i'm susan solomon, president of united educators of san francisco and a preschool and kindergarten teacher for many years. so the first thing that i wanted to mention is there are a whole lot of acronyms in this powerpoint. there are like six or seven on this one screen, and even though i do this work, i don't know what they all stand for. so if you want people to understand, you should spell them out. that would be great. so we're also talking about developmental practices, and young children. i always felt that one of my responsibilities as a preschool and kindergarten teacher was to help them learn to love school. they have to have a good time. i'm a little concerned about the number of assessments that are performed with pre-k and kindergarten students. but well rounded education includes play time. they need play time. i think we need to make sure that as kids are developing -- it's a pretty wide bell curve, not all kids learn and develop at the same rate, so we have to make sure that kids who aren't kindergarten ready never make sure like they're failures. maybe they haven't gotten t

. >> and then, i want to reiterate a comment that was made by the uesf president, susan solomon. i have twins, and watching their development was really interesting. i did the same thing for both of them, and they are very different in terms of their development. i have one daughter who's a lefty. and i was concerned. i'm a former high school teacher, not an early educator. i was concerned how she would do with writing. i was extremely concerned, and now, she loves writing. she draws and writes a lot. when it comes to kindergarten readiness, it's not just about kids, it's about families and understanding what is readiness about? and lot of it is social emotional and interpersonal skills and social efficacy? i'm one of those folks and did the research and realized that's one of the most important things in terms of kid being kindergarten ready? i'm wondering around -- this guide is really helpful. i actually started blogging because i wanted to share with families about what i learned about kindergarten readiness and preparing kids for kindergarten. what i've learned is there can

susan solomon. uesf president. i want to add a little bit to what the previous speaker said, to what nick chandler said. one of the reason i've heard that fewer families with sleeping -- actually sleeping at the school is this program actually provides counseling that gets them into more stable housing so they don't need to sleep at horace mann. the other issue i want to talk about is pilots. often, we don't always take the time to examine them and learn from them. from everything i've learned about this program, this pilot, as every pilot, has been a learning opportunity. and what we've learned is more families need the services provided by what is going on in the program at buena vista who are as -- horace mann. so i am speaking on behalf of united educators of san francisco is we support the plan as it was originally presented, an expansion for more families who need housing for their children and themselves. thank you. [applause] >> president cook: thank you for your comment. do we have any items withdrawn or c