based on the importance of reading, literacy, education, we have a whole violence prevention can urriculum, we have 22,000 kids playing baseball throughout northern california, junior giants baseball, and we have a number of volunteer coaches and commissioners and one of the things that we ask every year our junior giants players to do is to take the peace pledge. it's basically the pledge is i'm a junior giant, i pledge to strike out violence by, and the first line is prevent bullying and respecting my teammates, coaches, family and friends. so at the peer grass roots level where we have coaches working closely with kids we hope to spread a message, we also have an art contest, imagine peace where we honor kids at a ballgame later in the year just so kids can interpret and show their form of how they interpret anti-bullying and peace in this society. you know, it's not perfect, it doesn't always work. i think sometimes people tune us out. but we feel strongly that with the partnerships that we have in the community we can make an impact and i think there's a bias or there's an assumption

ruslyn, does can urriculum need to change or is that not yet where you are. >> the federal government can't -- 10th amendment. >> change it. >> that would be federal overreach. >> well stated. >> no, but, but, so we are not funding or digging into can urriculum in that way. but you certainly have seen superintendent caranza happened about what happens with the kinds of conversations that happen with the movie bully and there are can urriculum packages being developed. i had visions, gary, to think about how if folks decided -- and we don't play in this -- but if folks decided there could be a class on this, how you teach, life skills class, right? if we try to make a one-size fits all click approach that doesn't really take people from where they are and get them to where they need to go. i have seen life skills work well and i have seen students literally filling out mcdonald's applications in their life skills class. so you can't just quickly eradicate and we can't just think about this in an isolated silo the link, for example, that has been alluded to between discipline and bullyi

limitations, limitations to your organization's capacity it reach more people, to roll out your can urriculum and to get your programs in more places. can you talk a little bit about what they are and what people in this room can do to help? amina, you want to get us started? >> sure. in your packets you should have our program that we have locally in the bay area and we also have affiliated across the country in many areas. our dream would be to have a similar program to ours in every city in the united states. obviously that takes time, our speakers are volunteers, they aren't paid. it may take 4 or 5 hours to go into schools so resources are always an issue. many schools are afraid to invite speakers in to talk about any religion, but particularly islam, there's not always a clear understanding to what the first amendment guarantees, which is the right to teach about a religion but not proselytize about it. i think there's fear of associating with anyone associated with islam. there are events outside our control that creates more interest and unfortunately also makes people more afraid. o

had the opportunity to see bully and not only view that documentary but also go through a rich can urriculum from our teachers understanding the lessons from that movie. we all know a movie in and of itself doesn't make a difference, but i will tell you, we didn't start our approach to understanding it with the movie bully. we're very proud 234 san francisco that we have had an approach based on restoretive practices where we're not about suspending students and getting them out of school, we want them to understand what the impacts are and the impact it has. we've been a part of restoretive practices now for over 4 years in san francisco but when we heard about the movie bully, and bullying is a phenomenon we can all relate to. as i shared with the students yesterday at hertz theater, when i see the film i can relate to instances when i was bullied as a kid. when i reflect upon being a student in the public schools, i can think about situations where i was a bully, where i said things, where i did things, when i went with the crowd, and i shared that with students yesterday. for me it was a

history and this is where we get into core rur can urriculum. this is about freedom of speech, it makes it relevant, it goes right into something that kids are already seen on espn so they are already primed to talk about it. that's the kind of stuff i think we need to be looking at so we get this bullying stuff out of their head and they see relevance instead. >> anyone want to take some questions? i want to start with a young student. >> everyone needs to read that letter. it is shocking. >> alexis, are you here? you want to come up here? come on. don't be shy, nobody's going to bite. >> let's give her some encouragement here. we've heard from adults all day long, we want to hear from somebody who is -- come over here, young lady. my name is cheryl, thank you for being here. we have some great guests who care about you, everybody in this room cares about you. you have been through some training. you have a question for our guests? >> no, but i want to thank you for doing this. thank you. without this we'd be back at scare one. >> thank you. >>

public school students in california, focusing on achievement and opportunity gaps, improving can urriculum and instructional quality and ensuring quality education for everybody. she served as an advisor on education issues on a number of private ipbs institutions, she is a teacher, a lawyer, and a very influential voice on all policy matters. she was also passionate about ending this issue of bullying and bringing everyone together to stop this disturbing trend so please welcome assistant secretary for civil rights, ruslyn lee. as i said, our moderator is not always our lieutenant governor, of course he needs to introduction -- no, i get to say something. i get to say something. as everyone in this room knows, youngest mayor in 100 years, right? youngest mayor in 100 years when he was elected 10 years ago and he has remained an effective and visionary leader for everyone. mayor newsom gained worldwide recognition when he granted marriage licenses to same sex couples in 2004. we all remember those moving pictures of smiling couples on the steps of city hall, some of them their children wat