have important conversation. relax and enjoy, rejuvenate, get restored, enjoy one another and the at mus sphere the growth. the grove is over 730 to 830, 7 days a week, breakfast, lunch and dinner. the regular meeting of the board of education of the san francisco unified school district for october 8th, 2024, is now called to order at 5:01 p.m. roll call please. thank you, president alexander. commissioner bogas present. commissioner fisher here. commissioner kim here. commissioner lamb. commissioner sanchez here. vice president. wiseman. board here. president alexander here. thank you. thank

you, mr. steele. childcare will be provided from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. for children ages 3 to 10. the childcare is just across the hall in the enrollment center here on the first floor, before the board goes into closed session, i call for any speakers to the closed session. items listed on the agenda. there will be a total of five minutes for speakers. there are none in person. there are none online. thank you. please note that the board will now excuse me, will take a roll call. vote on the recommended student expulsions when we reconvene to open session. and i now recess this s provided from 6 to 9 p.m. for children ages 3 to 10. and the enrollment center right across the hall. this evening, public comment on all items will be held under section e public comment. if that includes agenda items and non agenda items. if you have not already submitted a card and would like to speak on public comment, please submit a speaker card. and just a

reminder that there's a tension between allowing as much public comment as possible and getting to our board business before it gets really late at night so that people can actually engage and see the board meetings. so our practice has been to have public comment until 8 p.m, which is usually roughly an hour, sometimes a little bit more than an hour of public comment. and then move on to board business. so that's going to i think we'll be fine today with the number of folks we have here. but just wanted to let folks know and we will have we'll do the in person public comment and we'll have some time for online public comment as well. and there also are other ways to communicate with the board of education and superintendent and staff. that are on our website, such as email and phone and so forth. so we will now move on to. oh, and the other thing i'll say is i know some folks may be interested in the announcement that was made today. the superintendent is going to address that in the in his superintendent's report. so

right now we're going to do the report from closed session. and then we'll move on to the rest of the meeting. so first we have some student expulsion matters. we need to vote on. i move approval of expulsion agreement for one middle school student. matter number 2024-202502. for the remainder of the current fall 2024 semester and the following spring 2025 semester through june 4th, 2025. can i have a second, second roll call, please? mr. commissioner, bogus. yes, commissioner. fisher. yes, commissioner. kim. yes, commissioner. lamb. yes. commissioner. sanchez. yes. vice president. wiseman. ward. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. thank you. i now move approval of the expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 20242025.

number three, for one calendar year from the date of approval of the expulsion. during the expulsion period, the student will attend civic center. can i have a second, please? second. roll call. commissioner. bogus. yes. commissioner fisher. yes, commissioner. kim. yes. commissioner. lamb. yes. commissioner sanchez. yes. vice president. weissbourd. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven. yes. i now move approval of the expulsion agreement for one high school student. matter number 20 2425. number four, for the remainder of the current fall 2024 semester and the following spring 2025 semester through june 4th, 2025. suspended expulsion status for the spring 2025 semester during the enforcement of the expulsion period, the student will attend civic center. during the suspended expulsion period, student will attend a comprehensive or alternative high school from two students. two school options provided by sfusd. can i have a second, please? second. roll call.

commissioner. bogus. yes. commissioner fisher. yes. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner lamb. yes. commissioner sanchez. yes. vice president weissbourd. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. i now move approval of the expulsion agreement for one high school student. matter number 20 2425. number five, for remainder of the current fall 2024 semester and the following spring 2025 semester through june 4th, 2025. suspended expulsion status for the spring 2025 semester during the fall enforcement expulsion period, student will attend a kerr county program and during the suspended expulsion period, student will attend a comprehensive high school from two student school options provided by sf, usd. can i have a second, please? second. roll call. commissioner. bogus. yes. commissioner fisher. yes. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner lamb. yes. commissioner sanchez. yes. vice president wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. thank you. i now move approval of expulsion. agreement for one

high school student. matter number 20 2425. number zero six. for the remainder of the current fall 2024 semester and the following spring 2025 semester. suspended expulsion status for the spring semester. during the enforcement expulsion period, student will attend a kerr county program, and during the suspended expulsion period, student will attend a comprehensive or alternative high school from two school options provided by sf. usd. have a second, please. second. roll call please. commissioner. bogus. yes. commissioner fisher. yes. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner lamb. yes. commissioner sanchez. yes. vice president wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. thank you. and finally, i move approval of the expulsion agreement for one high school student. matter number 20 2420 507. for the remainder of the current fall 2024 semester and the following spring 2025 semester through june 4th, 2025. suspended expulsion status for the spring 2025 semester during the enforcement expulsion period, the student will attend civic center and during the

suspended expulsion period, student will attend a comprehensive alternative high school from two school options provided by sf usd. can i have a second, please? second. roll call please. commissioner. bogus. yes. commissioner fisher. yes. commissioner lamb. yes. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner. sanchez. yes. vice president wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. thank you. now, i will complete the readout from the from closed session in the matter of student sp versus sf, usd zero, case number (202) 409-0177, the board, by a vote of six ayes, one commissioner recusal commissioner fisher gives the authority of the district to pay up to the stipulated amount in the matter of student f versus sf, usd case number (202) 408-0756. the board by a vote of seven eyes, gives the authority of the district to pay up to the stipulated amount and in one matter of anticipated litigation, the board, by a vote

of seven eyes, gives direction to the general counsel. i will now read our land acknowledgment. we, the san francisco board of education, acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. now, i'd like to move to the approval of board minutes item two for the regular meeting of september 10th, 2024 and the regular meeting monitoring workshop of september

24th, 2024. may i have a motion and a second, please? so moved. second. are there any corrections to the minutes? if not, we will have a roll call. vote. thank you. commissioner bogas. yes. commissioner fisher. yes. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner lamb. yes. commissioner sanchez. yes. vice president wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. and i'm sorry. student delegate montgomery on the minutes. yes. thank you. all right. now we are going to go to the superintendent's report. doctor wayne. thank you. president alexander. good evening everyon. so if you go to the next slide. yeah. so this afternoon i shared some information about some upcoming difficult decisions that we need to make. and these

are decisions we need to make for to in order to support the students that we see here and all the students who we serve in the san francisco unified school district. and when we talk about these decisions, you know, i share about the fact that we're in a budget crisis, that our enrollment has declined and that our resources are stretched too thin. but in the end, what that means is that we can't provide the educational opportunities our students deserve. and so we've been going through this process called resource alignment, to determine how to best use our resources to support our students. and we've reached a point in the process where we need to be very clear and transparent about what our future looks like. in san francisco, unified. we want to maintain local control, and we want to ensure that we have a balanced budget and that we are not continuing to deficit spend. and again, we want to do that not just because we want to avoid a state takeover, but because we want to make sure

that we're able to make the decisions for our students in this district. and in order to do that, we're going to need to talk over the next several months about the, you know, reductions that are going to impact all of our schools, but particularly our schools that have lower enrollment and that are most vulnerable to these impacts. and so, for that reason, we shared earlier today which of those schools are faced that potential impact and that these are schools that meet our criteria for closure or merger. and we shared this. the schools that meet this criteria and our initial thinking about what the future of these schools might look like. and i say our initial thinking, because we know on the one hand, there's a lot of questions about what the district is planning, and we wanted to share the kind of thinking that that has taken place so far. and on the other hand, we know that if we're talking about the futures of our schools, we need to talk to the school communities. and there are school communities here who

have said, come out and talk to us about what is what you're thinking, what is happening, and learn from us what our students experience are and what we need. and so we are going to have those conversations. we'll have a district wide conversation on thursday night. a town hall will be a virtual town hall. we will be able to take questions, but the real engagement will happen at the school sites and at the possibly impacted school sites. and so starting next week, i will be coming out to schools to meet with staff and families and to have these conversations and that's going to inform any final recommendation that we make to the board of education. on november 12th for them to take action on december 10th. and again, these are difficult decisions, but they're necessary ones for us to set our students up for success in the future. i know there's going to be a lot of different opinions about what you know, what those decisions should be and how we execute them. and that's what we're

inviting people to share over the next month. as we have these conversations and know, though, it is, to then center our students. so with that being said, if you want more information, if you go to the next slide, we're continually updating information on our website around our resource alignment initiative. and right now it's particularly focused on the question of closures and mergers. but we have a lot of budget questions that are going to be coming up as we prepare our fiscal stabilization plan. that also needs to come forward in december. that will again demonstrate what as a district, we are we are facing. and then if you go to the next slide, you know, i, you know, heard the desire for more clear communication, more frequent communication. so i've started sending video messages on monday and we'll continue to send those and look for those. and so i know i want to appreciate the leadership of the board of education. ultimately, when i

say we have difficult decisions to make, it's my job to bring recommendations and to engage with the community and think through what's going to be best. but ultimately, it's your job to approve how we're going to move forward and you're going to have difficult decisions to make come december, when our fiscal stabilization plan is presented to you along with our recommendations for closures and mergers. and no, i want to i want i'll speak to you, but i want everybody listening to know i understand that for you all, as well. it's about putting our students at the center and thinking through what's best, even if we're making decisions that that in the moment are going to mean some change or transitions for our students, doing it in a way that ultimately supports them and our families. i just also, while there's, you know, difficult decisions, we make, i always need to use this time to highlight the amazing things that are happening in our district. and if you go to the

next slide as filipino american history month in october and we're making sure to recognize and celebrate the heritage of our students who are filipino american, and i just want to share this. this weekend, there was a leadership forum held by the asian american administrators association and the we. and we're trying to get diverse administrators into our leader, onto our leadership team, and appreciated principals and assistant principals came out to speak. and the principal of lowell shared her experience as a student in san francisco, a filipino student and how the pride she has in her heritage and how that informs her leadership in our schools and so just really appreciate where a district where that lifts up our students and our staff and our leaders and celebrates their heritage in our classrooms. we also are a district. if you go to the next slide. i think one

back. yeah. we also are a district that provides a lot of school lunches to our students. we're in fact the largest provider of meals to school age youth in the city of san francisco and national school lunch week is coming. this is an opportunity just to appreciate our student nutrition services team. celebrate the healthy choices our students have. i. when i visit schools, i hear a lot from our students about our food. both how it needs to improve. but what i really appreciate is where we have put in kitchens and we can make more fresh food. how much the students like it. i was talking with kids from an elementary school who are going to middle school. we're sharing. they heard from their brothers and sisters how the food of presidio is just so much better. now that we have, we can prepare fresh, prepared meals. and so there is a bond on our ballot. the bond on on your ballot that names the projects that we're doing. and

one of the projects that we would do with this bond is to be able to have a central kitchen, to provide more of those fresh meals to our families. so that's national school lunch week. and then one final bright spot, if you can go to the next slide, though, and start the video. it's custodial appreciation week and we just want to celebrate our hard working custodians who keep our schools clean and safe. is it working? nope. we got the infinity screen going. we'll give it one more try. otherwise we'll post it to our website. but it's nice to be able to appreciate our our custodians.

okay. but just want to highlight i mean our custodians work incredibly hard a bright spot this year is we were able to hire and staff our custodial team. so they can, you know, actually focus on just their route and not having to do other people's jobs and again, really appreciate their hard work. so with that, i'll conclude my report and turn it back over to president alexander. thank you, superintendent wayne. we are now at the point in the agenda for the student delegates report, but it looks like that's about. oh, okay. okay. thanks. so maybe we'll try to come back to that in a minute. all right. so we will go on to public comment. so. oh no no okay. he's not

back. nevermind. sorry. vice president westmore who was trying to find him i think. all right. so okay, we will go on to public comment. so. there's one more, one more card than we had. so each speaker will have one minute and public comment will we will have an hour and five minutes, approximately a little more than that until we'll go to 8 p.m. or no later than 8 p.m. and we will start with in person public comment, and then we will move to online public comment. after that. okay. i'm going to call individuals in groups of five. so when you hear your name please line up at the podium and there's a little button there that you'll turn the microphone on. so first five are going to be nicholas macias. miles locker

jamie lang rachel dean and kelly beggs. okay. right now. i'm here. sorry, sorry. it's on. no, no. press the button. okay. there you go. hi, i'm nicholas, the parent of a student at harvey milk civil rights academy in the castro. and i will make this quick that there's people are going to follow me. i think you'll see. the school is pretty represented today, but the reaction i had immediately to the news today was that this process seems like it's designed just to shut down small schools.

in fact, i think it's going to show up in, you know, conversations here as we talk about the criteria that was put forward. if you break it down, it really just looks like we are talking about removing small schools. and i want to advocate for a little bit for what it's like having that experience of the small community school. it feels the right size to where we are, and being able to walk to the campus and have interesting programs with students that fee, you know, i guess what the idea is that maybe these, these large campuses of like 600 or 700 students aren't appropriate for every student in the city. and it feels like we need that diversity of experiences and different environments for different types of students. and if we're setting it up that we're getting rid of all these things, it's going to leave some people out. i think, anyway. is that about a minute? okay. thank you. thank you. good evening. my name is miles locker. i'm a parent at the harvey milk civil

rights academy. i implore you to reverse your proposed decision regarding closure of harvey milk. it is one of the most diverse schools in san francisco. in the district. it has a civil rights curriculum that is unmatched anywhere in the city, and i suspect anywhere in the nation. the education that the students get there because of that, civil rights curriculum is unparalleled. it would be a travesty to shut that down. it would be a travesty to the castro community. harvey milk is central to the castro community, and you do a disservice to that community by proposing to shut that school down. it appears that you are biased against small schools. there are children in san francisco who need a small school environment. you are going to drive those kids out of the san francisco school district. this is a doom loop strategy. thank you. hello, my

name is jamie huling. i'm the mother of a second grader in the school district, and i noticed that with the unaudited financials today, that the bottom line is that our projections are not changing moving forward and that we're still in the same financial situation, even though we have higher revenues and lower costs than expected. and i know there are so many families who are here today who are going to be deeply affected by the decisions that this board is making. but i want to say that we all want to create an equal and equitable and excellent school district moving forward. and so i hope the board makes decisions that keep in mind the direction that we want to move, and especially knowing that we're going to move to a zone assignment system that we protect schools in student rich communities so that every child can realize the goal of going to a fully funded school in their neighborhood. and i'm particularly concerned about the

number of schools that are in districts ten and 11, which already are under-resourced, that are on the list. thank you. thank you. hello. my name is rachel. i'm a parent. like its namesake, harvey milk civil rights academy is a school that welcomes all and champions love over hate. in this political climate. it is extremely worrying that sfusd would choose to take such a trailblazing school from the heart of the castro community. i am the parent of a trans identifying third grader who attends harvey milk, our school community is small and welcoming. it has provided a nourishing and loving environment that champions community and inclusivity. my oldest child is now in seventh grade and they are non-binary. they also attended harvey milk. over the years, harvey milk has embraced embraced the evolutions

and growth that my family has taken, and there have been a fe. our family was not once made to feel like we had to explain who we were or defend our choices in a country where at times it's as if the walls are closing in, where our rights are being repackaged as luxurious choices. i am appalled that shutting down a small and peaceful community is what you've come up with. thank you. good evening. my name is kelly beggs, and i'm a harvey milk parent here tonight to speak about how important our school is to us and to the san francisco community. my daughter is thriving in school. she's reading and writing and doing math at very close to my personal level. at this point, she's learning about civil rights through the school's unique civil rights curriculum. she recites langston hughes poems, and she's learned to love new foods through the school's incredible edible social studies program. she has never been bullied. what i want to express to the board is that it seems as

though the recently released closure list is saying that school small schools don't work for the district. however, small schools are working for our children and for my child in particular. thank you. thank yo. hi, i'm jamie lang, i am the mother of a first grader at harvey milk. harvey milk is a very special place, and i feel like it's different from the other schools that are slated for closure. it's located in the heart of the castro, and it's a safe place where some of the most vulnerable children in the country come to get an education. people from other states come to san francisco just to enroll their children into the school. closing harvey milk will not only displace an entire community and a culture, it will. it will be causing direct harm to many of the students, our children who are lgbtq are the most at risk and require the special place in our

city. they deserve a safe place to learn and to grow, just like all the other kids do not close harvey milk and do not impose this harm on the children on the most vulnerable children in the country. san francisco, i urge you to stop balancing your budgets on the backs of our children. thank you. thank you. good evening. i am here. i noticed on your list there's a lot of schools that have closures for schools that promote special education. and i was just here to vouch that, you know, are you going to make sure that there's enough staff when the schools merged? and i ask you to reconsider which schools you're going to close? because that really matters to me, because my son is autistic, and it really matters for a lot of parents that need those services. thank you. thank you.

i'm going to call the next group. clement al hala fattah, helena awad, nora fattah, and kelly. hi. my name is clementine. i'm a member of the arab. turn your mic on, please. yes. hi. my name is clementine. i'm a member of the arab resource and organizing center and an 11th grader at ruth asawa school of the arts at my school, following a cultural day, our vice principal included in his statement that quote in a presentation about palestinian culture, students with differing viewpoints and community identification were able to have a conversation that exhibited curiosity and a desire to find commonality in effect, he was saying that a presentation about palestinian culture was

controversial, and people were able to have opinions about the mere existence of palestinian traditions. this is a blatant demonstration of how some sfusd administrators are calling into right, or calling into question the right of palestine's culture to even exist in the minds of their students. all of this, combined with the fact that a year ago, sfusd told teachers that they weren't allowed to even discuss what was happening with their students, makes school feel unsafe for me. while it is important for educators to be trained on how to protect their students from all forms of bigotry, as opposed must understand that supporting a community experiencing genocide is not anti-semitism. thank you for your attention. thank you. hi. is it on? okay. hi, my name is hella. i'm a youth member of the arab resource and organizing center and go to abraham lincoln high school. in the past year. nothing about gaza or palestine has been mentioned at school, nor has there been any support from the district to the arab and muslim students. being a palestinian, i have had to watch

my people be brutally bombed and killed, constantly worried about my family and what will happen to them. and having to continue to go on despite all this happening during this sf administration has neglected their arab and muslim communities as well as jewish students and allies. also, you continue to ignore our calls and worries and instead sfusd staff has reprimanded, interrogated and harassed arab and muslim students, making it difficult and uncomfortable for us to be able to speak out, which shouldn't be a problem when all we are doing is calling for an end to the slaughter. bringing in a pro-war, anti-arab organization is so disrespectful to us. to my friends and my family, this is shameful. thank you. okay, my name is helena. i'm palestinian, i'm the president of the local middle eastern north african club. i'm also the founder. i'm a current senior at lowell. i'm here to talk about what you've kind of

heard from some of the students. we've been silenced completely and told not to talk about the genocide in class. how dare you tell me, as a student, as a palestinian student, that i and my teachers have no right to speak about an ongoing genocide that look like me and my family, i have faced racism. i've witnessed interrogations and bullying by adults affiliated with sfusd. and now you bring in this pro-war pro-israel organization to do antisemitism trainings. after ignoring our year long concerns and demands and hate crimes that have happened since last october and claimed there is no bias, this is an organization that has platformed benjamin netanyahu and claimed that their main goal is to advocate for israel. how can there be no bias? my experience is not just limited to me, but it's all of the arab and muslim students in sf usd. you are pushing us out. i would be more concerned about keeping your schools open than platforming a pro-israel war lobbyist organization. thank you very much. thank you. okay. hello. my name is nora and i'm a

youth member of arac. as someone who used to attend abraham lincoln high and currently has family and friends in ss, fsu, sfusd at every grade elementary, middle, and high school, they have been experiencing discrimination for being palestinian and muslim. we deserve more than what you have given us in this. last year, my little sister who was in seventh grade, had a teacher ask her why her people started this war. now, how do you expect an 11 year old girl to respond to tha? we deserve more than to feel as though our voices and feelings don't matter. we deserve to be able to freely talk about our people and our country without having untruthful accusations made to us. our families and students have been begging for the district to actually care for us. palestinians, arabs and muslims. communities have faced a lot in this last year and for this training to happen, led by a pro war pro genocide organization is just offensive, belittling and dehumanizing. you guys should be doing better. thank you. my name is carly. i am a student at balboa high school. we, the students, have

been let down by sfusd following our participation of the district wide walkout on october 18th, 2023. my sister and i faced extreme hate adults outside of sfusd were targeting us with hate speech on school platforms. we were personally attacked, even called racist slurs and threatened with physical harms. our administration was doxxed. our secretary had to suffer through weeks and weeks of abusive hate speech calls. they even threatened us at homecoming. but the district did nothing to protect us. we asked for help so much. racism was documented, but sfusd did nothing to bring in a pro-war organization for pd. after ignoring the documented threats, discrimination, and bullying that my peers and i reported is dehumanizing, the ethnic studies teachers are qualified partio is qualified, jvp is qualified. we don't need

to bring in pro-war lobbyists to fight hate. thank you. i will call the next group jamie huling, david holland, tiffany, alexis panzer, joanna lynn. elaine lateen. just show up. hi. thank you. i'm david, parent of a kindergartner at harvey milk. i'm deeply, deeply concerned by the process and the metrics that were used to select this initial list, something that has not been captured is the immeasurable value small schools bring to our community. they are a safe space for our lgbtq plus

families, for our bullied kids, for neurodivergent kids, and for many others that large schools simply cannot accommodate. one of your criteria was directly school size less than 260 kids. this itself is problematic is a problematic criteria that many of us here disagree with. but the real disservice to our students and families here is that your other criteria, the composite score, is nothing but another measure for school size, as we see here. schools. and i'm sorry, this is small, but schools with 1500 plus students scored incredibly well on your composite score. nearly an average of 80. whereas schools with less than 500 students scored below or just above 30. thank you. that's your one minute. thank you, thank you, thank you. so my name is tiffan.

i have two mixed race children who are black and white. my husband and i picked harvey milk due to the diverse representation and the staff and students. we wanted a school that was small and focused on social justice and civil rights. each grade has a set curriculum where they learn about civil rights leaders and historical figures. example. our first grader is learning and reciting poems from langston hughes and many others. this unique curriculum teaches the students to be caring and supportive of all humans we know that sanchez has a bullying issue where children have transferred from sanchez to attend. harvey milk. this is a heartbreaking situation for those children having to go back to an environment where they were bullied, the staff, community and families make harvey milk the phenomenal school that is and has been the school lottery. they make harvey milk the phenomenal school that it is, and it has been the school

lottery system that has caused the school to be under-enrolled. thank you. my name is alexis and my child is in. nope. there we go. my name is alexis and my child is in second grade at harvey milk. civil rights academy. when we enrolled in harvey milk, we were mid-year refugees from private school. we decided on milk initially as they were the only school that was responsive and came was come up with an actionable plan for our iep on the spot. since then, the school has brought us so much more. i'm deeply concerned that we could lose our civil rights curriculum that really enables social emotional learning. it is unique to our school and could be a model for the district. i'm saddened that people who have chosen our school would lose small their small school feel that they chose for their child for a reason. our school is built to be small and we appear to be targeted of that because of that, even though the district said that small schools have a place in our portfolio, and i'm angered that that what was a

beacon for lgbtq kids and families for neurodivergent kids and kids who were seen as different may be erased. and those kids that are prone to bullying will not be welcomed with open arms. we are ready to be fully enrolled. families in the aaf fought to be enrolled. please reconsider closing our community. thank you. good evening commissioners. my name is joanna lynn. i'm the parent of a second grader at harvey milk civil rights academy. two years ago, i did the opposite of what many parents of school age children do. i left the suburbs and moved to the city, so my child could attend harvey milk. there are many wonderful schools in sfusd, but harvey milk is singular. we are a safe haven for lgbtq children and families. we teach our children to champion civil rights, to fight for social justice, and to build and show up for community every day. how will you ensure that our quote unquote merger is a blending of distinct communities and cultures? how will you reconcile structural differences like our start times and our facilities? how will we ensure that our educators, the heart and soul of our community, are not pushed out in this process? we need you to show us that this

merger is not a euphemism for closure and a de facto acquisition. our campus is one of the district's literal best. buy your own scoring. please do not squander the investment taxpayers made in our school. please keep our school, our community and what we stand for intact. our families and our city need harvey milk civil rights academy thank you. thank you. hello, my name is alan. i have a son with autism, and during the pandemic, my wife and i were were in health care and we spent a lot of time working with covid patients. and during that process, we were undergoing the exacting process of iep for our son and trying to find where he'd fit in. we toured probably a dozen schools, and the only one that fit was harvey milk.

and i just want to echo that this process seems like it's targeting smaller schools, and i would just urge this board to not sacrifice economics and efficiency for a quality and caring community that truly accepts all comers. thank you. thank you. tava jeff morrison, julie roberts, fung, stephanie and josh friedman. to speak. thank you. hello, i'm tara and a parent, a parent of students at balboa high school. and i'm really concerned about the pattern of racism that sfusd is

demonstrating in its failure to respond to hate speech, bullyin, racism to our arab and muslim students and students that are organizing for human rights in palestine. we met in this room in november. it was a hard meeting. my students have been targeted on school platforms by hate speech. they've been threatened. their administrator has been doxxed, and this body did not respond. hate speech unchecked leads to hate crimes. and their silence in the district about palestinian perspectives and bringing in a pro-war group. when you have an ethnic studies department. thank you is not enough. thank you. it's dehumanizing. seth morrison

with jewish voice for peace. we've had multiple complaints from jewish teachers and jewish parents about bringing in a pro-israel organization to train our teachers in response to that, we have arranged for passeio, which is known for collective liberation training of teachers, to do an alternative training tomorrow afternoon. at the same time. and we urge all teachers to go to this truly unbiased and unprejudiced training where they will get a fair picture of what anti-semitism is and what it is

not. the american jewish congress committee claims to speak for all jews, but they absolutely do not. thank you. thank you. hello. i'm a parent of a six year old son that attends harvey milk, as do my two niblings. if you don't know what that term means, it's a term for your siblings, non-binary or trans children. it's a term that even in progressive san francisco, i don't use often because i'm usually met with confusion here. even here, gender nonconforming children are misunderstood. the cdc says that 1 in 4 trans teens attempt suicide and they are bullied and feel unsafe at school. harvey milk is a safe space for our youngest trans kids, an equity point that you do not seem to have considered. the school truly fosters inclusion. bullying and bullying is not a big issue here. it's why i chose to send my sensitive

and neurodivergent child while other elementary schools are celebrating harvey milk day and teach that he fought for the rights of queer people and lost his life for it, half this country would call this the woke agenda and doesn't even think children like my siblings should exist. this is san francisco. we should be leading the country and making sure all kids are seen and feel safe. thank you. thank you. hi, my name is julie and i wanted to share my disappointment with the district's decision to invite ajc to provide training on anti-semitism. the organization's pro-war, and confuses critique of israel with anti-semitism. as a jewish parent of multiracial kids, this doesn't reflect my jewish values or make my jewish or make my family safer. one of the founding moments in my jewish identity was seeing my cousins arguing with my aunts and uncles about how important it has been to speak out against genocide in sudan and not try to set aside the jewish experience as exceptional. i want my children

to understand that our safety as jewish people is connected to the safety of everyone around us. a standalone training that protects israel does not protect my family or the arab, black, asian, indigenous and other youth in our district who have been under attack with no required professional development. my name is josh friedman. i'm a jewish parent of a jewish sfusd student, and i'm here to speak out against the so-called anti-semitism training reinstated for high school teachers in tomorrow. the training is to be provided by the ajc, the ajc is a jewish organization, but its primary mission is to advocate for israel in its own words, practically, this has meant they have used their power to oppose a ceasefire in gaza and have

platformed the war criminal netanyahu. it seems absurd to me that the board would allow a pro genocidal war. pro-apartheid anti-arab organization to train our teachers. tonight, you have heard from many of our brave palestinian students about the racism they experience at sfusd. we do not fight racism by pitting jewish students against palestinian students. thank you. okay, going to call the next group alexia abbott, sarah sullivan, laura kiswani, galen spohrer, and alex sweet. thank you. my name is alex yobo. i have three kids at sfc. boys the last few days have been a real

show of failed communications. honestly, very disappointing and all that to learn that among others, sfc is being merged and moved. by that you mean closed. so you are planning to close the sfc because it's a small school, it doesn't seem like there's any other reason without even thinking of how to make the model work. no matter that sfc is in kids reach d11, a project based school, a tight and very diverse community and by design focused on equity. you say we need to make these difficult decisions, but you still have not shown any supporting data. how is this going to save 22 million to the budget? how is this good for our students? what are your criteria and how did you make sure this list was serving all students equitably? please be transparent about the decision process. thank you. my

name is sarah sullivan. i'm a parent at sf community school. we've just learned that our school is on a list of potential mergers and what i want to know is whether the superintendent only sees numbers when he looks at schools to close or merge. has he ever visited the rich and vibrant westside school communities he's intending to dissolve and merge? after decades of disinvestment, the rank inequality of starving schools of resources only to then blame them for failing is racist, classist, and completely blind. if you can truly come to our school and see our diverse and engaged community as failing, there is something wrong with the way you are defining failing. because we are a school that practices what we preach community, social justic, education of the whole person. this is s.f. usd at its best. if you close us, you are closing one of the most dynamic

community learning spaces in the district. the numbers are not telling you the whole story. thank you. hello, it's galen. hi, good to see you. i talked to you last tuesday at the special hearing also. parent of a child at sfc, which is the correct size for our community. we are the reason that you started the small schools initiative. we are the only project based school. as miss mary has said, we are the mothership of all of your progressive and alternative programs. i notice the school closures list that you put out today only affects one west side school. we mapped it for you because you didn't put out a map to accompany that. and if you look at that map, it's very telling. the chronicle put out an article today that said san francisco could see 11 schools shuttering, shifting 2000 students and saving up to 22

million. is there an official or private or public fiscal analysis that shows where this 22 million figure came from? where was that derived from? we would love to see the data because up till now we've been hearing that it's been a negligible amount of money that you will save from closing schools. free palestine. palestine. good evening. my name is laura kiswani. i am the executive director of arak, the arab resource and organizing center. i too am here with some hard decisions as you are as a leader, superintendent, i'm here making a decision to spend time with our students, our youth, our parents and our teachers who are appalled by some of the decisions of this district. instead of attending to my family, my community who are facing a genocide, i have lost over four dozen people in my own family. that's nothing compared to some of the students who've chosen to pull out of your schools, because of the disregard that this district has shown them. i come here to say that you are met with hard

decisions, including making some decisions about the management in your own district who have chosen to focus on propagandizing their teachers with a pro-israel pro genocide organization instead of dealing with school closures and taking care of working class people of color in your own city, and that should be the priority. so rather than focusing on propagandizing our teachers focus on taking care of the working class impacted students in this city, including arab, palestinian and muslim students. and we welcome you to join us in learning how to do that. thank you. thank you. hello. good evening, commissioner. superintendent wayne, thank you for your time and attention. my name is alex. i'm here as a parent of a second grader at harvey milk. when our daughter was ready for kindergarten, we weren't sure what kind of student she was going to be, but we knew she likely needed some extra help and needed a supportive community. and that's why we chose harvey milk. and

while we sought some outside evaluations and assessments, something magical happened, which is that her kindergarten teacher and classmates created what i can only describe as like a structured, encouraging, nurturing cocoon for her. and while she had an incredible kindergarten teacher shout out miss vashti, it was more than that because it continued. it happened in kindergarten. it happened again in first grade, and it's continued into second. the culture at harvey milk civil rights academy is almost no nonsense. inclusivity like kid a has brown hair, kid b uses they them pronouns. kid c gets easily overwhelmed in large crowds and needs headphones. and that's my kid. and so when i think about putting our kids at the center, it's making sure that harvey milk's intentional culture can continue. thank you. thank you. monique. flatbreads. sabrina. vitale. casey. hope and nadia bick. one. one. no. okay. my

name is vitale, and i am actually a parent of two students. and i heard that the superintendent is looking much on numbers, but i'm looking at numbers, and they don't sound like i checked it with a very popular rating, and it seems like it's minus nine zero nine correlation. so best schools got least ratings. i don't know why. i don't know how it came up with these numbers. like i don't see any transparency. like if you check some really great schools like peabody, like they got 15 points how they got very good rating, they got very good enrollment. a lot of schools that are closed got waitlists, like there is something really, really wrong with those numbers and we don't see any transparency on this. i see that these numbers are not transparent and just incorrect

for me as a math person. here. hello, my name is sabrina. i work as a youth organizer with the arab resource and organizing center. some of you guys might recognize me because i was here a lot last year advocating for ade, which you guys rescinded, by the way, and coming back to sfusd again. and it's heartbreaking. i don't want to really be here. i organize a lot of san francisco public school youth, and in the last year i've had to play the role. i don't even want to cry in front of you guys because you guys don't care. but i've had to play the role of a therapist to the arab youth and the palestinian youth that you guys don't care about. i've had students call me because they're getting interrogated by school administrators and their teachers and humiliated in front of their friends and peers. that's messed up. you guys are so institutionally racist. it's crazy. and it's insane how you guys get to top it every single time. it's so shameful. i don't even know how i can even be more

disappointed in you guys. you guys don't even care. you guys are going to move on with a pro war. pro genocide organization leading this. if you look at their website, the first thing is a big israeli flag that says we stand with israel, the israel that's killed these students families. shame. thank you. rachel. hello. my name is hello. my name is monique perez. i'm a parent of two students, one in elementary school and one in middle school. i think you all are horrible, horrible people. you should be fired for doing an awful job and you should be arrested and jailed for stealing our children's education. and what the hell are you doing with our taxpayer money? we live in

one of the richest school districts in the world, one of the richest cities in the world. but you won't hire teachers and you're closing schools. thank god, my school that my daughters go to isn't being closed. but my child in elementary schools had a sub all year because you won't hire teachers that have interviewed. we have money to bomb and murder children in palestine and around the world. while here in sf, our children are also suffering and denied their human rights for quality education. we should have a national strike and demand our human rights and the occupation and demand that our taxpayer be payer, be payer money, be used for quality education here. thank you. and you all should go to jail. hello, this is the spanish interpreter. i just want to remind people on the podium.

please do not put your mouth too close because it sounds muffled and it's impossible for us to do the interpretation. please. thank you. okay, okay. hi. my name is nadia conrad, and i have a student at sfcc. we actually transferred in last year in the middle of the year, and we found our community. my son is autistic and this school is the only school i felt safe to send him to. i am appalled by the list. i have seen. sorry. i've seen the list. i've seen what schools are on this list. i don't know why my throat is doing this and they are all small schools. i don't know why i'm sorry, i need water. can i come back? i'm sorry. yes. hi. my name is cassie hope. i'm the

proud parent to a second grader at san francisco community, one of the schools on the list to be merged with another k-8. i chose to send my daughter to sfcc, a school where a sense of community is prioritized and whose virtues i admire and hope to instill in my child virtues such as respect, perseverance, equity, propriety. i also chose sfcc because of the project based learning component, as i recognize how valuable a skill set it is to learn how to dive deep on a subject and how to collaborate and work in teams. and lastly, because it was a small and intimate environment, one in which i know my child needs in order to thrive, what i want to know is, how can you guarantee she will get the same experience i signed up for after this merger? thank you. i'm

sorry. may i try one more time? thank you. so again, my name is nadia conrad and i have a son at sfcc. and i'm so happy that we have the community that we have. it is so important for san francisco to have small schools. i ask that you stop targeting these small schools and keep them open. these communities need this, especially district 11, district 11 has the highest number of kids in public schools. and yet the southeast has been targeted. we are having the most school mergers, which actually will lead to closures. i ask that you fully staff every school before you decide to close or merge it, so that you can show that we so that you can allow us to become successful. you need to make sure that every

school that has sped students is a priority, and you need to make sure that if you're going to cut anything, you cut from the top. i'm sorry, but i know that we have the superintendent that gets the most in california. he should be taking the pay cut first before our schools. thank you. okay, going to call the next group sama. wasim. hello, natalie. pojman. victor ward. alex. good evening. i'm also here to comment on the pro-zionist group that you all went behind the community's back and decided to give teachers

trainings with you all should be reflective of the communities that you serve. but from what everybody talked about today, it doesn't sound like you're reflecting anybody except your own self-interest. instead, instead of being reflective of this community, there has been zero transparency about school closures, about this training for teachers, and there has been a lack of process and inclusion when it comes to this, to this end, antisemitism teacher training that's taking place district wide as if you sfusd is engaging a private, politically motivated organization that promotes islamophobia and anti-arab hate. that's who you all are working with and that's who you want. training our teachers as a parent, i demand you halt these trainings and that you allow for a process that is community centered to

provide the correct training to our teachers. thank you. otherwise, resign. hi. members of the board, supervisor, superintendent wayne, my name is waseem hajj. i am with the arab resource and organizing center. as you've heard over the last year, i have watched so many arab kids come through our doors struggling because our entire community collectively is watching our homelands be bombed in a us funded war. my family's house in lebanon was destroyed last week, and that is not doesn't come close to some of the loss that some of these students here today in our youth program, in our schools have experienced. when you bring in a pro-war pro genocide organization, it makes us to do professional development for teachers. it makes us ask, as a

community who are you listening to? you have heard from arab parents. you have heard from jewish parents. you have heard you've received thousands of letters, hundreds of letters, at least, asking you to stop this training and empower your ethnic studies program to do the job. who are you listening for? thank you. good evening. my name is natalie. my daughter is a second grader at harvey milk civil rights academy. my daughter has thrived at harvey milk. she runs into class every day and has been able to connect, connect with kids at at the school in all grades. a real gift of being in a small school. harvey milk is an important part of the san francisco story. it fosters a wonderful learning environment that includes a unique civil rights curriculum, curriculum, and a safe and a safe space for the lgbtq plus community. please do not close this gem of the castro. thank you. thank you. hello, my name is victor ward

and i'm here to talk about a non agendized item. but i did want to say i'm a little bit reluctant because there's so much passion in the room. and kudos to the community. also kudos to the board. the superintendent i know none of these issues are easy and i know you're talking about. i know, i know, we're talking about things like like math, like finances, as you know, proposition 28 has already reserved a certain amount of finances to go to the arts programs for the district for each school. and my company competes edu is an online video platform. we believe it's terrific for supporting the arts and music program satisfies all the requirements of prop 28, and we'll be giving scholarships to students as part of the reward program. so thank you. thank yo.

good evening, board members. my name is alex landsburg. i'm a parent of two high school kids, neither of whom are in a school that's about to be closed. i'm here because a smug and clearly incompetent administrator is failing the sfusd community at your direction, all the while smirking throughout the entire public comment process. so two things i want to say. first, your school closures. the list that you released today shows that the schools are black or poorer and have fewer, have less english proficiency. and this is all being done under the guise of equity. it's just bs. second, let's talk about anti-semitism training as important as anti-semitism training is, let's be real. this is a supremacist jewish supremacist, apartheid promoting group. anti anti-zionism has been part of the jewish experience ever since zionism was was formed as a nationalist political ideology 125 years ago. so i want to read

something from 1937 that is rings true today. what can a jewish palestine be? in the best case scenario, a small kingdom of a tiny hebrew tribe within the jewish people. when zionists speak to the non-jewish world, they're outstanding democrats and they present the conditions in today's and future palestine as exemplary of liberty and progress. hold on. but if a jewish state is to be founded in palestine, it's please, please respect the other speakers. please respect other speakers. thank you. we need a little piece of land for every scrap of work with the internal enemies and a tireless struggle for the eradication of. i'm going to call the next group veronica. veronica pittman, parag gupta, m villanueva, sara powell and cecilia lee. i know the time limits are frustrating. a minute is not enough to say nearly everything that we want to say. so just but just please, out of

respect for other other speakers, we want to be fair and give everyone a minute. so please try to wrap up when the timer goes off. you know, finish your you have a couple more seconds and then alicia will cut you off. so she's she's not trying to be rude, but we've got to be fair and equitable to all the speakers. thank you. thank you. hello. my name is i pressed the button. hi, my name is veronica pittman and i am a parent leader of the african american parent advisory council as well as the mother of a second grader. and i recently read an article about how many children aren't getting the services promised in their ieps. my child being included in that and it's not because the schools don't want to help, but it's mainly due to sfusd hiring

process. so my question is what is the point of taking time to make all these policies and procedures and handbooks and documents if at the end of the day, all they're going to say is we don't have the staffing. i was just wondering, like, when are they going to get the staffing so that the students with special needs can get the services that they deserve? thank you. i'm sorry. this is the spanish interpreter. once again, please refrain yourselves to put your mouth very close to the mic because it sounds muffled and we cannot hear what you're saying. thank you, thank you. so just a gentle reminder to the rest of our speakers. if you can just kind of step up. don't speak so closely to the mic. thank you. great. my name is prague gupta. i'm an sfusd parent. school board members. i know you have a very difficult decision ahead of you. come this

december. i hope that the data that's presented to you. i know the school closure list is presented, or at least the initial list and what qualifies. i hope the data presented when it ultimately is presented will consider that more than 40% of our public school students do live in d-11 do live in the southeast, and i hope we can believe and trust and appraise the excellence in our southeast corner of the city. i also hope that the data that will be presented to the board will hear the hurt. the data should be transparent. the school meetings that are conducted should be collaborative and not coopt. and then please, i look forward to hearing a plan from the superintendent or school administrators as to how we are supporting our families and our educators going forward past december. thank you very much.

hi, i'm sarah powell. i'm here as a concerned citizen of san francisco, as a former teacher and as a middle east historian, i noticed that you opened this meeting today by honoring the indigenous stewards of the land. and it absolutely blows me out of the water that you have the chutzpah to do that. while hiring a genocidal, actively genocidal genocide that is active as we speak, killing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people, wasting the land to train teachers against some kind of racist bigotry. are you kidding me? where was the training after george floyd was killed and blm was big? where was the training when? let me

specify east asian americans were under attack in san francisco. palestinians, arabs, six countries being bombed are both asian and semitic. and keep these other schools open. that's your time. sorry, david. hi, board members, my name is cecilia lee. this is my son alexander. he is a second grader at harvey milk school. he actually asked me to come tonight and come up to public comment because we wanted to share what harvey milk civil rights academy has meant to our family, as you all consider, the kind of education we want all of our city's kids to have. so, you know, harvey milk school as a city is a school where every child is known by every adult. it's a cornerstone of the castro community where we live. we have a unique teacher led civil rights curriculum where our kids are taught to center social justice and inclusion. and i've

seen the impacts firsthand in the school culture and how our students act and show up every day. and i can say that harvey milk is a place where students are kind. they support each other. they celebrate all racial and cultural backgrounds, gender identities, learning differences, and our students stand up for each other. so that's why we're here to stand up for our school. and i just want to end by saying that that's due to our incredible staff. i urge you to center them and their well-being and their voices in this devastating closure process, because they are who makes our community what it is. thank you. thank you. sfusd was alerted by sfpuc in 2018 that there were outlets that had excess of five parts per billion of lead at bhm in december of 2022, sfusd reported that multiple outlets had excess of five parts per billion of lead. we had to demand that they test the water. they were not even planning to. i remember, superintendent, you were there at that meeting, even after the soil was tested positive. we are

constantly having to beg you to do your jobs, to have lead free water at bhm in january and june of 2023, sfusd reported multiple outlets of parts per billion of lead. in september of 2023, sfusd reported multiple outlets of five parts per billion of lead. we learned this past week from sfusd that there is still lead in the outlets. faucets were not taken out of service or adequately covered. facilities told us that they covered faucets were safe. that is a lie. faucets that are not safe, they're covered up. thank you. this is unclear how this happened. it's confusing and scary. our kids are afraid to drink their own water and all the water is inadequate. this happened during the classrooms where over 90 degrees are the ppe. thank you. that my kid could not drink lead free water. shame on you. you. thank you. that concludes in person. let's go to online public comment. please. at this time, we will

have we'll hear public comment from our virtual participants. please raise your hand. each participant, each speaker will get one minute. can we please have that repeated in spanish and chinese? my name is este es el torno de la parte de los participants de la linea. les pedimos a todos aquellos participants recuerdan tienen solamente un minuto. gracias. thank you, luis takajo mansion ortega kung chung mong joon, fabio maria y fabio. i see you also. yo, fabio, i like to come in. totally. thank you. thank you. reina! can you hear me?

yes, we can hear you. thank you. good evening. my name is reina tello. family liaison with five elements. community organizer with boulder sfusd alumni and a parent of two sfusd students, one of whom is a junior at june jordan school for equity. over the past month, we have presented our demands to stop the sfusd runaway train. putting a pause to the school closures process until real solutions to bridge the budget gap are identified authentically engaging the schools and communities that are most vulnerable to these school closures. and i have not received any communication to engage with me as a parent. before the release of the list today, i cannot express to you the damage that you have caused today. superintendent wayne, you showed a picture of three smiling children and said that these are tough decisions to ensure quality education for all students. but what you are doing is putting the burden on the backs of the students at small schools. by design, the same students and parents who have

shown up meeting after meeting imploring you to have a real plan to fix the deficit, which this will not fix. a month's time is not enough time to meaningfully engage us, and the affected schools. you have answered no questions that we asked you in june. how can we trust that sfusd will answer the ones we have now? that is your time. thank you. sarita. my name is sarita. i'm a teacher in sfusd, and i just wanted to reiterate what literally all of the rest of the speakers have said. this decision is racist. you all at the board at racist. and this has been said to you time and time again when you refuse to acknowledge that is racism, when you continue to support pro genocide organizations and pretend that this is apolitical in teaching about anti-semitism, that is racism. you are not thinking about the experiences of our arab and palestinian students

and the extreme trauma that they are under and by you planting this in our schools. as a quote unquote, unbiased training. it's a farcical thing. not only that, but you are now making the racist decision to close majority black and brown schools, which is what i told you last meeting and the meeting before and the meeting before was the wrong decision. that there has been no data shown how this decision fixes the deficit, and also just a point, it's also latino heritage month and these are, you know, communities that are affected are also latino communities and immigrant communities. and that is not something you mentioned at the beginning either. doctor wayne, thank you. so shame on all of you. thank you. juana. my name is juana teo, community partner to sf usd via five elements youth program serving youth across southeast public schools. i echo the demands of students, parents, and educators who are concerned about the flaws of

defaulting to closing or merging small schools as a solution to the budget crisis. in sfusd, i've been a witness to the way our community has mobilized week after week outside of the school board, because research shows that closing public schools, regardless of size, is an ineffective approach to address the root causes of our district's problems. closing small schools will have a minimal impact on the gap in the budget, yet a direct attack on the remaining vulnerable working class families of color in our city. we also extend our support to the palestinian students who fight back against racist dehumanization and the silencing of their voices. it's unacceptable that you allow a pro genocidal, pro-zionist organization to provide professional development to your district staff and in the same breath, attacked and silenced palestinian histories and perspectives. shame on you. thank you. for. erica. hi. thank

you all i have. so i'm a parent of a kindergartner at san francisco community alternative school. the city's first community school, and my question for you all is simple. how was equity defined in this process and how is equity being defined in this process? when five out of the 13 schools on the list are from districts ten and 11, and 11 districts in the city, and five out of the 13, you know, president alexander, you've said that you're concerned that the school closure process could be racist and you're committed not to repeating the mistakes of the past. and i implore you, please think about how equity is being defined. you know, my daughter's school is 75% children of color in the neighborhood that has the

highest density of school children in the city. as has been said. and please think about how equity is being defined. thank you. thank you. sarah. hi. can you hear me? yes. hi. my name is sarah meskin. i am a sf usd public school parent. my kids are at james lake and daniel webster. neither school which is on the closure list. i think that for me, listening to all these public comments and following this story very closely for the last few months is just really showing me that the communication that sf, usd and the district has put out has really been subpar. i think parents are confused. they are frustrated. they don't entirely feel like this process has been transparent. and so i would really ask in the upcoming few

weeks and months, i would really ask that the board and the district, as a whole is trying to focus on actually communicating with parents and families better so that we know what's happening, and so that people aren't living in this kind of constant state of anxiety. i really would ask for you guys to put information out that is digestible for, you know, people who maybe don't understand the system entirely. and to make sure that you're really focused on making sure that parents, particularly parents and families, that are. thank you. thank you. allen. hello? can you guys hear me? yes. okay. hello. good evening. my name is allen tello. i am a junior at june jordan school for equity. i'm here again to demand matt wayne to restart the rfp

process to ensure the most vulnerable voices are heard. and that we ask the questions that get to the root of the problem. this runaway train is not going to close the gap in the budget. it won't even make a dent cut from the top. i've been to almost every single one of these board of education meetings and the community sessions. doctor wayne held and still have not heard any answers to our questions, nor any plan to support our teachers and students. the people who should be his priority. it's disrespectful to the students who give public comment and it and it feels like it goes in one ear and out the other. listen to your students and families. as a board, you are responsible to ensure that doctor matt wayne makes the decisions that are best for the students. you are not doing your job. keep him accountable. stop hurting vulnerable students. we will remember your decisions as we are affected by the actions you take. i just want i just want to remind you that we were promised no educators will lose their jobs. we want to see the implementation plan that ensures this will be true. stop the sfusd runaway train. don't play politics with our education free palestine. support our palestinian students. and sorry i had to speak so fast. the one minute time limit. thank you.

tom. hi, my name is tom, my wife and i have two students in the district and sorry. and we're both special education teachers. you know, i think one word is trust. when you have these town halls that are coming up, is anything going to change? if all parents in the community voice anything is the superintendent going to do anything different? no. and be honest with that. the board hold them accountable. you say you will, you hired him even though he closed a bunch of schools in hayward. he came to dolores huerta, where i worked after i called his board. so many times. can you visit the school? and then he said, i haven't come here because i came here years ago. i think this is all just show. and he gave himself a raise and a while ago. and for what? what has changed?

the mayor had to step in and uncovered this 20 or $30 million for special ed. the hiring practices are awful. and instead of addressing that right, we're going to close schools. what is that going to solve? what has he done that is beneficial? i keep asking that. and we keep trying to skirt it and say, oh, he inherited, you know, no one forced me to take this job and to take this money. rianda. superintendent wayne, board commissioners and everybody in attendance tonight. initially, i called in for june jordan. i still stand with them. and i ask that you reverse that decision. just because the school is small does not mean that it doesn't bring value. and so i ask that you revisit the list, but also i am heartbroken right now and i had to clear up my tears because i wanted to speak clearly for palestine. palestinian students and families. it is wrong. 100% wrong. how you all are treating

them. i do not understand how a district that says that they are about equity has pro-israel stuff, or standing with israel on their website. can you please make that make sense to me? how do you, as individuals who could have family members yourselves that are being massacred every single day, stand here and say that you need to be more sympathetic to israel. you can't be biased. you have students that are come from every background and it is your duty and responsibility to stand up and support each and every student in this district. our families matter. all of them, and they deserve support. thank you. to protect the students, do not allow us. parents for public schools. hi. good evening. this is vanessa marrero speaking on behalf of parents of public

schools of san francisco. that has been and will continue to be an institution and adamant about no school closures. while i recognize that many of the schools on the list are slated for mergers, i need all of the board members to understand what detrimental impacts this will have on local communities. parents of public schools of san francisco will not stand down. we will continue to advocate. we will go to both the state and national level to ensure that you are doing your due diligence to make equity a parent for all. thank you. thank you. anna. hi, i'm anna gracia. i am a parent of three kids in the district. i feel like i'm here every time

trying a new argument. like maybe this will be the one that will move you guys to stop these school closures. but i don't know. i mean, kids have literally cried in your face saying, don't close my school and still happening. so i don't know if anything's going to move you, but i'm going to talk fast. so basically we keep getting told that these closures are necessary for the budget and that it has to be balanced. but like, that's not how the government works. our country has been running on credit for forever, and the debt ceiling is only raised as an issue when politicians want to make cuts to social programs. somehow we always have money for these embezzlements that are happening or paying off lawsuits like we are telling kids that their civil rights are not worth the money. what do you have to do? you want to balance the budget? just go be on our side and fight for more for our kids. i just i'm done. thank you. aaron.

hello. good evening everyone. my name is aaron dumont. i'm the parent of a fourth grader in the district. i'm very grateful tonight for all the parents and caregivers that have shown up for our students and their schools. i think it's important to note that the district itself has noted that this will not save them money. i don't understand what the point of this is. superintendent wayne keeps saying that these are hard decisions and hard conversations, but yet has not backed himself up into why i think i have a theory and that's that this racist, unproven effort by this district to sell off sites and privatize schools is how they're going to make their money back. it's a disgrace. i think they should rethink this process, and i think they should end the entire thing. this is such a waste of time. thank you. thank you. eva. hi. my name is eva. i'm a parent

of a first grader at san francisco community school. i want to echo what everyone has said. please slow this process down and stop school closures. there are other places to cut and better manage the money. that's not the parent's job to figure that out. that's not the student's job to figure that out. that's the administrators. that's what an administrator is. our families deserve safety and to keep their communities and schools open. students and teachers deserve clean water. if we're not even able to keep water clean at schools, like that should be a focus. and students need spaces that are free of racism and harassment. all of these issues are connected and they're relating to racism and inequality. and if we're saying that we're a district that focuses on equity, then we're not doing that by having all these issues. so stop school closures, listen to what everybody is saying and do the job that administrators do, which is to figure out creative

solutions that don't impact students negatively. there's a sorry. i'm sorry. thank you so much. sorry. jennifer. i'm sure i'm not the first person to say this tonight, but i would like to congratulate the superintendent and board for managing to put june jordan and malcolm x and harvey milk all on a closure list. if you were trying to convince us that equity mattered to you, that's a fail. this is project 25, 20, 25 nonsense. i also want to know why we're still opening a for kindergarten school at mission bay. if we have to close 11 elementary schools, because let's not pretend mergers are anything except closures. we've heard a lot from some schools tonight, and while they spat fire. but i want to stand up for one of the schools we have not heard from el dorado, a school with a full k through five autism program, a school that has been fundamentally destroyed

by this district for over 20 years, who have had staff bring national attention to the way this district uses its resources in ways that inculcate white supremacy. of course, you want to close el dorado. it's a problem for you. all of these schools matter. there is no reason to close any of them. it's time to have fewer administrators. at 555. get a superintendent who's willing to do the job rather than pass the buck. thank you. that's your time. thank you. tom. and tom. yeah, i already spoke. thank you, thank you. anna. and.

hello? can you hear me? yes. hi. my name is anna, and i am a proud parent and graduate of james lick, middle school. and i have a son at daniel webster. my schools are not impacted yet. i still think that we're supposed to be here and advocate for each other and our students and families, and that's supposed to be your job superintendent and the board of education. you're supposed to look out for the best well-being of our children and closing our school is telling our kids we don't care about them. you're trying to make it seem like, oh, we gave our teachers a raise, and that's all we have to, you know, cut down on other expenses. guess what? our teachers work so much harder than you do. and i believe that we should continue to advocate for them and stop using the board of education as a stepping stone for your political stepping to move somewhere else. like, really, if you want to do this job and

listen to our families, listen to our students. my kids went up to you and told you the kids don't want their schools being closed and you continue to do the same thing. nothing. you don't listen to our families. i'm tired of this. we always come and tell you, listen, let's work together. but you continue to do the opposite. you don't listen to our families and you continue to do whatever the fuck you want to do. thank you. that does conclude the amount of time allotted for virtual public comment. thank you. and i want to thank everyone who spoke tonight on all the on all the issues and particularly just to remind members of the public that in terms of the issue around school mergers and closures, as the superintendent noted at the beginning, this is his and the staff's best thinking right now, and they're engaging in a community process. and the board encourages everyone to engage in that

process with the superintendent and staff and then he will bring a plan, a final plan to us in november for a vote in december, the board obviously will be you know, emphasizing the points that we've emphasized all along that we want to make sure that there's been meaningful community engagement, that there's a clear transition plan if there are going to be mergers and closures that would support all impacted students, families and staff, that there is a fiscal analysis approved by the california department of education that there's an independent equity audit that shows that there is no disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, and that there's an analysis of how these mergers or closures would be in line with our proposed changes to the enrollment system. so those are all issues just that haven't yet come to the board. and that would with the final plan. but again, we encourage members of the community to engage with superintendent and staff and give the feedback that he's requesting. so now and there will also, as he said, there'll

be town halls. you can look at our website. there's more information on that. so now we're moving to the item. the next agenda item which is the audit. sorry, the unaudited actuals, not the audit. and let me find it. it's item f approval of unaudited actuals. financial reports and adoption of the gann limit resolution for the san francisco unified school district and county office of education for fiscal year 20 2324. can i get a motion in a second, please? palestine. so moved. second. thank you. and superintendent wayne or. yeah. okay. yeah. i'll sit up here, please. you can't do better tha. now. so you guys know y'all make me want to drop out of high school, support your palestinian students, support your arab and muslim community. thank you, thank you. do your job better.

all right. thank you. president alexander, as you shared, this is our unaudited actuals, which is a fancy way of saying our closing of the books from the 2324 school year. so to the races not win. so to share the status of our end of year financials, i would like to welcome associate superintendent of business services, doctor michelle huntoon and our head financial officer jackie chen. thank you. good evening, president alexander. superintendent wayne and commissioners community that is joining us in person and online. thank you. and the powerpoint. perfect. great. thank you. so this this evening we're going to be reviewing the 2324 unaudited actuals, which includes the

actual expenditures for transactions for revenues and expenditures for last fiscal year. so for the business division, this is really the report card at the end of the year. and so that's the way that we review that. it's important to note that the financials are audited by an independent outside audit firm every year. they will they will conduct the audit and they will complete that on or before december 15th. so that will be then coming to you in december for receipt. so we'll go through highlights of the closing and take questions at the end of the presentation. i do want to take just a few moments to thank the staff in in miss chen's department. she's going to start us off this evening, but she and her staff have worked really hard to put all of this together. and so thank you, miss chen, for that. and so i'm going to turn it over to you. thank you, doctor huntoon. and before i started

the presentation here and i would actually thank you my colleagues and kudos to business services executive director shan lee, director carter chen, budget officer and jennifer and tara payroll department executive director latrice and director william and everyone involved in this year and closing process next. fiscal year 2324. year ended on june 30th. we are a single district. the county. the district is required to submit the unaudited actual to the county of education by september 15th. county of education are required to submit their unaudited actuals no later than october 15th to align the district and the county of education with the statutory guidelines, the audit actions will be provided to the

board annually by september 15th for the district and october 15th for the county of educatio. following the board's approval tonight, we will submit our official documents to the state. here's a high level overview of the county of education fund. this table provides a side by side comparison between the unaudited actuals and the estimated actuals. as of june 30th, 2024, the comparison includes the key elements such as the beginning fund balance, revenue, expenditure, and the net surplus or shortfall, which will ultimately determine the ending fund balance, the end fund. the ending fund balance for 2324 improved by 1 million, about 1 million and 0.88 compared to the estimated actual revenue declined by 2 million, and the expenditures were

reduced by 3 million. brings the ending fund balance to $13 million. out of the 13 million ending fund balance, 7.6 million has been committed to meeting the growing demands of the county program. 5 million represents the restricted program and the rest are the required 3% of the reserve. overall county of education fund maintains a healthy ending fund balance above the 3% reserve. i think that's the previous. yeah. can you go back to the previous slide, please? thank you. just on the bottom portion of that page. yeah. thank you. thanks. let's shift our focus on the comparison between the unaudited actual and estimated actual for the district. the general fund.

the ending balance has shown a positive improvement. unrestricted net surplus of 7.9 million and a 31.8 million in restricted, which brings a total ending fund balance of 467 million. we have a 38 million net increase in one time. unrestricted revenue, offset by a decrease in restricted revenue of 26 million due to the vacant positions and unspent restricted program expenditure. we have net expenditure reduction of 54 million in unrestricted and 69 million in restricted funds. next. next slide. our long term fiscal outlook remains unchanged based on the unaudited actual for 2324, enrollment has continued to decline by 8% since 1920 due to the declining of the

enrollment. the real color has shown decreased to negative 2.4% in 2425 and is projected at less than 1% for 2526. now i will turn it over to doctor hunting and for a more detailed analysis for the total revenue, total expenditure for the next two slides. thank you. miss chen. could you go back just one slide to the. okay. it's at the bottom portion of that. thank you so much. so now we're going to turn our sights to looking at the estimated actuals versus the unaudited actuals for revenues. and there were five categories that were highlighting here. we're showing the home to school transportation lottery sales tax revenue interest revenue and fair market value. and in all of those cases, we're showing that there was an increase between estimated actuals and unaudited actuals. okay. next slide pleas.

now we turn to the expenditures looking to the same time period. estimated actuals versus unaudited actuals. and what we're seeing in this area we're seeing certificated salaries increasing. and then decreasing expenditures in classified salaries and benefits. and then a combination of operations materials and supplies. and where we're seeing those reductions in expenditures is primarily due to vacant positions. and unspent unspent restricted programs. and in many cases, those are funding sources that are going multiple years. so they wouldn't have been spent in that year. they'll be spent in a subsequent year. so one thing that i would just say overall, before i turn it back to, to miss chen, is that we ar, as we look at those those two periods, we really like to see that pendulum swing and stay in

the middle pretty close. and so we would say that we're in a season of continuous improvement as we look to that period for next year. our hope is that that swing will be very close to the middle, and we know that we are working with difficult manual systems. we are also looking at our changes in our practices and our procedures and so that will also help us as we work towards our goal of that pendulum being as close to the middle as possible. and also we have our new erp system that will be implemented. okay. miss chen. thank you. this slide here represents the components of the microphone. thanks. this slide represents the components of both restricted and unrestricted ending fund balance. the total combined ending fund balance is 469 million. within this ending

fund balance, 1.5 million are non spendable in revolving cash stores and prepaids 238 million are restricted. ending fund balance including federal, state and local grants 104 million is committed to the stabilization plan and there are other committed ending fund balance of 98 million allocated for various purposes, including 60 million to the rainy, rainy day reserve and 25 million to the system implementation. others are fair market value of investments terminated or retired, retroactive pay and the school merger transition plan 24.6 million represents the required 2% economic uncertainty. reserv. next. as discussed in the

previous slides, 2324 ending fund balance has improved. this improvement comes from a mix of the higher local revenue, fair market value change in investments, savings on salaries and other expenditures, and the strategic use of one time federal, state and to offset the operating expenditures. looking ahead to our upcoming first interim, we will focus on a few areas. first, we are going to update the beginning fund balance for the 2425 year and adjusted changes in personnel and non personnel budget since the adopted budget. and also, we are going to update the federal state revenues and expenditures, including carrying over our ongoing analysis will help us identify the trends for 2324 year that could impact the current year 2425, and adjust the budget for the outer two years 25, 26 and 2627. in our multi-year projection, the next

financial reporting milestone is the first interim report. by december 15th. its around the corner. thank you for the time today. this concludes the presentation and open for any questions you might have. yeah. and just thank you for the presentation. and at the high level you know i would say what we just heard was, you know, some a little bit of good news, bad news and really no news. the good news is our funding balance is in a stronger, stronger place. but those are you know, really those are just additional one time funds. we have. the bad news is, doctor huntoon said, is that it's still too wide of a pendulum when what we're seeing in different reports. and that does need to be tightened up for us to really, you know, be able to demonstrate that we, you know, have a clear picture of our finances at each reporting

period. the no news is, is this really does not change our fiscal outlook at all. the fiscal stabilization plan that we submitted in june and then need to update and resubmit in december with our first interim, still needs to account for ongoing reductions of over $100 million. and, you know, that doesn't change because of this report. this is just a high level summary. thank you for all all three of you. so, colleagues, i would like us to try this same method we've been using for the monitoring workshops, which is going around and asking people to say their questions and then having staff be able to sort of take notes and organize their responses according to topic, and then we can come back and do follow ups as needed. but that way it allows them to kind of i talked with doctor huntoon before, and it allows them to kind of organize their thinking as well. so anyone feeling, oh, commissioner kim, let's start with you and we'll go around. thank you again for all your

work. so the desire so what i heard was that the swing should be decreased in the future. eventually this $39 million should go down over time because we're more accurately budgeting from year to year. is that righ? not necessarily. not necessarily what we want is oh, sorry. we're going to sorry. you're going to go around and then we're going to answer. so my question that was a quick clarifier though okay. i think that's because i think what i'm trying to understand is if we're trying to decrease the swing, what does it mean that our long term fiscal outlook has not changed then. and so i just that's a clarifying question around that. the bigger question i'm wondering is just what does this mean in terms of our fiscal stabilization plan moving forward? if we're trying to decrease the swing, if we know that we have money one time funds left over, i hear that our fiscal stabilization plan generally is not going to chang,

but i guess i'm just trying to see a closer relationship between the two and understanding what that means. to me. thank you. while it yes, i like the good news bad news that we have numbers, we have a little bit more, but we didn't know that it was that we were so off. but i better to have this information and then and then move forward and to know that we are off. i think having that information is really important. so my question is relating to the getting the swing closer to the middle is given that we do know that that you all are working, you know, in profound ways to fix these systems. and it takes time. how likely do you think it is that we will actually see a meaningful shift in these discrepancies next year versus 2 or 3 years out? i don't

want to set ourselves up to be super hopeful that it's going to look different next year. if the reality is it may not, because systems aren't in place yet. commissioner sanchez, commissioner lamb, thank you. thank you, staff, for the presentation. mine was more related to around kind of on the thread of what commissioner kim had raised. so my key question is, you know, how does this specifically impact the viewpoint of our state advisors around the deficit spending, given that the track record was two negative interims in a row? so that's one question. i had another question i have is related to this big variance and because of that, i understand it's ongoing of our management

systems. and at the same time want to also understand what does that translate into programs that could have been in place for educational opportunities and learnings for our students, and how moving forward, can we ensure that we're matching closer? so when we talk about the pendulum, it's not just the dollars and cents, but it translates into program and educational opportunities and learnings for our students, particularly our students that we know are furthest from opportunity from our children in special education, english learners. and so and our focal populations. thanks. commissioner fisher, these are really, really good questions. i think a lot of my questions. so thank you very much. first of all, really appreciate as scary as this is, it's good to have data and so my questions revolve

around our systems and infrastructure. you know as we as we dig in and do more of these reports in our new systems or with the information that we have right now, what are we learning about what more we need? i'm excited that we're moving to frontline. i think that'll give us some information and we very likely need other, better systems. what else do we need to reduce that pendulum swing from an infrastructure, from an organization, from a system standpoint, what recommendations do you have there and. as far as our compliance requirements for reporting, what do we need to get? in the past, we've had so many issues with, you know, getting reports to auditors,

getting completed, reports from auditors. does this information now set us up to be able to bring all that into compliance this year, or is there more we need? and then my bigger question, really, considering everything we've just been through over the past couple of weeks, uncovering the budget fiascos, what are we doing now to make sure that we're not ever in this same situation in future budget cycles? commissioner. bogus. no. okay. and i will just add, maybe echoing what commissioner fisher just said, kind of a question specifically about this coming budget cycle, where, you know, where what is our knowing that we won't yet have our new financial system in place? what can we expect in terms of our ability to budget

accurately? i guess this was related to some of several of maybe vice president wiseman words. question two for this, specifically for the 25, 26 year, you know, should we expect something similar in terms of our ability to budget or how much more accurate can we get? and then a related question, and this may follow up from excuse me, commissioner lamb's to i know doctor huntoon, you have done some thinking on this already, but i would love to hear a little bit more around, you know, these are some pretty big buckets of variance. what are some questions you have about about this, this past year that you want to explore more in terms of understanding what happened? also is that good. so you have a now you have a range of questions to choose from. so why don't we give you some time to answer. and then if colleagues want to follow up, if you feel like your question

didn't get answered or you want to follow up, feel free. after their after they've addressed them. so i'd like to start with kind of a there was a theme and a pattern regarding the pendulum and what is meant by that. so what what you would ultimately like to see between estimated actuals and unaudited actuals? when i talk about the pendulum, you want that pendulum as close to the middle as you can. you're never going to get it right on, but you want to be able to have that that movement as close to the middle as possible. every day is a new day. and new information, and it will change what we thought, maybe from the prior day. and so jackie has has had about a year of that. and i do think that there is an opportunity there. and part of that is to have a debrief about what went well, what didn't go well. how could we make those changes now that will make that difference in, you know, even in

the systems that we have currently, how can we how can we actually make a difference in how we want to work smarter, not harder. but it's going to take some thinking. it's going to and the other thing is communication within the departments. and miss chen had had mentioned several departments that we work with as part of that close includes division departments within ed services and also hr technology. and so having all of those departments meeting with them and having that collaboration and backwards mapping, just like we do in the classroom, and so making sure that we are meeting our deadlines, that that's something that we really need to make sure that's happening. so i'm going to stop there. oh i'm going to so on this pendulum and the 39 million that really is the that is both the make up of

the unrestricted and restricted. so that showing you what where that ending amount was for the for the year, its revenues over expenditures. and so that's where the 7.9 came from for unrestricted. and i think it was 31 million for, for restricted unrestricted and restricted. and so that's where that 39 million comes into play. and so when we look at our estimated actuals, we want to make sure that everything that we're taking into account that we can get as close as possible to that number. okay. hopefully that was helpful. so i talked about that. the deficits talk a little bit. i just heard two negative certifications in a row. i thought there was only one negative certification. i don't know commissioner lam there. i thought you mentioned something

about two negative. yeah i believe that there was or at least an elevation that we went from the fiscal advisors to experts further demonstrating the financial insolvency and high risk of the district. so if i miscategorized those two negative, you know, i just wanted to also clarify that there has been demonstration of escalation of fiscal insolvency or high risk. so yes, you went from that qualified status into that negative status and that takes you it all sounds the same fiscal expert into a fiscal advisor, which increased that participation with the district. and so that at this point, there is no certification applied to the unaudited actuals. the next time that that is applied, it would be at first interim. so we'll work towards that next item. so i think give me just a moment here. so the other thing

that there was a question about maximizing funding. and so really looking at, you know, looking at our contracts, are they still meeting our purpose. are we using those contracts. what analyzing our programs. what's working? what's not working, analyzing the applications that we're utilizing from a technology perspective? those are all things. when you're in this kind of a season that you want to look at those different areas to determine that you're utilizing services that are meeting your needs, and also what platform has been established for the district and so that i think is the next steps to really looking at how we move forward, but also the fiscal stabilization, the importance. now we have another

data point. that data point is the unaudited actuals and will take that into consideration as we are updating our fiscal stabilization plan, we know that there have been a slowdown in expenditures, and the reason for that is because we are we're we've got vacancies and we are slowing down on the expenditures. and so that will be taken into our fiscal stabilization as we are coming. and the first interim and the modified or updated fiscal stabilization program or plan will come together in december. and so that the unaudited actuals is one data point that will inform what we include in there. so then there was the question about systems and infrastructure and what are we learning? we're learning to reflect. we're learning to be open and we're learning to reach out and collaborate and listen

and learn and just think about how we're doing, what we're doing and how can we do that differently. and there are more than one way to do something. and so you know, looking at i'll give you an example of one of the structures that we're looking at right now. and i know you know this, the district and the county. and so we are really looking at how can we set up the county to function as a county as the oversight, really for compliance purposes. and so we're looking at that structure. we've got kind of a rough, rough draft of that. and so that is also going to be something that will be coming before you soon, which is the internal audit position that the district has not had. and quite frankly, a district of this size, they should. so what would that

internal auditor, what would they do as it relates to some of the systems and the functions that they would do what's called transactional audits. so when our we call them batches, when our vendor payments go through our ap accounts payable, they would they would actually review those batches to ensure that we're meeting compliance. that's one example. so that's one system. another system is really looking at what is happening with our internal controls. how is the flow of requisitions coming from the site to the district office. that is something that is being taken into consideration as far as our new erp system, and there is going to be some changes with that because we want to make sure that we're tightening up on our internal controls. so i could give you a whole laundry list. i'm just going to stop there with those. but it gives

you a flavor of what what we're looking at. the compliance audit reports. yes, we will meet our december 15th, i think. sorry to interrupt, but i think there's a follow up on that before we get to the next one. yep. you mentioned the for the county program, the 7.62 million committed ending fund balance to meet the growing demands of the county program. county. yes. oh, yes. yes. what that was mr. so can you explain more what the growing demands are? so would you like to talk about that? do you want me to okay. so the growing we have students in our county program. and so the number of students are growing in those alternative programs. i see. so this doesn't have anything to do with a desire for greater accountability from a county system or anything like that. this is purely based on student need at the county leve. you know, i think in terms of

like setting up county functions or. yeah, yeah, no, i think the, the, the idea is right that from kind of an oversight and review perspective that the county functions give that that review of our budgets, our hr processes or our special education plans kind of create that separate process that a county typically does, which right now, because they're not as clearly delineated, hasn't happened in the district. so. right. so it's to set up like, you know, internal auditing and those kind of things. there's there are some functions that are happening within together sort of. and so we're pulling those apart so that as doctor wayne has indicated, we're going to have a wall and it will be very delineated in terms of the functions. okay. thank you. i think you had another point you wanted to finish. yes. yeah. on the compliance and meeting our compliance guidelines. miss chen

had mentioned a couple of them related to unaudited actuals. but our audit report is due december 15th and it will happe. and so that that report will be completed also along the compliance. what are we doing differently. and i think maybe it was specifically in the area of special ed. i'll speak to that. one of the things that we've already started probably almost a month ago, maybe three weeks ago, we actually have the director, one of the directors from the budget office actually goes over to special ed one day a week. and spends with the fiscal staff in special education and, and does a review of their budget, does a review of programs, a number of students that are in mpa, ms. what are the invoices look like? you know, ages of students, just very detailed information and working with them very closely so that we can be on top of

that. so that's one example of what's been put in place. i talked a little bit about the debrief. what went well, what didn't go well. and how we can do a better job next time around. and our next time around is right around the corner. first interim and miss chen has already started with her staff on first interim, and we have already started our work on the fiscal stabilization update. so i think that was all the questions. but please, if there's anything, do you want to add something, anything? oh, go ahead. sorry. and one thing i would like to add to the swing of the ending fund balance and part of it is the one time money. and the part of it is such as the fair market value. i call it paper entry or on behalf of the stars, on behalf of the contribution. and those are paper entry. and the 6 million belongs to the stars on behalf and of the contribution from the state and the 6 million belongs

to the fair market of value adjustments for the investments and those are the one time and the paper entry. those are not linked with our actual cash you can spend. so you can see it at the bottom line and of the ending fund balance also is a reserve as well. and another part is the prior adjustments for 2223 year that was carrying over and to the 2324 year. yeah, those are just some one time. and i would like to point out the part of the swing. thank you. okay, so i had commissioner lam and then commissioner fishe. it's just a follow up question. and perhaps it might be something you need to bring colleagues to. my follow up question was specifically around because the gap has been more, you know, an unanticipated of that gap. and so what educational services may not

have been provided. right. or do we know like so what analysis has occurred to be able to understand? we've talked a lot about the importance around intersectional work between the fiscal and budget teams and educational services. and i just wanted to see if you had any thoughts there. as you're looking forward for the 25, 24, 25 process to ensuring that that educational services gap doesn't continue to be at that level, and what was potentially lost for students. so that is something probably we need to bring back to you. i am not aware, but that doesn't mean that there isn't something ther. i'm new on the scene and so that's probably something that we need to take a look at. i would love to see that as well.

so thank you, commissioner lamb, for bringing that up. my clarifying question, i appreciated hearing that you're going to be working on more collaboration with department of technology, special education when miss bear was here in september doing the giving us the report out on what we had, thanks to president alexander who had asked about, you know, digging in a little bit more to some of our staffing issues. one of the issues that she raised was silos. and i think you touched on that a little bit very diplomatically in your response. and so what do you need from the leadership team and from us as a board of education to improve that collaboration and communication? how do we is there anything we can do to help you? and i love that you said work smarter, not harder. are there tools that are needed from us, or that anything that we can do to empower

without stepping into micromanagement from a board governance? what can we do or anything we should direct the leadership team to help make your job easier in a way that doesn't step into micromanagement and stays in board governance. i think you already have the answer no, i, i think it's patience allowing us the flexibility to do the work that we need to do. and yeah, i think at this point it's patience because it is, as we all know, it has been decades. right. and it's not going to happen overnight. i think i was asked that question by someone and i said, it's going to take probably a good 2 to 3 years. we know that we are in the middle of an erp implementation, and it's going well, and we want to continue that. for that to go well. but it is it is a lot of work. and so yeah, patience.

does your team have just last follow up. does your team have the capacity. do you have the staff you need to do the work. or is there anything we need to do to support that at this point we do. and we do have consultants that are in helping us with that erp implementation, and they're amazing. and also the erp company as well is helping us with that. so and we get updates every single week telling us whether we're on track or not. and sometimes during the week we get notifications. you're not on track. we miss this deadline. so yeah, they're working really well with us. they're they're being very patient as well. and then you did you did help with, you know, the collaboration with the city. can you speak to the request you made that they're following up around a desk audit because so explain what that is and why that's important. considering what we've talked about in terms of our systems and processes right now. wonderful. thank you so much for that. and so we've requested for the city to collaborate with us

to do a desk audit. we've already established that needs to just go over to them. now, we've established the format in the questions that will be asked, but it's for the budget, accounting, payroll, procurement and technology offices at this time. and so what that means is they will actually go to each of the employees in that in those departments and ask questions. and it's going to provide us those data points that we need specifically as we are looking at reorganizing with the pulling apart, so to speak, and putting that wall with the district versus the county. so that is something that's going to be really helpful for us. thank you for that question, commissioner. linda, do you want to did you have a follow up for the cdc advisers as well? experts. sorr. i believe pam is on the line. i think elliott said he and pam

are available. so i had a question for the state advisers. experts on the classification. i'd like to hear from you all around now, given this latest information around the unaudited actuals and that, you know, we're looking at more general fund balances, i'm curious to hear you. all's insight and analysis around what those what implications are there, given that, you know, around the deficit spending and overall risk level? if you could just speak to that and how this report does or does not, you know, influence the current position, financial position of the district? i can respond and pam will jump in. first of all, i really want to thank doctor huntoon, miss chan, for an

excellent presentation and addressing by the way, many of the issues that we've brought up for a time, so i'm going to divert for just a second in regard to the county office split of functions. those of you that have been here for a while, pam and i have been talking about the value of doing that and having separation between county office, even though you have your oversight from cde to have an internal oversight on your budget, your lcap and also to take what are normally county office expenditures for it, for technology and for special education, those are all important things. and ultimately they may affect this number. the problem with ending balances is there are a gross number and not bad, not good, but a large number that have a lot of

details in it. so it's very hard to draw conclusions. i mean, to some extent you would expect that given the numbers of jobs that you closed out from being vacant last year, as well as even though the hiring freeze came late in the year, the district was more conservative about staffing. so some things probably pause. and you notice i deliberately said probably because we don't know until we get into the very details of it, some of the ending balances are part of leftover restricted funds. i think you even have some esser funds that are left as well of some of the other. i always get the learning, the learning funds, the learning recovery funds. so the answer, the quick answer is it really does not affect the fiscal health of the district at this point. keep in mind that the differences in the ending balances are less than the

amount of structural deficit you have to recover, and the structural deficit is clearly tied to ongoing expenditures where many of these are not as as pointed out, for example, the paper value of certain investments. i mean, if certain like your stress funds, your interest payments vary from year to year, but you can't bank on getting a certain amount of interest. you project it, but that's not going to solve your deficit problem. so the hard answer and the quick answer is you still have the difficult work to do. staff is in the process of really redoing the fiscal stabilization plan that was done for the budget, because things have changed, positions have changed. you did shift to or are moving to a centralized staffing model. so i want to be clear and unequivocal. it does

not change the amount of work you have to do with your structural deficit. i'd just like to add that your ending balance, it's i mean, it looks great. you've got $68 million more in your unrestricted ending balance, but in reality, some of that is going to help offset increases to your 2425 budget that you've just had to add. there was about 30 million. and then on top of that, some of the money needed to be set aside for the implementation of the new erp and some other different items that are coming on to you. i shouldn't say onto your 2425 budget now, but the one thing that i will point out is that i think that the piece missing in putting forward your first interims, your second interims, even your estimated actuals, is that staff really hasn't had the ability or education i would

say, to monitor a lot of things that are happening within your budget and make projections accurately, and that this year end, i think, has provided them a great source to be able to go back and look and see. okay, why was our revenue higher here? why were our expenditures lower and then those are the things now that they can take forward and look at your 2425 budget and your multi-year projection to see if those same things are happening moving forward. so sa, for instance, on your interest, you had $15 million more that came in in interest earnings. that's something that should be monitored on a monthly basis. and then so really by i would say your third quarter, you should have an idea of how much more interest you're going to get. so those are the kind of things that as they're adjusted on each of your financial reports, you're going to see that ending, balance shifting, you know, here and there. but by the time you hit your estimated actuals, and i think that's when you're talking about, you know, trying to level out that swing so that instead of having 30 million, 40 million, $50 million

left at the end of the year that you weren't anticipating, it should be much closer than that within probably 5 to $10 million. so that's going to be kind of the goal moving forward is to make sure that all that monitoring and the projections are adjusted as they need to be throughout the year, so that you're not hit with this, that unaudited actuals. thank you. i think commissioner kim has a follow up. yeah that. so i have a question around that practice internally. so it's my understanding that principals in san francisco unified work with their heads of their lead cohorts, where they sit down shoulder to shoulder and go line by line on the implications of budget changes that happen for school sites. is there a similar practice or expectation that happens at central office, where central office budget managers sit down with budget services shoulder to shoulder to go line item by line item to talk about the implications of changes that are happening by budget. i think that was one of the stepping

into this staff world board world, one of the kind of questions that i had on the table was, what does that process look like? what are the expectations around budget managers at central office doing that? and because i know a similar expectation exists between school principals and their lead staff. and budget and adoption is happened july 1st. it's a year round adjustments. so the staff from budget department worked closely with the different departments and the school sites. and if the for example, if a school sites and they received a new funding or coming in, the student success fund or other funds, incoming federal and state, and then they are going to have the conversation and they'll make the plan. and then the budget is going to be loaded in throughout the year. and so that's the

interim report that we are going to update. and all of the budget change, including the personnel and all of the federal, state and local funding coming. and then we're going to adjust accordingly throughout the year. yeah. just to clarify, i think i, i think i have a better understanding of how site principals work with their leads. i think my question is around central office budgets and whether that practice exists. and that expectation exists for central office budget managers. well, and not to put too fine a point on it, but we just had a massive failure in special ed around this very issue. so i don't think i mean, like, let me something's not working. well, let me know. let me share. and it it i mean i think when you know similar to schools departments get a budget and they need to plan their budget and submit it and then it gets reviewed by district leadership. the and when the. so this past year we already had said central office was going to be reduced by a certain number of positions and administrative

as well as tulsa's. and so that was part of the budgeting process. and that was all all reviewed. and here's the difference. and this is the breakdown we already identified. right. when you know, when a another if another department submits a budget that goes over what was allocated, there's back and forth. there might be what jackie said, well, there's this grant or something, but it needs to be. then adjusted accordingly. and we did go through that. that process last year. we went through that process with special education, but the adjusted accordingly did not happen accordingly. well, that's the part we highlighted that, you know, whereas you could say like, you know, office of superintendent, we submit a budget or, you know, resource planning and accountability submits it. but you know what? you you know, we need to this is too much. we need to pull back. and like rpa is a good example. they have different grants. i know there was some some talking about what would happen with special education. we went through, you know, the issue that there are things that

couldn't be couldn't have been pulled back on that we pulled back on that. you know, that that's what we need to that's why we're having the assessment to make sure like that process doesn't doesn't happen again. but generally, yes, schools departments also get budgets like schools. they have the allocation, you know, targeted. and then they submit it. and then there is, you know, feedback if it's over budget or if there's questions that that we have. commissioner fisher, thank you for phrasing it. the way you did, commissioner kim, because i think that really gets to the organizational infrastructure question that i was asking earlier. right. because when it comes to cutting special education and going back to the compliance issues we discussed earlier, like we have maintenance of effort requirements, you know, we can't just cut special education. it's written into ed code that unless we can justify, we have to come up with the same budget year over year over year, and particularly when we have one group saying, hey, we need an

increased budget because we have more students requiring services or we have more services written into legally binding documents that are ieps. so this is where the organizational structure and the compliance mandates and all of this actually comes together to make sure and to commissioner lamm's question earlier about money, we didn't spend that meant that students didn't get services. all that intersects right here in special education. and so this is where i go back to that question about organizational structure, infrastructure, capacity. so you can frame it in any number of ways. but i am really looking forward to channeling doctor connor here, shining the spotlight on this, not breaking it apart with a hammer, but shining the spotlight and making sure that we really are understanding what went wrong and what we need to do better for our kids next year and this year. yeah. and i mean, i think

just to build on that, i think the board has been really clear and i hope i think you all know this as staff that, you know, we obviously have to balance our budget that is our first priority. but in order to do that, we need to fix these fiscal and operational systems because we can't if people aren't communicating and we don't know that we actually need 30 million more dollars of special education teachers in paris, we can't we don't have the information we need to be able to actually balance the budget. so i think that's the line of that's where this line of questioning is coming from. is doctor huntoon, did you want to. yeah. i was going to add to that, you know, as we are thinking about our budget development for this next year, and we will be utilizing our new erp system to budget in that system for next year. and so part of that process would be meeting with sites, meeting with departments to make sure. and as part of that, it's an edification to build capacity to empower them in terms of how they read their reports. and

they have access to those reports every day and they can look at that. but when should they be looking at it? what they what should they be looking at? what are the inhibitors for trying to get something through so there's lots of legs to that. and i very much appreciate that. i think in some ways, adoption of a new erp system may be a forcing mechanism for us to have these conversations. i think my concern is in the 1 to 2 year delay that we were talking about in the implementation of that erp, because we do have systems and routines right now that we have to follow with go fast and empower and perky. and the reality is like, frankly, i am a little concerned that the internal expectations around budget managers meeting with budget services. i mean, i will say just from my own experience, having been on staff was not strong. and so i think the concern that i have is that in this time, right now where we're transitioning towards an erp system, that will force us to sit down and shoulder to shoulder and have these conversations, how confident are

we that those conversations are happening between budget services and any program staff, or any department centrally? because i think sped is just one example of this, but another example i would give is the fact that we ended up with somehow one person at central office who manages our math work, like the numbers aren't numbering and the proportions aren't really there. so i think that's my concern is, is in the in the delay that it takes to actually fully adopt and implement erp that while it's fantastic that that may be a forcing mechanism, there are times right now where we need to focus on on our controls now and to your point, commissioner kim, it's not i think there's a technical piece which the erp system will address, but there's also this cultural organizational piece that's that even if we have the best system in the world, people still need to be communicating, right? and there still needs to be discussions and back and forth. and i mean, one of the, you know, one of the reasons i'm

really excited that the city stabilization team includes carl cohen, the former long beach superintendent, is that long beach is a really highly effective district. and one of the systems i was talking a couple of years ago with chris steinhauser, who succeeded carl cohen in long beach and was talking about how their budget office had every multiple times a year, they had to go out and meet with principals and meet with department heads to have that conversation. so there actually was a where you're describing was was was a systems process, but it was a relational systems process where everybody was expected to have those conversations. i don't know whether it was three times a year or something. review the budget. how's your spending? they would look at budget to actuals together. they would project their budget for next year for a department, for a school. and so those were a set of cultural practices that obviously depended on good systems. but they also were weren't just about systems but were actually about people. do you want to, doctor huntoon? i'll just give you the opportunity around change management. we've talked a bit about that in the ad hoc

committee and the fiscal operational health that goes beyond the dashboard, and you certainly have jumped into the deep ocean with us here in sfmta's really appreciate your leadership. just anything that you want to share now that around this change management piece, i think that my colleagues are kind of, you know, getting towards there's the technical pieces, but then there's also the change management. there's it's really about relationships and building those relationships. and i think that the more that we can build the relationships, it will help the silos to break down. but i am a true believer in training as part of those relationships. is training staff to be able to use the tools that are available to them so that it empowers them, but at the same time, know that they have that safety net there and that they can, you know that you have a cadence in in, in process so that you can utilize that in addition to those relationships. when you

need that 911 call to for the help. yeah. great. all right. so if it's okay with my colleagues i think we'll move on. seeing nods great. well we have to vote on this first. we have to vote to accept the unaudited actuals. so let's do a roll call. vote. mr. steele. thank you, president alexander. commissioner. bogus. yes, commissioner. fisher. yes, commissioner. kim. yes, commissioner. lamb. yes, commissioner. sanchez. yes. vice president. wiseman. ward. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven eyes. thank you. we'll now move on to item g. the public hearing on an approval of the resolution regarding the sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials, as required by code section 60119. may i have a motion and a second, please? motion. second. thank you. are there any comments? superintendent wayne, do you want to say anything about this? yeah, this is a required public

hearing that happens annually regarding providing you know, the sufficiency of instructional materials. and, you know, there's a kind of a broader definition of instructional materials and so we typically report having met it, but we'll say please this year that we have new instructional materials for our elementary literacy curriculum. and that you heard in our math last update, how we're piloting math curriculum. so definitely bringing more robust materials. but this is just, again, a required public hearing on this topic. are there any comments or questions from board members? yes. okay. i do have one. this is carrying from a conversation that took place at the last board meeting about the focus on instructional materials and content at the high school level. and recognizing that in k-8 we have some concrete kind of strategies

in place for curriculum implementation and adoption. but it was i had asked this question around just then, what is the what is the conversation look like at the high school level around our instructional work, specifically around content and our curriculum implementation? i see in this document here that we do name explicitly that high schools that we are due for adoption of materials for high school and so, frankly, i think and i said this last time, too, frankly, i think this is more of a conversation for the board to have around what our priorities are and our guidance is to the superintendent and the district around the need to ensure that our instructional materials and our work around content knowledge development at the high school level is just as important as k-8. and just what that means then, in terms of the need to shift resources internally to make sure that that happens. and so i just want

to acknowledge that and recognize that in even in this resolution, it names that high school has some has has an opportunity here around our our core curriculum adoption. and thank you, commissioner kim to build on that. looking at the age of some of these curriculums, you know, like some of them, i saw one in here that was, oh, copyright 1994. right. that's a older than all of my children who three of them have already graduated from sfusd. right. and so i have questions about what our schedule is for new curriculum adoption as well as what are the impacts on outcomes. i mean, we list the schools here, but we don't list the number of students impacted. we don't list the impact on their outcomes. and when we are supposed to be student outcomes

focused, i, i would like to see a little bit more detail here about understanding. and when were materials delivered? you know what. what's the lag time between reporting. and i just think there's a if we're if we're going to implement this kind of report with intentionality and make it student outcomes driven and not just checking a compliance box, i would like to see a little bit more work here on how how this impacted kids. you know, just just i have a lot more questions about more details. thank you. do you want to follow up on tha? no, i mean, i hear you. there is there are some specific compliance aspects to this. but i mean and you did, you know, thank you for reinforcing what you shared last time, commissioner kim. i think our next i'm just looking at doctor

aguilera forward about thinking either in our next curriculum, you know, guardrail three, which is curriculum and instruction or guardrail. our goal three, which is college and career readiness. these might be opportunities to provide more detail of where we are with high school adoptions. all right. if there's no other comments, we're going to do a roll call. vote. commissioner bogas. yes, commissioner. fisher. no. commissioner kim. yes. commissioner. lamb. yes. commissioner. sanchez. yes. vice president. wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. six eyes. all right. now we'll move on to item h, the consent calendar. can i get a motion in a second, please? motion second. thank yo, superintendent wayne, are there any items withdrawn or corrected? no. all right, then

we will have a roll call. vote on the consent calendar. thank you. commissioner. bogus. yes, commissioner. fisher. yes, commissioner. kim. yes, commissioner. lamb. yes, commissioner. sanchez. yes. vice president. wise. yes. president. alexander. yes. seven. thank you very much. all right. now we will move on to item j, board members reports. are there any reports from board members to in terms of reports from membership organizations, advisory committee appointments, other or other reports? commissioner fisher, do you did you want to? sure. i'm happy to. i had the pleasure of attending the kba, the county the county school board, basically annual convention in monterey in mid september. it was a lovely,

lovely to be there. and every time anyone heard i was from san francisco unified, there was sheer pleasure to see that someone from san francisco county office was finally reengaging, so that was great. there were a lot of folks who have offered lots of support for us as we move forward with understanding our county obligations and parsing out the difference between a co and an la county office of ed and local education agency. and we had a lot of really there were a lot of great presentations focused specifically on charter schools because charter school oversight and reauthorization is changing, which doesn't have as much impact on us. but there were also a lot of great sessions on budget, county budget, and the terms that you call county budget are a little bit different. but i think overall this will be changing. moving forward. the kbe is being rolled

into ksba. county school board or california school board association. and so there will be one delegate region for county boards. and so moving forward it will be more aligned. and i think that there is a lot of great information there to leverage. and i would encourage more of us to learn. and i'm happy to share more. we have a whole trustee manual that they shared with us that they're working on making digital so that we can all better understand our county obligations. so more to come as i attend more meetings. but thank you, thank you. are there other reports from board member? i think doctor wayne has the report. no, just want to appreciate you attending. and similarly, doctor huntoon went to a county business office meeting and it is noted that when san francisco shows up, because as we just talked earlier, it's an area where we haven't, you know, had that much

involvement with other county offices. our own structure and, and also just had a very productive meeting with and with our special education ccac last night. so i had an opportunity to really hear their questions and concerns. and we did a follow up. we have a follow up meeting scheduled in november. commissioner bogas, sorry, i just wanted to ask a clarifying question. i know we finished the vote on the public hearing already. did we call for public comment on that? and i missed it. i was just curious if we had offered that up. i someone also made a mention of it in the zoom questions. i was just curious if that's something that we had done and it was not in my script. did we close the hearing and open up? there was not in my script, i apologize, we didn't call for a special meeting. we just we just moved and seconded. so was there any were there any

cards submitted for the public hearing? no. we did. all the public comment at the beginning and there weren't any for that. well, i think above and beyond that, our compliance mandates are to separate our meetings and our cco meetings. so that's i think, one of the other issues that we might have to address here, this is an this is a copy of the instructional materials public hearing. correct. yeah. yeah. but for the county budget, was there anything that we had to separate out in approving the county budget versus the budget, or were we able to approve them both as the same? yeah. so the county, the unaudited actuals was fine. this is that's that can be approved. together they get you know, they're two separate reports. you got you have attached. but and then so for this one yes. so we didn't have any public hearing cards for the public hearing. correct. correct. there were none. yeah. so if i'm looking at our interim

general counsel right, we can just call for any public comments for the public hearing. what do you recommend? i recommend that you basically make a call for public comment. and if there's any public comment, then receive those public comments. right now specific to the public hearing, specific to the public hearing on the sufficiency of the instructional materials. okay. so we need to have public comment separately for the public hearing. okay. sorry, that was not in my in my script. so are there is there anyone apologies to the public. is there anyone in either in person or online who would like to make public comment on item g one? the public hearing on an approval of resolution regarding the sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials as required by code section 60119. if so, please raise your hand or approach the podium. i am seeing

one hand raise so two hands. vanessa. thank you. i appreciate commissioner bogus for bringing up my comment. thank you for allowing the public comment. for hearing. i wanted to just add someone on the board mentioned this, but high school curriculum in terms of textbooks and even, you know, elementary. i think it's really important that the district work with the san francisco public library and start or expand a partnership around audiobooks. you know, hard textbooks are coming. are becoming a bit outdated. i think it's very important that young people have access to audiobooks wherever they can buy their, you know, electronics. so please,

you know, look at your resolution and make sure that it's kind of like meeting digital age. thanks. thank you. okay. good morning. t. hello? can you hear me? yes, we can hear you. hi, my name is safaí manning. i'm a teacher in sfusd. i've subbed in many of the schools for many years, and i've been on staff at a few schools. currently i'm at mlk, but i'm speaking to my experience as a teacher. substitute teacher, and a current teacher. i really just are going to press for you guys to really think about how you're securing resources and adopting text and making sure that we have adequate things, because it really makes a difference in

planning and preparation. and i know central office works really hard on trying to figure out how to adopt text. but we have to go. i just want to make sure that as a board, you're constantly ahead of it, making sure that the money is there and ready for us to get what we need so that we can do the best job that we can. thank you. also, one other thing is that if you consider having text available for text to be at the school, but also for families to have at home to access to support their students and not having to have the students go back and forth. so considering that and not having it all, only be also online things so that we can reduce the amount of screen time students have. thank you. thank you. that does conclude virtual public comment for the hearing. thank you. commissioners. in light of the public comment, is anyone would anyone like to reconsider that motion and vote that we've already taken? should we? we don't need to. if anyone

feels like it's necessary. okay, great. well then it will stand. and again, apologies for that little mix up. i'm glad we figured it out. thank you. commissioner bogus. and with that, this meeting is adjourned at 9:20 p.m.

we have so many neighborhood in district 5 each with their own character and history. >> in the district a long time and almost 30 years in district 5. active in my community and i have been an attorney right's attorney representing and helping folk who is are trying to stay in their homes and folks trying to resist evictions and really just continued to be able to thrive in this community. i did work outside city hall for a long time. finally a point i got tired of going to politicians to ask them to dot right thing. i decide that it was time to

actually throw my hat in the ring and become the decision maker. we have everything in district 5 from the haight ashbury. fillmore. japantown. haze valley. north of pan handle. western edition and the tenderloin. all within this district. >> i'm kristin evans a resident and small business owner in the historic haight ashbury neighborhood. i own the book smith. haight ash burr seunique. it was the most colorful part of the city when i was a kid. i ended up moving here and owning a book store here, which was the dream. we have people of all walks and visitors and tourists around the world this come to the haight ashbury. coming to seat history of the neighborhood.

the rock stars janice joplin -- people are fro spirited. we have many second handled clothing stores. people are eco conscious. we have people that are enjoying the vibrancy and it is a place to shop and people watch. >> while you are doing that, stop have lunch. we have [inaudible] restaurant, cha, cha, cha is a classic. a place next door peurto rican food. prada 22 this is yummy. can i go on about the great, delicious places to try in the haight. >> i'm part of the haight ash burref merchant's association. people don't come to haight street to one destination. they come and visit 3-4 places when they in to visit. so if we have vacancies we have few reasons why people criminal

we had between vacancies in the pandemic and increased to that. one thing we advocated for was a store front vacancy tax. voters passed prop d. we have gone from 32 to 14. come to the haight ashbury enjoy our weather and get a meal. shop in our boutiques. >> got so many things we have been active on and i'm proud of district 5 gone above and beyond to create a network of slow and safe streets yoosz the city and page is our success. you see bikers and pedestrians out on page street and it has been the most successful slow street in the city and the golden gate green wachl car free haze. parts of the city this used to be where folks were afraid. being hit by cars and now safe

to walk and bike. >> after having lived all over the city i wanted somewhere where i never needed to use a car and i wanted somewhere where i have a bit of separation from my job downtown. i drew a 25 machine radius around downtown and haze valley seemed to fit the bill. >> i found this neighborhood helped like the most community experience. people linger remindses me of european city. people are hang out outside and pass people and know people in the neighborhood t. is a pretty special environment. >> one of my favorite landmarks is patricia's dream. the former site of the freeway. named after patricia walker part of a group of people that lead the movement to get the freeway taken down. and this was the embarcadero was the best examples of what happens when you remove a

freeway and give space become to people. there are tons of places to shop and eat. pretty much something for everybody here. my frenzy kid had their first birthday party last week and i got a present for them if it is warm you hop to home town creamery and get ice cream. another favorite is mercury cafe a few blocks down octavia. and another favorite is hairz valley baker where they not only have incredible baked goods and breakfast and sandwiches but employ and train at risk and disabled people. well is a social anxiety toll when they do. every friday/saturday since covid the 400 block of hayes between octavia and going is pedestrianized. we open up for people. a band and doubles the size of our town square.

for everyone in d5 or the city, it is a great gathing space. to linger and hang out. [♪music♪] >> fillmore is in the heart of d5. one of the last remaining black neighborhoodses in the san francisco. went through really challenging periods in redevelopment and so much displacement. in the left few years we are seeing new businesses only there. >> i'm erika scott. we are here at honey art's studio. grew up here in the neighborhood. and feel fortunate to have my business here. we are a multipurpose place. we teach art classes. and we have live entertainment. and community meetings. private event space. the history of the fillmore

dates back generations before me. that was a big per of our studio here. there is a book the harlem of the west that depicts when the harlem of the west was. which is the fillmore and people from all over the world would come here a huge everything this was the place to be to experience black culture and just to live, you know. i want to pay honor to that. >> to my generation they are will new businesses we have something special sxushgs instinct dh is in the black. sits on the corner of gar and he fillmore it is a home to 30 entrepreneurs. like a marketplace. super cool. a lot of things are custom or really unique. jazzy's hair salon and jazzy

hair salon are applying for a legacy business ownership they have been in business for over 25 years. there are cottage and home based businesses. >> i'm brother mohammed here in the fillmore. since 1999 established since 1999. you see -- cosmetic items and clothing, how is it going >> good. good to see you. >> i still have my old customers are coming to support. this is a sense of community. we have remnants of the old vibe here. >> come visit the fillmore the famous jazz district and we have elements of that you want to experience it. friendly people. and this is a place where you will take a piece of san francisco and the fillmore back with you. [♪music♪] >> since 2022, when there was redistricting the tenderloin

district was added district 5 and that brought in the entirely new communities zeechl amazing history, really, veterans alph~- net tenderloin we renamed shannon street inveteran's honor. starred by gregory. veterans started doing murals in what was a blighted alley at the time. and it is become a garthing place for veterans to express themselves and interact. >> i was involved in helping the tenderloin museum get off the ground and excite to see all the amazing programs there. >> the tenderloin a collection of history of the neighborhood. and have art galleries featuring artists. >> we are known for having

historically inspired programs. and makes us unique. we are producing a play about the cafeteria riot. which strifes to work with as many neighbors and organizations as possible to create diverse programming. >> tenderloin is a close nit xunt and like almost decade i have been working here you are able to make connections with people. >> an incredible neighborhood working and the last queer bar in the tenderloin neighborhood which was the first queer neighborhood in san francisco. joanne incredible organization that shows performing arts. and great part sdmers do a lot for the neighborhoods >> we have little saigon. the sandwichers a classic.

and a restaurant opened in the neighborhood i recommend. the phoenix a legacy business. >> and like people in the neighborhood this is might not stay here. so there is more to the tenderloin than what you read in the news. one of the stories from the people who work here. >> probably the most unique feature in japantown is the [inaudible] built as part of japan's trade center. the other is the japan center itself. the oldest indoor shopping mall in san francisco. built in the late 60's. despite the changes japantown is

going through it is authentic. still i japanese-american community you find a lot of japanese-american food. japanese ice cream stores that are popular. we have what is matcha drinks here. the other thing that is really preponder lar here in japantown is all of the new [inaudible] opened up. before the restaurant had been it was anything you could order now it is all specialized. say come from different parts of japan and feature their home town style of ramen. you know it suspect a will really safe place to hang out. you come down here and you will get a sense of it is japanese-american history and culture by being down here. >> just one of the great places to visit in san francisco.

>> this is an incredible and diverse district with so much to offer for residentses and visit sxors i encourage folks come visit and experience the amazing people and businesses in the district. [♪music♪] >> honor to serve as the board chair, welcome back everybody from a little summer break. i hope every one enjoyed the time away or one less meeting on their calendar. this meeting is