>> i will answer that. the dashboard bids shall -- itself, which shows the progress towards different indicators is in a programme. there is another part of it that is embedded on the website that uses google translate. for families and students, the return safely plan is all on the website there. it is the best place to get detailed information, as well as the family digest that goes out. we share with all of our staff the key messages for families because we know for a lot of families you're not accessing information online and it is a big way that they will get that information. and then we also have the family resource link when families can call, including if they want the dashboard information. they can call the resource link and then you can go through the

information with them. >> thank you. my next question is about something public commentary mentioned about asking for more resources on mental health to be distributed to the students. i was wondering if it's possible to add those to our monthly student newsletter. >> i would love to. i would love to make sure, when we work with the community support division to get more of that information out. i will be connecting with natalie and her team. to see what we can share. that is a great additional menu. >> thank you. another question i have is will students have the availability

to express their frustration about the lack of accommodation in cheerleading? i just want to get that answer. >> do you have a response to that? >> i just wanted to ask, when you say cheerleading, you mean the sport, not the part that goes with football games? yeah, i really drawing a blank as to why we don't include it. i would have to go back and come back to you. i have to come and look. >> okay. thank you. one of my final questions, for the students who have less than 40% engagement, if their

there families responded they were not interested or couldn't return to school in person, what are the ways that we can make sure they get the support that they need through this learning? >> that is something that the site coordinator care team are working with with the classroom teachers. there will be different plans depending on the circumstances for the students. >> okay. that is good to hear. thanks. those are all the questions i have right now. thank you so much, everyone. >> thank you, student delegate for asking those questions. i want to make sure -- [indiscernible]

>> thank you, president lopez. i wanted to follow-up on the question that some of us have been asking about for a while around middle and high schools. in addition to the vulnerable populations, the one secondary grade that would allow us to secure this and send us funding. >> thank you, commissioner alexander. as you know, we have had the plan in place for some time now of the grade levels we were going to target and bring back.

as you know, we were able to collapse some of those as the date got closer, which is you get some of the kindergarten through two. we had those grade levels targeted, as well as, you just mentioned, the secondary populations. that is what we have been working on. the initial plan was to bring those groups back and continue to learn, but we collapse to them. that has been the target this entire time. that is what we have been focused on. the bottom line is, if we are going to, for example, go to try to shift and bring back an additional grade, it would mean that we wouldn't be able to hit the target for our population for the april 26 date. that could happen.

at this point, we have determined that that isn't what they wanted to do. they wanted to continue focusing on the areas that we said we would focus on. we have looked at this in every way. we have looked at the issues that rise up when returning staff, with facilities, all of that, we have just been shifting resources from where we have them right now, to bringing them back. the answer of the wide, is it could happen, but it just means we would not be able to meet the deadlines with our populations. >> so, these are also required by the f.d.a., correct? >> as you know, it is basically

a late arrival to the scene. this was our initial focus for it was even brought in. >> i understand that. i guess i trying to understand, i trying to ensure that we have a plan to meet the requirements. what i'm hearing is, maybe we don't? is that right? i want to make sure i getting priority on that. >> right now the focus has been on if the groups -- the groups that you have just seen in the presentation. we know that has been a request from the public and several board members. as we looked at that, we determined, is it possible to do this? is it possible to bring back an additional grade level?

every way we look at it, if we went that route, we will not be able -- to bring back the focal population would be delayed. >> here is my concern. i think we all agree on the educational benefits of bringing back as many students as we can, as safely as we can. i think that is clear. i just want to speak a little bit to the funding issue my understanding is it would be in the neighborhood of 15-$80 million depending upon exactly one between april 1st and may 15th, maybe a little less. somewhere in that range if we get -- meet those requirements before may 15th. tonight, later tonight, we will be asked to approve contracts for senior staff or deputies and

chiefs. we have an incredibly talented team in the district. we will be asked to approve, what i calculated was the cumulative total of $3.8 million in contracts for 11 chiefs and three deputies, between the one year and what were your contract, we are being asked to put on the table $3.8 million to hire this team, that -- we are maybe talking $5 million with benefits. to me -- we serve families, that for whom that kind of money is beyond their wildest dreams.

we have compensated those people because of their talent, because of the quality of the leadership in the district. that we have hired a team and again, -- and i support bringing forward those contracts tonight. for me, it is hard to go back to the public and say, we will leave $15 million on the table, and our team, you know, the quality team that we are putting this down for can't produce one secondary grade, it doesn't even need to be a hybrid. the hybrid model is it could be one day a week. on a very practical level, i find it hard to believe that our incredibly talented team, and again, it is a team effort. we are putting --

[indiscernible] -- to continue to invest. i think we need to produce those results for our district. otherwise how will we replace that money? i guess that would be my question. >> commissioner alexander, you just talked about the incredible talent of this team, the work ethic of this team, and what i believe is the smartness of this team. it is that team that has gone every side of this issue. as you said, it could be to go after the 15 million, but it will be at the expense of the focal population. i just telling you, we have looked at it every way. we want to bring back those students, but it will mean pushing those dates back. it can happen, but know that a choice has to be made.

as you talk about the team, i'm telling you, this is the team that i have talked with, that we have looked at every side of this issue. it is not like we are saying we don't want to do this, of course, we would like to keep the exact date for the population and bring back another grade level. this team has looked at it every single way, every single time. my hope is that a big part of why the board hires the students is to make sure i working with that team and looking at it every single way. this is the result that comes back. if it is, in fact, that the 15 million you want to go after that we absolutely can do that. but just know, it means at the expense of the focal population. >> i feel that and respect that. i agree with you. i'm not trying to question the team. i going to support those contracts tonight. i and standing behind that.

my question is, i don't know, it

just feels like -- i think this team is incredible, but it feels like we are in a very difficult spot. i don't know how to explain that to the public to say, you know, we can't do this. that feels really challenging. i will be there again. you are the superintendent. i will be here in november, but i wanted to express it is my strong desire that we meet the requirements that the 806 -- of the 806 and make that happen. >> thank you, again for your leadership. >> i'm not trying to disparage anyone. i know this has been incredibly hard. we do have to be accountable collectively as a district and as a team. thank you. >> if i could just add really quick, we hope to give more background. this is certainly something that

we have been discussing every day. [indiscernible] there was a big push to see what that could look like. i understand all of the sides. i hear the superintendent. what we need to see is this is building on how we can open up more space for our students and build up to the fall. i want to remind us that what we are planning is focusing on students with the highest needs and moving forward so it is not lost. i just wanted to ensure those thoughts we move on.

>> thank you. i wanted to appreciate the public, the school community for their comments on the reopening plan and their thoughts on what needs to happen. i think it is important the public plays an active role in giving a critique and feedback on how we can improve things. represents all the things that i would want to see in it. i do believe it is the best plan we can pull together based on collective bargaining and understand the limitations of compromise and not just being able to dictate. it is a delicate balance and downs. for me, as a board member, i want to do everything i can to make sure we are addressing the concerns in the community is much as we can assume move forward and ensure that as we start back with our in person line -- learning, that we continue that for all the grades and do everything we can to get

as much safe, and in person for families with students as possible and letting families know they are heard and seen and we want them to understand and feel that their voice and concerns are part of the planning processes that we move forward. a lot of appreciation to the community members, families, students and everyone who came out and spoke and gave us advice on how we can improve the plan as we continue to make it better for the families in our district. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you. thank you to the public for coming out to lend comments and advice, to the board, and to staff. i have a questions and -- question about distancing. there are a number of folks who are commenting about the concern that there is not clear guidance around the possibility of going

to the 4-foot distancing. i would like some information around that about what is getting to the site. top of that, the c.d.c. has gone to the 3-foot distancing and i think california has as well. the department of public health has adopted the 3-foot distancing guidance, and if so, is that what the plan will be? >> first i will ask the deputy superintendent to talk about what is going to the site and either myself -- i will talk more about the 3 feet -- [indiscernible] [indiscernible]

>> there are a number of folks talking about communication in general. specifically on the notion that to maximize getting more students back into the classroom, that the four foot guidance would be utilized and it sounds like there are some leaders that don't know that or are disagreeing with that doing it differently. >> however,, we are making important changes? >> we do try to keep leaders up-to-date with the current information. there seems to be confusion. we will follow up and adjust

that. i want to have daniel speak specifically to what the guidance is. we have a number of ways with in person and live meetings and written communication, as well is walking with sight leaders. we use these to try to address confusion when it comes up and we continue to do that. >> i will say this before another spee on. as you can recall, we were in one meeting where the guidance shifted from 60 -- six feet 24 feet. and then a week or two later, it shifted again. understand, as people are coming on, we are setting up classrooms, getting them ready, and then there is a shift.

i hearing, why haven't you made this change? these are all shifts that have happened in realtime, very fast. we are trying to shift an entire system to meet it as much as we possibly can. but the hope is, there is some understanding that this is the virus that completely shifts. at one point, we had determined that we were going to open schools and set a date. and when the date came around, we are in the deepest part of the virus ever. it is a constant shift of the virus and the expectations and the tools that we use around the virus. can you talk about the shifts and what we have agreed to? >> sure. i want to emphasize something you said because interchanging as we are trying to negotiate agreements. yesterday, when we were in

court, i heard the city attorney ask if we were going to follow the 3 feet guidance. at the moment she asked that, we hadn't actually given that guidance. so things are happening so quickly that when we are negotiating these agreements and we are coming to compromise, we have to, you know, we are trying to meet our educators halfway. what we have agreed to with elementary schools is we will try to accomplish the key to distancing. if that is not possible, we will go to as little as 4 feet. that is only for the six weeks to try to get back elementary students. >> okay. but we could if d.p.h. gave the guidance. did they give the guidance for 3 feet? >> i believe today or yesterday afternoon they follow the guidance from state department of health with some variation in

language. essentially they said they could go to as little as 3 feet. remember, we had to negotiate an agreement with our teachers around health and safety conditions and that was a critically important piece to our teacher's union and that is the compromise we made. as little as 4 feet. >> my understanding was if the general guidance from the department of public health and the state was whatever it landed on, that we would put the provision in our agreement and they would allow us to do the lower distancing. we are compromising on this. >> right. i'm saying, in general, what you described is true. as health and safety guidelines change, there are some areas where we have compromise and said, for example, with 4 feet of distance, we will not go lower than 4 feet for the

approximate six weeks that we are talking about. >> i guess i could be okay with 4 feet, but what we are hearing is there are leaders who are not going -- there are some sites that are refusing to go from six to four. even with the demand, with the high demand -- >> right. we are hearing that, but we haven't heard specifics. as we get those specifics we can correct that. because things are shifting so quickly, site leaders aren't necessarily on top of how they are shifting. at one point, our classroom sizes were limited to 14 students. that is not the case anymore. at one point, that is what leaders understood. recently we have heard that

being reiterated and we have had to correct that. we are not passed 14 students. is there misinformation or misunderstanding? probably because. >> thank you. i just want to piggyback on commissioner alexander's concern about trying to get the one grade level back in secondary to meet the requirement to get -- it will look around $15 million, i think. if he is correct and we can do a hybrid model and maybe have only very limited return in person, we can qualify for the funds. i'm not really asking for this right now, but i would like that to be explored if it hasn't been explored with the team.

can we get -- are they getting the option to come back. >> low, this is jean. of course,, we will come back. we understand there is some miscommunication up there. we are going to but in that and make sure everyone understands they have access to their learning in person. >> it feels like weeks and months that we have been working

on this. dr. matthews, we have spoken at length and with the staff. i hear you that is a recommendation that is coming from staff. it is a follow-up to understand the rationale and how we arrived there and why there is some desire from other board members to understand what those trade-offs are, knowing there might be a delay. that is just follow-up i would like to request. you don't have to respond at this minute, but that is top of mind. also wanting to recognize that, you know, as we can bring on more of our secondary students back, then i feel that the integration will be going into summer, and then ultimately, the intent of the commitment of the full return in the fall. i just wanted to name that again about the importance of the potential bringing back as many students as possible this spring. i just want to echo a lot of the follow-up questions.

and just overall hearing, not only from public comment, but the importance of the consistent communication all the way from the district, all the way to the site level and the families who don't have any solutions or questions specifically. i would just like to continue to really understand where the gaps may be and how we can address them moving forward. thank you. >> did you want to respond to now? or were you just echoing? >> i was just echoing. >> i guess i will ask the question. as you say, other commissioners asked that also. i just explained that -- so you say, what are the trade-offs? the trade-offs are that we would have to -- we would end up moving back the date.

that is the ultimate question. three of you have said you are interested in that. i guess that is the bottom line. is the board, and maybe we will hear from this conversation, is the board saying we want staff to shift back the date to bring back vocal students? we kept resisting that these are the priority populations. these are the groups we are bringing back, these are the dates we are bringing back. the understanding is that if you want us to make that shift, if you want us to go after a grade level, whatever grade level that is, in some shape or form, the trade-off is we will be bringing back the vocal groups in the timeline that we said. if that is the desire of the board, i can count, you just

need to make that public and make it clear so we understand that. we ship -- shift off the population. we have been presenting that since we presented the timeline. i thought there was an agreement on who we were bringing back. i know the lateness of the governor's proposal, and the dollars that were attached to it, you know, from my perspective, i can see a shift happening. if that is the case, we just need to learn -- you know that. >> i would like to chime in because i think having the choice, having the need to pin one group against the other puts commissioners in a difficult position. i imagine we don't want to do that. there is this idea that we have plans to bring back middle school and high school students,

and again, this is reminding that this is it. this is our focus. it has been our priority. if there is a way to show the state that through this route we qualify for the funding, then maybe that is a possibility. or trying to figure out any other way, but it sounds like this has been a conversation. i just don't want us to be put in a position where we have to choose. i sure we can have this ability on a separate time and do that. i do want to point that out that there is an opportunity to return in the spring. okay. commissioner, alexander?

>> a quick follow-up. there aren't a lot of other large districts in california qualifying for this. that is what seems strange for me. i don't know. does anyone know? what other large district is qualifying for this and how did they do it? that would be my question? [indiscernible] >> what did mar say? >> if they hadn't prioritized this, sounds like they would be better able to identify the secondary grade level to bring in and qualify for the funding.

i don't know if that's the case. we identified it and prioritized it, and it sounds like we can't do both. we can't have, at the same time, have all the vocal students be required to come back, and also bring back one secondary strand of students. >> have we prioritized students beyond the ones that are there? this includes those students. i don't know if it is the same one. can someone on staff clarify that. >> dr. matthews, i can trying to help on a couple of these questions. as far as the requirements of the incentive funding, i think

the actual bill was the assembly version, the requirement, the list of the populations, actually aligns well with the student population that are in our plan and to your question of other districts, i don't know that other staff have more information about this. for my part, i will say we have not done an exhaustive, you know, survey or found or, you know, to be honest, really exhaustively looked for the status of other districts and whether they are planning to apply or whether their plans meet the requirements. we have heard anecdotally a couple of things here or there about plans and other areas, but

in fairness, i think this is a sense, rather than formal research or anything. i suspect many districts are also having these types of conversations mapping their plans with the requirements of the bill and to see whether they can or can't meet the requirements of what the impact would be. i would like to comment on one clarification. i think a couple of the commissioners commented on the timing. just for the record, the bill that was announced, there have been lots of discussions about this reopening incentive grant. the element about the secondary grade.

it hasn't been that long. i know many things are happening every day, but for clarification, it hasn't been months since that element has been in the mix, if you will. i think our team have been, as we said in prior meetings, have been taking a closer look at this. so i just wanted to clarify that. we haven't been dawdling on this question. as far as the plans for the secondary grades, maybe i can say one more thing. the resolution that the commissioners passed in november, i believe our phase two be planned is aligned to the requirements of the resolution, which, at that time was more focused on the students in phase two be. >> thank you, for the clarification. lastly, vice president collins?

>> thank you. for the public, i think i hearing different things. i want to state for myself, we are opening middle and pay a schools, we are just not opening them for every student. we are opening them for students that we prioritized. what i am hearing you say is if you could remind us again, who are the students we decided to prioritize, and then what we are saying is priority. what i hearing you say is if we wanted to open for those priority students, then we would have to and an additional grade level. our priority students would have to come back to middle and his school later -- middle and high school later.

this would also include the moderate and severe students as well. >> the secondary students that we prioritized, we have noted one category already. they are mild to severe students. it is our homeless youth, our county schools, students and county schools -- >> students that have demonstrated limited online engagement, students in the foster programme, of students in public housing. and our students were included in the priority groups. >> they wouldn't be delayed. this discussion wasn't affecting them but it was affecting our priority students.

how many students is that in total? just so i can get a sense of the scale? give me a minute to have someone help me. is foster youth, unhoused youth, newcomer students and students living in low income housing and s.r.o.s. >> the number is around 1,100, it is just forward new coming students. we're looking at homeless youth and others. it is about 4,000 students in that category. >> and that is middle and high school? >> yeah. >> i want to understand, we all want our kids to get back. we are opening -- the district

is opening middle and high, in addition to the students who are receiving education with moderate and severe disabilities. we are also going to be opening up for 4,000 students that are foster youth, unhoused youth, students living in single room occupancy, low income housing, and also limited engagement students, students who are disconnected, and newcomer students. those students will be part of the 4,000 that are middle and high. yeah. okay. the question that i hearing from the superintendent, you don't have to answer now, if we wanted to try to bring back a full grade level, the priority question, as commissioner lam says, we have to make priorities. we have to choose. we are constrained. if we want to bring back a full

grade level to bring more money, which is good, then if that means those students, homeless youth, foster youth, and all those really high priority students, they may -- they would have to come to school later. if that is the case, my question is, how much later? it would be good for us to grapple with that, you know, just as a body. i appreciate that. i do want them to know, it is not like schools aren't open, they are just not open for some students. i want to shift quickly to transportation. i hearing from communities, specifically in certain neighborhoods that it will not be totally up to speed. i just wanted to know. if you don't have the answers,

please let me know. >> in terms of transportation, how is munimobile figuring out what the needs are for certain communities to come back to school? i'm also hearing this that their families in the tenderloin that have transportation needs and i not aware of other neighborhoods, but i concerned that transportation is always an issue. it is harder now. how is transport serving our families to make sure they have public transportation to get to schools when they open? >> i know we have someone from

sfmta that is in the audience tonight. i don't know if he wants to raise this or if you want to hear from them directly. i can share that from the perspective, we are working to organize transportation for any students that have transportation written into this. we are also looking to activate as many generalized routes as we can, including for some of the schools. reading is an example of a school that normally has a yellow school bus. we want to be able to reactivate that. we have looked to see at children enrolled in those schools. we are designing stops that are close to public housing and areas of the city where there are high concentrations of students who are eligible for free and reduced priced meals. we are hoping to activate that and have it all up on the web by

this friday. and in the letter that is going out to families, we will be sharing information with them and directing them to the general education transportation information. >> you are saying our buses or munimobile buses? >> i was talking about our buses. i know that with sfmta they are looking to reactivate the safe routes in the school. there are walking school buses in the tenderloin. so i know they are looking to make sure they can reactivate in a way that complies with all of the department of public health guidelines with all the numbers of people. you have to think about social distancing. >> and you don't work for the sfmta? i understand that.

i know students rely on a variety of transportations and it is a safe way to get to school, but it is not a bus. do you know if sfmta -- how are they connecting with families to know what their needs are around transportation? do you know? i would love to hear from sfmta about that. >> yes. i do know that. we have a meeting later this week. we want to make sure that we are not inundating principles with additional surveys. we are going to talk about -- that is one strategy that they wanted to use together additional information and as i mentioned earlier in the conversation, we have maintained routes since august.

>> thank you. the question is, two, families are worried about it. maybe they shouldn't be if you are doing planning. or maybe they should. one question is, how did they know what will or won't -- how are we communicating this to families? >> we are not communicating anything about munimobile. this week we will be sending out letters to families that we are providing door-to-door transportation to so they will get that. and for children on the general education, in the letter packet we are sending out this friday

to all student -- all students, we are directing them to the webpage that has an opportunity for them to sign up if they are interested in general information transportation. >> general people to sign up if they need it? >> for the yellow buses. a limited number of yellow buses that we are offering. >> my open question, and you don't have to answer it, it might also be an sfmta question. i and happy to know, first of all, thank you for your work. i know it is a complicated system. and the fact you are planning ahead for our buses, i would love to know from sfmta how they might be communicating with families at this time through us about, you know, i don't know if families -- what their needs are for the buses, but i do know, i thank you did a presentation last year before the pandemic that it was something like

1.5 miles is the average distance that families travel for elementary school. i don't know if that's right. i remember presentation and seeing that. if that is true, you know, some people do drive, some people walk, but there are families who do rely on that. and definitely middle and high school. that is a whole other ball park. i know high schoolers, my high schoolers go everywhere. and middle schoolers, some of them do, too. if you could follow up with us, i would love to hear from, you know, i know you are working with munimobile and sfmta, and it would be great to hear from them how are they -- how they are gathering information and sharing it out. i don't want families to not come back because they are thinking they don't have transportation when they do, or when they don't have it, i want them to be able to advocate, you know, so they can let us know. sometimes we just miss things and we are doing so much. you worked two different systems. i know you are trying to

coordinate. i appreciate that work. >> i do know at the elementary school -- the level, we are opening up for 10% of families who rely on public transportation. over 50% commute to school via car. >> okay. do you know what neighborhoods be more impacted. it might be a way to focus our energy. i hearing this from the tenderloin. maybe that zone, it is hard to park. there are certain neighborhoods, you know, it would be great -- if you have that data, that's wonderful. maybe we can focus our energies on helping many mobile focus on those families. i would love to bring more families back. if transportation is that issue, you know, if we can support, that would be great. thank you for that. we could follow up on that. i guess the other question was on the san francisco public library. i'm really excited about the library.

i'm really excited about our scholar card. my kids have them. i guess one question i have, we haven't -- there is a lot of translation interpretation. i love the public library and librarians. [please stand by]

>> once we have those books that might not be on that list but accessible in the library. we do work prior to help our students make those choices and also to remind them how to use their scholar cards and make sure they have them and make sure they're set up to access the public library. i so know in terms of the public library, they still have about 200 workers or staff who are deployed for disaster services. i know they are working to bring those staff back into the library and prepare the library for opening and i know once that happens in previous years in some ways making those

choices and be able to provide those resources. if you would like more detail around the information for the public. >> thank you. and, i guess, i would like to make a request. i'm interested in hearing from other families as well. i love the librarians in the sf public library. i'm really excited that books are going out but i know as a former english teacher, kids say they don't like books. i know that book is going to get a student into reading and i think the summer is a great time excited about independent reading and i'll tell you, parents need help. even if you have a student who loves reading, they're reading so fast you can't keep up. it's like feeding them spinach. if you've got a great librarian.

and so i would love it if we can find a way to maybe advocate if it isn't in the plans just get clearer clarity on how we can have librarians even if the libraries aren't open, they can be available to support us during summer school or also maybe in some of the after school programs connecting kids with learning how to find books that they like and learning about themselves as in accessing librarying whether it's online, going online and using the catalog and things like that or if the book mobile comes and the librarian's there to help them with that. kids are coming back to summer school. i think, for me the summer program in the library has a lot to do with the people in

them. and so anyway just a plug for the sf public library and also our librarians and thank you for the work that you do in, dr. priestly with bringing all of us kind of together with all these agencies. those are my questions. thank you. >> commissioner moliga: i want to go back to the $15 million, $18 million conversation. thank you superintendent matthews, thank you to the staff. appreciate it. and so i do think it's an important topic and i just want to kind of dig into it a little bit more just to see if we can get a bit more. i do think we should do, you know all we can to figure out how to make it work. $15 million is a lot of money

especially with this budget deficit that we're trying to deal with. so question, superintendent matthews, when you say we would potentially have to push back the date for our students, what would that look like? >> if you mean when or how long they go back? i don't know but the reason i say that is because of the work that, for example, the work that's going in to bringing back that staff, the work that's going in to notices for that student population, the work that's going in to getting those classrooms ready for those students, all of that ends up shifting in to whatever grade level we say. from the focal population to the grade level we're trying to move back. in terms of what it looks like,

that's what it's going to look like on the ground. >> commissioner moliga: thank you. what's the current engagement with our focal group students and how many of them do we know are going to come back to in person? do we have a count on that, yet? >> i don't exactly. i know this survey. i saw you moving. no. the survey results, i know we're in and we're calculating but i'm not sure if the numbers. do we have those exact numbers deputy superintendent? >> we know that 53%, commissioner moliga, want to return. i'm just trying to get this accurate data to be able to respond to your question. you had a discussion about and that's maybe what i was muted

for. >> commissioner moliga: you can feel free to respond to what you heard. >> i was going to say what dough mean. like i said, we know it's about 53% of those local populations who said to date, they are wanting to return to in person learning. >> commissioner moliga: so that's 50% of 4,000 kids. >> yes. >> commissioner moliga: that's about 2,500 kids. and if we were to shift, what would those numbers be? >> if it's a grade level, it's about whatever grade level, you can say on average about 3,500 to 3,800, and if the numbers hold up in terms of return which is about 2/3, you're talking about approximately the same number, 2,500. >> let's say we said we were going to try to bring back the 6th grade, in order to do that, we anticipate because every

time we send out the surveys, it's about 2/3 that want to return. if you figure 3,800, 2/3 of that is about 2,500. >> commissioner moliga: so we're saying with those numbers, we don't think we can make it work? >> no. i said we could. it means if you're talking about bringing them both back, no. we can't do that. and as we've said earlier, we have focused on that group because that's where we believed was the priority that we had all agreed on on march 1st, the 8098 was released and that's when conversations started to shift well can we do this also and that's what the conversation has been as you heard in every policy team meets every week and we've been spending hours to try to figure out how we could do this and at the end of

the day when we looked at it from all those angles, we could not do both. >> commissioner moliga: could not do both. okay. i appreciate that. i think just being like, you know, open and transparent about the situation like for the groups is very important. >> right. then, we just got new information about things we could potentially do. and so, you know, i think we should -- >> i don't want to leave that hanging. when you say we got new information of what we can do, what do you mean? >>? >> commissioner moliga: in terms of the funding. you said like the focus group. but there's been this new funding that came down in terms of trying to put out a secondary grade so we can recoup the $15 million to

$18 million. i think that's new information and, you know, i think it's something for us to like and you're saying we're working on it already which i 100% agree that you guys are or i trust you guys are, but i think we have to continue working on it and trying to figure out how to make it work and working on those numbers because, you know, again, i'm just going back to the reality and even talking to other board commissioners like, you know, last month was last month. now this month is a different month in terms of priorities. you know, we have to deal with a budget deficit and if we have to have a conversation around you know what is the priority of our focal students, i think we should definitely do that just to be able to try to get some of this money for that. $15 million, $18 million is not easy to come by and so i think we should definitely figure out if we can make this happen and

i know folks that have said they've thought about all this, that, and the third, but i think we should continue trying so i just wanted to put that out there. and i know you guys are working hard and i appreciate it. and then the second one, i just want to get back to the cbo question and i just want to ask all the time, are we on track to bringing our cbos back this spring? i know there was a conversation about summertime, but has anything shifting? >> sure, commissioner moliga. so there are two conversations happening right now and so we're looking right now for the sixth week in the spring bringing back limited community based organizations wednesday as well as potentially lunch and recess. so we are working with that smaller group which are mostly excellent and beacon sites and we're working on language and we've found funding for them

which is really great. so that's moving along. in the summer, we are also because we have had the presentation last week seems like a long time ago and that conversation with cbos is also moving along. we're hoping that's a more expansive offer trying to coordinate between dr. priestly's team that excel bc on my side and of course facilities like what facilities are open. so in kind of the short answer is in the six week period there will be limited partnership with our cbos and then going in to the summer, we're hoping to expand and as dr. matthews and many of us said before, we're really planning on full in person learning going into next year and that would include our community partners. >> commissioner moliga: again. i appreciate it, staff. i know it's been a hard couple of weeks trying to get it done.

i really do appreciate it. so thank you. >> can i just ask one more question. >> president lopez: yes. and i also see commissioner lam and so i want to make sure. >> okay. i'll go. my question is around we've been getting a number of requests including tonight in public comment around potential staff child care. so for teachers and others who are going to be going back into the classroom has there been any help for your team? >> president lopez: i did bring this up with superintendent matthews today, but there's been discussion with city supervisors to support in these efforts. so we've -- i was able to speak

with h.r. to try and narrow down a number and uesf was trying to find a number in how that can be paired with city programs so i know supervisor melgar is also holding that. i don't know, superintendent matthews since our conversation if you wanted to add anything. >> president lopez: you are on mute though. >> yes. i am. i have to do that at least once per meeting. yeah. i would say that the list of trying to move swiftly to bring back the numbers of students that we're trying to bring back is at the top of our priority and the top of our list and the more that we can partner with the city in this area for the city to take the list the better the position we're going to be on to try to take that on

also. we've had those conversations as apresident lopez has said and we're hoping to reach out for assistance in this area with the city with our partnership would really greatly benefit us to be able to fully focus or fully concentrate on beginning to bring back our students april 12th. >> president lopez: thank you. and, i do see additional hands for. >> commissioner lam: commissioner lam and commissioner alexander. >> commissioner lam: i just wanted to bring back around a secondary grade and the responses so far. so it might be especially00

students. so that's my request as a followup. and, then, second, i wanted to ask chief smith around what are the health and safety protocols, training or supports available to our cbos as they do come back? they're going to be a very important partner of ours and when our schools are returning to in person learning? >> thank you commissioner lam, for the question. our staff that work with our community based organizations that will be coming back onto our sites will have access to the same training module that our staff are accessing through what we call our platform and i

apologize i don't know what it stands for but it's the platform that holds our training module. that will be acceptable to them and they will get the same types of training that our staff are receiving around that and whatever happens at a school site, you know, it's led by administer. the other thing is most of our community based partners actually have been implementing the protocols for many years so we will probably learn from them since many of them have been running in person running and already are familiar with the health and safety protocols. but they'll have access to everything that our staff have access to. >> commissioner lam: and just as a followup, are those resources available now or is it a rolling basis similar to our different, you know, on boarding and the waves of our schools? >> we have a version that is

available to them now. we haven't gotten to our training, but they have access to all of content already and then we're just trying to get them access to the training module and go through the slides and get the certificate and things like that. but they have access to all the content already. >> commissioner lam: thank you. >> commissioner sanchez: commissioner lam, were you finished? yeah. i just want to clarify because i got a little confused. so superintendent matthews. when you said we could not do both focal groups and one secondary grade is that meaning that we then cannot qualify for as many anyway. i guess. >> yes. that's what that means. in order to get those ballots,

you have to bring back an additional grade. that's what that means. >> commissioner alexander: but we also have to bring back the focal population. >> right. >> commissioner alexander: i wasn't sure if i heard you say. i guess my question to just be simple >> yeah, so this is what we looked at. and it's no if we're bringing back the focal population.

so if we changed that and say could we possibly bring back then the one grade level and then at some point get the focal population back, i'm not sure because we have not looked at that question. yeah. i'll just leave it at that. the answer is i don't know commissioner alexander. >> commissioner alexander: that makes sense. i guess for me, from a decision making policy point of view, that would be a really important question to answer. so as of it wasn't that long ago but it was three weeks ago and i understand there's a million things happen. i understand to make a decision, to forgo $15 million is a big decision in my part. i think we just need to know the imp indications of that. and may 15th is the final date to get any of the money. after may 15th, we wouldn't

qualify for any. so i guess just to know, is there an option that gets us at least a big chunk of that money and it's not to me it's not just about the money but that money actually allows us to give more resources to the focal students. if we bring focal students back two weeks later, $15 million more that allows us to serve our focal students much better for the next six months to a year. i just want to be clear it's not just about the dollars but those dollars actually allow us. so if we had to delay by a couple weeks, i personally would be okay with that. so i think that -- i don't know what the timeline because i feel it's very timely and i don't know if you need additional guidance from us. i just don't want to get behind the eight ball and by the way,

we can't get the state money. >> commissioner: just in that lane, one thing i think it wasn't just the grade level but it was every day you don't do what you're supposed to do, there's less money. so i think there's a timing think like as far as we open up. that's the question. >> yeah, but the reduction of the money is only 1% per day starting at the beginning of april. so each week is roughly 5%. each week is roughly a 5% reduction. so even if. >> vice president collins: yeah. it would just be cool to see. we're not opening april 5th. the number that people are throwing around, i also don't want -- like we're not opening

april 5th. >> commissioner alexander: right. but even if we got 85% of the money which is still over $10 million. >> vice president collins: like for me, i just want to know. it isn't the full vote. every day is a little bit less. maybe it's a little bit or maybe it's a lot. i like your question and it would be great to just see what does it mean. >> commissioner alexander: yeah. and the drop dead date is may 15th. that's the key. after may 15th, it goes from whatever it is at that point from the multimillions of dollars down to zero. after which, we don't get any of the money. soy think that's -- i don't know deputy am i doing that right? >> that's correct, commissioners. just to illustrate, it is 5% each week. so the maximum which we're definitely not in a position to meet would be april 5th, that

would be $18 million and then just to illustrate three weeks later on april 26th, if we were to meet all the requirements, that would be about $15 million. and then if we met all the requirements this is hypothetical on the very last day which would be may 14th, that's a friday, then that would be 70% of the total funds we would be eligible for, that would be about $12 million. so that's the range. the last day would amount to about $12 million. >> commissioner alexander: and then if we go to the week after, it goes to zero. >> right. the very last day is may 15th, but, you know, that would map to may 14th which is our last instructional day before may 15th. >> vice president collins: i appreciate that because that helps me -- i don't know. i appreciate that. >> commissioner alexander: is my understanding some districts are being creative about this.

let's say high school seniors are coming back and, for example, they say, you know, we're going to split the class in five. right. so it's actually not -- you don't have to have a ton of students on campus every day. they're still doing zoom classes, but they're having a little bit of interaction. maybe they're getting support from secondary planning. it's not a huge heavy lift on staff because it's a fifth of the students every day and not all the students are going to return. so i think there's ways to do it that are low impact and then maybe we can do more. but at a minimum, if we get to that point by may 14th, we get $12 million which, again, allows us to increase those services. >> commissioner: so can i help sort of wrap up this conversation and ask staff if you can clarify if this is

giving you enough direction given that the majority of the board wants a little more information. >> yes. it's clear. >> president lopez: okay. one more thing i want to add is i realize that the ml.u. would be apart of this discussion so i also want to lift that and i'm wondering how that would be incorporated in this process if it hasn't already and it might be a conversation for another time. so i'm throwing it out there. you don't need to respond. >> commissioner: president lopez as i can just raise as part of the followup to understand what are those barriers what is the capacity stretch for the additional students and grades. >> commissioner: propose, i just want to respond for the benefit of the public.

the m.l.u. is under negotiation right now. the language we've agreed to will not necessarily be the same for the whole population. >> president lopez: okay. i don't know. >> i just want to honor a question i heard from students in person graduation and i think that's still in process because i'm hearing the city's also supporting that if it would be great if we can also get some communication out to students and especially our seniors because they've had a really -- you know, this is their senior year and i do want to be communicating with them and do as much as we can to support them in having an in person graduation because i think that was a concern of a student about how that might

happen at their school. and that doesn't mean to be answered right now but i would love it if we can follow up and share that. and i'm done with that. >> the

>> at the committee of the whole on march 2nd, the board also heard an amendment to this policy to integrate ethnic studies and this item is now coming back to you with the recommendation to include ethnic settings at the graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2028. and, with that, i will ask if commissioners have questions. if not, i will call on my colleagues to answer you. >> president lopez: before we do that, let's open it up to public comment. >> please raise your hand if

you like to speak to graduation requirements. i see three hands, president lopez. >> president lopez: okay. we can do two minutes. >> hello everyone. part of my comment is the last the consent calendar and zum being removed. i didn't realize that until public comment was over. the question there is zum is supposed to be providing transportation to students in special education. that's something else. as far as this resolution, it's super exciting to see ethnic studies be integrated here. this is really important and critical. i know we've had a conversation about why 2028 but i think that's super important to

highlight. and also ethnic studies and alternative ways for our focal populations to be considered is really important. our focal populations can't be treated like trading cards and our last conversation actually felt really gross to a lot of us in the community advisory committee for special education. the last conversation we had about tradeoffs between whether or not we actually bring our focal populations back felt really gross. if we're an equity focused district, we need to center our focal populations in everything we do including ethnic studies and our graduation requirements. thank you very much. >> thank you. julie. >> hi. i wanted to speak again in support of making ethnic studies a graduation requirement. i think the events of the past week and maybe the past five

years, maybe the past 400 years have been ample evidence of why we need more ethnic studies. i do continue to have concerns about waiting until 2028. i heard discussion about making sure that 2030 was too late and we wanted to be realistic and implement this but i'm not sure we have the political in a moment where it feels like we have a real opportunity to do some important work for our families and future in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. hello, chris.

hello, chris. chris, i think you have a really bad connection. unfortunately, we can't hear you right now. hello, iris. >> yes. hello. i'd like to i'm the special ed teacher and i work in access right now, but i used to work high school at washington and i worked with students who were on graduation a lot of people that were on graduation track and it was really difficult with the requirements that we had. i was there during the transition from come from when we used to get -- have the options for students to have waivers for the world language requirement and when that got waived, i ended up co-teaching spanish and as much as i loved co-teaching spanish and i see the value in people taking a

world language, for some students it made it extremely difficult to graduate with all the extra requirements. this was spoken earlier in different public comment. i don't have -- i definitely see the value in ethnic studies as a requirement. i think it's a very important class to have and i think all students should definitely have access to it. but there's got to be a plan of how it's not going to further make it difficult for students to graduate if that is something that would do that. so there needs to be a plan to help make sure that those students get the support they need or if there's a co-taught option. whatever it is. they just need to be considered when adding that as a requirement.

but, like i said, i definitely see the value in ethnic studies. i think it's definitely an important class and it should be offered to all. i just want to make sure the special ed students aren't lumped in and that is considered. thank you so much. >> hello, jane. hello, jane. hello, rianda. >> good evening again commissioners. i do want to definitely support ethnic studies. i'm really excited as this is something apart of apack that i've been pushing for a long time. my only caution/concern is that if we are going to make it

based on a graduation requirement, make it a proper curriculum and not based on the teacher's understanding of ethnic studies and so when they're grading, it's a very subjective process. if it's going to be based on a poor curriculum that's shared across the district and everybody's on the same page then i am in 100% of it. thank you. >> thank you. hello, natalie. >> hi there, this is natalie again from coleman advocates here in the city. i wanted to just voice our support for ethnic studies and the organization work they have done to make sure it's wholistically inclusive. i wanted to open up our education inclusion program and that can be included in our plan which is through creating equity monitor positions which

are paid student positions that would be able to voice the student body concerns and create public forums that listen from on the ground stories from students that are experiencing the ethnic studies program and prioritizing black brown low income voices. thank you. have a good night. >> thank you. hello, cal. >> so i'd like to speak in support of ethnic studies as a requirement. i'd like to echo what the previous caller said this is important this be standardized. it would be on everybody's record as well as the fact that i just think generally speaking if it's going to be a curriculum that's being implemented, it needs to be standardized. as far as the implementation, i'd like to know a little bit more about how specifically it will be required as in for example, we have our requirements that we have to fulfill before we graduate.

would this fill in for one year of humanities? would this be put on top and i think that's important because as we talk about equity it's already hard for especially low income students to meet the requirements for graduation and adding the new class that doesn't fill any of those could also lead to issues and so i just want to know about the implementation of this class as a requirement. thank you. >> thank you. hello, lee. >> hi there. i just wanted to call in and thank commissioner lam and commissioner moliga to reiterate the call from what we've heard commissioner collins to resign. >> this is not the place for that comment. thank you. hello, michelle. >> hello. thank you. i'm the coordinator for the

parent counsel advisory. i'm sorry to see the equity piece move forward with a lot of questions and concerns to be answered. when will the equity cities taskforce be reconvening because it sounds like things may get hushed out there or we get input from students and families on. i'm looking forward to that being reconvened. thank you. >> hello, chris. >> yeah. i'm trying this again. can you hear me? >> all right. yes. >> i'd like to speak in support of outing the ethnic studies requirement graduation requirements. i really want to urge you to be careful. the last time we lost an opportunity for students to waive a graduation requirement, it has caused a lot of issues for student who is need to

learn in an sec setting and with the way the co-teaching is not supported at the highest level and the fact that some classes cannot be taught as special day classes, you really need to look with an equity lens towards your special education students to make sure you're not cutting them off from receiving their high school diploma. this is an incredibly important class for them to be able to take in high school and i love that they'll have the opportunity to do all of this learning, but please, please do not forget the needs of our diverse learners and our student who is are learning disabled. thank you. >> thank you. and president lopez, that concludes public comment. >> president lopez: thank you. any questions or comments from student delegates or commissioners? >> yes. thank you, president lopez.

so hopefully by now it's apparent how important ethnic studies is to me and the students in this district. but, if not, i would like to share some quotes from students that i personally interviewed. these are students from the s.a.c. who answered this question. have you ever felt seen or represented in a classroom whether it be books, movies, history lessons, etc.? one student said a major flaw said it's directed toward one group. i'm taking an asian american history course. we should be allowed to talk about our own culture and not be mumble jumbled into one class. i wish it was not chosen for us. i don't think i see much asian american representation in my classrooms, but now there are movies and new books that do their research. another student said i can say

i have never felt seen in my history class. older students tell me, guess what, you'll learn about cambodia history. i never found it. even when i was looking for it. even the tiniest thing about buddha would be the tiniest page. it is super disappointing and hard. harder for those that get nothing. reading about history that's not yours. another student said, i know more about medieval europe than chinese history. another student said i have never been represented. in world history, we can talk about european history. only a poster or it may be only a poster. i get told i will learn about myself and it never happens. really sad. lastly, i noticed it is only european history. only way i felt like i learned about other history was to go out and do it by myself from youtube. when i see world history.

the gloss over it is it shows the europeans in a bad light. they gloss over things they're not comfortable about. i had a good teacher that gave us everything said and not said in the textbook. i hope these quotes from students show you how important ethnic studies is to our students and how they're actively asking for it and seeking it in their schools. i really want to talk a little bit more about something that i've read in the last adequate which was i had a good teacher that gave us everything said and not just said in the textbook. i think that this explains the current situation within our schools. there's maybe a handful or only specific teachers who give a whole entire look on what world history is and i think that by having a requirement, students would actually get the opportunity to see themselves in the classroom. so that's all i wanted to share. >> president lopez: thank you

so much. student delegate [inaudible] would you like to share or other commissioners raise your hand if you have questions or comments. >> nothing really. just to uplift what kat said and what she brought to the table and making sure a lot of the efforts we put in this year around certain resolutions actually get implemented and we can see them being disbursed to our students and seeing our students get a gain from it because they have been looking forward to it for awhile. >> president lopez: yeah. thank you. so i see commissioner alexander and vice president collins. >> commissioner alexander: thanks so much to the whole

team for what you all have done on this. we've heard your great wonderful presentations. i had mentioned the last time we discussed this about the start date and i really appreciate moving back to 2028. i'd like to propose an amendment to move it back to 2027. which would mean the requirements, that would mean starting in the fall of 2022 with incoming freshman. so that would give us one year to prepare. fresno unified school district is starting this fall. they go into effect with the class of 2026. and i don't think we should be more than one year behind fresno on this. 2028 to 2027. i don't know, do i have to do i

have to make a motion for that? >> yes. >> commissioner alexander: okay. i'd like to make a motion for that amendment. >> commissioner: i'll second. >> president lopez: thank you. does staff want to share. >> yes, president lopez, this is dr. priestly chief academic officer. and i wanted to spend some time hopefully engaging the commissioners in why we selected the time that we did and send a new proposed date. in our last presentation, we talked about all the good work that is happening to expand ethnic study courses and making them widely available to students, but we also have some reservations and some concerns and things we want to investigate that were raised by the public as well and so we

want to make sure we're being strategic and thoughtful and careful to make sure we're planning for success and making sure that all of our students benefit and that we don't inadvertently hurt any particular students by making this particular change. so who we have here today whom many of you know our experts on this topic and they've been doing some work talking to our site leaders and to teachers who currently teach the course and i think can provide some insight and perspective i think that might be helpful in this conversation. so if i can turn it over to them to share a few words, i think that would be appreciated. >> well, thank you for having me. i hope my sound is okay. let me know.

i appreciate. i know it's been a long meeting. i want to first begin by kind of commending this board for taking up this topic with such passion and urgency. as an educator we and our team and i personally thrilled at the topic. as a group, we have been and the founding co-hoard on many years ago that we are committed to seeing each and every student in sfusd to take the transformative potential of our super successful studies ethnic program. one of the things we were doing and meeting with site leaders at schools where the ethnic cities course is not as high in the number of courses is really having conversations with site leaders. last month, we've had conversations with almost every single site that does not have

ethnic studies at scale currently. and, what we heard and what we were hoping to do in the months coming ahead was to have a series of focus groups to solicit feedback from site leaders from student and parent groups, from teachers and other community members to kind of while we're aligned in spirit has specific detailed policy implementation recommendations and a roll-out so that this can be done really thoughtfully and in a way that sets us up for successful implementation at scale which is i think all of our goals and so we were hoping to have that time in the next couple weeks and months to convene these focus groups and present a really comprehensive thoughtful policy implementation for this to expand at scale in a way that our ethnic program is able to grow and be successful.

i'm just going to kind of -- i can get into more detail, but i just want to say this one point and i need to expand and let me know if i need to. you know, one of the reasons, you know, we're asking for a later full scale expansion while we are completely aligned in spirit with the idea of ethnic studies being a graduation requirement. one of the reasons, you know, around that time it's too soon is because we don't want the pace of expansion to outrun the capacity to effectively grow our program. if i'm running on ail treadmill and jogging at a moderate pace and our program has been growing steadily, it's been jogging fast, let's say and all of a sudden, i hit max speed on that treadmill immediately and it changes speed, there's a very good chance i could end up

on the floor. right. so what we want to do is increase the speed and pace of our expansion and we hope there is funding and resources attached to picy funding and resources attached to do that. we want to be able to do that and hit top speed so we're able to run successfully without dropping and so i can get into greater detail if that's necessary, but we want to and the limitation of the six period day. things that are related to proficient staffing and making

sure ethnic study is taught to change, to be done well and that does not happen with random individuals. that happens because of the folks we have, who are committed and also to the specific development and training. and the other ideas are around access in making sure we do not we also need time to build out and iron out any kinks. . >> president lopez: thank you for sharing that. i just wanted to make sure we heard more information before

we react to the amendment that was brought up earlier. i don't know if commissioner alexander you want to wait until we have further discussion here from other commissioners or what your thoughts are. >> commissioner alexander: yeah. i think we -- i would like to have a vote on the amendment whenever that's finished. >> president lopez: great. thank you. let's hear from vice president collins and then commissioner boggess. >> vice president collins: thank you. i really appreciated some of the unpacking because i feel like we're behind. we said we were going to do it before my kids were in high school or middle school and it feels late and i also feel this urgent need especially in this time. i've always felt urgent but this feels really urgent right. my kids are going through content now in high school and i'm also seeing what you're

saying which is kind of like who is qualified and it's not just like an algebra class. you know, you get training in college. when you're going to be an algebra teacher, you study for years and years and you're focused on that content training. for ethnic studies i know what i've been hearing from you in terms of just this work it sounds that we as a district are doing a lot of that professional development to make sure teachers are prepared to teach the content. it's not like we can generate a binder and then we just have like, you know, let's have more classes and more binders and you have a binder and you teach from it or get some textbooks. this is about kind of an approach that's very different than some of our other courses and i also want to recognize there was a student who made a

comment earlier, and it also can be mishandled and identify heard black students talk about we want black studies with students. and so those are kind of -- it's really important work and it's also sensitive work. the focus is on self-love and self-knowledge, that's me. in solidarity, that's getting to know you and maybe there's differences and this kind of combined self-accusation. so that's not just content. for me, i feel like and then i also want to say too i really appreciate the idea of who receives it. i this in the past, our district, we just start a whole bunch of programs and you know, kids go to school and you realize english learner students don't get to go because it doesn't fit into their schedule because they don't get art either or if you're a student that's getting accelerated math, they're also

not getting art and so we've had programs and we can say programs are at every school. we were in a sense too breaking the law. every child should be able to have access and i think that's why we were doing our middle school redesign and also get support if they need it and so what i'm hearing you guys say is that in order to accommodate students that have that and i've heard students say i want to take that class. and students are juggling language and all the things they want to take. i remember you saying something about we're also looking at an expanded kind of course schedule so we can fit more courses in. that. i never want to be the high

school person because that is just like an arubix cube. i want you to do it right and i'm so impressed with the work that you are doing and we are doing as a district and the fact we're a model for the state we said we were going to do some restorative practices. sometimes it's maybe harmful. so i would i just want to say, i trust you. you're doing a lot of work and ubeen doing the work and if you say this is the way to do it, i support that. and i also want to say we need

middle and elementary school and that's apart of the equity study we approved a year and a half ago and it got slowed. kids shouldn't have to wait until high school to see themselves. and that was really sad when i went to and i also want to say thank you to student delegate correa on this effort. that's what we should be doing is focusing on students and to hear so many students who've not seen themselves in their curriculum. you know elementary and middle schoolers want to see themselves too and they want to learn about their friends from an elementary lends and they like learning about culture and

their history. so i think i just want to encourage my fellow colleagues. i don't want rushing this also to take away from the equity studies work which is also about how do we infuse this type of approach in math in 4th grade and in english classes and 7th grade and our science curriculum, you know, i think it's 5th grade. there's different grade levels where they're getting that content and i want to make sure we're doing both and so that might take a little time. i'm even where one informs the other and we get better at both. so i guess i'm supportive of staff's recommendation and i am

also ask if we can see a timeline of benchmarks because we don't want to wait. it would be great if we had benchmarks of where you're thinking we should be so we can check on progress. that would make me feel okay. and then additionally if we can have another time where we can look at equity studies, we need to get the equity taskforce back online and then think about what are some manageable goals so we can start doing the work in our elementary schools and middle schools in a reasonable way so we're not just banking on one because we're trying to do both. we've got some black studies,

there's a lot of other stuff and i don't want i've also heard commissioner lam multiple times. we're going to have budget concerns which may reduce our staff capacity. so i also just want to make sure staff. i know staff is excited about this but i don't want staff to burn out or be set up in a way that helps make them feel unsuccessful. especially when we're going to be coming back to in person full time in fall. so that's just my $0.02 and two cents. thanks for indulging me. >> thank you so much, president lopez. and, commissioner collins, i just wanted to note in our last presentation we did propose a timeline and that timeline

involved soliciting feedback from march over a period from march to november. it involved doing a fiscal impact report. a student impact report and working with h.r. to talk about different staffing models and then we requested to come back no later than october to share our findings with the board. and so i think we would like to reiterate that request to see if we can't follow through on that due diligence. do the research. find the facts, engage the community and come back to you with a fully flushed out considerate, intentional proposal. >> president lopez: i think i'm just wondering what that means with tonight's vote.

maybe i heard that wrong. >> so am i hearing a conflict? we have a policy and we're also hearing from staff if it would be better if we had a proposal before the policy. just for my clarification. can staff clarify? >> i'm going to speak on behalf of staff. i think we want to have as much information as possible. i'm not going to say i have the answer. we have so many gaps in some of what we know are challenges. we know what they are, but we haven't investigated them fully and so we need to spend some time with our stakeholders to uncover where we are. and we heard some things tonight about new curriculum. are we going to revamp that, revise that. that wasn't in our time line.

i wrote that down. there are some things we need to uncover and i think before we came with the proposed date, i want to say that deputy superintendent spent some time with it. but if i could, i would hold on to all of that because we made that thinking, yes, we wanted to make some, you know, think about benchmarks and progress. but if i can have even more information to inform that i would feel more confident in perhaps that date or a new date or another date. >> and, i guess just to clarify, there are fiscal impacts to those things, right, and so that is the other, you know, channelling these financial concerns. we are, you know, we want to be mindful of the decisions that we're making if there's fiscal impacts. at least knowing what they are

because we're committing to that and not something else maybe. take longer. >> thank you for clarifying and i support staff's recommendation and would love to hear what mr. laud explained if he wants explain more. >> i just want to make it clear that the urgency of the course and both the moments currently and in the past that this speaks to, like we all share it. this is life's work of multiple people in a large large community that support and want to see very badly this has happened, but we want to make sure is that we promise to do this that we are aligned to do this that we have board commitment to doing this and we want to make sure that we have all the information required to do this properly and to see

this done not just at schools but done really well at schools that we make sure we attend to students that are too often overlooked. we need to like really think about those things. but we have to make sure we have a timeline that we had suggested to thoughtfully kind of engaging with all of these questions. i don't think i had all the answers. we needed time to collect that information so we can have a really thoughtful policy that's spelled out, you know, again, in principal, 100% alignment. we can talk about years and such, but that time allows us to thoughtfully and really lightning skillfully

architecture how we do this to maximum efficiency and success. >> and, it sounds like you're also do it with like not just top down, but this process is also asking students and families to inform the process is what i'm hearing as some of that timeline? >> yeah. again. there's no site leader that we talked to. they're not ethnic studies teachers that we talk to you won't hear that. we're not hearing should this happen. i just want to make sure that's clear. this is not a question about should this happen. it absolutely should. i just want to make that absolutely clear. it absolutely should. our position is that it absolutely should and has to be done in concert with the feedback from these groups so that we can do it in a way that does not ultimately end up causing unintended consequences

that some folks have alluded to and so we want to make sure we're intentional about that that we have as we met with all these site leaders, we said this is something that's been discussed, we think we're going to have time to convene stakeholders of students and parents of principals and site leaders and other community members to make sure we get the feedback that we have multiple perspectives and all these things into view and that does not need to take years. we're talking about weeks to months. so we can come with here is exactly how we all align to brajuation requirements. if we're hearing the things we're hearing that need to be in place so that this is done properly and so that's what we were talking about a couple weeks and time if there are folks in that space who want to join that process with us if that's allowed. >> president lopez: thank you.

commissioner boggess and commissioner lam. >> commissioner boggess: thank you. i'm just thinking of all the time that we've been committed to ethnic studies and the lack of progress that we've made. i'm also wondering how many people who are working on this have been in the district in their particular role for this amount of time and still plan to be here in those roles in 2028. i think, for me, that's an issue and i definitely don't blame staff or think we need to change the proposal or understanding that that is what's possible based off the resources available. but that shows there's not a strong enough commitment to this effort. in a lot of ways, this reminds me of our commitment in the work that coleman and other community members did to really make that commitment to give that to all students and we still haven't reached our goal

to all students and that was a very long time ago and i'm just worried that this long timetable is setting us up for failure and not living up to our commitment to students. even though i do support the proposal, i'm definitely interested in us in beating that time line and really living up to that commitment to our high school students now to give them access to ethnic studies before they graduate and i know staff is committed to that and wants to make it happen as soon as possible. but i just think we have find a different way to commit. i do appreciate the work you're putting forth but i think it's also helpful for us as a board what this will take for us to get this done in a year or two. let us know so we can make this happen. like, if we need eight of you, let us know. because i think for us, it makes us look like fools. right, to pass policies that

take forever to get mrifrmented and then when they do get implemented they aren't as relevant to the day we passed the policy or people have lost faith in them. so for me, it's just about how do we follow through in a timely manner. how do we speed up the planning process that we have and put the appropriate resources to live up to our commitments and obligations to give students the best education possible and access to learning they desire. this is one of the courses that students historically have begged for access to and we're having the most difficult getting it to them and that represents a failure on our part and i really want to figure out ways to improve that and give you what you need to make us happy and make all these things happen to make this term for us in office.

>> if i may, i just want to clarify for everyone listening that our goal was not to implement it in 2028, but for the graduating class of 2028. it's not close enough, but it's closer that 2028. and the other thing is our desire is to actually be able to come back and report out on the various so just to be really clear, our attempt to go slow or go fast is not because we don't have the urgency, but

because this matters a lot to the babies and it matters to a lot of folks on the screen to make sure we're doing it right. we're not saying wait. we're saying can we come back to you all for the milestones we shared to engage you all for making a much better informed decision on when this could actually happen. >> president lopez: any other thoughts. >> i do. when would you see yourself returning to the board with an update? >> so the timeline that we offered on the 2nd works with you all, we will be providing reports each month so starting march -- starting now. march through november we'll be doing the stakeholder meetings.

we decided proposed date is april seventh so that would be one of the convenings that counts for this. so the first three months is engaging community, the student impact report, we would share with you all april 20, 2021. student impacts, budget impacts on this in may. and then a full report on progress no later than we said october of 2021. >> all right.

and if you come back to me in october with a plan. then's our job to report it in that following ten months, to me, this is one of our number one priorities with the district that we committed to back in 2014. and so i just, i don't know. for me, yeah. this is really and honestly it has nothing to do i just feel a sense of embarrassment and, again, i've been in the district.

this is not about any of you all. this is me. this is me and the district for so long seeing this and knowing the schools have been doing this. like, there are schools that having doing this as you all know. you pointed that out. so i just feel. i would just ask if any -- i don't know if commissioners withdrawing or sec.ed my motion and i would like us to take that plunge and risk not coming through unless.

>> i think both sides are really valid on this issue. i just think that if we can readjust if we go long i feel the urgency. i would want to move it up as much as possible. but i'm basically going to listen to staff on this one and their judgment because they're doing the work. >> president lopez: other commissioners, i don't know if these are new hands now. >> commissioner: i have a new one. it's absolutely important to this district priority of this board. i have, you know, continued questions around what it would

really take i also think at this time we have a long education recovery ahead of us because of the pandemic. it's important to understand that road map in addition to the work of expansion of our ethnic studies. so, at this time, commissioner alexander while i absolutely hear the need for urgency how we're going to really be.

>> yeah. i'll make this very quick. there's two quick points. just that one i heard kat say we had eight tsas that was in my brain. now that's happening. >> make it 10. >> this is recorded, right. >> we're on video right now. it's recorded. >> and it's video. great. wonderful. i'm going to budget that in. the second piece is that just to understand i am shared all of the sentiments. like this should have been happening. we are in alignment there and i understand there's an urgency to make up for what has not been taken up as priorities before and the issue here is like this is something that we wanted for so long and we're

not necessarily exactly like ready right now to be like exactly with a plan here you go, this is what it takes because for a long time, this was not on the perceived table and now we're being told it is. and so we now have to recalibrate, you know, what we think and know is possible immediately. that was not kind of, you know, within our per view or thought that wasn't, you know, within capacity to actualize immediately in the past but now this is on the table, then we need the time to just a little bit of time to make sure that we can come back with a really thoughtful way to do this as soon as we possibly can in a way that's successful as we know we have been. and so that's just a piece around just like what you're saying is like music to our ears. we just had not heard that from people and so your position

before. now that we're hearing it, we are also empowered to now push the pedal. but we won't do that with the right steering. >> president lopez, may i be heard? >> yes. please. staff, chime in. >> sorry. just to build off that and the questions that commissioners alexander and boggess have been asking. i can tell you right now, it is here. it is present. we are adding 25 sections of ethnic studies next year. we have this rapid expansion proposal that got approved and that's what we've been doing for the past four weeks is meeting with eight different skill sites. overnight in one year. we can add 25 sections. that's what we can do.

that's what we have the capacity for. if we add 25 sections the year after that and then 50 the year after that, we'll be at the 100 sections we need to be operating at scale in three years. i can't foresee us being at scale given the recruitment the professional development, the coaching, the curriculum refinement. the instruction. the hiring and the shifts potential shift to master schedule that will be required so that kids can actually take this class. it's one thing to make a requirement, it's another to make room in student schedules so they can take the class. so it doesn't increase the likelihood that they won't graduate in four years. so i do see i see commitment, i

see walking the walk and that speaks to dr. priestly who has prioritized this expansion proposal in ways we have not seen before. twenty-five new sections next year at eight of the schools that are currently serving students in the program. so that's huge. it's huge and if we can build that out to scale over time solidly, then this program will be solid. this co-hoard and students and teacher who is represent are the people who can do this. we need a longer onramp. i lied. i said it was going to be short. it wasn't short. apologies. >> president lopez: but i think you captured a lot of our hearts.

>> i also just wanted to set this -- pry rprovide some context in a sense that when i joined the board several years ago, we had a different chief executive officer, we had a new board and we had president lopez and commissioner sanchez. and commissioner lam. and the commissioner moliga on the pacific islander. so we're all kind of trying to find ways to make sure that all students are visible and we're also fixing things. you know, my kids were getting really messed up curriculum about native americans and we didn't have textbooks, and at that time, we didn't even have a social studies tsa. so when i was complaining and saying how can we be reading about pochahantes.

and i got this crappy book from five years ago and they'd say who's in central office and there was nobody on staff. i think as soon as we got dr. priestly and the staff has been given permission to do what they wanted to do. and we've been resourcing them. so i just and there's this con influence and i think the equity studies resolution is kientd of this framework for all of it. some of it's a little different. some of it's the same. i just want to say i'm so grateful to you all. i know i've seen you at the american parent advisory committee when we were talking about a native american resolution. we actually took another year. this is more than i wanted. we took a year longer than i wanted. but because we came to then and

said we want to do a resolution. they said we don't want to give feedback, we want to write our story and commissioner sanchez and i said oh, okay. well you take it. they said we'll work on it and then we had the pandemic. for me, it was an organic thing and it was written with community which is really powerful. it's one of the first community resolutions. and so i just really appreciate the way that you work. i've seen you do it and the fact that you want to involve family. and so this is -- you want to write it with community informed, not just talk down and take some time to be thoughtful and with your staff as well who are also leading in that work. and probably some other educators who might be taking it on. i feel like we can go fast and then in five years be having the same conversation or we can

just keep doing it right. i'm excited about this. i want to push and if we can get more resources, let's do it faster. so i just want to say just much appreciation all around and much appreciation for our board because i don't think it would be happening if we all weren't on that same page of making sure students and stories and communities are in our curriculum. so thank you. >> president lopez: thank you. and commissioner alexander, final thoughts. >> commissioner alexander: i think this can be a sign for any number of things we're trying to do and i really appreciate the board and staff collectively discussing this and i think this is one of the best discussions we've had around change. i just want to name that.

i think there's a difference in orientation around like under promising to make sure you deliver versus having a visionary goal and maybe not quite getting there. i think those are two differential approaches and my bias and maybe someone that came from an innovative school and maybe not from the top down systems approach was always to be very bold with our vision and we didn't always get there exactly. so i think, for me, i never say we're doing it in 2027 and we get there to 2022. and we chime in and say, you know what, there's actually three schools that aren't ready. but this is the graduation requirement. right. i guess my orientation would be

let's be bold and set this goal and if we have to adjust, let's make a couple exceptions or adjustments rather than be conservative. i think others may well be smarter on this. i guess -- so even i guess the other reason i would like to have a vote is even if we lose a vote, we can say there was annoying commissioners commissioner alexander and others saying we've got to get it as soon as we can. so if we have the vote, i'm not going to be mad. i just want to be on record that some of us are so annoyed that we really want this to happen. but i'm okay if i lose the

vote. i just want to be clear about that as well in terms of where my heart is at in this and then just also respecting the work. i think the plan sounds perfect as far as i'm concerned. but i just want to be bold with the stated goal. >> president lopez: okay. >> commissioner alexander: i'm kind of competitive so, yeah. [ laughter ]. >> president lopez: well, thank you for that colorful analysis. i think we have an amendment that we are going to vote on before. >> yes, we do. and that's to change the year from 2028 to 2027; is that correct? >> president lopez: yes. that's correct. >> clerk: [roll call]

>> clerk: it fails. thank you. >> commissioner alexander: at least i've got the students on my side. i'm totally happy. that's awesome. i'm excited about the woshlg. thank you so much. >> commissioner: we'll stay on it and it's going to happen. >> commissioner alexander: i know you will. >> we're going to make sure it's done right in a way that community and sites feel good about. i will not give up and you will not give up and we'll come back in a couple of weeks with more information. >> president lopez: thank you everyone. i appreciate this process and i

do want to remind us that we still have the vote, so i wanted to roll call. >> clerk: on the motion. [roll call] >> clerk: that's seven ayes. thank you. >> president lopez: great. thank you so much everyone and here is to more processes like this before this board. i do want to excuse our student delegates before we move on to the next item so that you may have a restful night. >> thank you, president lopez.

bye everyone. buenas noches. >> president lopez: thank you. bye thank you. okay. so now we're moving on to item -- sorry. this is now item i. special order of business. section "i." item 1. discussion and decision on process and time line for filling the potion of superintendent on july 1st, 2021. may i hear a motion and a second to special order 1. >> commissioner: so moved. >> president lopez: i need a second. >> commissioner: second. >> president lopez: superintendent matthews, can

you introduce a designee who can read it into the record. >> yes. this is our general counsel danielle hulk and chief of resources danielle menezzi. danielle menezzi. >> good evening, commissioners. there's no recommendation this evening. this item is on the agenda so the board can discuss how it would like to proceed filling the vacancy we expect on july 1st. so this is teed up so you can have that discussion and so that you can decide, of course, not on the candidate tonight, but on what you can give staff direction as to what type of process you would like to begin. >> and, president lopez, would

we allow a discussion and then public comment. >> president lopez: i was going to open it up to public comment and then we would have a discussion. >> it's really preferred by the board's discussion. >> president lopez: right. and i do want to allow the opportunity for public comment before we have our discussion on this item. >> thank you, president lopez. >> clerk: please raise your hand if you wish to discuss the time line and position in

july 1, two thousand twenty-one. seeing three hands, president lopez. or four or five. >> president lopez: do three minutes each. >> clerk: miss lopez? suprea. >> thank you for taking my call. this is suprea ray. i am calling primarily to ask how the board is planning to incorporate parent feedback. i would hope that the board is going to reach out for parent feedback and have a process for some type considering that. there has been so many difficulties over the past year since the pandemic. it is absolutely critical that families in sfusd have confidence in the

superintendent and have confidence in the board selection process. please make sure that you have a way to incorporate parents throughout the district and that you truly listen to a wide range of parent feedback. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, rianda. >> good evening, everybody. i'm going to be quick because my little one might get fussy again. first, i wanted to say, dr. matthews, that we honor you. we are going to miss you and it is going to be excreamily hard to replace you. your leadership has been impeccable and we strongly support and admire your boldness and your courageousness in keeping your babies safe. that's first. second, i would like to ask as one of the apeck parent leagues is that you allow parents to be part of the process for choosing the new superintendent

because parent voice is super important as we are entrusting our babies to this individual that you're going to pick. so that's it. thank you, everybody. >> clerk: thank you. hello iris. hello, iris? hello, tom. >> hi. i'm a teacher in the district and i think it would be really -- like parents i do think she have a really important voice. i think teachers too. i didn't see a lot of district staff coming to our site and how we ran things. it just feels like we're a number or a clog in the system.

i think if the candidates were to go to different school sites and check in and see how's it working for you here? why are you staying in sites.

>> i especially appreciate this time last year when we had no idea what covid was going to mean for us, you and the board made a really hard decision to

close the school before everyone else. thank you for doing that. i was against that. but we didn't become new york. so i want to thank you for making hard calls in a really difficult time. i do really appreciate the, you know, the calls that have praernt voice in the process and selecting a new superintendent and i do also think it would be helpful for the process to articulate what pieces parents have a say in and what pieces we don't. we have our values, we have educators, we have research about what's good for students. this isn't a commodity where we say i'm going to pick an apple phone instead of a google phone. so i think it would be helpful to bring out a process where

parent feedback would be helpful but it's important also to educate families about what our values are and how we're using that in the process of picking a future leader for the district. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, tony. >> hello. thank you. this is tony heinz. i'm an apec leader. i've been a parent since '95. i've seen superintendents come and go. and, dr. matthews, i'm really going to miss you and i'm just going to be honest. if dr. matthew goes and allison goes it will not seem as

diverse as it is and it will seem like black lives don't matter. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello natalie. >> hi, it's me again, natalie. thank you for all the work you've done for our students in the city. also our views in the city also get a voice into the selection and the conversation. i understand the importance of the parents, but at the same time, often the parents and the youth have differing ideas of where their work and their values should lie and that shouldn't be diminished by any means. i know i said i would leave, but it's been a really good night. a great conversation's being had and i want to show my love top dr. matthews and we will miss your instagram videos to the babies. thank you.

>> clerk: thank you. hello latoya. >> thank you. first and foremost, i want to say thank you to dr. matthews for your service to our babies in our community. i'm fortunate that my babies got to experience sfusd under your leadership. i'm exalameda 3 sad that you're going. and i completely echo tony's sentiment that the attacks on black board members as well as mr. -- excuse me dr. matthews' retirement will be unfortunate towards the board as well. and communities of color. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, lita. >> hello. first of all, i'd like to

remind everyone that dr. matthews is not gone yet and if the next three months are anything like the past school year is, we'll have him for what seems like another 20 years. so, having said that, thank you, of course, dr. matthews -- >> you're laughing too hard >> sorry. and i would just like to point out to everyone. i can't keep a straight face now. i would like to point out to everyone that we do have a whole lot of experience with a wide variety of stakeholders coming together, working together, putting together proposals and reminders for the board for staff, you know, whether that be, you know, our district earners, advisories committee, our african american parent advisory county, the special education advisory committee. student advisory committee, we all have and, of course,

everyone else who i didn't name our indian ed, migrant ed, our brand new native island. i'm going to spend my whole public comment naming the advisory committees. i think we all stand at the ready to not only share our gratitude for dr. matthews, but help support in whatever we can do and doing what we can to fill his very large shoes he's leaving behind that we're not going to fill for another 20 years. thank you. >> clerk: hello, seth. >> good evening. thank you commissioners and thank you, dr. matthews. i really appreciate your service to the in particular seeing you work in these public board meetings in various ways.

i think you're an excellent leader. i want to call attention to the commissioners on your most important role as a board. it is to select a track and retain your most important employee. this person. and i would just urge you all to focus on this very important task and bring everything you can to bringing the very best person to succeed. i'm certain you can find an excellent successor. i think it's very important that once you've put that person in place whether that be an interim that you also figure

out a time that you can ways in which you have not supported your support and i have found that distressing and i think in some ways, you've gotten in the way of our and i hope you can find ways to collaborate and stick with whoever it is that you put into this role. and, as a board, it's your most important duty. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello marty. >> hi. we have two public comments. my child would like to talk and then i would like to talk. >> yes i would. >> so my kid wants to talk

specifically to dr. matthews. do you want to sing anything to dr. matthews. >> yeah. i do. &%sm for now it's time to go &%sm &%sm >> and now it's time to say good-bye. we don't want it to end too. we want to say thank you so much to dr. matthews. i know. we want to say thank you so much. right. >> yeah. >> for doing the sf love and all these other type of things for all of our kids in san francisco. not just public school students.

you all were educating everybody during the pandemic. so thank you so much for your leadership and i'll never forget when chamon walton was on the school board. he said a statement on our narrative. we will not allow people and so i think it's important to remember that. we won't allow people to control our narrative and when i think of black male educators. i'm so glad you have been our superintendent. thank you so much for your service and singing one of my kids very favorite songs during the pandemic. say thank you, dr. matthews. >> thank you, dr. matthews. >> clerk: thank you.

hello, mrs. torso. >> thank you to commissioners. you are a star member. we really appreciate you. thanks for giving me the $5 in savings tonight. dr. matthews, irreplaceable. when the board, someone just said they wanted to replace the superintendent by july 1st, i thought how is that possible. is he going to rescind an entire statement. so i hope that you'll do that. we're not ready for you to go. when our favorite son comes home to work. you know, i hope you will stay. if he must go, know that the

alliance wishes you well and we will walk with you every step of the way. we so appreciate you and you are the favorite son of san francisco and the alliance of black school educators. and the board, please include parents. if you have to replace dr. matthews, please use the voice of parents and our faith-based community. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> president lopez: can someone mute. >> someone's typing with their mic on. >> pretty fast typer. >> clerk: hello, yvette. >> so obviously i'm on the other side of what people think i'm about. i appreciate what he tried to

do last summer to come and speak and try and handle the situation that we all could of possibly avoided. i am very grateful for his service. i'm grateful for his commitment to children. i don't believe that everything will go off the charts. i still recognize what an amazing force dr. matthews has been. i just want to add my voice to thachlt while i might not have been in agreement with some decisions, i never forgotten what he has been doing for the children of san francisco and i'm thanking him for that.

>> clerk: hello mildred. >> hello. i'm a parent leader, parent organizer. specifically for parents in the bay view. first off, dr. vincent matthews, i want to really appreciate you for your leadership and what have and you continue to do for all of our families, all of our students. i love your funny side. you joke a lot so i've really enjoyed that about you and for virginia marsh, her statement, we really want you to be here. you're a native born, you're a son and anybody especially from our neighborhood and growing up and having someone like yourself to look up to you. i'm very proud that you handled the pandemic in the way that you did. of course, i didn't agree with some things, i have to be

honest with you. but as a parent, you know how it is as parents. we don't agree with a lot of stuff. but you have been an awesome leader and you have regardless of the bickering and the fights, i admire your stance during the pandemic. not allowing the nation, not allowing the media, not allowing any parents or any of us regardless of what we wanted to do or regardless of what we did not want to do. i want to thank you for standing your ground for us. making sure that we are safe. making sure that you're making the right decisions before you just go ahead and re-open schools i'm grateful that you did not back down from that and you did not listen to the media's red rick. i really appreciate your

rhetoric for this time. and i thank you for it. i thank you for everything you have done and i don't want you to leave. once you come home, we don't ever want you to leave. allison, i love you. stay strong. >> clerk: that's your time. >> thank you, board. i appreciate you. good night. >> before anybody else goes, one, i wanted to say to people, this is not my last board meeting. i'm going to be here for three more months. secondly, this is the time when the board is asking for your input into -- they're going to be considering the process they're going to be choosing for the next superintendent. so this is the time when the board needs your feedback around that process and then they'll slibt. but i'll be here for three more months. so the comments should really be aimed towards assisting the

board in the decision that they have to make this evening. >> you can't run away from all that love, superintendent. >> clerk: hello, danny. >> yeah. hi. seven year teacher at galleao high school. i wonder who's going to come in. who wants to come in to our district and why? and, my question is, you know, nothing against dr. vincent matthews, but why is he leaving? and i want him to think about staying. staying for whatever reason. my reason is because i think we need continuity in these times and leadership and nothing better than having a local person do it that has the heart in this city. i would wonder who and why

someone would want to come into this district right now and that's my question to the board and what leadership. who's going to step up? and what leadership and that's my big question here. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> clerk: hello, linda. linda? >> there we go. i pulled a matthews. no i didn't. that's an old term. my recommendation to the board in the search for a new superintendent is to not accept his retirement. that's real simple. all you have to do is say "you can't go. you've got to stay." i don't know.

it's just -- it's going to be hard because dr. matthews came in and inherited situations and inherited issues and he came in and he found ways to rally his staff, the staff of sfusd together to see his vision and to see the way we needed to go. some kind of went with him kicking and fighting and others went skipping along saying let's get busy. so we're going to miss that and i just want the board as you go through the process of looking for new superintendent to fill those shoes to consider, always consider student voice and always consider parent voice and how you make your selection and staff, all staff which is something dr. matthews did. he was with everybody didn't matter what his position was. so i don't want to take up your time, it's been late, it's been

a long evening and i also want to just quickly say as a school district employee, what's important to me is not to divide us, but to keep us united and to keep us going forward and we all have made mistakes. some extremely hurtful. we're not going to sugar coat anything. but the reality is we're all human and we need to find a way to make everything a teachable moment because we're being watched by the youngest to the oldest within our schools. they're watching to see how we walk, what we're doing and how we're making it through because we're the role models, we're the model to that. so my concern is that we always consider those things when we start to make decisions about

what we're doing within the district. that's all i have to say. dr. matthews, you can't go anywhere. your spirit won't let you. you're still here. you're using your third eye a lot and that's gotten you through a lot that's going on in our district. so i appreciate you shgts i wish you well and board members don't accept the resignation. >> that's what i'm saying. >> clerk: hello, ronen. >> hello. thank you for taking my call and thank you, dr. matthews for your service. i do want to say that to the process of selecting a new superintendent, i think the immediate focus, the number one priority of this person needs to be a leader who will come in and focus on fiscal responsibility. we're coming up on three years of qualified status from the

state. this is in real danger of being taken over by the state because we refuse to address our structural deficit when our finances take over. what will it mean for ethnic studies and being able to complete that goal. what will it mean for arts, for sports? all these things can be gutted because we seek control to the state because we can't manage our own finances. we need a leader who will save this district from that fate. thank you. >> clerk: president lopez, that concludes the public comment on this item. >> president lopez: thank you so much everyone for coming out and for your kind words. this is actually the first opportunity that we've had to speak with the public and to hear from you all, so we appreciate your comments and, of course, the love that you're sharing with superintendent matthews and i'm sure you'll continue to get superintendent until june. so i do want to open it up to

commissioners. i see commissioner boggess, your hand is raise. are there any others who have comments or questions? >> commissioner boggess: thank you so much, president lopez. i have some statements just to make. i think, for me, in this moment of being in a pandemic and i think dealing with the crisises that we're trying to work with trying to get students back to school, i think, for me, i'm not comfortable with bringing someone in during the pandemic to really try to come in and navigate the troubled waters that we're in. i feel like, at this moment, it's really hard to expect somebody to come in and to be able to save us. i do feel like we need to take the time to do a nationwide search and identify all the possible candidates and really allow that process to take time and what i would suggest that

we do and i think this is slightly unusual, but i do think we're in an unusual moment where this is appropriate, i think that as we do a search that we need to appoint someone to be an acting superintendent and i would suggest that to be somebody from the board so that we're not taking any staff from their position and we can have essentially somebody from the board to be able to operate and kind of manage the will of the board while we do our nationwide search so that we don't have to track from our resources and really be able to ensure that there isn't confusion between the direction of the board and the direction of the district and that those things are streamlined and so i think it is a little bit of a different approach that is very complicated and probably has legal questions attached to it as well. i just feel that the burden of trying to bring someone in at

this moment and expect it to be a long term solution versus someone who's going to come in and entering the situation to fail and kind of turn out really quickly because they're coming in to such a volatile situation. i think, for me, i'd rather see somebody who is accountable to the city, to voters to be able to kind of step into that position the will of the voters and the things that we're committed to do and really be able to finish the things that we have started before e brill somebody new in. to kind of hit the reset button and mold versus giving us the consistency and regularity that i just want to offer in this moment. and i just wanted to open that up and hear how other commissioners feel about that. i'd like to start a conversation around that and just the opens and thoughts around that. >> president lopez: thank you

and just with support for conversation, i still see other commissioners who want to share and we'll remain with that lineup. i know ms. u.k., you probably want to respond before we respond to commissioner boggess's question. >> thanks, president lopez. so a piece of information that the board needs to be aware of, conflict of interest rules prevent the board from discussing with an active board member ongoing or any form of employment, so in order to have that discussion with a board member about whether they would accept the superintendent seat or any other positions in the district, for that matter, the board member would need to first resign in order to avoid the conflict. so what i would ask tonight that you not engage in that conversation because it will create a conflict situation.

it will be very difficult to accomplish this without one or more board members stepping down to be considered for this position. >> even if that board member isn't being paid by the district in that way? >> i guess i would have to look at that, commissioner boggess, but i'm not really sure how you can have a volunteer superintendent because there are certain duties that the superintendent has to assume on behalf of the district. so even if they weren't receiving a salary, they would still be an employee. >> commissioner boggess: i guess i would like to get a second legal opinion on that because i'm not sure that that is true and i'm not sure why the board wouldn't be able to do that. so i guess i'm just curious as to why that is and how would these situations typically be handled in a situation where there wasn't the ability to fill the position and the board

to take an emergency action to do so. >> first, commissioner, keep in mind, we don't have an emergency upon us yet. we have three months. now i understand that this is something at least one board member is interested in pursuing. >> commissioner boggess: yeah. i do think it is an emergency because of the situation with the need of a new labor agreement as well as the pandemic and all the different factors. this is just a really unique situation that i think the board needs to take a little more ownership and responsibility than we normally would versus putting it off on a staff person who might not be here by the end of it since the average superintendent is two to five years. >> understood. >> president lopez: and, apologies, just to clarify given we will get a response on this question as a follow-up. does that mean commissioners won't be able to respond to

commissioner boggess's question just to kind of hear from everyone? is that correct? >> i mean, i suppose if the board is having a theoretical discussion about some commissioner, that probably doesn't present a conflict, but as soon as you start talking about an individual, we have a conflict. one thing i wanted board to keep in mind and this is something not to take lightly, if we were to proceed down this path and ignore what i believe is very clearly the law that the commissioner would need to resign first, you would thereafter be precluded by law from entering into the contract because it would be a contract in violation of sex 10.90. section 10.90. so i would just tread very

carefully on this topic. >> president lopez: i do appreciate that and i think it's helpful in case other commissioners would like to respond for them to have that. okay. it will still be an option. but next is commissioner moliga and commissioner lam. >> commissioner moliga: so this is probably the most important decision that the school board is going to have to decide on and i don't think it's something that -- it's probably like one of the and i'm not -- it's probably the most important decision on my priority list right now the same as budget and i don't think that with all do respect to commissioner boggess's

recommendation i don't think that would be something that would be helpful for the school district. i think we need to go with an interim. i think we need to start the search asap. i think that we need to bring somebody in asap. i think whoever's going to be the interim needs to have strong financial skills to get us solving our budget. i also think the person who we decide on needs to also be -- to have experience, to be able to run a school district like san francisco. the person is also coming in to, you know, a situation in our district which is pretty messy just to be honest right now. we have this issue right now with one of our commissioners. we have the school, the lawsuits, like we need someone who has the experience to be able to navigate those waters and i just feel like, you know, we're going to have to really go out and find somebody that

can do that. also, what i do agree with, commissioner boggess, is we are as much as difficulties right now, san francisco is still a highly respected school district within the nation and we are going to have to go out there and put an absolute search to do our due diligence and find someone who can lead this school district. i think that is a must. the other piece for me also and the folks mentioning already, this is a city of community. so there's going to have to be a thorough community process that includes families, teachers, and, you know, i'll say tonight, our political leaders, this is a very political city. the superintendent who comes in needs to be able to have relationships with our board of supervisors, our mayor. they're going to have to be able to do those things to be able to bridge these partnerships. not only that, the community

input piece, we also live in the city with multiple languages, multiple cultures. we have a large strong lgbtq community in san francisco that needs to be inputted. we're talking about anti-asian hate right now in the city. there's a large population that needs to have input on who this next superintendent is going to be. so i say all that to say, you know, we have to get the ball rolling, but we have to get this right at the same time. and the community input part is going to be very important. the other piece that i wanted to put out there as well is i strongly believe that we need to expand our search in terms of firms that we're using. so i've done my research based on the firms that we have been using. i would like to see us expand our reach and really try to figure out if there are minority firms out there that can do this work. we have to be able to find good

talent, nontraditional talent to see if we can pull in somebody that's going to be able to serve our school district. i'm excited actually. i'm excited. this is a good time for us as a school district, as a school board to select a new leader, but we have to get this right. the community input piece is going to be important and the financial piece is going to be very important. and i'm not really too sure we're going to have this conversation or if people are going to be putting input. it'd be good to have a formal process to figure out how we're going to land everything. >> president lopez: thank you. commissioner lam. >> commissioner lam: my

question is how long did the process take us last time? if you can walk us through between the interum and then our permanent superintendent? >> i think that a couple of people can speak to that. i can a little bit and deputy superintendent lee can and counsel can as well. we have an interim and the interim was deputy superintendent lee who i think -- [inaudible] i think was chosen when richard canunza went off to houston and the board swiftly left him for interim and we spent at least half a year in that process and that included everything people have been talking about in terms of public input whether it's families, students,

community organizations and that was robust and that helped inform the kind of candidate we wanted to attract and attain and then we went through the process which is a typical process for a search firm and that's what commissioner moliga is talking about which helps vet candidates and gets us a short roster of candidates and then we interview them as a board and then narrow it down to two or three and select. and that was pretty much the same process we went through when dr. ackerman left the district in 2006 and we had an interim superintendent for about a year and that was gwen chan and we went through a process to select a permanent superintendent who was carlos garcia. i've been through this twice, but i don't know exactly how

long it took, but it is a lengthy process and both times, we had an interim to bridge that gap in between and i totally support that process again and i think that we would need to select somebody rather quickly so we know they're in place when vince leaves at the end of june. so that's where i'll leave it. but if danielle wants to hope in around the timing. >> i'd like to share a couple of tidbits, commissioners. so the earlier transition that you mentioned between dr. ackerman and carlos garcia, gwen chan served as interim superintendent and i believe she was in that role for about 20 months. >> really. >> so that was a bit of a longer process. but i think the board at that

time made that decision intentionally. it wasn't -- it didn't take longer than the board had expected. commissioner sanchez, you were a member of that board and i believe it was intentionally sort of a longer transition and when superintendent caronza left and i served as interim, i was in that role for nine months and i believe dr. matthews was selected by the board about seven to eight months into that period and then and that was about nine

months after superintendent left. >> i'll have to check my records. >> president lopez: great. thank you for that overview of the process that we've gone through as a school district in the past. >> commissioner lam: from my perspective, it is going to be critical to find both to find a superintendent that can really help lead and steer this district which is going to be very rough in the coming years. we are seeing crisis as a district right now. you know, just all the different areas from fiscal crisis that's looming to a covid recovery to governance issues within our board toishes that just continue to make

challenges for the district. from my perspective, i would support the appointment of an interim superintendent so that it will allow us the time to go through a longer process to hiring a permanent city college and i saw and experienced what it did to that educational institution and still today is recovering from that. i sat on the chancellor hiring committee and being able what it takes to be in the pool of applicants and not just because we have to fill the position. so that is my support is for an interim superintendent. i would also name at this time,

i do not support, you know, a board member being aappointed to the interim position. i also do feel that we need to have someone come in and steer this piece, but i'm open to what those processes are. should there be any internal candidates, but finding an appointment of an interim and doing so before dr. matthews transitions. >> president lopez: great. thank you. and commissioner sanchez, i know you wanted to share a few thoughts. i don't know if you want to

add. >> commissioner sanchez: yeah. that was pretty much what i was going to share. i agree with commissioners moliga and lam. i don't think we should select a board member. >> president lopez: thank you. >> commissioner sanchez: -- superintendent's experience for at least administrative experience in central office. it can be an internal -- >> president lopez: commissioner sanchez, i think you're just going in and out. i will open it up when he comes back vice president collins. >> vice president collins: thank you. i agree. i think commissioner sanchez,

are you back? >> commissioner sanchez: no. i'm done. i'm fine. >> vice president collins: we didn't hear you because you froze. >> commissioner sanchez: i just said that i don't support having a board member become interim superintendent. >> vice president collins: okay. so i agree with what's been said previously. i mean, i've been with the district 20 years. i've been through a lot of superintendents and i do want to say that this is a scary time i think to be going through a transition and, at the same time, i was -- i mean, one of the first superintendents we had, we had to, you know, there was a lot of scandal. there are superintendents where there's a lot of upset and, you know, we had two of those in a

row. i think there was a lot of -- and we've even had to buy out contracts before in order to get new to go

first because it looked like they wanted to respond to something. >> commissioner moliga: i 100% disagree waiting a whole entire year to choose somebody. i think we need to get on that asap. like the firm could actually help us locate a new interim superintendent. you know, none of us on this board outside of mark have the experience to be able to do something like that and i don't know who else on this board has time to vet for this school border. >> vice president collins: i guess what i'm saying is last time we had -- >> commissioner: i'm not finished. what happened last time. we're in a different situation. we have a large $100 million budget and we also have to have

the conversation if we're going to allow the interim we bring on to apply for the superintendent position, if we do that, it's going to detour other superintendents to come to our district. so we have to be honest with whoever we're bringing on because we might not even get a really good quality pool if we're going into a direction where those things are not actually clear. so if we wait for an entire year, you're literally asking the superintendent to come in with a $100 million deficit and start the work. i don't see how we're going to be able to go out there and find a candidate. and, on top of that, i think we should limit our pool to folks who say who are familiar with sfusd. we should bring in the person that's qualified and deal with the issues that we're facing today with the school district which is re-open it and try to get this budget. >> vice president collins: can i ask a clarifying question

just for our discussion? is that okay, president lopez? >> president lopez: yeah. that's fine. thank you. >> vice president collins: so my clarifying question are you saying you want to hire a search firm to have a permanent superintendent as of june? that's just my clarifying question because that's what i'm thinking. >> commissioner: no. that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying we should pick up a search firm asap, like two weeks ago. the search firms have the capability of helping the school board search for a possible interim. and i agree with what mark was saying. we need to bring an interim in probably in june when superintendent matthews is transitioning out. so, yeah. that's what i was saying. >> vice president collins: so just for me to clarify, you do want an interim, but you do

think a search firm would help us get an interim? >> commissioner: correct. not only will the search firm support us in cloekting an interim, they'll also begin the process in terms of helping us find the superintendent, they can start the community process right away. they can start the planning right away. this superintendent search can take as early as six months to nine months. it shouldn't be expanded to one whole entire year. and then, on top of that, there's contracts you have to discuss. i don't think it's as easy as folks are making it sound right now. >> president lopez: i do want to remind everyone that majority of the commissioners here are going through this process. it is a new process. so any and all ideas are out and you've got to be open to the discussion and the dialog. so as we keep walking through, i know, commissioner boggess, you wanted to add.

okay. commissioner alexander, you can hare. >> commissioner alexander: yeah. i agree with a lot of what's been said. maybe i'll just try to point out some highlights so folks know where i stand. i really think this is the most important decision that we're going to make as a board. i think that we need to get an interim. i don't think it should be a board member. i think superintendent is a more than full-time job and i think we need someone who's devoted to it. every interim that i've seen, that i've heard of and certainly the ones at sfusd that have been effective have all been internal people in the sense that they know the district and, in my mind, that's the whole point of an interim is that you want to get

someone you know to stabilize things and hold the ship steady while you do the search. so i agree with commissioner moliga. i agree we might be able to hire someone by august or september maybe by june 1st who can bridge that gap. now, if it takes longer, then maybe it takes longer. i think in my view, the point of an interim, i don't think we should spend a lot of time searching for an interim. i think we should locate people that know the system that look at our current deputies or other folks in the system or somebody who has been in sfusd or who knows san francisco and our school system really well and could step in and have the relationships, but they're not going to change stuff. they're just going to kind of hold the space while we do the

search. that would be -- at least, i don't know. maybe commissioner sanchez can correct me if i'm wrong. but that's how when chan held the space, i feel like that's you deputy superintendent lee held the space. and i feel like that went well. but they already had these relationships in the system. my fear is of an interim who has no relationships. it takes awhile to kind of build that knowledge of the system. that's just my bias. but, i agree, i think we should get on it as quickly as possible. >> president lopez: thank you, commissioner boggess. >> commissioner boggess: thank you. i think just for me to lift up some of my concerns around an interim to think i have slightly different thoughts around superintendents just

from my personal experience and even just my experience in sfusd, i feel like a lot of the superintendents we've had have not actually followed through on the primary duties and request on the board during their time in office and not to pick on superintendents who have left, but the person who jumps up at me the most is our former superintendent richard caranza and for, for me, that's a little bit of a struggle that i have is where is the consistency and the long-term investment. and, i'm curious, if we bring in a interim, the key task that we need to do for the rest of this year is things that i don't feel like an interim can accomplish because they're just going to kind of tow the line until we get a full-time person so i don't feel confident that an interim person is going to get us a long term negotiation settlement i don't think an

interim superintendent is going to be able to get a buy-in and maybe those are all things that would finish before superintendent matthews leaves and he would be able to spearhead that before he goes, but i'm worried about bringing someone in to the interim and the really aggressive demands that we have from families right now and i'm really worried about taking one of our leadership staff out of their current roles and giving them more work when our current leadership staff is swamped on what they're doing right now. so much so we're waiting on our high school graduation requirement implemented. so i think pulling away from that team right now just makes me wonder how that work's going to get covered and who's able and willing to step up and doing it. i do just want to say i do feel

like we're at a moment where we actually can't have someone in the position who's holding for someone else. we need real leadership right now, real accountability. someone's whose families and students and staff is going to be here for the long haul in some capacity and i think that's really what's motivating my thinking and so if it's not my idea, i hope we can provide someone that can provide the stability we need and not end up in this cycle where we don't have a superintendent who is able to follow through and be accountable. so i think, for me, that's really worth lifting up and just emphasizing. >> president lopez: great. thank you. and before i summarize everything that i heard, are there any other comments? >> i've got a comment. what's the process for tonight? what are we trying to land on? because i have more questions

around like the process of selecting interim and all the logistics that comes around it. and i wanted to be able to have that in a public discussion so people can understand -- so we can be transparent and people can understand what we're doing? >> president lopez: that's a good question and it should be understood that we won't land on that tonight. the majority of the board is saying we need an interim. we need someone who can step in and steer the ship. there's an interest in someone is recognizing where our system is. but there's also the question of can a search firm support with the interim process. so what seems clear, we definitely want long term.

sorry. can you mute your mic. speakers, panelists, please mute your mic. so we'll definitely head into a large search and involve the community. but, for right now, we do need an interim. my question is then, can you clarify for all of us what the process is for interim and what are our options? if we do the search firm option and they can help us right away, what does that dictate to get the search firm if we have other options to choose someone, what are they? can we start there? >> yeah. i can jump in with some of that. if the board decides to choose a search firm. i recommend we put out an rfq,

a request for qualifications and solicit multiple proposals from various search firms and we can cast our net as widely as the board directs. at that point, the board could select the successful firm. you would do that through either a committee appointment, an ad hoc committee to select the firm or we can do it through a full board meeting where they can present their proposals and board members can ask questions. at that point, you can either enlist the firm's assistance with finding an interim and it sounds like that's where the majority of the board is. so i'll just stop there. you can enlist their systems with an interim and after that is solidified, you can start talking about what you want the process to look like for a

permanent person in the position. i'm so cognizant in saying dr. matthews. >> president lopez: okay. thank you. so it is sounding like if we launched that, that will be an opportunity to do an interim, but it will also lend itself to this long-term goal of finding someone. those two can happen simultaneously. >> it certainly could. if the board is entertaining current staff. so we're talking about individuals now, not a process, then the board could have that discussion in a closed session. >> got it. okay. and my questions because i see commissioners hands. commissioner moliga, do you want to add? >> commissioner moliga: yeah. do i. i just want to say i support getting a firm in and, danielle, if we can talk about

timeline and in terms of what that looks like. and also about superintendents. the beauty of going out there and working with firms is firms understand how to locate interims that can come in specifically and be tailored to what we're looking for. so if we wanted an interim to come in, there's an interim that can come in specifically to help us with the transition and they'll prepare the staff to transition as well. if we wanted an interim it come in to be able to work on key things. so say, for example, six to eight months, we want to focus specifically on our education budget. we can go out there and find an interim specifically to that. there are many ways we can look at this interim row, but having the expertise at the table but

i think we should start to have a conversation right away. >> president lopez: smafrjz commissioner sanchez and vice president collins. >> vice president collins: i just had a question in the timeline. i'm just interested for the search firm what that time line looks like. >> so an rfq doesn't have a time line in the same way like say for transportation services or something that you need to put out. so we have some flex ability there. we would want to make sure that the timeline both are solicitation period and then our review period allows us to get a wide variety of firms and then also permits the board adequate time to review and select the firm. it's flexible. we can talk about what makes sense for the board and i'm trying to remember what we did

last time. i want to say we had the proposal period open approximately a week and then, you know, i honestly can't remember if the whole board interviewed firms. i want to say they did. and then, you know, we selected a firm shortly thereafter. >> so it doesn't have to take that long. i know sometimes processes take long. >> that process was not to select an interim, that was to select the permanent. >> yeah. and i'm talking about the process to select the firm. i'm not talking about what happens after that which is quite a lengthy process. >> but how long do you think it would take then if we put it out in a couple days? >> well, we'd probably need more than a couple days. i'll adjust your expectations. if we got it out say next week, i would say we probably would

want to leave it open at least a month to make sure we got a good response and then the board would want some time to review the responses and prepare questions. so, you know, you're probably talking about two months would be my -- and that's pretty aggressive. >> yeah. that's what i was thinking. so, if that's the case, we might want to pursue that as well as if candidates come up for interim before that. because if it takes two months. i agree with commissioner moliga. if the time line aggressive is two months, then that -- we could still do it, but it's not going to get us, you know, that much time in between that landing the firm and then when vince is scheduled to depart. >> president lopez: well, just to remind everyone and what it

sounds like is say that is the aggressive timeline, we can still provide names should candidates show an interest in interim and the process to land on a search firm will city count because we are saying we want to have a lengthier process to choose someone permanently. in the two months, there could still be link for candidates or wait two months and then get those candidates for interim. >> you could certainly pursue both processes simultaneously. >> president lopez: that's what i wanted to make sure. commissioner lam and then commissioner alexander. >> commissioner lam: yes. i just wanted to express if i didn't say it earlier that for the interim, it needs to be a much more rapid process that we are going to go through the more intentional community partners engagement for the

permanent so that i just want to be explicit. i'll just pause there. but i do think that right now -- another thing i wanted to acknowledge, there are record vacancies of superintendents throughout the state of california right now. even in the bay area region, i know there are many openings actually in the nine counties. so i just wanted to also measure my colleagues' expectations as well as such a complex and large urban district as ours and what we would need for the experience for the next both in interim and for the permanent. >> commissioner alexander: am i next? >> yes. >> commissioner alexander: so i agree with commissioner lam. the interim thing should happen

quickly. again, we need someone in place by ideally in june so there's some overlap. now, if it's an internal person. to me, the interim is the ideal candidate because then it's somebody that the whole board knows and has confidence they can hold the space. again, that's where i maybe disagree with commissioner moliga around bringing in an interim. i'm not closed to the idea to bringing in an interim who none of us know their work. but the challenge there is vetting that person with enough certainty that we know they're going to be able to fill the role. so now maybe we don't have an interim internal person and so it gets hard. i don't know. i guess, to me the ideal interim is someone who the majority of the board knows or

is familiar with our work to where, then that person can step in and that we're reasonableably confident plan,

think two months is a realistic estimate. >> commissioner: okay. thank you. >> president lopez: great. thank you for breaking that down. >> commissioner: sorry. go ahead. >> president lopez: i was going to wrap it up. so i'll keep it open. >> commissioner: no. go ahead, president lopez. >> president lopez: so for next steps, there's an interest

for a process to get an and it's sounding like we want it to be someone who has experience with the school district, who has knowledge about where we are and can reckon with everything that we're dealing with. can you clarify what that's going to look like for the next public meeting, for example, or the next closed session meeting if we have it in person. >> i guess i would ask direction from the board, would you like to have an interim job description and, you know, some sort of process for applications or would you like to begin discussing internal candidates based on your experience with various staff or both?

>> commissioner: i would be willing to put a job description out there and if somebody shows up. i don't think we should close that possibility. i would be in favor of both. i think we need to get it done quickly. and get candidates, like start talking with candidates and narrowing. i also think we as board members have interests and strong feelings about things. i think that's valuable to

bring to the process. it is going to take time to make sure i do think it's going to take time. >> president lopez: other thoughts. feel free to chime in. >> i hope we can do both processes at the same time. >> president lopez: and by both, that's internal and external? >> commissioner: yeah. >> president lopez: i want to keep that in mind and i want to keep that in staff's capacity and whether we're going to pursue a simultaneous long-term search firm. we don't have to decide that right now. how about we hold off. does that give you enough direction. i think what i'm hearing is that i'll work with chief

menezes and we'll have a fairly truncated, straight forward process. submit a letter of interest in your résumé and then we'll have the job description and the board can start reviewing candidates as we receive them. >> great. i see head nods and thumbs up. okay. thanks everyone for this discussion reminding us all it is just the beginning. so moving on to our next item. section j. introduction of proposals and assignment to committee. may i hear a motion and a second for first reading to resolution 213-23a1.

being introduced by commissioner lam. >> commissioner: so moved. >> commissioner: second. >> president lopez: are there any public speakers on this item? i do believe we can allot for 10 minutes. >> clerk: thank you, president lopez. please raise your hand if you care to speak to the introduction of this resolution. ms. marshal, did you care to speak to this? >> no thanks. >> clerk: all right. these are old. all right. i don't believe there are any public commentors on this item. >> president lopez: yeah. i do want to say, i saw a couple. >> clerk: okay. >> president lopez: i'm sorry. it's 5 minutes. >> clerk: hello, cary >> yes.

hi, i don't want to take a long time. i want to say thank you, commissioner lam, and i absolute support this measure and i hope you all do too. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. hello, julie >> hi. i just wanted to speak to the whereas that i think is missing which is as to the kids who will be 11 next fall which is just old enough to be approaching some of the higher risk range of vulnerability to covid and that's the prior variant, not the current variants. but, too young to be vaccinated. right now, the latest that i've seen is that there may be

vaccinations for kids under 12 -- as young as 12 maybe by this winter and that there are trials for kids younger than that, but they are not expected until the sort of this time next year so i want us to not be caught in surprise and plan for all scenarios that the adults would be largely vaccinated and largely line but that we need to consider the situation of students. so i want to make sure that we're taking that into consideration as we're articulating what in-person school and particularly some versions of remote school for families who would not be coming in person would look like. thank you. >> clerk: hello, josh.

>> thank you. good evening. i support the idea behind this resolution, but i think it has some problems. this board has made three serious mistakes in the last year and the resolution indicates we're about to make the fourth one. we failed to properly staff the planning process in position of superintendent vincent matthews. you allowed the entire year to be distanced learning and you just entered into a obstruction memo. and so going back to five days a week for in-person learning is already allowed under the health guidance, but you wasted most of the year and made it impossible. my daughter's a 1st grader at glen park and we still don't know what her schedule's going to be and we're about to lose

tens of millions of dollars because of these mistakes and there are problems with commissioner lam's resolution even if the intent is good. who's going to staff all this work giving the depart of superintendent matthews. you talked about distanced learning for next year, but that's not up to the district, that's up to the state. so why are you planning for it already. and, most importantly, what does firm intention mean? what are you going to do if your employees refuse to return to work as needed to staff the promised full five days a week return? are you going to cave or are you going to stand strong? will you be bias in favor of labor or in favor of students and families and the promises contained in this resolution? if you mean what you say, then what you need to tell parents is that you'll only enter into a contract that offers five

days a week class. and, if you can't get to these contacts, you'll use the district's office