extend their, a

bit of empathy for the administration. i understand what all of my fellow lowell peers have been saying today. however, a direct quote from an email sent out yesterday, they said however, we do believe that due to the fact that the link was shared with students, it's highly likely they are a student, so they are acknowledging a student committed it. opening up the possibility of criminal charges because it was an act of hate, a hate crime. so like you to all understand if you can open up any empathy that the administration is doing absolutely everything they can in an online setting. an act of hate like this was bound to happen and the lowell administration is it doing as much as they can, looking for addresses to link the likes of the previous messages, so i would like you to understand once again the lowell administration is doing as much as they can in this online

setting. that's all i wanted to add. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> dotrikza, you are promoted to panelist so your video will show up. >> a sophomore at lowell high school, i would like to add on to some of the things that i have had to pass through at lowell. just today i was in a breakout room with one of my fellow students and she was talking about how did not agree with any of the decisions going on with how racism is being handled, and how adding more students of color of brown or black ethnicity would be just lowering the curriculum of lowell, which is very disappointing to hear as

a latina. it is so maddening to have people say that we are lowering the standards when none of us ever did anything. we are just excluded and made to feel we do not belong, and with this incident, i'm not part of the black community or i'm not jewish, i still felt disgusted and revolted by such comments and the fact that you are still saying that it might be a student, no. this feels like something that would be from lowell that would be coming from there because we all felt it, every single kid of color that has gone there has felt this hatred towards us that we never really, never asked for, we just wanted to join the school and now we just feel excluded.

>> ok. thank you. i want to remind the public this item, or this section of public comment is limited to 15 minutes, one more speaker, but you will be able to speak to this item again, it's moved up on the agenda. hello, dara. >> hello. i just wanted to make another comment. i do agree with the girl that just talked about feeling excluded and everything, but i also want to say that the principal of lowell should be held accountable of the way she has taken decisions to approach this incident. i feel she has not taken the right measures for it and it's very frustrating to see that everything, that all of this is happening, right? and i've been hearing some

comments about how students want to like -- students don't want to see her no more as the principal of lowell and i totally agree with that. i feel like she shouldn't be the one to lead the school. i would like to see an adult, a person of color leading the school. i feel that's what this school needs, you know. someone who understands the students, someone who knows the pain of being person of color because being a person of color brings a lot of pain to you, you know. and yeah, that's all i wanted to say. thank you. >> ok, thank you. president lopez. >> thank you all, again, for coming out to speak. i did fail to share that we will be giving an update on the incident that happened at lowell

which we are moving up on the agenda, so after general public comment, which i'm about to open, we will have the discussion on lowell and again provide a space for public comment. so, at this time we are going to move into general public comment. again, this is a note to the public that it's an opportunity to speak on anything that is not on our agenda, and i will be providing, i'll have the space for 30 minutes of public comment. >> paloma.

>> hi, can you hear me? >> my name is paloma lopez, a teacher and a parent of a kindergartener at buena vista horace mann. to talk about the perspective and support ed kayleigh mcenany -- educators, and leadship needs. until they put the money and expertise to making in-person instruction safe, it's critical to put the families of students and staff in mortal jeopardy because it's convenient. we struggled under four years under an administration with no plan to combat the pandemic, sacrificing hundreds of thousands of lives to their own agenda. we voted in a new administration so that black and brown and white lives would be treated as if they are precious. teachers and families back, bound to spread the disease and kill thousands more is a cynical

betrayal of the mandate. we are going to discuss real discussions, ones that do not involve the needless sacrifice of lives. everyone is exhausted from sheltering in place, it's our job to counsel students, don't blame teachers for protecting our lives and the lives of our families. >> thank you, that's your time. hello, pete. and also, before we continue, can everybody who is a panelist make sure you are muted, please. go ahead. >> my name is marty, a homeowner in glen park of san francisco, and i want to speak to the issue of kalw, and the attempts by the board to cut local programming.

kalw is a resource for all of san francisco and the local programming is key to that. npr is all over the place, but the unique local programming that kalw provides is worth a lot, and the board here and the school district in general has become kind of a laughing stock with getting rid of the washington mural and trying to rename schools based on no historical basis, and you know, now it seems like local programming is going to be cut as well. and you know, we all vote and you know, if you guys don't, you know, get your act together and address serious issues. >> thank you. >> your job is done. >> thank you.

peter. >> hi. i'm commenting also about the automating kalw programming. my name is pete, a san francisco-based singer-songwriter, recorded five albums and toured internationally. i also work with several grassroots electoral organizations, included an organization called face the music collective. since moving to the bay area in 2011, also the lead promotion al contact for the san francisco free folk festival. first was in 1977 and 43-year history, kalw has been a strong supporter showcasing folk artists like myself with live in studio performances, and by promoting the festival with the special show before the event. we have about 2 to 3,000 guests who attend the event every year, and kalw is our main promotional partner. the festival is a self-sustaining by donations

contributed at the event, and without the support of kalw we would not likely attract enough attendees to support the annual event. so all the folk artists in the bay area depending on d.j.s support us, affected by the pandemic, and negative effect -- >> thank you, peter, your time. >> thank you very much, appreciate your consideration. hello, joanne. >> i have to unmute myself. good afternoon, joanne mar, union shop steward at kalw radio i talked to you last year about the deep concern of the automation taking over the kalw airwaves. i want to talk about radio broadcast. example last week, generated a lot of listener complaints. my popular long running program,

folk music and beyond the victim of automation. i planned to live host a special tribute show to the late great bluegrass guitarist tony rice and promoting it on the air in days leading up to january 16th. and the night before, a message from management ordering me not to come in and the whole afternoon will remain automated. listeners were upset at the preemption and nearly 100 wrote to management to complain about the automation, and what had happened. i worry that with the increased automation, kalw is moving away from the roots as a local community-based radio station. automation does not serve the public interest. we are requesting automation be rolled back so i can once again live host my own program. thanks. >> thank you. >> hello, kevin. >> good afternoon, thank you,

everyone. my name is kevin vance. announcer and patch work quilt. i want to speak out for joanne mar, kalw since 1986, 1 of the most, with the most seniority at the radio station. she's also our union steward and joanne is under attack. reasons given for joanne to be prevented from doing her show live is that we are keeping as many people away from the radio station to prevent the spread of covid. however, over the month, live hosts have been returning to the studio to host and produce their shows live, myself included. she is being shut out. it's not fair to her, it's not fair to our listeners and our supporters and it's not fair when i can come in and do my show live and she can't. it's not about covid, it's about retaliation for being our union steward, for being outspoken and maybe some other things i can't go into her. the school district has way too much on the plate to be bothered

by a labor misunderstanding. the simplest demand i have, stop breaking what works, stop fixing what's not broken, please impress on our management to reverse her orders, give back joanne the hours that she's worked, make some kind of amends and then we can move forward. thank you. >> hello, liz. >> hi. thank you all for your time and consideration today. liz luke, associate director for non-profit arts organization living through jazz, producer for under cover and serve on the board of the recording academy, among many other things. there are not that many opportunities for local artists, community organizations to get the word out about live events. live arts, live music, social movements are still happening, and vital to getting the word out. compel you to have kalw with live programming. organization, clarity,

transparency is vital in the association, we need to stay connected and kalw is the resource for that. just recently, i was able to promote our m.l.k. tribute, which kalw was the only radio station to bring us online for interviews. spread the word and message about dr. martin luther king, the participation of barrier acts and over 2,000 people to attend the livestream because of support from organizations such as klw. please do not cut off the vital resource. again, thank you for your time. >> thank you. hello, john. >> hello. >> thank you for inviting me to be a part of this. my name is john, five decade veteran of the folk music community and frequent guest on folk music and beyond. i'm also a co-founder and president elect --

president emeritus, audience demand humans playing music cognizant in the community which the station is located. it's the station's responsibility to be reflective of and reactive to the community. absent that, no better than the clear channel commercial path regularly shoved down our throats. is that what a station based in a school is trying to tell us, that we are not worth the thought and care we have had. in an age in which we understand the importance of diversity, why take a step toward not only the radio but of the audience, i've seen it happen in washington, d.c. is now a folk music desert, concert attendance -- people have lost their jobs, and not incidentally, stations have lost donors. thank you. >> hello, michelle. >> good evening. thank you. good afternoon commissioners,

student delegates, superintendent, staff, students, parents, members of the community. michelle, the former parent of two sfusd students, and appreciate the board's changes to the agenda and to the public comment protocol to make public comment more accessible for our students. this is an example of one way that we can truly be student-centered. i want to appreciate the students who have called in and spoken up this evening, especially about issues of racism, the pac hears you. and change to the timing of the february meeting. meet on tuesday, february 2, 6 to 8:00 p.m. via zoom. open to the public and all are welcome to attend. if you have questions, want more information, would like to attend, email me at pac at

sfusd.edu. thank you very much. >> david. >> good afternoon, and thank you all for your work in the time of covid. kalw with 21 years of experience in public radio, 18 at kalw. recent positive developments regarding the transformation of the -- [inaudible] a number of managerial decisions, personnel to programming, targeting of the staff, and disturbing trend towards automation at the station. this is resulting in bad radio. moments of dead air, repeat broadcasts, canned sounds, hundreds of complaints who can tell the difference. as an historic public and local radio station in a major market,

no substitute for paid announcers, and exercise the responsibility as licensee and overseer. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> allison. >> hi. my name is allison, i'm a third grade teacher at bbhm, and proud to say that teaching is my dream job. that said, i've sacrificed a lot to be a teacher. time with my family, well-being, even relationship to stay here in s.f. to teach but not sacrificing the one thing i cannot get back, that's my life. i've survived an epidemic that hit central america, i know what it's like to see people in the bed next to you in the hospital die, to live in fear that you

are going to die by yourself because you are infectious and your family can't see you. and then the damaging effects that had on my immune system, where i'm not sure i would survive covid if i became infected. so, please, board members, you have the power to protect your people, please wait to reopen the school in august, that way we can focus our attention on getting teachers vaccinated, upgrading the facilities and having the fall transition back to in-person be really smooth for our kids. >> thank you. >> raphael. >> yes, it is, 1021 president. good evening, commissioners, and superintendent. over the last year kalw has been making, management making so many changes to the broadcasting program and their announcing

staffing. under the cloak of temporary covid alternatives. live broadcasting for the historic local station has been diminished along with announcing staff cut in half. additional cuts and hours and benefits are being threatened. management, to me this seems like it's a union busting technique, trying to get the union members out of there, i don't believe it's something the district wants to do. if i was part of this board, i would highly recommend an investigation into what management is really trying to do at kalw. it's really concerning. secondly, i would like to talk about district baseline safety standards. >> your time is up. >> am i done? >> yeah, one minute today. >> oh, ok. i'll get you guys next time. thank you.

>> hello, julie. >> hi, this is julie, speaking as coalition organizer of the close the gap coalition. created a platform, growing out of and in support and alignment with coleman's equity framework for reopening schools, and also the call that in-person school be safe and wait until community spread is low, at least in the orange tier. in our safe and equitable education during covid we encourage the board to focus on the best way to educate our students, to center the experience of black, indigenous and students of color and to move beyond questions of simply whether school buildings are open or closed. encourage the board and city to stabilize families with income and housing support, expand strategies and individualize support for students, and to ensure that we open in-person when it is safe.

families are trusting us to do that. finally, seeing that this year is hard in so many ways and beginning to see data, some in apac the scholars are making gains in some areas like reading. thank you. >> hello, josephine. >> hi, dear school board, v.p. of chinese americans democratic club. i'm here to deliver the official position for our club on behalf of our club president. believes families in our communities have a lot to juggle with during distance learning and school renaming should be considered after reopening. we wish public school can reopen safely as soon as possible --

hi, i'm sorry, josephine, that item is on our agenda later tonight. we'll have room for public comments for the renaming topic. >> ok. so wishes the public school can reopen safely as soon as possible under san francisco health guidelines. and families under distance learning disadvantage socially, economically, compared to schools that provide in-person learning. condemn the racist incident in lowell high school last week. we hope that we can support them to get to the bottom of the incident. and we have stated last year and again, we wish lowell can keep what it does well, and at the same time, eradicate racism and improve the school climate to be welcoming to all students.

thank you. >> thank you, reminder, only time to speak on items not on the agenda this evening. hello, anna. >> hi, good afternoon. anna, principal at independence high school and here, to make a statement on behalf of sfusd site leaders. sharing a copy of this letter, currently at 80 signatures. as site leaders we have the responsibility to represent the interests of not only our students but also our families and our staff. while maintaining accountability, the ed code and district board policy. daily balancing act is a labor of love and gladly do it. considering the covid-19 pandemic district impact on our students and families of color, the continuing crisis of

unemployment and childcare in the communities, object to sfusd plan to participate in cast testing this spring. undersigned school leaders are urging dr. matthews, deputy superintendent, the board, assistant superintendents and the assessment office to declare to the state that san francisco unified school district will opt out of the 2021 cast testing on the following basis. >> that's your time. >> thank you. >> sorry. hello, jan. >> jan, i'm the president of local 21, and i would like to welcome everybody, and i just would like to speak about the petition that seven different sfusd unions with support from

the labor council released in september outlined safety standards needed to return to in-person learning. standards include, you know, basic safety protocols, like low community spread, robust and reliable student and staff testing, contact tracing, proper ventilation. to date we have collected over 4300 signatures from school staff who share our same concerns. we are calling on the s.f. board of education, district leadership, city leadership and the district negotiation team to listen to their workers and constituents when they say, when they say this -- sorry, to keep our community safe. especially during a time we have already lost 400,000 lives in the country alone, and are now finding, facing a more contagious and deadly variant taking root in communities. forcing educators and staff and

students back to unsafe conditions to keep the economy going is not the answer. listening to educators and school staff and the communities and the families they serve that are most impacted by this pandemic is the way forward. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, joe. >> yes. have you got me? >> we do, go ahead. joe kyle, professional musician and san francisco resident since 1986. long time supporter of community-based noncommercial public radio and speak on behalf of the staff at kalw, the music programmers. i've experienced not only as a musician but as a radio programmer and a program director of a small free form fm noncommercial radio station. i can directly attribute my

lifelong interest and passion for music and by extension, career in music, to the efforts of radio programmers who have provided me with an informal education and inspired me to discover and explore music from all types of all over the globe. i continue to discover almost daily, thanks to fm radio programmers, music that delights, fascinates and inspires me. a local radio station like kalw is a living, and breathing vital organism and music programming is the soul of the music programs, and by living, breathing humans who bring knowledge and passion and sense of joy to the music to share with all the listeners. thank you for your time. >> hello, art. art.

can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> art, i live in san francisco, and been a volunteer for many years at klw and object to the automation of klw, whose license is held by the sf unified school district. what you are hearing from workers and community members is eloquent alarm to which you should respond by examining the impact of automation on kalw and the ability to carry out its mission as a public community radio station in a way you can be proud of because you hold this license. as a retired union member, i object to the unfair treatment by management of singling out any workers, especially joanne mar, a superb community radio host, loves folk music and shares that love and knowledge with the community. represents the best qualities of a public radio host. public community radio station should operate in a way consistent with community and maximizes and optimizes connections and between the

station and the community. used to be the kind of public community radio station i fear with automation it's losing that. >> thank you. >> hello, michelle. >> hi. my name is michelle chan, i am a community organizer, a writer, and also an sfusd parent, and i am here today in support of coleman add volume advocate. and my son and i lived together in an s.r.o. hotel, lived in a room 70 square feet, no kitchen, no access to a kitchen, no desk, no sofa. and i want to tell you today that distance learning is not the same for someone -- >> sorry to interrupt. this item is on the agenda, you'll need to speak to it when it comes up on the agenda. >> also combined with the equity

that i'm talking about. so, should i keep going. >> ten seconds. >> i guess i'll finish later. thank you. >> thank you. >> barbara. hello, barbara. hello, stevie. >> hello, thank you, mr. steele. my name is stevie coil, kalw listener and musician, i would urge the school board to stop the degradation of an extremely valuable public service, live music programming and the relegation to automation of programming not only live and realtime, but that features live music as part of the

programming. and of concern as well, what seems to be selective culling of such programs and program hosts. one of the great losses of the pandemic is the ability for audiences to gather and to listen to live music in realtime, and kalw weekend music provides increasingly rare and high quality opportunity to share in those valuable live performances. and seems to me the creeping automation is the kind of mechanism increasingly unusual place in the community that kalw has held and serves. this might also be simply a bad business decision, seems and i speak for more than just myself, pledges will drop off when they hear either repeats or prerecorded programs. thanks very much. appreciate it. >> hello, yvette. >> hi. my name is yvette nelson hernandez, para professional, and also a parent of a 5th

grader at lakeshore elementary, and u.b.c. at the job site and i wanted to make a comment on how come the district hasn't approved m.o.u. for the para professionals. you did for the teachers, not for us, and i've heard a lot of our paras are going way above the 120 minutes allotted time per day on zoom. thank you. >> thank you. latoya. >> thank you. i want to speak to the dangerous disconnect between central office and the school sites. this disconnect is dangerous because it impacts how our children view education and the adults involved in the educational journey. oversight and accountability are not enforced or reported out like wellness checks and student

attendance. working with the district gives me hope and confirms i made the right decision putting my children in san francisco unified. working with the school site makes me hopeless and i feel i need to urgently remove my children for their physical and emotional well-being. trying to celebrate african american achievement at a school touted as one of the most diverse in the district named after an african american civil rights leader and a once predominantly african american community with the african american principal is an up hill battle because every time you do something to support black students, the p.t.a. and the lead leadership block in the potential success. parent groups need access to document and easily accessible the process to hold leadsers accountable to the operational expectations. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello.

yasenya. >> go ahead. >> good afternoon, i'm in tenth grade and to ask the board of education and for those reopening of the schools to make black and brown students and the families' needs number one priority. coleman equity framework to reopening s.f. public schools. thank you so much. have a wonderful night. >> thank you. yakub. >> hi there, i am an organizer at coleman advocate team, similarly, i am here today to speak about coleman's equity framework to reopening. a lot of needs right now, and a

lot of people have their own needs in mind. right now the moment for san francisco to walk the walk and put black and brown students and families needs as the number one priority above all else, we are asking the board of san franciscans to walk the walk. black lives matter, brown students, and black students and families first. thank you, appreciate the time. >> hello, andrea. >> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is andrea, i am also with coleman advocates for children and youth. i am also an organizer. i am here and asking, for the board to implement our coleman equity framework to reopening public schools. our black and brown communities and families are the most in need. they need our support. we have failed continuously, continue to fail our black and brown students and we need to

put them in the forefront and assure that they are being input into this time with equity and real equity, right, because we use equity loosely, we want to make sure the black and brown students are leading and the priority for reopening. thank you. >> thank you. and president lopez, that concludes public comment. >> all right, thank you, justin for leading and the public to speaking. apologize for any misunderstandings around the reopening discussion, we have that as an item on our agenda so we wanted to highlight that. and i also wanted to remind the public that the q and a section of this meeting is for, is to assist our deaf and hard of hearing person, so if you are not being responsive to that, that's the reason. ok.

so, we are going to take up our item number 3 under section k, and under the section of other educational issues. the item is to update on the recent lowell incident. if i hear no objection, we will -- >> president lopez. president lopez. >> yes. >> i just wanted to, i guess one quick thing, in the agenda this update on lowell was agenda after an update on equity studies and ethnic studies, and to some degree i think that's a larger conversation, but it is also related to demands that students have made in the past at lowell around implementation of ethnic studies at lowell, and

so i agree that we should move it up in the agenda and also just wondering, there may be specific just facts about what is and isn't being done in regard to those demands as specific to lowell that i just want to make sure that staff are prepared to answer when we get to the q and a portion of this item. if that's ok. >> yeah, i think i'm trying to understand. do you want to take the item sort of together or have the discussion before we shared the updates on lowell? >> i think it's a larger question, you know. equity study and the ethnic study is a more broad conversation, so i don't think it's necessarily separate but there is some specific information in that presentation which pertains specifically to lowell, and so i'm just asking

that staff be prepared to answer specific questions as pertains to ethnic studies and its implementation at lowell high school, since those were specific requests made in 2016 by students when they did the walkout at that time. >> ok. got it, thank you for sharing that, and for letting staff know. superintendent matthews, will you be able to present on this item. >> the item called for a response, and i did not know if you wanted us to -- i didn't know the order that you wanted -- did you want to hear staff response or hear student voice. i'm not sure the order that you wanted this to go in. >> i was going to use a similar order to any items, so hear from

staff, public and then we'll have a discussion. >> thank you. so, this afternoon presenting response to the incident at lowell and what we have heard since, especially in regards to the students, 2016 demands, we have our deputy superintendent and our assistant superintendent of high schools who will begin and then go in the direction that you choose. >> good afternoon, everyone. our intent was to speak to and provide some update on the four demands from students that came to us in 2016. again, like dr. matthews said, superintendent of high school bill sanderson here to speak more in detail around the demands. i wanted to share the demands as

i understand them. there are four very specific demands. first of which was request to really diversify the system, asking for more african american teachers and staff at lowell. the second was a demand for a change in the school curriculum, and i do -- i heard commissioner collins commission to ethnic studies and that was a part of it. as well as just thinking about how to make african american students feel more comfortable in the classroom and more included regardless of the subject matter. and so i wanted to make sure to add that piece. the third demand for a full-time african american recruitment officer and then the fourth demand an african american community center at lowell high school. and superintendent sanderson is here to talk about the team to each demand and appropriate to say regardless of the update he provides in terms of status, we

know that it's not enough. i definitely have heard folks say that nothing has been done, and i don't necessarily agree with that sentiment. there's a lot done. the question in my role, are we enough, even as i look at the demands, are they really getting to the root cause and the issue, the heart of the stuff that's happening at lowell. we know that schools are reflection and microchasm of the larger society, a deep and entrenched, and what is my active role and inactivity that has led to the experiences of lowell to date, and as we look at four demands and reflect what we have done and have not done, we ask ourselves that question, figure out what the next steps are in changing not only the culture but what we serve. so again, dr. -- assistant

superintendent sanderson will speak to the demands. and we have the principal and other staff here to listen, and then take any questions. so -- >> and i just want to add, we have miss virginia marshall on the line as well to speak to any of these items. >> ok. >> hi, miss marshall. >> good evening, commissioners and staff and students. first of all, i do want to apologize. i am double -- i'm on a visiting team right now, simultaneously virtually, and believe it or not, we are dealing with some of of the same issues with the team i'm on. so i want to first of all say thank you, i do deeply appreciate all of the community and being able to engage in

conversation especially over the past few days and really want to call out the students who feel like they can speak forward on issues they are facing and renew my commitment to make sure we address those issues. as far as demands and diversifying the system, some numbers on the african american teachers at lowell, and i would like to really compare that to at lowell right now the number of african american teachers is three, as compared to out of 117. i do want to say that the percentage as we compare the number of african american teachers there, we do want,

where lowell is only 3%, the number of african american teachers in the state of california is 4% and the percentage of african american teachers in sfusd is 5%. so, there is, i just want to make sure that we, you have some framing for that particular data point. we do need more african american teachers and staff and at lowell and across the district, and the proportion of african american teachers across the entirety of the district likewise declines in a similar fashion or has declined across three years. so i do want to call that out, that there has been a decline, so for example, sfusd, 268 african american teachers in 2018, 269 in 2019, and 2020 there were 251.

as far as the change in the school curriculum, first of all, the school participated in the three-year partnership with s.f.s., where they did professional development around culture, and then the school transitioned to professional learning communities, where each professional learning community had to do an equity problem of practice. when we went into the pandemic as a part of sb98, it requires that we have some form of adult-student connection. lowell historically had a registry program or what some of you may know is a home room. lowell has called it registry. and in -- through that registry, they actually were able to change when we went into the distance learning model where we

were able to deliver some lessons around some critical areas that we face at lowell including bullying, suicide, and anti-racism. so, we have been able to roll those out school-wide through the registry in collaboration with the wellness center and the coordinated care team at lowell. as far as the full-time african american recruitment officer, lowell hired and continues to employ a student advisor hired to support the needs of african american students and do strategic outreach. they have done that in the middle schools but has not happened this year because lowell will not have the same admissions process that they have previously for this year, and we have been in a virtual

space. african american community center at lowell. after the 2016, alumni association funded for a student center to be built at lowell. that student center was not finished prior to us going in shelter in place. that student center has since been finished, and hopefully when we are able to go back into brick and mortar we will be able to realize the student center since it is now in place. and i think that those are the four areas that i have, the four areas, and were there other areas, but i am open to any questions. but those are the four areas that i wanted to first report

on. ok. >> that concludes our update, sorry, i'm not sure if miss marshall was going to present or say something, i recall that president lopez called out her name. we are done with that portion. >> so i speak -- >> thank you. may i make my comments now? >> yes. definitely. >> thank you so much, president lopez, vice president collins, board commissioners, wonderful student delegates, superintendent matthews, beloved esther and judson, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, virginia marshall --

>> you hit your mute. >> could you not hear me at all? >> now we can. >> ok. you missed everything i said before? >> no, we heard everything up to -- >> ok, great, somehow it muted itself. anyway, represent alliance of black educators, naacp is here, we want to hear him speak. educators and many other organizations. [please stand by]

nothing has been done.

children are not born lying, they are taught to lie. i believe our students will pass. they said those four demands have not been met and the african american student center is not the same as student center. president lopez is a woman, ivan african american woman. we're not the same ethnic group. although we're women. so, it was heartbreaking to see. to hear the experiences. the last one on inauguration day. all across america, we should have been -- it was a living history. we could hear and see the first african american woman to be sworn in, someone from northern california. not just northern california but from oakland/san francisco, berkeley, bay area and instead, our bsu members had racist

pictures, pornography and all kinds of hateful things in their faces. on a virtual platform. that should not be. it was not hacked. they could have found out who that student was. it's the community saying to us, president lopez, board commissioners, superintendent. the students and the community are saying to us and i listen to the community. why should this school continue to exist when it harms our children and i called the parents and they were in tears, president lopez, vice president collins. they were in tears about we don't send our children to school for them to be harmed. the way lowell exists it's called harm. we listen to alumni going back

to 1973, they shared the same experiences in '73, 80s and 90s and 2000s and here we are now. we did the same thing four yearsing and we conducted along sides and scheduled these meetings and they came to board presentation and we're her again and we'll be back here again next year and the next year and next year. why do we want to have a school that causes harm. life-long harm. to our students. do we con sal date and what do we do. those are the two questions. how do we go forward? and what i hear from the community is dismantle, consolidate and start all over again and other than that it's not working. we don't want not one child to feel the way these children feel or felt on the inauguration day

on january 20th. so that is what i have to share and i know that reverend brown and linda jordan, our current president has more to share but we're also want to listen to our students. they told us the truth. it was heartbreaking to hear. and how anyone from lowell who heard them is able to sleep at night, i have no idea. when a student causes harm, they get expelled or action taken against them. on her watch, this current administrator, let harm come to our students. she should take that role? i don't think so. i don't think solve. so.>> if you would like to calln him now he is available. >> thank you ms. marshal for sharing. >> thank you.

>> hello. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> madam president, (inaudible). >> it can cost them individually because i want to the real subject. >> he is cutting off. we can't hear anything. >> it's going in and out

reverend brown. >> let me troy to call them and speak to go to someone else and let me see what is going on. thank you. >> ok, we definitely want to make space in our -- we'll be moving into public comment so when reverend brown is ready we'll be able to hear from him. in the meantime, we'll now open up to public comment on the items and the response to this that we just discussed. it's still going and out. >> i can hear you very well. >> great, it sounds better. >> can you hear me now?

>> yes. >> you can hear me now? >> yes. >> as i was saying earlier, for 43 years, i have been involved in the school district affairs. and it really pains me, it aches, to realize that after all of this time, the so-called progressive liberal san francisco has not learned how to respect the worth and dignity of black people. over at lowell high school, they're only about 45 black

students out of our student body of over 2,000. and it it's painful and it hurts that it appears we do not have the ware with all. i repeat, we've not shown that we have the laser beam, loving, responsible way. of knowing how to go into a situation such as lowell and making sure that the powers that be respect the worth and dignity of all. it starts at the top. the top. the leaders call (inaudible). they call for the beat and if you do not have leadership, and

it involves all of us collectively. i'm not pointing the fingers at everyone. if we have leadership that sees the situation (inaudible). we are most miserable. we are most miserable. (inaudible). >> reverend brown -- >> president lopez, please go on the let me see what is going on and we'll come back. thank you.

>> thank you, ms. marshal. i did want to clarify something that i don't believe we were able to share in this space and it was regarding the incident that happened on wednesday so the public is aware. can someone from our staff share what was happening and the response to that before we open it up to public comment so we all know what occurred. >> so, thank you president lopez. so, on wednesday and i will need to get my notes to make sure i'm speaking directly, on wednesday there was a post, there were racist remarks and image that were posted on a padlet that was being used in one of the

lessoned for the registry class and administration discovered that on wednesday afternoon and then they reported the issue, they sent a message out to the school communities and we began the investigations on that and working with the different folks in our district and the posting was taken down on wednesday afternoon and we continue in an investigation right now and to who actually did the post and we have not been able to identify the person who did the post yet but we are still openly investigating that. so that is the incident that happened on wednesday afternoon. >> may i add a little bit more comment. just in context not a

discussion. >> that's finement. fine. >> so students shared with me and president lopez the image -- what assist apartment superintendent sanderson didn't, describe and i think it was an educator i've never seen anything, as offensive and it contained pornographic images of black men having oral sex and over it it said, "f" words and words, it said joe biden and trump related imagery and also anti-semitic statements and so it was like more deeply offensive than the incident that inspired the walk out in 2016 and what students related to us and i'm just -- this is just the context is they were upset about that but they were also upset and maybe more than -- maybe

more upset and we can listen to students on this that the response from administration focused on cyberbullying or hacking and not the fact that this is not an isolated incident and this in a series of incidents that we've seen at the school and also just individual experiences that students are having and they felt that the response by staff was lackluster and so that is why students elevated this and sent out e-mails to the mayor and to commissioners and city wide and that has spurred a larger conversation and students are communicating with us that they foal that that would not have happened if they had solely relied on communicating with site administration. so that is the context is why we're having this larger conversation as a district because we see these things across the district, sometimes these things happen. this is not just an isolated incident and students and

commissioners and other leaders in the city see this as a bigger conversation. and that's why it's an agenda item and not a blip. i appreciate the fact of clarifying that and you can engage in deeper discussion later on. thank you. >> sorry, you all need to stop sugar coating it. i literally saw a man giving oral sex to himself with black lives matter on top of it and the description is not describing what students saw on an educational platform. so, i don't want to rae retraume people by sharing the image using the share screen feature but i don't think that description describes what i saw and other students saw. >> this is definitely not the first incident. it won't be last conversations we have and i'm looking forward that discussion and the actions that we'll take to really ship

the culture at our high schools. i'm sorry if my internet is going in and out. i do want to open it up before we begin our discussion as a board to public comment which will be for one hour allowing for speakers to have a minute again to ensure we hear from a variety of voices to start public comment. we'll hear from our inought advisory council to read their letter of solidarity and you can begin that. >> you president lopez. >> hello mary, are you there. >> yes, i am. can you hear me. >> you can begin. >> ok. >> student delegates hines foster, almon sa, board of education o. commissioners,

superintendent dr. matthews, principal dakota sweat and community at large. as shared by the members of lowell high school black student community, on january 20th, during an anti racism lesson, facilitated by lowell, students were asked to share their thoughts and ideas be a public platform called padlet, rather than follow instructions to share positive, constructive ideas. students posted pornographic images, slurs and other hateful comments. these actions were not committed in ignorance but they were sought to per pet situate antiblackness and white supremacy. as the governing body of the african american parent advisory council we write in solidarity with the lowell high school black student union and response to the abhorrent acts of racism and hate speech that occurred on january 20th, 2021. we denounce the perpetual

behavior and responsiveness that has plagued this campus and this district for far too long. we support with the demands with our students for the san francisco unified school district and lowell high school administration to recommend these heinous acts and admit the actions that they have taken the silence are not enough and create an action plan. take action not only to find the students but to make sure that was necessary at this actions are enforced. censoring students about racism and address the on going racist history and culture at lowell and begin honoring the demands that were set during the lowell black student union walk out in 2016. >> hello, mariecia. >> it's -- can you hear me?

>> yes, you can go. >> hello. thank you, both. in 2016 our students asked that sfusd and lowell number one diversify the staff with more african american educators and staff and be sure representation and present at all times during the hiring process. change in the school curriculum or education on other cultures, mandatory estimate classes, mandatory just like european history. require all teachers to take cultural sensitivity training, if not, disciplinary action. hire a full-time african american recruitment officer or person that can be trusted with a designated number of hours. create an african american community center at lowell high

school and safe place for students and families and implement a zero-tolerance policy for educators and administrators and ensure the heritage month. these demands must be met per sfusd board policy 5145.9 on hate motivate behavior. we ask that in your response, you not only condemn the purpose traitors of these harmful acts, and implement the demand of those harmed, but also address the pain of the harm. our children are hurting and we're hurting along with them. as we work together, we need a proactive response what is sfusd doing to help our students heal and transition through this incident? these types of acts are damaging the representation of the non discrimination policy presented

by san francisco unified school district. we call on san francisco unified school district to actualize its commitment to be in an anti racist school district by ensuring these demands are made not just for lowell but for all of our districts sites. this is not an isolated event. we have been here before. and we will be here again until anti blackness and sfusd, the city of san francisco and in our nation is met with active, resistance and row form. our students deserve to be safe in school while pursuing a high-quality public education without the fear of racial harassment and racial discrimination. we recognize and appreciate the swift response of the board of education, superintendent dr. vincent matthews, principal sweat, but now we ask for

action. in addition to a overhaul, they must ensure anti racism professional development and regular evaluation of each schools anti racist implementation occurs. and when we find staff high and low, that are unwilling to uphold these practices, there must be a swift action to remove them from our sites and our districts. enough is enough. across the country they're tearing down monuments of hate and now it's time for to us do the same at lowell. and solidarity, the african american parent advisory council. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, gerald. >> hello, everyone. my name is gerald and i'm happy to serve on the african american achievement leadership

initiative with sfusd and i'm here by an sfusd in support of solidarity with lowell high school's black student union. the voice have been heard by the filipino community and this filipino community and we see your courage to address the systemic white zoo pre seem and racism you and your peers have confronted. we ask that usfd meet the lowell bsu demands outlined initially in 2016. thank you. >> hello alma. >> hi, my name is alma and i am a school psychologist at james denman middle school and -- >> i apologize, are you part of reading the letter. i may have unmuted the wrong person? >> yes, i am. >> you are doing the right thing. >> all right. >> so i'll just start again. my name is alma damo and i'm a school psychologist at james

denman middle school and also former sfusd student at abraham lincoln school and i represent sfusd in support of solidarity with lowell high school's black student union. we urged that the emphasis be placed on your healing in tandem with identifying this as on going institutional injustice. we plead that our resources as a district are allocated towards your demands and your safety and your well-being. we stressed the need to respond with comprehensive students support and through the district. we ask that sfusd transparently work with the demands outlined initially in 2016. thank you. >> hello.

>> my name is fina and i'm a teacher at denman middle school. i'm here representing sfusd in support of and solidarity with lowell high school's black student union. if you, as a students that we serve, do not feel the impact of our commitment against white supremacy, then we must examine and change our practices and policies. we ask that sfusd works to meet with lowell via remands outlined in 2016. thank you. >> good evening, everyone. my name is jan bautista and i'm a program administrator in the multi lingual pathways department. graduate of lowell 2004 and still am president at that time. i am also here representing sfusd in support of and in

solidarity with lowell high school black student union. the events that transpired last week at lowell are not isolated. we need to interrupt systemic oppression for unchecked, interpersonal micro a greed and seeds of white supremacy in our institution, which allow for fashionist ideology and brutality that flourish. we ask that we all, as sfusd transparently work to meet the lowell bsu demands outlined initially and in 2016. thank you. >> thank you. >> amber. >> hello, amber. >> amber?

gabrielle -- gabriel? >> hi, everyone, i'm gabrielle a soft more at lowell high school and the co public relations for the lowell bsu. the principle has been at lowell long enough to know about all the racism that has occurred at lowell. the administration's response not only overlooks all the years that racism has been at lowell but also enables this racism to continue. the administration has done a painfully poor job in protecting the few black students that it has, and real action needs to be taken to support this students of color. i feel that the principal needs to go for not being able to support her students correctly. thank you. >> thank you.

>> arnold. >> can you hear me? >> go ahead. >> very good, thank you. my name is arnold townshend vice president of aacp. i attended the naacp meeting on sunday with the students from lowell and in a meeting yesterday with students and lowell administration and i wanted the incident that happened last week is not your problem. a toxic culture that has been allowed to flourish at lowell for far too long is your problem and dealing with it incident by incident means you will deal with it and wait for the next incident and in between, untold number of students will be traumatized and it's like as if these students were walking into began tan a mow and they get to

go home and i think it's absolutely essential that you bring in the necessary people because it's a culture that has been created by allowing lowell students to think they're better. when i first got to this town, 53 years ago, and i'm learning about the high school, someone said lowell, was the academic high school. i said what does that mean. they said well they teach academics. and so what do the rest of them teach? thank you, sir. >> what else is there to teach in high school but academics. what is happened is now lowell students are better -- >> hello. >> bevette? >> yes, can you hear me now. it wasn't allowing me to mute. i think i'm going to make my comments really short and sweet. and just say that today i'm asking for the superintendent

sanderson, the principal and other faculty and contract to not be renewed because of their constant minimization of attacks and hate crimes commit against students prior to 2016 as well as the continual dismissal of actual harm causing the students to their families. there were 10 demands given to the district in 2016 not for the reason why i know was because i helped students at that time. also, sanderson said in his report there's only three african american teachers at lowell high school in 2020. that's a decrease from 2016 so they did fail in that area. additionally, they said that they hired a student adviser and that is also false. they already had a part-time student advisor in 2016 who was not doing his job. and in fact, they hired that same student adviser the students had complained about to be their full-time student adviser to which now we're here in 2020 when that student adviser still is having the same complaints of not servicing the black students so another lie in

this board meeting. as the thing about the space, i think it's important that i say about this because they said that they promised the students they would have access to a room. it was not just the new building. they were told they were going to get the room from the student council and that was never transferred to the students as promised. >> thank you. >> hello. >> hi, good afternoon. i would like to say thank you all for being here and listening to the students and as your former educator of san francisco unified school district and i want to go through so many professional developments to learn how to be a better educators and when i was told yesterday that most of these teachers have not went to do this development, that is step one. they literally need to know how to teach children that the black kids are going through this imagine out the asian students

who do not speak the language that is written in the book this is a global epidemic that is happening at lowell and if y'all don't fix it, me and my community will make sure black students don't endure this cruel, cruel type of punishment. to hear her crow last night and i've been her teacher since the eighth grade. i have no way to heal her broken heart and i'm asking y'all, close the door to lowell and reeducate your educators. because if you don't know how to teach the children, then you shouldn't be a teacher. to be an educator is a gift and a talent, a noble, a noble career and if you can't do it, get out of the schools. >> thank you. >> hello, josephine. >> thank you. >> we all need to get to the bottom of this. i've seen lewd images by an anonymous a den tee in a

supervisor district town hall and cost the town hall to be shut downright away and that was the lesson everyone learned about zoom bombing. sfusd tech worked with the software vendors to fix that problem before applying it to this district wide. with the new technology we see new security challenges and i give the teachers and admin the credit to try our new technology like the padlet to serve the teaching needs but we need to learn from it as a school district on the risk of it and keep improving it and i see the lowell team has delivered multiple emotional e-mail and video messages to us and they sincerely wish that did not happen and they really wish to get it corrected. i encourage you to git to the bottom of the security issue to

reprimand the registry teachers and the prince approximately prematurely and it will be counter productive for the whole community and we also need to improve the culture of it. like i said last year, lowell can do a lot more on inclusive culture. thank you. >> my name is julie and i'll like to reject the comments that minimize the racist and anti-semitic attacks as isolated tech issues. i want to thank lowell's back students for pushing back against these racist culture at lowell. i believe them and as a jewish parent i know this work is making lowell and our district a better and safer place for themselves and other students. as adults in a district we should not be censoring or talk

over there advocacy but believing in supporting the painful work they're doing towards justice and centers their needs and healing. i want to echo the comments of ms. marshal an african american community center is different than an allumni funded student center. black students deserve their own space and african american students also deserve strategic outreach and i'm not sure why the pandemic or change in application process would mean backing away from that as black students need to chose to apply to lowell to be considered. i look forward to lowell and a peck recommendations being implemented and their work makes our schools better and safer for black students and for all of our children. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. >> could you hall on carla. she has the first half of our statement. >> what is the question. >> so, carla and i have a joint statement from the cac and carla has the first half of it to read

and give the second half. >> president lopez, are we ok with this? >> yes, definitely, thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. >> hello, carla. >> thank you. hello everyone, my name is carla and i have a recent graduate from sfusd from the school of the arts and a current freshman at washington high school and i attended lowell high school in 1982 and 1983 but tonight i'm calling on the membership chair of the community advisory committee for special education and we stand in solidarity with the apack and fellow advisory leaders to condemn the racist and anti-semitic acts that occurred at lowell high school on january 20th. the response has not been satisfactory and we stand behind the actions and calls to action ofs lowell black student union. we need to call out racism when we see it for the cancer that it

is and immediately address and take concrete steps to heal the damage it causes. admitting its prevalence within our schools is difficult. but it is necessary and a necessary part of the healing process. bringing these actions into the light and holding those a count able must be a part of process we now follow. this hatred, these actions, this behavior has no place in our schools. our goal and our responsibilities and all the work we do each and everyday is for our students to thrive and instead they have been harmed. we call for the district -- we call inform a district action plan at each school site with clear steps on how they will meet these needs and heal this mental abuse. our students and families deserve to know in real time how the district will be there for them every step of the way to support their social and emotional recovery. thank you.

>> julie. julia. >> thank you. the cac stands in solidarity with the apack in their calls to begin to honor the demands made during the lowell black student union's 2016 walk out those demands are as relevant and urgent today as they were five years ago. as any progress been made? the cac leadership team echoed the call for much more staff diversity, cultural sensitivity training for all districts as well and zero-tolerance policies and safe spaces for our black students. we call an our district leaders to be agents of change for racial and religious justice. it's easy to assume that the heinous acts were perp operated

by outside hackers but the stark reality face by our students and racism exist at lowell and other schools within sfusd. the students and families of sfusd demands and deserve for social justice to be a reality rather than a talking point on an sfusd core value poster. every student deserves to feel safe and to thrive in our schools. the c.a.c. would also like to recognize and appreciate the leadership of the lowell black student union as well as student delegates. we acknowledge and appreciate your excellent leadership and your advocacy and the impact of your strength as you continue to tell truth to power. the work you are doing is not easy. commissioners you are inspiring not only your fellow students and plenty of us adults too. student owes to you for setting the example that many of us adults should be.

thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, yolanda. >> y. hello. i am yolanda williams president of the officers for justice, a lowell alumni from the class of '73 and also one of the vice presidents of the naacp chapter. i'm appalled our students have been traumatized. i recall having this same experience during my tenure at lowell high school. it is a shame that this type of behavior is condoned. lowell inspires anti blackness and i think it's time for us to take a stance and hold lowell just as accountable as you hold police officers on a continuous basis and it is time to call for action and action should be that there should no longer be a lottery system for lowell high school because that in and of

itself makes itself they're entitled and it's the 45 black students who have been suffering and are in pain over what they have experienced, you owe them something major and i suggest that san francisco unified school district think in terms of funding their college. because i'm telling you, what you have done, it is going to be very hard for you to repair it and it is just disrespectful, thank you. >> carmen rodriguez and she needs spanish translation. >> i'm here. [ speaking spanish ]

[voice of interpreter] thank you, everyone, for getting me speak. i wanted to talk to you about school reopening and i don't know if this is a good time. i'm sorry, but we're going to be talking about this in our agenda and at this moment we're talking about what is happening at lowell.

>> i'm sorry that was happening at the school and i know this is something that is not nice for everyone and we need to have a better education for everybody. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, lesley. >> hello. my name is lesley and i'm a latino senior at lowell. let me tell you now the recent racist events at lowell are nothing depriving to me. people of color students have to demand our voices be heard. who can we look up to when the (inaudible) will only criticize it. the examples of holly giles. she was sha von and i were in with lowell and organized by asian and pacific islander gills girls. there was a list before try outs

happened and those admitted were all of asian pacific islander dissent. she generated an nda contract with the team we had we had one hour to sign. no negotiations. the contracts van dated our feelings of exclusion. lowell shutting their students up to save their public image from racism and we asked for a copy of this contract we she claims she has zero access despite it being her responsibility to oversee. this is only one example of the culture and failure of admin to protect lowell students. the leadership must change which has began with giles leaving. lowell culture must change. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, debra. >> thank you. i'm speaking in support of the

bsu at lowell. i'm an alum class of 1973, former bsu secretary. recent events have are not only angered and traumatized current students but also retraumatized generations of alumni of color who have endured the micro aggressions and transgressions of anti black, anti latinx for people of color for decades. this was not a simple cyber program. it diminishes what thousands of alumni of color know to be true. as one of my fellow alums has stated, this is not about what happened, nor how it happened. this is about why it happened. i want to urge you to take action today or asap. number one, begin in earnest to address the demands of the lowell bsu that were presented nearly five years ago.

forgive my emotion. replace the entire administrative staff and faculty starting with the current principal and a hold over from the previous do-nothing administration. >> that's time. >> catherine. >> hello, can you hear me ok? >> go ahead. >> hi, my name is kathy melvin and i'm a science teacher at lowell high school and been there over 20 years. i want to acknowledge the very real pain caused by the incident at lowell and incues able damage was during burning a presentation on a day that should have been a day of celebration. our administrators are highly qualified, careing and hard-working individuals. these are issues in need of a much more widespread conversation. the lowell community has been fighting for equity for years and this work has been long overdue through our our country it's not an easy path.

there's a resistant to our work many, many levels and there are many challenge that's we have not been able to overcome. anyone who i am 'em parked and this is not easy work and it's overdue and most vital. we've had many difficult conversations and mitigation racism and list up disadvantaged and under represented communities. hello, susan.

>> thank you. i'm susan solomon, president of united educators of san francisco and lowell class of 1972. i saw the images and words on that padlet and they were traumatic. as previous speakers have said, the images and words are obviously intentionally heinous and violent. students have and are experiencing deep pain. students must be seen, heard and believed and their pain not just from wednesday but from long before that and on going, must be recognized, acknowledged and addressed. on behalf of the educators of uesf i'm here to say that we are willing and obligated to our students to address and be part of the real work need today eliminate systemic racism and white supremacy so that we can move forward and have the healing needed and a better world for our students.

thank you. >> thank you. >> caller with the 415297 phone number. hello, caller, are you there. >> can you hear me? >> we can, go ahead. hi, my name is sarah brant and i appreciate so much the emotional and physical labor of black students and families and adults sharing today and clarifying the statistics of the unfulfilled bsu demands that were glossed over by the adults. he he went to lowell. it has not changed. i was a teacher at lowell. i'm still a teacher in the district and as a prior speaker said, lowell's culture, on so many levels continues to amplify anti black racism. the trammization of black students and families and pushed

back against the system of publicized incidents and all the private ones and so i just want to add that as a teacher i continue to ask why lowell exists as an institution. i've heard educators say the same as many did last week when this came into the public sphere and i saw black students and families not to go to lowell. it's too racist. that place has not changed. if it's too racist for black students and families to be told to go there, it's too racist for anyone to go there. thank you. >> hello, snit. >> hi, my name is snit i'm a sophomore at lowell. i am so frustrated and feel so disrespected by the way lowell has handled and the administration has handled the situation and there has been so many things that have been happening the fast few days so i'm going to talk about the ones

that upset me the most. we had one of our sponsors and our old ex sponsor be a few create a petition that we believed as bsu was wrong and contradicting what we were saying and this sponsor was stating that she believes that it was in deed a hacker and not a student from lowell. after sf club bsu, e-mailed her and talked to her she refused to take it down and the fact that one of our sponsors would create a petition, contradicting what we were posting and how we were feeling, extremely frustrated me because this is a teacher that i like and have and i used to respect but no longer respect now. thank you. >> thank you. >> >> hello, han a. you are being

promoted to panelist so your video may come on. can you guys hear me. >> we can. >> so first of all, i just want to say that -- >> thank you still there? >> we can't hear you. we have a bad connection, if you want to try to log back in. >> can you hear me now? >> yes, we k. >> sorry. it's my connection. so i would like to reiterate what i said from yesterday in that meeting and right here right now. stop protecting the abusers in this school, lowell. because like the more you guys excuse this, the more it makes lowell a bigger safe haven for

racist and homo forbes, you guys aren't doing it. you are just putting out statements that are like oh, we're sorry we'll deal with it and we never hear anything again. the punishment is not firm enough. i've done those racist and hunt down those homophobe. an apology letter is getting out of trouble free card. that's literally it and i don't know why the school is excusing all these cases like, these sexual harassment cases and racism and harassment on people of the lgbtq plus community, i don't condone that. we do not condone that. >> thank you. >> hello, cynthia. >> can you hear me. >> go ahead. >> my name is cynthia and i'm the current president of chinese

teachers and today we heard from a number of black and brown students from lowell current and past about how bad it is for them at that school. it's our responsibility as educators to ensure the safety and well us in of our students and tax stands with the african american parent advisory council and in their letter of support black union and i think steps need to happen now to support the students and take hate accountability and take opioid and responsibility and to repair the harm done. thank you. >> do you need to mute yourself, please. >> thank you, dr. matthews. >> can you hear me? >> go ahead. >> my name is (inaudible) and i'm a senior at lowell high

school and i'd like to ask you to examine the teaching and learning policies that we have at lowell and other schools across the district. i think given the numerous racism incidents we've seen at lowell alone this year, administrators should have been able to recognize that something like an anonymous padlet is not going to work for such a racist school. i don't know, i'm 17 and that is commonsense to me. i assume that you guys have training and you have to go through process to teach and be administrators of a school so how could you think that something like an anonymous platform open to 2,000 students could be ok at a school with such a racist history and even in the past two to throw months. i feel like we were here two, maybe three months ago talking about other racist incidents that happened at lowell and to

lowell students. thank you. >> hello, good citizen. good citizen on the handle. >> yes, can you hear me now. >> go ahead. so i just wanted to say, i hear both sides. i hear people talking about the incident and i hear people talking about more broad things. i think it's a combination of that. as a student, i've been to ald of different schools, you never do something anonymous. it doesn't have a way to screen things. i've been at schools, if you drop notes in a physical box, obviously that won't work for something like this with covid, those things have worked. when you have padlet, padlet has a horrible reputation. i hate padlet. i don't know why any school uses it. it's honestly kind of a scam and i think that just one dumb

student who thinks e.o.e. it's going to be so funny if i do this. you know, they're probably not the most racist person in the world. they're not actively racist or we would know who they are. it was probably a student that just made a dumb choice. very racist and not ok. >> thank you. >> louis. louis? >> i'm sorry, good afternoon and welcome back to distant learning. i'm a teacher at lowell high school. and every morning i greet my students like this -- most of the times i don't see any faces. but still i have to come on and

make sure that we're about to engage in teaching and learning. and i want you to know that these past couple days my girls who attend lowell high school, they have been struggling to get this thing done. every morning i wake them up and say ok, come on. get up, we have to get it done. we have to do this. and as enough history already in place, i have this administration about this school to know that this thing is nothing new and we need the school, the school board owe efficients, you node to address this. this time and you just got to address this. it's painful and it's challenging us and all the righ. i want to thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> hello cliff. >> yes, hi.

so, my name is cliff yee and i'm an executive member of decreasing the distance and i graduated from washington high school in '98 as a member i just want to say we stand firmly in solidarity with the lowell black student union and as a native san franciscan and someone who works in youth development locally, i have had conversations with young people about their experiences with racism and anti blackness over the years and to put it simply, more can and should be done to address racism and anti blackness, not just in this city but especially in their schools. so, sfusd should adhere to the demands of the lowell black student union and make transparent their plans to repair this harm and ensure that black and brown students are centered and lifted up in being part of the action moving forward. thank you. >> thank you. >> sassa ramos.

>> hello, can you hear me? >> yes, go ahead. >> my name is sassa and i do not identify as part of the black or jewish community, i stand alongside my peers in the call for action against the disturbing and inhumane comments. these are dismissed by administration, we, as a community, set a precedenting a tax against the black community and other marginalized groups. i would like to echo the comments of my peers. we call for transparency and moving forward. in a shift of culture at lowell high school. i urge the board of education to up lift the voices of students in color and continue the work set out for our black leadness our 2016 lockout. i would like to extend my gratitude to the student group

and delegates for their continued support and advocacy and strength. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> hello, dianne. >> yes, thank you. good evening, superintendent matthew and president, commissioner president lopez and commissioners. as well as our student delegates. first of all, this is certainly not a tech issue, what happened last week. for decades, racism has been allowed to grow and take root, creating a culture that is unsafe and detrimental to the mental health, academic performance of black and brown students for decades. and we need to look at this culture very broadly, right. we know there are students that

have a certain mind set coming from outside the school. we have teachers who have been at that school for decades. lowell has been one of the schools that continuously have teachers that come back year after year and they've been there for decades. and so we need to look at this quite broadly of all the members of the lowell community and i have a graduate class of 1978 and it has micro aggression and teachers making certain comments to students of color has happened decade after decade. we want the community, we want to work with the school direct and work with lowell but we have to stop this today. i was also there in 2016. i marched with those students. i cried with those students. i collect myself. you have to stop this right now.

>> thank you. >> hello, rehanda. >> yes, good evening, everybody. i am a member of the aapack and i stand and support of the lowell bsu and i would like to just rule out a call for change. when are we going to call a thing a thing and address racism what it is. we can't face what we're not willing to situation and that's at the heart of this issue. it wasn't a tech issue, it wasn't some silly students trying to make a joke, this is not a joke. this caused harm and it is time for us to stand up for our students and let every racist person know from this administration teachers and students that racist acts will not be tolerate. sfusd has to take a swift stand

and create action. we should not have 20 keep coming back time after time after time with this same issues. it's escalating. we have to make a change. i just hope and i pray that by the time my three-month-old is ready to go to high school, that lowell will be changed. do we have to wait that long? i didn't allow my ninth grader, who is now a tenth grader to attend lowell because of these same reasons and it still is happening. how long is lowell going to be allowed to be this racist power house and sfusd? when are we going do demand change? when are we going to happen.

ask yourselves how long does it have to happen. thank you. >> thank you. >> >> hello, ashley. >> hello. hi, can you hear me. >> we can, go ahead. >> great. my name is ashley and eye class of 2008 alumni at lowell high school and i just want to show my solidarity and support for the black students and the bsu, who are doing work that they should not have to do and advocating for themselves in a way they should not have to advocate for themselves and their peer this is their districts and when i was at lowell i was accused of plagiarism, i was told i might not be lowell material and these

things have stuck with me and hearing these things have not changed and has been nothing but triggering and traumatizing, lowell is a place that has the history of sf poet laureate and daniel handler and that is what should be celebrated but instead there's nothing but anti blackness, racism, maliciousness and mall intent and the administrators of that school need to be held accountable. >> i apologize for miss pronouncing ahead of time. monufo. >> good evening, can you hear me? >> we can, go ahead.

>> thank you. >> thank you honorable commissioners, superintendent and our community my name is (inaudible) and i'm proud to be a fellow board colleague here at jefferson elementary school district in daily city. i'm here to join in solidarity the conversations that have been had as a brown woman, a pacific islander and alumni to lowell high school class of 1987 where i also served as student government president which is a rarity and it is deeply disheartening to hear the on going recurrences of the toxic culture of racism that still exist at lowell. i endured many, many, many unfortunate experiences. there needs to be a level of accountability and it can only start with all of you. you are being called to action. we are the ones that are hearing of these experiences from our students and from the families who are supporting the students and are enduring every

traumatized by this constant pain. there needs to be a change in administration. i was called to be a part of a lowell administration of alumni board of directors a year ago and i thought i could create change there and i am submitting my resignation and standing with courageous voices and to ensure this stops. light needs to be shed is and it can only happen with you. you have the power to do this and i hope that you will do it. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> hello, tiffany. tiffany. >> can you hear me. >> we can if you speak up a little bit. >> thank you so much. hi, my name is tiffany and my son is a junioral lowell and the these comments haven't been reviewed by our board so they're my own. i want to recognize the experience of our students, specifically our african american and jewish community

members and everyone impacted by the hate activity last weekend in the past. i'm horrified and sorry this continues to happen. i also want to highlight that there are a lot of disconnections preventing us from working together toe right a community of belonging and our students aren't feeling heard and this needs to end today. that disconnect exists between the school and the board and while i appreciate being contacted, it is deeply concerning that this occurred prior to connecting with any lowell administrator about the incident. we're missing out on important conversation and we owe it.

>> go ahead. >> my name is ali a hunter. lowell needs to do better, lowell administration needs to do better. i am tired of the cover ups and tired of admin letting students get away and try to cover everything up and protect lowell's reputation.

>> we the members of the san francisco alliance of black school educators are standing in solidarity union and the demands made by them and this hate crime our students experienced is list

inside our board policy number 5145.9 and entitled hate motivated behavior under the california code 200-262.4. san francisco unified clear and concise consequences for hate crime behavior and directed towards any group of students and be communicated not only to the students but to the parents. we can no longer wait for white supremacy to surface and infect the lives of our students. as these throughout these years and san francisco alliance of plaque educators encouraged sfusd to immediately seek out and provide the black student union students of lowell high school with targeted counseling and these young people have been to school everyday and the mid racial mike owe aggression and

segregation and implicit bias and they succeed academically while still walking through these things so we need to support our students. we are proud of these students. because they show up and they handle their business. and they are scholars. so plaque students have spoken. will you listen. they recognize and the board of education and the immediate concerns of dr. matthews and his staff and we encourage you to correct the environment and the way our students are experiencing their educational experience and sfusd. thank you, very much.

>> hello. >> can you hear us? >> yes, i can hear you, can you hear me. >> yes, we can. >> thank you. first, i want to apologize, i had to step out for a minute to take my mother-in-law something but i'm back. i've been listening since about 4:00. first and foremost, i'm the assistant principals at lowell high school and i want to thank students and families and community members who have been speaking out on behalf of the students. i can speak that in my one and a half years over here at lowell, i believe that we definitely want to make sure that this place is a safe place for students to know that what happened under our watch and there's no excuse for it and i

reach out today to mr. linda jordan and i've had a partnership with her in the past and we've talked about ways to support our students and moving forward and we tried to figure out ways because i think one of our mistakes, you know, was how our effort to support them was like a generic link and i think

it's a piece we need to do right now is figuring out getting some mental health support to our students, reaching out to maybe our black san francisco unified school districts social workers and i believe it's the black educators and students thriving and so we're trying to figure out, i've reached out to them and one of the other things that i do know that hearing from that meeting last night, was the need to really engage our access coordinator so i reached out to him today to we can get him engage and i'm not here to say say that everything is peachy. but i am here to say i'm willing here to do the work. i'm a city kid, alum, parent of children in the unified school district and i'm a community member and this happened under my watch. i take responsibility for it.

i hope you understand that i am willing to do the work that you need inform make this a better place for our students. especially our students of color. i will be held accountability and i will answer questions to people regarding that. >> thank you. reverend brown, are you there? >> reverend brown. >> he said it was the 559 number, correct? >> yes. >> i don't know. reverend brown.

he is unmuted. reverend brown. >> may i just share his comments then? >> president lopez. >> yes. >> is it ok. >> thank you president lopez. let me make sure i understand what he wanted to say. i'm sorry he is having these technical difficulties, he has been on hold for such a long time. on behalf of the san francisco naacp reverend brown wants the district super inten dent and board members to form a committee to meet with the administrators at lowell high school to solve this issue so the racist practices would not continue. he said our students are harmed. we know what to do and we've done this before working with the community and he wants the naacp and other community groups

to be involved to solve these racist practices and if it doesn't work, to remove administrators at that school. thank you so much. >> thank you for sharing that. before we open up and they have their hand ways and you like to share your comments. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> my name is gainer and native of san francisco and pacific islander parent and community advocate and 1995 alumni of sfusd. lowell high school has historically carried out systematic racism for as long as i can remember and it is saddens my heart in 2021 this is still

happening. we have been called to pacific islander students being bullied and racially disrespected as well and numerous times at lowell high school and this is not acceptable and i look to you today to make the change for the betterment of our communities and as a pacific island we stand in solidarity with our african american brothers and sisters and communities of colors. >> i'd like to say awe couple of things, my granddaughter went to lowell high school for two years and she was bullied and attacked verbally by a racism teacher there we took our complaints to the administration nothing was

done about that and not only that, prior to lowell being the present day cardinals they were the lowell indians and there's a community member i took great offense by the fact that they still maintained in their jail rtc the image of schools wearing headbands and braids and feathers and they probably still do that. lowell has hidden behind the status and their reputations and being an academically achieving schools and kids are bullied and their students and color are bullied and they're being told that they're not qualified to be in this school and system wide we need to erase the imagery all these things that continue to

promote racism and the education and and students and at. >> ellie: these people feel they have the privilege to continue on and propagate this. it needs to stop and i stand with the students speaking out. good for them. this is been allowed to go on for too long and we can't hide from it. thank you,. >> thank you, everyone for sharing your comments. for coming out today and we know this is not an issue that is easy to listen to but it's not one we want to turn away from. i was asked earlier to do something healing and i am encouraging all of you to do the same. with that, i would like to open up the discussion to our student

delegates and board commissioners, if you would like to share any comments or questions on this item. >> can we start with students? >> i've invited them to speak we will. >> i am writing to speak but i also want to see if chahaven't would like to go first or after? >> i can go after. >> ok. i am praying my wifi pulls through for this one. today, i had no idea what i could say that hasn't already been said. when i realized it was not a lack of me not being able to come up with the new thought, it was a representation of the fact that everything everyone has been saying today has been repeated, restated, in so many

ways for decades and today i heard one person bring um trauma. a good classroom leads a room and transforms a life and impacts a student. one thing is clear, the marriage clear, they getthis impact but d the complete opposite of good. they're in trauma. from both the students and the teachers and the admin. the fact this conversation is happening incident by incident is everything that is wrong and the people who are handling the situation. someone said it perfectly earlier. for as long as the district and the schools continue to handle the situation, the racism as an isolated incident, the harm will continue forever. what prevents measures are in place right now. someone may say, well, we have an anti racism lesson and that

is where this hate crime happens. it is shows it's not enough. we have not done a substantial job as dismantling the white supremacist school. the point is to say it. this is a symptom of a systematic problem and i know that racism rocked this society and hidden and not hidden, guess what, this school district is a system and that is where your obligation comes in. the trauma of students of color and jewish students keep experience song the hands of the district. that is keeping everyone up at night and it should keep the leaders of this school up at night but instead it's keeping students and education is a place where change can happen. students can get the opportunity to be empowered to be able to change our society for the better. i know this because i am the result of good-ass teachers and schools and it pains me not every single student gets this opportunity to have a transformational education.

this racism is happening in the classroom. in the lessons discussing anti racism. think about the impact. the impact of going tie class that is supposed toen spire you and helping you believe that change is possible and this happened. the students are getting silenced when they voice their concerns and it's the most encouraging thing that anyone can do and trauma and to the students who did this, i hope this taught you a lesson, you should have heard issues and you should be ashamed of the violence you perpetuated and the harm you have caused to others and i will be praying for you because i believe you need it. i also need to say in front of the san francisco community, that students delegates continually has done the work that her adult leaders are supposed to be doing. for that, she has my utmost respect and i love her and i love the heart that she has for herren tire community. because she does the work.

she's living proof that there are no such things as excuses. y'all should take notes. and on that i pass it to student delegate. >> thank you, y'all need coddling this raggedy-ass school, y'all need to stop now. i try toe keep it professional and clean but this is gone on for too long. all of you were present at that meeting yesterday. most of you were present. y'all saw what happened. you saw what leadership we deal with. you saw how an administrator resigned and said shavon, you got what you wanted. that shows you what we have to

deal with. that shows you the leadership that our principal has and the team she has. that shows you the people we hire, you hire and you put to serve these kids. you failed me and numerous other students. and this can't keep happening. if yesterday's meeting, this meeting, and meetings in the past show you this school has an issue i don't know what about. kids have already died and kids have already been abused emotionally and sexually. how much longer? i mean, it's truly a question,

how much longer? you have blood on your hands. y'all need to run me that check. you all should pay for college. please pay for my college. because i've been carrying this school on my back. it's really the fact that students feel more comfortable coming to me to deal with this situation than administration. that shows you a lot. how much longer? y'all sit up here with your sfusd-centered student-center posters and anti racist lessons and that are jenky and let this school do whatever they want. how much longer? and then, when the parents act out and the administration acts

out, y'all are surprised. it's not surprising to us because we're there. we're in this school. we see how people operate. it's not surprising to us. but it's surprising to you because you do address it and you lit it continue on. it's ghetto and it's raggedy and nodes to be fixed. i'm not going to sit on another registry call to listen to anti racism when i know my administration isn't going to do anything about it. that's a waste of my time. that's a waste of school resources. that's a waste of district money. why are you paying people who aren't doing their jobs.

protecting students. saying it's a hacker when there was no security put in place in the first place. you let kids see a man suck his own penis, come on, now. come on, now. i mean, pornography, suicide, rape, racism, y'all tallying up the points. but y'all are grasping at straws to find diversity points, especially the administration what's is the week never happen and creating anything so you look good and i'm really glad, i'm really glad that we had that meeting last night. so you can see what we deal with. 10 minutes into the conversation, we heard an administrator say do you want my

resignation now or later. if you are own faculty, our leaders can't accept criticism for a community they failed for years and years it shows you what type of people you hired. what are you paying them for? what are you paying them for? come on now, you work there for years. i am not the reason you quit. me not tolerating racism is not the reason you quit. as my friend said earlier, we have to sign a contract that basically gas us saying this situation does not racist and we

shouldn't bring it up again and we have a hour to sign before we tried out. when i asked an administrator about it, she had no clue. so where did the contract that seven other girls signed and i know i'm not crazy. i know i'm not crazy. and i'm surprised i'm not crazy. this school has drove me mad. it's off the hook. it's off the hook. it's ghetto. it's raggedy and you need to fix it. you need to fix it. it's really the fact, let me put the icing on the cake, lay it on thick, it's really the fact that when i ask my principal if you received death threats from her community she said no but i did.

come on, now. we had a guy burn commissioner collins and commissioners lopez' faces with a bloody glove. you have kids that use swastikas saying kill all blacks, last night we heard they were hiding evidence for suicide from sfpd. last night we saw in the chat that the school goat 39k to help with equity works and yet we're still here and we're back. back again. four years later. stop playing black kids. you are playing us. you are playing us. give me my credits and let me go to college. because you are playing us. why do i have to go to school to be traumatized to get my credits

to graduate. i'm tired of coming on meetings and sending e-mails to administration with no sponsor a copy and pasted response talking about we're dealing with it. have some empathy. we've been waiting. it's not just me. alumni, alumni before alumni. it's ghetto. it's raggedy and it's your fault. >> thank you. >> if i got to say this speech again or give y'all another read again i'm going to be mad. this is crazy. i don't know what we're making y'all see it.

>> thank you, i really want to emphasize that there's so much burden our students take on that they've been sharing this with over and over again and we need to ensure our commissioners as school district staff as this is not something to continue to take on. >> i know you want to share as well. i really discuss and could lead to action that we'll take. so i invite commissioners who want to share to speak and i know we are still working to get reverend brown to share as well. >> commissioner collins, i see your hand. >> let me know, i can't see you

all. >> not everything in space can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is safe. this is a product that black students and parents and latinx students and parents and native american parents and students have been raising for decades. and it is not our responsibility and it is definitely not students' responsibility to be raising these issues. we appreciate that we have amazing student leaders but students should not have to bear this work. no such thing as not racist. i keep hearing from folks that we're not racist. there's racist and there's anti racist. so i want to tell you that racism or anti racism is parents fighting to keep names of schools, named after slave owners and anti rainfall is fighting to ensure black history, culture and children are celebrated.

racism is political officials showing up this that perpetuates segregation and anti racism is speaking up on behalf of black students in that very same meeting who are being shouted down by adults. and targeted on social modia with hate speech. so, racism is having staff reach out to families immediately to see what they can -- i'm sorry, racism is when we have the community members speaking about empathy for administrators and not empathy for in aud. are dealing with everyday. and so i just want to say we're talking about micro aggressions and this is not micro aggressions this is racist abuse.

it needs to be addressed as abuse and not an isolated instant and so i'm working on this and also i want to say i'm not surprised. i'm not surprised because parents who actively espouse racist anti black narratives that black parents were to blame, for kids not going to lowell, i mean, literally they pointed the finger at black parents and were elected as the ptsa president at lowell and the year after the student walk out and i spoke to that effect as a parent leader and expressing my disgust. this is been going on for a long time and there's no excuse for anyone to say they didn't know because i have been saying it, alumni for 50 years have been saying it and students said it

five years ago and they're still saying it. i tell you what i'm doing, and i'm working in partnership in support of students and students at the school they need to be centered in the work but i also want to recognize that this is traumatizing to me and it's traumatizing to black alumni and traumatizing to black people in our city. and so, there's a lot of conversations that need to be had and i also want to recognize this is not just a black issue and no student should be going to a school that is perpetuating racism. it's not healthy for any child. so what i'm working on, with commissioners matt alexander, is we are working on -- before this we worked on a resolution as well as with commissioner lamb to address the issues that were brought up last fall which relate to enrollment and school culture and the larger questions of resource forwarding that we see at lowell when people ask why lowell, why can't we have

more lowell, the reason we don't have more lowells is because of lowell hording resources from other schools. and additionally, there's an immediate question which is how we support students and families so i would like the district to immediately have central office staff reach out to parents and specifically parents of color and parents of students of color to set up anna fin tee space for them to share their experiences of pain and trauma and figure out what they need immediately to provide support and connect them also with central office and packs like the' lack and lowell does not have an active elack which is also concerning. additionally, i have reached out to this san francisco alliance black school educators and sfnaacp virginia marshal and reverend brown and nationally the naacp and they have offered

to support us in partnership to create an equity audit and i don't believe that our staff is capable of really holding not only site staff but central office staff accountable in figuring out what happened ex what personal conversations we need to have and what policy conversations we need to have. we need help. and it's time we acknowledge that. and so, i have spoken to superintendent math use and he is supportive of it and work in sfnaacp and work in pip with an equity task force that is a national task force this is also not an isolated incident, lowell is not the only high school with these issues and we node support and so i will be sharing more information that develops and i hope you happen to share a resolution next week which will outline a process for that.

and additionally, i want to support black students in anyway i can and let me get back to that. parents also an issue and alumni are also an issue and we don't manage them and they are a big factor in creating school culture and i appreciate the alumni spoken up and the leadership of alumni within the lowell alumni association and working to support black students and students of color and equitable, you know, positive culture and i also encourage the pta and second district pta mom and also as specifically at lowell, to engage in conversation and offer my supports as a pta mom and at a school that has selectiven roe enrollment and racial abuse for students and also encouraged them to reach out to the larger community and to figure out what

they need to do to be a part of the solution. and finally for students, i believe we need to doing everything we can to support them immediately and that might mean crowdfunding and minute to be ship and opportunities or whatever they need and some of those should come from our districts and might from the larger communities and i will be working with community leaders with the hrc and mega black and apack and the alliance of plaque school educators and the naacp to figure out ways that we can immediately support students that have experienced trauma and make sure that they get the immediate action that they need. thank you. >> can they go a again. i'm not done. >> yes, and then we'll hear from commissioner. >> i really think it's funny that some of the teachers on here are a part of the problem.

are really a part of the problem. a few of these teachers have their kids raised for public and they also traumatized these students and putting them in group projects and highlighting thing as an under performing group and to the whole class using them as examples during history lessons saying that the kkk wouldn't be outside if hannah was walking across the street. you are teachers too. your teachers too. so put on your boots. >> i got it. >> reverend brown. >> yes. >> reverend brown?

>> put on your boots and let's get to work because we need to gut this school. from the ground. >> hello. >> hello reverend brown. >> you got me clear. >> we can hear you. >> let my say this. i'm sorry for the difficulty and i had to get my vaccination. i would say to you madam chair, we pressure involvement and and you had to the privilege of hearing the cry, the concerns, and the critical pain that these

black students have been going through. at lowell high school. i've been coming through this board for 43 years and dealing with the same thing. now, it is quite poetic and ironic that i was on my way to get the vaccination for covid-19. and the question for the school board and the administration is, parents, teachers, community leaders, are we ready to take our vaccine for racism elitism

and the da meaning of the person hood of persons who happen to be of darker hue, we should not in 2021 be mirroring or reflecting the mind set and mentality of aristotle who said in the fourth sent tree that the black person was interior because his skin was dark and the only way we can have someone we have to go up to the time and europe and become lighter and aristotle said that and everybody who is listening and knows the sound of my voice check it out in riding the politics and secondly, the black man of ethiopian would never be

available of self-governance. you have to always have a white man, a white man. what am i citing all this history to say. we have been infected with that disease. and the demonic disease of racism and and it is made its way again and again to the city and county of san francisco. it claims so much to be liberal and progressive. but it's only in reality with certain people who are privileged, not black people. and my appeal tonight is for us to not point fingers but get ready to take our vaccine. and what does that mean? first of all, truth telling.

truth telling. we got to tell the truth. i even heard from my nephew who pastored a big church in brooklyn, new york, a graduate of law and he said to me, when i told him what is going on up and what was going down and on the day that we have the inauguration for mr. joe biden. and mr. harris and i was at that inauguration. i ran down and i will call and i'm sad to say, the same thing was going on back there in the 70s. shame shame on san francisco unified school district. we have not accepted the realities that we need to take our vaccines so we can live and be a beloved community. all the brains are not in one racial group.

we have skills. that young lady who gave that from a single-parent family, that poem on wednesday. she told you what black folks can do when you give them an opportunity and supported by your church, your parents, even as a single-parent family. and then we had mr. tyler right down here in san jose. 14-year-old boy. born eight months premature and had a deficiency of vitamin d and like mr. joe biden had, a problem and impediment, a speech impediment of stuttering. but my, this young man tyler, has won the acclaim of president joe biden.

he was a guest at inauguration. this young lady, from now in southern california from los angeles, the port (inaudible) and she was the (inaudible). it's time we take our vaccine and get it, take it over there to lowell and truth telling, trust, and transparency. and with the superintendent, and a committee of not too big of a committee, to go over there and not to point fingers but to sit down and look and listen. when we went to school in mississippi they told you before you cross over, stop, look and listen. and we just stopped, looked and listened. and the hear the pain of the

black folks, who in this town, have been pushed out, pushed around and pushed down. not for privilege but only for our respect. aretha franklin called out. thank you for your time but i'm waiting to see after 43 years, will this school board take a laser beam approach on this problem and stop looking the other way. lincoln doesn't belong to any allegiance group. it should be a school for members of the human race can say the words and gladly will i learn and gladly will i teach others how to find the way to the good life. so let us, look in the mirror,

and for this mirror reflects that we all are guilty and the whole city of san francisco and to permitted to be the case. that black folks, i'm not talking about anyone else, who have been enslaved for 4,500 years. black folks. who have been enslaved in this country for over 250 years. black folks, who built the white house. built the capitol. black folks, who burned at the first governor of this state. said back in 1850, that he didn't want us in this state. and we had a school over bayview point that was named for pete are burnette and it stayed that way until 2010 when i was in the hospital recovering from the stroke and i read about his terrible, troubling life. and i called willie brown and i said since peter burnette didn't

change his attitude, his mind set, his spirit towards black folks we need to change the name of that school. and thanks to this board, you listened. you took the vaccine. and you voted unanimously and you changed the name of that school. so let us do that again. change lowell high school. change every school where there is racism, anti-semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, we need to see where we all came from human race and the first home for human beings if you study paleontologists it's over there in the valley.

where is the valley? it's in ethiopia. where? in mother africa. as we migrated around the globe, years ago, what happens? when we stopped on the banks of a river on a beach, we developed what they call culture and we developed this crazy thinking of them against us. us against them. it's time that they master that pronoun "we." we have to have an opportunity at lowell high school. we need to respect every child over there. and when we do that, then we will be able to say, san francisco has reached its finest hour and is healing', robust and will live because it took the

having cbc that embody truth telling, trust and transparency. i hope we can get this committed together under state of emergency. we don't need to kick the can down the road any longer. we need to put the breaks on right now. and go and turn to each other and show respect and love for each other, and for god sake, get the facts. tell the truth and say what progress we will bibly because you got some photographic over there who are infected with this

virus of racism and it didn't come from the outside. it didn't come from the outside but within america. they were folks from our churches and faith community and academic communities and folks from the police department and as we found the enemy and the enemy is us. we don't need to be enemies, we ned to be friends. and love each other. so thank you so much. and i'm speaking passionately and i will be 80 february 20th t tired yet. i'm not going to rest until lowell gets its act together and all schools get its act together.

community leaders get their act together and this board gets its agent together and focus on stopping this nonsense of black children having to cry. adults are to be there. we are a carrying culturement we call the cadence and we should not put this terrible burden -- [please stand by]

>> i think for me, reflecting on when i was in high school and sfusd and the amount of anti-blackness that i experienced and how it was not an exclusive experience and how it was precursor amount of anti-blackness that i faced. the importance of learning the need to fight back and push back against that kind of at all levels and all ages and in communities together. i'm hopeful that this current board can be the board to really push forward and solve this issue and to really put a stake in the ground and say that we won't tolerate this any more. we as a community are going to do everything we can to combat the institutional racism that exist inside our school district and inside our schools. i would say, i'm a person who thinks that racism is something that belongs to institutions and

people as being prejudice. if me just to live up the important role that institutions play in maintaining racism. i think the board really interested in combating that and really doing the work that is ask of us to make sure that future generations won't have to suffer and deal with some of the things that those of us who been through the halls of sfusd and other oppressed communities had to face. i want to be a ally and lift up that this is happening in all different schools in our districts, all different grade level. not just students, parents and family members, community members, the cbos, the staff that we work to work in the schools who support them.

to be aware of our role and commitment to move forward and to really address these things and not to kick them down the road. thank you. >> president lopez: commissioner lam and then commissioner alexander. >> commissioner lam: thank you to our student leaders. i know how much of the burden that you all has been carrying and what you speak your truth is really impacts me as a commission on this board. really be able to be accountable to not only as a system overall,

racism in our institutions have been far too long it is upon us to do things differently. we talk about education and schools and personally for my connection in education and why it's so deeply important. it is about our children, our young people. recognizing love for them, their joy in learning, being visible and for us as educators and youth development workers as mother, fathers to say to our children you are enough and we love you. to have a school experience that is counter to that is heart breaking. i want to be able to say thank you to our students to our

alumni who has been doing this work for decades now and yet we have not seen the change that we know is so deeply needed. i want to also express as i did in the fall, that i'm ready to do this work. i'm ready to do this work with my colleagues and with my community. i continue to look to our students and to hear our students about their experience and what is needed and their families. this is not only happening at lowell. it is happening be district wide. over the last several days, similar to what folks shared, that's been one of the responses. still, that's happening at lowell again. that is upon us then. if that is a sentiment in public

that we have to change it because otherwise, we are just protecting what we know has gone on for too long. at the end of the day, why are we protecting it? i want to thank chevonne all the student leaders at lowell who have been outspoken. you all have been through so much in your time as student leaders. i'll just pause there. i'm ready to do this work. as a follow-up too, i would like to hear from dr. matthews about not only the responses since the racist incident horrific trauma and images that's been placed on our students and educators but what are some of the next steps and guidance from this board and

policies in engaging with our community. i'll pause for dr. matthews to respond after commissioners provide their remarks. >> president lopez: [indiscernib le] >> i will respond after i hear all the board members. >> president lopez: commissioner alexander and then commissioner moliga -- [indiscernible] >> commissioner alexander: thank you president lopez. as i was listening to reverend brown speak. i appreciate the history lesson. it made me think of a sermon i watched last summer given by reverend william barber at the national cathedral in washington. he spoke about the book of amos, let justice rolls down like

water like righteous like a stream. he spoke about how have justice roll down like water, what is required is the three part process, begins with truth, move to lament and move to reconstruction. the sermon was about history of white supremecy in the united states. it starts to truth and we can begin the process reconstruction. as reverend amos brown said here, we need to begin with truth. i think that requires leadership that is based in our values in san francisco. we say we're fearless and student centered. as leaders we need to be fearless and student centered and when students speak the truth, we need to validate that truth and we need to amplify that truth. i think often, i'm speaking now particularly to white people in

leadership, whatever that may be, parents, teachers, or any position. i think we sometimes when confronted with issues of white supremacy moves towards defensiveness. it reminds me of dr. martin luther king letter from the birmingham jail which i like to take the liberty quoting. he quote, i almost reached regrettable conclusion that the negro great stumbling block is not the white citizen counselor of the klu klux klan but with the white moderate who prefer the negative peace to a positive peace which is the presence of justice. who says, i agree with you in the goal you seek, i cannot agree with your method of direct action.

shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than misunderstanding from people of ill will. to me, i thought about that. i feel like that's what's happening here when our students are crying out clearly as what's happening. this is my lived experience on a dilly basis. some of the reactions they're getting is kind of lukewarm. not just bewildering but i believe harmful. i want to especially white folks, i want to challenge us when we hear about these things, that we not be surprised. if we're surprised, our eyes have been closed. lowell -- i worked in the school district for 20 years and teacher and principal, the experience of student of color at lowell is no secret. it's been going on for a long time.

i remember visiting as a principal probably eight years ago and talking with a focus group of students of color about their experience at the school. it was well-known. the principal at the time chose that as an issue to focus on it was an issue back then. my son just graduated from lowell. i can give you lots of examples of institutionalized systemic racism that occurs on a regular basis at the school. we're claiming this is an isolated incident. we're kidding ourselves and we're doing worse than that. we're doing what dr. king spoke about in that letter. i will not go on more than that. just to say, i think the truth telling is really important as a first step as reverend brown said. i'm really proudtor working with commissioner collins on the longer term response of this. i think it is an opportunity. i think our board is ready to

take it on. to staff, we're ready for some fearless leadership. we need you as well to step up and join us in this journey. >> president lopez: commissioner moliga and then commissioner sanchez. >> commissioner moliga: thank you president lopez. this is just really sad. it's embarrassing as a school district. it's not okay at all. again, i'm going to repeat what i keep saying how this district handled black and brown kids. it's a shame.

for the adults, i'm not saying a all the adults, you know, we are the people in these higher, paid. money in your pockets. getting ready to file your taxes. tax dollars. to take care of these kids to make sure they're okay and safe and put up structure that assure that they are in a nurtured, not beaten up. whatever administrator, shame on you. never ever should any adult, professional that we hire work for this school district that put money in your pocket, any child trying to excel, trying to live a life.

that's just not okay. it starts with leadership. i'm really upset. again, this is embarrassing. this is really embarrassing. this is like former commissioner norton said, this is not a proud moment for san francisco. this continues to happen, that's the saddest thing about this. this stuff is continues to happen at this school. here is this child being in a situation that is not safe. that's just not okay. i got lot of emotions right now. my whole thing around this --

i'm going to read what i ask legal to help me put in language so it comes out correctly. i know superintendent matthews wants to hear from all the board members. in addition to commissioner lam, this asking the superintendent to review the incident, make recommendations to the board to address the harm has occurred and address the culture and climate moving forward. we need real change. we need change today, now and yesterday. i know this board is ready to do that. my heart goes out to all the families and the kids and students. life is already hard. you come to a school where people are like trying to get to this school for some crazy reason. to get there, you have to run

into this, it's not okay, you guys. we're going to get it right because we have to get it right. with this board, which i know will work on it, we got to a whole new leadership. thank you. >> commissioner sanchez: i want to appreciate all the public commentary. really heart felt and thank you reverend brown as well as other african-american leaders in our city for speaking up and being partners with us. i want to thank my colleagues on the board and i'm impressed with you and your commitment to making things better for all of our students. our student delegates, i wish i was at eloquent as you are. i'm so proud of you and i hate

that you have to go through this continually. it has to stop. in a way i'm not surprised by what happened. i think the white supremacy that was unleashed by trump and his minions has built up. all the harbored white supremacy that exist in our society has been let loose. we're seeing the results of that. i think this incident correctly tied to in so many ways. it is abhorrent, disgusting and excusable. we must have reaction and must be consequences and they must be serious and dealt with. i agree with all the commissioners, i think everybody stands in agreement that our leadership and our district not just the board, our superintendent and the team have to deal with this directly.

lowell has been a pool of racism for so long. one of the main reasons why i wanted a change so long in the admission policy. there's a reason why having a lowell is illegal. you cannot have a school that has its admissions based on academics, that's against the law. it's immoral. it's unethical. we perpetuated that by letting it go like this. we have to stop it. yes racism exist in all schools. i know, i was principal at two schools. i seen it. i never seen it this way, this loud and so bold. we have to commit ourselves. we have to commit ourselves to ending the admissions process. we have to make that verbal commitment and we have to do it. this is linked our renaming.

commissioner collins raised that point and others. there's reason why we're looking to rename our schools. we're going to be discussing more later today and tonight. there's reason directly related to the racism and the names of the schools that we allow to stand for so long. it's a message to our students and families. it's a moral message. we have to stand by. one more thing, i like to get a read out the work that sff done with lowell over the years. to work with racism at the school. i know because i know people that were on that team working with the lowell staff that there

was mightcy resistance from the staff on trying to face the racism at the school. at the end of the day, s.f.f. had to depart. there's a staff issue at the school. it has to be dealt with too. not blaming all the staff of course. we have to look at who we hire. i'll leave it at that. >> president lopez: i appreciate everyone for sharing. i want to leave some time for superintendent matthews. >> thank you president lopez. i want to thank everyone who shared tonight our students. i know it's difficult to share some pretty horrific and painful events. especially as they have occurred over and over. i want to thank you for your willingness to speak up.

i want to thank the community for coming out and sharing here in support what has gone on in some of the impacts and. i think that happened at lowell whether you are here to speak against and say something has to be changed. i want to appreciate you for sharing. i think this is what democracy is all about and what it looks like. people sharing their opinions and those who have been put in power to govern, given the opportunity to do what needs to happen next. i want to say couple of things that -- i want to say, two, as superintendent, the bus stops here. it's in my lap. these think have come and incidents that have happened since i have been superintendent, i take responsibility for those

incidents. i want to add that a number of people said it's isolated incidents or it happened one or two times in the last few years. i want to say that one of the things that i was at the meeting last night. i shared is that 40 plus years ago, i was a student who gotten accepted to lowell. for those who know my mother, there was not a lot i can get away with my mother. if she said i had to do something, i had to do it. this is one time i stood up to her and said i would not do it. i accepted and i went up to basically i did not register or enroll. i was not going to go. i wasn't going to go. for those who think this is an isolated incident or these are

isolated incidents, the culture of lowell has been the culture of lowell since lowell began as an admission school. that has caused that culture to be there. i didn't go. i refuse to go. i knew what i will be walking into. i told the students, i salute those of them who chose to go there. you're braver than i was. virginia marshall shared that her daughter was accepted to lowell. she said absolutely not, i will not send my daughter into that situation. these aren't incidents that just occurred over the last few years. as a big part, i believe of the problem is when you set up -- when the school is it's up as an elite school, the definition of

elite, the f.e.c. part -- the next part of the group that is superior to the rest. if we set up a school and the people here haven't set up their school, it was set up before we arrived, if it's set up in that way where one group looked at itself as superior to others, i don't think it's a surprise that incidents like this are going to occur. not just like this but over time as we continue to have -- i'm speaking from the heart -- i want you to hear me. it's what see as an elitist school that is seat in white supremacy culture. you can hear me or not. that has gone on for quite some time at the school. let me start with what -- people ask what the next steps. you know what i believe the next

steps it should be. students in 2016 had a set of demands. five years later in 2021, the students who were living in that every single ask for that same demand i know that some efforts have been put forward. from our students, they say either it's not enough or it's not happening i'm committing to enacting those demands. i'm asking that the board check on months and at the end of the year k see the progress made. >> can you tell us what demands you're referencing. >> we're talking about the four that -- i will talk to you about the four that assistant superintendent left.

>> i know anthony was a staff member who worked at the school to operationalize those demands. he's no longer with the district. he will be a resource in letting staff know. they worked very specifically on what those demands would look like. i think he'll be a good resource and committed to supporting us even outside of sfusd. >> that's one. i think the second one is definitely in support of the equity audit. i know a resolution is going to come forward but partner with the national naacp around equity audit. that should be the next step. i wanted to say something about those two steps. i understand those steps and can appreciate those steps. i'm going to commit to doing

them. i don't think that's enough. i'll tell you why. i started talking about the elitism and the culture. i think about pedagogy and the mindset of us, the opressed, we look at as issue and we think we have to ask for. our ask is much less than it should be. the second part of this is, talked about you can't use the masters tool to get the masters out. if we -- we are trying to get more teachers of color on the campus. we are still putting them in that system. they're still going into right whether it's been in place for the last at least four years. i think that the -- it's really

around what commissioner sanchez was talking about. it really is around -- if we keep putting -- there were calls earlier about the administrative team. this team was a different team. at least three of the members they were different team, when marshall talked about she didn't send her daughter in. all those teams are the same in the system. we committed to this community that we were going to have a discussion about lowell and about the admissions policies at

that school. that's the third piece, is community to -- where we answered the question whether we want to have elite school as part of the san francisco unified school district. >> president lopez: thank you superintendent matthews. [indiscernible] >> you may want to turn your video off. it's going in and out. >> president lopez: commissioner collins -- >> vice president collins: i want to thank you for sharing in

the discussion. i think it's important we honor the people who -- [indiscernible] to make it clear this board [indiscernible] [audio breaks] i encourage the public listening who has been taking notes and hearing from students and students before them.

you can be a part of this solution. if it's really about condemned racism. i want to read off a few things that i heard that we will take on as next to continue this work. that includes staff reaching out to parents to provide support.

>> the quality engagement of the black community. naacp. it's a black community. based on civil rights and social justice issues. we need to have a place at the table.

>> that is work i'm intending to do with partnership with you and virginia marshall and working with the national naacp. i will be following up with you. >> ivy street speaking about officially from the board. >> i'm committed to doing the work. i spoke with superintendent matthews and working with commissioner alexander to define the work in partnership with you and mega black, h.r.c., african-american parent advisory council, student leaders and other black leadership. specifically working with you, the san francisco naacp and then in partnership with national naacp leaders and a task force that has offered to support us in this work. i look forward to reaching out

to you and defining what that work is. >> that's fine. , i'm talking about official come from the board if we're serious about this item, it needs to be united official board action. >> president lopez: we'll write a resolution to approve it. that will be united official approved board action. >> that is correct. [indiscernible] i like to pause for a few moments. please take a five minute break, stretch, drink water we'll resume the meeting at

>> president lopez: our original item on the agenda and i want to speak to section e advisory committee reports and appointment. unfortunately, given the time, we were not able to hear from the education program and reaching out personally, i reached out already to make sure we hear them. we do strive to hear directly from our advisory committees, especially our families who are taking on this work and unfortunately, we weren't able to hear them tonight. we will certainly follow up. now we are on section f, proposals for immediate action and suspension of rule to resolution 211-2681, in

reclaiming the american indian alaska native i need a motion and a second? >> so moved. >> second. >> president lopez: roll call on suspension. [roll call vote]. that's seven ayes.

>> president lopez: thank you. may i have a motion and a second for formal introduction? >> so moved. >> second. >> president lopez: thank you. reading of resolution by commissioner sanchez and collins. please go ahead. >> vice president collins: this resolution is written by the american indian parent advisory council. that is also important that they are also authors in this work. this is resolution number 211-26a1 reclaiming the american indian alaska native narrative. commissioners mark sanchez and

the american indian advisory committee. american indian nations lived upon this land since time of memorial, san francisco unified district recognized that the original inhabitant of this area -- despite their people through european colonization they continue to be active in the bay area and all san francisco unified district schools have been and shall continue to be occupied unseated land.

following the council of the san francisco unified district american indian parent advisory council ramaytush ohlone people. sorry, i have background noise. san francisco unified district continues defined indigenous people nation as those inside what has come to called the united states as well as canada, mexico central and south america. the san francisco unified district school district overlook the sizeable people of the indigenous student

population of mexico, central and south america and the american indian and alaskan native and their speck needs and will need to work to do better to serve the indigenous communities and specifically the american indian and alaskan native students. whereas the san francisco unified district will correct the fact that they have misidentified most of the american indian student of mixed race, causing these students to not be recognized, supported and underserved in their needs and whereas, the san francisco san francisco unified district they have not given respect or promoted the education of the california american indian tribe and specifically the ramaytush ohlone people. whereas the san francisco unified district unified school district, it has no mechanism

for capturing any data to inform and prioritize this work. whereas, the san francisco san

--there are no guidelines in usg these texts or teaching about california and other american indian and alaskan native first nation in general. whereas san francisco unified school district has not established priority funding to sustain and support the american indian education program and staffing which presently has one coordinator to support over 700 american indian and alaskan native student. there's no guidance conducting activities around school holidays and celebrations like indigenous people day, halloween, thanksgiving or president's day or in ways that do not reinforce inaccurate and harmful narratives about native

american history and culture. whereas request to the american indian parent advisory council, san francisco unified school district revised policy about graduation ceremony that supports the sacred feathers with the american indigenous religious freedom act. all students deserve to learn in environment that is free from racist, native american, african-american and other marginalized communities. this is not limit to mural, statues, posters or pictures and books. whereas school districts decided to remove racist school names and issued apologies to disenfranchised communities that san francisco unified school district must remove racist school name, mascots and remnants of racist imagery and practices from all schools, activities, memorabilia and the uniform. mayor edward m. lee supportive

removal pioneer monument. whereas in 2019, governor newsom issued an apology to native americans for california's historical wrong doings, establishes truth and healing council. in 2020, the christopher couple bus statue was remove from san francisco coit tower. in twin twin the alignment with the california state superintendent of public instruction tony thurmond and the california department of education recommendation to implement the revised and enhanced ethnic studies model

curriculum african-american study, native american studies, strengthen the representation of marginalized and understudied communities. california state law requires that the board of education take final action on the ethnic studies model curriculum by march 31, 2021. whereas the san francisco board of education recognizes that the american indigenous yane and alaskan native community in san francisco have never received restoration to their original recognition under treaty rights, laws and acts that have been violated. >> san francisco board of education seeks reparations to the american indian in the following ways. one, san francisco board of education formally apologizes to the native american families for its participation in ramaytush

ohlone land theft and consistent erasure of american indian and indigenous students and omission of data collection. >> so sorry, you're going super fast. >> the san francisco board of education will prioritize and protect funding for the san francisco unified school district american indian education program and all necessary positions. the cost of $200,000 covering existing staff and return one f.t.e. program assistant. four, provide oversight of all

organized school committees, such as alumni, social groups and ensure those groups do not promote, or protect any identified racist imagery or other concerns that would violate this resolution. beginning in the 2020-2021 school year with training from the officially recognized ohlone tribal leaders, the san francisco unified school district will recognize and adopt the official land acknowledged provided by the ramaytush ohlone people. we the san francisco board of education acknowledge that we are on unseated homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. the ramaytush ohlone has never

lost or forgotten as caretakers of this place. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and elders of the ramaytush community and affirming their sovereign as indigenous people. the district shall postmarkers at all district sites and offices acknowledging that they occupy unceded ramaytush ohlone land.

eight, the san francisco unified school district formally recognizes and respects the cultural practices of the american indigenous and alaskan native peoples when providing instruction to these students and not academically penalize students when they cannot participate due to their respect and adherence to their cultural practices. and san francisco unified school district find an alternative way to give them equal credit. provide educators with curriculum resources to teach true native american history.

this work will begin immediately and will be complete by the 20202021 school year. before the end of the 2021-2022 school year, work with the american indian parent advisory council to design, implement and fully fund indigenous people american indian culture day. 11, acknowledge california indian day in september as the fourth friday in every september, beginning september 24, 2021. beginning the 2021-2022 school year, remove all thanksgiving stereotypes including head dresses and unclothed native americans references to savages

and fictional retelling or reenactment of the 1621 feast between the wampanoag and english. to include indigenous counseling to support community healing. at the cost of $500,000. 14, san francisco unified school district will explore avenues to support american indian, california can native and other indigenous languages with satisfy the california state a-g high school language graduation requirement. san francisco unified school district will identify american indian, alaskan native students and families to connect them to it title vi indian education

program. san francisco unified school district urges the leadership to participate annually at an american indian education parent advisory council event. the san francisco unified school district create and adapt a similar resolution for all other indigenous students. the san francisco unified school district fully aligns with the united nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people. the district will create an interdepartmental working group this working group will include american indian parent advisory council. thank you. >> president lopez: thank you commissioners for reading that. i am going to open it up to public comment. are there any speakers to this item?

>> i seen four hands president lopez. >> president lopez: let's do two minutes. >> thank you for coming back to me. i want to talk about the lowell situation. is that the appropriate time? >> sorry, this is actually only public comment for the native american resolution that was read in the record. >> okay, thank you. >> hi executive director for the indian cultural district. i want to support the resolution and acknowledgement that the city has a major lack of accurate data for the american

indian community. which means not to be do students have official resources. they have to deal with racist statues and monuments. having to walk into the school as one of the most underserved programs where we have over 731 students that report to less than two staff members. i wanted to support indians efforts. this resolution and the apologies and the remedies that you're proposing are long overdue for the city. i wanted to make known over 80% of the student in the school district lack sufficient access to the internet or the proper devices in order to access the internet. it's already compounding those major impacts that already being presented to american indian families. i wanted to thank you all for adopting this resolution and i want to support indian and

create that important work that you're about to be presented with, it's being done by a small number of people. thank you. >> hello, amy? >> hello. thank you for hearing me. hello, i see you. i'm parent of an alumni who graduated in 2020 from high school in sfusd. i continue to be an educator in san francisco. i real want to point out that multiple items in this resolution bring me back to the murals that are located in the

high school where my son graduated in 2020. to know that there are still currently two commissioners on the board who first voted to payment down, recognizing that those painful images in those murals are worthwhile to paint it down and start over. then, second vote, some kind of political pressure or whatever, your reasons were, jenny for deciding to rescind your vote and turn it back around. i want you to really look at your heart now and look at the information now and look at what students go through after i heard all of what's been going

on at lowell. if you can go back, would you make your second vote different? i really hope in your heart that you would have made your second vote different based on what you have learned now. moving forward, can you truly support this kind of resolution, this resolution fully, knowing that you rescinded your vote. >> thank you. please do not use names while speaking during public comment. hello julie. >> i wanted to appreciate the work that's gone into this resolution, not just the folks who wrote it but to the indigenous families educators, parents and students who have raised these issues with the

school board for years, maybe even decades. i think this is really a historic board meeting. there's so many powerful things happening here tonight. this resolution is the type of thing that gets to the root causes of the culture and climate that allows and perpetuate racism within sfusd. one example of that, i had conversations with parents and educators who are still teaching -- [indiscernible]. that puts parents and educators in a difficult situation where you're jeopardizing your relationship in order to implement state law. we can't expect anything different if school district is not invested proactively in the

support and professional development, peer to peer opportunities to learn how to do things differently. our district has a dynamic of treating racism as incidents. removing and penalizing individuals instead taking responsibility for the work we need to do as a district to produce different results.

>> hi everyone. as advocacy chair for community advisory committee for special education, i like to thank the board, commissioners for this resolution. thank you to everyone who has been such strong allies. it's awesome and inspiring to see a small but mighty group. i'm reminded of margaret's quote. nothing about us without us. this resolution is a step in the right direction. thank you so much for moving this forward. especially tonight of all

nights. thank you. >> hello, latoya? >> thank you. with regards to the situation at lowell, it's time for action. it's time to hold staff accountable like you hold parents accountable. >> i'm sorry to interrupt. this is public comment only for the resolution, the native american resolution that we just read into record. we already heard lowell. >> i'm in support of the native american resolution. thank you. >> hello brandy? >> hi. i like to speak in full support of this resolution. i think it's obvious that everyone that this needs to pass and it needs to pass unanimously.

i do want to refer to something a few other callers referred to the washington bureau. i know there was a staff recommendation to have panels over the mural instead of to remove it permanently by paint. the reason for that was, there was a 1968 article that talks about the washington mural. 250 students from the black student union marched through the halls saying take it down. the administration covered up the mural with paper. we all know that eventually the butcher paper was taken down. that's why the american parent advisory committee asking for years for it to be permanently removed by paint. i just ask all of you to remember obviously, that this

community knows what is best for itself. this is important to me, my son will probably go to that school one day. i don't want him seeing a mural with horrible stereotypes of native americans that has been uncovered. thank you. >> mary travis. would you like to go ahead? >> thank you very much. i thank everybody that has spoken out and supported this resolution for vice president alexander, collins and mark sanchez that initiated this effort and worked with us collaboratively. our community has been

disenfranchised. think about when we were given blankets with smallpox disease, that we were inundated with diseases and exposures to things that we haven't experienced before. we had no defenses. there has been a legacy of this country of not honoring their commitments to us. here we are today, many people are experiencing what we have experienced for decades. people get shots and jump on board when incidents happen that you feel that we have to now take action. we have for the past decade, come year after year, asking for support of this board to remove

racist images. two years ago, somebody spoke earlier about receiving death threats. we receive death threats for asking for that mural to be taken down. we're constantly being bombarded and challenged and invalidated. a huge group of alumni showed up to speak out against it. this resolution puts in place a commitment by the san francisco unified school district to honor those things that we have been asking for and to now take a stand and support it so that we can continue on this path of some recovery, some identification and if this blazes the fire in the path for other to follow, so be it. there's time for restoration.

there's time to give honors to the ohlone, the ramaytush people who's unceded land that the city has been built upon. that we respect all those that come before us and for the most important part, for our future for this students, for the people, the decision makers. i can say, thank you. >> virginia? >> virginia can go first. i can go after virginia. >> okay. virginia?

ms. marshall, are you there? >> i'm here. sorry. technical difficulty tonight. president lopez vice president collins, student delegates. ladies and gentlemen, virginia marshall. we are in full support of this resolution. our people, native americans we have so much in common. i was on the committee years ago to take down that mural. you have our support now. we're glad that we hope this resolution will move forward. our children have enough negative images on tv and the community. they do not need to see this at their school site a place of learning. thank you so much.

>> thank you. this has been a long time coming. it's not just a culmination of five years of work. it's the combination of many ways 500 years of colonization. i stand here on the ramaytush ohlone land. i'm wonder -- i want to remind school district and board, these are not just words to indigenous people, to the american indian families and the school district, these are promises. if you remember, the relationship that the u.s. government has to native american nations, lot of times promises are broken. i'm reminding you to not break any more promises.

you want you to see the faces -- [indiscernible] >> you're breaking up. >> i want to remind you, that's in the resolution. not only is the life of washington murals. so wrong on so many levels. you have over a year of

research. [indiscernible] >> i think we lost you. sorry about that. i want to remind you about the child pornography on the mural wall. let's really think about these walls and these names and that students are learning from and how impacted american student and how you're continuing white supremacy that has been on that land for over 500 years. >> hello, sherman?

>> hi. i like to talk about what we've heard earlier. it's time for us sfusd to address white supremacy for what it is. native people, black people, that's what's going to stop white supremacy. that's what with let white people know that we're not supreme. the fact that we're kept from this continue tent, you cannot find native authors to talk about native people or black authors to talk about black people. it's insulting to those of us who's education is supposed to show our children that we can make a difference. white supremacy will continue to be what it is. it's not ethnic study. it's undoing white supremacy. sfusd needs to call it what it is. >> president lopez, that

concludes public comment. >> president lopez: thank you for carrying this for us. i like to hear any comments or questions from student delegates, board commissioners and the superintendent. i'm not seeing any hands. >> commissioner boggess: i have questions like the implementation plan and kind of like the timeline pieces associated with the resolution as well as like the different cost aspects of it. if someone can share with us just what we're expecting from that. i would want to highlight, the importance of having financial

compensation if we're going to have students or community members participate in work groups with paid district staff to ensure that we're treating them as experts they are in providing them with certain amount of compensation. i would love to see that added to this if that's something folks will be offered to so we're not asking folks to volunteer but incentivizing and encouraging their participation >> buying books, we need to do that work for all communities. we have a resolution that we should have visibility for

asian-american, authors and stories. it's important to name it and specific to native american communities. there were is an issue of actually removing harmful narrative, which is even more prevalent with native american narrative. that does become a cost issue. duo have textbooks. replace them is a cost issue. that's one we have to look at and scale of that work. there's staffing from the american indian. i like to hear that answer. this is also in line with other initiatives where some of the work should be the work that we're doing. we should be doing this. we're saying do it. there's also additional work

that has to be done and like professional development is another one. we need to do that for all our communities but there's specific professional development that the american indian and pac has been calling for that's specific to unlearning colonialism in teaching the american experience and history and figuring out ways to develop specific curricular units to replace the mission project and eighth grade u.s. history. there are specific points we need to invest in actually retraining and reeducating our staff. i like to hear if there's additional items that staff would like to comment on.

>> i'm going to defer to her team who is here with us. her team has been working diligently on curating new social studies, history resources. i'm going let her talk about the work that her team has been doing towards that end. >> we're just got good news that we can officially start planning the development of a revised pre-k 12 history social studies core curriculum. part of that work is going to be the infusion of ethnic studies framework. commissioner collins mentioning, we have some 911 areas that we need to address and have been addressing in partnership with the indian ad pack program. what we're hopeful to be able to

really tackle is a more comprehensive infusion of ethnic studies, concepts and pedagogy from start to finish. that will include an adoption or creation additional instructional material. we're working on the details regarding a five-year plan and how we can roll out that workout in a way that humanizing to staff and to sites and to in a year where the budget is going to be an issue. we're really excited about the future for the history social studies work. essential team is phenomenal and the teachers that are part of the cohort of folks that will get together to do this work are in it and ready to go. is there anything else you wanted to add? not sure if there's anything to add. >> i wanted to name -- just so

this lab a collaborative effort with the indian ed pac. we had lot of input and lot of information between the central office team and the pac. i want to highlight that we are trying to work in partnership and hear the voices that are in the community to make sure that we're getting this work right. we're very encouraged we believe we're going in the right direction. >> i like to add to that. as we've been working together, the indian education program with humanities team. it's been a labor both of the work for our students you also learning about each other.

it's also been that journey that's remarkable for american indians. it's hard to trust the system that hasn't served. it's a beautiful thing. we look forward to this collaboration. this is a really good start and we hope to see this continue and have more. >> thank you. i want to add, we appreciated the collaboration. i think one of the first things that everybody experienced with us, it has to be respectful of that. don't tell our stories for us. you have to hear us. we're the ones that experienced this and you have to hear those thing that have brought us on this journey what we want to

share with our children and our grandchildren. the importance of tradition and understanding. we certainly live in the modern world. technology and everything is part of it. we haven't had that resources for our community. that's been a challenge among many communities for our children and their education this past year. i can appreciate that this collaboration has worked and we feel we've been heard. there's a lot more to hear and change as we go forward. so thank you very much.

>> i didn't hear specific dollar amount. i don't think i got like a clear time frame of when each of the particular things would happen. i guess i would take that to mean that everything in the document itself clearly outlines that. there's nothing else that staff would need from us to ensure that all this is implemented in the time frame that is reflected in the document. >> can i add one thing here? i can't speak clearly to the dollar amount. some of the numbers we put in there, we needed those place for closures. as far as the time frame is concerned, we've been asking for this for many years. we have put a definitive timeline because we need to start to see this progress happen. it's something that in our

presentation we do an annual presentation. what we've experienced is funding, challenges, everybody needs this. the thing that makes it hard for us to express, we're a small number. it's proportionately money only given base on numbers and data. number one, our data capture has been wrong for years. we haven't been able to accurately represent to the school district. those numbers are getting better. the other part of it is, we need to start. we need to start just like this whole discussion tonight with lowell, you have to make a commitment and start moving

forward. that's what we're doing here with this resolution. it is making more permanent, for indelible, it's time to get to work. >> i appreciate that. my concern is just from my experience of introducings intrg resolutions that weren't specific enough. lot of staff essentially take the resolution weren't able to figure out how to move it forward because it didn't have clear enough tame frame. we are understanding that as we are going through this process. >> that's why we specifically

put a resolve in the resolution around having a working group task force especially that will be comprised of staff and folks from the pac to move it forward. i wanted to make sure that language was in there so that provided some level of accountability moving it forward. >> president lopez: thank you for your questions and comments. are there any other -- sorry, >> thank you. i wanted to amplify. they said that these are not words, these are promises. i really thought that was really

strong statement. i hope that as the board, we can carry out with those promises because everyone knows this is long overdue. we're on their land. this is something that is really important, it's important to me and i'm sure it's important to lot of other students. i really want to say thank you for all the work that behind this. i'm totally behind it. i'm excited to see these changes. >> president lopez: i appreciate that. with that, we'll have a roll call vote on the resolution. >> before we do,ky make a comment? i wanted to thank the folks at paloma, helen, mary, amy, all

the folks that put a lot of work into this over time. this is in recognition of years of ask and demands and requests from the pac that vice president collins tracked down and enumerated and put it all on paper. it is a promise. we have to have keep the promise. i know we will. i wanted to thank everybody who's involved in this. >> president lopez: now we'll do a roll call vote.

[roll call vote] that's seven ayes. >> president lopez: thank you. section g, consent calendar. [laughter]. item 1 consent calendar. i need a motion and a second. >> so moved.

>> second. >> president lopez: are there any public comment on consent calendar item? >> president lopez, care to speak to items on the consent calendar please raise your hand at this time. seeings one hand. >> president lopez: all right, two minutes. >> hello, amy. >> hi. am i making comment about a particular issue? i don't know what the issue is? >> it's the consent calendar. you can speak to it. it's not one of the presented topics of the evening.

>> i'm sorry, i'm a little caught off guard. >> maybe you had your hand up for something else. you can come back later. >> yes, thank you. [laughter] >> that completes the public comment. >> president lopez: thank you. any item by the superintendent? >> no, there are not. >> president lopez: any items removed for first reading by the board? any item for discussion tonight? >> no. >> president lopez: roll call vote on consent calendar. [roll call vote]

that's seven ayes. >> president lopez: thank you. moving on to section h, discussion and vote on consent calendar resolution severed for separate consideration. there are none tonight. section i, proposals for action. item 1, resolution number 211-12a1, amendment to resolution number 184-10a1 in support of formal process renaming san francisco unified school district adopted may 22,

2018 being introduced by commissioner sanchez. moved and seconded on january 12, 2020. it is now before the board for action. commissioner sanchez, can you read the resolution into the record? >> commissioner sanchez: whereas a blue ribbon panel community

leaders was formed and has met for more than one year to examine school names and set up a process to identify names for change. whereas the panel has forwarded the names of more than 40 school sites to district leadership with end date of april 19, 2021 to suggested new names to be reviewed by the panel and the panel will make a final recommendations for new name to the board of education. therefore be it resolved that the board of education review and sanction the panel's list of school names for potential renaming. >> president lopez: thank you commissioner sanchez. we're now going to open it up to public comment. i wanted to share how we will set up this process. i'm going to allow for one hour of public comment. one minute each. as we've done in the past, we'll

have half of it be for speakers who are for this item and the second half be for speakers who are against this item. if you are for beginning at this moment, we will have 30 minutes for public comment, please raise your hand and judson will be able to pause to hear from other speakers. >> thank you, we're doing 30 minutes, one minute each. this is for people who is for the resolution. hello julie? >> hi, i am enthusiastically in support of school renaming. again, the incidents at lowell, the continued cultural racism at lowell and other schools are a

part of why resolutions like this are so important. i really appreciate the joy that many school site have given in to this work, taking the time to lift up other stories. the stories that we choose to tell and the heroes we choose to name are opportunities for children to see who's important to us. i love the fact that we're talking about john harris a black man who challenged racist policy. i love that we're talking about manny tate a chinese-american student who challenged segregation. i love that we have a school named harvey milk a queer jewish leader who left san francisco and nation. thank you.