you later. thank you.

s >> san francisco school district

is now called to order. [roll call] . >> clerk: thank you. >> commissioner: >> thank you, i'd like to begin the meeting with a few words and quick explanation about how our meeting will be run today. first for some time now this district has been building a culture of supporting every

single student who enters our classroom in an equitable way. at every meeting you will hear superintendent mathews share this message and the understanding that in order to achieve that we must all our decisions using this lens. this doesn't mean we can't work better or work harder to truly ensure people feel heard, welcome and cared for. the rise in anti-asian discrimination and hate we've seen is unacceptable. we will not tolerate this and recommit ourselves to creating safe communities for each and every person. what we need to accomplish is for this board, this district, and this city to move forward in a way that helps us build and is also humanizing. not just because of the trauma and violence we're all accustomed to now. understanding the real pain and

fears and hurt people are feeling. no one on the board is immune and i've called for a restorative process to be heard, build empathy and understanding. we teach our students to embrace one another and honor their cultures and contributions and speak out against hate and violence targeting individuals simply for who they are. we also teach them the importance of positive relationships and how essential they are to building community and restoring relationships when harm has occurred. i'm opening up a space to have a thoughtful discussion because i understand the need to face anti-asian and anti-black rhetoric and we all deserve a restorative place to voice our concerns. i invite, neighbors, citizens, friends and encourage city officials and community members to engage in the process understanding we're all victims of the racism that plagues our

country. our ability to uphold each other is to stand against white supremacy. i appreciate you all for your courage. section a, general information. we'll begin with section b and then i'm going to move up all other board members reports. that item will follow section b to open up the space for board members to share before we hear public comment. section b opening item. item one, approval of board minutes. there's no approval of minutes today. item 2, superintendent's report. lieutenant mathews. >> thank you, president lopez. good afternoon, everyone. i appreciate all of you for

being here. as the san francisco school district measures school quality by looking at the school climate as well as the academic performance and social emotional skills of the school student body. in april, your student will take an online social, emotional school climate survey and it will be used to assess our programs and initiatives. all reports will be summarized using aggregate data not individual student data. families received information about the survey including the electronic consent form via e-mail march 15. read the parent consent message in last week's family digest. if you do not want your child to participate, please e-mail,

s-s-e-l at sf.gov and include your child's name and grade level and if you send that e-mail your child will not participate. our district sent out nearly 14,000 school assignment letters to students primarily rising transitional kindergarten, kin der garten and -- kindergarten and sixth to ninth grade students. students can list the schools they want to attend in order of preference. more than 60% of those who apply for kindergarten and sixth grade and ninth grade will receive an offer to a school and more than 80% will receive one of their top three choices. families have until april 9,

2021 to accept or decline the assignment. families who have yet to apply to a school for their student for the next year can apply for round two by may 7 by going online at sfusd.edu\apply. or by reaching out to the educational placement center. staff members are ready to help families find a school that meets their needs. they speak english, spanish, cantonese and mandarin and vietnamese and samoan. to get enrollment help, families may go to enroll at school at sfusd.edu or call in. office hours are monday through friday, 8:00 a.m. to 4k -- 4:00

p.m. on monday, march 21 we'll accommodate the holiday closure. pick up meals for all children 18 and younger including sfusd students. service will resume tuesday april 6. this is due to the spring break week. once again we'll serve seven days worth of meals on friday march 26. service will resume tuesday april 6. visits sfusd.edu\school food for a list of food locations. and finally, most of our district schools and most schools will be closed march 29 to april 7 and some will keep the same schedule.

to see a full list of schools to remain open go to www.sfusd.edu\announcement\2021- 3010-spring-break-march29-april 7. thank you all and thank you president lopez. that ends my announcements for. -- for today. >> thank you, superintendent mathews. item 3, student delegates' report. i'd like to call on the student delegates. >> thank you, president lopez.

hello, today we have the advisory board campaign. the student health advisory board of sfusd is hosting an awareness campaign with a contest against smoking. the contest is open for fourth to twelfth graders with awards up to $200. the requirement to make a video or art piece with the campaign breathe deeply and live free. for more information please visit tiny url.com/2at6sdt6. thank you presenters. thank you representative macias for bringing this opportunity. >> the second item is the youth

summit. we have begun to confirm our workshop schedules. this year our theme is united in leadership advocacy from a distance. our workshops key note speakers and more will be reflective of the theme and what it entail. this year our summit will be friday april 23, 2021. thank you to our student represents that reached out to their school campuses to find the perfect date. >> third we have scc uniforms. the scc feels immense pride to be part of such a strong leadership team and we get to show it off with our annual uniforms. the uniforms were distributed to the entire council this past weekend. thank you to our treasurer for her hard work in organizing and designing this year's merch. >> our first item is the water

bottle art contest. the environmental committee is hosting a water bottle design contest. the contest is open to any student within the sfusd community who smits a virtual art design that promotes sustainability. the last day to submit a design is april is it. -- april 12. for more information visit the website on instagram or contact our supervisor mr. salvador lopez barr. special thanks to our scc environmental committee and the rest of the environmental committee for hosting the contest. >> the next meeting will be april 5 at 3:00 p.m. the scc say public council -- is a public council and anyone is welcome to attend our meeting. if you'd like to attend, make a presentation or would like a copy of our up-and-coming

agenda, please contact our supervisor mr. salvador lopez barr. and with that i'm handing it back to you, president lopez. >> thank you, student delegates for your continued effort. item four, recognitions and resolutions of accommodations. there are none today. item 5, recognizing all valuable employees our rave award. haven't mathews. >> thank you, president lopez. this afternoon we have a distinguished service award and we have a rave two distinguished service awards. the first rave distinguished service award goes to e.k. keith. he's a librarian at phillip and salburton high school and presenting this award to him is our principal of phillip and

salburton high school. >> hello, everyone. e.k. has been in the district for 10 years. this is her eighth year as a librarian and her seventh year at burton high school. e.k. is an awesome librarian but she's also a co-teacher librarian who often collaborates with others to engage students, teach relevant and useful research and writing skills in class and creates space for reading with students and spaf staff in our special education program and works with students encouraging their creativity through the comic book club and book club. e.k. is a poet librarian and valued member of our faculty who shares her passion for poetry and reading with all students and staff. the list can go on. she is dynamic, listening, giving, a supportive librarian

who continues to promote literacy and empower the burton community. with that i introduce e.k. and i congratulate you. thank you for everything you contribute to burton. >> miskeith would you like -- >> ms. keith would you like to say some words. >> thank you, superintendent and board president lopez and all the board members and students particularly the students and parents and other teachers and attendants. librarians are always perceived as being alone but it's really not true. all of the people in our school community have given me this opportunity to do great work every day for our students. as the difficulties in the world continue to pile up, it creates more opportunities to support

particularly our asian and black and latinex, pacific islander and we're students. all of our students of color who are coming under attack because of who they are and if this is what we're up against, all i can do is throw in my good work and create space for all of these young people to be their best selves and so i thank you for this honor. >> thank you, we appreciate you and what you do each and every day. making a difference for so many lives. thank you so much. our second rave distinguished service award winner tonight is sarah tu. she's an early education operation manager and this will be presented tonight by marie k.

rupkin the director of early education. >> thank you, so much. it is my privilege to introduce her the operations manager for the early education department. she's been with the department over 10 years and speaks to who she is as a person and her work ethic this is not only -- it's not her first time being nominated for the award or even her first time to be awarded. sarah's an amazing resource to the department and the early education support and always looking for ways to remove obstacles and improve the service we provide. she makes herself available the staff and schools we support whether it be by chat or phone call or even a zoom video call. we're so lucky to have her in our department and i'm pleased to introduce sarah for her distinguished service award.

>> thank you for honoring me with this distinguished service award and i didn't have expectations for winning because in 2010 i already received a rave award and that the time i remember thinking is this the peak of my sfusd career? is it all down hill from here? when i received the e-mail in february congratulating me for the distinguished service award, i thought well, now they're just calling me old. so in my old age, i will admit

with the current climate it did not sit well with me to take time to accept the award. i was hearing of the violence in colorado and the current violence broke my heart and in atlanta and the violence our asian communities. in my life time we put a man on the moon and woman in the white house and will continue to make a difference for students and for ourselves. i've been an employee almost 13 years and sfusd has been in my life twice that long as i was a student. my mom was a student where me and my siblings attended. gordon j. lau gave me my first high school job when i was in high school and so it seems that

sfusd has been tied to my life in a variety of ways. i find it a bit ironic i spent my time with sfusd supporting pre-k classrooms and programs since i never really attended either. after stevenson elementary i attended other elementaries and i say the names because years from now when i can't remember what i had for breakfast or my own name i may be able to rattle off the schools i attended but most people will have no idea what schools i'll be talking about. during my 13 years in early ed i've seen us grow and the progress made at the department from people encouraging staff that were surprised to hear the district even had preschool to now attending meetings and hearing don't forget about our

pre-k classroom. i'm proud to be part of the team to move this department out of the shadows and have a respect for our leaders in the early ed department. i wouldn't be where i am today without the staff and our principal to colleagues at the office. i know they're still a lot of more work to be done and i'm constantly learning and will continue to try do my best. though my colleagues and central office do not interact directly with families and students in some way or another we're all early educators and since it's the first step in the journey of our students i hope we can continue to support them in

their service. i want to congratulate dr. mathews for his retirement and thank you to the birthday cards over the years and bringing magic and music to our meetings. thank you all for the honor and for your time today. >> that's all the awards this afternoon, dr. lopez. >> thank you for your stories and your fight. we are certainly up against a lot but you deserve to be celebrated so congratulations. as i mentioned earlier, we'll be moving up the item all other board members report which sits under section k.

we'll be doing that before we it up to public comment. i did want to make sure one more change to tonight's agenda and that is section b. we will unfortunately not be hearing from the district english learner's advisory committee but will at the next board meeting. moving up the items again, this is section k and i want it open up the space for commissioners to share words and what i know to be short statements for tonight before we open it up to public comment. if you can please raise your hand.

>> were you finished? >> yes. >> if i can respectfully remind board members it's a time to share a statement but not time for discussion or vote among board members because that hasn't been placed on the agenda. >> i appreciate that clarification. i am noting whose hand is raised to share your statement. again, we will not engage in dialogue but all be listening to each other. we'll begin with commissioner collins and commissioner boggess. >> thank you, president lopez. i just wanted to say that i'd like to re-emphasize my since

ear -- sincere and heartfelt apologies and reengaging for the good of all children in our district and especially black children often left behind. i appreciate the opportunity to be part of a restorative and transformative dialogue going forward that calls us in and together as leaders in this city. that call is for us to live and model the values we bring to a policy in action and to double down on our commitment to listen and to continue fighting for educational opportunity and racial justice for everyone and all communities as a member of the board of education. thank you.

>> thank you, vice president colin. commissioner boggess. >> thank you so much. i think it's important for us to be committed to solidarity and standing together and i feel like my role as an elected official is to be lifting and accountable. i wish and ask for the public to give me and my colleagues grace as we navigate these difficult waters and hold us accountable but understand our intentions and what we're trying to do on a wide variety of issues is what we feel is best for families. we want to be responsive and listen and give us the opportunity to lift up what you

need and hear your voices and what you call in for. thank you so much. >> commissioner lam and commissioner moliga. >> in this moment the asian community who i've spent a life time serving and are calling out to be heard. being silent in moments offin justice allowsin justice to persist and if we continue to be silent and words will persist and in this moment the asian and pacific islander commissioners are asking for solidarity. i want to remind the board that

apis are not immune to racism and poverty and food insecurity. i also want to remind the board almost half of san francisco's impoverished are apis. we've been silenced by ignorant comments and our efforts have been minimized and we've been gas lighted and scapegoated and in visiblized for too long. i'm not disputing the fact that anti-black racism exists in the api community and the work must occur and while i know we've gone a long way to go in addressing this in our schools it's very harmful.

words matter. the example we set as those entrusted by voters to care and have compassion for the kids and young adults we represent must be demonstrated in both words and actions. i am alone when i say i have confidence. restorative justice is restoring the trust from those harmed. i see educators and parents and staff who reached out to me in grief and in anger. faith in our elected leaders is imperative. sfusd needs strong and trusted leadership now and it's required. i want to say a do not condone any personal attacks on any of my colleagues, especially

commissioner collins and especially in any comments that perpetrate anti-black racism. this is a time the school board must focus on the critical work ahead this board's energy needs to be squarely focussed on opening schools safely and bringing back in-person learning and hiring a superintendent tackling a budget deficit are the numerous things ahead of us. i thank the many parents and educators who reached out to me during this time. trust i hear you and will do the work to move forward to heal. i will continue to fight for equity and serve all of us wholeheartedly. thank you. >>i want to remind the public

the q&a section is not a space for you to voice any kind of hatred. i can't even believe i have to say this. please, do not bring that into this space especially during this moment. i will continue to remind us about that throughout the meeting. >> it's been hard. i've cried a couple times. specifically for the asian community in san francisco. it's been really difficult. i do want to read -- i don't know if anyone follows me on facebook and i want to read my

statement on facebook because it pretty much sums up everything i am currently feeling at the moment. here it is. a public servant's ult most mission is strengthen the office and people they serve peas a bond enshrined in the people's voice and we must listen intently and serve win with conviction. with the current ethnic and racial climate in our country and the statements no matter what context are erosive to the trust and work we are called to do on behalf of the students, parents, teachers, staff and city and county of san francisco. i am requesting commissioner collins to take accountability for the racist statement and heartful apology and resign from

the board of education. and we can begin recentering and healing and allow us to move forward in the mission to provide the best quality education in a safe learning environment that our students deserve of deserve. i appreciate the public for showing up. i appreciate the leadership here and president lopez, i appreciate our colleagues for having these tough conversations and i look forward to continuing having the conversations and moving forward. >> thank you, president lopez and thank you for being here for the meeting. again, president lopez for opening up the space in the agenda. a novel approach for us to speak

our minds. i have not released a public statement as of yet so this will serve as such on the issue. first thing i'd lake to say is -- like to say is i'm horrified and outraged by the anti-asian violence and vitriol for many years and also gas has been poured on that fire by ex-president trump and that's led to some of the most egregious violence in the last several months or so. i condemn the comments made by vice president collins prior to her being elected to the board of education. no one i believe on this board is a racist and i don't believe commissioner collins is a racist. i am i true believer in

restorative practices. i've been a practitioner of such for years as a teacher and as a principal. i believe that's a tenet, a pillar of this district we need to have to be upheld in the highest esteem and should model it. restorative practice not done by the offender and offended. it is brought about by mediation and that's what i hope will come forth in this process. i am deeply sorry for everybody in the situation. we have so much work to do as commissioner lam pointed out and raised many things we have to work on including hiring a new superintendent and dealing with budget deficits and opening schools as quickly and as safely as possible and committed to those endeavors with our colleagues and whoever serves as

the superintendent. thank you, president lopez. >> this has been a difficult few days for all of us. i'm especially grateful to all the colleagues and others in the asian pacific islander and black community and others who have given me the gift of their time and advice and wisdom when we didn't totally agree. i value that. and to the public too. i've gotten e-mails of people with crystal feedback and --

with critical feedback and i want to express how horrified i am about the violence against the asian community that's happening and have a brief statement. i asked the community to take a breathe and give time against the tweets. commissioner collins has a track record of an official that deserves our respect even when she's made mistakes. and i fear the rapid manner in which this is unfolding is reflecting deeper challenges which have nothing to do with commissioner collins. our liberal city produces great wealth and has many powerful people and leaves many behind.

racism operates the way it always has in america, to divide communities of color, working class people of all races and allies and to understand the solidarity we need to create a world where everyone's dignity is fully respected. regardless of all that, the tweets surfacing in this moment have been especially painful in the his of the horrific violence against asian american community. i still have hope commissioner collins will take leadership and show hule -- humility and make amends and i will also continue to listen to leaders in the black community and other communities and support critical solidarity work in ways that i may be able to do so. thank you.

>> the, commissioners. before i open it up to public comment i want to offer student delegates. >> i'm not offering a statement. i'm offering a project that my and my friends were able to create amidst everything that is happening. it may be a little bit long but this is what it is. so the title is a balanced analysis of commissioner collins tweets, what happened, sf board of education vice president made numerous tweets not after the presidential election before she was elected where she expressed frustration with the anti-blackness and the asian community. right now there's an attack on the asian community. on the news we see asian americans especially elders being attacked, beaten and killed. though this is nothing new,

anti-asian violence is up because of the sentiment spewed amongst the covid-19 public comment is closed. we see harmful headlines like sf school officials refuse to quit over racist tweets and allison collins used slur to describe asian americans in tweets. many of these headlines and articles offer only one side of the argument. not to mention the san francisco chronicle's harmful coverage of topics that promote anti-ble sentiment and anti-union sentiment. it's also important to talk about the context of who found the tweets. though this doesn't change the harm of the tweets, it does give context to show the person who unearthed the tweets. the person who unearthed the tweets is a cal graduate and

also a lowell graduate who has previously shown anti-blackness on social media. numerous posts that affected me personally and my club, lowell black student union. recently we hosted a numerous amounts of event, one say black alumni mixture where they commented is this event blacks only or all welcome and also comments in facebook groups like times are different now. people are openly excluded due to race even from events publicized on the very page. for example, a recent black student union event was open to all and alumni for all others need not apply. also, other comments like just switch out the words asian for black or hispanic and see if you feel the same. try it for fun. and comments like you don't think you have equal rights. what rights do black americans

don't have under the law that white americans do. please tell us which laws are unequal? why is it happening now? some people are capitalizing off the pain and anger of the asian community in light of recent attacks. many are pushing for the board of education recall and resistance to school renaming and opposition to lowell admissions changing to lottery. given the existing ble sentiment and the rise of anti-asian height the actions of the tweets have been more explosive leading to more support of recall efforts. city response. if a significant number of sf public officials including other members of the board of education and community organizations are calling for collins' resignation. this is because of the strong and stereotypical language

collins used in her tweet. those who support college including numerous racial groups, api teachers and community organizations. this is because despite the shocking language of the tweets, they recognize existing and ongoing issues of anti-blackness in sfusd and asian communities. is what she said wrong? just to preface, i made this with my friend maddy from washington and vishal from lowell and these are our perspectives. maddy kind of represents the pro-collins, i'm the neural party and vishal is sorry, this is wrong but anti-collins, sorry to say. maddy, i don't believe commissioner collins' tweets to be wrong. she recognized real issues in the asian community and while her language was strong she

expressed valid frustration as a black parent. there's a deep pain felt through the asian american community however, it's critical to think with the complexity of the original tweets. shavonne i believe she brought up hard topics to discuss like anti-blackness to get people involved and engaged in the conversation she shouldn't make harmful generalizations. i think the term house slave adds to the ongoing stereotypes of asian people quiet and complicit. vishal, the topics were certainly important in the tweets but the language and slurs used to describe the api community are unacceptable especially from an sf public official. we need important discussions in all communities but in a constructive way rather than demean any one particular ethnic

group. should she resign? maddy. no, she should not resign the rise of an tie-asian hate created a volatile environment for discussions on race. as we process the hurt and damage done by anti-asian hate we should keep in mind anti-blackness is a prevalent issue and the asian american community. the recognition of how collins' tweet can worsen api pain can go a long way but we should open up a serious dialogue about internalized racism and white supremacy. shavonne. i don't know if she should stay or go. she has done a lot of work for the sfusd and api community but i see how they may see her differently and how this can impact the board moving forward. i hope commissioner collins can

see her mistakes and work to repair them starting with the well-written heartfelt apology. vishal. yes, she should resign. the nature of her comments should not be overlooked especially since 40% of the students are represented and my stance did not acknowledge the harm her tweets caused. how do we move forward? from this analysis we hope you can draw your on conclusion about the path forward and remember to respectfully engage in conversations with others and make sure have you a whole understanding of the whole picture and keep an open mind. there'll be disagreements and it's important to be conscious and do not disparage any ethnic groups. i'll read that again. how do we move forward?

from this analysis, we hope you can draw your own conclusions about the path forward, remember to respectfully engage in conversations with others, ensure have you an understanding of the whole picture and keep an open mind. there will be disagreements but remember it's important not disparage any grup especially the black community when engaging in conversation about the nature of these tweets. that's the analysis on the side of the story. really encouraging people not to be nasty. a lot of students have stayed away from this because a lot of you are nasty. very nasty and how you engage in this conversation and bringing in this topic. so a lot of us feel it is in our place to get engaged because we don't want to be swept over and taken in attack as a casualty. >> thank you, student delegate

hines-foster. >> i want to take the time to open up to thank student delegate shavonne for perfectly representing student voices on each cise -- side and nothing else to add but to amplify the voices of those in pain and thank those for being brave enough to share thoughts on this. >> and in a separate capacity, as president of lowell bsu, i know i'll be heard more now, a lot of media sources and news articles have been reaching out to us. i would appreciate if you don't. we don't want to get involved with this. we made our statement around our women in leadership panel and why we decided to remove commissioner collins off of it. we did not make a statement about if she should resign or

not or the statements in her tweets. a lot of you are trying to drag us into this as a political pawn and we don't really appreciate that. >> thank you everyone for sharing. i am now going to close this section of the agenda to really honor that we've all been able to speak. am also sending out the message for student delegates to be left out of the process and take their words that were shared tonight. now that we're going to head into the public comment section of our meeting, i do want to describe a little what the process will be like. normally, we have our 15 minute section for all sfusd students. i just want to let everyone know now, if you're hand is raised, please lower it unless you are a

student because we'll begin with sfusd students and it will make the process smoother if we can do that and we'll begin with the section for students. we're opening up a space to discuss the topic that we were just discussing as board members and in order to do that in an equitable way, we'll do what we normally do which is a portion in support of commissioner collins and a portion in opposition. if you wish to speak to that there's opportunity tonight to do so. again, a reminder we're opening up many spaces in order to have this discussion in a thoughtful, respectful way and in a restorative way so tonight will not be the only way to do that. there'll be a section dedicated

to that and then regular public comment on all other items which does not fall under the topic at hand and is not for any other items on the agenda. i know that's very confusing and we'll keep reminding everyone about the process. but do i want to begin with section c, public comment on non-agenda items. so the protocol for public comment, please note it's an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board's jurisdiction. we ask you refrain from using employee and student names. [please stand by]

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>> thank you for allowing me to give my input. this is a tough topic. i want to say i definitely don't think -- i think a lot of this are taking this the way wrong way. i know none of you even know what a house negro is. you can't know what a house negro is if you've never lived the house negro life so for you to even take that personal doesn't make sense. second of all, ms. allison

collins and lopez are the only people who cared for me in school. i contact the board many times. i've been suicidal many years. i tried to kill myself and none

>> like i said, everything happens to people. thank you. i see my time is up. >> thank you. >> hello, jacob. >> hello. i jacob. i a fifth-grade student. -- i a fifth-grade student. i worry about students not having enough time to learn. i don't think it is fair because money comes first and teachers work hard.

so please don't make it harder for teachers. i have a lot of ideas that could work. if you want ideas, you can e-mail me. >> thank you. hello, jackie. >> hi. my name is jackie and i also a student. i'm also asian-american. i was upset reading the tweets from commissioner collins which recently resurfaced. it was even more upsetting when she sent her words were taken out of context in her apology. it is alarming, especially in a school district with such a large population of asian students. and during such trying times, we should all be reconsidering her ability to make decisions on the board that are in our best interest. i would like to echo the cause of many in our community and those who spoke before me in

urging her to resign from the board of education. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello, tony? >> hello. my name is tony and i on on both sides of the fence. i a gemini, there with me. >> we can hear you, but this section is for the students at this time. we will be going right into adults who can come after this section in a few moments. >> okay. i have a student to speak also. >> okay. that will work. [indiscernible] >> hi, i'm victoria. i support both sides. [indiscernible] thank you. >> thank you.

>> hello, alex? hello, alex? one more time, alex, are you there? okay. loops, we have one more. -- hug his -- hoops, we have one more. alex, are you there? okay. i believe that concludes public comment for the students. president lopez? >> thank you. of course, thank you to our students for coming out and to the public for understanding

that we are opening up the space to listen and we are also offering a separate space in order to do this in a thoughtful way as h&r respond to public comments that are being made currently. i do want to have a balanced approach to what we are about to embark on, so i will dedicate the same amount of time for people who are in support of and people who are in opposition the current topic. for this, it will be 15 minutes, beginning with people who are in opposition and 15 minutes for people who are going to support. if you are within that category, you can raise your hand now and we will begin. again, this is for people who

are in opposition. >> president lopez, i had a request. we have almost 1,000 people on this meeting, attending this meeting right now. i respectfully ask if we can extend a bit of time for public comment as you describe, for structure. we can even extend it to one hour, i'm sorry, currently it is 30 minutes in totality. so we could request at least 15 minutes, please. >> i repeating that this is not a safe space to have these discussions. i do want to hear multiple voices. it will be a minute for each speaker. i understand we have a lot of participants. we need to do this in a thoughtful way.

i will give it to 20 minutes for both sides. >> for the interpreter, president lopez. may i ask a clarifying question? when you say opposed and support, opposed or supporting what? what are you seeing is the issue? i think that will help us to understand. >> thank you for clarifying. going through the discussion -- [indiscernible] the anti- asian rhetoric that we are seeing. [indiscernible] >> but when you say opposed, opposed to the comments? opposed to the call for resignation? there are a lot of things people could be opposed to. i'm not understanding. >> let me explain it. danielle, can you help? >> it might be easiest to

characterize it as in support of vice president collins and in opposition. >> this is commissioner malika, i'm not sure what the process is, but i kind of have an issue with that. it kind of seems like you are pinning one against the other. i feel like, you know, if we will have this over station, let people speak freely and let them, you know, i don't thank you that should be a pro or con kind of thing. if we are going to have this conversation, allow the public to say what they need to say. >> i understand that. >> i strongly agree with the commissioner. >> or maybe it should be pro or against on the content of the tweak. >> commissioners, if i can interject, the reason we are trying to identify some way of

differentiating between the speakers so the board receives a balanced view. because you are limiting public comment, we wouldn't want to have -- to have a situation where the speakers who happen to call in first got called on, whereas the many speakers who did not aren't offered any opportunity to comment. that is what we are trying to accomplish. if there is another way, then i think that makes sense. >> how about the speakers who have already said they are mutual? how do you play that? i just think it is something to think about. we have 1,000 people here. we should hear from the public. the public should be able to speak. we should hear their voices. one hour to hear something that is nationally all over the country right now, it doesn't seem like, you know, something i think we should just be brushing over. i say that respectfully. >> i'm actually going to ask that you respect the approach that i've taken on.

i've gotten legal council to support this position before entering the meeting. i will keep to what i have just landed on. we will be opening this in a safe space so people can voice their opinion. [indiscernible] unfortunately it is not the space for that. i want to allow for other spaces. and right now, a comment is what i have organized. we will open up another 30 minutes for all other items on the agenda and then we will continue on these items. >> president lopez, 20 minutes and we are starting, i'm sorry, support or opposition, just so i can clarify? >> opposition, going based on what was just shared. >> thank you, very much. we will start -- is it okay to start public comment?

>> yes, thank you. >> we will start for those in opposition. please raise your hand. and each person will get how many minutes? >> we will do a minute each. >> thank you. hello, matt? >> hi. >> hello. >> okay. i'm here to publicly call for the resignation of supervisor collins. as an asian resident, i outraged by her racist comments. her comments are reflective of a hateful and intolerant viewpoint that truly has no place in our community. and two alison collins directly, here is the worst part for you. regardless of whether you choose the right thing and resign or not, you will pay the ultimate price and that is the loss of your dignity and your reputation. so for the rest of your life, you will be haunted by your

actions. wherever you go, people will see you for what you really are. a racist. when he go to the grocery store, to a restaurant, or anywhere outside your home. if you thank you can run, your faces on national news. even when you leave the city, people will see you for what you really are. a racist. thank you. >> color with the 240 number. 240778? are you there? okay. hello, iris? >> sorry, i thought i lowered my hand. i have nothing to say right now. >> thank you.

hello, mark? >> can you hear me now? >> go ahead. >> i apologize. i'm not good at this. i respect all of you and public officials and the tremendous job you are doing for the city and i wish you the best, but i do regret that our district three democratic club, which i'm vice president, and which represents chinatown, as well as north beach, supported allison cohen -- i'm sorry, alison collins and endorsed her for this position. although she seems well-intentioned, i don't think it is the right place to learn how to be well spoken and to not offend people. it is not a good position, contrary to what the board member mark alexander said, to learn how to not be racist. is the place where we need people who are coming in with

objectivity. i don't think that has happened here. lastly i want to say, it has been mentioned many times, there's a context issue and it is confusing. we don't understand as the public what was said. i don't know alison collins personally, but the context that i see when it was explained both by the paper and by the board member, is that her daughter overheard things said at school to a latin exstudent. how did it become from a latin exstudent to this discussion about -- latin exstudent. the context makes it worse, not better for the person i endorsed three years ago. >> thank you, that is time. >> hello, kate? >> hi, my name is kate. i the president of the --

[indiscernible] -- so association. and i say that. [indiscernible] and community leaders in condemning the tweets from commissioner collins, they we were especially disheartened by the failure to acknowledge and take accountability for the racism in her messages. we gave the commissioner a chance to address the comments, and there was still no acknowledgement of the racist nature. our students and all of san francisco deserves better. thank you. >> thank you. hello, roger? >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> i want to make this more of a dialogue and i would like to say that for someone who is like alison collins, who claims to be antiracism and there have been many tweets of her calling out campaign, if this same thing had happened in boston, in any other

city on the school board, would you demand for them to resign? as someone who calls out racism, would you expect and demand come to resign? or do you believe that asian-americans are not as special as black americans or latin exor anyone else, and these hate crimes are not equivalent? i would like a response. >> thank you. as a reminder, this is not a time for dialogue. hello, just in? >> yes. thank you. i would like to say collins has been very rude to me many times. she because people racist to disagree -- families sacrificed 10,000 hours tutoring their kids and sacrificing money and working hard. i raised five black and latino kids and i worked hard to tutor them.

there are nonwhite immigrants from 17 nations in african nations and their success it's real. they earn more money and have more wealth. i raise my kids to believe they can be anything they want. if they are successful and make money, then they are good people and succeed in the american dream. you don't put in air quotes that they get ahead. they really get ahead. if you work your us off in america, you get ahead. this is insulting. you have insulted me for being white. you show no curiosity and how many immigrants earn more then whites by working hard. server, thank you, inc. you. -- sir,, thank you, thank you. >> hello, terry? >> hi. first of all, i would like to

echo everything of the prior speaker. that was brilliant. if we were all in person, you would have received a standing ovation. collins has shown her true colours. they'd we have guided -- they have guided her actions as a board member. the same time, allowing marriage faith -- admission or own kids school. that is problematic. the board of education members expressing how hard this is for all of you are tone deaf. know your audience. kids have been home for a full year slipping into depression, suicidal, suicides are up, kids are being told they will need to repeat a year, parents of left jobs to be home with kids and are struggling financially and you are telling us that has been a tough week for you? we don't care. we are sick of it. we are sick of your self-interested, racist behavior. >> thank you.

>> finally, the way you run these meetings is concerning. you are preventing the public from being involved and engaging with one another. >> thank you, miss. hello, melissa? >> thank you. members of the school board have brought international attention to san francisco in the last few years and not in a good way. it is time for them to step down and in particular, miss collins who is miss entropy. she has recently been exposed and has support from some members of the board. why can't they see that collins used her and make charisma -- innate charisma, for sure, to build community of the divisive as she led campaigns to damage the foundation of the bay area education and culture. clearly her advocates will only be convinced by a reputation of

her divisive civic values. only a strong public rebuke and removal from office will send a message to current and future politicians that civic leadership, defined by this and with an appetite for destruction, will be rejected by the citizens of san francisco. board members who support alison collins, must also step down. >> thank you. hello, thomas? >> thank you, board members. my name is thomas. i and sfusd parent and an asian american. i grew up as a child in the l.a. area during the l.a. riots which was a big point between relations. i thought we had made a lot of

progress, but actually, not as some of this has revealed. i was there for the saturday meeting and read some of the tweets from the different social media platforms. and one thing that came to my mind is how do i explain this to my children? i hope that i would be able to tell my children that we are a place where race relation is -- and what is happening is america is in a better place. i don't know how to explain this to my children. they wouldn't understand. i was outraged. it broke my heart. i don't think we should sit here and find a vindictive revenge. that is not the tone i want to have. i want to find a way to move on. there's so much progress we can make together. in that context, i don't know how we proceed with the review as the district. i would ask you, please take leadership and resign so we can all move along to much more important issues rather than to talk about this. thank you so much.

>> hello, larry? >> yeah. can you hear me? >> yes. >> great. this is larry lee. great statement. i would like to thank the board of education for having this hearing and public comment. i will not mention names, however, i pointed one of the commissioner's passed racist tweets. i urge her to the root resigns the community can heal -- community can heal. it is time for us all to unite and move forward without her because she has become a distraction to the community at large. this commissioner will never resign because i think she enjoins -- enjoys confrontation,

is this, has no feeling and other actions. thank you all for little thing. again, this is larry lee bye-bye. >> thank you. >> hello. >> i and sfusd parent. there are so many urgent priorities for this board. we don't even have kids in school. we're not even talking about them because of the words and actions. and the format that appeared to present a balanced view is not balance. i have never seen so many san francisco public officials unified as they are calling for the commissioner's resignation. even your own colleagues have seen you cannot be effective in this will. you cannot be effective. when the board you can work with the city and community. your bias has no place making

educational policy. it will be impossible for this board to work with everyone to focus on the issues you need to. you might be sorry and we frankly have not heard a genuine apology that reflects the hurt herd you have caused. you cannot be effective. you need to resign immediately so the full board can get onto work of supporting kids and getting a quality education. >> thank you. >> hello, brandy? brandy? one more time, brandy, are you there? okay. hello, emily? >> hello. [speaking foreign language]

[speaking foreign language] >> translation, are you there? >> yes. i feel like the commissioner is bad. collins should leave. that you make the hate crimes worse and we are very hurt. you hate us so much, why do you stay here. i don't thank you can be fair to our students and education.

please resign. >> thank you. hello, meredith? >> as a mom of vietnamese children and a parent leader advocating on behalf of our family, 40% of whom are asian and pacific islander, we stand in solidarity with our a.p.i. community. why are we ignoring their requests? how can you say you are following a restorative justice process? you are not. given commissioner collins' last statement, we are asking for her to immediately resign. by holding onto her seat, she is furthering the damage for the community and delaying the urgent work. why are we sitting here discussing this. we are failing to provide quality education for our children. how can the work of getting our children back in the classroom happen when this has become the focus? how have our commissioners --

[indiscernible] how our parents making voices heard on pressing issues when much of the time right now focus on the harm of collins' anti- asian comments? how are negotiation supposed to continue when the president of the union has called for and backtracked collins' resignation. it is imperative we begin the transition for here at -- healing and solidarity. collins should be part of that and can hold herself accountable. the first step is to step down. >> hello, matthew? >> hi. i would like to say two things. first, this isn't a high school debate where we are on a stage and we are giving everyone equal time.

you have 1,000 parents here. you should randomly listen to the parents, that way you will get a sampling of what people actually feel. i think, first i would like to say, thank you to the students who spoke up. their voices matter and they were very clear. thank you to the board members for standing against hate and have asked for the resignation. those of you who are standing up for hate, voters will remember your name thank you. >> thank you. hello, 415-6512? are you there? hello, casey?

>> hi. my name is carolyn chee. i a san francisco resident and i went to lowell high school. i upset that the meeting in and of itself is an example of how racism exists and a.p.i. is marginalized. it is unfortunate that the only two people on this board that are of a.p.i. descent are the ones siding on the right side of this issue and no one else is joining them. there was a caveat clarifying against everything, especially antiblack racism. this is being divisive as saying racism against blacks the significantly more important than discrimination and racism against asians. you were being divisive and division nest by these comments that collins has made, even though they were made in 2016.

collins is an elected official. hernan apology is indignant. she made racist comments and context doesn't matter. >> that is your time. >> she needs to listen to the people, like she said she was going to do. >> hello. district e-mail starting with jama? hello, are you there? hello, beth? >> i hear. and my 20 years, i felt so disrespected and outraged as a teacher of 20 years. you cannot generalize a whole race of people based on a few set experiences. we are not a monolith. i not a stereotype.

what a disgrace. community leaders are saying she is not taking responsibility. that alone makes are unfit of the privileges of serving on this board. let me be clear, no person in a position of power should be able to continue with these terms. we are not giving her anymore challenge of chances. we do not think she seems remorseful. we're not going along with this. we demand her resignation. a.p.i. people make up 35% of sfusd. we are not using white supremacy to speak to go ahead. as my 9-year-old said, mom, her words are shameful. please call on her to resign. we need to the core values of social justice and diversity. that is not worth less than yours. >> thank you. president lopez, that concludes the 20 minutes allotted for

opposition. we will now start the 20 minutes of support for commissioner collins. please lower your hand if you are here to speak in opposition, but raise your hand if you are here to support. again, supports. you will have one minute each for a total of 20 minutes. hello, terra? , i'm sorry. hello, terra? >> hi, i and sfusd teacher and parent. i want to start off by highlighting the comments that student delegate heinz-foster made. are want to tell you that i so proud that you are a student from our school district. i feel like you have demonstrated more leadership tonight then maybe anybody else

has on this meeting so far and i am so proud that you are a student in our district i wanted to give my appreciation to you for everything you share, for doing that project with your classmates. i calling in support of commissioner collins. i think the teacher unearthed, because of political interest, people are trying to take advantage of people's pain after the massacres in atlanta, to achieve their agendas of recalling the school board, who has been working on antiracist policies and putting the vision into living actual policy, changing our school district policy so they are antiracist. >> thank you. hello? >> i work on the other side. sorry about that. have a good day. >> thank you.

hello, mary? >> hi. this is a statement involving the ongoing attack on thousand collins. people are angry and grieving this week. those of us who are a.p.i., myself included, people should not be used as a wedge to further harm or to put communities against each other. commissioner collins this and antiracist voice in the city. she has been in the a.p.i. school district. [indiscernible] she also works with the sfusd board to hold him accountable, including the vietnamese language pathway and a resolution to audit school libraries to make sure there is representation of asian-american

narrative. the targeting of serrated -- supervisor collins is distracting. [indiscernible] we continue degrees. >> thank you. >> we call on all leaders to focus on healing, restored justice and keeping the efforts to address racism in the school. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. hello, alex? >> i'm sorry, -- i'm sorry, i was on the soap -- side of supporting the asian pacific islanders on the board. my bad. i should have taken myself off. >> okay. no problem. thank you hello -- >> thank you.

>> hello, i and sfusd parent. i serve as a cochair. all of the épée -- e.p.a. members on our board have approved this statement. we recognize and acknowledge the pain that many who read vice president alison collins' december 2016 tweets are feeling. however, while many of us are hurting, it is not fair for us to hurt someone else. we feel that calls for vice president collins to resign from the san francisco board of education are inappropriate. calls for her resignation are racist and repeat cycles of holding black progressive women who are elected officials to a higher standard than others. we know that the timing of the release of the five-year tweets was politically motivated. furthermore, we are saddened and disappointed that people in our community are using this issue as a wedge for political gain. divide and conquer techniques cannot help san francisco heal.

thank you. >> thank you. hello, toni? hello, toni heinz? >> yes. i will let the children speak for me. hear you all go. >> hello, i just want to say, it is kind of sickening to see that the only thing you are saying is -- [indiscernible] she was comparing the asian community to pack people. that is how you feel about blackfeet -- black people, that is just showing your inner racism. >> i think it's -- >> i think we may have lost your connection? are you still there, toni? >> hello, can you hear? >> we can now.

you have two more seconds. >> it is sad that you guys ignore the fact that when she was using the term, she was talking about the anti- blackness in the asian community at her daughter's school. if was taken out of context. you are wrong. i bet a lot of you don't even know what this term means. >> she suffered being the only black girl. thank you, all. i support you, allison, but i think there should be restorative practices. i support everybody. >> thank you hello, howard? -- thank you. hello, howard? howard, are you there? forgive me if i mispronouncing your name. are you there?

>> i lowered my hands. i was speaking in opposition. >> okay. apologies. thank you. hello, christine? >> hello? >> yes. >> hi. i had my hand lowered. i was trying to speak in opposition. >> thank you. hello, don? are you there? hello, galen? galen young? >> hello. i'm galen.

can you hear me? >> and can. hi. my name is galen young. >> actually, you have a really bad connection. [indiscernible] >> galen, we can't hear you. try and call back. apologies. >> allison, i don't thank you did anything wrong. >> okay. >> thank you. hello, and marie? >> hi. i'm a citizen of san francisco. i opposed to having allison collins resign. i feel the pain of the asian community, i pained by the anti- asian behavior throughout our nation. i would love to see the board of

education actually implement restorative practices. we all have implicit biases. we all, everyone of you, and me, okay? let's face it. let us heal. i would love to see some bridge builders. i was flabbergasted by the colleague that i saw on twitter. i could not believe it never call into the school board, but this is outrageous. bridge build. ally ship. restorative practices. let's demonstrate and model to the children. >> thank you. hello, rory? >> hi. i a teacher in san francisco unified. i just want to say that i talking to people all over the country. we are on people's landscape.

and the sentiment i'm getting from black people is that the only apology that people would accept is if allison was hanging from a tree outside of city hall because this is a public lynching. i want to talk about the fact that black people are disproportionately tried and held guilty in this country without due process. i think what we are asking for is due process. there are many, many public officials, we can name names, which we aren't allowed to, who were doing all kinds of shenanigans in san francisco, yep they are allowed chances and due process. so when black people see that people of color are not allowed the same justice, there will be no peace. if we are not allowed justice, there is not going to be peace. if you real world allison though due process you about these other officials, there will be no changing san francisco. >> thank you.

hello, reverend brown? >> hello? >> yes. >> i reverend brown. i invite the board members, all the parents who have spoken and shared their pain to set an example. first of all, the truth tellers. secondly, embrace each other. thirdly, look at yourself and raise the question. where have you been when african-americans have been knocked down from 17% of this population to now about three when i present? who is speaking out about that? how do we deal about the realities?

blocks, you have brains to learn, but there is something strange about us. we have to deal with that pick finally i want to say, i believe i did see on this screen today, this zoom, mess collins did apologize. let us just get with her, work with her, and get on with the business of making a quality education available for all children in the school district can remember the man for whom the school is named? [indiscernible] in the midst of truth we will follow for the good and the question is, are we going to stand for good or are we going to get on the side of evil? i hope i trust, i pray, i beseech you to let us realize that if the ball is fumbled and

again, you don't stand on the sideline and talk about who fumbled the ball. somebody retrieves it and goes on and runs a touchdown. >> thank you. >> they should all go and run a touchdown for our children and for san francisco and for human decency, dignity, and equality for opportunity for all. >> you -- thank you. hello, diana? >> yes, hi. i stand with allison collins, do not resign. i name is diana. i carrying my chinese card today. i born and raised in the city. stop it. stop belittling. she is trying to learn about her asian friends. her comments are not racist. or comments are antiracist. i want to tell you that allison is one of the most proactive inconsistent members to work with me in my organization.

she has prioritized our s.r.o. chinese families. she -- we need to remind the district and the city that these kids are not forgotten. our learning packet was not forgotten. she personally called my staff so we could go to rosa parks in the fillmore to get packet so we can deliver it to chinatown. she has not only supported, but has carried a lot of this work to center an advanced racial equity without decentring chinese people. i support you. >> thank you. >> do not resign. >> hello? >> good evening. >> i'm sorry, go ahead.

>> apologies. good evening, everybody. i want to start by saying i know a great deal of harm has been perpetrated against our asian brothers and sisters. i do feel a deep sense of sadness for all that has happened. i do not agree with the commitment that allison should resign. this is a targeted attack. i understand harm was caused, and now is a time to be bold and courageous as this board was with the lowell admissions, were the hate is coming from. now is the time to continue that goal and courageous behavior and restore this. we all have biases. now is the time to face the head on, deal with them, and show great leadership for our children on how to deal with the issue. saying somebody needs to just go because they harm was caused, how is that repairing anything? it. if you want to truly make a change that to start to make

things better, than this should be a restorative conversation where everybody is heard and the harm gets restored. >> thank you. i'm sorry, just a moment here. hello? are you there? miss lopez? okay. hello, oh? >> hello. i may --

>> hello, are you there? >> hello, can you hear me now? >> yes, you can go ahead. >> i an employee of sfusd. i also went to some physical -- san francisco public schools. i'm also a refugee. i say all this because i think what we are talking about has political, personal -- and personal implications. and for the community that i part of who has harm -- who has been harmed by commissioner collins' words, i think i'm hearing that she needs to do more restorative work and i think she will. i also want to speak about the -- [indiscernible] -- it is not a coincidence where this tweet came from. the community is pushing back against this.

those are the systems that i think commissioner collins has been trying to help. racism has really undermined -- >> thank you. >> shoot. please, don't resign, mr. collins. we need you. >> think you've. -- commissioner collins we need you. >> thank you. >> hello, miss marshall? miss marshall, are you there? there you go. miss marshall? hello? >> can you hear me now? >> go ahead. we can't hear you now.

okay. miss marshall? >> i'm here? can you hear me now? >> okay. >> go ahead. >> i apologize to the school for the treatment they received. now i'm going to apologize to the board's commissioners, to all my colleagues who are of asian descent and pacific islanders. i so sorry -- i so sorry. i so sorry. this is a political pawn. this is a political pawn to keep lowell the way it is. i very discouraged by that. commissioner collins has apologized. does she need to apologize again? let her apologize tomorrow. show our students what it means to have a different opinion and keep moving forward. we must work on getting our

schools open, getting our classes back open. this is just a political pawn five years later, against the community's wish to make lowell different for our children. commissioner collins, thank you, thank you, thank you. i will apologize to everyone who has been harmed by this situation. thank you so much. >> hello, mr. jeffries? >> hello. can you hear me? >> yes, you can go ahead. >> my name is jeremiah jeffries and i ate first grade teacher at sfusd. i have been disappointed, to say lightly, about the response from our leadership around the city who have chosen to call out, not check in, and be opportunistic

and choose what is politically what they consider expedient. easier for them. about them getting reelected, versus doing what is right and what we say we believe in. we say we believe in restorative practices that we want to use it for the police and use it for criminals and you want to engage when it is convenient for you, but when it is hard, you don't want to do that work. it is way easier to throw her under the bus then to actually address and look at what she actually said. and while people are hurt by that, are hurt five things people say every day. black people are -- every day. [please stand by]

>> so this section for public comment, 30 minutes is for

anything that is not on tonight's agenda and is not concerning commissioner collins. >> can i say something before we start? >> if it's about what we just discussed, i do want to just a reminder we had the floor and the opportunity to share earlier and i just want to move on in the meeting. >> okay. president lopez one minute per or two minutes per. >> president lopez: 1 minute. >> clerk: okay if you're ready to speak the topics are not on tonight's agenda and on the topic. >> clerk: hello, larry. >> yeah. can you hear me?

>> thank you for the public comment section. i am in support of faau shgzga moliga and i'm also in support to have school counsels at each school. i just want the board of education to continue concentrating 0en the positive things and as far as those go. go to each middle school and recruit the best african american student to go low, not to just take the easy route of choosing african americans at willie brown which was done in the past which was not using the best and brightest tools to recruit bright and ambitious african americans, but that was just the quickest and cheapest route to achieve those goals and i just want to mention that. so start restorative practices

go, i believe in those, but sometimes the practices doesn't go far enough. thank you. that's all. >> clerk: thank you. hello. >> hi everyone. it's betsy. i'm a former student delegate and i just quickly came here to talk about the current harassment going on with former members about receiving phone calls from the san francisco unified school district. we don't know exactly which department it's coming from but i have personally received, well, my dad has reefed nonstop phone calls from a certain district member. we have no idea who it is. it got to the point where we had to reach out to adult

allies on this. and wanted to ask inappropriate questions about a staff member. we feel they are being harassed for a targeted specific political agenda. we feel like it's being done illegally with no actual cause so we hope that somebody can reach out and follow up with this. it's lovely to see all of you beautiful faces. i hope everybody has a good day and that's all for me. >> clerk: thank you. >> president lopez, can we ask the superintendent to look into that? >> i was just going to ask betsy if you can e-mail me so i can get your contact information. >> thank you. >> clerk: hello, ashley.

>> hi. my name is ashley chang and i have multiple children in the school district. the fact that the school has been closed for a year now has been very disheartening for my family and i felt that this board hasn't been effectively addressing the issue whether then we'll be looking at other issues that are nonimportant and nonessential during this time. both of my girls are stuck at home. they are socially isolated. their computer hasn't been working and it's been very disheartening for a parent that has to go to work and make a living being apart of the east central workforce to support a family like this. and what is the school actually doing supporting essential workers? what is the plan moving forward? i still don't have any clear plans from all of you on this board which is very disheartening and particularly with the new development of ms.

collins, this is definitely a distraction to the whole dialog around bringing children back to school. and i want to come back and focus on this. >> clerk: thank you. a reminder to the public that the return to in-person learning is the next agenda item. so you'll have the opportunity to speak around that. and, again, on the previous conversation surrounding the tweets, we are not having that in this portion of public comment. >> clerk: hello kc. >> hello >> also i know the issue of the renaming the schools the weight was done haphazardly on a

historical basis put on a back burner. i know that wastes so much money that should be allocated to schools to help the schools re-open and provide all the tools they need and the ppp and things like that. and also what the the plan in terms of the budget. so we know how the money is being spent and who is paying for the litigation from the city? i think that all needs to be made public because we're taxpayers and paying for that and if schools are not being re-opened, we have a right to know how that money is being spent. >> clerk: thank you. hello, howard. >> yes. so i actually wanted to offer a mixed view and moliga wanted to carve out some time for people

that had a mixed view on the topic, but none was provided. >> clerk: give me a moment. president lopez, how would you like to address this? >> president lopez: i'd like to stick to what we've already organized. >> clerk: okay. so, howard, we're not discussing that topic anymore. >> just that i definitely support jenny lam's resolution tonight on the agenda. i'll speak to that when the time comes. >> clerk: great. thank you. hello, lee. lee, are you there? one more time, lee. thank you. hello, mary?

mary? okay. hello anita? mary? is this mary or anita? >> hello. this is mary, can you hear me? >> we can. go ahead. >> okay. my hand was up quite awhile ago about speaking up for allison, but this is a different. >> clerk: yeah. we're done from that topic. this is just general public from things that were not discussed earlier or items that are not on the agenda tonight. >> oh, okay. i'll just stay in the meeting. i wanted to speak on allison just to see you all and i just wanted to say thank you to board members. you guys are working hard and it is difficult. it is really difficult. people just don't appreciate you enough. i've been around long enough to

see board members come and go and i'm just saying stay together, stay unified and, please, [inaudible] in everything we do. thank you. >> clerk: anita are you still there? >> yes. i had a comment for allison i see the portion of that is closed. i do would like to make a public statement as well. >> clerk: indeed, thank you. hello, gregory. >> hi. i would like to call out gabriellela lopez for purposefully silencing parent voices again. where she feels the public will largely be in opposition of her public views in order to suppress the views she

disagrees with. this time she also greatly limited the time available to speak. then she rudely shut down both of our colleagues who dared she not do that. >> clerk: thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, celest. >> hi, my name is celest. i'm a parent of the local group of moms. my request today is every family about the importance of securely storing firearms and the legal obligation under california law to keep guns stored. even before the pandemic, there were 4.6 million american children living in homes with unlocked, loaded guns. and since the pandemic, 50 million guns have been sold in america. it's important parents know to keep the guns locked and unloaded and ammunition stored

separately. from all forms of gun violence. please put this on your agenda to send gun safety information home with our city families. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, nick. >> yes. can you hear me. so i wanted to echo the sentiments on thanking the san francisco school board. and, allison, i applaud your courage of facing all the comments today. i don't want to talk about the past tweets specifically, but i have some social media advice for the whole board i think generally is this is a ridiculous time where everybody's like, you know, you've got people on social media trying to hunt down comments. delete your tweets. stop tweeting about race. i think it was bill marr a

couple of weeks ago talking about nations are doing this. they're not trying to figure out how to be the best woketard and figuring out how to cancel each other and be the best social justice warrior. they're singularly focused on education and cultivating their best and brightest. that's what you guys should be doing. so get off social media. stop arguing about race. get on with education. >> clerk: thank you. hello, rebecca. >> hello. my name's rebecca sodorko. i'm a special education teacher. i kind of wanted to talk about special ed for a minute. fun to follow the last comment. it's never okay to use the word "tard" and i'm sure people with

disabilities don't appreciate that either. i know we're discussing re-opening later, but i just want to say as an active member, i'm seriously concerned about the lack of information going to special educators and there was not one mention of special education. at my school today, my room was taken to be an isolation room and the room for the other special ed providers is taken to be an overflow room. currently, zero rooms exist for us to provide special education services. unless this board does something, we won't be able to offer kids simply because of space. i would really appreciate help from individual board members or anyone because we're trying to get answers and we're not getting any. school opens in less than 10

days. please help us. >> clerk: thank you. hello viola. one more time. >> yes. i'm here. hello, my name is viola butoni and i am a parent at sota. i would like to thank the board for their work and i am asking today about the school renaming because i think it's very important work and i was very sad to see how it was done and so i am hoping you will pick it up as soon as possible and give back the credibility that it should have and employ the right people to do this right because this is very mindful, important work to move ahead and we should do it the way it's supposed to be done.

items on your agenda. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, tom. >> hi, can you hear me? >> yeah. we can. >> okay. so i'm a special ed teacher in this district and i was really appalled by callers saying the best and brightest. i think every person is bright and i think every person is the best. when we do that it's really ignoring the fact that just because you have high academic test scores, that means you're something above everyone else. all my students, all students with disabilities or not are bright. please take that to note. also, the board, if you can sign in the tests i'm talking about the s-back and the

l-pack. if you want to do something, support educators because our schedules are already crazy and to administer tests is not useful. thank you. >> forgive me if i miss pronounce is it case or cass? >> thank you very much. i'm part of the united against gun violence. we're working with moms of action and we just listened to celest. thank you for taking my comments as well. my request is that sfusd send gun safety information home to every family. not only because of the continued mass shootings in america. that was 35% increase in homicide and in 2020 some bay area hospitals reported more suicides than they usually see.

>> all right. i just wanted to say that i do

agree with what nick burr said when he said we need to stop talking about race. and i feel like i said earlier, race is just a topic that a lot of people get in their feelings about and you can say like what? or say that that's not true, but at the end of the day, a lot of people get in their feelings on that topic and don't really like look at the situation in a like more realistic way. they just go straight to the word race or straight to the word hate and i feel like that's exactly where the problem starts because not everyone just because they have an opinion or just because they feel a certain way doesn't mean they're racist. they're just not afraid to speak their mind like a lot of others are. and, simply, a lot of people just some people are just born with hate and so you can't say that everyone has hatred

because some do. >> clerk: thank you. hello, rory. >> yeah. hi. i would like to talk on a couple of things. one is i've noticed from my middle school students coming back to me or signing up for classes that very few high schools allow kids to double up on math for algebra and geometry and i just wanted to know why that is and that doesn't seem very fair and e kitable. that every high school should allow students to double up on algebra and geometry which is a better option than taking that horrible precalculus course. the second thing is i think there should be a partnership with uesf around which tech

apps are approved in the district. because there is a lot of potential for corruption when there's a lot of money involved and you do not have oversight and transparency around apps that our students are using in the district and approved to use. mainly because teachers are actually teaching and we are best positioned to know which apps are best for our students. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, joan. >> yes. hello. i'm joan heperly. the uasf executive board approved the resolution and support of asian americans and pacific islanders during the increase of anti-asian attacks. part of the excerpts are the united american school administration local 3 condemn all forms of hatred against

asian american and islander americans and called for immediate action of the district local state and federal government for the protection of these communities. whereas there was over 3,000 incidents anti-discrimination related to covid. 1,226 took place in california, and 392 took place in san francisco. denounce all forms of racism, xenophobia. religious and cultural, discrimination, violent action. we call to expand education curriculum for cultural competence to combat misinformation and hate and discrimination that put asian americans and pacific islander americans at risk. we call on local leaders racially discriminatory language in describing the

covid-19 pandemic including use restore to practices. we're committed to amplifying the voices of all asian americans and pacific islander americans to stand up in solidarity against violence and hate crimes. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, rene. >> hi. yeah. i'm part of the 1,000 comments the president tried to silenced. you are not putting students' needs first. a thousand people called in. they were not even close to being evenly distributed. you will not be able to make headway with a commissioner that won't even listen to the community. and people are going to call and call and call and call. >> clerk: thank you.

both sides of the conversation, both sides of the conversation. right. hello madri. >> hi. i just wanted to say i had an issue that i bring to you all previous public comment about the forms being [inaudible] and also just about the importance of markers on our name because we all have names that aren't in english, a lot of us don't and so i wanted to say that one of the responses that i got back is that sfu is deeming to change the system. like you all have the software. i know it cost more money and everything. and i think it's very

important. also, i want to say that one form has changed, but i think we can keep working forward to upgrade it and i also want to say thank you to commissioner collins who made sure to follow through with that along with the other staff who followed through within an hour after my comment to make sure it gets changed. this is definitely very different than what i'm used to and creating an inclusive. >> clerk: thank you. hello, rianda. >> good evening everybody. i wanted to come on again just for a couple of different items to bring clarification. first, i wanted to support president lopez and those who do not regularly attend board meetings to know that that is

the standard process that you give it a certain time frame. this is not something new with this board. it is historical and i welcome you to visit any of the past board meetings which are all public record and you can watch prior videos to see the process. i also wanted to encourage the board to remain bold and courageous to uphold the low admission policy and removing the tests. i know there has been a lot of politics around it and so many people are pushing for different things, but that's what's right for san francisco and it's never been allowed in the first place. i also wanted to provide clarification regarding lee brown. sorry. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, ms. marshal. >> thank you.

president lopez, vice president collins and commissioners. i'm speaking for a young mother. to her dismay and my horror and her horror as well, this child did not receive one assigned for school choices. she was instead assigned to a school on the hill that has a lot of issues for safety and last year when i went with her to visit the various t.k. classes, there was no diversity. so i don't know how this machine knows how to put all the various ethnicities. we didn't see any student who is look like me, who looked like this young mother. and i have a big issue with transitional kindergarten. i was born in december. this young mother's child was born in november. so twelve years from now, this young child will be 19 years old in the 12th grade because

someone. so i've gotten a call, e-mail back from the early ed director today. i want someone to work with us in epc to talk about how this computer knows not to make their classes diverse and why are we taking the child up on the hill where there's lots of gun violence. thank you. >> clerk: hello, michelle. >> hi. >> clerk: oops. my apologies, michelle. are you there? >> hi. my name is michelle kirby. i'm a middle school teacher. i'm calling because i'm kind of disappointed around the board's response to that parent before who said the students weren't smart enough to go to lowell. i looked at your faces. i didn't see any comment. i hope to get an e-mail from one of you guys.

just to be very clear, we sit there and talk to the students about choosing the best school for them. not all of our kiddos, not all the black and brown kids want to go. and i'm speaking to you as a lowell alumni. doesn't mean they're going to choose lowell. that doesn't mean the kids that go to willie brown are the dumb black and brown children that go earlier. and this is one of issues that we need to have in these conversations within the black and asian community. just because my skin is dark, doesn't mean i'm not smart enough to go to lowell and the person that came after the lowell group also said i wasn't smart enough to go to lowell, i probably didn't graduate from lowell. i know. i'm getting off. as a willie brown teacher,

ya'll should come check us out and support us before you say things about us. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> thank you for organizing that. >> can i make a statement just before we move on from public comment, please. >> i appreciate it. i just want to go on record that i am dissatisfied with the process for tonight as i mentioned earlier, we did have a thousand people tuning in and we as a board talking about how community centered we need to be and just rethinking our public comment process and that again equal time is not equity in the api community and those who showed up to voice their opinion have not been heard tonight so i wanted to express that publicly.

thank you. >> president lopez: great. thank you. thank you to the public as well for coming out and speaking. moving on to section d. as a reminder, we have moved the item from our agenda to our next meeting. section e., discussion of other educational issues. can we begin the discussion on return to in person learning. >> thank you, president lopez. and, thank you, justin. good evening everyone. next slide, please. so as we think about the return, we what drives us not only in our return to inperson learning but thinking about our return to inperson learning but in all of our actions that every day we're going to do

everything we can to provide each and every student the quality instruction and equitable support so that all of our students are able to thrive in this century. next slide. and so our agenda for today for this section of the agenda, we are going to talk about the time line and how we're preparing for re-opening to give you an overview of the survey that we surveyed the students and the families of the students in 2b. so you'll have an overview of that and then we will spend some time talking about our connections with the city, what we want in place or need in place for our return to in person learning in regards to transportation and regards to connection around libraries and around concurring enrollment. next slide. our timeline. next slide. we've said this before and as we're considering our timeline,

there are factors that have impact over this timeline. these factors include the rate of the spread of the virus, the availability of the vaccines and the tier we're in and you'll hear more about this as we move forward with this presentation. next slide. and, one of the as we look at our decision tree, this is what we view as we said previously. one of the factors that has changed in our decision tree over time was that we move towards if we're in the red tier that the san francisco unified school district staff has the opportunity for vaccinations and we're pleased to say, you know, so often we don't take the time to stop and celebrate the things that we've done well. we have been able to offer the opportunity to all 10,000 of our staff members. so every staff member has either received codes or received an opportunity to come

to one of the days of the stand-up vaccinations that we've made available here in our district office. next slide. the other part of the decision tree as we've worked with our labor partners, it was the opportunity to if we were in the red, it's return with vaccination. and if we're in the orange here the opportunity to return without vaccination provided that all of the other operational indicators are all [inaudible] . we're pleased of the progress we've made in these areas. next slide. so we will be talking about the timeline. as you can see, these -- the dates that are here are dependent on a number of

factors as we've talked about this before. we hope to be able to meet these. we definitely are on track to meet them but they are dependent on factors such as the number of students returning, the staff who returns, available space in our schools. all of this helps determine whether all of the schools will be able to make each of these dates, the 12th, the 19th, and the 26th. next slide. and, one of the things it's important to keep in mind is our priority groups as you can see on this slide these are the students returning first will be our youngest learners. our pk early education and then our pk 13 students.

and this slide is actual goes described. gives you a picture of all of the schools and the dates and which grade levels will be returning on those dates. this is available and is important for the public to know. this is available on our website. so for families who are still searching or trying to understand which schools and which grades and which states are coming back, this is available on our website. so please go to our website to make sure we send out information, but there's also the opportunity for you to see this information for your own at your own pace on the website. and, with that, i believe -- next slide. i am turning it over. >> thank you, dr. matthews. good afternoon, commissioners. i just have two quick slides i

just wanted to show you. this is the san francisco department of public health school re-opening dashboard. and you can go and look and see the status of where we are with the letters of interest that we've submitted which are 75. the number of site requests and the number of approvals. the number of approvals will increase in the next couple of days. sometimes there's delays between us receiving approval and the department of public health placing them on their website or the website showing them. so for the next slide, you can show the issues that we have approvals for. these elementary schools and we're continuing to submit applications and have site assessments. so i imagine folks can keep checking that website and we'll have more schools approved with re-open as the days go by. and i think that's it for me.

i'm sorry. i forget. yes. and daniel might jump in to help me as well. so, last week, as you all remembered, the board approved the contract with the color lab and so we've spent the last week digging in to the details of what testing will look like as we get look forward to welcoming back students and staff on april 12th. we're going to have a blend of different types of options trying to meet peoples' needs as much as possible. also, staying within the means of how expensive it is to test in multiple places. so school and staff will allow test kits. so they can take the kit home if they want. they can take it at school and then we'll have drop boxes so that staff don't have to travel

to other school sites. so this is the most convenient we can think about making it convenient for staff. we really want to minimize the list for administrators as well. we'll also have a blend of six locations and mobile test sites for students. and, that will be along with xre hence communication to families and we'll launch the six locations first and then move to mobile test sites at different schools. we're going to be using a rotating schedule for student testing. we'll also have onsite support. multi-lingual phone support. we're planning to launch testing the week of april 5th and staff testing that next week. you can go to the next slide. >> i think this one is me. >> yeah. right daniel. >> good evening everyone. i wanted to talk a little bit about staffing preparation for in person learning.

so 138 substitutes who've expressed a willingness to return to in person learning so we are

currently working to recruit and hire more substitutes and we have some other plans as well to make sure we can address this issue to make sure we have a teacher or have an adult for every classroom this spring that's re-opening in person. next slide. >> good evening commissioners. >> information that families can expect to receive and that they can also find now. so specifically currently available and we've shared this in various ways with families. there's a lot of information about what to expect if their child is going back to school. with the health and safety protocols will look like. what kinds of preparations we're asking them to do at home. what students should bring to

school with them. for example, we've increased ventilation. we want to make sure students have lots of layers to put on. also, we know that staff will be utilizing a lot of outdoor time whenever possible. so we're encouraging families to bring a variety of things as well. we've created a checklist that will go to families they can post on the refrigerator and all of this information has been translated in seven languages spoken by the majority of our families. so what families can expect next week. if they are in elementary school and their students are going to be coming back to in-person learning. they will receive a packet in the mail that confirms their placement and gives them a little bit more information about what to expect in terms of who their child's teacher is and other information like that. some information families will want to know will be missing from that packet because it's

information they will get at their school site orientation and every family member will be required to attend an orientation that will be hosted by their school site. so next week, just again to state that on monday, there will be letters mailed to all elementary school families who have an in-person placement. that same information will be shared with families through if they have a parent view account, it will be posted there. if we have an e-mail for them, it will be sent by e-mail and then we will also be sending auto dial. families in middle and high school with students returning on april 26th will receive a placement packet on april 16th or sooner. but we have let families know that they'll get a packet 10 days prior and there's a lot that goes in to setting up information for those packets which is why we're racing to

meet that deadline for the families in middle and high school. the site orientations are being scheduled on a school by school basis. but they will be happening over the week or two weeks prior to when the site re-opens and all principals have a set of desks and videos that they're use canning they just need to plug in their site specific information such as entrances, exits, drop off, pick up type procedures and anything else that's site specific. next slide just shows you a few of the different videos that we've created to support families and site leaders during orientation and these videos are available now online so families can watch some. a lot of them are geared towards students as well. so we were really careful to try to create careful so that families can watch with a 3rd grader or kindergartener and

understand what it might look like when it comes back to school. there are videos also that are specific for student populations and things that those student populations in particular would benefit from knowing in advance. so we have something for preschool students and families and something for students enrolled in special day classes. next slide. >> so good evening everyone. i wanted to provide an update both on our survey results for our return to inperson as well as share some information on our plans to return to in person learning. next slide please. i just want to remind folks that the previous section outlined a time line in preparation for in person learning and we know understanding the interest is a critical component of what informs the planning process. so we surveyed a number of

students and families to return. we surveyed our students in grades 3-5 as well as students in our mild, moderate sd groups as well as students all in our secondary who have identified one of those names and public housing. newcomers and students who have been engaged for less than 40% of the time. that is the most recent survey that has gone out. we've previously also surveyed our families in 2a. those are the families of our youngest learners and pk through 2nd grade. next slide please, justin. we first want to thank all of our families and staff. we know it's a significant list and want to just appreciate everyone's input and work to complete the survey because it's a critical piece again assigning our planning. our surveys closed on march 12th for students in phase 2a and march 16th for students in phase 2b.

this week just as a reference, our school staff has worked tireless to prepare for transportation for those who need it as they confirm those assignments to get those placement letters to families as soon as next week. next slide. specifically, we surveyed over 30,000 families to date. and this slide has a high level summary of the preliminary results as of march 18th. and i'm sharing the previous slides to update the plans and we know information and data is still coming in even as i see. a few highlights of what we understand and know so far to be planned is that we really had a high number of responses for our first priority groups, our youngest learners. about 2/3 of those responses return to in-person learning. to date, we have about 35% of your message. for instance, why are facilities only at pent 5%

ready on the dashboard. what does it mean for schools like balboa. and what does it look like going back to school for student who is need to pursue the economic opportunities distanced learning provides and how sfusd is partnering with the city to make sure the designated city funded jobs are being allocated for our students most in need? thank you. >> clerk: hello, rory. >> hi. i have a couple things to say. one, i want to just address the whole 3' apart and to a previous i think it was a student who spoke before, i think people are not really thinking about or haven't been in a classroom in a long time. 3' apart with kids pushing their chairs out is not really that much space in between desks. i think 3' is what it is normally now. so kids tend to push their chairs out.

teachers will not be able to walk in between that space. so you can kind of measure that on the ground for yourself to see what that looks like. if the desk is 3' apart, you have to also consider where the chair is. second, if we're going to be in the classroom as i brought up previously we're going to need earphones that the district will provide because if not, teachers end up paying for things like that so that kids can hear what's going on if they're in a classroom with a bunch of people. lastly, kids are constantly losing chargers and not bringing their devices to school so each classroom will need a class set of devices as backup plus additional chargers because they tend to forget things and lose them. and this is for middle and high school. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. ms. nelson. >> hi. sorry. my class e-mail.

hi, i'm a middle school teacher working with four co-hoards of emerging and expanding new coming students. i only teach newcomering. they are all up for returning on april 26th. but i will note that i myself have not received any single drop of district communication about my status as a teacher of 2b students. i know nothing and i can't communicate with my families that i serve at all. i really can't answer any of their questions effectively. they don't often, you know, the district websites are not accessible to them and it's hard for them to find their answers. i also would like the district to please collaborate with el teachers and el coordinators and newcomer teachers because the two proposed schedules really don't work for my students. they are neither just blended or self-contains.

it doesn't really seem like those students have been considered. thank you. >> hello viola. >> hi. my name is viola and i am a [inaudible] school of the arts. my child is one of those who has disengaged completely from schooling and his mental health is suffering greatly. he has missed definitely more than 40% of his classes but i have not received a survey. i would like the superintendent to make sure i can get everything that i need because i have not gotten anything from the district and my kid really needs to go back to school before he either drops out or goes into a really bad depression. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you. hello, tara.

>> hello. my name's tara i'm a special education teacher here. he's two. i'm calling mostly to talk about the space issue. i'm one of the ones that rebecca spoke about earlier that does not have a space right now. my admin is working very hard to get it approved by the end of spring break. hopefully. but i also share, i share classes with another service provider and so that also is a safety concern and our school buildings are limited in space. so i really hope the board can work to help solve these problems and then by admin really understands prioritizing special education services but i'm concerned with the way the schedule's laid out i'm not going to be able to do the consultation and collaboration with the general education teachers which outlines many of my students and so that is a

big concern and also, i've called in about this a couple weeks ago, when are we going to be able to do ieps? and the district did give guidance for the teachers to be able to do substitutes but that's not a realistic thing that's happened before. so they don't always show up. and that means we would need two because my services also need to be covered by law. so very concerned there. and i also just wanted to touch on one more thing. is my time up? >> clerk: yeah it is. all right. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> clerk: hello, rene. >> yeah. hi there. so we still have no plan for returning middle school and high school students to the classroom. we need a plan for all kids

returning to school. sfusd is officially the last in the nation of the top 25 metro areas to return middle schoolers and high schoolers. the problem is nobody really has confidence in the boe. people should go to decreasing the distance.org to get involved and get active because the only thing that's driven the board to where it is in this pathetic state is parent activism. so join us, parents. >> clerk: thank you. hello, gregory. sorry. gregory. >> hi. i'm using his computer otherwise i probably -- anyway. i'm an sfusd special education teacher sxr a parent of a 1st

grader. i'm super excited for return to go in person for myself and my child. there's so much confusion regarding details about returning both of us about my student and also my daughter. i still don't know what my child schedule looks like and as far as my own class, i am an access teacher serving students ages 13 to 22. my colleagues and i have so many questions and things that need to be clarified before we can return and i feel like i usually have to ask five different people before getting an answer or i get several different answers. i would like to at balboa high school. no offense to them. i know that they are also getting conflicting information. so if we can all work together and get some clarity to everybody that needs it and figure out a way to do this in

a better way. i would really appreciate it. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you. hello. kathryn. >> yes. hi. my name is katie nunz and i am the 4th/5th grade teacher at william cobb elementary school and i'm reading four letters of my students. the first one says, hello, good evening. i'm a student from the sf. school district. i'm concerned about the new in person schedule. i'm concerned that the zoom is not fair for the other people at the school because they have more hours. we should all be wise about it. we should all work together like a group because students need to have care. need help. i understand you and i are tired or life is not fair. we try to make the best of it.

we all have a voice, we should not be seen other than not being heard. we have a purpose to have a voice. i've been here from the school since kindergarten. i am disappointed where all is. i know you are having a bad day but i don't mean changing the school isn't fair. they need help. what if they need help and then something and then they get bored because they are not and have something. >> clerk: thank you. >> if i can just read one more. hello superintendent matthews and school board members. my name is asha. i am concerned about the timing in the school schedules. for inperson learning because i don't think it's fair for all students online and they are getting about half the hours of school that students in person get and the same amount of work. so if we have a question, we have to wait until several hours before we can ask the question to our teacher.

how are students supposed to stay competitive and if students are already behind in the classroom because they barely got time in school. being online already has a disadvantage of not being in the classroom. so after listening to this speech, hopefully you can think about being more flexible with the online class schedules and make it fair all students. if you don't mind, i would read one more. >> clerk: i'm sorry. too much time. thank you. appreciate it. hello, latoya. >> hello, thank you. first and foremost, i want to say thank you for taking all of the necessary steps to safely re-open schools. i do appreciate that and also, i just had a quick question i know you chi guys can't answer in this quorum, who will be the transportation provider for the second phases of returning to

in person learning? >> clerk: thank you. >> hello, aaron. >> hey there, thank you. i'm calling, i'm a middle school teacher i called last week. i appreciate the work that's been done so far and we were talking last week about clubs and afterschool programs for our high school students. i didn't see about that in this current plan. i'm hoping there can be some followup on what the status of that is today. and second i'm just concerned about the bussing and after care programs and so i just want to make sure we're really helping those students with this transition. thank you. >> thank you. hello, shelly.

>> hi. good afternoon to the board and superintendent matthews and everyone. i'm shelly. i just wanted to say that i believe we need 72 hours for the self-testing kits from color to be analyzed. so for those going back on april 12th, we really only have through april 7th to be tested and i hope there's a way to prioritize and share that and share that also with the children to those schools so that we can follow what we've agreed to in the m.o.u. and i want to thank you and justin too. bye. >> clerk: thank you. hello, jennifer. >> hi. this is jennifer. i have two kids in the

district. i want to say one thing about the last meeting that you wanted to stop saying "learning loss" and you wanted to a "learning change" instead i think that's incredibly disrespectful to all of our parents in the district. i can't even believe that came out of your mouths. i also want to say, i want to echo another caller that said there isn't a plan for our kids on i.e.p.s that are in general education and have special ed supports. what is the plan? we need a plan for our special ed kids that are in our general education classes. it's unacceptable that there isn't a plan as of yet. thank you.

>> clerk: thank you. hello, dina. >> hi, my name is dina and i am a parent of a 3rd grader. i'm also a teacher who works with high school youth. i'm calling on behalf of teachers who are parents and who have school aged children that they need to take care of. i had my child in an emergency care center when they opened up for teachers for a couple of months until i couldn't afford it anymore. it was actually really expensive and i actually, you know, could rationalize it if i was going to benefit from it for five days a week but my son was going to be going back to school for two days a week but i was still going to have to pay the full amount, the full five days and it seems like we have the space in these emergency centers as some kids are going back on mondays,

tuesdays, some on tuesdays, thursdays. some of the centers might be operating at half the capacity on certain days of the week and couldn't we utilize that space for the children of teachers. >> clerk: that's it. >> okay. thank you. >> clerk: hello, kelly. can you hear me okay? >> we can. >> okay. hi. thank you so much for taking my public comment. i'm kelly. i'm a mother of three kids. two are special education kids and one is a transgender girl. i just want to put a really big plug and piggy back on all of the special education parents that have piped up about just getting a little more cohesive planning but also i think that across the board, i really hope

that mental health screening and a wellness presence on every single school site doesn't get missed. and i say that feeling a little naive after hearing how much work still has to be done. >> thank you. >> hello, susie. >> hello. it's actually vivian and i am in 8th grade. before that i went to sfk. so i've been in the school system my entire life and i really want a date to be set so middle schoolers and high schoolers can go back to school safely. we can't be isolated. we have to be supported in our learning i have a sister who goes to a private school and she's in middle school and they're going back every other week and i just think it's unfair that public schools don't get the same opportunities and i know it's really hard but you guys are in

charge and we need your help. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, joe. >> hi. thank you for taking my call. i'm a parent of a 1st grader at glen park school. i wanted to echo that last caller. she's a middle school student who has no plan to return to the classroom. that's pretty bad and it's actually very unprecedented of all the top 25 metro areas in the country sfusd is the only one without a plan to re-open middle and high schools. that's totally unconscionable and we need to focus on re-opening middle and high schools, we also need to focus on communicating more effectively. we've heard very inconsistent information about re-opening guidelines from the district to

principals. that normal class sizes can be done and that they can set up normally. they don't need 6' of spacing anymore. we need a plan for middle and high schools and i heard alcan walk and chew gum at the same time. maybe we should move forward and actually make a plan for the rest of the district. thank you. >> clerk: hello, gerald. last time, gerald. thank you. >> hi there. >> clerk: go ahead. >> thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to repeat what a couple of the callers have mentioned about the need for out of school time programs and onsite after care eventually at

least if not immediately. it is difficult with you to expect people to come back and send their kids to school five days a week and pick them up at 1:30 kind of in the middle of the day. i understand we need to get things back going, but i would also like to make sure that especially, hopefully the spring especially come the fall that we don't have any obstacles to having some of these other programs to return to schools. furthermore it's my opinion that commissioner collins should resign. >> clerk: thank you. hello, chris. >> sorry. i was washing dishes. thank you so much. can you hear me? >> yes. >> okay. i'm calling in because i have a

number of colleagues both at the high school division and also in other areas who are special education teachers and who will be working with vocal groups who need child care. i also know that staff members at our site who aren't educators will need more child care options available to them and you guys need to help them. they can't afford some of the options that are available in the city and they can't afford to spend this time because they are spending longer hours planning and preparing for the return of students and you really do need to find a way to support them. we want to come back. we want to come back safely, but that shouldn't be at the cost of our own children and families either. i also just love for you guys to be more clear in your communication for families. i have a student on my case load whose dad doesn't have an e-mail address so he couldn't get the survey.

>> clerk: thank you for your time. thank you. hello, sharon. sharon, are you there? >> hi. sorry. i've been on the line for so long. a thousand people. just wanted to say i feel like all these conversations are going to be distracted by collins racist tweets and this incredibly pro and con system that marginalizes our voices. that's all i have. >> clerk: hello, julie. hello, julie, are you there? okay.

hello, linda? linda? >> i'm sorry. can you hear me? >> i can now. sorry. this is julie. i was trying to get through. i'm a commissioner on the commission on the status of women. i just wanted to emphasize a safety issue for families that rely on public information. i've called for hearings in the past about extra security and it only happens between narrow hours and given that public transportation will be more limited that's something to address. the other thing i want to address and bullying and we worked with that with the department. but i think as we go to in person learning especially for the asian students and also really to address this issue with parents who are limited english proefficient and finally i believe trading an unconscious bias throughout the district as well as in the schools but i really want to

focus on making sure there's good mental health for these students and i know a lot of students are afraid to go back to school and the attack is twice as high for women and girls. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, chris. >> hi guys. thanks for taking my public comment tonight. i want to also stress what other callers have said that we need to get a plan in place for middle school and high schoolers. i listened to some of the city attorney's arguments and the district attorney's arguments yesterday and i heard there was a plan, it just hasn't been shared. please share it with us, we really want to know and want additional support for those on i.e.p.s and those with disable abilities. i also think it's important to clear up the communication

that's been shared prior. i know the m.o.u. allowed some desks to be placed apart. a lot of schools are only going two days a week as a result at the elementary level. so i think we need to get desks moved. thanks guys for hearing my comments and let's get everybody who wants to return back in school in an equitable way. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, brandy. >> hi there. i just want to say a huge thanks to the board for just being steadfast and patient and careful and not doing a rushed re-opening. i know that new york city has had to close many schools since their buildings re-opened and i'm also wondering if in this

plan and i apologize if you mentioned this in the meeting and i missed it that there is consideration of the new variant, the b117 variant that has hit european schools really hard is much more contagious. i'm wondering if you're talking about spacing kids apart knowing this is more contagious and children are more susceptible to getting this new strain of coronavirus that that is factored in because that's really important. also, i know it's really hard for a lot of middle schoolers and high schoolers to wait, also, there are some health risks in sending kids back to school who are unvaccinated especially middle school and high school. so i just appreciate you being patient with all of that and keeping us all safe.

thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> hello, carla. >> i'd like to just thank you all for your time and attention. this is extremely overwhelming. i sometimes feel like i'm in the indiana jones movie and i'm in front of the boulder there were lots and lot officer questions and that brings me to the need for much more clear communication especially for our special education families but also for our special education teachers and paras. so everybody's on the same page and we can all move forward. exciting news for me, i got to be in my classroom today to see the inside of my classroom and i get to go back the first week of april and set it up. i get to be with my kids again

and i'm extremely excited. that being said, i would like to look forward to perhaps a five day opened in the fall and this is just a time for getting kids back in the class and this be a training process that we can learn and collect data from. you can go back and forth between distanced learning and in person once we just get everyone in place so we're not wasting time trying to go back and recon figure. >> thank you. that's the time. >> clerk: that's the time. >> i'm sorry. thanks everybody. bye. >> clerk: hello, iris. >> hi. i just wanted to ask nowhere in that presentation did i see any work being done to get enough students back to qualify for

the state's re-opening money and the district would be eligible for up to $18 million and i just don't understand why we're not doing the work to make that happen because the district's looking at a huge deficit. why aren't things being done to get the state re-opening money? thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, bonita. >> hi. thank you for taking my call. i am a transitional kindergarten teacher at cobb elementary school and i have something to read from a student in the 5th grade named naja. she says, "i don't think it's

fair how the kids at school get four hours of learning, but the people on zoom only get two and a half hours. education is very important in everyone's lives. speaking of the kids on zoom after they get out of zoom, do you know what they're going to do? they are just going to hop on their phones and play games. the phones are not allowed in class. when you're at home, you can do whatever you want. i think that someone should try to figure out how to get all of us in class together because this is so irritating. so why did the kids on zoom have to get up so early so our teacher can teach us and the kids going to school get up at 8:00 so they can get ready to go to school. how is that fair?" >> clerk: thank you. >> thank you. >> clerk: hello, laura.

>> hi. it's great that some students are going back to school this spring. my kids are really excited about that. they've been sitting at home all year watching me go to teach in person at the private school where i work where our students have been in person safely since october. now, they're finally getting a chance. but i am really disappointed that there are as of yet no plans returning middle and high school students to the classroom. we need a plan to return all kids back to in person schooling this year. we're now one of the last schools to re-open. we don't even have a plan for it. considering the fact that it's been available to all students and teachers this is ridiculous. i'm also really upset to hear that guidelines are being set. despite the fact that the m.o.u. specifies that classes can be set up for the normal

number of students. we need better and clearer communication about setting up school sites to welcome back as many students who want to return. >> clerk: thank you. that's your time. hello, ashley. >> hi, thank you. so i wanted to ask that we consider ensuring that our students have safe transportation options to and from school on day one and opening schools back up. we have to think about our families moving safely as they make their trek to and from school. we'd like to propose coordinating with muni to arrange for a elementary school students and other tenderloin neighborhoods. not only will this minimize the possibility of outbreaks at school, but it will alleviate any families still walking through the neighborhood, the tenderloin neighborhood. i also want to say thank you

all for what you've been doing. i understand this is a big issue in trying to re-open schools safely is a large task. and thank you for everything you guys have been doing. i understand it's a big issue that we all have to deal with and we also have to think about our teachers, our people as well and we want to make sure that they're safe. thanks. >> clerk: thank you. hello, it says [inaudible] method. >> hello. my name is angela rosa. that's my business name. but i wanted to share, i am president at dianne feinstein elementary school. i'd also like to ask our i.e.p. students if special attention is all that they need in returning back to school. i also want to share the action of the board and racist

comments by allison collins has been distracting to all measures you guys have taken in such a positive way. please make sure students return back in a safe way. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, mary. >> yes. hi. i am a filipino proud educator here for the district this is such a heavy lift. i want to say that one, i stand in solidarity our asian

american community and our black and brown students that we have to make sure our board keeps it together. we are relying on the board of education to work together to help our students and families and what i'm seeing right now is a disjointed board. the questions and decisions that can be made on behalf of our students and families. i am pleading with you all to have a restorative conversation where you're talking together to make things right. we are restorative practices district. so in order to make sure that we are safely supporting our students again and coming back to school, i'm asking you as a board to make sure that you work it out so you that you can be there and show up for our students and families.

>> clerk: hello, ms. wendy, i had to promote you to panelist so your video will be seen unless you turned it off. are you there? ms. wendy? okay. hello, sara. >> hi. this is going to be really short since most a lot of people have made the same points that i wanted to highlight. as an elementary school parent, i appreciate the work that's been done around in-person learning plans. my kids are excited to get back. and so i thank you for that. but we still have no in learning plan for middle and high school students. san francisco is one of the last big cities in the nation to not have a plan to re-open those schools. and the middle school and high school students of san francisco unified deserve the

exact same opportunities. thank you. [please stand by]

>> my question now is, what will the school be like. now we live in a small what drew -- one bedroom apartment in the richmond district. i would like to know how to get in touch with the school district in order for that school to be able to -- [indiscernible]. >> i'm sorry. >> this is only to comment on the return to in person learning update. >> okay. i have no idea what the return

to learning update is like for our school. >> thank you. >> hello, dp. >> hello. good evening. i just have a quick question. on the website you guys have this tuition based thing regarding prekindergarten and i was just wondering, for the return of in person learning, does that still count? >> thank you. hello, evette? >> thank you so much. i appreciate everyone's comments tonight about connecting and restorative justice. i won't go into that too much. restorative practices are also a lot of things that black and brown children don't experience at school in many ways because they, unfortunately, are left

out of the conversations. i would like to clarify the transportation when we go back to school. i also would like to recognize we will focus on the returned to school of special ed children. for all of the grades. we do have the amount of space, and according to c.d.c., the amount of space of regulated. also, when someone mentions that two and half hours is standard for children, that has been happening. i would like other people to remember that there shouldn't be that many changes, considering we are all about to be vaccinated in the city. finally, i will hang up. please see that your children are able to get in. this includes five full days for not -- for all your children, which includes middle and high school students.

>> thank you. good night. >> hello, hope? >> thank you. >> i'm sorry, we can't hear you. we can't hear you. >> okay. you can't hear me at all? >> that is better. go ahead. >> okay. i just want to think the board -- i want to thank the board. [indiscernible] >> okay, i'm sorry. it's breaking up. [indiscernible] i would like to extend the support. i would love to have conversation about how we will

safely support the students. i echo everything that has been said. we need to stop focusing on all this other stuff and we need to focus on our babies. keep this work -- it is a lot of us on the ground doing it. we can't do this if we are fighting when our children are the priority. >> thank you. >> hello, rob? hello, rob, are you there? hello, meredith? >> i forgot i had my hand raised. i just want to echo some of the comments. it is a disgrace that we don't have plans to bring back students. we are seeing we are the last in the nation of the top 25 district, top 25 metro areas.

we are a natio