San Francisco Unified School District Board - Regular Meeting

The regular meeting of the board of education for March 10th, 2026 is now called to order at 5:02 p.m. Roll call, please. Commissioner Ray here. Commissioner Alexander here. Vice President Healing here. President Kim here. Commissioner Weissman Ward here. Commissioner Gup Gupta. Commissioner Fischer here.

Six present. SFUD will provide child care for regular board meetings and monitoring meetings in the first floor in the enrollment center at 555 Franklin Street from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. or the close of the meeting whichever comes first. Childcare is for families who will be attending the regular monitoring board meeting. Space is limited and will be provided on a first come first- serve basis for children ages 3 to 10. For questions, please contact the board office at 415241-6427 or board office at sfuc.edu. At this time, before the board goes into close session, I call for any speakers to the close session items listed in the agenda. There will be a total of five minutes for speakers. Are there any speakers for public comment? No.

I now resuscit this meeting at 5:04 p.m.

interpretation services in Spanish and Cantonese. If you need interpretation, please dial the following phone number. After dialing, please introduce a PIN number. This message will be repeated in Spanish and Cantonese. San Francisco, please. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, without objection, I would like to reorder the agenda by moving section C after section D so we can hear from the public first. Any objections? Thank you, commissioners. Sorry for that oversight. Apologies for that, miss. Um, I will also just name uh depending on the timing of this meeting, um, we may reconvene into close session. I will make that determination at the end of our meeting. Uh, just depending on the timing of it all. Okay. Um, item D, which is now C, public comment. Hello and welcome to members of the public for the regular meeting of the board of education of the San Francisco Unified School District. Our public comment period lasts for 1 hour. Uh, please also note that these clocks are off. Um, so today, right now it's 6:41. We'll say until 7:45 p.m. We look forward to hearing from the public before we conduct board business. Our goal is to conduct board business 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've asked Mr. Trujillo 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 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 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 at ed 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 say 15 minutes for remote public comment or

7:30 p.m. taking commenters in the same order as in person. To members of the public, on your 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. Trio.

Thank you, President Kim. We'll start with students. Uh, students, please line up to the right as I call your name. Yeah, to the left. Valeria Sequoia Camila Martinez.

I'm sorry. Hello. Oh, hi. Good evening, members of the Oh, do I start? Oh, sorry. Good even I can't reach it. I'm so sorry. I'm very nervous to do this. Um, good evening members of the board of education. My name is Valeria. I'm a fifth grader student in Guadalupe Elementary School. I love my school and my community. Guadalupe is a place where many where many students learn, feel safe, and support each other. I am here today because some decisions being made will affect our school and our our school and our students. First, the springboard summer program was not approved for Guadalupe even though our school worked with facilities to find a way to run it in the in the bungalows during construction. This program helps many students continue learning and reading during the summer. Second, Spanish TK was not approved even though our school was has a strong bilingual program that supports many families in our community. At the same time, the district continues to bust students from our from our neighborhood to schools on the west side while our school is losing enrollment. I asking you to please listen to our community and support Guadalupe students and families. Thank you for your time. My name is Sequoa and I know how students learn with Springboard cuz I was one of those students. I am here today to respectfully ask you to stop providing springboard to my soul to my schoolmates who truly need the support to succeed in their reading skills. Learning how to read by understanding

phonics is irreplaceable. When students build strong foundations in reading, they gain confidence and the ability to succeed in every subject. I also want to ask the district to provide a Spanish-speaking TK teacher. Our youngest Spanish speaking students need this support so they can be fully prepared from the very beginning of their education. And please stop busing our community students away in the name of the l of language programs. Instead, bring those languages pro language programs to Guadalupe so students can learn in their own community close to their families and their school. Our children deserve to strong literacy instruction, language support, and the opportunity to learn where they belong in their own neighborhood school. Thank you. Spring West Portal. Master

Hi, my name is Camila and I want to know how it's possible that we don't have money to pay for springboard, but we have $6 million to pay for kids to go to West Portal when the needs at our school at our school are much greater. How many more times do we need to come here and speak so that you'll listen to us? My classmates and my school need this program. We'll move to adult members of the public now. Please line up as I call your name. Um, Miss Curry, Geneva Curry, Raj Sharma, Jenny Garcia, Ismael Garcia, Renee Gomez. Okay, this is my third time advocating before all of you, but not my third time meeting individually with many faces in this room. And I just want to express before you that this community at Guadalupe is close to my heart, but I'm also part of that community. I am feeling very dismayed by the lack of support to our community, but I'm here to reiterate the concerns that bring me back to the table with the hope to be here and be seen. For more than 25 years, the yellow bus paid by the district with the cost of $6

million has and I am a taxpayer has been busing an approximately 50 students from our neighborhood to the west side. As if this wasn't enough, the same students that go to another school come and use our after school programs. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Oh,

okay. More dismay. President Kim. Uh oh, I grabbed the wrong pile. I'm I called the non-aggenda item first. Uh let me go to agenda item uh first. Yeah. Okay. Very good. No, your your time is up. So, we'll go to the next speaker. Sorry. Uh good evening BOE members. Uh my name is Raj Sharma and I'm the proud principal of Galipa Elementary. Uh every morning I stand up at our school gate and see more than students. I see hope. Families who believe their children belong. Teachers who work tirelessly and community that refuses to that refuses to give up. When construction came, we found a solution so a springboard could continue in our bungalows. Our student need that summer breeze for literacy but answer was no. We asked for Spanish TK to ask youngest learner could begin their journey in two languages but answer was no. At the same time buses continue to take children from the our neighborhood to schools across the city while our classroom grows quieter and our community kept working. Even our families experienced ice rates separation. We built belonging. Chronic absent chronic absentism had dropped. Early literacy improved. And our third graders showed the highest literacy growth in the district. Our teacher did the work. Our family did the work. Our student did the work. Tonight I ask you please see Galupe hear our community and support the future of the students.

Hello. My name is Jenny. Um hello. Good afternoon. And I have a daughter. Um she is currently in PK in A Gualupe Elementary. I'm here to advocate for a Spanish TK program because my daughter's classes in English. My daughter is struggling to meet her learning goals. It is a shame to cut a program that will only help students that have a disadvantage in learning because their language is in Spanish. It is unfair that there is an Englishonly TK at Guadalupe but not a Spanish bilingual TK. A large majority of the students at Guadalupe come from a home that speaks Spanish. The students in the English kindergarten are more prepared than the Spanish bilingual kindergarten because the Englishonly speaking kindergarten were able to attend a TK in their native language. We have the population as we have over 60 students in our preschool program in Spanish. We also have a Spanish bilingual teacher who has many years teaching TK and is willing to teach uh Spanish bilingual TK. Thank you for hearing.

Hello. Good afternoon. Um I'm Isel Garcia. This is U. I'm here on behalf of Guadalupe Elementary School. I want to say that it's very unfair for their for them to cut, you know, Spanish TK next year. My daughter is apparently struggling because of, you know, the language barrier. Um, I believe we do have a Spanish speaking TK teacher at our school and it would be nice if you guys would support us. Thank you very much. Do I have to bring it? No. Um, okay. Good evening. Um, my name is Rene Gomez. I'm a parent of a child from Guadalupe Elementary. We are here to support our school and our community with the education that our our children deserve and families. It's our right. Here's our taxes. We keep asking for help as a multicultural community. We need Spanish ticket springboard. We need our teachers also. Please stop the bus. We don't want it. We don't need it. And bring I really back. Don't cut more programs. It's been very helpful for our kids. We the parents and teachers have seen big progress. California one of the most powerful states. Why can we be a top 10 in education? Why not being ambitious for the future of our children's? Thank you. Please line up as I call your name. Roberto Rivera, Corey Robinson,

Lenanishia Coleman, Kale Woodward, Courtney Height, is Roberto Maria Lupe, a California school dashboard. standards. My name is Roberto Guzman Garcia and I have three kids at Guadalupe Elementary School. This California school dashboard is very clear about where our students stand in English language arts. Latino students are 78.6% below standard. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students 42.4 4 below standard. Students with disabilities 110 below standards African-American students 107 below standard. These are not just statistics. They are our children.

Educas. And if we're honest, there is one reason for these numbers being so low. Because too often this district fails to support the communities that need it the most. Guadalupe Elementary is a clear example. For the past three years, our community has worked hard to advocate for our students, especially special ed services, literacy, and keeping our children in their own community to learn instead of busing them in the name of language programs. And during these years, we have seen real progress. particip. Fore personal. Well,

we have strengthened our students sense of belonging, reduced chronic absenteeism, and increased literacy engagement among families and students. Our community has done the work, but every year we find ourselves back again before the board asking for the same basic supports time and again. And then we if we're honest, it's starting to feel personal. ready. This year, the district removed Guadalupe bilingual speech therapist and replaced them with a monolingual provider, reducing the access for Spanish-sp speakaking students. This year, the district removed I Ready, the learning platform that was helping students improve in literacy right before the winter break and without notifying the families beforehand. Supreme Latinos.

and now the district is denying our families access to spring the springboard program which helps students with their learning gaps. So I ask why does it feel like every time our community starts to make progress something is taken away? Why does the district make it harder for lowincome Latino communities to access the very supports that have helped their children succeed? Our students deserve stability. Our families deserve respect. And our community deserves the opportunity to keep improving. Thank you.

Hello, Dr. Sue, members of the board. My name is Corey Robinson. I am the proud community schools coordinator of Guadalupe Elementary School. Many of us have met before many times within the context of listening sessions, family meetings, and here in the same brew where our community members have pleaded for years that the needs of our building be met. Given that fact, I was extremely dismayed to learn that you have reneggged on your decision to discontinue the busing route that transports many of our local students to Westside schools. I'm disappointed and frustrated because this district preaches equity when in reality with this decision it is clearly willing to finance segregation amongst our schools. The dive investment of resources from our most vulnerable populations. While school choice seems equitable on the surface and supposedly enriches the diversity of school communities. It ignores several truths. That not all families have the means to navigate the system, especially our historically disenfranchised. that the busing of students further drains the enrollment capabilities and resources of already struggling institutions and that busing and choice actually at least in its current implementation separates the inherent diversity and cultural wellspring already present within our neighborhoods the likes of which can assuredly flourish in our local schools

commissioner Gupta when we spoke last year you students could flourish where they are believeing the bus can be a critical investment in this future please reconsider your decision Yeah. Okay. Good evening board and Dr. Maria Sue. Um I um am funding my daughter's online tutor through my healthcare funded pockets. And um I just wanted to bring to you guys attention that Rosa Parks and Raphael well is one of the most diverse schools with students engaged in four distinct academic programs. Early education, special day classes, Japanese bilingual bicultural program and STEAM. The district mandates these programs but requires schools to use discretionary funds to fund them. The structural lack of support means we do not have the discretionary funds to cover our assist essential assistant principal and RSP positions. Our programs deserve instructional and administrative support to match their mandates. The number of our students with learning disabilities and IEPs is growing. The district is legally mandated to provide additional PAR educator support. So I say this to say that we need advocacy. Um, my kid is um, scoring below level and she's actually reading very well. So, look into that.

Hello. Uh, my name is Courtney Height and uh, my son is in kindergarten at Rosa Parks and I have another kiddo that will be there in TK next year. Um, Rosa Parks is uh, an example of what a public school should be. Um, as mentioned, it's extremely diverse, one of the most diverse in the in the city. Um, we also have one of the highest IEP rates in the city. Um, almost a third of our students have an IEP. It's very high. Um, and so we need the support to actually be able to support those kids, for our staff, for our teachers, for the families. Um, my kindergarter does not currently need those supports, but many kids in his class do, and he may one day need that. Um, so we are we have come as a community, and we are requesting uh a full-time assistant principal because that's the person that, you know, does all the IEP meetings. Um, we need two full-time RSP teachers and three RSP paras. And that will help us make sure all of our kids can succeed um and also meet our legal mandate. Thank you.

Good evening. Uh, I'm Kyle Woodward. I'm a parent of a first and fourth graders at Rosa Parks. I'm not going to say anything that Courtney and Denanisha didn't already say. Uh, we need full funding for our assistant principal and RSP support staff. Uh we've got one of the largest IEP populations in the district and full-time support staff are essential to their success. Uh we've seen in the past what happens when we lose our AP, when we lose our RSPs and the answer is truency skyrockets, academic performance craters and our entire school community suffers. Uh, SFUSD expects our school to cover these positions with discretionary funds. But these funds are already dedicated to other programs that the district has installed but is not funding, including, for example, our Japanese and steam programs. We need dedicated funding for the support staff necessary for our students to succeed. So, we're going to ask that you please give us an AP. Thank you.

Please line up as I call your name. Audrey Norton, Melanie Gilbert, Kathy O'urn, Michelle Jack, Kyomi Taketa.

Okay, testing. Oh, yeah. This thing's on. Um, I am a PAR educator at Francisco Middle School, and I understand that this is a very difficult time for the district in terms of their budgeting, but they're finding excuses. I am dealing with budget cuts in SFUSD which adversely could affect my position as well as other positions. Um, educators and staffs and staff are adversely affected as are families and most importantly students. They are all essentially pawns in a very complex game of chess. Budget cuts always create more problems than they solve. When budgets are cut, students lose access to programs that help them meet their needs. They lose staff who build trust and bonds with students and their families. The remaining staff are stretched beyond capacity, and the schools can't operate the way that they're expected to. The district advocates for safe, stable, and fully staffed schools, but relies on damage control and financial repacity. The cycle keeps on repeating itself and is long overdue to break. Good evening. Uh this is my first board meeting, so um I'm a little nervous, but I'm a parent of a kid at Rosa Parks Elementary, and I love the school. The community is amazing. It has the Raphael Wheel um preschool as well. And I just don't understand, I just learned. And I don't understand why we have two schools on site, but we just have one administrator to do all of the IEPs and then our school has is in like the top 10 of schools uh with number of IEPs, kids with IEPs. And uh as an aiologist, I've attended IEPs. It's really important to have an administrator there who can support the parents and the family. And I just don't understand that. And I was hoping uh that we could

fund a full position assistant principal at Rosa Parks. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Kathy O'Burn, a power educator from Baloa High School. I'm here tonight to speak in opposition to the consolidation of a special day class uh room 141 at Baloa High School. We are very upset and disappointed with SFUSD's decision and our SDC students will lose their teacher again for the fourth time and the power educators they that they have built a good relationship with over the last three years. This will cause more anxiety and instability for our already extremely high needs students. I have been a parro in room 141 for the 20 plus years and now ha and have seen how the classroom has gone through many many teachers since I began in 2006. The first six years I was in room 154. Uh there was one teacher and the same four par educated same four par educators. Over the next 14 years there have been many emergency teachers inexperienced. Is that kid? Try again. There we go. I'm Michelle Jacques. I am a community school coordinator at Grten PK to5 School where I support special education students, families, and staff. And I'm a proud member of SEIU. I'm here tonight to remind the district and the board that we are still in contract to negotiations with the district and have been for the entire school year. Our union represents custodians, nutrition workers, clerks, and community school coordinators and we have been working all year without a

contract and we are getting impatient and schools don't run very well without us. I'm here to urge the district to please prioritize our contract resolution. We deserve no less. Our members recently stood in solidarity with teachers and para educators on picket lines and in the streets and I will re repeat their refrain. We can't wait. I also urge you to fully fund and staff special education. This is you talk about being student- centered and equitydriven. There is no better place to focus on than special education right now, especially SDC classrooms. Thank you.

Good evening, Dr. Sue and and board members. Thank you so much for having us. Uh my name is Kiomit Taeta and I am a proud parent at Rosa Parks Elementary School. We are truly the most diverse elementary school here in SFUSD and we are so proud and we embrace all of our students. Um we are home to four different pathways including our special education, our steam, and our Japanese bilingual bicultural program. Each of these programs make our school um incredible. They instill culture values and help our students thrive and succeed. But we're at a crossroads at our school because we're needing to make difficult decisions about the sustainability of our programs because of the lack of fundamental support for our teachers and students and especially those who have IEPs. Uh we are currently in in desperate need of a full-time assistant principal, two RSB teachers and RSB pareducators to help all of our students be able to learn and thrive. It is impossible for our programs to continue when our staff and students don't have the fundamental support that they need. Helping all of our students, especially those with IEPs, helps all of our students thrive. Thank you.

Please line up as I call your name. Andre Spearman, Patricia Bolan, Rory Abernathy. testing. Good evening, board members. My name is Andre Spearman. I'm with SEIU 10 to1. Uh we know what thriving schools look like, safe campuses, manageable workloads, and staff who earn livable wages. Stability for workers is also stability for students. You cannot have thriving classrooms without classified professionals. Let me say it again. You cannot have thriving classroom without thriving professionals. To be in contract negotiations for a year, that means that they could have a baby and be on the way for another pregnancy for those who choose to have a family. How long does it take for you to decide that you are going to come to the table and really truly negotiate and provide workers with the stability so they continue to provide that high quality of service that allow you as a district to recruit and retract and deal with declining enrollment. Thriving students, thriving workers. Hello, my name is Patricia Bolan and I am a parent at Rosa Parks. I have a first grader and a future kindergarten coming in in a couple years and I appreciate that the school district is demonstrating long-term investment in the building infrastructure of Rosa Parks Elementary School. um with the bond money, they will be modernizing the

buildings at Rosa Parks. So, it's concerning that there's not an equal investment in the long-term um support in the instructional administrative areas of Rosa Parks. Um, in order for Rosa Parks buildings to be able to support a learning environment, we need the staff and the administrative um, support through um, as other folks have mentioned, a full-time assistant principal, two RSP teachers, and three RSP paras due to the large um, number of kids with IEPs and to support all of our kids. Thank you. Hello, Rory Abernathy James Demon Middle School math teacher. I'm here to speak about the contract being ratified in support of that and also to get rid of all preliminary layoffs. I taught in Oakland for 13 years and one of the things I saw I said Oakland can fill your heart or it can break it because when there were not enough people you saw tragedy all the time and SFUSD is moving in that direction by cutting more staff. There was a recent incident in SFUSD. I can't go into detail because of confidentiality but I will say this. The child felt safe going to her school and people at that school made it safe. It wasn't the building. It was the people at that school. when and in the state of New York, they have reduced class sizes statewide because they know that children need more time with adults and more time with people. So when you cut people, when you do preliminary layoffs and you cut people, you put children at risk. This is life or death. And so I just want to emphasize that when you're considering these cuts, considering the safety of of all of our children at SFUSD. Thank you.

Please line up as I call your name. Mason Waller. Uh, oh my goodness. Dava Davini, sorry. Valerie Karp. Rory Abernathy. Thought you were right here. Josh Davidson. So others have shared details already that I'll echo, but I'll just name newcomer programs and special education as two. Uh what I do think needs saying tonight though is that you are stress testing this system and it may break. Others have said it in lots of ways, but the call to do more with less is literally the most consistent message we all students, teachers, families, staff get in this district. Do more with less. But you seem to have some kind of bizarre expectation that this formula will actually work, that it will get you the results that you want. I have serious doubts about this. But maybe even if it does though, it will be through the attention and imagination and care that students, families, teachers, and staff bring to the effort through their own resolve. And there's a dilemma in this kind of success. And that's in making it seem like getting some desirable results mean that what you are doing actually works or is somehow good. So the underlying truth of all this is that you seem to care far more about the results than you want that you want than about how miserable you make people along the way. Hi, my name is Deabaki Sri Krishna. I'm a parent of twins at Aptos Middle School and also at Electoral Nir. Uh I'm here to talk about those black boxes that are sitting on either corner of this room. They're um the the uh uh the board funded generously funded one of those

boxes for every classroom in uh San Francisco. Uh however that was in 2021 and in 2023 24 uh the state and federal governments upgraded our standards to uh much higher uh levels and those are now outdated completely outdated. So they provide about 150 CFM uh uh capacity when we what we really need is 750 CFM in every classroom. And there's a golden opportunity for the uh the problem is getting funding for this has been the biggest problem for the last three years. there's a golden opportunity on April 15th to apply for a uh EPA grant that might fund part or if not all of this. Uh so I urge the uh the board to uh to make sure this that we put in a grant a grant application.

Valerie Karp parents and UCSF cardiology manager breathing in wildfire smoke is bad. Cedar Sinai researchers recently presented unpublished data at the UCSF that showed last year's LA fires released eight times the amount of small particulate matter than the Twin Towers disaster. They showed marked increase for respiratory failure, heart attack and abnormal blood chemistry which actually remained abnormal at the 90day mark. Data shows that the CDC standard of six air changes per hour in classrooms will scrub the air of the wildfire smoke, but it will also scrub flu, COVID, RSV, whooping cough, TB, and more, which will decrease absences, increase test scores, and improve student outcomes. You can literally balance the budget with clean air. Thank you. Okay, I'm back. Okay. I was gifted clean boxes by Valerie and Shu and it has been life-changing. Students are more alert and awake and I personally have so much more energy at the end of the day as an educator. Lincoln, Commodore Slo, APG& and myself at Denman all have testimonials about clean air. During the Biden administration, there was virtually unlimited money for clean air in classrooms. Most California public school districts applied and used this money. San Francisco did not apply. The entire state of Michigan used the money to purchase clean boxes for every single public school in the state to meet the federal standard of five air changes per hour. Um try it is not too late for San Francisco. As the two previous speakers mentioned, the Environmental Protection Agency has a

grant that's due April 15, 2026. Let's not miss out. This is free money and um because clean air is bright minds and all students in San Francisco deserve clean air in the classrooms. Thank you.

Hi there. I'm Josh Davidson, SEIU 10 to1. Uh I'm also the chef for San Francisco Public Schools. I want to say that it's really necessary that we invest in our staff at this time. We've been in contract negotiations all year. Our contract expired June 30th of last year. It's time to get it done. Your team came to our last bargaining session with zero proposals. Nothing of any kind. It was disrespectful. It's time to get it closed. Meanwhile, my managers have asked me to increase my workload and my team's workload by 60% next year with no additional staff time. And not because they can't afford it, because it's cheaper for us to make the meals than it is for us to buy them from an outside vendor, but because we can't hire anybody to fill the need because we don't have a contract. Please get it fixed. Thank you. Please line up as I call your name. Reiko Ando Reatello Tiana Tiller Cassandra Kuriel.

What do I do? I hit this then. Okay. Hi, my name is Ray Ando. I'm the parent of a fourth grader at Rosa Parks Elementary School. I'm also a former SFUSD teacher who also has worked at Rosa Parks. Um and a lot of my children, my child's educators are my former colleagues who I um trust dearly. Um we saw our school site saw how catastrophic it was when we lost our assistant principal back during the 2223 school year. Um and as um a lot of the other um members of my community have already noted um we have a high um number of students with IEPs who need support from our administrator as well as from RSPs. Um we need a I mean right now we have a 0.5 AP. We need her to be full-time. We also need um RSP and um um Paris support at our school sites so that we can serve all schools. I mean, if we can serve all of our students. Thank you.

Good evening. Dateo here. Um, I'm here to ask you to please reverse those preliminary layoffs. We need as much staff support. I support everything that was said before me. Our students deserve the best education that they can get, and they can only get that if they have fully staffed programs. cutting the newcomer program by half. I don't think you understand that that means it's really cut whole. You can't half half of a program and serve a student. And what you're potentially doing, or what you actually are doing, is you're going to move kids through the system that can't read. You're going to move kids through the system that need mental health services. You're going to move kids through the system and graduate them out into the public without the safety net being imposed in the city. And so basically, you're creating a problem that we don't have yet or a growing problem that we that could get bigger. So I'm asking you please, you need to reverse those layoffs and you need to really intentionally go to the schools and understand what these positions actually do because they serve a whole lot more than what they look like on black and white. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Good evening, President Kim, Commissioners, Superintendent Dr. Sue, and to our community here. My name is Tiana Tiller, and I'm I'm angry. I'm frustrated. and I am disappointed. Um, tonight you are going to be considering sending preliminary layoff notices to early education instructional aids, elementary instructional aids, community relations specialists, including

elementary and student advisors, and our security, RT10s. But let's tell the truth about what's happening. We're continuing to attack the lowest paid workers of the district. The people who support our most vulnerable students, the people who break up fights, calm students down, help them read, help them write, and help them believe in themselves. The people who often live in the same communities as the children they serve. And yet, when it's time to make cuts, we're the first ones on the chopping block. I understand that schools are making decisions about uh what resources they think they need to support our students. But what is plainly clear is that many are overlooking the one most one of the most valuable resources standing right in front of them. PAR educators. I re I recently visited school sites um for PAR educator meetings and had the honor of sitting um sitting in on a professional development session at Dr. Charles Drew Academy. What I saw there was powerful parent educators learning and demonstrating how to provide small groupoup instruction and one-on-one support to students who are struggling. students who are desperately who desperately need more attention, more care, and more academic support. PAR educators are often uh are even running their own small group learning centers. They have well-developed lesson plans, site words prepared for literacy development, and interactive boards that help students stay engaged and excited about learning. These are not people simply assisting in the classroom. These are educators doing intentional, meaningful instruction, instructional work with our students. And yet the

district, oh, excuse me. Yet across the district, our PAR educators are not being utilized to their fullest potential. And far too often they are treated as though their work is less than. And what I want to say, oh, sorry. And I want to say something else tonight. I think the board needs to hear. This is now the fifth year in a row that I have stood at this podium saying the same thing. Uh each year we come here. Each year preliminary layoffs are um go out. Each year we fight to save the positions and each year many of those positions are restored and we thank you for that. But we also have to acknowledge the damage this cycle is causing. The constant threat of layoffs is creating pre preliminary notice fatigue among our pair of educators. Highly qualified, deeply committed educators are leaving our district because they cannot continue to live with the uncertainty of whether they have a job every spring. These are people our students trust. These are relationships that take years to build. And every time we lose one of these educators, our students lose something, too. During bargaining this year, the district finally agreed to correct a wrong that was um done to our security aids more than a decade ago. One hour had been taken from each security aid to prevent two female security aids from being laid off with the promise that the hour would be returned. And more than 10 years later, that hour has finally been restored. But at the very same time, we are correcting this wrong. 21 security aids are now facing preliminary layoffs. You cannot se celebrate correcting a wrong while creating a new one. Let me say this plainly. Our schools cannot function without par educators.

Balancing budgets by threatening the lowest paid workers in the district year after year is not leadership. It is not equity and it is not justice. So tonight I challenge you as I do every year. Um I challenge you to be brave. Be brave enough to vote no on these preliminary layoff notices for PAR educators. There has to be another way. Our students deserve stability. Our educators deserve dignity and job security. And we'll continue to say it loudly and clearly, not on the backs of our educators, not on the backs of our pared educators, not anymore. Thank you.

Hi folks, Cassandra Curiel, president of UESF. I was planning to come today to make sure that we were really clear on the fact that we achieved an agreement through hard work over four days trying to get to that end result and that that was going to go through. We're going to be able to make it through the budget season which is later than normal and go through our up and downs. Instead, I've got a whole list of problems to come forward that aren't even related to this but nonetheless part of the same ecosystem. And the reason that I come to the board is because you are in the for better or worse, how you take it position to not be in customer service but public service and be accountable and responsible for the outcomes of this issue. Many of the items on my list have been a problem in the past and look like they were up on the res on the resolution side of things. We were able to point to a crisis level at empower that it was a systems issue and able to implement a systems response. And at this point, I have a litany of issues that are impacting folks that aren't even related to the collective bargaining agreement that I wish I was up here talking about. Substitutes have been moved pay multiple times outside of the contract as a violation. And today, we got word that they weren't paid yesterday. We knew they didn't get paid yesterday. These are substitutes who have been covering in classes for the over close to two 300, but let's just go with a hundred classroom teacher vacancies, not including the classified who've been covering students classrooms, right? Are in front of students. A substitute does not get called if we don't have work to do with students. Those are folks who have been in schools working and who haven't been paid for those days, right? We have rent due on the first further tickets. All of our payroll

issues, we we as educators and those of us workers in schools, we are public employees. And so the basic assumption here is that we're getting paid for the work that we're doing. And then in the off chance, which has occurred in the past, let me put on a rational moment here. Errors can occur. there's sometimes a hiccup in the system or perhaps we put in for something or under we put in a correction in a ticket form and those aren't getting answered on a scale that is astronomical at this point considering that we resolved a systems issue. And when I've got a a classroom educator, a classroom member of ours who is a monthly salaried employee getting a $30 check, thousands and thousands of dollars below. This is a bigger issue. And let's recall the last time that this occurred, thousands of people didn't receive a check, right? We have moved to a box system that works in every other district. This cannot be the only one. It cannot. I refuse to believe that it cannot occur. Deductions are being made for SFA and HSA accounts that aren't being deposited into our issues. Our Calsters discrepancies, which is our state retirement pension system. This cannot be happening. And there is a level of indecisiveness that I hope gets resolved as a result of this meeting so that we can balance out what needs to happen for the rest of the school year. I heard a decision was made loud and clear. We clarified that that decision was made so that families and students could plan. Every time that there is education occurring in a classroom, an educator is working to make sure that that happens. But in order for us to deal with that calendar issue, we need decisions, not whatifs.

We have to manage this in a such a way that we can make sure we're evening out. We're a partner to this issue, not in response. When problems are solved one at a time instead of taking a systems level approach without having understanding that we're in an ecosystem. Teachers do not want to be working in classrooms where our janitorial fellow colleagues have not been working right. Everything is an ecosystem. We are all related. We need them to have a closed contract. We also need to make sure that we're all on board for the calendar. And whatever it gets done, we have to know about it. Instead of solving this issue one at a time, there will be a domino effect. And when we aren't treated as partners, then we grow into the type of problem that we all just experienced. It should not take 10 months to negotiate a contract. It should not take levels and levels of barriers. In order to be the solution, we have to take actions. and not taking an action is an action. We need answers. We need to be able to plan so that we can work with our students and families and get them ready and prepped up for next school year and then we'll do it all again because that's what we're committed to doing. Please, accountability requires responsibility. Take it. We will now move on to Zoom and we'll hear from students first. If you are a student, please raise your hand. If you'd like to speak, if you are a student and would like to speak, please raise your hand. Okay, we'll start with Jared Boyan. If you're a student, Miss Marshall, not yet. if you're a student.

Okay, I see no students. We'll go to members of the public. If you're a member of the public and would like to speak on Zoom, please raise your hand. We'll start with Anika Elrich. Go ahead, Ana. Can you hear us? Ana, okay, we'll come back to you. We'll go to parents for public schools. Go ahead and unmute. Hi, good evening. Can you hear me, Marty? I can hear you, doctor.

Okay, thank you. Hey guys, this is Dr. Vanessa Morero calling in. Thank you one um to the board for all the work you're doing. I know this is um mostly volunteer work and I'm going to just come to you with two questions. One is have you all done an impact assessment to decipher which programs or positions to consolidate? And if you have not done that, if staff hasn't done that, I think that's a good next step. The second is in San Francisco, the medium income is $128,000 to $146,000. Low income is considered $104,000. Our paras don't make a fraction of that. So how how can someone live on $30? That is not an error that is excusable. Okay. So th those are the two things I have to leave you with. Have a good night.

Thank you. We'll go back to uh Anika. Anka, can you unmute? Uh, we can't hear you if you're trying to speak. We'll go to the next person. Chris Claus. Go ahead and unmute.

I'm Chris Claus, the sped department head at Washington High School, and I was a member of the USF bargaining team. For nearly a year, SFUSD failed to listen and respond to the needs of students and educators districtwide. However, after a 4-day educator strike, we came to an agreement that will help so many educators to stay in the district, ease some of the overbearing workload on special educators, make our security guards whole, and help to enshrine real protections and supports for some of our most vulnerable students. I could go on and on with reasons to support this agreement, but my time is limited. I would like to thank Commissioner Alexander specifically for listening to and coming out during the demonstrations to support the educators and students of SFUSD. It is my sincere hope that SFUSD has learned to listen to students, families, and educators, and that such drastic measures need never be taken again. I also hope that the district is listening to the comments about the need to decline the layoffs. We need the support in our schools, pass the agreement, and vote no on layoffs because it is the right thing to do, and be ready to listen and respond as real collaborators when negotiations begin again in about a year. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go now to Jared Boy. Jared, go ahead and unmute.

Hello, members of the board. Superintendent, thank you for the time. I'm here talking about uh under consent uh agenda item G14. One of the contracts uh includes a contract with A-Rock um which is an organization that is under federal uh civil rights investigation for uh promoting violent and extremist rhetoric in our schools. I'm disappointed that this contract is buried deep in item G14. I would ask board members to pull it, but I don't know how many other contracts would be affected by pulling that item. Um it's unfortunate that I bet even some board members are not aware that this contract is included. Of course, we want to make sure that there are adequate services in our schools for Arabs, Arabic speaking, refugee, and immigrant students, but this particular organization has a history of introducing violent rhetoric in our schools and creating an unhealthy and harmful environment uh for other students. Um, and we would encourage the district to find other vendors who can provide this service without uh creating a harmful environment for other students. Um, so if it's possible to pull item G14, I would request that. uh and otherwise I would definitely uh

request more transparency with this organization. Thank you. Uh Vivian, go ahead and unmute

Vivian. Uh we can't hear you if you're talking. So we'll go to Miss Marshall. Miss Marshall, go ahead and unmute. Oh, thank thank you so much. I have two quick things with my one minute. One, I want to talk first about an amazing educator, Ruth Taylor, who is a fulltime phenomenal educator in SFUSD. She passed away, and we'll talk more about her at the end of the meeting. But can you imagine having a full-time job and getting on your computer at night and weekends to create amazing certificates for African-American honoral students and program booklets. So thank you Sister Taylor. The next on behalf of the NAACP we are so concerned so concerned superintendent and board members that you will perhaps do layoffs tonight and when you do the layoffs who will be affected most? Black and brown educators. the last one hired will will be the ones who possibly will lose their jobs. I'm not concerned about Rosa Parks. It is not in my neighborhood near my church. Our church has adopted that school. So, please help them as well. But please consider do what all you can do madam superintendent board members to keep these excellent I I've heard today heard last week heard two weeks ago but all these new stellar educators who now work for SFUSD please don't let them lose their jobs tonight thank you

thank you Miss Marshall we'll go to Ivy Ivy go ahead and unmute Ivy Uh, can I speak Cantonese and uh you someone help me translate?

Okay. Uh, Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Thank you so much. Uh, good. Oops. Oh, go ahead. Thank you. Good evening. Uh I am My name is Ivy. I am a Marina Middle School and uh parent and a Lincoln High School 9th grade parent. Uh want to tell the uh board before you do think about doing layoffs. Please don't lay off our bilingual uh our bilingual staff. The bilingual staff is very important to our families and uh we need them to support our children. Uh having bilingual staff

allows uh families to choose schools and when they choose our schools then they will support this the school district. Uh otherwise uh the these families they will end up choosing charter schools and private schools. So we can so by saving bilingual staff here we can save our students to keep our students here in our school district. And for my child specifically my child needs bilingual support and they and bilingual support to help them learn. Uh so when you think about layoffs, please save our uh bilingual staff to make sure that they are here to support our students. Thank you. Thank you. We'll hear now from

ACC Zoom 2. Go ahead and unmute.

Hi. Uh this is actually Emily from Chinese for Affirmative Action. Uh I'm here tonight to oppose layoffs to bilingual Bilingual educators are extremely important to our limited English families because they help ch uh children access grade level content faster. And our bilingual educators also motivate English learner students to learn and grow, building the trust and continuity that students need to succeed. When bilingual teachers are cut, families leave for private or charter options. Keeping these programs helps to stabilize our enrollment and our district's budget. And furthermore, bilingual teachers are hard to replace and without them, absenteeism is going to continue going up in our immigrant student population. Um, I also want to note that last week we saw do Dr. Sue speak at Cababe proudly hailing our homegrown bilingual education programs in San Francisco and it doesn't make any sense to turn around and roll back these programs or lay off our educators in private. So, please publish any impact analysis that you've done to um cuts to these programs and keep the district from cutting bilingual educators on March 15th. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We'll hear from CAA programs. Go ahead and unmute.

Hello, commissioners. My name is Anthony. I'm here to speak on behalf of Chinese for Affirmative Action and the Cantonese speaking parents we support. We're asking the board to push SFUSD to keep layoffs away from bilingual educators on March 15th. Bilingual educators are extremely important to our families because they translate school rules, explain enrollment and special education processes, and also reassure parents who are learning to navigate an unfamiliar system. When these teachers are in the classroom, families show up, students attend school, and children make academic progress. When they are cut, families withdraw or avoid school entirely out of fear. In our current political climate, we have to do everything we can to protect immigrant families for our students safety and success. Please do not lay off bilingual teachers on March 15th. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We'll go to Vivian. Vivian, I see your cell phone. Go ahead and unmute. Vivian, you should be able to use your cell phone now. Hello.

Yes. Go ahead. Good evening. My name is Vivian Saffron and I'm the founder of SFGs in school and a parent in SFUSD. We're deeply concerned that SF SFUSD is directing taxpayer dollars to A-Rock, an organization that promotes violent extremism and handing them a pipel pipeline to our most vulnerable students. A-Rock's executive director, the named contact on this contract, called the October 7th massacre of thousands of Israeli civilians as justified, stating that the only thing that can overcome Israel is a flood. AR-Och has repeatedly used its access to SFU USD campuses to recruit students into extremist political activism, recommending alphabet books, where I stands for inifatada for our kindergarteners, and distributing protest toolkits, talking points, and mobilization instructions, conduct that has led to a federal office of civil rights investigation. It's extremely disappointing that in light of this record, SFUSD made the decision to pay a rock to

uh thank you to members of the public. I I do want to maybe not address the comments, but just to name uh that we do not have any items on today's agenda regarding any layoff notices um for today. We also have not authorized or do not intend to either lay off any bilingual educators. So I I don't know where the where the confusion is. Um and and perhaps it would be helpful to to hear from community on where the confusion may be coming from. Um but I did want to just name that before we wrap into our next portion of the agenda. Okay. Thank you to members of the public uh for coming out and voicing your concerns and sharing your experiences. We appreciate hearing from you. And um with that, we will move on to our next item, which is uh a report uh from close session. In the matters of anticipated litigation uh concerning GW and WSF, the board by a vote of seven eyes gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of anticipated litigation concerning a the board by a vote of six I's and Commissioner Fischer voting nay gives direction to the general counsel regarding two matters of existing litigation in the matter of LH and AD claim number 230006202 the board by a vote of seven I's gives direction to the general council. The board is committed to effective schoolboard governance that centers student learning based on community input. The board has adopted our vision, values, goals, and guardrails. In order to increase the portion of board meeting time we spend on student outcomes, every other meeting is a monitoring workshop. Sorry, I'll slow down for interpretation.

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 guard 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. Um, the superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft of each agenda 12 days in advance for board members to review. Once that draft is made public on our website, the board has made a commitment to submit clarifying and tactical questions and staff have committed to responding to those questions in advance. This document is linked into board docs item E2. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussions today. Um, sorry, we've moved things around. Um, item E, opening items, land acknowledgement. We, the San Francisco Board of Education, acknowledge that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the Ramatos Shaloni, who are the original inhabitants of the 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 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. And we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramach community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. I call on the student delegate Cruz and man to share a report if you have one or the student delegate report.

Hi, thank you. Good evening everyone. Um I'll start. Yesterday we had an SACE meeting where um we got into full planning mode for the youth summit on Friday, April 10th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Um at our meeting we worked on merch like our merch design lunchtime activities. We're thinking an opportunity fair. um starting a mural and also creating some sort of like tree where we can add like our own personal like notes to it. Um and also speakers, we're looking for one student and three adults and we've been like getting the ball rolling on the outreach and then we also might have a photo booth. So fun. Um yeah, we had one last year and um it was really nice. They there's like physical copies, so it's a nice memorable thing to hold on to. Uh all district high schools are invited. So if anyone is interested, please contact your principal or your leadership teacher or um Judson, our coordinator, and your school sites will have um the permission forms. And then we're always working on our workshops that we're going to have at the youth summit. Um, again, those workshops are student government, district budget, UCSF, focusing on mental health, building bridges. I think they're actually building like a physical bridge. So, that's exciting. Um, and then a cultural art workshop. And that's it for me. We hope to see you there. Yeah. And if we all know about youth summit, we also have our student delegate debate. Uh the student delegate application is open as of for now until March 20th. Um me and Sharon did it and look at us now. It's one of the best experiences. We both debated each other and we're both here. So we encourage everybody to go and you know what like for me it was my first debate and honestly it was really nerve-wracking but honestly I don't regret anything I

did. And yeah it was really fun. I encourage all high school students to just jump for it and go for it. Applications are open if there's any questions. You can always reach out to me soon or SACE like Instagram account. We are always open for any type of questions. Um and yeah, so we do have that open. So if there's any high schoolers or parents who want their kids to be a student delegate, please let them know. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, superintendent report.

Thank you, President Kim. And again, uh, I encourage all young people who want to please go to the youth advocacy day because it's fantastic. Um, okay. So, starting off my um my remarks, I just uh March is a month full of meaningful celebrations, and I'd like to begin by wishing everyone a happy Women's History Month. Yay. I'm grateful for the trailblazing women who came before me as leaders um who are among our districts right now who are colleagues on this table um right now who uh really is are are working really hard to lift up all of our uh young women um and young leaders in our district across our schools. We h we are really fortunate to have incredible women and gender diverse leaders from principles to teachers to support staff um who inspire and guide um the next generation of leaders um every single day. March is also arts education month in California. Uh this is a a wonderful opportunity to recognize the role the arts play in our schools. Um it really helps uh round out the education for our students. Um our SFUSC programs in visual arts, music, theater, dance and media art gives our students meaningful ways to express themselves. Um and to help them think creatively and connect uh all their learnings across all um across all subjects. I want to thank our extremely dedicated arts educators and staff who inspire creativity in our classrooms every single day. Um, and the families and community partners who come out and celebrate our students um, as they be vulnerable and show off their art. Um, I know that that's really hard

as well. Um, also the first week of March also marks National School Social Work Week and National School Breakfast Week. Uh, I want to extend my sincere thanks to our school social workers and our student nutrition service staff for the important work that they do uh to support our students and to ensure that um we are serving the whole child. Next slide. Uh this Saturday, very very very very important uh March 14th from 9:00 am to 3 pm is the 25th annual special education information and resource conference. Uh it will take place at John Oonnell High School. I was there last year. There's so many opportunities to learn about all the things that the district is doing and meet all of our partners who are doing the work together with us. Um it was wonderful uh to see all of our families and young people out connecting, learning from each other, building support systems and that uh really really precious support network that we know that all of our students need, particularly our students in special education. So please come and join us in uh learning, building relationships and um building out that support network for our students. Lunch will be provided at no cost to families and there will be lots of community spaces for families to take breaks from each other um and to be grounded um in the work. Um we will have programs in language specific spaces. So, so, uh, we will have programs in English, in Spanish, and in Cantonese. There will also be sensory activity rooms, um, so that all young people can participate

and engage. Um, and I just want to thank our special education team um, and staff for putting this on. Um, I know it's a very, very heavy lift, but they do it every single year, and they do it with so much grace and so much commitment to making sure that it meets the needs of our students um, and families. So, thank you. Um, this month from March 2nd through March 19th, we are asking our communities to fill out our annual social emotional learning culture climate survey. Uh, these surveys provide really important information on how our schools should be planning and evaluating our work and how we can support our students better. Um, there are three SEAL and culture climate surveys. One for students from grade four, one for students, fourth to 12th graders, one for staff, and one for our PK-12 families. Um, so thank you to everyone who has already filled out the survey. So, please continue to fill it out. It's a great source of information for us as we uh plan and build out um the work for the following school year. And then it's that time of year where it's the uh our enrollment announcement. Uh thank you to everyone who submitted your application. Thank you, Vice President Hule.

Oh, and yes. Yes, Commission. See, this is why I don't start naming names.

Commissioner Wisman Ward as well. Uh thank you to everyone who submitted your application uh for next school year. Assignments for the 2627 school year will be shared with families on parent view and by mail on Monday, March 16th. Families will also be able to see their position uh see their positions for up to three weight listed sites um on parent view. Students not currently enrolled in SFUSD will need to accept or decline their main round assignments by March 26. Current SFUSD students will automatically be enrolled in their assigned school and do not need to take any action. Any families who have not applied yet for the 2627 school year, you still have time. So, please do it. uh go to our website sfusd.eduapply and you will uh learn about how you can apply for your student for next school year. And then I recently had the wonderful opportunity to go to both Sunset Elementary and Guadalupe Elementary for their readalong days. It's one of those highlights of my week whenever I go and visit our schools um to engage with our young people, talk to our educators and our site leaders um because it really really contextualizes the work that we are doing um here in the boardroom but then our staff um every single day. And it's just it's wonderful to be able to engage with our young people and and see how uh we are doing this uh and and how our young people are reacting to whether or not it's the new curriculum or in this case I'm reading a story to to our students and talking to them about what I do on a daily basis as a superintendent. Um but it's again

building the strong foundation for literacy and engagement and social emotional and all the wonderful things Um and then uh it's actually somebody I think Emily from CA mentioned this. I had the wonderful opportunity uh well we SFUSD had the wonderful opportunity to host Cababe which is the California Association for Bilingual Education. Um, this past week we had several thousand educators and administrators and community advocates and community leaders here in San Francisco learning from what we are doing here in our schools and from each other. Um, I had the opportunity to welcome the uh association to San Francisco. Um and we had many many site leaders as well as educators participate in either leading workshops. Here you actually see our administrators leading a workshop along with

Jose Paula Antrram our one amazing principal at Joseé Ortega. Um and I know that Commissioner Fischer was there. Um but it was a a wonderful opportunity for site leaders to to learn from each other, to meet with each other, um and to engage. And our amazing human resource department was also there to uh recruit bilingual teachers. And my understanding is that we had many many people sign up uh because it was it was a beautiful day and San Francisco is a beautiful place to work. So I really really hope that um all of this the people who signed up will eventually go through the process and become bilingual teachers here in the district. Um so it was amazing and wonderful and it's a great opportunity to um show off our our wonderful SFUSD. Um and then next I just want to remind everyone spring break is here. Um spring break will happen on March 27th to April 3rd. all TK to 13 uh grades SFUSD schools will be closed that week. All early education department out of school time and yearround PK programs are open during spring break. Um except for Tuesday, March 31st, which is Chavez Day. Uh we look forward to welcoming our students back on Monday, April 6. And then finally, um, I have an immemoriam to share. In partnership with our San Francisco Alliance of Black School Educators, we share in the sadness of the passing of our beloved, stellar educator, Ruth Taylor. Um, Miss Taylor was mentioned earlier when Mrs. Marshall uh made her comments. Uh, Ruth was born to teach. She had that unique

gift and connection to all of her students and families. connecting to their mind, their heart, and spirit, letting each of her hundreds and thousands of students over the years know how much she cared for them and how much she sees them as individual scholars and potential lights. Ruth was an excellent educator, devoted sister, aunt, friend, and colleague who shows her student excellence in the classroom each day with her gift of preparing students for college, the world of work, and beyond. Therefore, it is my honor to close my report um at tonight's um board of board meeting in honor and memory of our beloved Ruth Taylor. That concludes my report.

Thank you, Dr. Sue. Uh moving to item F, action items. Uh commissioners, we have three items uh for action today, all uh somewhat related to each other. Uh we'll start with item F1, 263-10 SP1, tentative agreements between San Francisco Unified School District and United Educators of San Francisco. Can I have a motion and a second? I move action item 263-10 SP1 seconded. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item 263-10 SP1. Uh Dr. Sue.

Thank you, President Kim. It is my honor to share these both of these um tenative agreements that we worked really hard to get to a place where we continue to honor our educators in this case our educators um and and as well as continue to maintain um fiscal stability in the district. Um so with that I'm going to hand it over to the team to walk you through it.

Uh good evening President Kim, commissioners of the board and Dr. Sue. Tonight we're bringing forward a tenative agreement between the district and the United Educators of San Francisco. A tenative agreement represents the terms negotiated by both bargaining teams and is subject to ratification by the union membership and approval by the board. The union membership has ratified the agreement and it is now before the board for consideration. If approved, it will be incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement. And with that, the staff is happy to answer any questions you may have. I'll open up for conversation and or not conversation questions uh and comments. Commissioner Ray,

I'd just like to ask one question to start. I may have more later on. My question relates to how if the parcel tax um that is currently planned to be used to fund the uh fully funded health care for teachers. If that parcel tax is not reupt, what will the impact be on our school district and will school district be bound to cover the ongoing cost of health care even if the parcel tax is not reuped? Uh so the specific partial tax is QTA uh for certificated and other educators specifically members of UE and UA. Uh so there is an accompanying MOU and in the AB1200 it calls this out as the source for the funding which you're describing. There is trigger language that says that if it is not passed uh that it will be subject to bargaining. uh meaning that there's trigger language that we need to go back to the table in the event that that that does occur. What would happen as a result of that bargaining of course is determined at the table. Can you um be more specific or clarify is the district actually committed to paying for the healthc care costs if the parcel tax if the voters do not pass the parcel tax or is entirely up to negotiation from that point? Yes, that it's it's a conditional clause that if that funding source ceases that we have to go back to the table and it's subject to bargaining Gupta.

Um so first I just want to express my gratitude. I know uh negoti negotiations were long and I appreciate the efforts of this team to to get that done. Um question I have is uh um what is the annual cost of the health benefits that we have offered full year? Or put another way is it about 14 million if I'm if I understand correctly commissioner. Thank you. So, um, the first year, uh, 2627, since the healthcare agreement only goes into effect January 1st, um, and then we'd also pay partially beginning July 1st, 2026. The first year cost is 20 million, 20.7. Uh, the second year it goes up to 42.3 million. And that's because of uh the fact that we had phased in the coverage 50% and 50% for the first six months of the 26 27 uh school year and then it eventually transitions to 100%. So that's why there's um a large increase in the second year.

Got it. I Yes. And so the and then there's also we also added in the 10% increase in cost and also 10% migration. So we included that also as a factor. Thank you. I I appreciate that. Um and the health care cost now is that is that floating as in by whatever it's increased we will cover 100% of that? Yes. Uh do we have an idea of how much health care costs increase per year? What what's budgeted in?

Uh it's been fluctuating pretty dramatically recently. Uh so for the past three years, it's been up almost 10% per year uh year-over-year. Um and that's actually been fairly typical throughout the state of California. Healthcare costs have been riding rising rapidly. An annual typical increase prior to the last three years was usually between 6 and 7%. Um so the the costs have escalated. We don't know whether that's going to be short-term or or a longer term trend. Uh so the escalation uh that CFO Jan just mentioned is inclusive of a of a 10% escalation for the two years we projected it.

Got it. Thank you. Um and then with regard to then the QTA and the fact that you know right now we have that parcel tax cliff that ends at 2020 at the end of 2028 as I understand is the idea that whatever parcel tax we would then try to approve next would cover in everything including that floating part in include the floating health care cost. So, the idea would be to uh get the renewal uh previously renewals for partial taxes in the district have been for a 20-year period of time as well as get an additional amount added to that renewal to cover not just one year of escalation because the partial tax itself only escalates at local CPI which is pegged between 2.4 and 2.7% a year. Uh fairly standard. Um and yes, our costs go up faster than that. So, I know there could be an argument about what CPI is, but but that's the way it's pegged. So, initially the the amount would have to go up significantly more to compensate for the fact that costs will go up faster than the built-in escalation. Can you be a little more sorry just to to to double click on that a little how how is that done or how do I mean if if it's increasing say at 10% per year and typical CPI is 2.4 forward to 2.7%. How would we even do that and what what would be the implication for the parcel tax that we'd see?

Great question. So, uh they are two separate fiscal entities. So, the parcel tax uh CPI goes up uh between let's just call it 2 and a.5% a year. Uh and if the base is 108 million, that increases 2 a.5% a year. But if the 10% increase assumed on a $40 million is only four million, then actually we would we would have most of it covered by the CPI. So you'd want to start out by asking for a bit more per parcel so that that 2.5% would keep up with the 10% escalation in costs year-over-year. Does that make sense?

It it does. I'm just if it's 20 years, I'm just trying to think through what that what that is for. It would have to be it would have to we we do a lot of modeling uh in fiscal and so we would actually model it out over 20 years. Um at that point we would look at at at a fiveyear average is typically a five to sevenyear average is for that long of a model is what we would look at and we would model it out for the life of the parcel tax. Thank you for that. Um the last question I have is also as I understand and I just want to follow up on a Q&A question that was in there. Also, as I understand, we have a $654 million underfunded liability and other post-employment benefits. And from the Q&A, am I understanding as well, and that that contributes about 38 million a year to our costs or so, am I understanding as well that there's 6% of the costs of this contract that are not funded or how am I to read the OPED liability of this contract and whether that's funded or not?

Sure. Our oped liability is entirely unfunded in this district. We write uh there are options to preund uh an OPED just so everybody other postemployment benefits which means benefits that you receive after you separate from the district. In our case that means uh lifetime retiree health care for members that have served the district long enough per their contract. And so there are options in the state to preund that uh for a district. the district can invest with Kalpers and preund that up to the maximum liability. We have no funding as a preunding. So that is a complete liability for us which means that we are what we call pay as you go. Pay as you go districts literally uh get the bill handed to them every month for all of the folks that are on uh the lists that are receiving that benefit. And so currently that's between 35 to $40 million a year uh of our revenues that we pay for that retirey benefit. Thank you.

Any other Commissioner Alexander?

Um, thank you. Um, so I uh had I think two questions. One is around the cost of the agreement. I did ask this in the written question, but I'm but I thought it was would be helpful to ask for the public and I'm not sure I totally understood the response either. The question basically was that the the announced cost of the agreement was 183 million. That's what we said publicly. But in the AB1200, the three-year cost adds up to 156 million over those three years with a final year total of about 75 76 million. Um so what's the discrepancy there?

Thank you, Commissioner. So um one variance is attributed to the fact that the AB1200 is only for the general fund. So we do have UEIE members that are paid out of other funds. They're paid out of uh for example mostly child development and county. So we don't include those costs in the agreement. That's uh one variance. The other variance is the work around the specialed NPA contracts that we had mentioned last week. Um we when we were costing the initial agreement, we factored in the cost of um recruiting and on boarding uh those contractors into vacant positions and the cost of paying for health care for those um newly on boarded employees. But because there's several steps that have to take place before we can record that as a cost, uh that portion was also not assumed at the time after checking with our CD advisors whether that was a valid assumption to include in the AB1200 agreement. Thank you. Thank you. The other question I had, there was a lot of conversation um kind of leading up to the strike and um and before actually around reserves and kind of the the desired size of reserves. In fact, the board voted on this back in December. And and one of the um questions that I still am not clear on is there's been this claim that we've been making publicly that the state of California recommends a 17% reserve for local school districts. I'm curious what the source of that is. I have not I haven't been able to find it. So that's actually a part of your board resolution and and bylaw that you pass and it actually cites the CDE reference, right? And and that's based on the

concept that most uh schools and and you can actually see this in your on your consent agenda because since I've been here, we've been compliant. We're po we're posting all of our payroll and vendor warrants. And what that means is all money that's outgoing every month. If you were to add that up for the whole year and average it out for the 12 months, uh you would see that two months of expenses is about 17.5%. Right? So, so but the CDE language which we provided to you in uh the board item uh says that the recommended guidance is for districts to keep reserves not in excess of 17.5%. Now remember the 2% locally you can't spend. So roughly that that for emergencies or for unforeseen costs which we do get we just absorb them into the budget uh that that's that that's a recommended not to exceed number. Now if you look at reserves in the state uh they vary greatly and they vary specifically by the type of school district. Uh so unified school districts uh actually have uh the lowest reserves but they sit at about 22% as an average throughout the state. uh elementary school districts have the lowest. They sit between 16 and eight 18% on average throughout the state and union high school districts or high school districts which are just high schools. We have actually quite a few of them south of us in San Mo. It's an rather unusual structure but they do have quite a few of them there. Uh usually around 28 to 30% and high school districts are actually the wealthiest districts in the state.

So just to clarify, the 17% number is the recommended maximum. Is that what you just said? Yeah, it's the recommended do not exceed. It does not say maximum. They're very careful with their language, but yes, that's that's what it says because the way we've put it out is kind of as a recommended or it's it seems to read as a recommended minimum. And so I just want to be really clear if we're we're saying that the state recommendation is that it's a recommended maximum. I think we need to be very clear about that. Um because there's also a a state 10% cap some years, right? Is that correct?

Yes. And so what you do in those cases, right? So we actually just got out of those test years. So years that we are in test one, which I don't want to go into various financial tests, but we have been in test one for a couple of of years in the past 5 years, the state caps reserves at 10%. Um, however, what it does not do is it does not limit the ability of the school district to then appropriately put aside money that we should be putting aside to pay for future liabilities such as OPED, deferred maintenance, or other costs that we typically just put off uh because we tend to put off a lot of different costs that are optional um to get around to them someday. And as is true with San Francisco and many other districts, we just simply never get to them.

Thank you. Any other commissioners, comments or questions? Uh, student delegate Mun.

Hi. Thank you so much um for being here to answer our questions and then thank you to Superintendent Sue um and Usf and everyone involved for this whole thing. Um it's definitely been an unexpected um process for a lot of us and I'm speaking from a student perspective. Um it's been yeah like unexpected like I never thought we would go through that. Um and thank you to everyone involved for um collaborating and working to get um students back into the classroom. My question um I'm reading the companion resolution and um it says that the SFUSD's budget is currently in has a currently has a negative certification. Um is that true? because I read um I remember having I'm also on the youth commission um it's like a more of a city type of thing and we received an a presentation from the SFUSG's budget office last week and they said we were um in qualified certification and then oh yeah qualified certification moving to positive. So um I just wanted to clarify on that like which certification stage are we really in and um it also mentions about how um the district's adopted budget and um the unodudited actuals and such cannot sustain the agreed to incre to increases without making significant reductions. And so I'm wondering like what are those reductions and does it have anything to do with the layoffs that were mentioned earlier um or cutting programs or closing schools etc.

It's a lot of questions. I will I will try uh so I want to decouple a couple of things. So um one of your questions you references the PKS of last week. know that's just from declining enrollment and and a district in declining enrollment which we have been for quite some time should be doing annual adjustments to their staffing especially when we're losing what equates to in this district you know a full school or maybe a couple of full schools worth of students a year which is the situation that we find ourselves in. Um you're asking a lot of uh the financial questions which are going to be in our financial presentation tonight. Uh however there's an interesting thing with certification. So what we did at first interim was we got back to a qualified certification and we self-certified as qualified. So we are supposed to recommend a certification for the board to pass at both the first and second interim and we recommended qualified. Uh and then because we are in oversight by CDE, we needed to wait to receive their review of our first interim and to either disagree or to provide their concurrence. CDE took a long time to get through and we received that just last week and we received it by it being posted on the website before we were notified. So it has now been concurred to uh but we have spoken with CDE and FICMAT about uh faster and more responsive oversight as well as faster communication in the future uh because we should have that well before we're moving into second interim reporting which is what we're doing this evening. So it was confusing and uh for us as well uh but they they did concur that qualified is the current certification.

Thank you.

Just that last part of student delegate man's question was it also said under negative certification we will have to I believe something to the effect of this is unsustainable and we have to make lots of

Yeah. So that that'll be in the presentation tonight. So the requirement that you have in front of you tonight and I don't want to mix things because sometimes this happens at the board and then they conflate two items. So this is specifically about the AB1200 and the TA. The requirement for the AB1200 and the TA is that we can pay for the agreement in front of the board for the current year and the next two years. Right? So that means just for the next two years past this year. It begs the question for the board. This year is almost over. That's sort of a short year to be looking at and estimating it on which is why in the fiscal presentation we are going to uh share with you what we did at our budget study session we'll be sharing with the public and that is we've added on a fourth year because that will be our new third year in June and that is when you'll see a significant portion of the bill coming due and that is going to impact the budget that we adopt. So to your question, that means yes, that the district will now to make sure that we're solvent for the current plus two years starting in June. So not this year plus two, but next year plus two, uh the district will have to have a a reduction plan uh to make sure that we have enough cash to continue to operate.

Thank you. Um and thank you to student delegate man for her very close reading. Um, does that mean because she's right, it says, um, one of the warehouse clauses says that we currently have a negative certification. So, in order for us to vote on this, would we need to amend it here to make sure it's accurate?

My my opinion is no. Um, CDE is in the room tonight and I I won't put Tina on the spot. So, here's my reading. We did not receive their concurrence in time to put that in this document. I don't believe it has to be amended because it is posted to their website and the board has received the communication from them that we are now inqualified. I recognize that came very late. CDE recognizes that came very late. Like I said, I talked to them, but I don't think that that impacts materially your ability to pass this as written because when we wrote it, we were still technically under negative.

That makes sense. But we're voting on it today and we have new information. I mean, is there is there to I guess to general counsel, is there an issue with us doing an oral amendment? And just I would think that if we're voting on something and there's a warehouse clause that we know that's not technically accurate, we would want to correct it if we can.

I I think that having it the way it is, as it was submitted, as it was signed, as it was reviewed, is probably more conservative. I don't like I think to um as to the earlier point as to you know whether or not the CD is going to have any problem with it. I don't think that there's any problems. That's the bigger issue I think as to whether or not that that's going to make a difference. But

CDE is saying they will not have a problem from it. They're waving it off in the back of the room. I guess I in terms of great that there that we this is fine if we vote on it, but why would we not amend it? So, it's an accurate document as of the date that we're voting on it. It's swapping in one word. I If you wish to make the amendment, you can. I'm just hyper sensitive to the fact that this is being submitted. Sounds like the CDE doesn't have a problem. If the board wishes to make that amendment, you are free to do so. Does CDE have a problem with us making that amendment either? So they don't care. He's right there. Hey. Okay, great. Tell me when it's time to make a motion. You You are welcome to make a motion.

Okay, I would move. No, question. No, I I we haven't voted on the whole interrupt. What'll happen is is it it does interrupt. We can quickly vote on it and then move forward with the We can resume discussion because we would need to actually vote on the whole item itself. Okay. So, I would um move to Thank you. Can Can she do it formally or No, because she's delegate. What? Oh, that would be cool. She could make the motion. I mean, if she's one, we appreciate

Eagle Eyes. Um uh I would then uh move to amend the um companion resolution to AB1200 certification to uh strike out the second to strike out the word negative in the second whereas clause and replace it with um qualified. Seconded do a roll call vote please. Okay. Who's who uh seconded? I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. And it was moved by Wis Ward. Okay. Uh Student Delegate uh Mont.

Yes. Student Delegate Cruz. Yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. President Kim, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Okay. Thank you. Um, Commissioner, uh, well, did you was there anything else you wanted to add? Okay. Did you want to have PL?

I do. Thanks. Um, I had left a fair amount of my time, but I actually have a similar question to what um, student delegate man was asking. So, but um, so I'm going to ask it a little bit different way. she was uh she you know she was asking about what the impact of you know the reductions were essentially. Can you just um explain in layman's terms what you know um how we're determining to the extent that you can like sorry I'm not expressing this well can you explain in layman's terms what the AB1200 is showing versus what the SF FSP which we're taking up later shows.

Yes. Again totally different actions. The FSP is not up for discussion until we do our financial report. Right? So the AB1200 simply is the legal requirement and the financial certification created by myself and staff that we can demonstrate that the agreement that we have the resources to pay for it for the current and the next two years and of course the current year this year and the next two years. But that does not set out a plan for just that we actually have the money overall in our budget somehow. It may be committed to something else but we technically have money to pay for it. Correct. We have whereas

where a fiscal stabilization plan is a part of an interim document that's required by law if we are under negative or qualified certification to put forward a reduction plan in spending to reduce our spending so that we are moving towards a balanced budget. That of course helps to provide money to make sure we can pay for things, but it is not the two aren't related directly. They're indirect. Are there any questions that will impact the outcome of your decision? Not exactly, but I do have one. Sorry.

No, I do have one more question that I forgot to ask earlier. I apolog

um I have one minute left. Um the this is related to the um TA but it's actually it's looking back to the emergency resolution we passed on February 3rd. A concern was raised with me that that resolution says that the resolution shall become effective immediately upon its adoption and shall remain in effect until repealed by formal board action. Is that emergency resolution still in effect? It is it is my opinion that the emergency resolution is not in effect nor is it being used but we do we I think we've been asked and I know that this is a little bit off topic but just to make it quick there is a full intent to kind of sum up the activities that were taken and report that to the board and there has been substantial a substantial collection of that information and that information is making its way absolutely to the board for all of things to wrap that up in sum in saying in summary what was done.

So so it's not in effect because the strike is over and it was a one time. It was entirely continued upon the strike entirely based on the need to respond to an emergency which no longer exists. Right. Thank you for clarifying that. I really appreciate it. Okay. Seeing no other questions. Roll call vote please. Sorry, just to name debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. Roll call up please. Student delegate man. Yes. Student delegate Cruz. Yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. President Kim, yes. Commissioner Weissman Ward, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes.

Commissioner Fischer, yes. Moving to item two, 263-10 SP2 tentative agreement between San Francisco Unified School District and Common Crafts IBW Local 6. Can I have a motion and a second? I move to accept motion 263-10 SP2. It has been properly moved and seconded that second. It had not been properly seconded, but now it is.

Apologies. I was just reading too quickly. Thank you. It has now been properly moved and seconded. Thank you, Commissioner Weissman Ward for your diligence and attention to this matter. The board has uh approved to approve item 263-10 SP2. Um Dr. Sue and staff. Um again, I just want to thank our teams for working together to make sure that we continue to support and honor um our amazing um employees. I'm going to hand it over to the team.

Okay. Uh, President Kim, commissioners of the board, and Dr. Sue again. Um, also tonight bringing forward a tenative agreement between the district and our common crafts representing 10 of our labor partners and between the district and the international brotherhood of electrical workers, local six. Their tenative agreement for these units represent the terms negotiated by the bargaining teams and are subject to ratification by union membership and approval by the board. The union membership for each unit have ratified their agreements and they are now before the board for consideration. If approved, they will be incorporated into the collective bargaining agreement. And again, staff is happy to answer any questions you may have.

Are there any comments or questions from the board? Commissioner Ray. Hi. Um, I have a question about me too clauses. um if you could explain um for the public what me too clauses are and uh whether sort of what the district's practice has been in the past and uh that would be helpful. Also, if you have recommendations or if they're best practices around the inclusion of me too clauses.

Thank you for the question, Commissioner Ray. Um so the meto clause is a way in which the union asks for protection so to speak. Um so in that the event during bargaining with any of our other labor partners if they are able to negotiate something higher that they too would then qualify for the difference. Um, in this case, uh, the common crafts and local six, we closed their negotiations in late January. So, they included a meto clause. And as you're aware, UESF secured a 4.5% and a 4% increase over two years or I'm sorry, each year for those two years. Um, therefore, the Common Crafts and Local Six uh received the difference. And so for their first year they're receiving a 2 and a half% meto and the second year they're receiving the difference of the 2% um for their second year. The history of me too clauses for the district. Unfortunately I cannot speak too much on that only because of my own tenure here. Uh it's uh I I've not had that opportunity to sit uh or discuss metos prior to these contracts. Um maybe someone here at the table might be able to talk about that, but I do know that they do happen frequently. Um and uh in terms of best practices moving forward, um I know that's just completely up to the union to ask for it and then the bargaining team to negotiate whether we can make that possible or not. I hope that answers your question.

Sure. I just thank you very much. Um, I just like to know if if anyone else has any information on if there are best practices around me too clauses, whether they, you know, what the general recommendations are, if there are any regarding the use of those clauses. I think uh, me too clauses are commonly used across the state in bargaining and it's something that is different at each table and then requires board authority um, before we're reaching an agreement. Okay. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Commissioner Gupta.

Yeah. I mean, I just like to say just generally about these contracts. I mean, you know, I mean, it's absolutely incumbent upon us or or it's it's really important for our educators and our staff to be able to afford to live in the city to be able to have healthcare. I mean, if healthcare costs are rising 10%. I don't know how people are supposed to pay for that. Um, I'd add housing in there as well. And you know, I think that the the thing is though that we understand that this our duty is to ensure that the promises we make today do not come on the backs of layoffs for tomorrow. And that's what's really concerning that this comes at a cost. And so to me, I mean, if we have to go through this again in two years, this is not sustainable. This is not sustainable for us. This is not sustainable, I imagine, for our educators, for our staff. And so, you know, I really hope when we look at, you know, I mean, as I understand, and we'll get to this, but with a $49 million shortfall in our unrestricted general fund this year alone, when we think about the $654 million in net unfunded liability that we have to face, and I really hope that our educators uh our our various uh our various labor partners in our district can work together to really tackle this at Sacramento level. Um whether that be the Prop N the Proposition 98 maneuver and really under you know being able to get that funding back, moving to enrollment based funding or reforming property tax allocation and even from our city getting 28% of excess RAF instead of the 18% we're at now. And so I'd welcome the opportunity with the district as well as with our labor partners, Miss Curielle over there and uee to really really, you know, come together and, you know, meet in Sacramento, meet at city hall and really do this, you know, where we

unlock more funding rather than trying to, you know, make this Sophie's choice between what, you know, what we have at SFUSD currently. So again, I appreciate you all. I appreciate our labor partners and I really hope over the next few years we can get to something more sustainable. Any comments or question? Not comments, questions that may change the outcome of your decision. Seeing none, roll call vote, please. Delegate man, yes. Delegate Cruz, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. President Kim, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. Commissioner Gupta,

yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Thank you. Um, I do want to thank staff uh for your efforts and work during um a long period of time uh and the ongoing support that you give to both our labor partners and our staff uh to get to an agreement. So, thank you very much for your for your hard work. Uh, item 3 263-10 SP3 fiscal year 202526 second interim report. Can I have a motion and a second? I move item 263-10 SP3. Second.

It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Um, I will pass it off to Dr. Sue. Um before I do, I just want to acknowledge and appreciate the uh special meeting study session that we had last Wednesday uh where we were able to go uh deep into some questions uh that the board had around our budget and our budget conditions. Thank you for that presentation. There was a lot of information that was presented at that time. Um for the purposes of today and commission you laughing at me. Um

yeah. Um, I want to thank commissioners for their questions in advance. Um, hopefully we don't need to repeat some of the items that took place last Wednesday, uh, and that we're able to build on that conversation to, um, to end with the second interim report. So, thank you very much, staff, and I'll pass it over to I'll pass it over to to whoever's willing to take the time.

Thank you, President Kim. Um, yeah, I also want to appreciate staff. I know that we are um short staffed and that um the budget team and the fiscal team and our entire um uh senior leadership team have been working really hard to uh put this together um to meet deadlines in the middle of a lot of things going on. Um so just greatly appreciate all of our um our um staff who stood up and um really helped us. I also want to appreciate um our fiscal adviserss for helping us along the way. I know that Tina is in the back um as well as Elliot who is um online um just thank you. Thank you for working with us. Um I know that we did a lot of work last year to make those really tough decisions and and made those cuts and we are now where we are now because um this board was able to do that. our community can work together to do it. And um I'm just really proud of of the work that the team has done. So I'm going to hand this over to our deputy superintendent of business services, Chris Menites, as well as our CFO um Nero um J Raman. I'm going to keep getting it as I every single time I say it. I'm going to get better and better at saying it.

Thank you, Superintendent Sue and Commissioners and community. Um I am going to it is the it is the same presentation. There's been a couple of modifications. We are always working on refining things. Uh but I'm going to go through it fairly quickly. I am going to pause and and go into a couple slides more in depth particularly the multi-year projections. Uh but want to acknowledge that it's been posted. I know commissioners have already asked questions and had some some robust discussions. I'm going to be moving fairly quickly and Marin has assisted me in the past at moving quickly. So we're gonna going to go right through this. Uh so if we can advance please to keep going and keep going. All right. So this is the uh second interim report. Uh and if you can go back one slide please. Thank you. Uh interim reports uh we are required to present a first and second interim because uh we are still under oversight. There also will be a third interim which will be very brief just giving uh additional information on revenues and expenditures in a couple of months. Uh however, we're required to have a first and second interim and this is when we pass a a local certification. Uh certifications are one of three types of positive certification means that we will meet all of our current and projected expenses for the current plus two years. Qualified means that we may or may not meet the obligation and negative means that we will not be able to meet. So earlier this evening we said that we are officially in the qualified status now up from the negative. Uh and I am and staff is recommending to the board uh that we continue and that tonight's certification will be qualified. Uh so I just want to note because we passed the two a two TAS already and that was intentional. The costs of those two TAS as far as the impact the general fund unrestricted unrestricted general fund are included in tonight's presentations and the multi-year projections. Next slide please. So we of course are at the second interim projection. Uh and you

see that next we will be coming back. We will be doing a third interim in May as well as incorporating uh the governor's May revision uh budget numbers and we'll be coming back to the board for the budget hearing and passing next year's budget in June. Next slide, please. The first interim report uh we are recommending a qualified certification for the district and a positive certification for the county office of education. Next slide, please. Major updates since the last time that we were here giving a budget report in December. Uh reductions in revenues. We've incorporated changes from the governor's proposed budget. We've accounted for the decline in enrollment in att enrollment and attendance both uh leading up to this year which hadn't been fully adjusted as well as in-ear. We'll talk about that briefly a little bit later. Uh increases whces in expenditures. We've incorporated the tenative agreement costs for UESF Common Crafts and Local 6 tonight. And we do have some budgeted assumptions for our open units mostly uh local 21 and SEIU reductions in expenditures. Uh we have captured savings from positions that have remained vacant. So if a position has been vacant up till this point this year, we have taken the salary and benefit costs that were budgeted and we've removed them from the budget which means lower expenditures, lower deficit. That will be happening in real time moving forward. It's a standard practice that we capture any savings that we can. So you'll see us continue to capture savings for the benefit of the district. We've moved eligible expenses to restricted funding for both 2627 and 2728. This is significant. I'm going to pause here for a second. It's really important that the board and the public understand because you're going to see uh some slides, our multi-year projections that look like a significant improvement from first interim. It is a significant improvement. We've captured a lot of savings, but we have also moved a lot of eligible expenses to the restricted side of our ledgers. And there's a couple of reasons for this. Number one, the first dollar principle. First dollar principle

is the first dollar you spend is the hardest one to spend, right? Leave the dollars that can be spent more flexibly uh for later. And so the unrestricted general fund, we always try to relieve the pressure there by spending the restricted dollars first. We have a lot of restricted resources in San Francisco uh probably the largest percentage and dollar amount of of any budget I've seen because of local support such as our parcel taxes and PEF. the biggest examples of those. And so we've moved eligible expenses over there because we don't want to develop a carry forward on the harder to spend side or the restricted side. We want the carry forward as much as possible to be on the unrestricted side. That is also moving us towards a more positive certification because that unrestricted is what they look at for our certification. We've also accounted for central office reductions that we've begun and are underway including a reduction in contracts and contractors. Next slide, please. So, the governor's proposed budget. The governor proposed a budget which did lower cola. The second bullet is really what I'd like you to pay attention to. So, this 2627 cola was lowered from 3.02 to 2.41, which means that next year uh we will receive 3.7 million less in revenue. 2728 was also changed and and and lowered from 3.42 to 3.06. And in 2728 uh the revenue impact will be a lowering of revenue by a little over $6 million. Now these are important because year-over-year these compound. So we get for example that 2627 cola that's $3.7 million every year less than we would have gotten and like and the same as in the 2728 the revenue impact is $6 million less every year moving forward. So significant. Next slide please. This is just addressing the in-ear enrollment. So, we talk a lot about enrollment from year to year. And in the study session, we looked at enrollment trends as well as average daily attendance trends in the in the district, but it's important to point

out that we've also lowered projected revenues because in year, although we aren't seeing a significant decline in enrollment, only 68 students in year in the district. What is really interesting and stood out to us and actually lowered our revenues slightly is that our unduplicated pupil percentage which is the students who are um undup unduplicated pupil include foster youth, homeless youth, English language learners, and low-income students that we are actually seeing a more rapid decline in those students. The reason that we're pointing that out in a financial report is those are the students which most uh significantly experience uh barriers to success in public education and we're therefore given a little bit more money to address those needs in a school district and we are losing those students faster than our other student groups. Next slide please and recommended certification qualified. Now we're going to get into the general fund and we're doing something different this time and it's quite intentional. We're doing the restricted side first because we mentioned that we moved a lot of expenses to the restricted side and it's important to see uh the changes. So this is just the single year. This is this year's uh restricted and we're showing you where we were at the first interim in December and where we are now of course and this is through the end of February. Notice that where we started at a $55 million deficit at the beginning of the year, we will whittle it down, whittleled it down to about 51 in December and we are now down to 44.5. That's as a result of identifying savings throughout the year and adjusting it so that we are projecting less of a deficit. Um, so you can see the other thing we've put on here is the percent change. We've talked a lot about budget to actuals and how much things change. I just want to point out to the board and the community uh that we are not seeing those big swings. Um, this has to do with making sure that expenses and revenues are are constantly caught and cataloged. So, the only significant number you see up here is that our deficit went down significantly, 12%.

And now we're going to look at uh and then we list here the components of the changes that you're seeing on the slide in revenue and expenditures. We've talked about this uh a little bit both publicly as well as a lot of us one-on-one. It's okay for revenues and expenditures to go up or down, but what a budget office should do is they should be giving the board and the public the components of why those revenues or expenditures are going up or down. And that's what's listed up there on that slide. Next slide, please. So, this is the restricted side of the general fund, the multi-year projection. And notice that this is four columns. Um, we will be doing four columns more often in the future. And the reason that we put the fourth column up there, a 2829 projection, is that in June, this will be your new third year as a school district. This is what we will all have on the books. Notice that this year we've gotten the deficit down to about 44.5 million projected. We will continue to improve on that for the third interim and for fiscal close, improve that performance. However, next year the deficit is now up to about 67 million. 2728 projected deficit is almost 96 million and 2829 which will be our new third year at adoption is now at 126 million uh dollars in deficit. And that's because we moved a lot of expenses over here and we have a lot of additional costs that will be acrewing each one of those years for the very uh agreements that we voted on this evening. Um the important number to pay attention to is line F, our ending fund balance. So it this has been a topic of conversation, right? There's a lot of fund balance on the restricted unrestricted side. So notice that that fund balance uh is going to take us through the rest of this year and next year. And at this point, it's pretty close to being zero in year 2728. Now, that assumes that all of everybody's expenses are spent. And we know that doesn't happen because 100% is very unusual in the fiscal world. However, uh it is showing us that we're

getting very close to having no reserve uh in about two years. The other number to pay attention to here is that negative 125 almost 126 million in 28 and 29. And why am I pointing that out? Because there's no longer projected at that point. Now remember, we will always work to improve this. That's what a financial department does to constantly improve your fiscal standing. But in 2829, um that's more than we're going to get just on natural improvement and trimming around the edges. And so that's where we have a significant financial uh problem. Um if you run out of money fund balance to pay for expenses in the restricted side of the budget, those expenses come over to the unrestricted side and you have to keep that in mind and that's why I'm presenting the restricted side first. So we've provided a great deal of relief to the unrestricted side of the budget. All legitimately done so very carefully done. It took us uh six months this year to get all that work done and and more appropriately budgeted, but uh we have to solve for that deficit. Um so we will be solving for that next year over the next two years because we cannot have that $126 million of expenses projected going over to the unrestricted side because there will not be enough money there. Right? So I want you to keep that in mind. That's why we started with restricted this evening. Next slide please. So the unrestricted side of the ledger and of course this is showing continued improvement as well as we shift those costs and uh all of the costs that we're including here. So for the current year you can see that we have not been able to whittle down the deficit as quickly. We still assume that we will overperform the budget. And when I say that that means that we will have we will not spend all of the booked expenditures because people don't spend every penny that they ask for. Um we have lots of those that we collect back at the end of

the year, but our projected ending fund balance uh for this year is now up to about $60 million. Uh and of course that keeps intact the 8% uh board local reserve uh in fund 17. All of those components are listed up there. Um what the board wants to see is looking is you need to follow that unassigned unappropriated amount. That number always has to be zero or higher. zero or higher. If it ever goes below zero, that means that we've gone bankrupt, right? And that's what you've got to look for is you've got to make sure that we always have that number above zero. Um because bankruptcy, of course, is not allowed in California. It just means that a state receiver is appointed. Next slide, please. So, this is the multi-year projection. Again, four years because that fourth year will be your third year at budget adoption in just a couple of months here. And so you can see uh that the shortfall um because of anticipated increases in in revenues as well as uh frankly even if we have fewer students, we would have to have fewer staff. Like this year we've lost about 500 students. Um and so you can see that as we try to naturally narrow that down over time, uh that we're doing a pretty good job of doing that on the unrestricted side. Uh however, if I look at what's left in that 2829 year, uh we're down to $14 million. $14 million in a $1.4 billion budget uh is not much of a margin. And remember, there's over a hundred million on the restricted side that's coming over to be paid for. So, so the 2829 year uh is is a danger year for the district financially and that's what needs to to be solved for. However, uh notice that if we were just looking at the unrestricted side, uh we now are going to be able to pay our expenses for

the current not just plus two, but plus three years. Uh so we need to really whittle down those expenses on the restricted side of the ledger. Okay. And I'm going to move on, but if you have any questions, I'm sure there will be some on that, but I I just want to make sure that folks sort of pause and absorb that if you need some more time. Okay, next slide, please. Fiscal stabilization plan. A fiscal stabilization plan or an FSP is a part of an interim reporting and it's required by law when a district is in a negative or qualified certification. It provides a plan to reduce spending to balance a district's budget on the unrestricted side of the general fund. We have updated the plan for the second interim to reflect reductions underway as a part of the 2627 budget development. We've been aligning staff with projected enrollment which had not been done for for a number of years and that's been done with position control which is now fully implemented and we've done our first position control reconciliation I think ever in the district which is great. Um we've released staff funded with expiring funding sources. We've been working on central office reductions including contracts as well as staff. We've reduced reliance on contracts including in special education, NPA, NPS, that's non-public agency, non-public schools, and transportation costs while developing a plan to provide these programs in district. Next slide, please. So, we have two pages of fiscal stabilization plan. This first page is only two items and it's already underway. And so these items have been included in those multi-year projections which we've already gone over with you. Number one, aligning staff with projected enrollment. Uh better budget controls, better staffing model, better budget development. And we moved $17 million from the unrestricted side to the restricted side. That's the majority of that savings to the unrestricted general fund. So that's already underway and it is already reflected in your multi-year projection. Central office

reductions, reduce positions and contracted services in central office. So we'll see that saving starting in July and that estimate at this point is for a savings of $15.264 million. So those are the two parts that are underway already. Next slide please. These other two items are the minimally required. We call this the the baby FSP to make sure that we can start whittling away at some of those deficits by the third interim and budget adoption. We do anticipate there will be additional FSP measures at budget adoption so that we can demonstrate that we're going to bring the budget into alignment at that time. But for tonight, two additional FSP items. Number one, align special education resources with IEPs. Reduce contract services by onboarding contractors to exist in vacant positions. That doesn't mean the contractors themselves. They might not be interested, but actually finding employees rather than contracting out services more aggressively. This cost savings should not impact service to students. It's just replacing contractors who are not technically employees with employees that do the work. We're looking for a fiscal year 2728 savings in doing this of about $6 million. And then continued central office reductions. So this is in addition to page one, which was a combination of contracts and staff. This is reductions in more contracts, supplies, and materials provided to to central offices. Now, I would say that that's a little bit misleading because a lot of the work that we do at central offices is actually contracting or provision for schools. Uh, but this would be asking folks to look at what they're doing and reduce those by another $8 million. So, the total uh on slide two is about $14 million in savings. Next slide, please. Right. So what would our multi-year projection look like after the implementation and we add in page two of the fiscal stabilization plan? You can see that now um all four years uh would

be in positive territory on the unrestricted general fund. Now please note I'm still going to draw your attention to 2829 uh because I keep focusing that. I just want to point out that we still do not have enough fund balance to pay for the deficit on the restricted side. But the FSP certainly moves us in the right direction uh for that work. And I believe that concludes the presentation. Did I miss misremember something? Oh, and this just illustrates the deficit uh moving moving forward. And with that, any questions? Thank you. Any commissioner Gupta? And then we'll go to commissioner student delegate man.

Oh, and it's also nine, so we'll have you wrap up. Thank you so much for that update. Um, and I'm sad I have to miss the questions because you all just ask very insightful questions all the time. Um, my question I have to um, we talked about certifications earlier. Um, and I'm seeing there's like a district one, a county one, and a state one. And I'm not very in the world of all this. So, I'm just wondering like what is the difference between all those certifications because I did notice that I think earlier um there's like for the district it's a qualified certification whereas for the county it's a positive one. So, I'm wondering what is a certification and how are they different based on the three?

Uh they're actually the same but they're different organizations. Uh and so we have two. We have the district and I just went through the district presentation. There's more slides that go over the the county. And remember, these are just summary slides that reflect all the SAS forms that we attach. So, we try to make sense out of them for you and just give you a summary. Uh, and and the county ones we've we've gone over before. They're they're laid out in the same format. And the county is positive. So, our county office of education, it's it's fund five. It has its own operating fund. It runs a lot of our special programs uh as well as special functions that exist in accounting office. something like certification assistance, um, class and compensation, a lot of our special education programs, etc. So, they get their own certification because we do run our own county office as well. A much smaller budget and those that information is in there. So, they're at positive, which means that they are definitely meeting their current expenses for the current and two years. And qualified means that we may or may not meet ours for the current and next two years. It is an improvement from negative.

Thank you. And then my second question was um on slide 19, the last slide we ended on. Um for each like school year there is a number like for example 20 25 to 26 $49 million shortfall and then 26 to 27 27 million shortfall. And I'm wondering how accurate and likely are these numbers?

Uh they're accurate. Uh they're accurate. All we do we we've talked about this before. We just finished this. we get everybody's budget and we just add it up and that's the planned expenditures. Now, let's play theoretical for a second, right? Um, how likely is it that you spend 100%. It's it's pretty unlikely unless you have a large unexpected expense. So, in other words, if you are running a department and your budget is $10,000 and you budget for 9,000 of it that you're going to spend over a 12-month period of time and then you only spend seven, you don't get to keep that money because we're not a bank. So, we take it back and then we reallocate you $10,000 next year, right? And then you submit a budget for it again. Um, and so do people spend all of their allocations? The answer is no. Right? Uh, what is the total that we get back every year of unspent funds? Uh, it's been going down. Last year, we spent more than what we brought in in revenue. We still didn't budget everything people planned because that number would have been much bigger, but we we still spent more than we brought in. So part of what we're trying to do is we're not allocating you more than we get in. Not you as a person, but you as a department or a district. So that's one of the ways we're trying to stay out of deficit spending. The bigger issue here because I think people focus too much on that. How much of how much of our projected budget are we going to spend? Get out your crystal ball. We don't have a crystal ball, right? We look at trends, right? And last year we broke the trend and we actually had a deficit because before we were projecting them and we didn't have them. this year it looks like we're going to have one again. Um the bigger piece that's important is that we have to account for the plan that you submit and have enough money for it. So for example, if you have $1,000 in your savings account and you overbudget by $100 more than what you have, we have it in the savings account, but we have to have enough money in the savings account for everything that you

plan on spending for the current plus two years. So if you now spend plan over three years on spending $1,500 more. You don't have enough money. And it's just a plan. It's just on paper. But that's actually what got us into negative certification. We were actually planning to spend more than we were getting in even though we didn't spend it all. So the negative certification was a what I call a paper negative certification is that our budget plans far exceeded the amount of money that we're bringing in or the money that we had left over even if people didn't spend it. So we went into negative certification based on a plan not actual overspending which is an interesting concept but

yeah thank you so much. Um, as I've mentioned before, always very insightful to learn about all this. Um, I think I dropped this in the fall semester. I wrote my college apps about some I wrote one of my essays about this. And March is the very exciting Well, no, I've talked it was like a moment where like you liked learning like something about an extracurricular and I did talk about this and March is the scary month where everything comes out. So, I'll keep you all updated. Good night. Thank you very much, student delegates. Appreciate your uh thoughtful questions this evening. Um, Commissioner Gupta,

um, thank you. Thank you so much for this. And I just want to point out on page 13 of this, we have changes from I think the most exciting column to me on page 13 is the percentage change from first to second interim, and it's all within 5% negative4 to 4% is the range. And I just want to compare that to past years where we've had swings of 40% plus, which is it's really nice to see that we're not going through those changes. So kudos to you and the team. That is huge within the time that you've had to be able to do that. Just want to really appreciate that. Um, one question on page 13 while we're on it. Um I I just want to make sure I'm understanding this. So if I'm looking at this B plus C minus D on this page is equal to F and then is it A plus E minus the board local reserve um gets us to I mean it's it's it's

sorry I'm just trying to like understand this. So is it total revenues looks like total revenues plus total contributions minus the expenditures is equal to the surplus or shortfall.

Yes. So so we literally line this up like a ledger sheet so that you could go down and do the math for yourself which is what you just did. Right. So beginning fund balance is what's left over from prior years. The revenue is what we're getting. So we add those two together. That's how much we have to potentially spend that year. A contribution comes off the top out of the general fund and moves to the restricted fund. That's our special education cost in our district. And to give you a concept, in the last 10 years that's gone up from 140 million to now 225 million with far fewer students. Something that should be catching your eye as board meeting as board members.

Uh and then your total expenditures. So the contribution just comes off the top uh and moves to the restricted side. And then there's the total expenditures. That's all of the planned expenses, the 570 million. And so, yes, it's just it's just straightforward math from there, right? So, all of that money minus all of the contributions and expenditures is your projected ending fund balance, that 58 million. And then we tell you below line F, those are the different things that add up to that 58 million. Right? So from the then you so the components of that 58 million are the stores inventory and prepaid the reserve for economic uncertainty etc. The only one that doesn't go into that math is we've called out separately your local reserve and fund 17 so that you can keep track of the balance of your 8% local reserve wi-i

which is what kind of confused me when I first looked at it because it's actually then beginning fund balance plus the net surplus or short uh shortfall. um minus the board local reserve is then equal to the ending fund balance. Correct. And and I think it would just be helpful to I don't know somehow call that out because I was trying to make that ad. I I was trying to make that ad and it and it wouldn't. So I had to kind of play with it. And then f the the ending fund balance equals everything below that except for that board local reserve which is what you just

Yeah. And and if you will, Marine, could you go to the next slide please? The reason we did that is so that you can track how we're keeping the school district um in solveny. So we're using balances, but then we're actually showing down below now. Now now we've moved fund 17 below the blue line. We're showing you that we're taking the deficits, the plan deficits out of fund 17 in order that you have a zero or better in that unassigned unappropriated. So, we're actually drawing down we're balancing the budget on your reserve. Now, the reserve policy says we will not bud we will not balance the budget on a reserve. So, that's not a long-term plan. That's supposed to be in case of an emergency. Um, but there is no other source of funding in the budget uh at this time to pay for the deficits. Got it. And so and if you can also clarify. So I see 2829 projection for restricted on page 12 and ending fund balances negative 125 basically negative 126 million. Um and then I see on page 14 um you know ending fund balance for 2829 is 120 in the unrestricted. So is that I is that basically I mean are are the different funds coming to a wash then or is there still sort of a negative$126 million that is just not dealt with?

So you have to go down and still do the math. And so the ending fund balance you then have to look at the components and one of them is still an an assignment um of $89 million. This is for unknown expenses associated with with bargaining that we're still engaged in and costs of health care benefits. That number we hope to resolve by the end of the year. So, it's a placeholder. Um, but currently it reads actually that the fund balance in 2829 after paying all expenses is $14 million.

We're we're not good at that point. So, is this just sort of like gaming the system so that we are ostensibly it's all on the restricted side and you know that's not counting towards fiscal certification and Yeah, it it's it's uh so so I would not I would not characterize it as gaming the system. I would suggest that you've hired two experienced financial prof professionals who are who are making sure that you are in the best financial situation that we can put the district in in a very tough fiscal situation. Right. So is our job to make give you the most flexibility on your unrestricted side? It is absolutely and you'll continue to see us do that no matter what. But yes, that that is what you're seeing.

All right, my last 19 seconds. The fiscal stabilization plan assumes 6 million in savings by moving special education contractors into existing vacant permanent positions. Given that the district's own metrics show a significant challenge in filling hard to staff vacancies and that special education contracts cost recently, I believe about 20 million 19.4. What is the strategy to fill these positions with staff rather than contractors to actually realize these saving?

Darn it, Amy's not here. It's all about HR. Uh, no, that's not fair. Uh, this is a very modest saving. So, currently the figure that we're spending on uh contractors uh is it's it's far larger than $6 million. So, this is giving us a preliminary uh target of let's reduce that amount by 6 million. uh it is not the entire amount that we're paying for contractors. In fact, it's a it's a relatively small portion of it.

If I may, I I would also want to just add that um under Jenny Jimenez Payne's leadership, our head of special education, she's working really hard to review all contracts to try to find greater efficiencies in the contracts, making sure that there's alignment regarding around student needs and allocation of of staff and services. So through that process um it's this is where we're finding greater efficiencies. Mr. Alexander

um thanks. I want to follow up on this on the contracting question. It was one of my um questions. Um so I've been so if you look at the 5000s um series which is kind of the services and other operating expenses which includes contracts for this fiscal year our original budget was 219 million roughly the revised budget was about 275 million the projection of actuals is now 298 million although we've only spent about 90 million and so so the contracts I mean really the contract costs. Oh, and then for the next in the multi-year projections are about 300 million a year. So, the contract costs have really grown and I think that in the response to the written question, it said that was because of this special ed contracting. So, I guess that was following up on this question. I guess I was just curious, why are we only projecting six million in savings when I mean we're increasing it by like I don't know from a budget to now projected actuals. It's like that's like an $80 million projected increase just for this year alone. And yet we're only now we're saying we're going to reduce it by six million when we've said we're going to really fill these Fed positions. I guess I'm trying to understand that discrepancy.

So uh there's a lot that goes into that, right? So I mentioned before that the contribution has been going up at relatively rapid pace uh for a district for the size of contribution and that's very specifically tied to that line that you're calling out. Um which is why uh as Dr. Sue mentioned special education is working on that contract. So remember contracts are a combination in special education of transportation NPS's NPA as well as a lot of other services that they provide. Um, however, what we need to get a lot better doing, and I think I've mentioned this to the board before, this is going to be the last tough nut to crack, is that we have to stop overbudgeting, right? So, we assume perhaps far more than we need. And even you're pointing out the one area of the budget that is continuing to go up double digits in between different interim reports and it's based on asks for contracts, but yet the expenses don't materialize in a timely manner. So that should point to, and I'm being as frankly as blunt as I can be, that points to a lack of efficiency in accurately predicting what we need when we need it for our students. But yet we're providing the services, right? So something needs to be looked into far more carefully there. And this is where uh and I think our our labor partners are aware of that as well because that's something that they called out in negotiations. There's contract monitoring. So the people that do contract monitoring are in my office, but it's been left on its own to be handled. And so we are pulling that function over and making sure that it's done well. So to your point, might there be more savings than $6 million to be had there just by reconciling what's going on? I would I would hazard a guess to say yes, but without being able to get into the data and actually reconciling everything, which we're just starting literally next week, like as we've started to make this this progress, I I I just don't feel comfortable guessing for you.

I really appreciate everything you just said and I just I mean because I looked to me, I was I was shocked to see that we've only spent $94 million in that $300 million budget. I was like, are we really going to spend by the end of the year $300 million? But and that's money again that we've taken off the table for other uses by saying it's budgeted over there because we need it for these contracts, right? So that's I really really appreciate that work. I had a similar question around instructional supplies and maybe the answer is the same because there was a similar pattern. The numbers are smaller for instructional supplies. The but we've only spent 12 million but our projected actuals is 66 million. Um is that a similar dynamic or

similar slightly different in this case? Um so in this case uh it's an aggregate of all the unspent money that actually is more at school sites. Um school sites tend to be pretty good. You were a principal. I was a principal. We save our money and then uh we try to spend it really frugally and then at the end of the year sometimes we get a little less frugal, maybe a little extravagantly so but so folks tend to make sure they have enough to last for the year. The the big chunk of that though is that uh for adoptions um we've been uh over assuming how much we're going to get done or adopted and that money doesn't carry forward right so it needs to be reallocated every year and so we've been working with curriculum and instruction uh Devon's a great partner to say I want a 10-year textbook adoption and because I'm really good at estimating what textbooks cost and instead of allocating you $40 million and you're only going going to spend 12 of it. We're only going to allocate 12 because on the schedule, that's what it's going to be. So, that's about better budget practices. Um because we will always allocate the money to buy the textbooks or the that type of supply that we need districtwide. Uh but we shouldn't be overallocating it into your apt description like you just had with other contracts, then leaving that money on the side.

Yeah. And just I really really appreciate that and and this is why I'm glad I'm so grateful for the progress you all are making around these sort of technical um improvements around our budgeting and processes because again that's we heard people complaining in public comment about staff cuts. We're making staff cuts because you know once if we fix these things we'll have more money available to hire staff at schools for example. So it's it's like a because we or balance the budget all those things right. So I guess my last question is um around ADA projections. We talked about this last week at the at the um study session. Um my and the question I asked last week which um we didn't have the enrollment folks there but was our enrollment has actually been pretty steady for the last uh three years. There was a decline after COVID then it was pretty steady. This year we lost about 390 students and yet for the next few years we're projecting 500 student decline per year. So my two questions are why like why we think that's not a blip? Like why do we think it's going to keep going down? And secondly, is that um reduction the 2.8 million decline that's on slide 13 is that the 500 students more or less?

Maybe that's the easy part of the question. That's the easy part. The answer yes. uh to answer the other part um we don't do our own demographic information and so I believe at the study session we we sent a request that the demographer share their projections with you and that goes through the enrollment center so we'll make sure that you get it we'll keep asking other words but unfortunately we are seeing a consistent decline

in the projecting though because th this is the first year I mean last three years were almost steady one year went up a little down a little and then this year we lost about 400 kids. But that's this is the first year that's happened. So I guess I just want to I want to see those projections and understand why we think that's just not like a one-year blip, right? How why do we think it's going to keep going? I think is my question. So I will give you an interesting dynamic here. We're really good at data in the enrollment. We have some good data talent. Um I think I've mentioned him by name a few times before. So the the benefit that our dem our demographer has is we have not just a single year worth of really interesting enrollment data. We have decades um it's one of the areas that we've actually kept really good data in and so the demographer has access to that and is very very good at projecting where we're going up and down. We're also good at getting it done early. So enrollment uh placement letters I know people were talking about that they're they're going out soon. That means we have a good idea already of what next year's enrollment is. um better than most districts. That's actually really interesting. So, when that comes out, we should all be looking carefully.

Yeah. And especially as we're going to look forward at potentially changing the student assignment system, other things. I think that just having all that maybe we can do a study session on that or something. Thank you. Just going to move on. Commissioner Fischer,

um this has been a great conversation. Thank you. And I appreciated the the math. Um, by the way, Commissioner Gupta, that was that was a fun exercise. Um Um, and I last week's buddy se budget study session, I guess it was a buddy session, too. Um, was really informative. Um, and to follow up on what Commissioner Alexander was just saying about ADA trends, one of the aha moments that you pointed out to us, Mr. Mount Bonus was the fact that it's not the enrollment drop that's so impactful. It's the fact that our actual attendance compared like we only have about 92% attendance which is very very low you know compared to the state. So this isn't a question for now but this is a question I would like to see answered was so what are we doing? I think this is an area where a little bit of investment could actually bring big returns. So what are we doing to actually increase our attendance? So, that's question one. Um, also we've talked about impact assessments. We heard that mentioned in public comment a few times, like are we actually doing impact assessments to make sure that when we're making cuts, we're not cutting off our nose despite our face, for lack of a better term, right? Um, and I also appreciate on slide 17 how you clarified compared to last week's slides um that the the way that the the sped reductions are um are listed here that it's the I really appreciate the clarification of the fact that we're reducing our reliance on contracting um and you know we're filling existing vacant positions, but that also is going to need more focus in HR. So, I'd like to see what we're doing. You know, what at the same time as we're cutting central office, how are we making sure that our HR department is appropriately staffed and we have the resources there

to actually bring folks in. Um, and also, Miss Chyram, I also really appreciate, you know, what you said last week about maximizing sped funds, you know, like we're not we're not taking advant advantage of the state's child development fund for students with disabilities, right? And so we do have opportunities to bring additional revenues in. Um and so while I don't expect all these that was a lot um you know so but um I'd love to see more of a detailed plan of what we're doing to maximize potential incoming revenues how we're um specifically um but I also when it comes to special education really really really want to appreciate everything we're doing in position control and budgeting. Um, we talk about the the state's Prop 98 budget maneuver, but there's been a lot there's been a huge lack of clarity in our own budget maneuvers internally and how that's impacted sped, you know, in order to balance the budget over the past couple years. And so, there's a lot of folks who are really nervous about what contractor versus employee means. And when we talk about huge differences in sped, we haven't had a lot of budget accountability in special education over the past couple years. So, so this budget transparency and everything that's happening now is going to be critically important to make sure one we're appropriately staffed and not getting ourselves into compliance issues. Um, but two, really rebuilding trust with families and most importantly actually serving our students. Done.

Great. Did you have a question? I asked like 10 questions in there. Did you want to lift up one or a handful to prioritize? Well, I I would I would pivot to the superintendent if you um I will let you Do you need me to restate any of them? Uh because that was uh quite the monologue. Um but if you need me to restate, I'm happy to.

I think it's Thank you, Commissioner Fischer. Um, what I heard is, uh, maybe perhaps creating another I mean, now that we're getting used to study sessions, we could do a study s a study session that's specifically focused on enrollment because that is a very complicated, needlessly complicated process. Um, oh, I just don't want to overpromise the public because we actually have an overall governance calendar including additional extra meetings we expect to come up. But we're looking forward to our briefings on enrollment

or we could do board briefings on enrollment. Um and and then we could also uh share with the board and and members of the public our um attendance campaign. So, our be here campaign um which was funded through our philanthropic arm um in terms of trying to support our our young people to come to school, the importance of coming to school, uh the impact of losing hundreds of thousands of minutes of um instruction per year and then of course translating out to the district losing tens of millions of dollars as well. Um but we could do more of that. Um, in terms of special education, I think that um, as you already alluded, um, our head of special education, um, Jenny Jimenez Payne is doing a really great job in terms of trying to align, uh, service to students, um, working really closely with HR um, to identify the types of service a young person needs, the individual, the the staff that the young person would need um, and working very closely with HR to see if how quickly we can hire um a person to provide the service. And when we can't and have exhausted that avenue, then then we would go to a cons a contractor. Um and I know that HR through um Amy's um shop is working really hard to try to recruit more special education educators and that's really really hard um to to bring on. However, now with this new TA, we might be able to bring more special education uh teachers uh to the district because we are offering um benefits um to to our educators. So, so I think that we are really fortunate now to to have better recruiting um um revenue uh mechanisms to bring people on.

I appreciate that followup. Um, that's super helpful. And I I think one of the things we heard a lot last year was the fact that it took so long to onboard people that we just lo and I think that might have been partly a reflection on our systems. Um, you know, but are are we getting better acceptance rates with like so these are when we talk about a study session and I appreciate that we as a board might get briefings but that doesn't help bring the public along, right? And so we want to make sure that we also whatever information we're getting the the public has access to as well, right? So are our improved system like what is it exactly that's going to help us do that? I think would be a follow-up question not necessarily to answer here. I know we've got to move on. Um but last year through April we spent $6.7 million with outside psychologists. Some of that was IEE, some of that was contractors. We spent 15.8 million with non-public agencies. Like there's a So when we talk about $6 million, I think there's a lot more than that to be. Um so I appreciate the conservative effort and hope we actually commissioner.

I'm just trying to Okay. Um so yeah, I would love to see more detail. How about that to to Yeah. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Commissioner Ray. Hi. I just want to ask a very fundamental level question which is this is listed as an action item the fiscal year 25 to 26 second interim report so we need to take action on it can you just explain you know in very lay men's term lay person's terms what we're voting on here

I'll try that again feedback started I think it's gone Uh so uh you're actually voting the the presentation is the uh overview. It includes your your your summary fiscal statements as well as your required fiscal stabilization plan. So you're voting on that and you're voting on all of the hundreds of p pages of accounting documents that we've attached which are the backup that actually aggregate up to uh the summary reports um literally line by line. Uh and so and that's required. So, every time we do a report, those are called the the Sachs forms uh the standard accounting uh forms that we use and are required by the state. So, you're approving all of that.

Okay. Um is all of that contained within this document and this document? Yes. Okay. Yes. So, the entirety of these is Yes. I I actually uh I didn't know. So, it's actually Carter in our office that used to print those. I didn't realize we were printing them anymore. So, good to see they're still being printed. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? See? Okay, seeing none, roll call. Uh, nope.

Nope, it's already been made. Yes. No, I just seen a debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote, please. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. President Kim, yes. Commissioner Weissman Ward, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Seven. Yes.

Thank you. President Kim has 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, in his absence, I'll ask the superintendent, do you have any changes to the consent calendar? I have none. Um, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? I move to approve the consent calendar. Second.

Could we have a roll call vote, please? Sorry. May I ask a question? Is it possible to um to uh make a brief point first or not? No, it's not a discussion item. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Ray. Um, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Vice President Healing. Yes. Commissioner Weiss Ward. Yes. Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Commissioner Fischer.

Yes. Yeah. Um, okay. So, um, really quickly on board member reports, are there any reports from board members on any of the following three items under section K board member reports? Please raise your hand, Mr. Gupta. Um, just saying there's there's a meeting this Thursday for the best ad hoc committee there is, ad hoc committee on public engagement happening at the LA Hav. Uh, please come. We would love to engage you all. We'd love to hear your perspectives as we engage in figuring out how do we as a board take action on major decisions as well as routine engagement. So that's Leola Hav 6 PM. Look forward to seeing you all there either in person or online. All information is on our website. Thank you.

And the second best ad hoc committee has reschedled. You haven't been recognized yet. I'm I'm quite aware. Quite aware. Um the second ad hoc committee on on progress monitoring has rescheduled its meeting to Tuesday, April 21st. And so if you want to come and join the other two audience members for that one, you're welcome to. But we're going to continue with our work.

Thank you so much for your leadership, Commissioner Alexander. Um I know that I had mentioned at the top of this meeting that we may break into uh close session. Um my commitment here is that we will keep it short 10 15 minutes. Um if that is and if that is amendable to the board I would love to to to reconvene into close session briefly.

Thank you. I mean we we we are forced to because we have to come back and vote to extend if we were to anyway. So we would have to come back regardless at that. Amazing. Thank you so much. We will resume into close session.

There was no action, just discussion. We now adjourn this meeting at 10 Oh, yeah.