San Francisco Unified School District Board - Regular Meeting

Randolph, if you can hear me, uh, you can begin introduction as the Chinese interpreter for this evening.

Uh, hi. This is Cantonese interpreter. Uh would you like to put up your um information on the screen first?

Random. I'm sorry. I don't have the slide for the interpreter.

Oh, okay. No problem. Uh we'll just uh get it off the uh board documents. Good afternoon, everyone. San Francisco Unified School District is providing Cantonese and Spanish interpretation at tonight's meeting. If you need a can of Spanish interpretation, the phone number is in the agenda. Um, it is in the uh board agenda item A3. So, if you go to item A3, you will be able to see the uh interpretation phone numbers for Cantonese and Spanish and repeat the message in Cantonese and Spanish. for Spanish interpreter, please. Thank you. Google. Thank you. Um hello and welcome to members of the public to the regular meeting of the board of education for the San Francisco Unified School District. Um our public uh we will begin with item C public comment. Our public comment period lasts for one hour um let's say today until

7:45 p.m. Before I recite my standard language before public comment, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the disruption we experienced at the end of our public comment time at the last meeting on April 28th, 2026. First and foremost, I want to appreciate those who joined us and helped to deescalate and support in the moment. Um, I also want to apologize to members of the public, including our students who are frustrated from that experience. Our goal during public comment time is to allow for all members of the public to share their perspectives and for all to hear the perspectives of others. Disagreement is inevitable, but what is most important is that we allow for members of the public to speak in the allotted time during the scheduled public comment period. When a disruption occurs, I am required to provide two verbal warnings before an individual can be escorted from the room. The board also has the right, in the case of extreme disruption, to clear the room of all members of the public. In the event of a disruption, we ask that you call the attention of a member of SFUC staff for security who can support. Unfortunately, given the setup of the room, the board cannot hear much of what is being said on the floor. So, we ask that you please call the attention of a member of SFUSDC staff who can best support you. Our board is committed to ensuring all members of the public can speak during the public comment time and ensure everyone can be active listeners during that meeting during this meeting. Thank you for your partnership in ensuring we build a space that is safe and accessible for all. We look forward to hearing from you before we conduct board business. Our goal is to conduct our work in an efficient, effective, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by ensuring we move to board business as soon as possible. Each participant may speak for up to one minute. Staff will thank the participant

at the 1 minute mark. At 1 minute and 5 seconds, I have asked um Chris, what's your last name?

Armen. Mr. Mr. Armenra uh to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email to board office sfusd.edu. We will hear first from students in person, then members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items, then moving to non-aggenda items. Regardless of whether inerson public comment is complete, we will save 15 minutes for remote public comment or at 6:30 p.m. or sorry, 7:30 p.m. taking commenters in the same order as in person. To members of the public, excuse me, on the right, you'll see signs that outline expectations for public comment and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public model the kind of tone, language, and behavior that we hope to see from our young people, respecting different viewpoints, and allowing for all members of the public to participate. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow up with speakers. Mr. Armenrop.

Thank you, President Kim. Uh I would ask for if there's any outstanding cards uh to please bring them up as soon as possible uh so that we can include you in tonight's uh speak public comment. Um I I saw a card out there. If you could bring it up now please. Thank you. Um we will begin with as president Kim mentioned we will begin with students. We have one card from students and I apologize to anyone whose name I've mispronounced uh here tonight. Um, could we please have Toto Hannah Hannibals please come uh and present? You have one minute. Um, my name is Toto Honeyball. I have spoken numerous times this year about academyy's devastating closure. As the year comes to an end and our teachers and students find out their placements for next year, the district moves on to plans that continue to screw over underprivileged students. In lie of these plans, I'd like to uh like the move towards a change in the enrollment system. I'd like to give the

pause for Can you pause for one second, Mr. Armen? Just wanted to remind you about the timer. Okay, sorry. You can go ahead start where you are.

Um I'd like to give the board a firm reminder of their incorraable failure this year. Each and every one of you failed each and every student at Academy. Although we had very few students this year, that is still nearly a hundred children whose lives and futures you were responsible for appending. Groups of close friends have had to split up as they enroll at different schools. Several of our staff still don't have jobs for next year. And each day that passes until summer break is not a happy countdown for warm weather, beach days, and vacations, but a bitter and impending ticking time bomb until our community ceases to have a place to exist. When you began to decrease our enrollment and cut down on our staff, that gradual desolation was what you were putting into place. Schools aren't as simple as statistics on a spreadsheet or a measure of supply and demand. that your diverse communities um supporting the livelihoods of multitudes of students, staff, and teachers that rely on each other every single day. I urge you to act in the interest of these communities and the individual and individuals within them rather than prioritizing money and capital. Stop these budget cuts and enrollment changes. School closures are not the way. They are shameful and only bring harm to those who your job is to serve. Thank you. Hi, my name is Finnegan. I'm a sophomore at Academy. Um, I'm here today with my friend Toto uh to speak on behalf of our school community. I want to start by acknowledging and appreciating all the students and adults who have come to these board meetings, taking time out of their busy days to represent academy and all SFUSD students, families, and community members. These past few months have been extremely unstable for academy students. The average SFUSD student right now is taking AP exams, finishing up late work and final projects, making plans for the summer, and maybe applying for jobs, internships, and CCSF classes. The average student at Academy on top of all these things is worrying about what their new school is going to be like. Many of them never have having even toured them. They're wondering if they will get the same access to resources and support that they get at Academy. They are wondering where their favorite teachers and staff are going to end up because you guys haven't been making it easy for them either and have even and some are even considering leaving the district. All of these, all of this is extremely stressful and overwhelming,

especially for teenagers and kids like me with anxiety, especially surrounding what the future may hold. We should be out partying, going on picnics, picking out cute clothes for the summer. Instead, we're worrying about if we will survive. Thank your time is up. That was a minute. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you for your time. Uh we'll now move on to the general public uh with agenda items. Um could the first five please uh come up? Bernie Bernice Casey, Kurt Bellars, excuse me. Megan Walks, Laura Kennedy, Jennifer Finley. Please begin.

Hello, my name is Bernice Casey. I'm a parent of two SFUSD children, and I am here to urge you to stop cuts at Mission High and to make sure that Maestra Sara stays with that community. You talk all the time about how you have problems with attendance and things like that. You need teachers that are tied to the community so students will show up. Mystar has been in the mission community for almost a decade and to get rid of her is going to harm Mission High and harm SFUSD and harm the community. I also want to talk about what you did to academy and that I feel you're trying to do to schools on the southeast side that have Spanish immersion. You are trying to silence communities. You are not listening to the people who come here. And every single one of your faces except these two people on the end and the two students are on a commercial for the friends of Mandarin School. So you want to encourage some communities to have voice, but you're silencing others.

Thank you for your time. Hi, my name is Kurt Collas. I am an SFUSD parent and an immigrant. I know how important it is to have teachers that can connect with students. My Sara at Mission High needs to stay at the school. She has all almost a decade of community connection in the mission. The ca the kind of connection keeps kids like mine in school. I'm also here to urge to maintain the newcomer program in the southeast side of the city. Thank you.

Uh uh my name is Megan Walks. I'm a parent of a second grade student at Yiko Elementary. We're asking the board to help with transparency and consistency in class combo decisions. We know that SFUSD creates combo classes. We've had four or five combo classes for years with much success. In a board Q&A doc from January 2025, FSUSD made it clear that for younger grades, kinder through third, which have 22 student class caps, the combo class happens if a if it falls below 14 students. We appreciate that clear standard and we're asking that it be applied consistently across every school site, including ours. Yika will have 37 students in each of our second and third grade classes next year, well above that threshold. Yet, we're being asked to combine 74 students across three classrooms next year. Under the board's own class size caps and USF contracts, three classrooms can seat no more than 66 students. We exceed the cap by eight students, and we have the opportunity to grow next year's second and third grade classes by at least two more students who are still on the wait list. If not for SFUSD blocking their admission, the solution is straightforward. Four classrooms by applying the same formula, class combo, threshold, and class size everywhere in the district. Hello, my name is Laura Kennedy and I'm a parent to a first grade student at Yakwo Elementary. Yesterday we celebrated the landmark Supreme Court case Yako versus Hopkins where 160 years ago the court ruled that laws applied unequally or undressed regardless of how neutral they appear on paper. We believe the board shares this value. We're seeing inconsistencies at our school across three areas. the class caps, combo class thresholds, and enrollment decisions for weight listed families. With four classrooms next year for our second and third grade students, we could admit weight listed students and be at 76 students at least. The current propos proposal has a shrinking to 66. We think it's a mistake and not an intention, and we're asking for your

help to correct it. We want to ensure that class caps, size caps, thresholds, and enrollment decisions are applied consistently and transparently across every school site. So no family has to come before the board to ask for what their peers receive automatically. Please invest in our students. Invest in enrollment. Grow Yikwo. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Finley. I am a parent of a kindergartener also at Yikquo and Yakquo is ready to grow. We're asking that the board make this possible. Next year's second and third grades will have 74 students as previously mentioned. Um under the board's own class size caps and UESF contracts, three classrooms can seat no more than 66 students. How does this work? Four classrooms seem to be mandated under your own policies and contracts. The only question is whether we can use that fourth classroom to also admit more families that are on the wait list. Um we say yes. Let YUquo grow. Um your own strong schools resolution warns against schools in high demand turning students away. That's exactly what's happening here. I live in this neighborhood. We walk to this school. It is in high demand and I see it every day. This resolution calls for aligning facilities to meet student demand, focusing resources where they have the biggest impact on student outcomes. Thank you.

Thank you.

And forgive me, I'm trying to sort between agenda and non-aggenda. It's a little confusing. Um, could the next five please step up? Uh Sarah Moitari Fox Monadel Herzol Herzola Sarah Kosaf Christine Hoe Meen Brown go uh my name is Sarah McTar Fox the consolidated teacher at Mission High here tonight to remind you that teachers are humans and not just numbers on a spreadsheet although that's how I'm being treated after eight years in this district. Even though I filled out all of my paperwork correctly, the district's disorganization resulted in me having only one hour to fill out my five preferences for next school year and unable to do so. I was placed in an elementary school against my will. I tried to apply for a year of absence, but I was denied solely because I was informed of my consolidation 4 days after the deadline. And I'm asking to be reconsidered for my leave of absence because again, I am a human. Mogari, that last name that many of you cannot pronounce, is Iranian. My family is literally trying to survive a war right now and this is adding an immense extra grief. I do not have it in me to start at a new school or a new subject. But I am willing to put my career on pause if it means I'm able to return to the community I built deep roots in. I brought over 90 testimonials from parents, co-workers, and students. And I will conclude with a message from one of my kids. We are in a drought of good teachers in this district. And the less we listen to teachers, the less there will be. And Miss McTar absolutely deserves to keep her desired job because she is passionate about what she does and passion is what we need in teachers, not exhaustion and misery. Please do not add to my misery. Please approve my year of absence as I am a human not a number in a spreadsheet. Thank you. My name is Madah. I am a retired teacher worked with Mission High School and had the honor to work with Miss Muttari.

And I wanted it's only appropriate to start by saying that uh Maya Angelo said that it's not people don't remember what they what they have learned but they do remember how they feel. Most important uh voices in the district in the school are the students. So I am going to read few remarks from the students of Mkhtari. Miss Mkhtari is very passionate about teaching health and very good at teaching health. Teachers who teach what are they passionate about will make the best classes for students. The learning environment will be so much better if the teacher is invested in what they teach. I think. Thank you.

Okay, I'm going to ask what I asked my students to do. Put your computers at half mass, please, and give me your attention. I'm going to wait until I get that. Just like slide your computers down halfway. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. All right. My name is Sarah Kasoff. I'm a health teacher and PE teacher at Mission High School. I'm here tonight to use my voice and speak up about the chaos that the consolidation process is causing our schools. We have had three consolidations at Mission, all of which were done well past the April 20th deadline. When you consolidate someone at a new school, you are completely unending unending their lives. They must rebuild their relationships with staff, students, families, learn a new computer route, learn how the printers work, who to ask when they run out of pencils. It's such a big deal to be consolidated and our district has really messed it up this year. What I teach in my class is what I want to teach here. When you make a mistake, you take accountability. I ask that you listen to the educators when you are consolidating and hear them and what they need. Of our wants to stay in school, Stroia as well. Mktari wants to be given a leave of absence.

Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Christine Hoe and I'm also from Yikwo. Yay. Yikwo. Uh I'm not talking about that issue though. Um but I am in support of that issue as well. I'm here to talk about the cell phone policy issue. There is no cell phone policy at SSUSD. The phone freeze act requires SSUSD to adopt the cell phone policy districtwide by July 1st, but we haven't done so. large districts such as Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Clara have already done so. So, I encourage SFUSD to adopt a policy to protect our students against prolific cell phone use during the day. Um, to end cyber bullying at school. So, we would like cell phones off and away, bell to bell. Thank you. I'm Moren Brown. I'm a school psychologist at Galileo and I came here to express my concerns about our um leadership, our um principal being with taken out of the school mid- semester, which has created extreme safety hazards at our school. The students all know that she's not there. They're acting out. A lot of my autistic kids are traumatized and a lot of things are not getting done such as IEP meetings that require an administrator. We don't have someone there so we're out of compliance. Um so I would really encourage leadership whoever made the decision to remove her in the middle of a semester to think about that in future and what kind of chaos it creates at a school site. Thanks.

Can I ask the next five please to step up? And again, my my apologies for any mispronunciations. Entran, Darius Basheri, Danny Lynch, Holly Kums, Alice Meyers. I'm a parent of two SFUSD students and I'm here also to advocate for the no cell phone policy. Um, in light of California Assembly Bill 3216, phone free school act signed in September 2024 requires all California school districts, charter schools, and county offices of education to adopt a policy limiting or prohibiting student smartphone use by July 1st, 2026. Um, this legislation aims to improve mental health, academic focus, and social interaction. And as a reminder, the legislation seeks to reduce cyber bullying, academic dishonesty, and classroom distractions. So, I encourage you to please, please um do the right thing and think of our children and their mental health. Thank you.

Hello everyone. Good evening, board. My name is Darius. Um, I put in a story for math. Maya is a fifth grade student here in San Francisco. Recently, she's been falling behind in math and reading. She comes from an immigrant family. Sometimes she helps her parents run their taco stand. She just needs two extra classes to catch up. And we all know you're working hard to make that happen for her. But behind the scenes, millions of dollars are quietly going to old systems, consultants, and admin overheads. Tonight alone, we are ratifying tens of millions to outside vendors, not to our teachers. But my question is, do we want to invest in new solutions that direct funds the math class? Your time is

good evening board. My name is Danny Lynch. 12 years at Galileo Academy of Sciences. In the last 12 years, we've had seven principles. Five in the last six years, this will be the the fifth. Um, it feels like regime change after regime change after regime change. Every two years, we get change and there's no continuity for our students and staff. We need to start thinking outside the box and thinking about giving um new structures to deans, department heads absorbing administrative duties, counseling, taking on more student facing leadership. I'm going to ask for three things from you all. That one, you guys come take a visit to Galileo right now in the next two months to see what administrative turnover looks like. to come up with new leadership policies to give structures like Galileo or other sites that are going with principal turnover where we can have some kind of alternative model when principles leave and third authorize some kind of p pilot program where staff members or our plerative models for leadership at the site can develop. Thank you sir.

Good evening. I'm Holly Kums an instructional coach at Dr. William El Cobb Elementary School and I'm here tonight to give a shout out about lesson study, a powerful professional development process in SFUSD led by the teacher leader fellowship. I want you to know about this amazing program here at SFUSD and I hope you can observe the process sometime. Educators attend professional development twice a month through TLF and are also coached to lead lesson study groups at our school sites. It's been really transformative. Lesson study is not about creating a perfect lesson. It is about knowing our students as learners and getting close to student thinking, watching carefully, noticing patterns, listening for misconceptions, and adjusting our teaching based on what students actually do. Lesson study gives teachers agency and purpose. It builds professional trust and collaboration that leads to richer lessons. Most importantly, lesson study keeps the focus where it belongs, on student outcomes. It shows us how small shifts in a lesson can increase student engagement and learning. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, good evening. My name is Alice and I'm an SFUSD parent. I have an eighth grader at Roosevelt and an incoming Roosevelt sixth grader. They have a simple cell phone policy, off and away, bell-to bell. Kids at all SF SFUSD school needs this simple enforceable policy. Thank you. Would the next five please step up? Blanca Catalan, Roberto Rivera, Paula Yei, Brandy Markman, Joanie Tat Tatar. Good evening board members and superintendent. My name is Blanca Catalan. I'm a mother of three students in SFUSD and also I'm a parent organizer with Colan Advocates. I am here tonight to raise concerns about the lack of transparency around programs closures, especially programs that serve newcomer students and bilater students happening without meaningful public engagement. Some of these schools we already know are being impacted include International High School, Visitation Valley Middle School, Mission Education Center, June Jordan, and other that primarily serve these students. This district continues to justify these decisions by saying families are not choosing those schools. But the reality is that SFUSD itself is shaping these outcomes by failing to provide the resources, investment, and support these school needs to thrive. What family are saying is a pattern. Programs are deestabilized first and then later the district claims there are not enough students to keep these schools open.

Our family deserve honesty and transparency. My name is Roberto Guzman River and I have three kids at Guadalup Elementary. Good evening board members. For years, families across FUSD have complained that the enrollment lottery system is confusing, stressful, and not equitable. So why is the district choosing this time to completely overhaul enrollment? Because many families fear that these aren't real reforms. They are soft school closures in disguise. Harvey Civil Rights Academy. We've seen this before. The district claims there is low demand that and then classrooms disappear, staff is cut, and schools are destabilized. It happened at

Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy and families now fear that the same will happen at International High School. Closures hurt children. They break trust. They weaken communities and push out families from public education. Sir, sir, sir, we doubled the time for you with the translation, but we can't go further. How can you be one minute? No, sir. You've already had two minutes to allow for translation. Thank you.

Can Can you allow her to finish the translation? And Okay. If FFSUSD wants to grow enrollment, invest in schools that you're that are serving immigrant, black, brown, and workingclass families with Spanish TK, newcomer supports, bilingual ed, and fully staffed community schools. Hi, my name is Paula and I have two kids in SFUSD and I would like to keep them in SFUSD. Based on the lack of supervision and restrictions the schools have with the Chromebooks and seeing kids um workarounds to access gaming, I'd like to encourage um SFUSD to focus on a cell phone or a device policy where they're all off and away bell to bell.

My name is Brandy Markman. I'm a public school parent at Roosevelt Ele Middle School in the Richmond District. I stand in full solidarity with parents and families and students here tonight from McAteir and many of the schools in San Francisco that you have tried closing or that you have closed. I don't have to go on and on about the harms of school closures, but also schools clos school closures don't save money. There was a sta a study out from Stanford saying the fiscal consequences of school closures in California do not impro like many do not improve the financial outlook at those schools. They are a weapon in the arsenal of charter school proliferation and we know that because many I used to live in Chicago when school closed there we saw charter schools come up we saw luxury condos got up and I just want to remind you that these are not your schools these are the public schools. SFUSD is the second largest land owner in San Francisco. I know many of you know that and our schools are not your monopoly boards. Thank you. Hi everyone. Good evening. My name's Joanie. I'm a mom of a fifth grader. I'm another Yikquo mom and I'm here to talk about the cell phone policy. I'm from a big community and a lot of us parents are really hoping for a strict cell phone policy. We know this decision has to be made soon and we're hoping the kids can be kids and not worry about cell phones and we all know all the things. We know all the things of why they're not great for the kids. So, I'm here to push for a strict policy. No cell phones. Belltobell off and away would be lovely. Take care of our kids. Thank you. Thank you for all your hard work because I know you work hard. Thank you.

The remaining four speakers, if there are any outstanding speaker cards, this is the last chance to bring them up. Kelly Tagert, Leslie Who, Steven Cadet, Lee Shiml, comments since I'm not sure who's reading my emails or the emails from my colleagues. My name is Kelly Tagert. I'm a teacher at Francisco Middle School. There's a legacy here of Yik Woo uh Francisco and Galileo and all the destabilization of our schools. I want to go on record and publicly ask you, Dr. pursue to reverse your directive to meet your 220 minute per class per week requirement for my school Francisco. Given our school's unique programs, buildings, and history, your directive defies logic and CDE guidance because our start and end times have been determined centrally. The only way for a seven period school to meet this minimum is either to make our lunch so short that we're out of compliance with California labor law or make our passing period so short that students cannot get safely to class. Our current bell schedule allows for 200 minutes 28 minutes of instruction per class per week, which is 1456 total minutes of instruction per week. That's more than any other SFUSD middle school except one. That's equivalent of six period school having 242 minutes of instruction. To be told, we need to increase our minutes even further at the expense of student safety and labor code compliance without considering Francisco's unique campus and major achievements over the past decade. Miss Miss Tiger, thankful to our students and just plain wrong.

Hello. Hi. Uh, I'm here to speak to what happened on at the board meeting on April 28th. During public comment, students were h harassed in the audience in this room. This went on for almost the entire time public comment was happening. Adult members of the audience were saying disrespectful and hateful things directly to them and they were only sitting a few feet away. The students were angry, confused and they were afraid. They were looking to us to stop the harassment and to protect them from harm. And when I mean us, I'm not I mean not only you all on the dis, but actually I'm not letting the other adults in the audience off the hook either because that didn't happen either. We're all on the hook for this one. Anyone could have stepped up to stop it. And this happened especially during a meeting where we're talking about a curriculum that was designed to understand and think critically about the lived history of folks of color to understand why bigotry and racism has existed in our world for decades.

Who? Sorry. Thank you.

We need to do better. Ladies and gentlemen, I also want safe and accessible schools. Today, I sat on our bleachers at Galileo. I did not get splinters in my butt because they have recently replaced the bleachers at a cost of $6 million. So, I have safe and accessible bleachers at my school. We haven't had an elevator in almost two years. That cuts off access to the music department. It cuts off all ability for our custodians to remove garbage. So, you know what has been happening without elevators? We've had armed robberies. I also want safe and accessible schools. Don't you? My name is Lee Shiml. I'm an English teacher at Galileo High School. In the four years that I've taught at GAL, we've had a new principal nearly every single year. It's very disruptive to our student body and staff. We now have been operating without a principal for about a month, which has exacerbated issue that we've been struggling with for years. Truent students in the hallways. Having no principal has magnified this issue resulting in chaos. Before I was even hired at Galileo, the staff filed a grievance about hallway misbehavior and the district agreed to address this issue. But nothing has changed. We teachers care deeply about all students. The majority of our students at Galileo regularly attend class, but our most marginalized are struggling due to a lack of consistency and leadership and consequences. Hope by wandering is a cry for help. These students need more structure. We need fully staffed security. We've had in the past two weeks two incidents involving a firearm.

Two in two weeks. This is not normal. This is neglect. We need action now at Gallo High School. Thank you. President Kim, that concludes the inerson public comment. We are now moving over to the zoom comment. Uh for those individuals who are on the zoom uh as guests, please put up your uh hand and uh we will call in the order that we are receiving you. Thank you. Uh we'll begin first with Eric Moral. Please begin. Hello. Um, hi everyone. I'm calling in uh because I'd love to see enrollment increase at SFUSD. I'm here as a parent from Yik Woo. I have a daughter in first grade who's going to be joined by her sister next year and two years later her brother if you plan well. Uh, so there are currently 74 students as we heard earlier in first and second grade and next year there are only three classrooms and and that would mean that you're capping that at 66. I'm sure it's not your intent for eight students to have to leave the school, leaving a classroom empty, but that's what's being planned for. I know these students. I know they're families. We walk to school together. They're not changing schools, and it makes no sense to plan on enrollment decreasing when we have students on the wait list. Please don't eliminate teachers when we have enough students according to your guidelines. Please don't create an enrollment cap when students are on the wait list for our school. Thank you. Lillian Lim uh please begin. Hello everyone. Um, community advisory committee for special education had a meeting with

special education team and finance department last yesterday regarding the 2026 and 2027 local plan budget and during the meeting the draft 202627 special education budget presented to CAC uh was approximately 10% lower than the prior year about um reduction of 27 million and um also in the information we receive special education currently under spending compared to the yearto-ate plan year-to- date expense is approximately 19% below budget about 42 million lower in spending. So um so we see the note in the third intern report regarding like expected growth in special education contribution but however the information is

next up uh parents for public schools.

Hi good evening everybody. This is Dr. Morero calling in. There is a number of issues I think on on the table today that parents of public schools are concerned about and so I'm going to list them to you. One is school consolidation or closure without board approval. The next is a silence um on students related to harm done last school board meeting. We do not think um President Kim's comments um earlier are sufficient to address this matter. And the last is with governor's may revise. We're hoping that we're going to see the increases to the school budgets um so that you can get these educators back in their seats. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh next up, Miss Virginia Marshall. Us Miss Marshall dropped. Uh next up, Miss uh Aaron Dumont.

Hi. Uh my name is Aaron Dumont. I'm a parent of a fifth grader at Sunnyside. I am also on the organizing committee for San Francisco Education Alliance. Um, I stand in solidarity with a lot of the caregivers and parents there this evening just in regards to school closures overall as well as the plan that was put forth by the superintendent last week. Um, these are just school closures in disguise. Um, and the what we're doing separately, what we're doing for our newcomer students is actually appalling. these are even worse off because we're doing it without board approval. So, I would just implore and encourage um our board to uh do right by our families and not disintegrate our public school institutions in this city and uh we will not stand for school closures. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Miss Marshall, I see you're back.

Okay, it didn't say unmute. Now it says unmute. So, I know you can hear me. Good evening, President Kim, Commissioner, Superintendent Sue. At last board meeting, last board meeting showed us how much hate there is in the city and county of San Francisco. The many folks appeared at the board meeting who I've never seen at a board meeting in all my 36 years. I eagerly got up to help the adults in the room protect our children. We must always protect our students. Disruptive adults must be removed immediately. Don't give them two more chances. President Kim, commissioners, immediately have them leave the room. Even if you have to close, stop the meeting. Also, we must offer each student in SFUSD, especially black and brown students, a rich curriculum. That means that you need to find a way not to close schools and have budget cuts in the schools. um dish hard to hear what's happening at my former school galo room brown. I will make our way there before the weeks end or early next week. And lastly, at my grandchildren elementary school that was on there is only one black brown teacher, one African-American woman teacher. Thank you, Miss

and she excuse me and she was going to be uh next uh Elliot Kent anymore.

Look, hello commissioners. I'm speaking on behalf of SF parents regarding tonight's agenda. As the district moves into a more stable financial position, families want to see continued focus on students, academic outcomes, and restoring trust. The coming period will require difficult decisions around enrollment, school closures, staffing, and long-term structural changes. It is critical that district leadership and the board work in alignment and keep students at the center of every decision. Reaching a productive positive certification is an important milestone and reflects real effort across the system to stabilize SFUSC's finances after years of instability. As these next phases move forward, we'll only make meaningful progress if everyone works together in this moment so we can build the stability and trust our families and schools need. Thank you. Next up, Chris Klouse, please. I'm Chris Klouse, the sped department head at Washington High School. I'd love to give in-depth feedback about the reorganizing plans, but the slides lack details, which feels like an intentional lack of transparency in a district that has struggled to seek and listen to community input. There seems to be an idea about expanding sped programming which is great as long as stakeholder input is collected and actually considered. I worry because this year the district tried to open a new program for sped at wash without consulting anyone at the school. We would have loved to host that program but barely have enough classrooms.

Apparently I was muted in the middle. Yep. Sorry. Continue. Uh sorry. Am I going to get a little bit of time? Yes, we'll accept your time.

We would have loved to host that program, but barely have enough classroom space for our current sped programming. So, in mid-March, the program was sent to to a different school. But apparently, as of April 20th, there were students on a wait list for the non-existent program at WASH. Please expand sped pro uh sped services, but do it the right way and make sure that the kids actually have space to learn before making empty promises. Speaking of empty promises, stop ignoring our contracts consolidation, voluntary transfer, and payroll deadlines. These actions push strong educators out of the district, which harms those of us who stay and our students, especially the ones most in need of support. Thank you.

Get it together, guys. Our last speaker is Hava. Please begin. Hello, my name is Hava Kelly and I just want to continue what Lillian was trying to say. Uh, apparently the proposed budget is approximately $30 million less, not in a perceived increase. But more importantly, when presenting to the BOE, can you please be transparent, provide context, provide the data um when you are indicating that there is or was an increase in special education moving forward. The second thing is despite the decrease, we have actually seen an increase in the number of students with IEPs. say has jumped from 14 to 17%. So I am concerned um we need to ensure that the budget the proposed budget is in alignment and that we are all on the same page and we are all receiving accurate information. Thank you.

Thank you President K. And that concludes public comment.

Thank you. The superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft agenda at 12 days in advance for board members to review. Once that draft agenda is made public on our website, board members have made a commitment to submit clarifying and tactical questions and staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q&A doc is linked into the board agenda on board docs today in item E2. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussions today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we'll be moving most items to our consent calendar and identifying only our highest priority items to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance, but instead bring forward strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards our goals and the underlying strategies so that we can be better informed in our decision-m and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Moving to item D, report from close session. On close session agenda item B2, the board by the board voted 6 to approve a settlement agreement in the matter of student MF versus SFUSD with Commissioner Weisman Ward absent. Also in item B2, the board voted 6 to approve a settlement agreement in the matter of student CR vers SFUSD with Commissioner Weissman Ward absent. On close session item B3, the board voted 6 to approve a settlement agreement with the MA in the matter of student KG versus SFUSD in OAH case number 2026 020836 uh with Commissioner Weissman Ward absent. On close session item agenda agenda item B6, the board voted 6 to release and or reassign 29 individuals certificate administrators effective at the end of the 2526 school year. Pursuant to education code section 44951 with commissioner Weisman Ward absent,

the SFUSC board of education is committed to effective schoolboard governance that center student learning based on community input. The board has adopted our vision, values, goals, and guardrails. Our approach to governance also calls on the board to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach those goals within the guardrail set by the board. As we implement our governance framework, the board will continue to adopt new systems, routines, and policies aimed at improving student outcomes. We encourage the public to follow this work on our website at sfusd.edu/governance. Item E, opening items. We, the San Francisco Board of Education, acknowledge that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the Ramataloni, who are the original inhabitants of the San San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramataloni have never seated, 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 Ramachish community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Um uh move to item four, student delegate report. Call in student delegate uh man and Cruz to give their reports.

Hi, good evening. Um we have only a couple things today. The first thing is that our newly elected student delegate is here. Her name is Nelly. Nelly Folksman. She is a rising senior at um George Washington High School and she's currently a member of the SACE. ran a great campaign and her term will officially start in August. So sad. I mean, amazing for her, but obviously amazing for her, but yeah, big claps. Um, and then we have our last um SACE meeting on May 26th. So, there's that, too. And then, and yeah, good evening. Uh we also are opening SACE applications for the upcoming school year which applies to anybody in high school. So if anybody in crowd has any student that is attending SFUSD and wants to kid or if their kid is interested in being more involved, I highly highly um would say tell them tell them to apply. SACE is a really diverse group of people who share a lot of thoughts and opinions and have the opportunity to see broader aspects as literally our last meeting uh the first lady at California came and talked to us and it's those type of experiences a lot of students don't have so being able to have that is really important for a lot of people including myself. So yes, it will also be posted this Friday on the newsletter. Um, it will also be sent out to high schools. So, we are making sure we get as many applications as possible. Um, and yeah, if there's any if there's any questions, we do have uh Judson Steel who is our current SACE advisor. Um, feel free to email him. His email is s ej1 sfusd. Thank you.

Thank you, Superintendent Report. Great. Thank you, President Kim. And big claps to all of our young people learning new words here. That didn't work. It didn't. Okay, never mind. Congratulations to all of our young people. You learning I'm learning new words. Big claps. That's what I just learned. Okay. Misuse. Well, Commissioner Fischer can help me learn.

I'm gonna give the superintendent credit. You know, in my uh professional space as the parent of many young adults who have Sorry. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Um thank you, President Kim. Thank you, our student delegates. Um and I just have greatly appreciated serving with you. Um it's not your last meeting, but I know you all are seniors, so Okay. Um, I have a few slides to share and, uh, let's move right on to the next slide. Um, in May, we proudly celebrate Asian-American, uh, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, a time to honor the rich histories and contributions of our AAPI communities. During this month, SFUSD educators have aligned lesson plans and many schools hold assemblies celebrating the history and heritage of Asian-American and Pacific Islanders um throughout our district um and in our community. To learn more about AAPI heritage and um access resources to celebrate and learn about our AAPI communities, please go on our website at sfusd.edu/ edu backapi. We also join communities across the country in celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month. Um an opportunity to honor the vibrant culture, traditions, and contributions of our Jewish American um students, staff, families, and community members. Jewish heritage reflects a deeply rooted and resilient culture that spans thousands of years. According to the American Jewish Population Project, an estimated 7.6 million people in the United States are

Jewish. Um, at SFUSD, we honor our Jewish students, families, and staff. Over the past two weeks, we celebrated our amazing educators. Teacher appreciation week was May 4th to the 8th. Yay. We also c Yes. Let's wrap it up. Um, sorry. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna stop. Um, I hope our educators um had a wonderful week, extra wonderful week. I know that our um students and our families honor and celebrate you all every single day um because you give so much to our students, but hopefully last week was extra special for you. We also um celebrated principal appreciation day on May 1st um and school nurse day on May 6. So again, hopefully our school communities joined forces and celebrated our um administrators, our principles, as well as our nurses for everything they do um each and every day. I am so grateful um to our amazing staff who um serve our students, serve our communities um so well and um I just I just greatly thank everyone for everything that you're doing for us. Um, so even as we're gearing up for the end of the school year, it's time to be thinking about enrollment for next year. So far, more than 1,500 families have been offered a seat um on our weight listed schools. So, more weightless offers will be available every Monday. Students not currently enrolled in SFUSD are welcome to please enroll. Families can join a wait list

for any school they prefer and should reach out to our enrollment center uh for immediate assignments at schools that have space available. And if you have any questions, please feel free to go on our website um at sfusd.edu or come to 555 Franklin um or give us a call. So, I had so much fun celebrating bike and roll to school week last last Wednesday with the students at John Mure Elementary. All across our schools last week, students joined in the fun of riding bikes, scooters, skateboards, wheelchairs, and other mobility devices, or walking or strolling or skipping um or taking transit, car pooling, and at the end of the day coming to school. Um, thank you to our campus partner, to our city partners, including the SFMTA for keeping our streets safe for our students. And thank you to drivers for remembering to honor um uh what are those called? Street rules. Um, and slowing down uh around our schools um so that our students and families stay safe. And I am also incredibly proud to recognize our 2026 Superintendence 21st century um scholarship awards uh recipients. So Alan Sahar, Cynthia, Gavin, Osmond, and Janice, these are our amazing seniors who graduated this year, who will be graduating this year. um who have demonstrated leadership, resilience, creativity, and commitment to their communities and truly truly

make SFUSD proud. Um these outstanding seniors embody our graduate profile and remind us every day of the talent and amazing promise that our students um come to school every day to to deliver. sorry the promise that we provide to students in terms of having an excellent education and the commitment and hard work that they do each and every day to achieve their fullest dreams. Um, of note, we actually had we partnered with a um um a nonprofit agency that provided each one of our recipients with a free laptop um so a an a an Apple laptop. So it was wonderful partnership um all around. Yes. Um, so finally, I am pleased to share that SFUSD will once again provide outdoor graduation for all celebrations from June 1st through June 3rd at Kizar Stadium, Jerry Garcia Amphitheater, and the Golden Gate Bandshell. These events are an an important opportunity for us to celebrate each and every SFUSD graduate with the joy, recognition, and community they deserve. I encourage families and staff to view the full graduation schedule on the SFUSD website at sfusd.edu. Uh, I want to recognize and thank our SFUSD high school leadership teams and staff for the tremendous work they put into planning and delivering a successful graduation event for our students and families every single year. I am also deeply grateful for our partnership with the mayor's office in San Francisco, um the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families, and the San Francisco Recreck and Parks Department for helping us make

these celebrations possible. Thanks to generous donations and community support, we are able to create memorable and meaningful experiences for our graduates um every year. And then finally, I want to share that SFUSD schools and offices will be closed on Monday, May 25th in observance of Memorial Day. As a reminder, the last day of the SF of the 2526 school year is Wednesday, June 10th. And with that, my report I conclude my report.

Thank you, Dr. Sue. Moving to item F, advisory committee reports and appointments. Uh F1 Asian parent advisory committee presentation. Dr. Sue. Yay. I'm really excited to invite our amazing parents, volunteer parents to come to the dis and share their report with us. I'm going to hand this off to Vid. Okay, great. And he will introduce the panel. Thank you.

Can you turn on the mic in front of you? Thank you.

Test. Perfect. First of all, I want to say thank you to the superintendent, uh, to board president, to the entire board for having Asian Pack here to and allowing us to present. um our um recommendations. Um with that uh next slide. Um I want to give a background to oursel um to who we are. First of all, my name is Suvid Tatimun. Everyone calls me Vid. I am the AsianPac uh staff liaison. Um also um community schools coordinator at Yuloa as well. Um, with that, I want to introduce Kimberly Chong, who is our AsianPac co-chair, um, and who will be speaking to you on several of the recommendations along with Orlando Leon, who is our Asian PAC secretary. Next slide, please. So, just a quick background on um, AsianPac. Um, Asian PAC was really founded back in September of um, 2023. Um before that there was no Asian representation um in terms of pack or anything um in SFUSD. Um that has been probably over 80 years in the making. Um with that the Asian PAC's mission statement is that the Asian parent advisory committee advocates for the diverse needs of Asian students and their families. We partner with SFUSD to ensure equity and excellence by strengthening inclus inclusive and supportive environments where every student can thrive academically and holistically. And the very first meeting that Asian PAC had was back in May uh 28th 2024. So just about two years ago. Next slide please. So this slide here is actually um really to show you the demographics of what Asian actually means in SFUSD.

If you look at this uh very carefully, you're going to see that Asian students make up 28% roughly 28% of SFUSD students. Um, with that you see a list of 10 e Asian ethnicities going from Chinese, which is the largest percentage, um, all the way down to Le Oceanian. What is really interesting is that there is a the third highest ethnicity listed here is other Asians. What people forget is that if you're talking about Asians as a whole, that Asian means that's 48 recognized countries in Asia, not including three that are partially recognized. But what's even more interesting is that of those 48 countries or 51 if you talking about that is that there are over 2,300 unique ethnic groups. So when you think about Asian, you're actually, you know, you want to be mindful that Asian is not lumped together, that there are unique ethnicities and ethnic groups. Um, with that, I would like to hand it off to Kimberly Chong, who is going to present the first recommendation.

Hi, good evening everyone. Um, I'm Kimberly Chong. I'm the co-chair of Asian PAC. So I'm going to talk about with recommendation number one and two for you. So the first recommendation from AsianPac is sustain and strengthen language programs. Um we we strongly recommend the school district to standardize and align the language programs and curriculum across all uh schools offering language programs within the school district. uh set and maintain same standards, grade level proficiencies and teaching materials including testbooks. Um we definitely also need more publicity about language programs in the enrollment um program or like packets or on the website. Um the language programs should be highlighted because um they are really great programs and a lot of students can benefit from it. Um and also we would like to encourage the school district to think about really simplifying the uh and highlighting the um the language programs in the enrollment packet and make it easy to navigate for a lot of families. We also observed that some schools have long wait lists for language programs while some schools actually have lots of open sp open spots and even they have to do combo classes. Um so there there's apparently some demand and supply mismatch that we would like the school district to really review and see what can be improved. Um so we can go to next slide please. Um yeah I talk about that too like in highlight. So next slide please. And next will be the second recommendation from us will be building local pipeline for Asian language educator talents. Um there have been uh we observed that there has been a lack of uh credential

bilingual educators. There not enough of them. Some schools they cannot find substitute teachers when their permanent teachers are on leave of absence. And also some schools don't even have permanent teachers teaching the language programs. um to add on to the situation is there their there are separations and their retirements of teachers who are reaching retirement age. Um that really sal accelerate the shortage of teachers in the language program. Um, so we recommend the school district to uh continue and strengthen partnership with local universities and colleges such as San Francisco State U and other colleges in the in the in the Bay Area or even in California or even out of state potentially. And um also um we've seen that in the past the credentiing process can be a little bit lengthy and complicated. So it would be nice to uh keep streamlining and simplifying the process to make it easier for the talents from uh colleges like college students to to be really uh credentialed in an easier and faster way. Finally, we encourage the school district to think about more incentives for talents to sign up for to become a bilingual teachers. Um next I'm going to pass on to Orlando for the third recommendation. Thank you, Kim. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having us here. We really appreciate your time. A little bit about my background. I am an SFUSD alum, all K through 12. So, I've benefited from a previous generation of our district here and and really successful because of the education that I was able to receive. I have one child in high school right now in SFUSD. So looking at recommendation three, primarily it's talking about

strengthening tiered supports both for our teachers and in the programs and services and offerings for our kids. The key theme you'll hear throughout this recommendation is how do we help all of our students thrive to meet their full potential? If I may have the next slide, please. So we break it down into three sub actions. And one thing I want to highlight if you recall without going to the slide about we're talking about about 28% of our student body across the whole district over 17,000 students and right now in many of the reports that we see many of our students are put into one classification of Asian and that looks good in some cases but what we don't see is then what do we see when we dig down into disagregating that data. So that leads to the first recommended action here is to actually have more visibility and accountability toward our planning cycles. So can we integrate disagregated Asian subgroup data into the district and school planning cycles. This doesn't just mean the different buckets that we saw the 10 that we see right now but beyond that their socioeconomic status, newcomer status, English learner status. We do some of that today, but let's let's keep breaking it down and integrate it into our planning cycles. I've been on two school site councils so far, one in middle school and one in high school. Right now, I actually have not seen I've seen Asian called out in let's say the testing data, the standardized data, but I haven't seen us recommended as a focal group. And I know that some of our different demographics again the subdemographics are not doing very well but not recognized as focal group in SPSA not specifically. The second recommended action is that we support our educators to be able to understand then what are these different types of subgroups that we're talking about when we think about the Asian student

population helping them understand so that they can deliver better interventions better grade level supports language development belonging and wellness and then the third recommended action is how can we advance equity for all students and that that could look like a lot of different things but we do have Asians with a lot of different needs depending on their grade level, depending on their experiences. And if we can help all students, all Asian students to be as successful as possible, challenging all of them as much as possible and helping them again to thrive to meet their full potential. Thank you. Thank you very much. I will open up to comments and questions from commissioners and student delegates.

Great. Thank you, Vid. Thank you, Kimberly. Thank you, Orlando. Really appreciate your work here. Also, just a shout out to Christina who has like 20 different hats and I don't know how she does everything, but she's amazing. Um, so on on this, I really appreciate this recommendation number two. Um I'm curious. I mean do do you all recommend tracking vacancies so that we can follow up with this say the following year in terms of what our vacancies are now and whether we're willing whether we are able to fill them.

I think that would be helpful. We definitely um um like from a parents point of view we we do see that a lot of schools are facing this issue like a lot of teachers are really retiring in like maybe like two years three years and um natural separations occur you know occasionally and then um we do need a strong pipeline to sustain our language pathways especially Now we are rolling out the new Mandarin immersion K2A TK to8 school next year. Um so we definitely would like to strengthen uh the pipeline. So what you say is um tracking how many teachers spots like how many vacancies are there or like potentially in two three years down the road that would be very helpful. I think we need a long-term planning on that.

Great. I look forward to the recommendation on uh on what what the metrics are because I think in all of these reports it's always really useful to have something then that say a year from now when you come back we can sort of say okay are we making progress against this are we not and just have that dashboard. Um and I I love this focus on on these programs. I mean my daughter is a graduate of the Chinese immersion school at Diavala and benefited greatly. That was really one of the main reasons that we came to SFUSD and it is a crown jewel in what we do. One of the crown jewels that of of many that we have at SFUSD. Um, one of the things I'm curious about, did you all look at something like an Apple certification or a certification of biiteracy? Um, you know that often there are these certifications that are global seals that then can be applied and, you know, kind of stand out for our students. But I'm curious if that was something that was that's been discussed or or you all might discuss uh not only at at the Asian-American Pack, but I mean it it I imagine would be applicable to other packs as well.

Do you mean credentiing the teachers or the students getting credentialed for the seal of bi literacy?

The students um this was something that was discussed I think at um the conference that uh some of us attended. Yeah, we definitely are open to to that kind of um credentiing or um the like uh crediting the students because I think right now the school district uh will will give the students completing fifth grade um the uh seal of biliteracy and then for high school graduates as well. So I think if if the school district can add on to like the the Apple credentiing or other I think that would be helpful. And then on the teacher side um I think we we actually had previous discussion with uh Dr. Sue during one of the Asian PAT meeting about streamlining the credentiing. I think that part is very essential to because that will really like give more incentives for um talents like students or uh qualified teachers from other places um to really to be more willing to join SFUSD to teach in the program.

And Commissioner Gupta, you did mention that you implied that some of our programs are crown jewels of our district. And I know of parents and also students, but more the parents, they're very proud of their students and what they can achieve. And so anything to add to that would be great for attracting more potential students in the future. Exactly. I I completely agree. I actually I unfairly was asking you about a biiteracy certification, but I did want to give that opportunity. Should the superintendent or staff um have anything to say about that?

Uh yes. So, number one, we were super honored to be the the the city that hosted Cababe, which is the statewide um biliteracy conference where we had lots and lots of educators here just a couple of months ago and that was amazing and I know that many of our educators and u community members had the opportunity to be there and to learn more about different types of certification. Um at SFUSD we do provide um a the state seal which follows the state guidelines um on how we certify a young person to be by literate. Um and then in terms of just recruiting more teachers uh number one recruiting teachers in general is very very important. recruiting teachers that have the the B-clad certification is is equally as important but also uh very very difficult. Um we in partnership with the Asian PAC so thank you so much for your partnership. We have been actively trying to recruit more teachers to participate in the SF state um uh by BClad certification um program uh as we prepare for the TK8 mandarin immersion school but also as we prepare for teacher attrition and retirements um throughout all our entire school district. So um uh yes we are actively recruiting. I do like your suggestion of just um you know just being out there more, pounding the pavement, identifying I know in one of the conversations we had at AsianPac was um identifying some teachers who we know are bilingual and and really uh say to them, do you want to be a BClad certified teacher? um and and invite them into the program because we have done a really great job in partnership in partnering with um SF

State where teachers can actually join the program for free because we've we were able to secure a scholarship for teachers um so they can go through the program become BCLAD certified and um the grant pays for for the teachers. So there's really great opportunities for recruitment of teachers who are bilingual in any language, not just Cantonese or Mandarin. There's Spanish as well. Um so if you are a bilingual teacher um that's as certifi certified right now as a teacher but want to get one more level of credentiing uh which is the biiteracy credential please please please talk to one of well send us uh talk to HR and HR can help you um be engaged in the San Francisco State program. May I just ask a clarifying question about that? Because I understand there's the clad and then there's the B-clad, right? But to earn the B-clad, you have to be biliterate. To earn the clad, it's not you don't have to have that biiteracy component. But do we have the same scholarship available for teachers who are interested in earning the clad part as well as the B-clad? Could that help us expand?

I don't I'm sorry. I don't know. Um, Christina, do you have an answer for that? I think this particular program that Dr. Sue is speaking of is a special arrangement to try to recruit more bilingual teachers and basically teachers that already have a clad, which means that they are able to provide English language development for our students. um that we want we know that many of them are bilingual biliterate and they haven't had the opportunity or the time or bandwidth to earn a bilingual authorization. So this particular program was targeted for that effort.

No, no, I'm I'm glad you asked that question. It's it's certainly relevant. Um and just uh finally just appreciation for calling for the further disagregation. I mean, we see that across all our packs in general. Just being able to understand that information better so that we can better uh work with our students, enhance learning, enhance that sense of belonging is absolutely critical. And in a from a from a continent that encompasses five billion people, more than half of the world, I mean the equivalent of having an Asian pack is, you know, the equivalent of something like, you know, the North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceanania, Antarctica pack, you know, allin one, right? So absolute disagregation is is absolutely critical and I hope that'll help to enhance the work we do with our learners. So thank you for all your work.

So I think actually um Commissioner Gupta the last point was something I was going to start with but I think I'll also say you know that to the to the idea that you know some of our programs are crown jewels. Yes. And I think like the goal is that they're all crown jewels. So we're not, you know, just looking for one or two or three or seven um plus one to the disagregated data and I know um so I guess you know R&P uh can do anything RPI sorry RPI can do okay research

it's been a long day research planning and assessment RPA can I can't do everything but they can do everything um and I guess to you Dr. issue. Is that something that we think um is feasible? Are they is that something that they've already been asked to engage in in terms of this particular data set and sub data set? Absolutely. Uh that's definitely something that is feasible for them to do and I believe that we currently collect that information. Um I think it's a matter of making sure that our communities are get access to that. Oh, okay. So it exists already. I Yes. Yeah.

Um so I did talk to the um the senior executive director of RPA and in discussing what is available right now in our SFU public dashboard. He did recognize that he wants to create some consistency and add some of the um different ethnic groups, Asian ethnic groups. um actually as many as we can capture based on the ethnic group identification that happens at the enrollment form application period and that's how we gather the data from the enrollment form to into our synergy systems. So be more comprehensive. Is that what you're saying?

Yes, it will be more comprehensive and include all of the different groups. Right now it doesn't quite include every group. Um so that's the goal. Yeah. Do is there a a timeline for that goal? I believe that within the next um in the beginning of 2627 that is the goal.

Great. Thank you. Um and then the other sort of I guess comment slash maybe question for you is relates to to the pilot making sure that there's there's a pilot program that making sure that we have um a way for folks to get into the district. Um I know that this is not the first time that we've talked about having some type of pathway right um and whether it's through our higher ed partners this actually this conversation came up at our last meeting with Apac and so I'm just um wondering is it instead of talking about different pathways in silos is this something that you and HR are thinking about sort of from a global perspective to get as many people in the pipeway pip pipeline. It's been a really long day. It was a long night last night. Um, pathway pipeline pilot, but y'all know what I'm saying. RIP, RPA, all the things. Um, is RIP to me. Um, is that is this something that that folks are talking about outside of our individual silos?

Um, thank you for the question. I can't speak for HR. I know that Amy Bear, our associate superintendent of HR, is listening um and she's upstairs, but I do know that HR works every single day to recruit. Um an an example of the recruitment um process that they do was actually set up a stand at Cababe just a couple of months ago where they were actively recruiting um uh potential teachers. Yes, shamelessly we were stealing them from other districts, but it's okay. We deserve the best so that we can have Oh, no. Please come to the district. We actually for teachers um have fully funded health benefits for your family. Choose us. Choose us. Um but uh I think that this is what um HR does every day. it is their job to to make sure that they are out there recruiting and um uh filling all of our vacancies. Um we do have several key areas that have vacancies. Um language pathways is one of them. Um the other one is special ed and um TK. So we are we are aggressively working on building that pipeline and and honestly we should um make sure that our students understand the importance of being an educator and how wonderful it is so that we can start building that pipeline when they are still students. Um speaking of students I just got a text saying that 38 of our stu our of our seniors will be receiving the biiteracy state seal next week. That's amazing. Yes.

Delan,

hi. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um, it's always really nice to see um, advisory councils and groups um, present to us and really nice to see like the passion and the care that parents have for their students in the district. I remember like Apac was here last meeting and I I believe I said the same thing to them that it is really admirable to see like parents standing up for their students. So, thank you so much for being here. And I also wanted to commend the part about recognizing um different groups um under other Asian. I'm Burmese. I'm also moved here when I was very young and I also fall apart. I mean I also fall under other Asian. So, it's really nice to see that recognition. So, thank you very much. Um my question um and then my thoughts really go with the whole high school credential thing we've been talking about. Um, I remember I know we talked about like student credentials for or high school student credentials for like languages and I go to LOL. I'm a senior and I know we have like AP classes like my friends take AP Chinese and if they get a five or even if they pass um they get the se the the seal of bi literacy and I'm wondering what the standardization that for that is for schools that don't offer AP classes um and like also for languages that don't because I know we have like Italian and Japanese and K no Korean and Italian that don't have AP classes at LOL and So I'm wondering like do high school students at LOL who are not taking the class the my god confusing who are not taking the APs that offer lang the lang oh oh my god who are not taking the languages that offer APs or people at other high schools that don't offer language APs at all like what is the process look like for that Um, so if there isn't an AP, actually if

a stu high school student takes the AP course, that in itself, that completion actually qualifies. So it's actually even better than having to pass the AP test or get a four or five. Um, but if there isn't a language per se that's offered at the high school, um, multilingual pathways department has set up a system for the student to demonstrate their proficiency in the in the particular language. So there is opportunities. The whole goal of the seal of biiteracy is to if is to really award and honor a students bilingualism. Um so they would have to both demonstrate English proficiency as well as the target language.

Wow. This got me thinking that maybe I should have taken an AP language class because I didn't need to get a five to get the feel of my my I didn't know that. So very good to know. I'll be sure to pass the message along to my little sister. Um my second and last question is just I'm wondering about recommendation three um about like the last point the last recommendation or the last part of the recommendation about advancing equity with like the range of needs and strengths and aspirations for like access to support and like academics and like opportunities and extracurriculars. I'm just wondering um like it says it it's like actively monitored and providing guidance and pro professional learning and support of these areas of focus and I'm just wondering how these services and like these opportunities are being measured for Asian students like how can we make sure that um we're getting like we're giving them the resources that they need to achieve or like how the resources are being employed in an effective way or if we to um go back to the drawing table and like try to find more ways to get like more effective resources that really help them instead of just ones that are just there.

That's a great question. Let me let me try to first maybe share an actual experience from my my child when he was in middle school. I'm going to leave the school out of it for just a moment. He was he was struggling to keep up to keep organized and we know he's a really smart kid. When we approached the teacher and then the administration, the comment that he received was because he's not failing, he's doing okay. And so basically there's no support. And there's also kind of the what ifs. So unless he had a 50 uh like a 503 IEP, something like that, then he would be able to get more support. but because he's not failing, he's not going to get the support. To me, that anecdote, that story is is I don't think it's enough for our students to help them all to succeed. So, I I think I put that out there. Do I have an answer? This is what we're actually trying to dive into and and to Commissioner Weisman Ward and also Commissioner Gupta, the Asian Pack has been asking for a lot of data and Dr. to in some cases we we see that there's bits of it but we can't really put it together very well. So we are trying to figure out well what is it exactly that we need? So I I'll kind of put that out there. Anything to add my colleagues here just have um I would just like to add on to what Orlando said. Um uh as a school district I see that we've put a lot of effort in equity which is something that we all value about uh but at the same time we also value academic rigor. I think that's something students uh should focus on and the school districts should really strive in that. Um so equity and excellence can go hand in hand. Um so it shouldn't be equity goal first. If if equity cannot be achieved, we don't care about excellence. I think

they can go hand in hand. They can they can um achieve get to be they can be achieved together, hand in hand instead of sacrificing one for another um and um we we definitely do agree that leaving no kids behind. For kids who are on track or for kids who are actually more in advanced, they don't get enough support from the school because the the schools or the school district feel like they are not failing. So why give them support? We should support the students who are falling behind. But I think we uh as school district we can like we can support all students. So definitely we we will f we should focus on students who are struggling. Definitely we should give them a hand. But at the same time for students who are on track or students who are really advancing um they some students may get bored in classroom because they are like they really learn all the stuff already and but they need to wait. Um so I'm going to be very honest with you. I think if we don't care about those students who are on track or above and beyond, a lot of kids like or the families will decide to leave the school district. This is a very um this is like what's happening already and we don't want to see that happen like we want to really tell all the families that SFUSD is the place to be. It's a really good district. It cares about all students. It doesn't segregate students. It cares about all of you. So I think that's the very good message also to the students to families to community.

Thank you. Thank you so much for Yeah. Big clap. Yeah, big claps. Thank you so much um again for the clarification, for answering my questions very thoughtfully and for everything you shared. Um this obviously very resonates very well with me personally and um it's been a great discussion thus far and it's always very nice to hear these presentations. So and this is like what our second to last meeting. So thank you for making it extra special. So I don't have any questions. The presentation was really clear and I was just kind of going over it again. I think this is a great this is a great idea. I feel like a lot of students who are behind have never actually been taught by their own parents and they want to learn that language that they grew up being around and that culture that they just didn't have the opportunity to learn. So having those resources given to them at school just kind of resonates with a lot of students who feel like AP classes are too hard because for me at my school I go to Burton um we don't offer any we have AP Spanish and AP Chinese so we don't have any non-advanced coursework that automatically helps students who just want to take the class to take it. So a lot of people don't take those classes because they're like it's too hard um or it's just you know, getting the actual like test score afterwards and seeing if all that effort and all that work was worth it. So, for me, I felt like this is a really good thing. It's a really good opportunity providing a lot of students who maybe didn't get this chance in elementary school. I mean, a lot of schools don't provide Spanish or Chinese or other immersion um programs. So having that opportunity in high school that gives a lot of students and reassurance to families that they still get that ability to learn it in

high school even though they didn't get it beforehand is really good. And I think this is really good and amazing. And I love that we're giving this ability to a lot of incoming teachers so they reconnect and know that they have that opportunity to teach students and I think it's amazing. So keep it up. I'm so so excited for everybody who can get this resource and has this opportunity because I know a lot of communities would appreciate this as well. So, thank you. I'd love to also build on this and and I'm curious um so I appreciate the recommendation three around strengthening tiered classroom supports and um and I guess my question is is for Dr. two around um what what is our strategy around multi-tered systems of support and andor acceleration pathways in SFUSD? I I can imagine this is something that's going to come up once BEDC presents next month. Uh it's also something that we've heard through previous reports around um from other advisory councils and committees around around tiered instructional supports. Do we and I kind of reflect back on who is that with I think Commissioner Ray and Commissioner Fischer. We were at Sunset Elementary when we were looking at their schedule and asked this question of like so when does MTSS when does intervention take place and they're like well we don't actually have an intervention block in our schedule. So we don't and and so I'm curious what what is our strategy as a district around providing both acceleration pathways and intervention pathways.

Yeah, that's a um thank you president Kim for the question um and thank you students for bringing this up. I was actually just going through my head about just how do we help bring up the academic rigor. Um and over the last year, what we have done is is uh uh adopted new curriculum that was state aligned that actually has metrics that allow students to um to monitor and and and see students abilities to perform and to catch up or um some students are moving faster. And so there there are additional prompts that teachers can provide um additional work that teachers can provide to support students who want to just continue. Um so it's really really important that we have curriculum that is modern that is state aligned that uh will allow us that level of flexibility. I think the other thing that we can do um to improve academic rigor in our schools is to make sure that we have academically rigorous classes that we're offering those options for our students. Um, so it's really great to hear that LOL has a lot of different AP opportunities for students and that, you know, maybe other schools could have more of that, which is why we've spent a lot of time trying to either build more AP opportunities um, in high school or build the partnerships for dual um, enrollment at City College so that students have that opportunity to take those classes if those classes are not available at their school. Um and and through career explo exposure and and uh internships, they're also getting the opportunity for real world experience, real applications of what they're learning in the classroom um and and really crystallize all of this uh all the content um into real

world um um experiences. So I think all of that is really important for students who want to continue to push and and keep moving. Um should we do more? Absolutely. Can we do more? We should. We should look into different ways to do more so that we can support students who are ready. On the other side, um some of our students who need additional supports, where where can we provide that? And and I think um to be honest, this is where we we have to do a better job. We have to do a better job at providing the supports for our educators um so that they have the resources and tools um to use the curriculum to use external supports like Amira or others um other programs so that we can provide um students with um with those opportunities to catch up. Um, MTSS, the multi-ter systems of support, is a strategy that the district used to use and have slowly veered away from. Um, but what we haven't veered away from is the recognition that some of our students need additional supports. And those additional supports come in the form of uh perhaps additional um minutes in our classrooms. um perhaps having um a a special uh smaller group um session with their teachers so that they so that teachers can spend time with students who need that extra attention to to stay on track. um or or partnerships with outside partners like Springboard or um Chapter 1, which is a high dosage tutoring uh program that we've brought into our district. Um and we actually have other um other tools that we use throughout the school day that leverages what happens um with our with our

teachers. Um but I will say that we we need more. we need to do more and we need to spend more time thinking through what that would look like. Uh unfortunately our goals currently still um we're not meeting our goals of third grade literacy, eighth grade math and college career readiness. Um so so this is something that we need to continue to stay focused on. So, I mean, I the the the curriculum absolutely. I mean, that that speaks so much to I mean, just to use the language of MTSS, tier one instructional work. I mean, it sounds like for course acceleration, what we're talking about is simply making more courses available. But I I think I'm still I mean what I would love to be able to understand is what is ex what is exactly our systemwide strategy and the framework that we're developing or using or adopting to actually operationalize some of those instructional interventions in our schools, right? Like is it and it doesn't have to be MTSS. It could be an RTI program. It could be. But but I I think what I'm trying to figure out is, you know, for us to be able to say that we're confidently providing instructional supports and interventions for students who are struggling in addition to providing acceleration pathways for students who are excelling like what is I guess what is the systemwide strategy for that and how are we resourcing it? Right? because I think that would be the question that I'm really interested in understanding as we continue to contemplate some significant budget questions. Uh because without a clear systemwide strategy or framework that we're kind of anchoring towards, um I guess I'm still left wondering just how does that actually operationalize in practice, right? And and what does that what does that mean?

What does it mean to operationalize our educators delivering on the curriculum? But curriculum is tier one instruction, right? So yeah. So you know I again I I'm kind of wondering what exactly is it that we are doing as a system to actually build the the space the time in our scheduling the the actual intervention supports for our students and then I mean that's just on the intervention side then then on the acceleration side is it just that our strategy is to offer more courses in high school so students who are excelling beyond their coursework work

are just taking more class. Like I guess I guess there's there I'm I'm trying to figure out like what exactly is and we don't need to talk about all of that right now but I think that's my question right like what is the systemwide strategy here that we're saying is the framework for us to provide acceleration pathways for students and for us to you know have a concrete strategy for how we're bringing instructional intervention supports for students right to access the very important tier one curriculum that we have right so I think that's the the question I'm wondering and I will just end by saying thank you very much for for all your work here and and um and and deeply appreciate it uh and enjoyed coming to at least some of your meetings and enjoying the food. Always good.

Oh well, just I mean I just I really want to say that our educators um are providing the disagregate um uh teaching in our classrooms. Um I I feel like we have we have pro we are providing and supporting educators um to deliver the curriculum and and that yes. Can we do more? Absolutely. Should we have a system that is going to be kind of the the the the steel safety net for our students? Absolutely. We deserve that and our students deserve that. What we have now are amazing educators um who are participating in trainings on delivering the system on delivering curriculum um and they are experts and well-versed in providing disagregated learnings to our students identifying students who need the additional supports figuring out how to support those students and identifying students who are ready to excel. Um now should we build out more of that and so that more students can participate in those pathways? Absolutely. Um until we get there we that that is that is what we have now. Um and I would love to engage with our communities to to figure out um other strategies on building out um some of those opportunities.

If I may share something, this is not really an answer but really just my own experience. I would say our teachers and and you've indicated the same Dr. Sue and I think we would all agree we need to invest more in our teachers. What does that mean practically? I sometimes have a bad memory but I remember my second grade teacher I'm sorry first grade Misser third grade Miss Brooks fourth grade Miss Mr. and Mrs. Bachelli fourth and fifth and then sixth. Why do I do that? Because they left a lasting impression in my life. And I don't know if our kids will say that today. Maybe we should just check in with them as parents. but my my my son will come back every once in a while but pretty often and say my teacher just doesn't care doesn't grade my assignments until the end of the semester. All these things that we might hear and so it probably goes down to we need excellent educators. Of course we know we need to pay them well. We need to take care of them and then hopefully in turn they'll be able to really turn out the future generations and give the education our kids deserve. Um before I um ask my question to the pack, which I so appreciate you being here and appreciate your work, um I wanted to just follow up on um Dr. pursue your response to President Kemp's question um about MTSS because what I thought I heard you say was that the district has made a conscious choice to move away from MTSS and my understanding was that we have tier you know we have our tier one instruction we have our tier three supports and that we are in the process of really ensuring uring that we have tier 2 supports and uh ensuring that those are integrated, you know, perhaps as pushins instead of pull outs and that uh teachers receive appropriate um professional development on how to best

offer tier 2 supports. But what I heard you say is different from that is not that we're kind of rebuilding tier 2 of our MTSS. It's that the district has made it a conscious choice to not use MTSS as a model for interventions. And I'm wondering if I heard that correctly and if so um what the alternate strategy would be to provide those uh different levels of support for students who need them.

Um so it's accurate we actually do have a very strong well strong is a relative word. We are building out a very strong tier one model meaning all of our teachers have the trainings um that they need to be successful in the classroom so that they have the tools and resources to support our students. We have a very again strong as a relative word but we have a tier three model where um we are providing mandated services uh for students who qualify for for for disabilities for special ed. what we have we need to do better at um is build out our tier 2 strategy which is that middle area the intervention area the intervention strategy and we need to do better at doing that now in order for us to do and build out a tier 2 strategy we really need to build a strong foundation I believe first we need to make sure that our teachers have those the trainings to be successful in the classroom And as we're augmenting tier 2, actually um we I've was just talking to our assistant soup of um student family services about building out tier 2 because we know that a lot of our students would need those additional supports. And tier 2 supports could look like a social worker coming in to provide supports to a young person. um mental health services for young people, maybe an attendance interventionist. Um so those are other strategies that we have actually employed and deployed within our district. There are other types of tier tier 2 strategies around um literacy supports, uh math supports, and that is what we're trying to build out um as we're bringing in um literacy

coaches and reading coaches or math coaches um into all of our schools. So, yes, we are we are we there yet? No. Do we have a lot to do? Absolutely. But we're on our way to getting there. So, so we're not moving away from MTSS. We're just in the process of moving toward having more robust MTSS. Apologies for misspeaking.

Thanks. I just want to make sure I'm understanding the direction that we're going in on this. Um and for the recommendations um one thing that struck me about um the Asian PAC's recommendations was especially with respect to recommendation one and recommendation three that the response from staff was you know very aligned with what the pack is asking for and in some cases was saying like we're already doing this or this is aligned with district policy or with existing district programs And I think it's great that um Asian PAC and the district are aligned in, you know, agreeing on what the end goal is. But my guess is that if these were recommendations, there might be some gap between what the district is already doing and what you're seeking. Um and so I wanted to just probe that a bit more and give you an opportunity to talk about if there are um you know perhaps you know the policies and programs are aligned but there's an implementation gap that you're seeing on the ground or if you feel that there need to be more robust um programs and kind of where um it comes from that these are the top three priority recommendations because my guess is that you're feeling like these are not things that have already been accomplished if you're bringing them to us as your top recommendations.

Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner Huling for um this probe. Thank you so much. Yes. Um we gave up these three recommendations because we have lots of observations and um that's why we come up with the recommendations. Hopefully um the school district can really focus on improving it. Um so I can talk about the first recommendation and I think Orlando can focus more on the third recommendation. So for first comm uh recommendation the reason why we gave that out is we actually um we we got a lot of feedback from families students about um for language programs offered at different schools. um the uh grade level proficiencies, the standards can be can have h a lot of discrepancies. For instance, my son is at Hoover Middle School. Um he's at the um Chinese immersion. U so they teach Cantonese and Mandarin during middle school and um there are five elementary schools feeding into Hoover and Hoover has both Spanish and Chinese immersion. Um so my son is at the um Chinese Chinese immersion and he he told me and also like he also told me from uh his teacher talking about the students from different schools that language proficiencies are so much different like the teacher has had to start from like teaching elementary school materials. Um and also like there are schools that are really um advancing very well like such as um like Alice Fongu um their language programs are really good and their language proficiencies may be like at a very advanced of the spectrum. So we we've seen a lot of discrepancies across and we believe that

that may be happening on other language programs too like other Asian language programs or Spanish or other languages and um we we strongly think that that should be a central leadership in really like making sure the curriculum and grade level proficiencies are aligned and standardized across all school sites offering the same programs. this this this is something that the school district needs to really put a lot of effort in and it doesn't have to like increase the budget. I think um a lot of a lot of that is more like really reviewing and restructuring the programs making sure every um the school sites are really using the same standards when they decide design their curriculum or design the teaching materials and also training the teachers. Um yeah, so I we think that this is a really huge um huge need for that. Yeah, thank you so much and I'll pass on to Orlando for his uh threat recommendation.

Thanks, Kim. So I I would say uh I I truly do believe I I've had the chance to the opportunity to just speak with Dr. Sue, hear from her and from many of our staff through the committee work that I've been doing for the past several years. So I'm going to roll in a little bit very briefly. My professional day job I I talk a lot about leadership and trying to build teams to do great work. And part of that is when we think of a strategy. So think of our district strategy. We create the strategy. That's the vision. And then the next really important step is aligning people toward that vision or strategy. And then the really important step after that is the execution. So I do feel like we all have genuine intent to do the best we can for our teachers, for our students, for the families in this in the district. Where we are at now is that execution phase. So we are aligned. This is where we should go for a lot of these types of programs and services, but we have to find a way to execute and sustain at the same time. So practically I I think we have we could say maybe hot spots of excellence across the whole district and we would love to see those duplicated in some ways but we know there's a resource constraint. So part of our discussion in the recommendations was what can be kind of costneutral for example and and still that we can then expand to be a success store across the district. So I think align staff being aligned is the correct statement. It's just what do we do now to execute and sustain And a follow-up question I had is with respect to recommendation three um and especially talking about um you know appropriate academic challenge um is Asian PAC specifically looking for more AP classes or are you looking for something else and I just want to give you an opportunity to more kind of specifically articulate what you feel that means because there's so many different interpretations.

Yeah, I would like to highlight a little bit about um the language pro language pathways uh across um school sites in SFUSD. We've seen like schools with like in in high demand and we have seen schools that are struggling to find enough students to fill uh all the uh vacancies. Um so we definitely would like to see um there's like a better planning, better uh resource planning and um maybe distribution of student population across the school district to really cater to the uh places or schools where there's a huge demand in um for the language programs and then maybe um for the schools that are really struggling. The school district may think about way to I um way to sustain the program while maybe really think thinking strategically how to gather enough interest um for for the programs for those uh schools and um we definitely would like to see um it's more like a high level planning um for language programs as a whole more like a systematic approach to to really resolve that problem because um language programs are really um great programs for um not just Asian language but like all language programs offered by school district. I would like to see the um see the language programs sustain be being sustainable and um being one of the like the crown jewels like one of the great selling points for to convert students from leaving this district to like keeping them back in the school

districts in order to keep our schools open um keep it get enough funding from the state and sustain our school district. Sorry for putting you on the spot, Kim. I was bringing that to the point because it's not just about AP programs. We know that not all students will be able to go to high schools where there's a robust portfolio. Not everyone will get to go to a great school like LOL, for example, but they can still have a great experience wherever they go. What does that mean then practically? So, I I don't think it's just about expanding the AP programs. It's finding what works. And this is where we have, I think, a lot of data, but we actually don't know. I don't I'm not sure if we make good use of that data and that's what I was trying to build on at first as well. Um, one example of that is that when we I think Commissioner Westman Ward, you brought up pilots earlier. I don't know if we do a great job of actually measuring success of pilot programs and services broadly. We might look at something for a brief period of time and say that was successful because of XYZ, but not really measure if that expands throughout the whole district or if it could. So maybe it's AP exams, but it's certainly much more than that. And to an earlier point we made, sometimes our students just need to be encouraged. And so if they're in that middle of the pack, if they're not great in self-study and self-initiative and they're not at the I don't I don't want anyone to be at the bottom, but if they're not at the bottom getting direct support and they're in the middle, they're going to get lost. How do we help those students especially?

Thank you. Good evening everyone. Really great to see you here and just thank you so much for the time and the effort and the heart that you're all putting into this and I deeply appreciate that both from the families and the staff. Um my question was actually around recommendation number one about aligning curriculum, language standards and expectations across all Asian language programs. Um this was something um Miss Jung that you had spoken to uh earlier based on uh Commissioner Heeling's question and um I I guess it's not really clear to me from the staff response how the response which refers for instance to establishing structured professional learning communities for educators to foster collaboration and so forth would really get at this across um programs. Um, so I'm wondering if maybe staff or superintendent Sue when we're talking about issues of kids, as you described, being at very different levels when they come to the same grade, the same school at Hoover for instance, how do we how do we foster the alignment of curriculum standards and expectations across the various programs that, you know, that that we have in SFUSD? I will start and if Steph wants to join in. Um I I think it goes back to what Orlando and Kimberly was talking about. We need to to invest our time and energy into training our teachers. We need to make sure that our educators have um the appropriate trainings. It has to be on um a repetitive rotating cadence, not just once in a while. Um, I also think that we need to work on building the culture, the culture of holding

ourselves and our students accountable and um and make sure that when we do that, we're also providing the resources going back to building out tier 2 um providing those resources so that our students um do not feel like they're struggling alone that we we do need to build that um together. So in in order for us to to not see the discrepancy and and I think the the sad part is that we see the discrepancy perhaps from classroom to classroom within the same school and and so that is where um training is going to be really important and and working with our principles and site leaders to make sure that they are walking into the classrooms and monitoring the classrooms and making sure that um the classrooms are are are are you know are being taught the way that um the curriculum is asking them to teach. So there's accountabil ability on both sides on the student side and on the teachers and on our principles um to make sure that we are all in alignment with delivering the curriculum.

I'm maybe misunderstanding here. I thought that part of what the Asian pack members are saying is that the curriculum for instance isn't even necessarily the same or the or the language standards. So if they're teaching different if they have different programs or something like that perhaps I'm I'm misunderstanding though at different schools then the curriculum how could you we need to do something to align the curriculum across the the programs. Maybe somebody could elaborate.

Yeah, I'm gonna ask Miss Krugman to help me with this. Sure. Good evening, commissioners. Um, so I I want to first by just um categorizing and making sure we're talking about the same language programs because there are slightly different you know structures and systems in place depending um so we have language pathway programs which are meant to support biliteracy for example those programs are separate from our world language or lo programs languages other than English where the language is taught as a separate content area. Um so specifically I'm going to name um the Cantonese and Mandarin language programs in particular. Um those programs exist predominantly at the elementary but certainly we do have it into the K8 level. Um and I'll name a couple of different components. So one is that in those instances those programs have a separate CLA or Chinese language arts subject area. Um we have not recently done an adoption of CLA curriculum at the elementary school level. um it is does not function in language development in the same way for example Spanish and English is. So it is not possible to say have an HMH adoption that covers all three content areas. Um it does serve differently in terms of language development requires a different adoption process. Um however, in order to support standardization of that language pathway, we actually go through the process of um translating the district's adopted curriculum in other content areas in both simplified and traditional Chinese because it is not publisher available. Um so our multilingual pathway department in order to standardized materials goes through that process. Um, we've done it in science, we've done it in math, we're about to do it in history, social studies in order to support the balance of language in the Cantonese and Mandarin um, programs.

I just wanted to check with um, with you. Would either of you like to comment on uh, or provide examples of what you see as a need for alignment in curriculum standards and expectations? And thank you, Miss Griffin. Yeah, thank you Commissioner Ray for um raising that question. Um um I don't get a chance to review like the test books or the teaching materials across all schools but I I did have the opportunity to look at at least between like Alice Fu and Ulo Elementary and they use different test books different teaching materials and um and based on my knowledge each school like the teachers or administrators get to it's kind of like they pick and choose what what kind of test books or what kind of thing they want to teach for the language arts like for the uh target immersion language and also um SFUSD has different like even for like Cantonese or Mandarin they have like several pathways already they have immersion they have boliteracy they have also unique immersion and so there are like several immersion uh or language pathways just for one single language and Um we as Asian pep we we we do see that this is another potential issue is like it's it just creates a lot of confusion for families that who want to enroll them their kids into the language programs. They they feel like why are there so many language pathways just for one single language. So that is one of the recommendations we gave like not just aligning the curriculum but also streamline simplify the language pathways so families feels easier to make decision like what they want to enroll their kids at and also like for language uh like I'm not talking about like

social studies or history or math that direct translation from English to the target language I'm talking about the the language arts itself like the language it has to have a very standardized grade level proficiency like for example by third grade they need to learn 200 Chinese characters or by fifth grade they need to know how to write an essay in Chinese something like that this that can be very that can be very robust and measurable um I grew up in Hong Kong I took classes in Hong Kong all the way to college and like back in Hong on like all the curriculums are standardized all school teach at the same standard but of um I'm talking about like public schools so it's very easy like for students to transfer from one school to another they they already know they have good expectation what they're going to going to learn they don't have surprise like if I go from this school to another school oh my goodness the Chinese test books and materials look completely different then then it it will create problems too. And when the students go to middle school, when all these elementary schools merge into one middle school and then and then they face an issue, oh no, like I I learned all these but these students from another school didn't get to learn all of those. So the teachers need to retach everything from you know from teachers at the lower level. So it it just creates a lot of unnecessary delays in academic advancement. So I think that's why I'm talking about central leadership. Um it doesn't necessarily uh uh relate to training of the teachers. It it comes from the it comes from the central leadership going down saying that hey you guys at third grade you should be able you should teach kids 200

characters. by fifth grade they should be able to write a 200 charact minimum 200 words essay in Chinese something like that that's something that we are looking for in our recommendation thank you do we have um kind of with that context or understanding are we addressing this or able to address this

I can speak to two pieces of it and so I I think just as a baseline I would say in terms of correct ulum and instruction. So this is just in terms of the materials and the guidance. We are in complete agreement. Um when I was speaking to having not yet done the language arts adoption, it's specifically to that specific issue of both the Mandarin and Cantonese programs language arts curriculum, which is a separate curriculum we haven't recently done an adoption in. Um and I think in that way we see the same pattern of um teachers using their own materials, self-created materials, pulling from different locations. So I do want to name that as one issue um in particular that we are aware of and we do have teacher professional learning structures, professional learning communities or PLC's for them to collaborate. Um but we do need like in other content areas need to do an updated adoption in that area in particular. Um the other piece I'll say is around um some of the pieces with language pathways and the balance of language instruction. Um the multilingual pathways department has worked very much on this over the last couple of years where we had a long history of um some school-based autonomy in terms of balance of instruction. So if I'm a parent and my child is at school X, I might expect, you know, a 7030 balance of language of instruction, but I'm at school Y, maybe that looks like a 50/50. Um and so part of the work of that team has been standardizing um the language balance in the language pathways um so that there is a consistent expectation on the part of families of what their student will experience.

Um it sounds like this is some it's going to be something that we need to work on um in terms of our next curriculum adoption. Can I just ask uh uh one of my You can start my timer if you want, Chris. Um uh just one of the follow-up questions to that. I mean, I know like we have common core standards for ELA, for math, for PE. Do we have them for language acquisition and and learning another language? Like are there common core standards for a K through2 um either Cantonese or Mandarin curriculum or Spanish curriculum? like is there some way to standardize based on state or standards?

Um so we do have standards that might look different depending if we're talking about language pathways sorry um or languages other than English where that language serves as an additional language. So students experience for example ELA and then an additional language. Um so we do have a set of standards. What I would say is that um there is not you know there is best practice associated with for example um I'm trying to not use too much educator speak but the balance of language over time. Um so for example whether we use a 50/50 model or a 9010 in kindergarten or 505010 50/50 or 9010 or 8020. Um so there is some best practice. It does function a little bit different than the state determining and guiding exactly what the pathway would look like at every single grade level and what the exact standards would be for the language in every single grade level. Thank you for that clarification. Um, and thank you for being here, AsianPac. It's so great to see you. Thank you for your work. Um, uh, there's been a lot of great points that I'd love to highlight and I recognize time. Um uh to the point about pilot programs, I think we do historically do a very bad job of taking the lessons learned and actually doing anything with them. Um and so that's not just true across language, that's true across all like how many like dyslexia pilots did we do before we actually got to the point of a structured literacy curriculum for crying out loud? Um, but I I hear a lot of the same thing. You know, we talked about this through Apac reports and other reports, but um and also Mr. Dr. Leon, you also sat on the high school task force, you know, and so thank you for your service there. But I I hear some similarities in the high school task force recommendations, you know, in um aligning bell schedules so that we can provide equitable access to language

across schools, you know, where some of our smaller schools might not offer as many courses, offering potentially hybrid and online. So, I'm wondering, you know, and I think that the question was raised about making sure we're not working in silos, but, you know, how do we take some of these recommendations from different places and strategically implement? Um, I think that's some of the work that I'm hoping to see you and your team do over the next year, Superintendent Sue. Um, um, I had a couple of specific questions though about some of our, um, uh, recruiting and retention programs. you know, the San Francisco Urban Teacher Residency Program, Chinese bilingual added authorization program, uh, multiple subject teaching credential program. Like, we have, um, I'm just I'm wondering what are we like how are we fully utilizing these programs? Um because the data that we saw like about um you know like we have two Spanish bilingual candidates, three Spanish candidates in the urban teacher residency program. The the desire I think is greater in the community, right? And the need is definitely much greater. So um what are we going to do to align appropriate resources to actually get fill that program? um is one of the big questions I have. Um and because the need is there.

Yes, the need is certainly there. The demand is there. We have classrooms of young people that need a um a a certificated high quality teacher. And um again, we are doing our best to try to recruit. I I I think that um we do bring and and of course I don't want to speak out of turn because of um our associate super uh associate superintendent of HR um is is listening in the airways but um we do do a we try really hard to recruit. We do do a good job at recruiting. So we do bring teachers on on emergency credential status um and we work with them. We try to support them um to to get all of their credit so that they can get their certificate. Um so we have lots of different um uh tools that we try to use to support our uh educators. Um you know back in the day we used to have a very robust uh international model um an international program um where we partnered with other countries uh to bring um educators into this country to help us. Um unfortunately that is slowly dwindling with the way the different different federal requirements now of um educators or or anyone to come in to work in America. So that has changed and that has shifted um our hiring pool and that is quite unfortunate.

I think just are you following up? Can I just follow up on that real quick and just ask, are we getting state teacher residency money right now andor are we planning on getting it on that point? Just but to to follow up on the the teacher residency question.

Yeah, I believe that we are. Um I don't have the exact amount, but I I do believe that we are. And when associate superintendent um Amy Bear comes down, we can ask her. Thank you. Okay. So, my Go ahead. You're welcome. Anytime. So, with my last 15 seconds, I think I'll make more of a statement than a question, but um I I really do appreciate the details that are in the staff responses, but um uh but honestly, Miss Krugman, your answers here, your specific answers, I think, were a lot more helpful. Like the the recommendations kind of felt very vague. um and um to steal Miss Krugman's um words, educator speak. And so I think um in my experience as a member of a pack, um what I would like to see in recommendations to our advisory committee's recommendations is some more specifics in here. Like we've heard through our ad hoc committee, um community members want to hear the truth, right? you know, if we haven't done something, it just we we really owe it to them to acknowledge it and you know, if it's not like we just had a lot of curriculum adoptions like we've we've really bitten a lot off a lot of work for our CNI department. So, thank you so much for the work you have done. There is always more. So, if this isn't something we can get to right now, you know, name it and we can work towards it. But I think that's where I would love to see more details in um what what we are actually doing named and specifically in the report and more timelines and things like that and the recommendations from staff. That's my ask. So thank you.

Do we It is 9:00 and this is our first item. So I'm just going to name that and if there are very quick questions I would encourage us to ask them quickly. I didn't use all of my time. I wanted to add change.

Very quick one. Um I had a question about the $62,000 62,000 student number that was provided because it's so different from the number we normally hear. This isn't a staff response about 62,827 students. And so I just wanted to understand uh better what this covers. Um we often get told that we have 48,000 or 49,000 students. So, can can you just just so I can better understand where that number is coming from? Is this county plus district including all of our charter schools or something? Like what does this represent? So, in the staff responses to the request for information, I did include a chart of all the schools that it includes. And so, it does include SFUSD and also our county office of education. It's a mix of um I think there's a few charter schools, not all of our charter schools because they're not all within SFUSD. So um hopefully that list is helpful. It does break it down by school and also by the different um Asian ethnicities. So it is a much larger number, but in this day when we're trying to include both SWSD and the county office of education, I just wanted to be inclusive. I just wanted to check because it's just

Yeah. It's not the number we normally hear. Yeah. So, the charters that it also includes charters. The ones it includes are the ones that are within our county boundaries. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I want to go ahead and thank our student delegates for being here and thank you to AsianPac for your presentation and for being here this evening. Uh we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you so much. President Kim, can I take a point of privilege? Um, I wanted to congratulate student delegate Cruz on her winning of a lot Latin American Teacher Association scholarship last Friday at their at their scholarship dinner. So speech, just kidding. It's 10 o'clock. Thank you so much.

She also won a Crankstart scholarship, which what how much was that? Like $50,000. Amazing. 5 for four years. It's for six years. Amazing. Amazing.

Okay, we're moving on to item G1, major decisions discussion. Dr. Sue Great. Oh, do you guys want to actually join the table? Oh yes, the whole

the whole team. Okay. Okay.

I know. I know. Um so good evening uh President Kim and commissioners, staff, families, and community members. Tonight I want to spend some time um actually Chris, can you please bring the slides up, please? Yes. Tonight I want to spend some time talking about where we um are as a district. um what we have accomplished together over the last 18 months and where we want to head towards next um as we plan for the long-term future of San Francisco Unified School District. Um first the Do you have the slides? Oh, you do. Okay, great. Um back one, not yet. first the progress we have made to stabilize and strengthen the district and the broader vision we are building together. Um and then I will talk about the next phase of our work around student assignment and long-term school portfolio planning. Next slide. Um so when I stepped into this role um 18 months ago I was very clear that our first responsibility was around stabilization. We could not plan effectively for the future of the district without first addressing the immediate operational, fiscal, and academic challenges facing our district and our students. Um, so over the last 18 months, we have focused relentlessly on stabilizing SFUSD and rebuilding a stronger foundation for our students, staff, families, and our community. That work has not been easy. Um it has required all of us to make very difficult decisions to have very disciplined fiscal management and an

extraordinary amount of effort from our educators, our staff, our school leaders, family and this board. But we have made real progress in one year. Um, we stabilized the district's finances. We moved from negative into qualified status in our first and second interim back in December and in March. And tonight after this presentation, you will hear us moving into positive status when when we present third interim um and later when we project. Yes, I see our fiscal team back there. Um and later uh in June when we present the 2627 budget this is significant because we were able to move from again negative to positive in a year's time. We have implemented stronger fiscal controls and oversight um and better management and practices over our budget so that we can make sure that we leave our district better for our future. At the same time, we began modernizing our curriculum, as you've already heard. Um sorry, I'm having a hard time navigating my screen here. Um the same time we began modernizing our um our curriculum so that we can ensure that our students have the academic experience that we know they deserve. Oh, sorry. Here we go. Um this past year we made important strides in curriculum

and instruction. We continued to implement a new English and language arts curriculum, adopted a new math curriculum, brought algebra back to the eighth grade, and adopted a modern history and social studies curriculum. These are not isol isolated changes. They are part of a broader vision for us at SFUSD where every student has access to highquality educational experience where families can trust the system and feel confident in the schools we offer where we have great neighborhood schools alongside strong community citywide programs that meet the needs and interest of our students. and where our district is sustainable for the long term. That is why we are now entering a more strategic phase of our work. Next slide, please. Let's start by clearly stating our goals. We want to deliver schools that provide every child, regardless of where they live and their neighborhoods and their zip codes, with access to strong academics, arts and music, social supports, and meaningful opportunities. We also want to create vibrant full classrooms where students are learning and growing in every corner of our city. To achieve that, we must attract more students and families to SFUSD by responding to what families want and need while also better aligning

our school portfolio and programs to ensure we are delivering on that promise. Our plan is to build a stable and sustainable school portfolio by school year 2030 that reflects the realities of enrollment trends, family preferences, academic needs, and our fiscal realities. This is about doing the work thoughtfully, responsibly, and in the right order. Over the past six months, my team, you can see here, and I have been laying the groundwork for the next phase of this work by analyzing demographic trends, reviewing lessons learned from prior efforts, and studying how we currently utilize schools and our district facilities across SFUSD. If we are going to make decisions that impact families and school communities, those decisions must be grounded in data, in community engagement, and a clear understanding of where our district is headed. As we move into the next phase of this work, our first major focus will be student assignment. This is not new to anyone. All I hear from families when I am out talking to our in our schools and talking to parents is that we need to make the front door of SFUSD easier to get in. It is too difficult now to navigate. It is complex and confusing

and it should be simplified. Parents want a process that is easier to understand. A process that is more transparent, more predictable, and a process that still provides meaningful choices for our students. And I agree. If we want parents to choose SFUSD, then we have to build systems that families can trust. We also need a student assignment system that gives us a clearer understanding of enrollment patterns and family preferences so we can build aligned programs and investments with what students and families are actually seeking. That is why student assignment must come first. Before we can responsibly make decisions about long-term school portfolios, we need a more accurate picture of enrollment demands across the district. We need to understand where families want to be. We need to understand which programs are working well and where there are opportunities for us to expand access. And we need to ensure we are creating a system that supports both equity and long-term sustainability. Our timeline reflects that sequencing intentionally. Year one was financial stability. We worked really hard as a team of school leaders and board leaders and school community to stabilize the district. Year two, we focused on curriculum modernization.

We brought in and updated our ELA curriculum, our math curriculum. We brought eighth grade algebra back. We modernized history and social studies curriculum. and we're still going to continue, but we started that work. Year three, where we're moving into now, will focus on program expansion and student assignment work. We will then move into implementation of enrollment policy improvements over the following years. My goal is to bring a student assignment proposal to the board by April of 2027 with implementation beginning school year of 2829. In the near term, we also see opportunities to expand programs as early as next year so that we can have better ways to meet our famil family's demands and students needs. Now, I want to speak directly to the issue that many people are understandably focused on. School closure, mergers, collocations. Those conversations will come later in this process. They will happen after we redesign our student assignment uh program uh policy and after we have a clearer understanding of enrollment trends and long-term demands across the district. We need to do this in the right order. Under this proposal, the earliest we would begin identifying potential mass closures and mergers or colllocations will be after we implement the first year of student assignment which will be in 2829.

And I want to be clear this entire process will be transparent. Families, educators, staff, and school leaders will be included as we develop and build out this work. We will communicate clearly about what we know, what we are still evaluating, and what decisions are or are not being made. There will be no surprises. We will provide regular public updates at board meetings beginning this month so that this work happens openly and with ongoing community engagement. And I want our communities to know that my door is open. I want to hear creative ideas from families, staff, students, community members about how we can strengthen SFUSD for this generation and the next. Because ultimately this work is about building a school district that families believe in. A district with strong academics, stable finances, clear opportunities for students, and schools that are positioned to thrive for years to come. That is the work ahead of us. and I look forward to continuing to work with this board and with the broader SFUSD community so that we can fully realize this promise to our students and to our community. With that, I'm going to hand over the next two slides um to home pay.

Thank you, Dr. Sue. Um we're gonna stay on this slide, Chris. Um just wanted to do a double click into the roadmap that the superintendent had laid out. Good evening board members. Uh we are currently engaging in a multi-year process to stabilize our school portfolio um by first growing existing um programs in high demand. Second, strengthening our enrollment system and program programs across the district. And then third, right sizing or realigning our school portfolios through any closures or mergers or collocations if necessary afterwards. So in the next two years leading into um 2627 but also 2728 the three program areas that we have identified um as areas for expansions include early education and TK expansion because based on the demographic data that we have received updated um in the last two months um we are still seeing a small bubble of four-year-olds looking to enter into school and we are very excited to be the place where they would land to strengthen in the enrollment pipeline. Um we are also uh engaging in ongoing work to launch the new TK8 Mandarin immersion school that is um in high demand and uh we know that parents are very excited about it. actually met with Asian PAC last week um to talk through what the plans are and then also delivering um a county non-public school program here in San Francisco to make sure that uh we are strengthening the continuum of education uh for students especially those with the highest needs so that we are making sure that our students are staying here in San Francisco accessing services and programs in San Francisco but also as an extension of the Figma recommendations identif identifying strategic ways for us to be more effective at our resources

uh for students who are in special education. Um we also have to engage in long-term planning towards towards a thriving school environment um and aligning our resources similar to um what the superintendent had presented. Um this means that we have to evaluate our enrollment system and also create um a balancing that will involve the board. Um we have to look at our programs across different grade levels. As you have just heard um at the Asian PAC presentation, there's a need for us to really um audit, evaluate, and think about ways that we can um you know uh improve the language program delivery. um being able to respond to how uh newcomer students have evolving needs given the shifting federal climate um and also thinking through more strategic ways that we can deliver uh citywide K8 programs so that we are strengthening enrollment across transitional grades. We have to balance priorities um between family preferences uh you know choice, proximity, diversity and predictability. These are all criteria that was set forth in prior existing board policies that we are as a district um looking to dig into uh to create a balance between neighborhood schools and citywide options but also creating opportunities for long-term investment so that we have a strong offering in every single part of the city that a delivers academic rigor and excellence but also um being able to be responsive to what parents students really want, what families really want. And lastly, it's really important that as we go into this process of design that we are keeping our educators, administrators, and staff in mind to set them up for success so

that they can deliver highquality programs and education at our schools. Um, following this process, the new student assignment policy will then take place take effect in school year uh 2829. And we would be able to through this process gather data to help us make better decisions about our school portfolios if mergers, collocations or um closures are necessary and based on policy decisions and guidance and direction from the board uh we would be able to sequence out these decisions. Next slide please. Thank you. Um, we have also heard strong feedback um over the course of the last several weeks about providing more clarity as to whether or not we can take on student assignment redesign and largecale school closures at the same time. Our priority in this design process remains to minimize disruption to learning to provide stable as stable as possible learning environments for our existing students and families and staff while addressing some of these structural issues that um you know have compounded over the years as a result of demographic changes. This alternative timeline that you see in front of you uh was added as part of the final agenda in order to illustrate how the timelines would come together and some of the tradeoffs that the board would um you know need to provide some direction on. Um, one of the things that we know is that if we couple some of these work streams, we would um, as a result of this being a major decision have conflicting community engagement efforts in school year 2728. An additional trade-off that we would like to present for your consideration is that the environment the the enrollment process and the enrollment

experience for families would be very confusing and challenging. We would essentially have to engage in rolling school closures in school year 2829 and school year 2930 in order to account for the impacts of new student assignment policies. And also parents would need to logistically u engage with us to reenroll to schools and there would be um you know some challenges related to that. And lastly, there are some real planning implications um where if we are to compress the timelines, we would be using um data that would be outdated by the time um we are set for the enrollment fair in October 2027 for the 2829 school year. Um and we would be using that outdated data to make decisions about our school portfolio for the following year. We welcome um direction and guidance and engagement from the board and superintendent. That concludes my section. So, so my hope here is to open up a a dialogue or a conversation um with with the board around the proposal for us to start the school reorganization process with um tackling student assignment first so that we can see the enrollment trends. we can see where the demands are and then after that we will um we will then be able to determine um how we can adjust our school portfolio um to meet the to meet the demands. I do want to continue to remind the board that we have over the last um several months engaged in plans for expansion. Um and this is really because what we are hearing from families is a a

number of things. one. Um there's so so much excitement about our Mandarin immersion program um and school and we are working really hard um to to to make sure that we are ready to open that school by school year 2728. Um at the same time we are hearing a lot of demand for TK programs and TK seats. Um, we literally cannot open enough TK seats in time uh for families. And there is a three-year roll out of expansion for TK classrooms. And that's primarily because in order to open a TK classroom, we actually need to do um retrofitting to a classroom so that it would meet the state requirements for little people. Um and the the really exciting part the the the other really exciting thing is through a lot of conversation with our sped CAC leaders um and spending a lot of time um engaging with um special education educators um uh is that we need to bring our students back. We are um a lot of our students are enrolled in non-public schools which are schools um that are not within the district. They're private uh private school programs and state certified not I'm sorry. Yeah, but they're not public as in SFUSD schools. Um but but we do put our students on a bus to travel to this particular school. Some students travel for an hour to an hour and a half each way um to receive services and programs, but that means we're taking them away from their community, their their colleague, their friends um um and and their classroom and their home school.

And we um are leaning into our county office of ed side of our district to really build out um a county non-public school. I don't know. I know that there's a better way to say this, but already we are seeing we have a wait list because families are saying, "Oh my goodness, if I can have my s my child served here in the district where they don't need to travel an hour or an hour and a half each way, of course I would want my child there." Um, so there's so many different opportunities for us to expand. Um, and then again, if we really this time truly tackle the student assignment um policy and and uh efforts and and really create predictability in our student assignment um work, then we can have schools where families uh will be able to go to. Um if you move into a location, you know that that's your school. Um, and then if you want to go and participate in a language pathway school or in a K8 school or in a specialized school, you'll have the opportunity to enroll in that school. That's the vision. The vision is for us to grow because I know we can. There are so many families who want to join SFUSD and we need to make sure that that front door is going to be open with welcome. We're going to roll out the red carpets for all of our families to come and join us. That's the plan.

All righty. Um, Commissioner W.

Thank you. Um, so I I appreciate that we're having this conversation. I appreciate that um the conversation is going to be ongoing and iterative and with community um not just here at the dis. I have a I guess a question and and I think that the sort of the sequencing makes sense. Um it makes sense to me and I think the timeline generally makes sense as well, the alternative timeline. Um my question is I guess I want to dig in a little bit in terms of the student assignment and the idea that we we need to understand demands and trends like yes I agree with that. I think my concern is that the demands and the trends then decide where where we have our schools and and right now un right now we know where the demands are. They're most they're often on the west side of town. And so my worry is that if if we say oh here's the data it's the west side then those demands and trends would say okay well that's where we're going to focus our energy. And and I think what we talked about, you know, version 1.0 a couple years ago, um, is that I think there's there there needs to be a manner in which we can disrupt that narrative that we're going to only stick with the schools that are already working or that are already where folks want to be. We need to build up all of the schools so that it's not, you know, that the trend isn't just this side of town or just this side of schools because if that's the case, it's not going to be a good scene in terms of where we're looking and where students are and where students aren't. And if we're using that data to then decide what gets closed or colllocated, emerged. I know that's way down the road, but I I guess I just I want to be mindful of the demands and

trends not being the main driver for those next steps. Um, and instead, how can we look at making sure that there are demands and trends for many other schools, not just the ones that historically been demanding and trendy? Those aren't the adjectives, but so I guess yeah,

thank you, Commissioner Wisman Ward. Um, we agree. Um, one of the things that the incredible team that I've been working with over the last several months, um, we've been thinking through is as part of this conversation, how do we not just look at enrollment demand and trends, but really thinking about what are some of the educational standards that we want to set at every single school to your point earlier, so that every school is, you know, um, a great school, right? is a school that trending trending not trendy but trending trending school yes every school must be a trending school

um and and I think part of this process is not it's I mean there is sort of like the question around supply and demand but you know to the point that we have been engaging on with um the student outcomes focused governance framework to align this work with the vision values goals and guardrails to think about what are the necessary conditions and environments and inputs at a school that makes it great so that we can deliver on the audacious goals that we have set up that the board has set for us as a school district. And and that is that is a conversation that needs to be had with our parents, with our school communities, with educators, with um the public. And so that that is the process that we're going to engaging that we're going to engage in. Yes, there is this very complex complicated in my mind mathematical puzzle related to solving for the enrollment assign the student assignment process and how do we think about zones and how do we rep prioritize against proximity predictability and diversity and choice um but I think there's also a programmatic educational conversation in the planning process around well what should a school look like? Um, and how do we establish those standards across the district so that we can have a stable portfolio as an extension of as a result of this process. just wanted to add that um over the last year that I've been looking at data um and looking at uh how our lottery system has produced results for us and where students um are landing uh based on the lottery system and when we created the lottery system sever decades ago it was with a desire to create more diversity

in our schools. Um but what has happened is that we well we haven't done that. We have not created more diversity. If you walk into a school in a neighbor I let's just say if you walk into a school in the southeast um you will see that it's pretty monolithic. There's only certain groups of folks who uh are going to that school. If you walk into a school over on the west side um there are only certain number of there's a majority of of another group. So we're not diverse at all. And so I do feel that it is time for us to press the reset button and quite frankly as what um Commissioner Gupta says be honest with ourselves and really look at what what um the the lottery was going to create for us and deliver for us. It didn't. And so we need to figure out a different way to meet the needs of our our families to meet the needs of our students. Um, and this engaging in this process with our community is going to hopefully get us to that place.

Can I just ask a clarifying question about the proposed scope of the uh student assignment redesign? Is it only looking at TK through five or TK through 8 uh assignment or is it also looking at uh re-imagining how we assign students to middle schools and to high schools? At this moment in time, everything all all of our grades are are open for a discussion. If we're really going to talk about perhaps language pathways, then we really have to think about what does that mean? We just heard from our parent pack um that we're very inconsistent in some schools in delivering certain programs and certain curriculums. We have to create a continuum. If we really honor our students um who are newcomers and and create pathways for them, then we really need to think about what that pathway would look like um and and engage our community on designing and building out that pathway. And that pathway has to be a TK prek um to 12th grade strategy. Commissioner Fischer, before you go, Commissioner, one clarifying question just because um are we is the are we giving feedback on the alternative timeline or are we giving feedback on the initial proposal or is this a question of which one is the one that's preferred or is the alternative taking precedent now? Um, if I may, so the initial timeline is the proposal um with from the superintendent. The alternative timeline is meant to illustrate the trade-offs.

Oh, because I think that Yeah, I just want to be clear because I heard you say you liked the alternative timeline.

I thought when I when Sorry. When you were discussing the differences, I was understanding that the the recommended was the alternative based on those trade-offs, but that's I understood wrong. Yeah. So, um just to reiterate, um the initial proposed timeline is the one that we had laid out the multi-year process and it would sequence growth enrollment closures in that clear sequence. The alternative timeline is what we had generated. And if we are to implement this timeline, there would be tradeoffs that we just discussed in terms of enrollment experience for families, conflicting community engagement timelines.

Okay, I misunderstood that. So, apologies for any confusion. Okay, that makes sense. When I was looking at the alternative timeline, I I hadn't got it. Okay, thank you. So, we are So, the recommendation is not the alternative timeline. Okay.

The recommendation is for um the initial proposal timeline. Um we we added the alternative timeline um because we heard that there were concerns about what would happen. There were there were suggestions on why can't we do both of these at the same time. Is the alternative timeline an option to pursue if the board directs and prefers that or are you telling us that this alternative timeline is really just proposed to demonstrate why it's not possible and it is not a possibility because I think there's been a bit of confusion about whether the timeline that was publicly announced was a an option. or a recommendation or whether it is actually the only path being considered by the superintendent.

Actually, you can this this whole thing can be changed by the board. Um this is a recommendation from me about how we can work together to change our enrollment system, which is the one thing that I've heard from families that they wanted to um have improved. When we initially shared the um first draft of these slide decks, um we had proposed that we were only tackle um for the next over the next two years uh tackle the expansion of programs and the student assignment redesign. Um, but we heard that what would it look like if we were to tackle expansion and school clos school closures and student assignment redesign. So, we we presented this as a an alternative. Again, the board has the the final say on on um how you would like to direct us to move.

That's a very helpful clarification. And um I think also one of the things that I appreciate seeing in the staff responses is that we'll be discussing this a lot more on June 23rd because there'll be a much more detailed plan coming. Right. Is that what I We will be discussing this um item every single um board meeting until the end of June. So at the next board meeting, three more just three more. Just bear with us for three more. Um at the next board meeting we will be sharing with you our expansion plans for uh our TK programs and at the following um so the first board meeting in June we will be okay I keep getting this all mixed up.

I know we we have an extra board meeting this month. So very glad to be here. Um, so we're going to do this sort of initial conversation today on the 19th and you and the public should have seen on the draft agenda, we will be sharing um initial proposals for discussion around uh early ed and TK expansion. On the 26th, we will be sharing um initial proposals around the special education county program. Very exciting. And then on June 9th um we will be sharing initial proposal and plans around TK8 Mandarin immersion school. And then on the 23rd, we had held time on that um meeting um to be able to share initial scope and sequence for student assignment policy um so that we're setting ourselves up for the new year, I suppose, after the board returns from recess. Did you want to follow Did you have a followup on this? Okay, then I'll keep going. Um, I really appreciate the fact that we're starting to see some more detailed planning around this. I know there's been a lot going on this year. We've had so much. I'm excited about our an upcoming item where we're going to be talking about getting back to positive fiscal like there's a lot of great things coming and I think very much student assignment and our school portfolio uh is still like the we really have to tackle these. And so I want to follow up on what Commissioner Weissman Ward said earlier in the designing of programs equitably equitably rather than you know being driven by the data that we have in all the ways because um I saw some of this in the Q&A section as well like we're hearing from a lot of families and

and this was part of what the all of the packs were saying back in 2018 is like the zones cannot work the way that there's an inequitable resource distribution in the city right now. I mean, and thinking about it as a parent, if all the schools in my zones have combo K1 classes, heck to the no if I'm looking across town and seeing that they have three kindergarten classes per school that. So, I think it's to me it's a yes and like how do we force families into zones without addressing those underlying resourcing issues? And the answer to the K1 question in the um in the Q&A document was well we'll talk about maybe merging or colllocating but but for the example of some of our schools in the southeast like that's where we also demographically know has the biggest expansion you know right now of of families. So like that. So I think that that's part of where I struggle with understanding how it can't be both together. Like we do have to expand and resource some of our schools if we want to create equitable zones. Um so I think that's some of my wondering and my thinking. And we had a briefing packet that came out from um enrollment and the two statistics that stuck out to me in there were that 64.3% of San Francisco school age children attend SFUSD schools. That's less than twothirds. Right? So, we've got a third of our kids here that we could potentially pull back um if if we one made enrollment easier and two had the programs aligned appropriately that where families wanted them. Um and the other statistic that really stuck out to me was that only 27% of K to5 students attend their home attendance area schools general education program. Only 27% of our

students pick their home attendance area. So that tells me we have a whole lot of work to do there as far as equitably resourcing those home attendance area schools as well. And that was probably oh once you stop the clock though because that was more than Chris you're too kind to me. Thank you. just for an example um and I don't think I'm breaking any confidence because uh the school community has come to the board multiple times and have given multiple testimonies during public comment which is Guadalupe um elementary school where Guadalupe Elementary has said multiple times, please help our families in our neighborhoods understand how amazing we are and to choose us. Choose us because they are amazing. Guadalupe has seen I mean since I've again a year and a half in I have seen amazing demonstrable growth in their language arts um data and concrete data um I see uh just how the teachers wrap the around these students and support them and um and and you see a community that that just is the anchor in their neighborhood and that's what we want to build. We want to build these amazing hubs where families say this is my this is this is where I belong. This is this is for me and um and we will have to build towards that. It's going to take time. It's going to take time for families to trust because I understand that it's it's going to be a lot of work. It's going to take time for us to build that trust with families so that families will see that yes, my children will have that high quality, academically rigorous experience that I hope for them to have. Um, and I don't need to travel across town to get it. And and I think that's where we need to do a better job at talking about how amazing our schools are um in all areas

of our district. But you're absolutely right. The the largest growing number of children um in the city, we're seeing them in our southeast areas and we need to create schools that really will meet the needs and the demands of our families living out there.

Commissioner,

um I have some thoughts on this plan. and I really appreciate the opportunity and look forward to the continuing the conversations. I think for me uh I've been reflecting on on this timeline and um want to say a couple things. First of all, I really fully support the approach of creating a positive vision for SFUSD and attracting more families and that's really clear in the plan. And I think it's one of the one of the problems with taking a school closure first approach is that it can lead to sort of a doomloop attitude, right? It's like if all we're doing is closing because we're losing enrollment, right? That's not a strategy to improve a district, right? But if we're saying we're going to create a better SFUSD, we're going to open some new programs and then yeah, we may end up merging some programs, but the the focus isn't on the closure, it's really on building the new system. And I think not not just in terms of rhetoric, but in terms of reality. And so that's why I think the sequencing makes sense. Um, and so so doing the opening new programs and then the enrollment which drives everything. Like I've I've been saying this for years that we need to do the enrollment first because otherwise we may end up closing a school, changing the enrollment system and then needing to reopen it right afterwards. Right? So if because if we can get kids in the Bay View going to elementary schools in the Bay View, we may need to add we may need to build new schools in the Bay View. You know what I mean? So I think we've first got us got to start making those enrollment shifts in doing the investments and then saying okay where do we need to do mergers and the mergers need to be done with school communities like we've like we heard in public comment tonight how secret school closures break trust uh push out weaken communities push out families and so I think if we're going to do mergers they've got to be done with school communities and so they see the advantages um and I think the other thing is um I I am to me the timeline is frustrating because I've been wanting

this ever since I got on the board. I mean the board passed the enrollment redesign in 20120. So it's six years later 2018 they started it and then they finally passed the reszo in 2020. So it's to me I'm like incredibly frustrated that we haven't done it yet. I'm incredibly frustrated we have to wait another year. And I just want to say I mean it feels like given our capacity that this timeline feels right. the the the initial proposal to me. Um I mean I would love to rush it faster, but I don't know that we have the capacity collectively to do it. And I do appreciate the superintendent for having the courage to say that. Like I because again I there's a lot of us who are like wait why we need to do it faster, you know, but again given the actual reality of our central office that has dramatically reduced because we wanted to protect school cuts and all these other things and the staff turnover, this feels reasonable to me. The last thing I'll say, I only have nine seconds left, so maybe I'll just take a few extra seconds and say my major concern with the sort of longer timeline is what's the impact on underenrolled schools in 26 27 and 2728 like how do we sustain this until we get to the the new enrollment system and then the right so it's like two to three years, right? Where are we going to have combo classes in all those schools? Are we gonna have staff? Like that's the part that feels troubling to me. And then it also is gonna mostly impact schools serving low-income kids, schools serving immigrant kids, schools serving our most vulnerable students because um those are th those are the schools that have space, right? And we say they're underenrolled because people don't quote choose them. And again, there's lots of complicated. I think that's that's a much longer conversation, but but what would be the plan? what's the bridge to get those schools in particular from here to 2029 2030?

Um, thank you. And I just just two things. One is um I agree that an expansion plan and a reimagining of what is possible in SFUSD is what um we at we and at SFUSD need right now so we can bring families back. Um, and this was just proven to me when we opened Mission Bay Elementary School. It was the second most chosen school in all of our school um, in this last cycle. So, there is a desire there. there are families there who want to come and um and I'm excited about just all the other expansion options that we are proposing um tonight in terms of um of our schools that are uh right now um underenrolled or are struggling. Um I have shared this with our school communities um our principles that I am open I'm open to having conversations with school communities and with our site leaders about ideas um perhaps they could identify space within their school for an expansion option or they are you know already partnering with another school because they're so close to each other that perhaps we we could use this opportunity to to have a conversation about what a partnership could look like. Um there are school communities who've already approached me and saying, you know, we're an elementary school, but wouldn't it be great if we turned into a K8 school and there's this other option here? I see Jen. It's like, no. Um I but but I think that that families um as well as school leaders are excited about the creativeness and open dooress of this approach where um people are coming and saying I've got this idea. I

I don't know but why don't you come on site we can do we can do a walkthrough and we can think about it. Um, I actually went on site um at a school recently and we talked about different uses of the space and perhaps even building a um a bus a bus route to another a neighboring nearby school. Um, and so I think it is creating a certain level of energy and excitement among our site leaders for possibilities. Um, so I'm excited about that. Um I do I am I am you know I do recognize the reality of there are some schools right now that are looking at they have combo classes um they don't have um enough supports for their students and we are we are I am going to work very closely with those schools to make sure that we continue to support them um and and engage in in conversations about about what what would make sense for their school community.

Um, I am really excited to see that the district is finally tackling a student assignment redesign. And I know that it's been I think something that motivated me to decide to run uh to be on the board of education because it's uh something that has not um you know come to fruition. Um, but I do share Commissioner Alexander's concern about um what the reality of this timeline means for our ability to serve the students we have in the schools that we have um over essentially a fouryear longer um timeline given that um you know this district was looking at portfolio changes two years ago. This is kicking that down the can essentially six years from when it was originally envisioned. And um the Q&A there was um an acknowledgement that we expect because of demographics to lose an additional 2600 students by 2030. Um which would means we would have 16,600 seats more than we have students. And so I'm wondering that coupled with additional um labor agreements that will happen in between now and then, how will we um you know have the resources available to invest in making all of the schools um in all of the zones that we have schools that you know we feel comfortable moving away from a choice system that everyone is able to be equally served in their community.

Um I I just want to acknowledge actually what um Commissioner Fischer said earlier that we only capture capture might not be the right word. We only have 65% of the of the eligible children in the school district uh in the city. 65% of school age children in the city come to SFUSD. That means there's a lot of more there are a lot more kids that can come to SFUSD. And I feel very confident that when we create programs that families want and and that meets the needs of our students, families will come back. They will not come back, they will come, they will come to us because I am hearing that there is a desire for for Mandarin immersion school. And it's the first thing I I heard when I actually came into the district a year and a half ago. Build the build the Mandarin Immersion School. And and quite frankly, I think we're going to build a fantastic Mandarin immersion school because we've we've got a fantastic leader overseeing that process. Um and so that alone is going to bring a lot of excitement. Um we are well on our way to modernizing our curriculum, doing the double downs on um on supporting our educators and really doing the work of recruitment and retention because we have a tenative agreement. We have I mean not a tenant, we have contracts with our labor um for salary increases. Uh we are now one of the higher actually if not the highest paid um pro provider in in the area. Uh we're providing health fully funded health benefits. There's a lot of reasons why people would want to come to SFUSD both to work here which means we lift the quality of

our staff but also to be a part of SFUSD because we're creating programs that families want. Um and so yes, I believe that um as we start the expansion process, we're going to start bringing more and more families back and the buzz about that is going to um really help energize um our communities more.

Do you have data about what percentage of increase you think is u reasonable to expect based on historic enrollment trends in San Francisco? I don't have that and that's going to be part of um data sharing our our data sharing um strategies unless you have it in front of you.

Um I don't I don't have the information but I do hear this piece around preparing that as part of the follow conversation around student assignment in relation to a bridge plan. One of the things that we have also begun doing is looking at um different school marketing campaigns um that the district has you know invested in in the past with partnerships with the city and some of the other partners around the school. Part of this is really around perception um and being able to generate excitement um around the different schools and the diverse schools that we currently have in our portfolio as we address some of these structural um adjustments that are needed. So, so as part of that it will inform some of the strategy around um school marketing as well to to increase the conversion rates. My understanding is that um the enrollment placement center lifted um any artificial caps on school enrollment uh for high demand schools this year in preparation for um making portfolio changes which then led to enrollment drops in other schools. Um given the timeline here, are you planning on reinstating those caps in order to stabilize enrollment at smaller schools? It's definitely something that we're going to have to engage. We're going to have to talk through um and that could we can bring that back. Um and we can bring our um director of the enrollment center to talk through the data and to walk you through um the trends um within the data. What we are seeing is that um if families get their first choice or one of their top choice schools that that um award converts to an enrollment

and again it's a growth strategy um and so we are seeing that conversion and we're really excited about that conversion. I earlier shared that we still have almost 2,000 people on the wait list left. So there is a strong desire to come to SFUSD. We just need to make sure that we create the seats for these families. President Kim, can I point of privilege? Um, can I move to extend the meeting past 10 p.m., please? I'll second. Sorry. I'll second. Can we roll call, please? Sorry. Mr. Alexander. Yes. Mr. Fischer.

Yes. Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Vice President Healey. Yes. Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward. Yes. President Kim. Yes. Seven eyes.

Um the other thing I'd like to better understand is just these are this is a very broad timeline. Um, and I know there's been um direction from board leadership that any changes to school portfolio or to um assignment system would need to be brought to the board by no later than the opening of the enrollment fair to allow families to have certainty um of what their options are um and how to apply. And so I I just would appreciate clarity around if uh the student assignment redesign is proposed for school year 2027 2028, does that mean bringing this to the board uh for a vote in August September of 2027 um or some other time for a later year implementation? And um if that means that community engagement will be occurring in 2026 2027 if it is going to come to a vote uh of the board in early in the 2027 28 school year.

Yes. So the plan is for us to do deep community engagement um starting in now uh for for a year. So we will be uh well before I start there schools function in nine-month cycles and so it's really hard to engage families when they're when families are not in school. So we are limited by these nine month cycles. Um and so because of that it's it's it does stretch out our timeline on engagement um by two and a half months. Um, so the plan is for us to engage for the next full year. Um, and that we will be bringing a proposal to the board for a vote um, in April of 2027 and Okay, keep going. Yes,

go ahead.

Um, yes. So, um, we will be bringing preliminary proposals to the board for consideration in April 2027 following the community engagement work that we would be doing. um we are backwards mapping from the October 2027 um book end so that there is enough time to actually engage in planning and implementation. Um so that's that's the plan. And then in the advance board questions, um the it was described that the proposal would be to bring uh school portfolio change decisions to the board in it said winter of 2028. And I was curious whether that means January of 2028 or December of 2028 because those are entirely different school years. And I curious how that aligns with uh

the the calendaring requirements. It would be January when we are um when we have in hand um our main round assignment data uh from the enrollment cycle. Thank you.

Um so uh thank you for this plan. Um I'm excited that we're tackling enrollment. uh super exciting and uh we'll double down on two things that Commissioner Alexander said around setting a vision forward that shapes the kind of both messaging but but actual strategy of of the work ahead. Um and then the concerns around what happens to our schools that we know are already underenrolled. We have 14,000 empty seats across the district. We know that 40% of our facilities are underutilized. It just continues to be a challenge and concern if we're going to I mean we continue to hear from from community about their about the concerns around um combo classes and staffing shortages and and all of that. Um my questions are actually more around the board policy 5101. Um it's really interesting to read the history of the long trajectory. I mean it dates back to December 2008 when the policy was created. Um it mentions so I'm I'm curious h have we done a full assessment of the board policies of what's been done what hasn't been I mean it's kind of it is kind of messy so has a have we just taken a full assessment of of where we are at relative to the board policies themselves.

Thank you President Kim. Um, in the packet that Commissioner Fischer had referenced earlier, um, we did include, you know, I believe a summary of the history of our student enrollment policy and very much of what you have describing hinges on a previous consent decree that SFUSD was under and that was the genesis of 5101 is really created so that we can diversify and and integrate our schools. Um and since then because there has been effort to address family um demand of quality schools around better instructional quality, improved safety and creating a more welcoming environment. There was an amendment to the elementary student assignment policy that was made in the later 2010s um that culminated into the zone policy. And so there there is a rich long history of this work um at SFUSD. I just also want to take this opportunity to thank all the leaders that have contributed to this process to this date. Um actually the goal here is to pick up the really important I think also when we're talking about community engagement all of the inputs that we have gathered from families over the years so that we are not just hitting the reset button with this effort but really leaning on that as an asset to guide how we're going to engage in this policy conversation.

Thank you. In 5101.2 there's a monitoring and evaluation section. mentions that the superintendent will conduct an assessment of the student assignment system and develop an annual report. Um I don't think we received one last year. Uh do we have one coming?

Um this report is produced every year through the enrollment center. Um we have historically provided that. Um there was a suspension of the implementation of the new student assignment policy that you are describing and in that period we have not provided um the the report to the board. However, the enrollment center does publish the annual enrollment data on our website and we have been working with actually a group of parents who have been really helpful in helping us think through how to visualize some of that data. Um, so that we can make this more not just transparent but accessible to the public.

Um, and Mr. Armitra, I just want to name the timer. Trying to monitor my own self here. Um, so Um so we knew from prior engagements I think specifically through RAI that the zones policy was not operationalizable right uh the kind of three different goals around proximity predictability diversity there were maps that were created I'm I'm assuming that those maps we're going to bring forward here is there I know that they exist is there a reason why we haven't talked about those maps so far

that that is part of the scope and sequence And the beauty of this is because we are looking at it more comprehensively and actually integrating the educational component of how are we going to redesign programs um we should look at the criteria that was set forth in the previous board policy. And one of the decision points that we will be teeing up for this board is are these the right priorities because the maps did look really wonky. Um and you know is this is this student centered? Is this best for family experiences? And what are some of the design criteria that we as the district should really be looking at that reflects the community's values as we head into this major decision? Um and so yes, we can resurface that um just for public's information. This is all posted on our website. Um you can trace the history of the implementation of the zone assignment policy. But that is a big question. Does the board want to continue pursuing the zone policy? If not, we could propose reforms to existing policy. If you do, then we do need to kind of arrive at a set of priorities that um would reflect the community's values and that is a very important conversation that uh we want to engage the board in and get decision from you, but also in reflection of the community's values.

Thank you. And I guess my question then is what is what are the engagements with community about? Is it about zones? Is it about enrollment placement? Is it about because I I guess what I want to make sure is that we are clear on like what exactly is the problem that we're solving for right now. Not that there isn't one. I think we all know that there are many problems and challenges with enrollment. But it's not clear to me like what policy is guiding the direction that we're moving forward right now in the revisions that we're making around our enrollment system. Because if we know that our ex existing policies aren't are already insufficient because they are not operationalizable. I mean it it sounds like we need to make we need to have some like intense conversations about what exactly is it the is it in the policy that that we are saying is the new direction, right? Yes. And and a very wise district leader from the past told me that the best policy is one that can be implemented. And so I think what we want to be able to do is actually be able to take the opportunity for public conversation to emerge so that we can name the constraints, right? because we could, you know, I think the board um could provide direction, you could codify policies, but at the end of the day, if it's if we cannot implement it, um it it would undermine um trust. What we also learned um from previous experience is that again there is a huge swath of data that we currently have from previous community engagement efforts including I will name RAI in terms of what constitutes a great learning environment for students and what are the factors that enable our staff to be set up for success so that the school is a great place and a great anchor for every

community and that may vary um depending on which community you go to in in our city. And so, first we want to build off of that knowledge so that we are creating as a process point that two-way feedback to capture what has already been shared. And then as part of the work in the upcoming year, actually doing deep community engagement with school communities in each corner, each area, each region and neighborhood of our city. Um that means really being able to engage with um the south the southern and southeastern communities and say what would help bring pride and joy to our schools um if we are to reimagine it and redesign it together. There there is a lot um of lessons learned from the past that I think we can build off of. And I think that, you know, this is an opportunity for us to engage in a more transformational conversation around the community's vision for their schools. Um, and also being able to and that is our job. We heard that during budget engagement. It's our job to figure out how to get there. And so this is a lever and the end goal is actually being able to get to that better educational experience for our students.

Yeah. I and I really appreciate the kind of communitydriven go right to the source question. I I think there is this question that I still have of why can't we implement the policy as it is. Are we clear on understanding that like I'm sure there's data that we I mean not I'm sure I know that there's data that we have that tells us what we can or cannot implement. So I'm I'm actually really curious what is it about our existing policy because it is actually quite thorough that we cannot do as a kind of a starting point in understanding why we can't operationalize what we want to operationalize because again the zone policy is there I mean it's been written and and done. So I I think that's one body of questions and the next I think would be then you know commissioner group we just finished our our ad hoc on public engagement and one body of work that we ended up pausing the best ad hoc arguably

but not the most student centered

arguably and so there's this question that I have around where I mean we had intended to have this whole conversation around how to engage the public around decisions of the board and and then I go back to 5101 and there's well documented back in to 2008 around the work that that board did to create an ad hoc committee on student assignment. I think I just have a question of what is our responsibility then I because I I have this like wondering of do we need to establish an ad hoc on committee on student assignment? Is it is that our kind of venue by which we gather feedback from folks and actually bring some data out? Is it within this body here? Do we need to actually set up some meetings where we're going out there? Right? So I'm just trying to think about what exactly is our role in reshaping this policy. uh because it does seem pretty foundational that if we don't have as a board a clear understanding of what it is that we're working towards informed by something um then and whether that's that something is because it's an process of elimination. We can't do something and therefore we're going to focus on these things or we're going to rebuild this policy through the work that we're doing in engaging the public. I I just have some some ideas around that. Right.

Thanks.

Would it be helpful if I could maybe just chime in on some of the questions around why isn't the current policy implemented? And bear with me for those of you who have been following this for many years. Um we cannot implement the zone policy 5101.2 to without any changes because as part of our work with Stamford in actually simulating the zones, we cannot guarantee assignments in the zones that um based on how the policy is currently written. But also the policy itself doesn't match what the community has said it was important in the 2020 engagement process. We we want to just be very clear that if the goal is to be able to guarantee diversity, proximity, and predictability after running the simulations, the current policy does not actually create material improvements to the current against the current status quo and actually could cause enrollment decline. And just to say we would be happy to bring the data and the analysis um to the board in whatever venue um is appropriate so that we can really share out some of these lessons and uh data to help uh facilitate the conversation.

Yeah, I think drawing that conversation out and actually seeing all of that I would be help I mean I would think it would be informative for me. I think it would be helpful to see and quite literally understanding what about this policy in and of itself is something that cannot be operationalizable is I mean I don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater here and uh kind of going we heard in our ad hoc on public engagement going out and asking the same question year after year over and over again is also not helpful and so if we know some things are to be true right what are we doing with that information and um and for for both kind of new ideas but also what we know isn't working right so and and I think I don't think we've I think actually the committee before during RAI talked a little bit about the information from Stanford but we just haven't talked about it as a board so I think it would be an opportunity for us to actually like talk about that

and I just wanted to add real briefly that the pre like in 2023 and 2024 there were board conversations about this topic and Why? Because there was a lot of frustration as to why it hadn't been done. We heard this from staff and there was a lot of interest at that time in this idea of what would it look like to just have neighborhood schools like most school districts in the country have where you have a zone and elementary schools feed into middle schools which feed into high schools which would definitely be able to address the issues of predictability and proximity and frankly would probably result in schools that were just about as diverse as they are now. So I mean there was just that we were kind of saying why not try that or at least look at that as a as a possibility and then have the alternatives right the language programs the K8s the alternative small alternative high schools the for the you know I think we we kept asking back then why not at least like do an analysis of that because every when you talk to people out in the community it's like yeah why not have a very simple predictable system rather than like this huge convoluted zones and lotteryies and all these things that people don't understand.

I I agree. And while I appreciate us having conversations around the TK expansion and Kate school and special education, it is just love that. But if we have the time right now to like talk about this, I mean, the information is there. It would be great. Oh, no. It says nine.

I'm nine minutes. Yeah. But anyway, I will stop. Thank you. Um, any other commissioner comments or questions? Commissioner Ray. if you'd rather go first. Please have at it. Okay. Um, sorry, I always have trouble getting this microphone over here. I have a number of thoughts about this and many conflicting thoughts in many ways. I do want to say how much I appreciate that we are talking about this subject. Um, it's been a very long time coming and I think it's important that we are doing this and doing this openly. I've also, as this has been referenced by folks, enrollment's been boiling over for years. It's just it's something that we've heard about consistently. I've heard about this in the the lottery system since since my family joined SFUSD in 2014. And our experience um for for so many folks in the system, including uh our own family, is that everything moves very very slowly. if it ever happens at all. I think that we it's important for us to be able to move effectively but also quickly. Um it's just it's easy to to give into a pattern of always putting things off and that's what people see us doing. They see us kicking the can down the road. I don't think that inspires trust and it doesn't uh certainly doesn't create change. I think it's important for us to provide some certainty for families and show responsiveness to what people want. So, I'm I'm fully on board with the idea of being responsive to folks, but and and but doing that as quickly as as quickly and competently as we possibly can. Um, in terms of engaging with communities, there's been a lot of discussion about that and we've had a lot of struggles with community engagement in the past. I would love to see ground level community

engagement actually going to schools and asking what folks want, you know, real outreach to a broad as as many people as we can possibly get. What we tend to get is, you know, certain certain voices heard over and over again and not so much a broad swath. Um, I keep coming back to to something that's been mentioned here before, which is the number of empty seats. the 14,000 going up to 16 plus thousand. And I I worry that we are going to be operating on hope rather than reality. And I I have myself many many times talked about the importance of doing things that will attract more students to the school district. That's critical. I'm all for expanding programs doing that. It's fantastic. I don't see how that gets us 14 to 16,000 kids. And that really worries me. I think that leads us to underresourcing all of our kids. That's true for kids at small schools because they are dealing with multiple combo classes. They don't have access to as many things and so forth. It's also true for kids at all of our larger schools because it means that they are getting less. Whereas if we were able to, you know, put things together, we would be able to give every child more opportunities, more staffing, more classes, and like this is just generally a concern for me that we're underresourcing everybody. When folks talk um about particular concern for under enrolled schools, those kids are are are losing out and so are kids in larger schools where there are frankly larger numbers of kids who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. By pulling our resources, I feel we could do better by everybody. And I worry that by waiting, we're going to end up underresourcing all of our kids for a very extended period of time. And frankly, not even like with no particular certainty or guarantee that

we're going to reach a resolution. Just look at how long it's taken to do enrollment. So I personally am very concerned about the timeline and what's been laid out. But I fully subscribe to and believe that it is important for all of us to collaborate. That's the, you know, the public, the superintendent, her team, the board. We cannot move this forward without all working together. I would like to see a more aggressive timeline in part because I my entire experience the whole 10 years I've been here is things being pushed out um kicking the can down the road. So um I would I will have some further questions down the road. I understand we are not making a decision today if if I'm understanding this correctly that it is a discussion item but I think that we do need to be grounded in reality and I am very concerned that this plan will not get us there. Thank you. Can I just very quickly to respond to that again? Um because we are a school district that functions in nine month cycles. Um and the enrollment team needs I forgot what Lauren says at least six to seven months to get the system going. Um we are we are faced with bless you. we are faced with actual concrete um uh deadlines that is is really hard for us to move. So if we are going to commit to honestly the the the guidelines that Commissioner Gupta and Fiser and President Kim did in the community engagement ad hoc meetings of truly engaging our communities going into the communities having on the ground conversations with community it's going to take time um and unfortunately we are now in May so we will not be able to engage and do that level of engagement

with our community until August and September. So, by that time, um, and this is pure logistics, by that time, we're already um hitting into enrollment periods. And so, that takes literally school year 2728 off the table and and that it's just it's unfortunate that it is those are those are concrete logistical factors that we have to take into consideration. So that's why uh we will propose in April of 27 a new policy and we will take the time to work with our school communities, get schools ready for an influx of students, um support schools to figure out what to do when these movements and enrollment patterns change so that we can then be ready for the enrollment center to institute whatever change they need to make um in time for school year 2829.

All right. Um, so I appreciate all the comments that have been mentioned so far. Um, just picking up on student assignment, you know, I I see how other cities do this and they seem to be successful. I mean, I've heard a lot about zoning in Berkeley and so forth. I mean, I wonder I I do wonder I mean, it'd be great to see more data because I do wonder why we can't do this. I mean, we're not a weirdly shaped city. We're a very small 7 by7 square. So you think

And so I think exactly. So clearly there's something here. I appreciate President Kim's comments and thoughts around if there is something that we at the board need to tackle and need to do so quickly, then let's do that so that we set the school district up for success in in carrying this forward. But I you know I I will gently but firmly ask you know having that data and my ask to staff and to the superintendent specifically is to have more data. I mean this is a major decision. These are two major decisions that we're talking about that will affect 50,000 students. If we're talking about potentially filling the 16,400 extra seats, then we want a very well-informed school board. And having two pages on these very important topics is is concerning. Um I I I think I I would love to see some of that data that clearly I mean Hungme reference it very vividly in terms of this data, the policies and so forth. So I mean we can start with there. It sounds like there's already information out there that will then better inform us as a board, you know, as stewards of community engagement and the community that elected us to be able to really be able to weigh in in a thoughtful manner on these weighty topics that you bring before us.

Yes, and thank you commissioner for that feedback. Um we would be happy to make sure that in upcoming presentations and you know you can probably already observe with the early ed expansion and TK presentation that we are integrating a lot more data um in our presentation. This is meant to be the first public touch point for the work that we are rolling out. Um I will say uh there is no shortage of data and slides and you know we we have included over the course of the last several months um content and packets uh for the board's review as well. So we can also include um that information as part of just generally um studying right like I think we've been in conversation with board leadership around do we do a study session to get everybody sort of you know teed up to actually engage in decision-m so there is a lot of data um we have a great team um who are stewards of this process and can help to you know and and I just want to evoke Dr. Ana, right? Data is a flashlight. And so we have to really think about how do we um leverage that information as a way for us to as a as a guide guidepost for continuous improvement and and I think that's very much the the spirit of how we want to engage in this conversation. Um I will I will also say you know the your your earlier question around well why why is it so hard for us to draw these zones? Um it's primarily because not just on a school level we've spread our resources so thin on a programmatic level we've actually spread ourselves pretty thin too. Not just in staffing but how we have leveraged our facility footprint for um language programs. Almost 40% of our elementary school spaces are being

designated as part of a special program whether if it's language K8 special education. So this is an opportunity for us to also dig into that data and be able to really understand and I think this was in one of the Q&A questions really understand how do these factors what are the opportunities what are the constraints so that the board can really um provide us with the direction we need to be able to create a stable portfolio um leading into the next few years. Commissioner Good, can I jump in here really quickly just to build on that?

Um, I I mean I do have an honest question of of like I don't think TK Mandarin special education county program are are controversial among this board. I think we we're all very much in support. Do we what is planned for the next four meetings then? Because I I I do think one opportunity here then is to just actually bring that information here so we can do one part processing, one part actually just giving feedback on the things that we see that may actually be a higher leverage of our time, especially if we're crunched with our numbers here or with time here, right? So, I mean, if engagements are starting in the fall, I'm just trying to like backwards map from engagement starting in August. So, what what do we need to do over these next four meetings then to prepare ourselves for that?

Yeah. Um, we be happy to work with you. Um and I will just say this stellar group of people we meet every Monday and uh we have teed up right a set of information for the board and the public to be aware of um in relation to the growth and expansion plans leading up to next year and the following year. Um and so we are in the midst of preparing for that and if we are to pivot um we would need to reassess and readjust our internal timelines. That's number one. Um number two is um you know we are also hoping to uh really bring on um some additional um support as part of this work to be able to more effectively charter and scope and internally sort of sequence and when I say internally I meant here with the board um with board leadership to engage in sort of a process of teeing up what the progression of conversations should look like similar to what occurred with the ad hoc committee um on student assignment prior so that we are clear on how many meetings what are the intended outcomes of the meetings and what are the data inputs that the board would like to see in order for us to get there. So there is a design component of this to the engagement with the board and I I would hate to you know not be prepared um because we are trying to do it faster.

Yeah. And and I just want to acknowledge I I'm not asking for anything new. It's just the information that's already been done that y'all have reflected on to get to this point. I think that's the kind of information that would help actually bring us along in understanding, you know, what actually led to this process here and the determination, right? Because again, I think I can logically in my head rationalize why we would do closures consolidations after enrollment. But then understanding all the data that underneath that I think is helpful with and again so just sorry to figure it.

No no no and I I think that's actually on point in terms of you know Hungme referenced working on this for a few months. Uh superintendent you mentioned looking at the data for a year. So clearly you're somewhere besides where we are in terms of being able to put all this together. So we would love to be brought along alongside that. Lauren, did Lauren Wait, did we send the EPC packet?

We did. Um so yeah you you may you may recall um you may recall so uh since um the end of February we have begun to um on a weekly basis through the weekly board bulletin um share uh data points um information um including um back in March early March the new demographic uh report that was commissioned uh to have the latest projections. We also um late March shared a I think hefty packet of maybe it was 15 pages. Commissioner Fischer, you're you referenced this packet earlier. Um so so we can continue to um share this information with you and um really be able to make sure that you are equipped and have the information you need to be able to um engage.

And I do appreciate sharing that and I did read the EPC packet but it was really just a data dump of everything that's been looked at. that it didn't really provide uh information about how the superintendent has used that data to inform her thinking. And I think that is really what we're trying to get at is what conclusions are you drawing from that historic information.

Exactly. So, say for example, if we're looking at uh six, sorry, 14,000 empty seats, 2,600 extra seats that are coming online, but then you're saying we can potentially make those up through getting current people in independent sector or independent schools. I mean, that'll be moving about twothirds of those that are currently in independent schools. So if that's back backed by data, I'd love to see that data that seems to contradict what was then shared with us in terms of the enrollment figures that uh that have been set through uh through through the weekly summary. So that's the kind of information that that would be helpful.

Yeah, we can we can definitely put projections in place. Um so the again the enrollment data that was shared um to the board in the bulletin um was was just current data data that we have seen um over the last several years trend data that we are are projecting out. Um it the enrollment data did not include all of these exciting expansions and so we will definitely um do a projection on expansion. I know that the Asian pack and uh many of our families are really excited about the Mandarin immersion school. Um that in and of itself is going to um generate a very high number of students um into back into our district or to our district. Um as I shared earlier with our county school for special ed, we're already seeing a very long and large wait list for it. So I think that there is um I mean we're we're proposing I think opening 10 TK school TK classrooms. So so these are these are the additional information that yes we are looking at the projections that we are uh we have that uh we will be more than happy to share with the board. Um and these are all the numbers that we are I'm using to inform my decision on on doing this.

Great. Uh on on a related note, I think understanding some of the implications of pushing off school consolidation would be incredibly helpful. What are some of the trade-offs? And I'm happy to go back to first principles. I mean, I think, you know, we approach this where certainly when I when I was elected to become a school board member, we heard we don't want people to continue to kick down the can kick the can down the road as well as the fact that, you know, people understood there are hard decisions to be made and they wanted an honest conversation around that. So if there is something that's changed in terms of some of the assumptions or perhaps this is not as you know we don't need to consolidate schools and I think what I'm primarily focused on is what are the implications for the staffing model specifically for both students that we may now it sounds like potentially put caps back on or otherwise for other schools where you know I've certainly heard from parents where they say Prague I can't do this anymore once we lost that member of our school community I feel like I have to take my my child out because they're not getting the support they need. So, you know, it can go both ways and that's that's where it would be really helpful to understand what are those trade-offs and what is the plan if we are extending this beyond, you know, if we're going to be pushing this out. How are we not just kicking the can down the road, but rather able to do so in a sustainable manner for our communities and make sure we're not cutting everyone to the bare bone. And I think these are the these are the big policy questions that we're going to have to grapple with um in the coming months. Um the reality is if we say move forward with a um school closure process where we are closing schools that are either underenrolled or um uh do not meet what we believe to be a strong school have have all the classrooms um available for students. Have all the support programs for students. We are

currently looking at a handful of schools that are in our southeast um sector of the city. And if we were to then close those schools and then change our student enrollment policy, we might find ourselves in a position where we would have to open up those schools again because right now we are busing almost 3,000 students, 2,700 students out of the southeast area of our city into other parts of our city. Um, and so we don't want to be in, again, looking at the data, I do not want to be in a place where I cause so much chaos, so much pain in our schools um, community for for within a couple years later having to reopen those schools um because we've changed our enrollment policy. And so the the sequencing of this work is really important. Can I make a comment about that? Because I think well I think that's in line with the question I was asking and and I would love to see also a budget around that. So I mean if what we're saying is maybe some of those schools we actually have to overstaff based on their enrollment but we're only going to do it for the next two to three years or whatever that is. Let's cost it out and then as a board say okay we're going to spend $5 million, $10 million, whatever it is. I don't know. I'm making up numbers which I shouldn't be doing because it's late at night. Um, but whatever that number is, we're gonna say we're spending that and we're going to say to everybody else, you know what, these schools, we actually are going to overstaff a little bit. So maybe they don't have as many combo classes or they have a social worker, whatever it is, because we believe that's the minimum they need to survive until 2030 when the, you know what I like so that we're being intentional and not just allowing I feel like what's happening right now is it's just like we're allowing these schools to like disintegrate and then as commissioner group has said people leave people make choices like we need to we

need to know what the minimum is to sustain them and recognizing that that we can't do that forever and we're going to get to this other state and I think if we can have that conversation and then it's a one-time investment it's not an ongoing investment it's like a getting us it's the bridge to this next place

and I think the question then I mean sorry I think you're done because I I I think my question then would be what when is when will we know that information to be able to provide final feedback on the plan right so if our target is in April if if the current plan right now is an April I mean sorry I'm trying to map this out in my head because we haven't seen a plan if if the current plan is April to bring a new policy to the board at when is the drop dead deadline by which we would need to give feedback on a plan so that that can be honored if so and then what is the information that we are going to need to get to see including a budget including information about enrollment uh historically and today and projections into the future to be able to to actually opine on that right so like I think because there's some key information I think that would need to be known in order for us to be able to say with confidence Hey, we agree or disagree with any plan that's brought forward.

So, um a couple of points um and thank you for this feedback. Um one is um in terms of the bridge plan um that really is about resource planning for school year 2728. And so we would want to line up that conversation for that school year um to be able to account for the implications of declining enrollment slash shifting demographic trends as part of the alignment conversation around our goals and guardrail. So I think that's number one. Uh number two is um we we had shared this in the Q&A document as well. Um we intend to bring the plan to the board um in that last meeting um in June on the 23rd which means that um by June 11th in the draft agenda um we will be providing more in-depth um information about you know um what what that could look like and that what that would look like. I think what I'm saying is I I'm well I guess my question is is that too late for us, right? Like if we know that in the fall engagements are about to begin for a plan that's going to be coming to the board in April, then my question is in order for us to be able to have a point of view on whether the plan in June is aligned or misaligned, we would need to know something before then. Right? So I guess that's my

question. I should also clarify there are parallel processes that are happening both in the community as we gather input and synthesize existing data and also engagement with the board um in whatever format you know at your call chair um that would need to occur as part of the policy and governance conversation. We would then um bring the two processes together um sometime in the spring, April through May, so that we could facilitate a conversation that is right in line with our guardrails but also um responsive um to the complexity of this challenge that we're taking on. So there are parallel processes and that is what we would want to scope out to make sure that everybody is brought along. However, I actually like the idea of creating an ad hoc um as you had suggested so that we can um have a formal location, a formal place where um our commissioners can can come and and help join us in leading the work. Um but I I also know that we were proposing to create um standing meetings, standing updates um at board so that we can also share I just I wanted to follow up on the um enrollment um issue because in terms of what's been uh identified as expansions, I just did a quick rough calculation. You mentioned adding 10 TKs, it's about 200 students. A fully enrolled Mandarin immersion K8, assuming you had three classes at each level, is somewhere around 654 students. I could you know you know roughly speaking I think it so far what I've understood is that we're only talking about rolling it out on a

very limited basis at first with the NPS's for special education we're talking about 16 students the first year 32 the second um even if you add up even if you assume full men immersion enrollment at three classes which uh wouldn't happen for quite some time and that's at like three TK sorry three TKs three you know Ks etc it goes down in the later Um, this is under a thousand students. And the reason I'm raising this is because like based on what's being set forward and what's being talked about, there just seems to me to be a very big gap between that at even its highest numbers and the number of seats that we're talking about. And this is what really worries me in a long-term sense for how we're going to resource all of our students, which is what I believe we have a moral obligation to do. We should be resourcing everybody as best we can. I don't see how we're getting 15,000 plus students. Like I would love for students to come back to SFUSD, but among other things we'd really need to solve for educational outcomes. What's going to attract people to come back or to come to our district aside from easier enrollment is good student outcomes. Um, and that hasn't really been part of this conversation. I've maybe I've missed a reference, but that's what we really need to attract people. So, I just I want to be sure that we're we're grounded in reality and looking at what our actual, you know, the kids that are here, the kids that aren't here, who's likely to come, how we get them to come, and how moving forward we can actually improve student outcomes. I think it's success that will attract people to come to our district. I don't folks aren't gonna magically appear. So, um, how we figure that in is something I think we need to talk about as well.

Um, I 100% agree and yes, it's not going to be a magic panacea. It's we're not going to overnight bring in 14,000 students. Um, but we we have to start we have to start in terms of making sure that um we have curriculum in place. We're training teachers. We're we're we're creating programs that families want. So there's there's that. In terms of student outcomes, yes, I am looking at the student outcomes because what we are seeing is that over the last year and a half, our students are actually demonstrating growth. We're seeing that, you're hearing it during our our progress monitoring reports. You're seeing that um that students uh sense of belonging has increased significantly. you're seeing that um for the first time in in 10 years, our African-American literacy rate has bumped up. So, we don't want to lose that progress. We don't want to lose that momentum. And I know that a significant disruption like school closure will significantly impact that. Um, and it's not based on all the research, all the conversations I've had with with superintendent up and down this throughout the country actually. Um they keep saying be prepared when you announce school closure. You're going to see a significant student outcome drop and then you'll continue to see it for several years to come. So you've got to be prepared for that. Um and so I just feel that we are at a place where we are on the the trajectory to to expand and to increase and I want us to continue to hold on to that momentum. I am not naive to the fact that we still need to find and fill 14,000 seats. Um, but I am very optimistic that we have only rec captured 65% of the children who live in

San Francisco. I know that we can build a school district that will attract even more children to come to San Francisco. That's the value proposition here. That is that is what I'm asking the board to support me on. um so that we can do that and we all do that with our school community because I know that we can do it. I know it's possible.

So Sointendent, just what one last thing perhaps on on that note. Um you know, this is something this is work that the the school board unanimously asked you to to carry forward eight months ago. And I understand you mentioned there are various things that came up. Um, and to the school board's credit, actually, I'd say the student assignment was one that we recognized was something that our community really, really sought and wanted a decision on, preferably in September of 26 so that we can implement in September 27. Now, we know we're going to have to go through labor negotiations again. We're going to have to go through a lot of things. So, my question actually is, what support do you need so that we don't delay these any further than we already have? Thank you for that question. Um, first I would love to the support of the board to make sure that we move forward with this. Um, I already love the suggestions of maybe a deeper dive study session. Um, maybe an ad hoc, but I I think what we really need is the support of all of our community. Let's do this together. I know we can do it together. Um and uh and and the reality of needing to continue to stabilize the district um is going to be key and the presentation after this we're sharing with you that we are moving in the right direction. We are making the right decisions around our budget. And so hopefully um as we go through this process, we will bring on we will be able to bring on additional um uh supports uh in terms of uh contracted partners so that we can have the additional um human capital and resources to make sure that we do a community engagement that actually will

do you proud. um and do our our our um ad hoc on community engagement proud because that is what we need. We need to be able to go be on the ground with our families having those real conversations about what does a language pathway look like for you? What does it mean when we say we will serve your student um who who ha in our special ed programs? What does that look like? um what does it look like for us to to really truly serve our newcomer students so that there is a continuum of care and continuum of services. So I would love for us to bring on the consultant to help um our team. I would love for us to be able to uh continue to message out that this is the work of expansion and um change uh to our student assignment work and um I look forward to continuing the partnership and and continuing the dialogue on this. Um to to follow up on that, will we see like additional staff that you're going to be budgeting for in the coming budget to build out your team internally? I mean, this is really major work that the board has tasked you with. Like it could even, you know, be like an associate superintendent of strategic initiatives or like really major support beyond just kind of outside folks especially that's continuing for several years. Thank you for the clarification. Um in again in conversations with other superintendent there are uh they had recommended that there are like three core strands um that's required for this work. One is a communication strand. So we would need um a very dedicated communications leader um to take on this work. We would need a high level project

manager. So like a strategic initiatives leader to take on this work. Um, and I imagine we would need additional policy supports and data supports. So, yes, those are additional staff that we would need. Um, and we're going to figure out um what that would look like and I would come back to the board on on that. That makes sense.

Thanks. Um, I have just a couple of questions to make sure genuinely that I understand the what the proposal is. Um, so earlier It was said that January 2028 is when um it would be brought to the board for a vote on uh school portfolio changes. So my question there is then is that for implementation of closures in the 2829 school year or would it be a year and a half and those closures wouldn't be implemented until 2930? Sorry, it's getting late and I'm getting the years mixed up. So maybe we'll start from the top. So for 2627 is expansion. Um October 2027 is where we would have landed on any policy changes for implementation October 2027 for the 2829 school year. Based on that data, we would then determine whether or not any closures, mergers, collocations would be needed for the 2930 school year um by winter of 2020 829, which means it's like January 2029. Sorry, before you said January 2028, but now you're saying January 2029, but that would be after folks had already started enrollment for the 2930 school year.

Can I um suggest maybe we can at the next meeting or I can share with with the board um a proposed timeline so that we can just sketch this out with a little bit more detail. Um the proposal right now is to have the first enrollment cycle under the new policy in school year 2829. During that time we will be evaluating the impact of this new policy on our schools um where our students are filling up where they're not. Um and and and during that time we can then start the community engagement part for school closures. Um the other question I have is that um you know earlier um we brought to the board um there was a resolution to extend VVG's and a large motivating factor in that was that we needed to uh use district capacity for listening around major decisions in 2627 and didn't want to run simultaneous ous major listening sessions around revising the VB GGGGS and um at that point it was proposed to be I believe portfolio changes but now it sounds like it would be enrollment changes. Um, how does this initial proposal timeline fit in with the new deadline and then required listening sessions for uh 2728 uh for VVG revisions and will you have capacity for that?

Um, thank you, Vice President Healing. Um, yes. And and I I would like to think from a design standpoint, those should not be separate conversations because our schools should operate in service and be designed in service of us getting to our student outcome goals. So the way that we are sketching out the engagement on the community um engagement side is really thinking about well what does it mean for us to gather community input around a transformational um you know set of outcomes for our students. Um and we would love to be able to partner um with the board to align um these efforts because we are going to be asking parents, many of whom, you know, are parent leaders who have already been engaged in many of our different spaces. Um but also these are conversations that really should inform one another. So we would love to get aligned. Well, if you're proposing now to do combined listening sessions um on VVGGGS and major decisions, then would there no longer be a rationale for extending the VVGs? And should we just piggyback on the listening sessions that are being planned for 2627 to do that combined listening sooner rather than later and keep to our original schedule? because the rationale was that they they should be separate. And so if that's not if that's no longer how the district is thinking about it, then perhaps we want to just move forward and revisit that item to just to clarify there. I think, you know, we need to be mindful of board work versus superintendent work and the listening sessions around the VVGs and any updates to that is board work as

opposed to um operationalizing anything student assignment system um enrollment changes, school portfolio changes, that would be superintendent work. And so I think hopefully we'll get to discuss this in a little bit more detail, but our ad hoc committee um to this point like major decisions because we didn't have the timeline yet wasn't wasn't something that we could fully tackle. Um but I think what it's important for us to talk through as a board what is our work versus the superintendent's work in this process too.

Agreed. And I think um it would just be then clarifying to get more uh information from superintendent and her team on what your uh capacity is and how you see VVGGG listening fitting in with this and also the role of the board and listening because ultimately um these are board decisions and board policies and so I think uh to our existing policy 5101 1.2 there's a pretty significant board uh listening role in uh informing that board policy as well. Um the the other question I'm sorry I do have this question is that you've repeatedly referred superintendent to large-scale school closures but we know that there are currently school closures and programmatic closures or mergers happening that have not been uh in line with the board direction around um guardrail one that have not been brought to the board for decisions um and you know when do you plan to bring those to the board and if there are you know to superintendent or sorry to commissioner Gupta's point about transparency and just telling the community what is happening um you know If you are contemplating other portfolio changes outside of any largecale changes, it's we know we've spent a lot of time talking about the strategic need to maintain uh what is currently excess capacity but maybe needed capacity in the southeast. That's one thing. But we also have a number of schools that are

have lower enrollment that are in areas that also have lower and shrinking numbers of students where there may not be a need to maintain that capacity. What is your plan for complying with guard rail one and bringing those decisions to the board? actually the changes in school portfolio is is what we're prepping for the next several weeks um at the board. So, uh, expansion of TK is a expansion. Um, I'm sorry, late, losing words. Uh, for the next board meeting on the 19th, we are going to present our TK expansion. Part of the TK expansion requires us to, uh, consolidate, merge, close certain programs in order for us to do the expansion. Um the subsequent one is a um our our um specialed a county office county specialled program which requires us to take over a school facility. Um and we'll then we'll be opening up that program there. Um and then of course finally with our Mandarin immersion school and the plan for us um around that. So we will be presenting and bringing to the board in the next couple weeks. Okay, I think we should talk about that in agenda review. I mean, again, I go back to this question of I don't know when the drop deadline is to get feedback for a plan to change and so and then what information is needed to make that decision. And so I I don't I don't really have clarity on exactly what's happening in these next four meetings for us to be able to be set up to have that conversation. So, we should we should talk about that because I don't actually know. Um Okay. Um, thank you so much to staff. Um, I see everyone's head's bobbing a

little bit. So, um, appreciate you all for the update. Thank you, Dr. Sue. Um, and we will move on to item G2, 2026 update on school facilities. This is our last discussion item, commissioners, before we have four actions to take, commissioners. And so I just want to remind us of the time commissioners. It is 11:04 p.m. commissioners. And so um this may be the fastest update on school facilities that we may ever experience. Um but we want to make sure that we respect our presenters here who have stayed up for this. Thank you so much for being here.

Oh, they were they they love join going to board meetings. It's my pleasure to introduce our amazing facilities and facilities team. Slate Katie, take it away.

Yes, thank you, Dr. Sue. Um, so, uh, we are representatives of the facilities team. I'm Katie P. I'm the interim head of operations. Um, I'm actually going to turn it over to Karen Sullivan, who's our executive director of capital planning and the E who is our director of bond. I will get started. Um so overall the goal of our team is to ensure that our schools are safe and inspiring spaces for our students and staff. Um so uh Chris you can move on to the next slide. Um the facilities department is responsible for maintaining 155 facilities within the district's portfolio. The average age of these properties is 73 years. Um and as you can see there's a significant amount of square footage in terms of repairs and maintenance and capital investments. The departments that are responsible for those areas of work are buildings and grounds team which does preventative and deferred maintenance projects primarily the facilities design and construction department which is responsible for construction that is um that doesn't utilize bond funding which Linia's team um oversees and then our bond program which listen is the director of and which oversees larger scale more transformative modernization projects. Next slide. Um when we think about capital investments, we the way that we prioritize where and how we make investments is based on the facilities master plan which includes 12 emerging priorities which guide um the work and our investment decisions. Next slide. Uh the purpose of this slide is just to illustrate how we work together um these you know three departments within the facilities department which also includes other programs. Um but you know the purpose here is to illustrate that we work in close communication so that we are able to efficiently allocate the scarce capital resources that we have.

Um and all of our decisions, you know, oftentimes buildings and grounds and facilities design and construction projects are related just to life safety and projects that have a high urgency, whereas the bond allows us to make some more transformative larger investments at school sites that have more of an impact on the student experience. Next slide. In terms of funding, the bond funding is our largest funding source by far. On average annually, we get about 13 million in capital funding that we need to allocate across the 120 school sites. Um, so there are a lot of decisions that need to be made around what what investments need to be made immediately and what can be deferred and maintained by our buildings and grounds team. I think one thing to highlight here that we've started trying to do is since um on the maintenance side, a lot of the projects that we do, you don't really know when you come back to school in the fall. Like your roof is fixed, but you can't really see it, right? The windows don't leak anymore, but maybe you don't really notice that when you go into your classroom. And so, as we're scoping out projects, what we're trying to do is when we go to a site, find one thing, even if it's a little thing, that makes students and staff feel like something happened when we were there. So looking at replacing ceiling tiles that may have water stains or lighting, looking at paint. Um so the more we can add a little extra scope just to make it feel like we've been there and enhance the student experience, we're trying to do that as much as we can on the facility side. Next slide. This is an overview of everywhere where we made investments in 2025. Um what we're happy about with this map is that we were able to reach um 100 unique sites throughout the 100 unique school sites throughout our portfolio. Um, so we were able to make investments at nearly every site in the last fiscal year, which we feel like is a great accomplishment. Next slide. Um, looking on the facilities design and construction side, the majority of funding and projects were focused on

what we call core functionality. You can see those are investments in the building envelope that preserve the integrity of the building structure. However, we're also in alignment with the facility's master plan, making investments in water quality, outdoor learning spaces, and supporting to the extent we can the roll out of transitional kindergarten from the facility side. Next slide. Um and in the buildings and grounds department, some priorities um in the last fiscal year were enhancing our security systems throughout our buildings, expanding the capacity of our environmental health department, and then also we've been prioritizing um heating systems to make sure that when our students and staff go to school, they on a cold day, they can feel confident that they will be comfortable in their classrooms. And you know, one thing of note here I think I wanted to mention for the team is that with this increased attention to heating systems both preventatively and on a response basis, we were able to increase the time that it took. We were what was we improved the you

Yeah. Our buildings and grants department improved uh resolution time of uh of heat related issues by about 70%. So, an issue that took 80 days last year to resolve took an average of seven days to resolve this year. Thanks, Katie. Um, okay. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to Linia, who will talk about the work of the bond program.

Great. Before we get into the bond program, um we're going to start just with a mention of the schoolyard's comprehensive plan, which is a document and major accomplishment completed um by bond staff um on behalf of the facilities department. Uh this plan is a strategic vision for capital upgrades to all of our schoolyards to promote outdoor learning, physical education, age appropriate play, and storm water management. The plan is on tonight's consent calendar for adoption by the board and we have completed our first projects informed by the plan including Jefferson Elementary and Viz Valley that you can see here. Go ahead. A major programmatic focus for the bond program um in the last year has really um been on our security program implementing public address system improvements across the district um in over 30 schools. Um we also just highlighting the 2016 modernization program which is closing out uh including substantial completion at Missionbased School and West Portal Elementary School package one uh and also successful relocation sorry go back real quick successful relocation of the Buenov Vista Horus man K8 community to the Luther Burbank campus to enable construction at the BBHM site. We've also initiated over $50 million in core functionality improvements districtwide um and then continued our partnerships on schoolyard improvements with other leveraged funding sources. I want to take a brief moment for Mission Bay. Um the bond program is proud to report that we finished this school. Um it's our Thank you. It's our first uh it's the largest single investment of the 2016 program and the first new SFUSD school construction in more than a decade. Um we've also just recently completed construction at Mission Bay Hub which is the fourth

floor high school uh linked learning hub space also located at that campus. Uh Mission Bay School will open to summer programming shortly. Uh the Mission Bay Hub has just started operating uh and then to prek TK and kindergarten students in the fall. Um just some facts here about the project really culminating in that the the um current design build contract amount is 104 million. Uh you will still continue to see a few change orders as we finalize the project and close it out. Um in terms of active construction, the program has over $200 million in active construction. Now the projects are summarized here on this slide. And this last year as an update to the facilities um of our presentation last year we said all the things we were going to do all the projects we were going to launch and then we launched them. So um this is a summary of the projects we launched this year um and really represents uh new project launches in all investment categories that we committed to in the 2024 bond report. Uh the map on the bottom right shows that we have uh met our commitment to geographic diversity which is one of the major project comm um program commitments that we made in the 2024 bond planning process. Um and this is a brief financial snapshot of the 2024 bond. You can see on the left a bar chart that represents um our current issuance. We've done one bond issuance in the in the green, the dark green bar, $160 million last year. We are planning uh to a new $270 series B issuance, which you will hear about the board will hear about at our next board meeting. Um and that leaves us $360 million to issue later as our project needs um arise for those funds. We also have completed our fiscical year

25 bond audit and we'll be presenting that to the citizens bond oversight committee tomorrow. Uh it will also appear in the upcoming consent calendar and we are pretty much spent down almost completely on 2016 um and really starting heavily to spend 2024 funds. In terms of what's coming up, I'm going to go out of order just so I stop talking before I give it back to Karen. We have uh a new financial adviser advising the bond program. um assisting us with our second issuance. Um we hope to commence well we will commence construction on the SNS heaven and shops our central kitchen project this year um this upcoming academic year just to be clear about that and um we will advance the design on the first round of modernization projects that you saw in the launches on the prior slide. Okay,

thanks. Um, in our facilities design and construction department, we're going to continue prioritizing um, life safety and core functionality projects. In addition, we are looking at scoping and phasing the implementation of upgrades to our theater rigging systems. We have done assessments of elevator systems and we're going to focus on um we have six elevator modernizations planned and we'll continue looking at the condition of elevators to see if we need to roll out more projects in that area and we're going to continue with to support the expansion of transitional kindergarten. On the buildings and grounds side we are I think one big thing that we're focusing on in the coming years we're planning to issue an RFP to look at the potential of selecting a new work order system. The goal of this would be to improve transparency and internal operational efficiencies um and hopefully continue our um improvements around being more proactive rather than reactive around um our building maintenance and systems. And I think um with that that is all we have to say. We'll open up for any questions you guys have. I'll just say thank you so much for all of your work that went into the opening of the Mission Bay Elementary School. Um it is I know a huge undertaking and just really grateful for all the work that y'all have done. I have more questions but it's regarding bond stuff that I'll ask at another meeting so don't worry about it. It's coming.

Commissioner Fischer.

Uh thank you all for the work you do. Um, I mean, and and well, one, also thanks to the voters of San Francisco for authorizing the bond so that we have this money and um can help augment our facilities in such great way, but thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing. Um, I don't know if this is a question or a comment, but just I appreciate the focus on elevators, the modernization, and all the work there. Um, but I I also want to point out that for a lot of our students, elevator non-functional elevators means they don't get to access their education, right? And so it's not just a nuisance to have a not functioning elevator. It's an educational access issue which not only is bad for student outcomes, but it's actually a lot a legal liability from us for a lot of So are there and I I appreciate that you mentioned you're doing a lot of work as far as doing additional scoping, see what else we need. Is there anything that we can do to oomph, you know, rep prioritize that? But I I know everything is urgent in the work you do, but um elevator access seems to be key in what we heard tonight, what we're hearing in public comment, what we hear from a lot of families.

Yes. Um and I think uh staff recognize as well the importance of it and how disruptive it is. Um we have 167 elevators across the district. 10 are currently completely out of service right now. um one for one day is unacceptable right because it impacts people. So uh we I personally recognize the gravity of the situation. So some of the things that we have put in place we have we have very aging elevators that have an extend extensive amount of deferred maintenance. One of the things that I've done is establish thresholds for how far we're going with our repair contract. Um, we've spent uh we've spent about $2 million in repairs on a $360,000 $2 million in yes in repairs on a $360,000 maintenance contract. So that is unsustainable. So, we're establishing thresholds of when are we stopping trying to repair this and when are we going to modernize, which is why you see six elevators now being modernized instead of continuing this cycle of repair. The other thing we've done is work with our legal and special education department partners um to say when our elevators are out and there is an extensive gap in service, what are our legal obligations and what can we do to continue a continuity of service. Um and so we have invested in stair walkers and chair climbers um to at least meet that gap. really fully recognizing that it's not the same um as having those systems. Um so I just want to I want to recognize that and acknowledge the work that staff has been doing to try to implement that. Um and just know that it's it's a long and painful road.

Okay. seeing. Oh, sorry. C can I say I really appreciate the um the study session that we I was like what is it briefing with the study session that was last week or last week? So, thank you for that.

And for the record, I was not there but I did listen. So, thank you. Um I um appreciate the uh responses to the questions in the preview document and a lot of them you know reference the 2023 facilities master plan and how that is really guiding the work of the district and its priorities and I'm wondering if the district is going to undertake um major changes to enrollment and where students are attending school student assignment system. Um, if that is something where we need district-wide coherence in facilities to invest in certain areas and it if that's something that warrants revisiting the facilities master plan because we've seen, for example, with Mission Bay Elementary that a new building can do a lot to make a school a uh, you know, something that families are very excited about. and whether we need to make certain investments in um areas where we anticipate students um more students from the neighborhood staying within the master plan. One of the emerging priorities was the acknowledgement that there was a plan to have a change to the zone based to a zone based assignment system and that um what we say in the plan is that depending on how that conversation progresses and what the board decisions are that we will evaluate what investment decisions need to be made based on fluctuations in attendance at schools that maybe historically did not have as high of an attendance. And so that's contemplated in the plan and I think as we have more information on the facility side we can be more specific about how we look at allocating our resources.

Thank you. Um and then the other question I have um especially as somebody who's raised little kids in the mission is um for the schoolyards comprehensive plan um what are the plans to climate proof some of our outdoor areas in our sunnier neighborhoods because little kids on blacktop without shade um can get very very hot in some of our neighborhoods just beyond the the tree canopy but climate proofing to make our space our outdoor spaces usable uh and safe for more days of the year.

Sure. So, one of my favorite parts of the schoolyard comprehensive plan, thanks for asking, Commissioner Healing,

is the policy alignment section. Um, and what it does is it kind of goes through all active city land use sort of city and re anything that impacts San Francisco. um and overlays those on all of our school sites. So, um obviously the mission and and also many of our southeast neighborhoods are neighborhoods that have more sun than maybe some of our, you know, hillside and western neighborhoods do. Um and so there are different ramifications both in terms of of appropriate planting and then treatments for outdoor classrooms and the potential use of fixed shade structures in addition to tree canopy. um and uh recommendations for shaded play structures and things like this that are um woven into the plan. Um, and then my second favorite part of the plan is that at the end there's an appendix that has a really a sightby-sight summary that then when we hire a design team to support the school year project at a site, we basically hand them the sheet and the sheet has um all of the sort of site characteristics that the plan identifies to make it sort of more of a one-stop shop for, you know, at this site it's in the sun belt. We want to make sure that we are, you know, managing students access to shade and limiting the amount of like heat gain from the surfacing that we might use. And this is a good site to maybe pick a lighter color surface paint or vary the planting um to try and manage some of these e- gain issues that we have.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no other questions or comments, thank you so much for your presentation and again much appreciation for all the work that you do. Um, have a great evening. Get home safely. Thank you. Moving to item H, action items. Item H1265-12 SP1, fiscal year 2526, third interim financial report for the San Francisco Unified School District. Is there a motion and a second? Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded that the board approves 26512SP1. What's that? Oh. Um, I'll call on the superintendent to bring this item forward. I will remind commissioners that we have a budget adoption study session just around the corner next Wednesday. And so, um, I would encourage us to limit our questions this evening on a report that should not be necessary for us, um, to questions that may influence the outcome of your decision and only those questions.

So, and and actually, I'll add a caveat to that since you brought it up. uh since uh we have talked to CDE and uh have gone positive even though this is not a self-certification period. Uh the main purpose of the study session next week was to discuss the required FSP with the board. Uh CD CD has notified and agrees with us that an FSP is no longer needed. uh and so they have asked us to develop a narrative for adoption of all of the work that we have done to get us to this point. So the budget team will be doing that and adding a couple slides of all the work that we've done to get us to this point for budget adoption. So next week's study session is actually no longer needed.

Can we say that louder for all the people in the back? Sorry, am I mumbling? Is it late? Um, oh, just like it's it's fantastic news because

it is fantastic news. So, so no longer even though technically an FSP is still required by law because we are still under state oversight and have more than one uh qualified budget certification in a row. They recognize that we are uh positive even though we can't declare we're positive at this time because it's not a certification period. Um, but that an FSP will not be required for budget adoption. What they are asking in its place is that we create a budget narrative to explain to the board and to commemorate for CDE and the public what we have done to get the district back to a positive standing and certification for adoption.

I do have one question about that. Um yes, I mean we we thank you for all the work that you are doing and I do think we're in a much better secure financial picture than we are now than we were a year ago. The qualification status is primarily solely based on our unrestricted general fund. And my my one question slash concern is that we are shifting just a lot of our most challenging pressing budget items. Our deficit from our undersed general fund to our restricted side. I mean we for the next three years we see some significant gaps there. What can you walk us through the the the planning there?

We we'll do that for tonight's presentation. That's that's pertinent. Um you'll notice in all of these presentations they have been iterative. I believe long it feels like nine years ago but it was only nine months ago when I arrived. I told I told the board it would take me a solid good two to three years uh to get the budget into a sustainable uh fashion. What you're seeing iteratively is first of all we're ahead of that schedule. Um it's still going to take a couple of years and a couple of of cycles. Uh but we are constantly shifting things to what we call the first dollar principle which I will cover when we go to the restricted side of the of the multi-year projection. Um that is that is standard practice and and we have a methodology that we use. Uh you'll notice that in both budgets that the third year out uh has a larger deficit. There's also reasons for that that we can go into. It's covered in the assumptions, but if you need us to talk about it more uh both for third interim as well as adoption, we can do so. But the good news is here. So remember it's yes, your certification is based on your unrestricted general fund. And the the concept is is that for all three years you have to have enough of a remaining fund balance to pay for a deficit if there is one. Uh however, if on the restricted side you have a large enough deficit uh that there's not enough fund balance on the restricted side to pay for it, it also does fall to the unrestricted side. So you're seeing that we're balancing both as we're moving forward. The third year is always the the wonkiest. It's the furthest year out. We have some conservative projections in there as we're required to do. Um, but we will always move things to that that hardest to spend money first because it is also the money that we traditionally underspend by the highest percentage. Okay. So, I will I can go into that more. Uh, but that's that's the reason that you're seeing that and that's standard practice for districts. Um we pay for all of the stuff that we consider focal classroom teachers. All the stuff

that we get unrestricted general fund for first and then all those supplemental funds the restricted side we pay for the things that are you know restricted in nature supplemental concentration additional programmatic augmentations uh everything from social workers psychologists counselors etc. But we should probably go through the presentation though. I feel like I'm going to lose folks. But can I ask a clarifying question before just to be completely clear? So we don't have to do next week for a fiscal stabilization plan purpose. But are we still going to hold the meeting and walk through the narrative or are we not holding the meeting at all?

That's up to the board. Uh the original purpose of the of the study session was to discuss as I did with you last time what should be uh or what was acceptable to the board to have in a fiscal stabilization plan. Um and I had that scheduled before I was unavailable because I'm unavailable for a couple days in there. Uh and since then in our iterations and communications with CDE some of which you've been included on uh we have been notified that the the FSP is not required in in the traditional format. Uh, so it's changed is what I'm trying to say. So if if you want to just get together to talk about budget adoption, we can do that. But the main topic of discussing an acceptable FSP is no longer a pertinent topic.

Thank you for that clarification.

And I'm so sorry. I think I might have jumped the gun here. You are presenting something. Okay. I just started to jump right into questions. I apologize. Knock yourself out. Uh these meetings get late and I like how they get more sort of casual later we go. So uh so we are going to jump right in here. Chris, I know you'll keep up with with me. I am going to go quickly folks. Hopefully at this point you've seen enough of these uh from myself and the team that you're getting used to the format so that everybody can follow along sort of quickly. Uh this is a third interimm report. A third interim report is only required for districts that are under oversight, meaning that they've had at least two qualified or a negative and a qualified certification over the course of the past year. Uh so this will hopefully be if we can maintain our discipline, this will be your last third interim uh at least in all of your elected periods and and probably in in my useful life period. Uh and so uh this will include next steps for budget uh health as well as multi-year projections as we're required to do for the general fund both restricted and unrestricted. Uh next slide please. And the next one. So this just outlines essentially what we're required to do. Uh we do not self-certify during a third interim. It is not a self-certification period. However, if we were to self-certify, we are positive. I will remind the board as well that we were actually positive when I gave you the first interim and the second interim report. However, we held ourselves to a qualified status because our li largest liabilities were outstanding and that was our negotiations with our labor partners. And of course, we have solved that issue by coming to agreement with all of our labor partners, not just for the current year, but for next year and in some cases up to the next three years. So, we have a period of uh labor stability and that also means cost stability. So we can predict those costs and then plan for them. Next slide please. Uh this is

just where we are in the timeline. Uh third interim of course the May revise comes out uh later this week which means we get the the numbers that we actually base your budget adoption on which is coming up in June. The first meeting in June of course is the hearing. The second one is the adoption. But that's an exciting time for budget folks because we actually get the the assumptions to base your budget adoption on. Next slide please. um at both the first and second interim as I mentioned we self-certified as qualified until labor uh labor negotiations had completed and because the county office has maintained its positive standing this is just for the school district it is not for the county we usually present them at the same time but tonight it's just the district next slide please major updates since the second interim report which was just a scant two months ago I'm sure you all remember it fondly changes in revenues uh essentially um LCFF revenue uh reconciliation of current year ADA and three-year ADA uh for un Dup I love how we use all the acronyms and I I know uh Commissioner Ray you're going to ask our unduplicated pupil percentage uh P2 ADA update is forthcoming for budget adoption routine restricted maintenance account increase of 4.2 2 million because our expenditures are a little bit up. Routine restricted maintenance. We're required to take 3% of all of our expenses in the general fund and contribute it to facilities maintenance. That's a requirement of state law. It has to be a minimum of 3%. That's what that's referencing. So, it's gone up by 4.2 million because our overall expenditures have gone up. Changes in expenditures. We have $32.3 million in savings from vacant positions. So, we have made the assumption, which we think is a safe assumption at this point, that if it has not been filled at this point, that it will not be filled until the end of the school year. So, we are taking all of the remaining money budgeted in those vacancies. Uh we've captured $5.2 million of savings to align budgets to

actuals uh for those filled positions. We've incorporated $5.9 million of ten tenative agreement costs. These are all of the agreements that you have ratified as a board. uh SEIU local 21, local 39 and unrepresented management for a total of 5.99 million increase in expenditures and we captured an additional $69.7 million of savings from underspent unused supplies and materials budgets so that we could add that to our fund balance which is how we are getting a positive certification for this and the next two years. Uh strike costs were budget neutral. People have been asking about that. How is that? because although there was a strike because we're making the days up in the current year and it adds uh back into the number of instructional days uh then we still get the same funding from the state and that funding remains stable because it happens after what we call P2 and so it will not impact our three-year average uh for another year or two. What are the assumptions that we're using? Uh we get asked this quite a bit. Uh so we've listed them here for you. They're the standard assumptions that districts use. Uh we're using the cola for FY27 at 2.4 28 uh 3.06 29.34. We are seeing a 500 student enrollment decline annually based on the current demographic projections. So that is that is assume uh assumed in our calculations here. We are using strategic budgeting to reduce uh budget to actual variance. So you'll remember the first significant report I did for the board. We had variances at our different iterations of the budget that were not just double digits but sometimes triple digits. And I said that what we should be seeing is those should be going down throughout the year. Uh and what you're going to notice when we do fiscal close report uh on the year that we just finished is we got much better at that. More room to make up. Um but that's really significant. So that closing that

variance gives us money to close the gap of our deficit and that's exactly how we're doing it. So, we're not doing major uh uh reductions to the tune of what we what we thought we might have to do. We are just literally closing the variance between what people have been given and what they're spending. And it's a significant number, right? So, that's really helping us a lot. We'll continue to do that. Uh we will every interim reduce vacant positions, the savings of of salaries and benefits to yield additional money to pay for uh any predicted uh deficit spending. and we are going to be reducing supplies and service budgets to account for historical spending trends. What does that mean? It's a fancy way of saying if we've been allocating $100 to you for the past five years and you've only spent 70 of it, we're not giving you $100 anymore. We're only giving you the 70, right? That is yielding significant savings for the district, that is why we're able to achieve uh a positive certification on our budget. Instead of just allocating money to people and they hope to spend it, we're actually seeing what you are spending and we're lowering your allocation to that amount. Now, if you need more, if something comes up, that also gives us the flexibility to allocate more to you or to change it throughout the year. So, we're developing more flexibility in the budget as well. This also includes all of our uh negotiated salary and benefit agreements, a 1% annual budget increase for step and column, a 10% annual budget increase for the health and welfare rates. This is significant. This was part part of our bargaining with UEE as well as local 21 because we are paying for a larger in in most cases now 100% of those plans starting in 2027. Uh we have to calculate the actual increase every year and that's averaging 10% a year. So that means those plans are going up 10% a year which the budget now has to absorb. And I think that's pretty much it. Uh next slide please. Thank you Chris. Um, so our recommended certification if we were self-certifying right now would be positive. We're just going to keep saying that even though it's not a

self-certification period, we'll be saying it for adoption as well. Next slide, please. We're going to hit the restricted general fund first. This is the current year. Uh, of course, our ABCD and F have stayed the same. You're used to seeing this. Um, the thing to highlight is the second column was where we were at second interim two uh two months ago. And what you're seeing in the middle column are our revised projections having taken all the savings that we're describing, meaning the vacancies as well as the underspend in people's mostly their supplies and materials budgets. Uh and you can see that we were able to significantly lower our expenditures in the last 10 months because if you haven't spent it and there's only two months of school left, guess what? You're not going to spend it. But that itself shows you a 10% savings. So that tells you that we are constantly overbudgeting and underspending. Uh it's it's definitely a a pattern in the district. This also means that we've gone from a $44.5 million projected deficit in the second interim. The third interim we are now seeing a surplus uh of 25.2 million uh because we are now again eliminating those those expenses that people thought they were going to make are not are not making. And so it puts us in a positive territory. That means our ending fund balance will go from $163 million to 23 $2.9 million. And so our reserves and our restricted funds are up. That's always good news because that means in the future when we have a deficit planned deficit spend, we now have more money to cover that planned deficit. So if we go to the next slide and look at a three-year view, right, we do see that we will be at this point, now that doesn't mean we haven't that we've stopped working on it, but at this point we are going to adopt a budget with about a 10 6 million plan deficit. That's going to get smaller because we're working on it right now for adoption. But notice that this is shrinking. However, what's driving that deficit? So, if we are taking away

people's traditional underspend and we're not overallocating them, why do we see a deficit still developing here? It's very specifically because of benefits, right? So, you can go through and you can see on the right hand side the the large drivers. You can read that through in more detail if you'd like. But really, now that we've taken on the majority of benefits for the district, it is an uncontrolled cost for us. Meaning, we don't control the health care market. So, we have to plan for an 10% increase year over year over year because that's what we've been getting from our healthcare brokerage, which is basically the the city of San Francisco. So, the city, the county, the community college, we all share the same healthcare consortium, and our costs have been going up 10% year-over-year. So that's where that deficit is developing. So we're balancing the budget, but we do have an uncontrolled cost in there that is causing a deficit. Uh however, notice that fund balance is now large enough. This is where you get to positive. Fund balance is now large enough that it will cover that deficit in a planned manner for the current and the next three years. That's that's what positive means. Okay, next slide, please. Now, we're going to look at the part that the state really likes to look at, which is our unrestricted. Now we are still looking at a deficit here for the year. Uh so people have asked in the past last year remember we had if we looked at both sides of the general fund about a $37 million deficit. We are on target this year on the unrestricted general fund still for about $21.5 million of deficit. Um that's for a couple of reasons mostly that first of all I want to acknowledge how much that we've shrunk that through good uh budget work. However, we've still given a lot of increases this year and so that's where that deficit is coming in. Um, we can't shrink it entirely. Will it go down more before the end of the year? The answer is yes. Because even when we close the books, my accounting team will then go to work and they will transfer every single thing on the unrestricted thing side that they can find that's an eligible expense for the restricted side and we will move it over because this is our most fungeable money, the most

flexible money. So, we will move everything off of it we can to the restricted side so that our most flexible money is left. So, we will intentionally shrink that number. And I'm pointing that out because people always say, "What happened to that big deficit?" We actually have an obligation in accounting to take care of it so that we leave the board and the district with the most flexible funds left. But I want to show you that comparison this year. So, just sort of pointing that out. Um, but again, notice how much we've shrunk the deficit just in the past two months. Went from 49.4 four to about 21.5. Again, this is by taking out the vacant position savings because if it hasn't been filled now, it's not going to be filled. And taking out the supply and materials money. If you haven't spent it, you aren't going to spend it. We're almost at the end of the school year. And I want to just note what a significant savings that is, right? Um uh if we look at a three-year picture of the unrestricted general fund. Next slide, please, Chris. So this gives a really interesting uh picture. Notice uh I want to point out a couple things here. I'd like to point out line C uh total contributions, right? Those total contributions are projected for two things. That's largely our special education contribution. I want you to note how much that has gone down this year as we've continued to really work uh on the contribution and and capturing real costs for special education. It is going up still year-over-year. And if you ask me what the biggest driver of that, it's the biggest driver now in our budget period, which is the cost of benefits over time, right? So, uh, something I can't really control as much for. Now, what happens if benefit costs come in less than 10%, they come in 8%, then we will immediately adjust that number down to reflect the cost of actual benefits. However, the big news here is that this year, even with our projected deficit of $21.5 million, uh we have enough ending ending fund balance line F to cover that

deficit and still have uh unassigned unappropriate amount left. Big news 26 27 and 2728. Notice that line E surplus deficit has now been closed. And uh President Kim, to your point, that's because we've moved enough over to the restricted side while balancing as much as we can on the unrestricted side. That after this year, we have two projected years of not deficit spending. Uh that means folks that we all are breathing a little easier. I know that my team is uh we've worked really hard on this and that's means all of you should and the community should as well. Now, in that third year out, we see a pretty big uh deficit opening up, almost $35 billion. What's going on there? Uh well, that is again benefits. Uh so benefit costs are going to be significant because if you think about this, if this is a three-year projection and we hope that we are high, although we're we're booking the average of 10% a year, that means over the next three years, we're booking a 30% increase in in health benefits. And it's one of our s most significant costs besides salaries. So that's what causes that benefit. So or or that deficit. What can cause that to go down? Hopefully they come in at only a 7% increase or an 8% increase. And then you'll see a a an effect of what that does over the years. But that is really the main driver that you're seeing in that third year at this point. And that also, by the way, go back one more time though, Chris. I just want to point out this has all been done without touching the board's local reserve, which is the 8% that's in fund 17, which is listed separately up there as we've committed to. Okay. Okay, next slide please. Uh takeaways. Uh again, we don't have a self-certification. I think this is the third time we're saying it, but we are certifying as positive. That means that we are on track. Uh this is the first time that we can say this. We are now on track for the current and not plus two because we have three years projected out here for you. We are now on track

for the current plus three of being able to pay all of our bills, which covers the adoption period. So, we're just previewing for you that the adoption will be positive as well. And thank you for that. And I have of course our CFO NU and our newly uh permanently appointed uh executive director of budget Jennifer Schustster here to answer any specific questions that you might have uh about movement and budget. Thank you for this and also thank you for all of your collective work on getting us to a point where uh we are not technically self-certifying but we are kind of certifying with positive. Um I did have a question uh that I wrote in in the comments and I I think this uh might be better directed to Amy. Um, apologies for dragging you up. I mean, so the question was on slide seven, it captured 32.3 million of saving from savings from 334 FTE vacant positions. And I recognize that that is not something that position control could answer. But I am just curious. I mean, usually when I see that in budgets and sometimes that is the saving grace of a large organization's budget. And as someone who used to serve on the impact side of a large organization, I'd see that and I'd grimace because it meant that we were likely falling short potentially of our impact and what what we seek to do in terms of our mission. And so I'm just curious uh Miss Bear, hello. if if you can shed any light on the 334 FT vacant positions specifically. Were these intentional or due to hiring freezes or was there a pattern around there that we should be aware of?

Okay, I can shed a little bit of light on it for you. Right. Um so what are those positions? There's it's an amalgamation. Um, I believe that we said and and we will follow through. Uh, I I'm betting Daniel Munoz is somewhere behind me in the audience. He will send you a list of those positions that have been vacant, but they'll go all over. So, for example, uh, I have an internal auditor that we have been trying to hire for two years. By the way, we finally just found one. We're we're making an offer, too. Um, but it's been vacant. It's on the books. uh we've been trying to recruit for two years intensively since I've been here and we and we are finally filling it, but it's we're required to book it in the budget and it's vacant all year. We also do have a large number as you're all aware of special education positions that we have not been able to fill before, right? And we are required to then fill those using NP NPA uh non-public agency contracts uh which are far more expensive, but we still have the position booked. uh in the budget as required, right? Uh any any also partial FTE, so somebody that's left in the middle of the year. Um but when you get the list, you're going to see probably the greatest percentage is is special education, not just teachers, but PAR educators. Uh and then you're going to see just various and sunundry folks that we try to find and we just have a hard time finding them. So for example, uh a moment ago, one of my favorite staff members, uh Katie Puyle was just up here. Not that I have favorites, but uh Katie finally uh just agreed to and successfully interviewed for our head of operations, a position we have not been able to fill for two years. Uh so that appointment's coming to you at your next board meeting. Um so I've desperately been trying to fill positions that we've needed, but that's what all the vacancies are about. So of 9,000 employees, I don't know how many 334 is. You'd probably tell me pretty quickly, but uh that's that's pretty standard for a district this size. It's not alarmingly large. You will get the

list. We will send it to you. We will share it with Amy so that it's not a surprise, but we will we will shoot the list to you. Did I cover enough for that? Yeah. I want to add one thing that you you touched on which is actually a very low vacancy rate. Yeah. I think it's really important to emphasize when we have to backfill uh special education positions with NPA, we also have to keep those positions open on the books. So it's it's like we're double charged in some in you know throughout the year until the books are closed and reconciled at the end. But that's a really important distinction that we're required to keep those positions open.

Thank you for that. Um and is there any Amy? Is there anything you want to add uh with regard to general strategy around uh some of the uh some of the special ed uh vacancies? Sorry, I didn't mean this to be a put you on the spot. No, I mean I think that's probably a different topic. I mean I think that the vacancies, you know, that that number, yes, I think most of them are special education. Um, but about strategy and which specialized positions are easier to fill and and those sort of things, I think would be a different topic.

I would encourage you to bring that to RFI so we could answer it separately. just sending a request to staff to answer the question separately. We'll do. Um the only other question I had was you know you you spoke a lot about the benefits being the largest piece that's increasing that's increasing 10% a year. I'm curious, is that then covered? Will that be covered? Is that currently covered by QTA? And will that if should the voters um approve it in the future, will that will that cost increasing the annual increase be covered by uh that that QTA as well?

Uh yes and no. Short-term answer is yes. uh in 2028, QTA comes up for election again uh by the by the community as a parcel tax for 20 years. And we are also asking that that amount be increased because we know that benefits are already going to exceed the amount that we're going to yield in revenues that we have to to pay towards uh healthcare benefits for our UEE members. Um and so that should cover 100% of it maybe for a year or two before it again exceeds the amount that's being generated. So when you have something that increases year-over-year at that rate, uh it's not something that we can totally cover with QTA, but that is the the most significant portion that we're looking to cover.

Thanks. Um will will um CDE basically have concerns with our self-certification for the projected years out relying on an assumption that QTA passes or are we allowed to uh include that?

We put it in as our assumption which I'm sure you saw in the presentation. Uh however, do they have concerns? I I can't speak for them. I'm I'm sure their job just just like mine is to be conservative and concerned for the district's fiscal well-being. Their theirs is to be concerned, right? Uh we are assuming that it passes because San Francisco has a history of passing it uh not just that partial taxes, but all of our partial taxes, all of our special requests, including bonds, uh at a much higher percentage than is required by law. And so we think it's a relatively safe assumption. When we create an assumption, we are supposed to create it based on reasonability. A lovely fiscal madeup word uh reasonability. And so uh given the history, we think that that is a reasonable assumption uh that is supported by the data and the history.

Thanks.

Um this is very exciting news and I want to say a big thank you to Chris and Nu and the whole team for um for everything you've done. I mean it's it just having been on the board uh for the time that I have this is revolutionary change in terms of how we do our finances and it's and it's really significant. So thank you. Um so I want to ask a maybe challenging question although you all are good at asking answering challenging questions. So I think the the the one thing that struck me about this and I actually got this question from a number of educators was a sense that um you know we just had a strike and um so I had educators kind of asking me like wait why did we have to go on strike to force the district to give us these raises when we actually had plenty of money for the raises in the first place? You know what I mean? So, like it was kind of this reaction of like, well, if we we're going to end up with surpluses, we didn't even have to touch our reserve. And so, then I was looking back at the numbers and it does seem like there was a pattern this year where we especially in the 4,000s and 5,000s, which is supplies and services. There were these big reductions that are indicated in this presentation, but but the original budget was close to what we're now predict projecting to spend, right? So it was so in June of last year like in the 400s we were budgeted at 46 million. At first interim we bumped that budget up to 66 million and now it's back down to 42 million. Right. And in the 5,000 services category we were at 219 million in the June budget. First interim went up to 297 million and now we're back down to 250 million which is an increase from the budget but not as much. So, so in other words, in December and then throughout the time leading up to the strike, we thought we had no money because we had increased those budgets dramatically during the year and now we're saying we actually had all

this money. So, I just, you know, because again, this is a question I've been getting. So, why did we increase them so much midyear and then decrease them? Does that make sense?

Yeah. So, couple things. Uh so first of all uh uh Jennifer was here for budget adoption. So I can't say none of us were here for budget adoption. Uh but in going back over the budget to actuals it's it's a and I'm not just driving that point home for myself uh because I won't always be here but all of you need to remember that is actually the key thing to pay attention to in finance. Right. The district has long been overbudgeting because there's a posity mindset in the district. It's not unusual for a school district to have a culture of there's not enough. So, you ask for as much as you can get and then you don't spend it all and that's just a poor way of budgeting, right? Uh I saw that immediately. I presented it very transparently to the board and I said, "We have to get rid of that." And actually, it was the uh strike and the raises when I saw the impact on the budget. Um I actually had a conversation with Maria and I said, "I I can't keep waiting. we're trying to do it in as gentle as possible of a way to say, "Listen, you aren't spending the money. We aren't going to give you it all to you." And I said, "We can't wait anymore." Um because we have to pay for these raises. So instead of trying to sort of cajul, hey, we're giving you a,000. You're only spending 700, but but it's my thousand. I'm going to spend it next year, I swear. We aren't having that conversation anymore, right? We just are saying, no, you've only spent 700. You're only getting 700, Matt. So that's that it's it's become just a much more direct conversation and that's how we're budgeting now as well. We're budgeting at what people are actually spending. Now the other thing that you're seeing here is we've developed um I don't want to go too deep into the weeds. We've developed predictable enough mathematical formulas that I can tell you with a deal of accuracy at how much people are not going to spend even if I didn't reduce their budget. It's a really really weird accounting thing. I just said in a very awkward way. So, not only am I taking that $30

back and not budgeting it for you, but I'm also noticing that you're not spending you're actually only spending 64. You're not spending 70, but I'm letting you keep the 70. But in the budget, I'm predicting that you're only going to still spend 64, right? And so, I'm able to bake that into the accounting, which balances out smooths that sort of trend. and we can actually book that as a as a good trend analysis to see what what what's actually going on with the budget. I don't know if you guys want to say anything more about that. We've really taught the the budgeting department. Now, that also puts danger in there. I'm going to say there's a little volatility in there. That means that when somebody bucks my trend, which people buck my trend sometimes, then we might have a deficit in a year that I didn't plan for it.

No. And I love all that. That sounds amazing. And it's like again the kind of stuff I was referring to when I was being complimentary earlier. I think that's the kind of work that we really have needed and and it's fantastic. I guess I was more asking about the increases at first interim because it we went up by a lot at first interim were those requests coming from departments or so why why was and are we going to let that happen next year? I guess that's my my concern is in December at first interim we always get inflated numbers and then then they turn out to not be true. So I guess that's what I'm trying to understand. Does that make sense?

Um, all right. Good evening. Great question. So, I do want to note I want to thank Chris and Nu for introducing really revolutionary budgeting best practices. So, um I will admit our adopted budget did not reflect those practices and so that accounts for some of the changes that you've seen. Also, if you take a look at the uh form one and this form, you're going to see that there's the first section is our unrestricted general fund and you're actually not going to see big increases from adopted first to second to third interim in our objects fours and 5000s. You're really going to see that on the restricted side largely due to multi-year grants and carryover. So once the books close really we we want to get those final numbers and then we have to go through a budgeting process. What is your spending plan? So that that's one of the reasons that you will see that bigger increase on the restricted side. But so this year they went up like in the take the 500s they went up by like I don't know well I don't have the I have the totals I don't have the unrestricted but the total was 219 million budgeted by first interim went up to 297 million and now we're back down to 250 million. So there was like a huge increase in the budget between June and December and now we're back down and a similar trend with that's so I was just trying to understand and if it's and it's okay I don't want to keep asking the same question but I guess I just what I I feel like we've gotten so much better at the budget to actual stuff but that was the the sort of outlier in my view is is this bump up and bump down and that's what and like I said people were asking me with this kind of suspicious sort of like well is Were they trying to hide money? All this I'm really trying to get an explanation to to clarify why it why it happened so

that folks don't feel suspicious.

You've got to remember that there's multiple things happening at once. Right. So, one of the things that you're actually putting your finger on, do you remember the big expense that came in first interim that no one seemed to know about? It was a $30 million increase in our transportation budget, special education, because they had only partially budgeted the contract, thinking that it looked looked less bad to only budget part of the year and and not book the total costs. And so we we actually pointed that out at first interim that cost has actually come through. However, we've reduced all of the underspend on the unrestricted side as well as the other restricted areas. So even though one cost goes up, if we can bring the rest of them down more, it still looks like an overall decrease. Does that make sense? So, but we cannot say and we won't we won't say, by the way, just because we're reducing budgets to spend when an unexpected cost comes in, we can't say, well, we're not going to pay it, right? We had to account for it, we had to pay for it, and now we're taking back the underspend from people that didn't spend. But we did spend that extra $30 million in transportation this year. So, so it's not even it's not like it's only one banking account we're doing. We're balancing thousands of banking accounts over the all of the district, right? Um that happens to be a significant one that I'm sure we can all remember. Um and that cost did come through. Uh we did spend another $30 million on on special education transportation that was under budgeted, but everybody else underspent enough that we could make it up and take it back out of the aggregate, if that makes sense. Yeah,

this is really helpful and I hope it's I know it's late but I appreciate my colleagues for indulging the questions and and just look forward to continue to me this is so helpful to be able to then be transparent around the kind of questions that come up and to be able to say okay this is what's going on. So, thank you for taking the time to answer. Um, this is not the question to ask it after midnight, but um, I I guess I wanted to know whether it would be helpful for folks for us to keep the budget study session on, but to have it on actually like the preparation of the budget and how um, investments are being made to and targeted to achieve achieve our student outcome goals and meet our guard rails and fulfill the equity commitments that we've made because I know there have been multiple um board meetings where various commissioners have said, you know, we want to make sure that we as a board are really understanding how we're spending our money in alignment with um targeted investments to achieve our goals and whether that would be worth having a study session on to prep us for budget adoption. They're they're similar but not the same thing. Right. So what the commissioners talk about when they talk about that and I've I've heard you talk about that before is that we have to align the budget with the LCAP. So what you're discussing is actually needs to be described and called out in the LCAP which we then fund and then we track the expenses over the years or or the many years. But when you're talking to the the budget the numbers side of the house which is what we are we're I guess just being counters still. Um, we don't assign it that way, but we do take the LCAP, translate it into account codes, and track it. So, that should be showing up in the LCAP as far as the district's priorities, which we then track throughout the year and make sure that

those priorities are funded. I hope we bring that conversation to Thursday's agenda review meeting and we can decide whether or not Wednesday is still applicable. And we are happy to still do Wednesday if there's something that's helpful from the the fiscal side of things. Thank you. Are there any questions that will impact the outcome of your decision? Yes, Commissioner Fischer.

Thank you. I I agree. I'm in full agreement that um this is very very positive news. Um I do want to raise the um some of the issues that our spedc raised in public comment though um and specifically um their request to the finance department to provide a detailed explanation of the special education contributions, budget assumptions and how these figures align with the reported under spending. Um, and I think the, uh, speaking as a parent of a child with an IEP, like we've had significant gaps in reporting over the past couple years, and this is a, you know, we have u, this is not a conversation like Vice President Heling said to have after midnight, but um,

do we need to have it then? Yes. Oh, we do. Okay.

We do. No, I mean like really like if if this interim budget like if we're not meeting our um our obligations to sped then absolutely. Right. So um I'm so I'm not asking for answers tonight in that vein, but I am like we do absolutely need a full accounting. Um and then the other thing that I will continue to ask for um is uh I've mentioned this a couple times. We used to get a list of contracts and our current year-to- date spend on contracts on the consent agenda. There was just a PDF of the Excel sheet. That's been gone for, you know, and I think that's another transparency uh mechanism that could help I think um reconcile some of this for folks.

Yeah. So, we can address it actually. Uh so, uh until you I I guess it was you that put that in the question. um no one's asked us for it and in the new system it's it's not as easy to get. So we're trying to develop something. Uh it's not an unreasonable request but we need time now that we have the request to to develop something in the new system. Um on the special education so uh so I know uh Hava was here earlier tonight. Um if you talk to her on the side, she will tell you that budget is now present at all CAC meetings. Um and that they have gotten budget to actual reports for the first time in seven years that they've been asking for it as well as getting a deep dive into the budget which they've thanked us for. Now the thing that you're seeing that's different, let me give you a quick summary of of those meetings really quickly. uh they have noted that the budget that's been put in the budget is far greater than what they've been recommending and but their actual spend is far lower than what they've been recommending. So that bears conversation, but at this point there's nothing funny going on. It's that people are overbudgeting, right? And all the expenses are still being paid for. And I want to be clear, it's um thank you for that and thank you for the work of joining the Spedk in their um executive board meetings. We have a lack of trust because of previous lack of transparency. So I think that's where the work you're doing is so very important. So thank you. Um and needs to continue and should not continue at 12:09 p.m. Right.

Any other questions? My one question was around do we still operate with a cost reimbursement model? Uh that's that's a a a maybe. So there's two types of accounting. There's acrruel, right? And you're talking about an acrruel accounting for some some types of grants that we have to spend the money first and then we get it back at the cost base. Right? So depends upon the fund source on the restricted side, but some of them are are done that way. All right. Because then my question was going to be is there any concern that in these next two months we actually will need to reimburse to a scale that will actually

um no we are in fund 12 having to return um between five and $6 million. Um but we are putting controls in place. Uh I don't like giving money back. Um I hope that doesn't sound terrible but uh that will not happen again. Um, and we are taking folks into our shop to make sure that they're doing their budgeting and accounting correctly. Great. Thank you. Um, okay. Debate is now closed on the motion to approve 26512SP1. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Hume, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward,

yes. President Kim. Yes. Thank you. Seven eyes. Thank you very much. Budget team, finance team, finance budget, budget finance team. Money people. Thank you, money people. Um, moving to item H, uh, 2265-12 SP2, legislative overview, consideration, and action of district position on selected legislative proposals. Can I have a motion in a second? Oh, wait. Is this this is an action? Yeah. Is there a motion in a second? So moved. seconded. This item is properly moved and seconded to approve 265-12SP2. Call the superintendent uh to bring these items forward.

Uh thank you, President Kim. Is are members of capital. Okay, perfect. Um so we have members of capital advisors um online. Yes. Um who will walk us through some key uh legislation. bills that we should be tracking. Yes. Can I just actually propose if commissioners have had an opportunity to read the the materials if we can just skip right to questions and answer any questions that might have that we have if that's okay. Capital advisors, I want to respect your time. We're very happy to do that. Absolutely.

We given the late hour. Absolutely.

Thank you, Commissioner Fischer. Um, I'd like to amend the report actually to move AB1861 from the recommend watch to the recommend support list. It was um something that in the report capital advisor said they didn't see any problem with it. It would just require a motion here today. So, um um that's about I think sped compliance and a dashboard if I remember correctly. Can can you just reread what it is and explain what why and what why you would make just so we understand the purpose of the amendment special education public complaint database. Um so it's it's on the it's on the recommend watch list now and I'm requesting moving it to the support. It's a um it's a transparency issue just to make sure that um uh districts are tracking complaints, special education complaints. I think for us it would be a great mechanism to allow us to do some corrective action in a more um consistent way and I think it would be really helpful.

Is this uh a requirement on CDE or is this a requirement on LEAs or county offices of education? Hi, this is Kathy. Kathy, you could provide an overview of the bill.

Sure. So, this is Kathy McBride with Capital Advisors. Thanks for having us uh joined tonight or I guess this morning uh with my colleague Nick Romley. Um so, this bill we initially just put on the watch list because there was some concerns about um student data. The bill has been amended coming out of Assembly Education and the requirement is on the California Department of Education to create or contact contract to create a publicly available online aggregate database of complaints uh alleging IDA IDEIDA violations uh by January 1st, 2030. And this would be for all complaints that CDE receives on or after July 1st, 2027. I think you're going to need to motion to amend. Yes. And someone will need to second.

Second. Okay. So, if we can do a roll call vote, please on that amendment. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. President Kim, yes. Thank you all. Going to other items. Any questions? Correct. I'm just This is why I said going to other items. Seeing none, uh, debate is now closed on the motion to approve 265-12SP2 with the amendment that was just recently approved. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Alexander,

yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward, yes. President Kim, yes. Thank you, Capital Advisors. Thank you, Hungay. May I um President Kim?

Yes. Um, just to say thank you to Kathy and Nick and capital adviserss for their very deep engagement this year as we engaged in also budget advocacy in the capital and the advocacy that board leadership has done in engaging other leadership um in the Bay Area uh around our budget. Um, but also I I wanted to um give a shout out and thank um Julia Martin, our special education ombbuds, SULPA and the special education CAC for consulting with us um on this recommended list that the board adopted. So, thank you. Thank you very much. And yes, thank you Hungay. Thank you capital adviserss for all your partnership and support with the board work as well. Thank you.

Kathy, we have to update you on student delegate Cruz's exciting college decision later. Oh, I can't wait to hear about it. Thanks. If you were listening since 6 p.m., you would hear, but um I know they left at Thank you very much for Thank you. Moving to item three, executive employment contracts for district executive employees. Item 265-12SP3. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. It's been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Um Miss Bear,

good evening. Uh after two very successful searches, I am pleased to recommend uh executive contracts. One for my successor, the associate superintendent of HR, uh James Herell, and one for the deputy uh superintendent of ed services, and that's John Davis. I just have a quick question. the I noticed on the on the salary table there's a grade nine. Is that new and why is it labeled soup?

So the grade nine it's it's the NTR stands for non-table rate and that is the deputy. So this is the revised salary schedule and I'll make sure that it says deputy and not sue. Got it. Okay. Um, so it's basically just because there was a contract at that amount. Exactly. It's not that it was So Okay. Yeah. It's it's a non-table rate. So it really I see. I see. Yeah, that's what that means. Got it. Thank you. Seeing no other comments or questions from the board. Uh, debate is now closed on the motion to approve to both.

Is there a requirement to read the elements of the contract into the record? the other the length and the but the length. Oh, we do. Okay. Read that into the record. Oh, sorry. I thought you were doing this.

Uh the so the contract for the associate superintendent of human resources uh would be grade Excuse me. Sorry. It's grade grade grade eight. Um and uh I believe it's step five for a salary of $270,865.64. It's a two-year contract with a six-month buyout. The deputy superintendent is a salary of $340,752.85. 85 a two-year contract also with a six-month buyout.

Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. President Kim, yes. Thank you and congratulations, Amy and team. Thank you. Thank you for all your work. But you're not leaving yet. Last item 265-12 SP4, approval of PIPS and waiverss. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Uh it's been properly moved and seconded that the board approves this item. Call the superintendent or Miss Bar.

Um I just have one waiver uh for the board's approval and this is to allow a junior ROC teacher to teach at Mission High School. Thank you. Debate is now close on the item to on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. President Kim, yes.

Thank you. President Kim had a standing recusal from the consent calendar due to his employment with the city and county of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SFUSD in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict. Um, before we move the consent calendar, superintendent, are there any uh changes to the consent calendar? Yes, I need to pull a uh an am a contract from item 17, partners in school innovation.

Thank you. With that uh change, uh I move the approval of the consent calendar. Is there a second? Second. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Mr. Armen Trap. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing. Yes. Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward. Yes.

President. Now I'd like to give a very long report on membership organizations. No, we're done. Um, no, no member reports. Correct. Excellent. Um, I adjourn this meeting at 12:21 12:22 a.m. on Wednesday, May 13th.