San Francisco Unified School District Board - Regular Meeting

The regular meeting of the board of education of the San Francisco Unified School District for January 13, 2026 is now called to order at 5:04 p.m. Roll call, please. Commissioner Alexander here. Commissioner Fischer. Commissioner Gupta here. Vice President Healing here. Commissioner Ray. Commissioner Wisman Ward here and President Kim

here. Accessibility information, translation services and information uh to observe the meeting uh is available online. SFUSD will provide child care for regular board meetings and monitoring meetings on the first floor of the enrollment center at 555 Franklin from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. or the close of the meeting, whichever comes first. Child care is for families who will be attending the regular and monitoring board meetings. Space is limited and will be provided on a first come first-s serve basis for children's ages 3 to 10. Questions, please contact the board office at 415241-6427 or board office at sfusd.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 5 minutes for speakers. Are there any speakers for public comment?

Not at this time. I now reset this meeting at 5:05 p.m. that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email at board officefusd.edu. We will hear first from students in person, then members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items, then moving to non-aggenda items. Regardless of whether inerson public comment is complete, we will save 15 minutes for remote public comment at the end, 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 reme 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.

Sorry, we're fixing something with the Zoom for um sign language interpretation. One second. Thank you, President Kim. We have uh 41 um adult speakers and 19 students. We'll start with students. As I call your name, please line up. Lara Matthews, Amelia Cook, Alejandra Ronaldo, Neda, Joseph My name is Ameilia Cook and I'm Cor Matthews and we're seventh graders at James Demond Middle School. When I first heard about the budget cuts, I was sad. I was sad about how I might not have the opportunity to have both public speaking and computer science elective next year. Both electives that would help me learn skills that would aid me the rest of my life and taught by some of my favorite teachers. Personally, I don't like my academic opportunities being taken away, and every student deserves a seventh period day. As I learned more about the cuts, I became more worried about my school and my experience in middle school. Cutting security means making school less safe. And as someone who has a lot of anxiety about that, the thought of Denman being even less safe makes me less encouraged to be at school. In addition, in 8th grade, there are tons of end of the year events such as the picnic and camping trip that make students last year of middle school the

best. If these budget cuts happen, other students, me and the students after us, will be stripped of those opportunities. That, for one, makes me mad. I sincerely ask you to not pass the budget cuts so that others and I can finish our middle school experience feeling safe, happy, and fully educated. Don't stabilize the budget by destabilizing school communities. In my opinion, I feel like it's wrong taking away our teachers because since one of my school is in the list of taking away out of 22, they're going to leave 14 teachers. And I don't feel like that's not that fair because we got newcomers. If they take off newcomers, it could affect a lot of us cuz we're a lot of immigrants in our middle school. And as a vi as a president and student council, I've started to feel worthy for my own community and school. So I will try to help and attend more meetings. Thank you.

Hi. Hi. My name is Nada. I'm seventh grade in teaching my school. I'm part of the new comm. I'm here to speaking my feeling about the rejection of my program. This program is important to me. In my LD class, I I learned to how to read and write in English. I made friends in my program and we practicing English together. My teachers my teacher are important to me because they are the one who teach us English. Please keep our program. Thank you for listening. My name is Jos. I'm I am a seventh grader at Visit Valley Middle School. I I am here because I disagree with the budget you gave to our school. At first, our newcomer program was taken away, but thankfully it was given back. However, the budget still cuts important teachers and support staff. Next year, we will only have one counselor, one social work social worker, two security staff, and no assistant principles. When students have problems at school, these adults help us. So cutting them is not fair to students. Our assistant principal, Miss G and Miss Woods, help our principal, Miss Baker, manage the school each day uh and support students. For example, Miss G, always checks on students by asking how we are doing and making sure we are good. Also, why you still trying to push a sixth period date? I and many other students across the city spoke out against this last month. All students need electives regardless of the language they speak or if they can speak English correctly. Please keep our seventh period schedules and give our school the funds that we need to take care of every student and keep our teacher support staff. Thank you.

Please lighten up as I call your name. Deli, Marie Trangino, Romina Gomez, Jalia Mackey, Melanie Savay. I want to speak. Okay. [clears throat] Okay. [gasps] Professor Hello, my name is Mary. I am in seventh grade. Oh,

English. Can we have the translator come up and interpret? Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Hello everyone. My name is Mary. Hold on. let him translate and then what she said. Go ahead.

Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Deli and I'm a seventh grader and I'm here um as part of the group of the new students that or newcomers that have come to school and I just want to advocate for you guys uh for you uh not to cut off the program. Uh we the newcomers we benefit greatly from this program so we can learn English in a better way. Um and if you cut the program in our side then we'll be subjected to move to another school and kind of like a start over getting to know other people and teachers and um and that's not really beneficial for us. I'm just here to beg you to uh keep our program at our school that it benefits us all. Thank you. Hello, my name is Mary. I am seventh grade in and I attend vis visitation valley middle school. I am a newcomer student. I'm here to explain my desire of the school budget for new here because I love our newcomer so much. I learn English here and I live so close to the school. I don't want to leave this valley. The brother is asking for our school to call teacher and reduce a new com program. My teacher helped me so much in every subject and I don't want to lose them. My teacher help me in everything. Even even if it's hard for me, they make it easier. I don't want you to take me away from my teacher and me away from them. Thank you for listening.

Fore scholar. participons. Professor Go ahead, interpreter.

Thank you. Um, hello everyone. My name is Roina Gomez and I'm a seventh grader at Valley. Uh, please I just want to beg you not to take away any of the programs. As you know, I'm a um I'm benefiting out of this programs uh because I came from other country and I feel very comfortable in this program because I get all support and uh they made teachers and staff make me feel very comfortable. Um and since when I arrived um the only thing I want to say is uh I also benefit out of um practicing soccer. I um practicing a sport makes me feel that I'm more responsible and I do have more discipline and I want to say that without my teachers and my coach I cannot do any of this teamwork effort and if you take away any of these programs it will impact not only my future but everybody's future. Thank you. Is it on? Is it on? Okay. Hi, my name is Julian Mack and I'm a student at Visitation Valley Middle School. I'm here to express my disapproval of the budget given to my school for the next school year. Currently, this budget will cut our support staff and our teachers from 21 to 14, which means losing seven teachers. This is a terrible idea because it will lead to much larger classes and less attention to people who need extra support. I would feel very sad and upset if I were to lose my favorite teachers and security guards because they know me and help me through my problems. or if I'm having a hard day this year and last year. I made the girls soccer team and made so many friends, many of them who are newcomer students. I do not think it is fair for them to lose their elective next year because you have decided to change our schedule to a sixth period day. All students in SFUSD deserve an deserve to have an elective. And this is Oh, I'm sorry. And this is especially true at my school because electives are both where both Oh, I'm so sorry. Both where gen ed

and newcomer students share a space and interact with each other. Electives are important because it allows us to build community across differences, be creative, and learn new fun things together. I urge the decision makers of this budget to do better, and change this budget to Oh, I'm so sorry. To save our teachers and staff, and to truly support and serve all students. Thank you for listening. My name is Nelliana Savi and I go to Visitation Valley Middle School. I am I'm here to speak against the budget cuts planned for my school next year. Even though the newcomer program was brought back, teachers and support staff like assistant principles, counselors, and securities are still being cut. These adults help us keep us safe and supported. The budget would get reduced or cheap. The budget would reduce our teachers from 21 to 14. This is not fair to us. Bigger teachers mean bigger classes and less help. When classes are crowded, it is harder for us to learn and succeed. I spoke last I spoke here last month against the proposed change of our schedule to sixth period day. I am disappointed that this is still an issue. Elective classes are important and all students deserve the chance to have an elective, especially our new our newcomer and ELD students. Please reconsider the budget and give our school the funding we need to support every student at UV VMS.

Thank you. Please line up as I call your name. Andrea Oh, Andrea Sophia Bonitez, Diane Guadamis, Stacy Vieira Mahia, Alejandra Rios, Fria, [clears throat] Sophia Middle School. Fore extra. High School. interpreter, please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Sophia and I'm a student here at Visitation Valley. Um I'm in the newcomer program and it was very important for me to assist this program because at the beginning of uh of coming here, I didn't actually know how to speak English and I've been learning how to speak English little by little. I uh and when I when there were times when I was feeling lost, I had the support of my teachers and the staff to make me feel that I belong here and they also help me how to appeal that I believe that I can believe in me. Um and without the the help of these teachers, uh if you cut the program, everything is going to just be slow. it's going to be very hard for me to learn English at the pace that I'm doing around um that I'm doing around uh right now and also to have success. Uh we need also the same opportunities and anybody else to uh keep uh having success in this program. If you cut out this program is going to be devastating for all of us. Thank you. My name is Alexandra. Son of

Hello everyone. My name is Alexandra and I'm an eighth grade uh student at Viz Valley. Uh please do not take away any of my teachers. I have the best teachers that I ever uh had before and they have picked me all the best and they know how to do their job and their job is excellent and I also want you not to take them away because I want this other students from the seven sixth and seventh grade to learn the way that I've been learning and this is and they know how to do their job and please don't take them away and that would be taking away opportunities for not just me, for future students. Thank Visitation school. is class. Go ahead.

Hello everyone. My name is Stacy and I'm a Val student. If uh if you eliminate this program, the newcomer program, it's going to be very hard for us the English learning students. And we if you eliminate this then our classes are going to become bigger and it's going to be very hard for us to learn anything. And uh what we need is more quality education. If you eliminate this program the quality will uh it won't be good quality as as we have it right now. And we have really good teachers that can teach us um all a lot of good things. Uh also instead of eliminating programs like the newcomer program, uh you should consider to actually uh probably hire more people and actually make a stronger community and a stronger program for all of us. Thank you. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Hello. Uh my name is Diana and I'm an

eighth grader at Visitation Valley. If you eliminate the uh the possible elimination of our program, the newcomer program, um it will impact terribly um all the students and actually not to help them. For example, for me, it was not to learn a new language, but it's also to learn different ways to um to to learn uh a new culture. And this is very important for all the students. Please consider not to eliminate the newcomer program. Thank you. Um, my name is Freya and I and I go to SFC Community School. Those are for learning, not for closing down and firing teachers.

Sorry, there's something going on with our timer. It's not working. So, yeah, please line up as I call your name. Valeria Goyo Changal Isaac Mariah Amina Cherova Cherova Marco David Martinez that's okay that's okay go ahead

um good evening board members my name is Valeria I'm in 11th grade and I am from San Francisco International High School. Ever since I started studying SFI, I've noticed the dedication of SFI teachers and counselors is amazing by the way they support students by making us feel confident that we're going to have a successful future in college. One of the most important virtues of the school is that you don't necessarily need to get support from your counselor, but actually any adult in the school is willing to help you with what you need. and we get all the help we need as international students such as immigration status, emotional support and other things. Overall, what I'm trying to say is we can go to school every morning knowing that if we have any issue or worry, there will be someone that will help us get through it. Um, so please support the students and teachers of San Francisco International High School. Thank you. Uh my name is Chong and I'm 11th grade at San Francisco International High School and I want to share some of my own experience. So on the first day that I come to the school in the US everything that make me feel so overwhelming um because I couldn't understand what they're saying um the class and something else. Um the teachers help me to find the article that's suitable for me for my English level and like me to use translate and understand and help me to understand individually and that really helped me um improve my English and also there some um the program that provide our school help me a lot and also the last year I feel so stressed because of my social and also industrial um like around me and um this so I talk with the school wellness and my school wellness is very um so they help me to find a therapist that who speak Chinese and talk with me every week and that really helpful for me.

So um please support the students and the teacher of San Francisco International High School.

Um good evening board members. My name is Zach. I'm from Nicarawa. I'm a 11 12th grader sorry from uh San Francisco International High School. As a newcomer, I get the support from counselor, teachers and program after school to adjust to the US which help me to feel confident with people and avoid decreases in my home country. We're asking for one year pass to cut to secondary newcomers program while we figure out a plan to best support our newcomer population with the boys and expertise of our family staff teacher and stop the tax of newcomer and newcomer education. Please support the students a teacher of San Francisco International High School. Thank you.

Hi uh member board members. Uh my name is Amina. I'm 12 uh grader in sources international high school from Ukraine. As a newcomer, I had no idea about education system in the United States. But counselors, teachers, and other staff in my school uh taught me every single detail about how to get and graduate from high school and college. Now I know what to do, where to go, and what actions to take to be a successful student. Please support the students and teachers of San Francisco International High School. Thank you. Middle School. forest. Hello everyone. My name is Marico and I'm a second uh seventh grader student, a seventh grade student at this valley

middle school and I am part of the newcomer program. Please, I'm here to ask you not to eliminate our program and if you fire if you fire the teachers um that they actually have a lot of experience that they've been teaching for various years uh for many years and I've been learning a lot. When I first came to this country, I didn't know how to speak English. And then I've learned enough to more or less have an understanding of the language. And also, if you also uh fire other teachers like our soccer coach, uh that he's been vital for us because we've been learning a lot. Uh, this is the last group of students. Please line up as I call your name. Dylan Rodriguez, Bella Guzman, Kellen Martinez, Alanteo, Kevin Martinez. You have to

My name is Bella Kman from from Halupa Elementary School. We need are ready to learn because we need to learn math and reading. If we don't learn more, we can't get smart. Thank you. Rodriguez Valley Middle School. No, thank you. Um, hello everyone. My name is Dylan and I'm a seventh grade student of his valley and I'm calling you uh I'm here to tell you please do not uh in the name of our school community not to uh start firing teachers. Um if you find the teachers then uh we will have a good future and uh having our teachers will have a better future not uh for us. So, and our teachers, they do have the

commitment uh to be with us and to help us to build a better future. Um,

be with God. Thank you. What are they? Gracias. interpreter. Go ahead.

Thank you. Um, hello everyone. My name is Kevin and I am a seventh grade student. Um, I'm part of the newcomer program, I believe. And we are not actually um we're not finding amusing the fact that you guys caught the budget in our school. Um and that means that the program will be cut and this program has helped me greatly and now if you cut the program then I have to commute. Uh and the commute is it will be about an hour from my house which is also I feel that going across the city will be dangerous for me. I now I have to wake up at 6:00 in the morning in order for me to get ready to go to the newcomer program. I um I know the V valley is a lot closer from my home. Please do not cut the program. Thank you.

Is it possible for her to go first and then for me to come? Okay.

Good evening. My name is Alan Tel and I'm a senior at June Jordan School for Equity. Do you have a plan for my education and the education of the other 50,000 students in SFUSD if our teachers go on strike to fight for a fair contract? I was an eighth grader organizing at Aptos when the walkouts were happening to advocate for more mental health support for our students. Because of our efforts, we were able to get a new wellness center along with more mental health professionals. I was not afraid to fight then and I'm not afraid to fight now alongside my educators who deserve a fair contract. I'm also not afraid to fight with my peers at Viz Valley Middle School, SFI, or every other school facing cuts to make sure that they keep their assistant principal and other staff that are being cut. This proposal is creating the conditions for not only under enrollment for uh you are creating the potential for future school closures. Listen to all our student voices here tonight. Our stories are important because we are the ones whose educations are on the line and we are afraid. We are not afraid to step up and fight for what is right. I am upset that we are here yet again and that my peers have to spend our evening here, but I am so proud of every single one of my peers who is here tonight for for speaking up and advocating for themselves and their community. Thank you so much.

Hi, my name is Luna. Please don't close the program. It's important for me for my school. Thank you. Good night.

Mr. President, that concludes student. We will now move to members of the public. Uh, as I call your name, please line up. Robin Crop, Lauren Schwarz, La Simmons, Julie Lerner, Reverend Brown. Is this on already? Okay. Hi. Uh my name is Robin Crop, a San Francisco resident. Thank you for everybody's uh testimony today. It's amazing. Uh I'm here on behalf of thousands of people in San Francisco who are riders of the 49 bus who cannot get on the bus when kids are riding it to go to Galileo in the morning and coming back from Galileo in the afternoon. Nobody in a wheelchair, no seniors, no disabled, nobody can get on these buses and everybody's being left on the platforms while these buses go by. I personally think the solution is a shuttle bus and um I don't think that should be too hard to arrange whether it's done with the schoolboard um district or whether it's done with MUN or a combination of both and I definitely want to see a win-win solution for everyone where the students can transport to school and from school and everybody in the public can access public transportation. I had a conversation with a bus driver this afternoon who said it's terrible. He says our people cannot get on the bus. And I'm saying it must be a win-win solution for everybody. My uh email is Can I give my contact information? Huh? Can I give contact information? No. But just very quickly. Okay. SF r o b i n kaol.com if you would like to email me about this situation. Thank you. Hi, my name is Lauren Schwarz. I've been a music teacher at the Viz Valley Middle

School for the past 14 years. Our core values at Big Viz are love, literacy, and liberation. This church for you, Dr. Sue, afterwards. Last week, we you the proposed cuts that you made to our school were devastating. If you actually came to our school and saw the amazing things that go on every day and met our students, staff, and admin, you would love us. Instead, you minimized and dismissed us and thought it would be a good idea to eliminate our newcomer pathway program and cut our teachers from 21 to 14. You eliminated our AP and gave us only one counselor. You also took away two of our security positions. What were you thinking? We are a school that serves the most vulnerable students and you cut us off at the knees. What kind of leadership is that? I will continue to go to work every day and give all the love I have to our students and community. It's hard to learn if you don't feel loved. It's hard to go to work when you feel like your superintendent doesn't care about you. My name is Laura Simon and I have been the art teacher at Visitation Valley Middle School for 13 years. Tonight, I would like to address Dr. Sue and her cabinet because they are the ones that made these budget cuts even after the board voted against them. I want to address the blatant inequity in these cuts. The district loves to talk about equity and social justice, but clearly it is all talk. These budget cuts target small schools and historically marginalized communities. My school serves some of the most vulnerable students in this district. And yet, we seem to have been hit harder by these cuts than any other middle school. You are taking away support, safety, and joy from students who are going through things that you can't even imagine. And then you tell us to get their math and reading scores up. Like, what? And we don't have a PTSA that can pay for elective teachers, counselors, and assistant principles like some schools. Once again, the students who need the

most will lose the most. This is what systemic racism looks like. How dare you sit there and talk about equity and then pull this? Maybe you thought that marginalized and vulnerable communities wouldn't show up and call you out. Well, you sure were wrong. This showed up and we aren't going anywhere. Thank you. Mr. President, Madam Superintendent, all the members of the board of this illustrious city of St. Francis, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Dr. Amos Clintus Brown senior and I have the distinction and honor of being president emeritus of the San Francisco branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. And I'm also very humbled and proud to have achieved half a century as pastor of the historic Third Baptist Church of San Francisco that has been in this town for 173 years. My friends, we've always made education is a top priority for all

citizens and always has meant all. For wherever you have an ignorant, unlearned, untrained population, you better rest assured there's good ground for the development of fascists, dictators, and evil for marginalized, the least of those. I thank God for these young people who came here and spoke so eloquently. They have given testimony to the fact that their parents love them and they approach them. But when they get to the schoolhouse and to the board meeting, they should not have to plead for equality of education. Again, come on. Say that again. But how do we achieve that normal goal? First open to the fact that the enemy is not just in San Francisco. The enemy at the highest point exist in Washington DC that man who study programs and doesn't respect education for all people. I'm not being political. I'm just being pathetic. Thomas Jefferson said education is the foundation of our freedom.

So my FRIENDS WITH ALL THE strength that I have left on in the spring. Come on. At 84 and gone on 85. Come on. February the 20th. Come on. Come on. Come on.

I don't even understand this. Come on. UNTIL WE SEND THE MESSAGE TO Washington that you're dating the number for you not supported education. You've cut science. You have cut equality a thousand time that we're going to be liberelves because we can think for ourselves. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Davis, the last of the great school masters and the spiritual and intellectual mentor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King's birthday observers is just around the corner. My friends, many have not told the whole story that Martin Luther King tell them [clears throat]

in a house college, come on,

at the age of 15 in 1944. He was an early admission student, but the record of Moore House and many young black minds who been trained and pushed by parents and a white and fair community for just this night. Thank God for technology. There's a young man 13 years old. was just admitted to Miller House College and he broke Dr. King's record.

Yeah. Come on. Thank God. Come on. If your mind is stayed on achievement, if the community is united and the parents are with us, we can break every record and make sure that no child will have to apologize for where he or she came from. But they will be learning eloquent scholars, scientists, doctors, and lawyers. and do the same. He said, "I'm black and I'm proud." I'm brown and I'm sound. Come on. I'm yellow and I'm mellow. Come on. I'm red but I'm a gay.

Come on. I'm white and I'm all right. Come on. I'm a Roman but I'm Come on. I'm gay but I'm COME ON. I'M STRAIGHT BUT I'M SINFUL. Come on. I'm an industrious. Thank God tonight. Come on now. Way to go.

Thank you everyone. Let's keep going. Please line up. Oh, one more.

Please line up as I call your name. Irana Kalika, Leticia Irving, Joe Drew, Sadia Casseni, Christopher Pepper, and Cassandra Kuriel. My name is Miss Saudia and I'm an English language development teacher at James Denman Middle School. I represent my multilingual learners from whom you are taking over $21,000. Both of their ELD teachers and their favorite assistant principal. They are devastated that with a sixth period day, they will not get an elective. They are terrified of what will happen to their ELPAC progress if Denman's ELD department is gutted. And you say you care about test scores. They are upset that our assistant principal, who goes above and beyond to support our ELD students both with behavior and reclassification, will have to leave. This year, our ELD department is focused especially on supporting our students in both ELD and SPED. This work feels pointless if our kids can't have both ELD and study skills next year. It feels pointless if our ELD department will get gutted. And a core teacher teaching ELD as only one elective class will not be able to give our students the comprehensive support they deserve. President Kim, you are showing that you don't care about our most marginalized students by allowing the district to do this. As one of my sixth graders said, we don't appreciate you being so selfish.

Hello, my name is Arena and I'm a parent of two sixth graders at SFUSD. I urge the board and Dr. Sue to reconsider making budget cuts to our school sites. These proposed cuts violate the board of education's guard rails for the superintendent and will lead families who can afford private schools to leave SFUSD, which will result in a further decline in enrollment, thus exacerbating future budget shortfalls rather than solving them. My children graduated from a SFUSD public elementary school, and I have seen firsthand how a thriving neighborhood school can decline when it does not have enough resources to solve issues. when families who can afford to do so start to leave, creating a downward spiral of school under enrollment and a dwindling number of classes and teachers. I urge Dr. Sue to reconsider. Please do not defund our public schools. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Christopher Pepper. I'm a teacher on special assignment and I support um our amazing health education program. I'm coming to you I'm coming to speak to you tonight about our about the proposed cuts to middle school health education. After a full decade of growth, we have steadily where we've moved steadily closer to our goal of having health classes in every middle school. Our teachers last week started sending me emails. They said, "I got the chop. My positions being eliminated from next year. My principal said I need to start looking for a new job." This is a huge mistake. We need to keep health education in our middle schools. I don't know if you intended to cut middle school health education, but that is the message that's going out to schools. And if that's not what you intended, I need you to be very clear with schools that you want them to keep health education in middle school and have a clear plan for how to do it. Um, health education should be a right of passage for all students. Instead of cutting health education, I recommend making this class a required class for all seventh graders. Please save middle school health education.

Good evening. Um, I am honored to stand with before you with the African-American Achievement and Leadership Initiative team and proud to serve as the African-American Achievement and Leadership Executive Director. Um, today or this month we celebrate a decade of service to SFUSD. You'll hear a little bit more um later on today, but I wanted to make sure we begin by honoring our founding director, Landon Dicki. I want to honor his vision, his courage, the groundwork that he laid to ensure that our students were seen, that they were named, and that they were centered in this district. I also want to extend deep gratitude to the former Ali directors, members of the board of education, the San Francisco NAACP, the San Francisco alliance of black school educators, and the many champions who believe in this work and who helped to sustain it. To our families and educators, thank you for trusting us with your children and for partnering with us in love, care, and accountability. And at a time when equity has become a dirty word in SFUSD, um, and when we're talking about difficult budget decisions impacting our district, I remain proud to work for a school system that continues to name equity as a core value and to fight for each and every student to succeed, graduate, career, and college ready. Thank you for 10 years of support and service. And we look forward to supporting and serving you all further. Um hello everyone. My name is Asante McAllister. I am a student at um Mission High School and I just came here to talk about my experience with Ali and the BSR program. So Ali BSR program is fostering an educational advancement mindset that pushes students to thrive with the support of adults who have faced similar experiences and situations that students

like me have and will eventually encounter. I've been in a part of the Black Star Rising for 3 years and it has helped me to cherish my academic abilities and to strive for success. It allows me to resonate with the staff and feel encouraged to push hard for my education and academic success. Thank you.

Good evening. Cassandra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco. Amongst the myriad of issues that exist uh for our entire membership in our school communities beyond budget cut issues that now are forcing school communities to have debates with which important limb to remove from what is a living ecosystem. A school system of ours this large requires fully functioning, fully staffed schools at every single grade level. for folks to get a budget allocation based on estimations for which we have spent years describing the enrollment system as problematic in the funding and defunding particularly of various schools. for estimations in the coming year to look lower despite the fact that the district will be enrolling in a new school is problematic at best. Let alone the staffing for a new school while other schools are sitting to debate which teacher is unnecessary is neither appropriate at this time but also students are still coming to school. I have yet to hear one very deeply involved family member say that they would like more students in their child's class, that their kid doesn't have enough classmates. This this is not the forwardgoing best practices, let alone scientific, on what instructional needs are necessary in order to raise minimum expectations for math and literacy standards at any grade level. And that's just what schools are facing at this moment. Overall, we spent the last 10 minutes in this 10 months in a stalemate of negotiations

for which we could have been having productive conversations that shape the vision of this district because the members of our bargaining team have a vision for a fully staffed, fully funded, robust schools our students and educators deserve. We have a vision for what's supposed to be happening. There's more growth that's needed. And I believe actually that we all share a common goal here. That the fourth largest economy in this country, world globe, if you will, should be funding public education at a far greater extent than it actually does. I think we can all agree on that. And those efforts don't stop because we have a conflict that's still necessary. Because despite any political alignments, our entirely majority democratic state government has yet to fully fund public education in various forms. Special education continues to be an ongoing concern and retaining special educators at schools asking them to do far more with far less. And they're not the only I just want to be really clear. Special educators, the teachers that you have in your IEP meetings who you've met conducting schools and classrooms where special education services are provided. That's every educator in here. Every single educator at a school understands that. So there there's no lever here where one is is less important than the other because it's a whole child that comes to school, not part of a kid. And and when that student articulates that they need more, we have support staff in the ideal situation to help them in that scenario to get them back into class feeling like they can learn.

And it is all of those positions surrounding that. everyone from the parah educator on the bus in the mornings with our students to ensure they get there safely all the way to the T10 who is making sure that our campuses are secure. every teacher, no matter which subject they're teaching, is doing so because that has been determined for a schedule that is inclusive of every single student, no matter if they came to our district monilingual, non-English-speaking or if they desire to take an extra elective in in high schools because so many of our amazing students are achievers in that way, right? There's a whole broad spectrum here that we're trying to serve and continuing to have delays in negotiations only furthers our issues with solving so many of the other problems we've got in front of us. We are at a stalemate in this negotiations and the clock is ticking. We are an hour to midnight and everybody knows it. So we need to see movement. We need to see action. We need to see not just conversations, not virtue signaling, not any performance, the homework is due and no late assignments are accepted. Right? If we've got to go back and put the grades in later, there's going to be a problem. And we won't be the only ones issuing the grades because community comes out. Everyone in here wants the schools our students deserve. And that's what we're trying to fight for and negotiate for. So, we need to see some real fire on. Thank you,

Mr. Trio. Let's start. Let's allow for a full 15 minutes of virtual comment. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now hear from students who wish to speak on Zoom. If you are a student and wish to comment, please raise your hand. If you are a student and on Zoom, please raise your hand. Translation. Gracias. Chinese. Thank you.

Okay, we'll begin with Alec Holly. Ale colleague, go ahead.

Alec, we'll come back to you. Let's go to Oh, sorry. I'm here. Go ahead, Alec. Yeah, sorry. Tula, you want to speak? I have my daughter, Tula, here. Yeah, this is student time.

Um, hello, my name is Tulu La Holly. I am from Roosevelt Middle School. I am seriously afraid that with bigger class sizes, it will be too hard for our teachers to help us and my classes are already very chaotic as is right now. I also know that many kids at my school love our teachers and we don't want to lose them. I love my teachers and classes obviously, but I also love my clubs. I am the head of a writer workshop that helps kids express themselves through writing and my electives like band and art. They help me and my fellow classmates extend our learning and become more well well-rounded students and future leaders. Without my teachers, counselors, clubs, and electives, I know some families, including my own, will struggle and most likely leave our city. This will drop enrollment more and further damage our the schools and communities you have sworn to help and protect.

Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. Thank you,

Mana. Please go ahead. Um, I'm a student at FMS. I'm in 8th grade. My name is Mona. And some one of my biggest concerns from my middle school is the teachers getting cut off and um the security and because and like staff staff because without security or um an assistant principal or or any of our teachers being like cutting off, it's not going to help our community. It's just it you guys are just cutting off teachers which makes it worse for the students and not only that it the teachers mostly guide students. So when you really do think about it think about it think about it think about it think about it teachers helping like students. If you were to come at FMS you would see teachers helping students. Thank you. [crying] Thank you. We'll now go to Stephanie. Stephanie's iPhone.

Hi, my name is Nevo Shay and I I I um am from Denman Middle School. I'm in sixth grade and I hate the fact that one of my electives are going to be taken away. [snorts] Uh, I love learning about different things and my electives are my favorite parts of the day. One of my friends have autism and I want them to get as much support as they can. I'm a lot of kids at my school speaks different languages and they need support to to learn English and they and I just feel so bad for them because like like why can't you just take budget cuts take from somewhere else? Like why do you have to do it from the schools? Thank you.

We will now hear from LA P. Lara, are you a student?

What happened? Not a student. Sorry, not a student. Okay, thank you. Okay, that concludes student comment. We will now go to members of the public.

If you would like to speak on agenda items, please raise your hand. Okay, we'll begin with LA. La, go ahead.

Hello board. Um, hello community. My name is Laara Pia. Um, public school parent. My kiddos go to um, Huerta and Hoover Elementary. Um, grateful for the time um, and so amazed at all the voices that are in the room today. Thank you for everybody who is there present um in person. I asked the board to please be transparent about what formulas they are using for focal student population, what formulas they're using for multilingual learners. I am seeing no consistency across the board. I'd like to have a better understanding of what it means um for one school to have um a certain number. again just what what formula what where just just let us know I think for better understanding we like I understand I'll speak for myself I understand that cuts will need to happen we're seeing this statewide but just clarity on how it um we're producing these numbers it really frustrates me when we get statements that say oh we found the money um where is this money being found um and how our how are you

comment seconds is your time. We'll now hear from Starchild. Starchild.

Starchild. Hello. Go ahead.

Hello. It keeps telling me the host has muted me. Uh, nobody was answering the questions in the Q&A on Zoom. There's no instructions on how to give public comment or when people will be able to give public comment. Uh the process needs uh fixing. And also I wanted to know how to post an image during my comment. Uh there's no information on that. Uh my name is Starchild. I'm chair of the Libertarian Party of San Francisco lpsf.org. We need to rethink public education. It should be funded voluntarily, not with money taken from taxpayers without their consent under threat of state violence. Public does not need to mean governmentr run. Most independent schools are public, not private. Like public restaurants, shopping centers, and other facilities and services open to the public. They are serving members of the public. One out of every three school age children in San Francisco has opted out of the government school system even though their families may still have to pay extra and are still being taxed to pay for SFUSD schools they aren't using. Consequently, the SFUSD has too many schools for its declining number of students. These underutilized school campuses should be made available to independent schools and homeschooling that are educating the public without stealing from taxpayers. Independent schools and homeschooling parents are achieving better education results on average than the government schools at a lower cost per student.

Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. We'll now hear from MCK. MCK, please go ahead and unmute.

Good evening. My name is Kenna Hazellet. I'm the district coordinator for LGBTQ student services. I was really shocked and dismayed when I looked at the school state council meeting list and under the focal students that were supposed to be focused on the different focal populations, LGBTQ students were not included. If you are saying that you care about our population, if you say that you are making sure that our students, oneif of the total SFUSD student population identifies as LGBTQ, are being seen and centered and should feel safe on a day where literally their very ability to just play a game was being debated at the highest level, then you are not fulfilling your duty to all of our students and are not upholding our vision, values, schools, and guardrails. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We will now hear from Courtney Heland. Courtney Helen, go ahead and unmute.

Hello there. My name is Courtney Heland. I have three students in SFUSD. I just wanted to quickly say to Dr. Sue, "What the heck?" In the December BOE meeting, you said with a straight face that the at the time potential budget cuts and staffing model were only a worst case scenario and that we were nowhere near worst case scenario. You basically told everyone in the room to calm down, don't worry. And then two weeks later, you gutted our schools. Somehow, we went from nowhere near worst case scenario to absolute worst case in just two weeks. I know we need to balance the budget, but these cuts to staff and to critical funding at our schools are completely unacceptable. And you know that this will drive parents away from our district when we desperately need to be attracting them back to public education. Please reconsider these cuts.

Thank you. Thank you. We'll now hear from Hava Kelly. Hava,

sorry, it didn't let me unmute right away. My name is Hava Kelly and yes, I'm calling for clarity, transparency, and community engagement, especially with the LCAP committee and all advisories on the fiscal stabilization plan as well as the budget. We are hearing reports of 20% cuts to title one funding without explanation. We are hearing variety of different uh information on focal groups. We need community engagement. We need information. This is not how it should be unfolding. It's problematic. Please respond like yesterday starting with the LCAP committee. Thank you. Thank you. We'll now hear from Gayen Galen.

Hi there. Uh Gayen here. I'm a parent at San Francisco Community School. I want to echo the last few commenters. Um, we saw on Saturday that I guess the superintendent has made the call that focal funding groups no longer duplicate. So if somebody is both needs an IEP and is an English language learner and needs some other kind of support, we are only getting that one allocation for that student. So, we have to provide that student with three levels of support, but you're only giving us funding for one. That is insane, unacceptable. Uh, this is continuing a pattern of divestment. San Francisco San Francisco Community School is our only TK8 with no assistant principal paid for by the district and we're the only one with no community health worker, a cow. and SPFD has continually cut from our school every year that my daughter has been there. There were 16 teachers when we started four years ago and you're telling us that next year we have to run on 12 when

Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. We'll now hear from Rianda Batist. Rianda,

good evening board commissioners and superintendent Sue. Um, I wanted to call for two reasons and I'm going to try and get out as quickly as I can. I want to give a huge shout out to the Ali team and for their love and support of the African-American students and their undying determination and unyielding determination to uh African-American students and their achievement. Huge shout out to Landon Dicki um and everybody who was there as one of the founding members. I am very very proud of Ali and all of their achievement um coming up from an AP pack parent. Um and also um tonight I'm really concerned because I have a little one who'll be starting kindergarten after having three alumni and I have no idea where I'm going to be starting my baby in the fall. I need you guys to do better and and I shouldn't as a parent now be afraid of where to enroll my child because I don't know if the school is going to continue to exist. I had concerns about this new school and how it was going to be impacting other schools and you all swore from the board from their beginning up until now that it wasn't going to have an impact. But it's amazing to me that a new school is coming and yet other schools are going to be closed. That's not equitable. In fact,

thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. Thank you. We'll now hear from Iet Nelson. Iette Nelson. Go ahead, Evette.

Hi, my name is Ivet Nelson Hernandez. I am a pair professional at James M School. I've been at the school for 17 years. I also help in with our athletics. Us pairs do need that extra income. That's why I help with athletics for extra income from what we come from. But I'm mainly here to talk about um at our site, you guys are cutting five teachers, a T10, which is a security guard, two of our counselors, plus both of our student adviserss and an assistant principal. That's not right. We have a large amount of students in our school. We have over 800 students that need that support. They depend on our student adviserss. They also depend on our T10s and they look for their counselors when they need help. We are all here to support them. Please do not cut them. And then what happened to that $140 million that you guys deposited into a savings? Why can't you use that money to help our schools? Thank you.

Thank you. We'll now hear from Karita. Karita, go ahead and unmute. Karita, are you there? Okay, we'll move on to Deb. Deb, go ahead and then unmute.

Hi, I'm a Denman Middle School parent who's deeply alarmed by the staffing and budget allocations. These across the board cuts will hit high need Title One schools like Denmond the hardest. That directly contradicts the district's commun uh commitments to equity, safety, and student success. At Denman, as Ivette said, staff cuts translate to real harm. One fewer AP means daily operations, safety, and testing will all suffer. Cutting security from 3 to two means one of our three floors won't have immediate coverage, making staff, and students feel less safe. With four and a half fewer teachers, a seven period day becomes impossible. That means fewer electives, hitting English learners and students with IEPs the hardest since one elective is used for targeted support, leaving them with no enrichments. Cutting our counseling staff in half would leave a school of 800 students with just two counselors, not even one per grade. That's devastating for a community with such high social, emotional, and academic needs. The funding cuts are just as troubling with a total loss of 21 grand for multilingual learning. And Title One funding that was supposed to drop by 20%, yet it was cut by 38%. Almost doubled. I urge you to revisit how these cuts are being distributed. Don't balance the budget on the backs of students who already need the most at Denman. a comment that concludes your time. We'll now hear from Bri Pickford. Bri. Hi, my name is Avery Pikford and I'm a parent of two students at Buenav Vista Horus Man and I'm just deeply worried by the budget proposal sent to our principal this week. His proposal included deep cuts, including cuts based on a lower anticipated enrollment, even though we were promised that that wouldn't we wouldn't be punished for being displaced from our home campus on Valencia for a three-year renovation. I urged the board to work with Superintendent Sue in fully funding all of our public schools, but also urge SFUSD to work with local and state politicians to find a way to fully fund our schools. We live in one of the wealthiest cities and one of the

wealthiest countries in the world and anything less than fully funded robust public schools is just simply unacceptable. Thank you.

President Kim, we have reached the butter. You almost burned it. I think I burnt it. It looks a little burned, but I like last time we burned it, it didn't taste burnt in the cookie. Thank you. Thank you.

Please let her speak. We We have to move on. So, thank you so much for being here and thank you to members of the public, especially our students for joining us tonight to share your experiences and perspectives. We appreciate you taking time to be with us here in person and uh in person and virtually. We have to move on, but thank you so much for being here.

You're treating us. You're putting us to the side. Truly, is this what you want to show us? I'm a student here. I'm supposed to be taking priority here, but no, you're going to shove us like to the side like every single time I try to look at you in the eye, tell you what I need. But no, you will shove me to the side.

I honestly do not know if you are going here for your money or if you're me. Hello, I'm Miss Leia Flores Scolin, an eighth grader from EBHM. Did you not hear our cries the first time? What makes you think this is a good idea? My community is being ripped apart. This isn't a budget cut. It's ripping apart communities, taking away resources from our students, taking away creativity. Do you truly think this represents SFUSD? Because my parents didn't sign me up just so I could be shoved to the side. They signed me up here because they saw an opportunity for me to learn English. I am a Spanish speaker. Spanish is my first language. If it hadn't been for all that money that you invested into the alpac, it had I wouldn't have learned English. I would still be learning Spanish and had no idea how to speak in English. But still, you are here. I am h I have to fight for my own rights. Do I truly need to fight for you to even look at me in the eye? Do I truly need to do that? Do I Did I have to fight for what 20 years? Did my teachers fight for renovation of our school? Yeah, we did. And we won. So, give us our building. Give us the education we deserve. And you, to be honest, we deserve much more. So do my teachers. So does my community. Thank you for your time. Okay. 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, board members have made a commitment to submit

clarifying and tactical questions and staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q&A doc is linked into each board agenda on board docs today. listed in item E2. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussion today. Item D, report from close session. [clears throat] In one matter of anticipated litigation cons concerning GG, the board by a vote of seven eyes's and zero naz gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of San Francisco Superior Court case number CGC-24-619887, the board by a vote of 7 I0 NAS, the board gives direction to the general counsel in the matter of San Francisco Superior Court case number CGC-22-602608. The board by a vote of six eyes with Commissioner Gupta voting nay, the board gives direction to the general counsel. The SFUC Board of Education is committed to effective schoolboard governance that centers student learning. Based on community input, we have adopted our vision, values, goals, and guardrails. And in order to increase the portion of board meeting time we spend on student outcomes, every other meeting is a monitoring workshop. Our board uh calls our approach calls uh 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 as we commit to finding new and improved ways to more meaningfully engage with staff, students, and families. Item E, opening items, land acknowledgement. We the San Francisco Board of Education acknowledge that we are un the unseated ancestral homeland of the Ramatosaloni who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatial have never

seated, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. And we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging their ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramachish community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Uh, next item, student delegate report. I call on student delegates Cruz and man to share a report. If you have one,

hi. So um recently we were invited by um the supervisor Gupta and to the aid hawk uh meeting and that was amazing. It was really fun and engaging for the SACE representatives that came which were President Lincoln Montgomery uh me over here student delegate Shu and myself as well as one of representatives in Nelli. Um it was a really good experience. I felt like as for myself, speaking for myself, I felt really connected and I I was part of the best team by the way. Not gonna say, so I will I will keep on saying that. Um, but it was really engaging. I felt like it gave me a bit like a deeper insight of what a lot of parents felt like and some things that I wasn't aware of as well. So, it just kind of gave me more of a different perspective I didn't have before. And it also kind of backed up context. I already felt and kind of felt connected with a lot of parents and got a lot of ideas and was able to brainstorm. Um we did present this at SACE our mainet we had yesterday and we are advocating for more students to come. So we will be keeping you guys updated. Keep inviting us and we will be there. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. Yeah. Thank you so much for the update. It was an amazing meeting and looking forward to the next one. Uh for a more like SACE focused update, we had our first meeting of the year yesterday right there. And we first had a presentation from the district's communications department. So, thank you so much to the communications director Laura and media relations coordinator Katrina for providing like a little short training on like a communications one-on-one, how to like professionally respond to emails and like texts and like stuff like that. And we're also trained a little on like media interaction as well as like social media don'ts and dos and don'ts. So, thank you so much to Laura and Katrina for the

training. And then we're starting to plan for our youth summit which is we're planning for in April. We're looking at the calendar, choosing couple dates, asking representatives from our schools um to see if there's like any conflicting issues on with their school with their school schedules so it doesn't conflict. Um, we're also workshopping themes and then like workshopping workshopping ideas for workshops. Um, and we'll bring them back to our next meeting on January 26th. So, thank you. Thank you very much, Superintendent Report.

Thank you, President Kim. Um, and thank you again to all of our students and family members who uh came and shared their feedback and comments. Um, as I shared earlier, I want to continue to engage with our community throughout um, this budget development process, but obviously of course throughout the entire school year. Can we have my slides up, please?

Slides. Okay. Um, so as we get my slides up, I just want to thank everyone who participated in their school planning summit um, this Saturday. Um, as many families have referenced, we did kick off our school planning summit this Saturday and I know that many school communities um have started diving deep into their school data into the budget information, the budget allocation um and um school communities are going to engage in this process for the next several weeks. Um, I am deeply grateful for each site leader, family member, and students uh, for the work that you are doing to stay aligned with the district's priorities and to understand our current budget landscape. These factors are critical in shaping thoughtful, realistic school plans. sites all received their allocations last week and they are deep in the process of understanding it. Um the budget context really matters here because budget is not they're not just numbers. It really represents the vision of the school community in alignment with the board's vision for our vision values goals and guard rails. However, in response In response to board and community input, my team and I reviewed each school allocation line by line to ensure that the proposed allocation um did not undermine our school's ability to deliver on highquality instruction as well as continue to serve our students. We have posted these school allocations on our website. So,

anyone is free to go on and see what your allocations are so that we can continue to promote transparency. There's really nothing to hide. As of from December to where we are now, I have made some adjustments to the December staffing model allocation. We have restored our social work, our school social worker allocation. We have made sure that targeted reductions to our security guards um were not taken. There are no school community at this moment in time that will be experiencing complete elimination of their security guards. We have increased site discretionary funding for our focal students and we are viewing site by sight. We're doing siteby-sight review of all programs to make sure that appropriate staffing levels are provided according to current school enrollment and site program needs. We are trying to balance the nationwide trend of declining enrollment which then of course impacts the amount of money that we get. I want to clarify that the broader context for these budget decisions and reductions are really hard. The district is facing a structural deficit and if we don't do anything about it, we will continue to fall deeper and deeper into disarray and we will not be able to set the district up for future success. However, this staffing allocation is not about reducing our commitment to equity

nor our commitment to our students. It is about making that making sure that the allocation that we are providing meets the needs of our students and the number of students that we will have. I also recognize the challenges that come with um with change and it is hard to make reductions. That is why I have joined large urban school districts and superintendent across the state to advocate at in Sacramento for our students. We are advocating our for at the state level to help change the way they calculate funding for us. We are making sure that our state officials, our state leaders know that our budget should be allocated based on enrollment, not on average daily attendance, which is the current way they are calculating our budget. That our state officials [clears throat] need to understand that poverty levels within large urban school districts look different from poverty levels across the country. So we should use a different calculation. By doing that, it allows us to recoup additional resources. We are also asking the state to fully fund the cost to serve our students in special education because they deserve it. As we review the governor's budget with a fine tooth comb, we will have to continue the budget development process here locally. We are going to continue to revise our

budget allocations and in March you will hear a revised update of our current budget. I commit to our community to continue to stay engaged. I want to read all of your plans, all your school size summit plans. I want to continue to engage with our community as we develop a budget that meets the needs of our students and that will continue to prov prioritize our fiscal solveny. For those who are interested, please go on our website um to learn more about the school planning summit 2026. Um, and you can of course always talk to your school leader um to learn more. I don't think I went through any of the slides there. [laughter]

Marin, can you Oh, they are behind me. Okay. So, um I also want to encourage everyone who is uh in the process of applying to SFUSD to please apply to SFUSD. The deadline is fast approaching. Uh we are only two and a half weeks away from the deadline of January 30th. Uh and if your child is entering transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, middle school, or high school next year, they will need to apply for a new school. with the uh with the with us eliminating all of the multiple rounds of um of application, we believe that we're going to streamline and simplify the application process for families. Um again, if you are in the process of uh of of applying to us, please complete uh your application by the end of January. Next slide, please. As you heard earlier from our amazing director of the Ali program, Leticia Irving, um this month we honor we are honored to mark the 10year anniversary of the African-American Achievement and Leadership Initiative, also known as Ali, a decade of intentional districtwide action to improve the experiences and the outcomes of our African Ian American students. Since its launch in January of 2015, Ali has grown into a comprehensive preK12 system of support grounded in culturally responsive practice, strong family partnership, and high expectations. This work reflects our belief as a school district that black excellence is inherent

and that when African-American students are known, affirmed, challenged, and supported, they thrive. Over the past decade, Ali has strengthened student engagement, academic progress, and sense of belonging while also driving systemwide change in how we partner with families, support our educators, and use data for accountability. And as we enter Ali's next decade, SFUSD remains deeply committed to building learning environments where our black student brilliance is shining and it's it's fully fully recognized in their most beautiful form. Next slide, please. I am proud to share a new step our schools are taking towards a more sustainable lunch. Uh one driven by student voice across 95 of SFUSD schools. Student nutrition services has begun a compostable lunch tray pilot in partnership with our meal provider by replacing plastic trays with compostable trays made from a sugar cane byproduct. SFUSD will produce uh will reduce up to 3,000 pounds of plastic waste each month. This effort was inspired in large part by student advocacy. Earlier this school year, our elementary school students um from across the district wrote thoughtful letters calling for less plastic in our school meals and more care for our our environment. Um, and we are so proud that we were able to respond and be able to institute this pilot.

And then in closing, I want to uh remind everyone that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day is on Monday, January 19th. And thank you so much to Reverend Brown for reminding us the importance of staying committed um and honoring um our history. school sites and offices will be closed in honor of Dr. King's memory. Um so thank you very much uh President Kim and that concludes my remarks. Thank you Dr. Sue.

Um I want to take a moment to uh during this board leadership report to acknowledge a tragic and deeply troubling event that has affected people across the country and right here in San Francisco. Last week in Minnesota, Renee Nicole Good, a 37year-old mother, writer, and member of her community, was shot and killed by ICE during a federal law enforcement operation. Her life is not the first taken by ICE. Among many, her death has sparked pain, protest, and calls for accountability and justice. Renee was a US citizen, a mother of three, and someone whose matter whose life mattered to her family, friends, and community. Her death has raised grief, fear, and serious concerns. and questions particularly for immigrant families and communities. Please join me for a moment of silence. As a school district, we serve students and families who are directly affected by tragedies like this. Tonight, we hold space for those who are grieving, those who are afraid, and those who seek safety and belonging. and we recommit ourselves to leading with care, dignity, and humanity in our work. Last week, I asked Vice President Huing to partner with Commissioners Weissman Ward and Commissioner Alexander to explore ways that we as a board through policy or resolution can continue to build safe and inclusive spaces, especially for our immigrant and undocumented students and families. There's more to come on this soon. We are proud to be a sanctuary district. We want all families, especially our immigrant neighbors, to know that school remains a safe and welcoming place for them. We will continue to protect our students, and this board stands firm in our commitment to serving each and every young person who walks through our doors. Thank you. Moving to item F, annual organization

meeting. Uh, as we begin this new term, we have an important procedural first step to complete as required by board policy 9100. The first item on our agenda today is the adoption of the official board rules and procedures uh for the upcoming year. By adopting these rules, we reaffirm our commitment to governing effectively and transparently consistent with state law and our own policies. Can I have a motion and a second? So moved. I move to readt the board of education rules and procedures. Second.

It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item read for the readoption of the board of education rules and procedures. Are there any questions or comments from the board? Commissioner Ray.

Thank you, President Kim. I just have a quick comment. I will be voting uh to readt our board rules and procedures, but wanted to make a quick comment um given that over the past several months. I've repeatedly expressed concern about the lack of transparency regarding the superintendent's proposed hire hires for high level positions and asked for this issue to be brought to the board for discussion and vote. I understand that board leadership will agendaize this issue in the near future before the superintendent brings another candidate to a bo to the board and just wanted to say that I appreciate that that will be coming before us. Thank you. Any other comments or questions?

Debate is now closed on the motion to approve the readtion of the board of education rules and procedures. Roll call vote, please. Miss Lenovo. Miss Muntz. Yes. Um Miss Cruz. Uh, Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. And President Kim, yes. Seven eyes.

Moving to item two, nomination and election of officers for 20 2026 in the board on the board of education. So, we will we will adhere to the following procedures. Any commissioner may nominate another commissioner or themselves. If a commissioner is nominated by a colleague, the commissioner must accept or reject their nomination. Nominations do not require a second and a commissioner may vote for themselves. Once all nominations are received and accepted, commissioners will have up to two minutes to make a statement about the nominees if they wish to do so. Pursuant to the board's rules and procedures, the nominees will be considered for election to the respective board office. If no commissioner receives a supermajority or five votes, the board will hold a second organizational meeting on January 27th. I now declare nominations are open for the position of president of the board of education for the year 2026. Are there any nominations? Commissioner Weiss Ward,

I would like to nominate you, President Kim, to serve a second term as president. I have like a sentence or two, but should I save it for after the

Okay. Okay. Um, yes, we don't need a second. Um, so I would like to nominate you to serve a second term as president of the San Francisco Board of Education. Um, over this last term, you have proven to be a steady hand to this board. Um, we've all seen that you are a skilled um, and adept facilitator. Um, you don't just lead meetings, you work to build consensus, and I for one really appreciate that. And perhaps most importantly, um, I found that you lead with a rare combination of communication and kindness. and you listen genuinely and you're not afraid to keep an open mind even um when that involves changing your mind sometimes and I believe that you're continued leadership and the continuity of your leadership is exactly what our district needs at this point.

Are there any other nominations or comments? two minutes to make a statement.

I will um I would actually like to uh appreciate Commissioner Westman Ward for the um for nominating President Kim again. And I would like to say we I I've gotten comments from the public about oh my gosh, you know, you and President Kim, man, you guys like snipe at each other up there. And um I would actually like to use this opportunity to just thank you for I I feel like some of our what may seem overly familiar is is coming from a place of respect and camaraderie and uh almost like sibling naturatured type of comments. And so I just uh I would just like to appreciate you for uh um for your leadership and and your camaraderie over the past year. That's 15 years building up right there. Kind of spilling out into public eye.

Vice President Healing.

I'd also like to appreciate Commissioner Weissman Ward for her nomination of President Kim. Um, and just say that it's really been an honor and an enjoyable experience serving as your vice president. And um I see so much work that you put in behind the scenes for students in our schools every day. and that while you may be uh a board member by appointment, you are an educator like through and through and through. And um you know I just appreciate this as the like you were just born to be an educator and you bring that educator's approach to facilitating our meetings to listening to people to making sure that uh everyone has an opportunity to be heard and um I agree that you are exactly what the district needs at this moment.

Any other comments? Okay. was piling on the So, I will I will keep this brief because I know we have to keep the me the the meeting moving, but I appreciate Commissioner Weissman Ward's uh nomination of you, President Kim. Um very similar sentiments. I appreciate that you allow space for all of us to speak. Uh at times, I'm sure that that must um

be be a lot. [laughter] So, but but but that's absolutely necessary and I appreciate that uh both you and Vice President Huing signed up for this knowing full well the gravity of the situation that we are in and have thrown yourself in fully into this and uh are continuing to do and will hopefully continue to do so this year. I realize you have not yet accepted the nomination. So, um I will I will shut up now before I say anything else. I I suppose I should formally accept the nomination. Thank you. I will accept your nomination by or commissioner vice word. Any other comments? Okay. Um I now declare nominations. Uh if there are no further nominations for the office of the president, I declare nominations closed. Um, the nominations are for me, Phil Kim. Um, and roll call vote, please, on that nomination, please, Miss Lenov.

President of the board. Uh, Miss Mun, yes. Uh, Miss Cruz, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Um, Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward, yes. And President Cam, yes. Thank you.

Let's have a nice um Thank you. Thank you. Um, I declare nominations are now open for vice president of the board of education for year 2026. Are there any nominations? Uh uh Commissioner Gupta, sorry.

Hey, nice to meet you. Um I would like to nominate uh Commissioner Huing or Vice President Huing right now and I I I hope continuing Vice President Huing. Um, I have had the real pleasure of seeing Commissioner Vice pres say Vice President Uling uh work diligently for uh about a year now uh and and her tremendous ability, her tremendous tenacity. I am incredibly grateful for her stepping up uh to serve as vice president even uh meaning that she had left her her day job uh to to be able to dedicate herself quite fully to this position. Um uh which just to be clear does not pay anything. Um small small stipen. Um, so I I really appreciate that and I am uh incredibly impressed with how much you have been able to absorb, be a sponge, and then just naturally fit into this position to be able to lead during an incredibly difficult time for this school district uh alongside President Kim. uh and and I remain very confident that uh though we have dark days that we will emerge from this and it is due in in much part to your leadership alongside President Kim alongside Superintendent Sue. So thank you. Um technically she needs to accept and then we'll open up for discussion. So uh sorry we were out of order last time. Um, are there any other nominations? If there are no further nominations for the Office of Vice President, I declare nominations closed. Vice President Huing

has been renominated. Um, is there now comments from the board? You accept. Oh, she doesn't have a choice. Um, would you like to accept? Thank you, Commissioner Gupta. I accept.

Um, I'll be briefing my comments. Um it may be no surprise that uh an educator and a lawyer sometimes uh go back and forth forth in what she calls sparring. Um [clears throat] I will say uh I think that uh that dynamic and your expertise and background helped to bring our work forward in a in the best way poss best possible way. So I thank you for your partnership and leadership Vice President Heling and I look forward to working with you in 2026. Any other comments? [laughter] Okay. Um, if there are no other comments or discussion, Miss Lenoff, a roll call, please.

Miss Mon, yes. Miss Cruz, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healey, [laughter] yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward, yes. and President Kim. Yes, that's unanimous. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay. Yeah, Commissioner Alexander just said not congratulations, it's a thank you.

Um, item G, approval of board meeting minutes. The next item on the agenda is the approval of board meeting minutes for regular meetings of December 16th, 2025. Uh, can I have a motion and a second, please? I move to approve the minutes from the December 16th, 2025 meeting. Second. Are there any comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, uh, debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote, please. Miss Lenov. Uh, Miss, yes. Miss Cruz, yes. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta,

yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward, yes. And President Kent, yes. Seven ice. Um, we'll just Hello. Uh, we will switch up items. Uh, we can go to fiscal and operational health update H2 first. Um, this is a discussion item. No action will be taken on this item tonight. Uh, I call on Dr. Sue uh to read to bring this item forward.

Thank you, President Kim. Um, and thank you for switching the order here. It's okay. [laughter] They're very anxious to tell you um all the analysis that we're doing. Um I I just want to take this opportunity to share that again we are working um we well we we the team are working every single day to um identify additional funding sources particularly restricted sources so that we can continue to provide um all the adbacks or the augments um to the original budget allocation. Um, and as I shared, uh, we are are working diligently, um, to advocate at the state level as well to make sure that San Francisco in particular, um, but we're partnering with large school districts up and down the state, but particularly in San Francisco, we want to make sure that we get the appropriate allocation that meets the needs of our school, that meets the needs of our students, and that meets the needs of our school community. Um so that is something that we are working together on. Um and today I just asked the team to give us a very quick snapshot and update on where we are with um our finances particularly with the recent release of the governor's budget. I'm going to hand it over to um our deputy superintendent of business services.

Thank you Dr. Sue. Good evening commissioners and public. Uh yes. Uh we weren't actually originally going to do the update except I thought it might be helpful to share some insights into the governor's January budget announcement. Um the commissioners have all received a summary from capital adviserss, but I will make that summary a bit more explicitly clear as to potential impacts on the district. Um but a couple of other updates before we get started. Uh typically by this time this year, you would have already received the audit report for last year. Uh we will be doing the audit at the final meeting in January. It was delayed because of the federal government shutdown. Uh something that we call the federal supplemental guidelines could not be released because they were due to be released during the shutdown. Uh they were not released until after which caused all school districts in the state to have to move their final audits. Uh we are going through final audit findings right now. Um I'm used to uh a lot fewer findings uh but we are working through them. There are findings that will come to the commissioners that do have a financial impact uh in fines and penalties to the district and we will go into detail with those with the auditor at the second meeting in January. Uh position control update. Uh sitting to my right, most of you have met to my left uh Nu, our our CFO. To my right this evening is uh Daniel Munoz, our director of position control. Both positions were called out by both Fikmat and Department of Education uh as as positions that are essential and needed to be filled for the district. So, we're pleased to say both of those positions are filled. The only one that's remaining that's required is an internal auditor. We have been recruiting a long time for the internal auditor and still to date have zero qualified applicants. Uh and so we are reposting again later this month trying to change the job description and trying to up the pay a little bit. that is the final position that is being required for us to source. Uh however, position control is important because we are going to at the

end of this budget process at the end of January do our first district-wide reconciliation of all positions. What does that mean? That means that we have to go through and line by line be able to associate a position control number with every single individual that works here, no matter how little or how much they work or in what capacity. Uh, and it's pretty amazing that San Francisco actually has been able to get by for so long without that reconciliation. This is a a key important point for a school district or any business or operation to operate efficiently, which is why it was called out as a high need for the district. Uh, so we will finally have that reconciliation done at the beginning of February. Uh and in the interim time, the board will be receiving first readings of board policies and administrative regulations uh to implement position control fully for the system. Mr. Munoz is also writing a handbook uh so that everybody can understand the rules associated with position control that will accompany that board policy and administrative regulation. It will be coming to you for first read in the next couple of meetings. Uh so lots lots to come in the development of the systems that we were asked to develop. Uh and then of course March 10th is our second interim. Uh second interim covers all financial transactions through the end of February every year and we clearly have a very short turnaround uh to get that to you by March 10th. Uh that's only a couple of business days between the close of of February and getting you an updated report. And and with that, I'm going to transition into the January uh budget proposal presented by the governor. Uh just as an introductory note, I do meet uh actually both for legislative advocacy as well as for shared understanding uh with a lot of CBOS and CFOs around the state. Uh have a nice network and uh we've talked about this thoroughly. It's really interesting. This was a very unusual January budget proposal. It was unusual in that it was couched in the context of the entire period of time which the current governor has served in his office. uh

which is why there's so many references of 2017 to present uh and a lot of credit being taken and sort of broadcast for the amount that per pupil funding has gone up in that time. Uh that is largely a a function of the fact that the entire state has declined in enrollment so much but yet the Prop 98 guarantee continues to guarantee us 40% of state revenues. Uh and so that's really the function. we are not still getting a larger portion than Prop 98 guarantees, 40%. But the amount that equates to per student has increased dramatically and and so much so that they've been able to add an additional grade to public education in California, which is a huge achievement, the addition of TK. Uh if this governor were staying, I would I would actually propose to you that he might have been adding a a pre-TK at some point uh because that seems to be where the trend is going. Uh but I also want to make a note on colas. There was a lot of information in colas uh and colas are really misunderstood in public education. So just for the commissioners for a little bit of understanding cost of living allowances in the state of California are really really an odd duck. We are not given cost of living allowances based on COLA or CPI increases in the state of California. We are given an a an an actual average of all the federal services cola increases for the nation which is why the cost of living allowance in the upcoming budget has been shifted downward to 2.4%. If we were given colas based on California CPI, our average colas would be between 6 and 8%. And if we were given regional colas uh in San Francisco, they would be double digits, right? So colas are given to us based on a nationally referenced index. And uh people ask all the time, what does it mean? It's the amount that they increase our our LCFF base uh to accommodate for costs that go up year after year that we

don't have control over. Right? Our current costs in San Francisco Unified go up between 6 and 8% a year. So a 2% or a 2.4% COLA means that we are only trying to make up for between four and 5% uh in the whole. So a cola does not actually provide for our average increase in costs year-over-year and in a declining enrollment environment it compounds the issue. So, one of the things that I continue to advoc advocate for, and I'm probably yelling in an empty house, enrollment is one of them, but that we actually get a regional COLA, right? Just like the state is broken up into regions, uh those regions are very clear and each one does have a different CPI annually. Uh that would better cover the costs for those districts, particularly those like us that are in expensive urban areas, rather than a 2.4% COLA when our costs go up between 6 and 8% a year. Of course, the largest drivers of those costs uh annual increases in insurance, annual increases in benefits such as retirement, our contribution to retirement, uh our purchasing of insuranceances as well as even uh things like annual increases to costs in utility bills because school district, yes, we pay utility bills and our costs go up the same percentage and the same amount that yours do at home annually because we are a public utility consumer. So uh that goes into the beginning of the governor's budget announcement which was that the 2627 cola has been decreased from 3.02 which was the projection provided last year. It is now down to 2.41. What does that mean in dollars for San Francisco Unified if that continues? That is a $3.7 million reduction in what we had been told and that is an every year reduction. So that's $3.7 million per year. The other thing that was hidden in the governor's announcement was that for fiscal year 2728 the year after that the cola is being reduced from 3.42 to 3.06. Uh and that means that the total

combination of those two year-over-year means that we will have a $9.8 million annual loss in revenue that we had anticipated and which was included both in your budget adoption as well as your first interim. So we have to adjust future revenues downward uh by that amount. Uh so that is that is the loss uh when you reduce cola. Uh there was some good news in special education funding equalization statewide. However, what does that mean for San Francisco? That means that we will be getting $2.4 million more. Uh that is before they set local SULPA rates, but that is that is the amount. So the numbers always sound really exciting and really good and then you see what what we get. Not to make it all about what we get, but that is my job. What do we get? What do we have to spend? How do we cover our expenses? So, it's only a $2.4 million projected increase for special education funding. I will take it, but it's not nearly enough. Uh the additional $2.8 billion statewide that was part of the governor's announcement, uh this is for discretionary block grant for school districts, that will be $9.2 million for San Francisco, and it is one-time funding. It is not ongoing. the additional one-time funds to support the learning recovery emergency block grant, we estimate it being about $6.3 million. So, just to recap here, um $9.8 million year-over-year loss in ongoing funding, right, with a $2.4 million addition to special education ongoing and then one-time funding totaling about $15.5 million. Right? So net net in a budget of $1.4 billion. The big announcement was essentially that we are getting the same as we were given last year. Right? So uh it was a great deal of celebration. Uh the announcements that came out after the budget are very important to pay attention to. This is being referred to as a workhorse or

workforce focused budget. All that means is that they don't have enough data to make the prediction any more accurate than currently is. And that that's basically telling us to wait for May and they'll tighten the numbers up. Uh but that's the local impact. That's what the local impact would be uh for San Francisco Unified. Uh upcoming items uh to look forward to uh next year that are very operationally uh oriented. Um we are moving forward and plan on having in place for next year a real time credit card-based procurement system uh for use by all managers and principles throughout the district. This will make procurement uh as well as on demand delivery to school sites uh much more upto-date with the re real world with principles and one other staff member at their site being identified and trained about the responsibility of having a credit card and being able to make purchases. But this also means that they will be able to do so on demand when they need it with arrival typically within 24 hours which is the standard in the industry. Uh we are also moving to what we call AC payments which is electron elect electronic transfers of funds. You might be surprised to know this is also the standard in the industry. In fact I don't think I've been in a district that cuts checks anymore. Uh we made a decision some time ago when I say some time ago decades ago to not use AC and to continue to cut paper checks which is extremely labor intensive. Uh so we literally cut a paper check for every single transaction in the district still. Uh so we are moving to an HAC system. This is electronic transfer of funds between banks, payers, and payes. You're probably doing it on your phone. Uh we have not been doing that for the district. So that's in line for next year as well. Uh and check c check cutting when needed is typically a county office function. So we will be moving that function to the county office. You might, it might be very apparent to some of you why departments shouldn't be able to cut checks uh and why it is usually reserved for a double

check by a county office, which is why we'll be moving that function there uh in the future. Uh and in this spring, uh coming up in the next couple months, we will be getting the best use analysis for non-school properties in the school district. Uh another one of of my functions, real estate and and the management. I'll be then bringing that or or sharing it with the board. I'm not going to bring it to you. I'll send it to you. Uh and we should uh then have a discussion of what is the board's will moving forward based on that report. Uh whether it's to direct staff to have a 7-Eleven committee, whether it's to actually follow best use guidelines, etc. Uh the board has heard that uh from community members. Um I certainly have heard it here as well that we have a lot of property uh that sits and is not utilized in the best possible way for the district. Uh so that will be the time not that we snap our fingers and it happens overnight but that the board can provide direction on what to do with those and as well as have data in front of them to see what the best use for those potential property decisions are for the benefit of the district. Uh so with that that's our update on finance and operations. Thank you very much. I'll open up for comments, questions from commissioners. Commissioner Gupta,

thank you for that very thorough report. Uh, Deputy Superintendent Mal Bonitz. Um, I just had a question on the cola that that was actually very educational. I had no idea that there was that discrepancy between uh how cola is calculated. I always wondered that as a school site council chair in terms of why we were never able to or is really difficult to square that in terms of increases in uh in cola. I have a question in terms of if that's always been the case and I'm assuming that regionally we've always had higher inflation or generally I I'm curious what what has been the impact and what will be the impact when we look at things like retirement pension. I mean, are we are we ostensibly setting ourselves up for a huge balloon kind of uh I I don't know just just some fi financial cliff because of this acrewing over time.

It's it's it's the cost of money uh we call it. I I know you you're familiar with finance. Uh the same money that we get uh buys far less every year. uh and trying to spread that to get the same amount of stuff. And that stuff could be human resource, it's people, uh supplies, uh keeping the lights on. Uh there's only so far you can stretch it when you're getting less and your costs are going up more than what you're getting in annually, right? And that's actually I think when you hit declining enrollment, uh if you were to use it as a graph, when those two things cross on the graph, uh and that's sort of the point we're at, right? We're at declining enrollment and and certainly we have very good revenues compared to other districts our size because we are in a wealthier area, but we're at that point where it it's hard to keep everything going uh with the revenues that the district receives.

Commissioner Fischer,

I I agree with Commissioner Gupta. There were a lot of really helpful nuggets in there and thank you for the analysis. I know that the um you know we just got the governor's report and so thank you. I mean everything has been coming at us a mile a minute and I I appreciate you and your the flexibility and the the quick response. So thank you for all of that. Um, I actually when I saw this on the agenda, I thought it was going to be an opportunity to potentially follow up on the um the FSP from um December and potentially, you know, some of the the comments we heard here from community tonight as well, like the the call for more clarity and transparency around the formulas we were using. Um, was one of the things I heard loud and clear from public comment tonight. um you know like uh what formulas are we using you know to especially around title one um um LCAP you know u someone said is it true that someone asked me earlier is it true we're cutting 20% across the board for all title one right um uh and and just the fact that I really want to echo one of the the the points made in public comment about you know the FSP was framed as a worst case scenario. Um, and yet now it's being framed as our reality. And so I'm just for myself as well as the public, I'd like to get a better understanding of of how these decisions are being made, how this budget is being put together, and you know, where can folks go for more information. um like regular community members. I know that there's a process for principles to reach out to lead or to fill out the appeals process, but for those of us in the community who feel like the rug has been pulled out from under us.

How do we move forward? There was a lot in there. Um so there's probably I know I did that in like 40 the minute, but that probably like an hour's worth of responses.

Remind me what I'm missing. Uh so I want to make it clear. uh the FSP and and the allocations not related remember uh so we did a baseline allocation based on enrollment uh and based on the current enrollment working with the enrollment center uh and the enrollment center center uh not to uh I don't want to put him under glass so I'll save his name but they they have a very good data analyst um the other good data analysts are in my shop uh actually two of them are sitting next to me they're both better at it than I am quite frankly. Uh and so they were able to do really good uh accurate enrollment projections. Uh two of the three months of of open enrollment are complete. Uh and then it was based on on current enrollment. Um now as enrollment changes, so we've already seen one school I think during open enrollment that for example gained a TK. uh so as we see those changes uh we add to um the to the allocation but I but I want to make it clear so there's there's two parts of the process so we do the mathematical part to make sure that it's clear and transparent so when you ask about formulas that specifically is actually uh NU's shop she works on that and then we don't necessarily make those final calls so I then turn that over to my colleagues in the cabinet and say here's the baseline mathematical allocations and then they take the time to go through every school site and every program and say uh what more do we add? And so if you look at the letters, you'll see the base allocation, which is the central allocation that the district provides through its central allocation. And then you'll see uh all the adjustments that they made. And and and note that last year's allocations and this year's allocations are both posted. So if folks want to compare, I mean, if if folks are interested, we did post both. Uh and then you're right, there's

an appeal process. Uh but we will still always automatically adjust for enrollment as it as it changes. That's that's the that's the baseline for enrollment uh or or for the staffing allocation, excuse me. I appreciate the framing that the budget allocations and the FSP are totally different and the way they were presented feel completely intertwined and dependent to sta to staff to community. I mean what I'm hearing from folks is what the heck you voted 70 against this. Why are we seeing everything that you voted against in our school site budgets? That's literally I've had that conversation across at least a half a dozen school sites. Um, I've been invited to more budget meetings this year than ever in the past. So, um, so I'm I'm having a hard time scoring those. I know that might be the intent, but that is absolutely not how it is perceived in the public. Um, so I think that's why I'm I keep going back to the transparency of the situation. And so the appeals process for school sites, for the principal itself, I I guess what I I guess what I'm asking for as superintendent and and deputy superintendent is what can we do to better engage families in understanding what we're doing, why we're doing it, and um what other mechanisms that community members have in pushing back on this where where they're they want to Um, I mean, like we heard it today, like there's there's huge concerns about our how some of our most marginalized communities are getting hit the hardest and that is against everything that we stand for and it's against all of our guardrails. So, um, how do we continue this conversation outside of board meetings, I guess, is the real ask.

Absolutely. And, um, again, what I shared, uh, was that we are going to be engaging. We are engaging actually all of our principles are engaged in conversations with their lead staff which are essentially their principal supervisors around their budget. Um I know that our associate superintendent of ed services Terresa Ship has met with several um principles already and have gone through some of their requests and appeals. Um and so we're having multiple conversations um with principles to because principles are truly the key to their school community and making sure that we have a mechanism to to be able to negotiate and talk and um and work with our principles as as um as we build this budget. I will say for example um the budget the the school allocation that we shared just last week is very different than the FSP worst case scenario that was presented in December. Very very different. In that particular um in the December allocation we heard things like uh title on one's only funding social workers or that uh we were projecting 50% reduction to uh T10s which are security guards or we were reducing counselors and so there were and APS so so that the December allocation is very very different than where we are now. very it was very different and the other thing is title one I've heard that too so it's a weird thing here I actually have the responsibility for the board of oversight over your title one but I actually don't manage it right so not

not the title one but department but the budget right so we actually have a very talented fiscal person there um her name is is you you all know her Christina Wong uh and so if if people want her to write a summary of of what she's doing But she is doing the allocations correctly. She's been doing it for years. Title one population and the way it's measured does go up and down. And and by the way, it is also one of our audit findings, right? Is that we've been struggling to do it accurately. Uh and so uh which which we'll get to in January, but that's preliminarily one of the one of the big ones on the list. Uh but she's she's very competent. Um title one allocations do not change with budget. they come to us and they go out to school sites sometimes with staff specified meaning that they're paying for staff. So for example uh for social workers we restored all of the uh social workers that you're mentioning that the FSP suggested that we not do. So again not did not bear reality to that. But in addition to that title one sites instead of giving a half of one they got a full-time one because that's what title one is doing. uh and we found a restricted resource for the rest that doesn't interfere with Title One's ability to do so. Uh but as far as why the site allocations, each site is going up or down. Uh anybody any of those principles can send an email to Christina and if the board wants something more, I'm sure she would be happy to write a summary. Uh also keep in mind Title One budget cycle is not the same as the school districts, right? So they run October through September. Uh which is why they have extra time to continue their SIPASS, which is what Christina announced at budget kickoff this past weekend. Um but she runs a really and I say this financially because that's my responsibility and I look at these things. She she runs a very tight ship financially for for title one and all the title programs.

And then just what is not inside the school allocation are the discretionary funds. So, a lot of our schools um have uh the uh student success fund and other grants that they bring in to their schools and that's how a lot of our schools use uh those dollars to bring on additional staff. So, the allocation that we sent on Monday was really allocation that was coming from central office to our schools. A lot of our schools augment that allocation with funding that they have through student success fund and other grants or fundraising efforts at school sites.

Correct. And we've also been asked about special education allocations. That's also done separately, right? Because that's done by service levels for students with IEPs. And so, uh, some folks have asked, well, why am I not seeing those teachers? Because special ed actually has to wait a little bit longer until those are finalized and then they disperse their staff. so that that staffing is done in a separate separate uh slightly later process. Um I'm going to pass it to student delegates um just because I know the time is short for you all. So if you have any questions that you want to ask at this time or comments that you'd like to make uh before we dismissed

I don't really [clears throat] have any questions but I just want to thank you for the update and then thank Commissioner Fischer for that question. I was wondering the exact same thing. So, thank you so much and then thank you for the responses. I don't really have anything. I'm just thinking um I don't have really any question that I've made at the moment, but um if I do, I will ask her later on. Yeah. Thank you.

You Thank you, student delegates. Thank you for being with us this evening. Um we'll go Commissioner Ray and then uh Commissioner uh Alexander. I think what Commissioner Fischer um expressed is very much on the mark about what I for instance have been hearing as well. So I'm not going to repeat any of that. that there is a hugely widespread perception that the fiscal stabilization plan and the um allocations are uh intertwined and related and there are definitely references in the FSP to the staffing model and so forth. So there are reasons for people to believe that they are entwined. Um to the extent we want to distinguish them, we have to do a lot better job explaining this to the public. And along those lines, one of the things I wanted to ask, and this is probably more appropriately directed to Superintendent Sue, is um for instance, taking a look at the message that was sent out to um staff and families, right? You just mentioned discretionary funds, which seems like an extremely important component of what schools can rely on to do their staffing, but there isn't a single mention of discretionary funds in the, you know, in the communication that went out to staff and families. Um, and this is something that I found myself trying to explain over and over again to people have asked me about this, saying that it's not like the allocations released are not the only staffing that a school will have because they can obtain additional staff through their discretionary funds. So, I'm wondering if you can provide uh some more uh you know just explain that a little bit better about how that's being determined for schools, who they can hire, you know, what guidelines they should be following to do that and so forth. and and affirm if I'm understanding correctly that literally the site allocations are the starting point. There's a whole other

you know realm of staff that can be hired through this other mechanism we have. Uh thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Ray for that question. Um actually principles are experts at this. They are genius jigsaw puzzle creators. um and they are very very um used to building um their master budget similar to their master schedule. Um, I believe in the memo I shared with our community um as well as to our principles. Um, I I alluded to the revised and updated um supplemental hiring guidelines um which which is dictates or or presents the guidelines for how school community was going to use their discretionary dollars. Um, now I may not have made it clear, but um, I will go back and review that, but that is something that I know um, all of our principles are very well aware of.

Uh, just to clarify, I read both the budget development email template for schools and the email sent to staff and families and the staff and families one doesn't mention the discretionary stuff for the hiring uh, I shouldn't swear about the hiring guidelines, but I think not that as well. However, the other one, the budget development email template does reference that, but what most people read would have been this staffing community and uh families email. I I I appreciate that. Um and um we'll go back and check. Um we do strongly encourage our families to go and participate in their school site council um so that they can learn more about how the school community is going to be budgeting um both the allocation that the central office is allocating but then also other funds that our school leaders are bringing into their schools.

And just a quick clarification NU just reminded me uh for for title one thank you for the reminder too many things in my head. Um uh so for title one because they are on a different fiscal year they gave 80% of their site allocations because they have to wait and see what the title one budget does at the federal level to make sure they have enough to allocate what is typically the other 20%. So because they're on a different cycle she has to wait and true up her budget before she makes sure that she then has enough to give additional to each site. And that's sort of typically how they run it. So 8020 split.

Um, thank you. [clears throat] I want to come back to this issue of the confusion about what happened between the 70 board vote and the school staffing models because I have received countless calls and messages and emails in the last week suggesting that the board voted 70 against the fiscal stabilization plan. And then the superintendent sent out staffing models based on it. Anyway, I got a call from a principal yesterday who said went back even further and said, uh, associate superintendent ship had a meeting with principles, asked for our feedback, ignored our feedback, they brought it forward in the fiscal stabilization plan. The board voted 70, they ignored the board, and then they sent out the staffing model. So that's that's from a veteran principal who's never called me in five years being on the board, who's been in SFUSD a really long time. So, I just want to point that reality on the table and ask the superintendent like what what did you take as the message from that 70 vote and how did it adjust the staffing models to schools in a real way?

So again, the fiscal stabilization plan is a technical document that is connected to first interim. It's a document that um shows CDE that we as a governance team are willing to and are able to make reductions in worst case scenario. Um I will say that because we did not pass a fiscal stabilization plan. Unfortunately, Chris and I are now in the very unfortunate situation of explaining to CDE that we are still we we should still be certified as qualified right now um in our budget and that we should be um still moving forward um towards a positive certification. again fiscal stabilization plan technical document that will that demonstrates how and and the willingness of this body to make reductions to meet worst case scenario budgets in terms of the school allocation. We did take a into consideration all of our community feedback with the amount of money that we knew at that moment in time. In my conversations with principles, in all of my principal roundts, in conversations with our labor partners, um, particularly UASF, I we shared that that we shared that, you know, would it be good would it benefit you as a as a site leader to get your budget earlier? If we could get a budget out to our site leaders, to our school community earlier, it will allow more time to have these very difficult conversations. It it will allow us time to review all of our restricted sources and determine how best to use them to really meet our school community and our school needs, which is exactly what we're

demonstrating now where we were able to use restricted sources to now fully fund school social workers. um we're able to identify other sources to now have security guards um on school campuses. We are now able to identify restricted sources to have counselors um to increase not fully but to increase a few APs at some of our schools. So, we're continuing to build out the budget, and this is why we've been naming it our budget development month um because we're not done yet. We have many more weeks to go. The budget will not be done until the end of January where we're having continuing to have conversations um with with site leaders. I know that, you know, I was looking at um interim associate superintendent um Terresa Ship's calendar of just all the principles that she's meeting with where she's having these conversations. And I know that principles are also meeting with their community. I mean, she just told me the other day that she's been trying to schedule a meeting with one of our key um principles and and the principal is having multiple meetings with you all. And so that's that's why there's there's this constant rescheduling, but this is what happens in the month of January where we're having these conversations. Um, and we're doing this earlier than ever before because we want to be prepared for February. We have very strict state guidelines and deadlines for noticing of our our uh employees for reduction. And so we want to make sure that we have the time to be prepared for that and to do it right.

Okay. I think the Yeah. And maybe it's just so I guess the the I still think there's this misperception of what's happening and what is the authority of the board. Uh I mean people came to public comment the board then voted in a particular way and I think there's a still a disconnect. So I just want to name that

and if I can maybe speak to this a little bit um because I think there's this important question of like what is the role of the board versus what is the role of the superintendent. Just to be really clear as a board per our own governance practices we do not hire and fire individual staff right the the sole employee that we have is the superintendent. And so when it comes to something like the staffing model that is truly a product and deliverable of the superintendent. Now I also get frustrated when I hear that the staffing model is totally unrelated to the fiscal stabilization plan because very clearly there are elements of the stabilization plan that are not related to staffing which is true. It is a legal document that we need to submit. It is also true that there are elements of that stabilization plan that directly speak to the staffing model. Uh so that conflation I think is important to just acknowledge because I don't think it's really a conflation. it there is a direct relationship between those two documents and yes it is a technical document uh that we need to submit to the state and different commissioners may have had different motivations for voting it down but just for the record 06 commissioner we wanted to go uh depart us at that time but just to be really clear what I heard in that evening was that uh and and maybe I'll just speak for my own self the reason I voted that down was because I did not think the board was prepared with the right information and context to be able to to confidently vote on this document. And what we heard loud and clear was that community hadn't been robustly engaged about some of those decisions prior to coming to the board. Now, there may be other reasons why commissioners also voted against that fiscal stabilization plan, but at the end of that evening, I very clearly remember making a statement afterwards. This was less of a a statement around us not unwilling to make decisions around

writing our fiscal ship. It was about what it means for us to be prepared in our decision-m and for the community to be prepared in that decision-m. So I I just want to make sure that that's very clear. We may not have a direct authority over the stabil or over the staffing model. That is a superintendent deliverable. The decision that we had in that moment was do we approve and pass the stabilization plan to send to the state as part of our budget or not. Right. Um and and and so just to add some context there. the Yeah, I'll just kind of

um the the challenge I I am still experiencing I think is somewhat going back to some of the lessons learned from that December meeting of how does the public and how do we as commissioners understand how things are progressing as they go. So in December as those decisions were made by the board, clearly things have changed around the kinds of things that were being talked about at that time with what sites received in January. My question would be where is that documented for us to understand the changes that took place between then and now? Right? because I I'm hearing that oh, we did not actually move forward with some of those things that were named in the fiscal stabilization plan. Now, just to be clear, we may not have approved the document, but the superintendent still has the authority to move forward with some things. But my question would be, how do we know what's moved forward and what hasn't from December to today? And this kind of carries from a different conversation that Commissioner Alexander and H and I had in a finance briefing for sites. How do they know like that? I call it a gap analysis and I it's not really the right technical term for it, but how do they know from last year to this year what has changed from their budget? Right? And then as commissioners, how are we supposed to understand the impact of those changes from last year to this year if we I guess that's my question. How are we supposed to understand the impact and difference between last year and this year and that delta and if that means that one two plus more people are not going to be at a school site from this year to next year clearly there I mean I don't think educators and staff are holding nothing at school sites they're holding they're doing something what is that loss right like and I think that

analysis is helpful not only to know by a site but as a district too and as the board who needs to ultimately pass budget. Understanding the implications of that is critical for us to to be informed on the impact of that decision. So, so that is I think part of my confusion still and I will say this just to the finance team like and and to your leadership um Mr. Mr. Mount Bonitas, like I very much appreciate the lens and refreshing perspective that you have brought to our our financial decisions and I very much can appreciate the difference between the kind of calculated nature of a of of of like um a model that one's that you're creating versus the inputs that go into that and the inputs that come out of that. I I actually think that my reflections and feedback are less so for your team and the kind of mechanisms of it all and more for how we are taking that information and translating it for our schools. Taking that information, bringing it to the public and taking the messages that go around the kind of models that you're creating and for us to make sense of that information. Again, I don't I have not heard from any commissioner here a lack of desire to follow through on the financial commitments and the fiduciary obligations that we have as a board. But understanding that change and that impact is critical to our own governance. And that's I think the part that I'm missing in this whole conversation and that's the part I still don't quite really know. And that's partly why that document I voted against in December. Yes,

I had some I appreciate everything President Kim just said and I I um just and I had a little time left too so when he went over it too. Um but I so I just wanted to I think my um other um questions and and I just to your point 100% agree the board's authority is not to micromanage the staffing model. However, the board, you know, what we were asked to do in the fiscal stabilization plan was to make $26 million worth of cuts to schools. Roughly, it was items three and four, which were the that was the focus of all the discussion, right? There was very little, if any, discussion of the other elements of the fiscal stabilization plan. Then there was this 6, sorry, I think I said 70 vote against it. So, I mean, that was the nature of my question. Well, then you would expect the superintendent and team would say, "Oh, that's not the direction the board wants to go in. Let's go back to the drawing board, figure this out." Clearly that wasn't the right approach. Let's consult with our school communities. Let's consult with our principles. Let's consult with our teachers, parents, families and figure out another approach, right? Um and again that might we might come back with a bunch we may include cuts to schools. I wasn't you know again I think we can get away with no cuts to schools given our the amount of $430 million fund balance. Some of my colleagues may disagree, but that's a debate we ought to have. But it was clear that approach in December was not the one we wanted to take, right? That approach wasn't the one we wanted to take. And then schools get more or less something quite similar in January with as president Kib said not any clear messaging about what the changes were. So then it's sort of like well what's going on? So I think it raises this kind of governance question. I think for me then there's also substantive questions around the impact. It looks like schools serving low-income students and particularly immigrant students have faced the deepest cuts. We heard tonight from uh Viz Valley Middle School. We heard from SF International about these programs serving immigrant students. You know, we we made you made a eloquent statement, President Kim, about protecting our immigrant families in the

in the wake of what's happening with ICE. We can't decimate their educators and say that with a straight face. Like, we just can't do that, right? Does that mean that we can't make adjustments to programs serving immigrant students? Of course not. But we need to do it with families, with educators. Vis Valley Middle School got a budget where their newcomer program had been eliminated and no one at the school even knew this was happening. That decision got made by somebody in the central office over the winter break apparently and they just included it in the budget. That that's unexcusable. I mean that's morally for me thinking about how we serve our immigrant students that's it's embarrassing. And so I think just I mean we need to do much much better and it it feels capriccious. It feels like there's not explanation. And I just we cannot continue like this. And I just I don't know. I just want to say I don't mean to be to overstate it, but I think it's we can't just say we're going to make these cuts without doing it in a way that respects and honors the folks in the school communities that are being impacted. That is our responsibility as commissioners. So, so whatever that takes, and I think that isn't something that should happen in the boardroom, right? That can't happen in public comment. You all as staff need to go to the schools, you talk to the principles, talk to the families and make a plan. And again, doesn't mean no one's going to object, but it but there has to be some level of real engagement. Sorry, before we go back to commissioners, can we just see if others have other comments to make and then we'll circle back around. Vice President Han,

I really appreciate the analysis that you guys that you provided um on the impact of the governor's proposed budget on our budget um or I suppose lack thereof uh since it is not the historic investments in education uh headline um translating into numbers that one would hope for. Um but just to echo the comments today of my fellow commissioners, you know, the board meetings just cannot be the place that we're communicating things to the public. And so I do hope that there are um Superintendent Sue that there's active communication to school communities who I'm sure some of whom have seen the news about all of this education money that's allegedly flowing to us um about what those impacts are and aren't on the district and also therefore what they are and aren't on our labor um negotiations. Um, and just to echo what everyone has, well, well, many of the commissioners have said, I think that for me, my concern with the FSP was really around the lack of um communication around it, around the um the kind of lack of transparent airing of what was ended up in the FSP during the budget town halls. um and engagement around specific issues. Uh and I just would ask Superintendent Sue, what is the plan to change the communication with our schools? Like I am still getting emails uh you know about constit from constituents who are concerned that there's going to be no middle school

health and that teen pregnancy and STI rates are going to go up. Where is the communication to every family in middle school that there is still going to be middle school health even though the grants from a public fund private funer for these specific dedicated health positions are ending and the state is not giving us money to backfill. Where are the communications about how zero periods and seven periods can help provide access to electives? because while I think a lot of the proposals coming from the central office are um can be uh aligned with reaching our student outcomes and serving our students needs. There's I can't expect people to understand things that have literally never been communicated to them. So that that's really my question is what are we going to see different in the communication around these budget developments to families and teachers directly and educators. U again we shared the budget to our site leaders at the request of site leaders in early January. We wanted to give site leaders the time to work with us to make sure that we were allocating staff and resources to meet their school community. What I actually shared with um uh Commissioner Alexander when when we talked about this was that when when when Teresa Ship and I were going line by line through each of these schools and looking at their staffing allocations, we started to to realize that there were teacher allocations that were not showing up in our budget system, but

they were showing up on school sites. We made a decision at that moment in time to move forward with a message to our school community that we needed additional time to understand the allocations that the schools ended up having, but we don't have a budget allocation for them. It is a systems problem that unfortunately the team has been working on for the last several weeks. We are going to continue to understand how these allocations were made particularly to middle and high schools because we do not see this anomaly in elementary schools at this moment in time but we see it in middle and high schools and we need to understand how these additional teachers were budgeted. They may have showed up in at at the school, but we can't trace them back to a budget number that is connected to their school number. It takes time, and thankfully, we have the time to sit down with our site leaders to do that. I I would just uh gently remind folks that we're talking about the beginning of a budget process that that culminates in June. Uh during that time, you still have a lot of factors that are still unknown. Um we don't have the May revise, which is going to be pretty key, although I don't anticipate a whole lot of changes to be quite honest. Not not with the current state government budget. Um the biggest drivers for us that are still unknown are bargaining. uh we we simply don't know where it's going to end up and most of our units and most of our our staff still have not settled, right? And that's for this year as well as the the next couple of years. Um so [clears throat] none of those pieces are going to come to land. They might not even come to land until after second interim, right? So your second

interim is still going to be devoid in on March 10th of all of those numbers. It's it's the biggest driver of our annual budget. To what Dr. Sue is speaking to. We can do our best, the three of us here, as well as uh the folks, uh we're not a large staff, by the way. It's a pretty small staff to try to reconstruct what was done in the past with no evidence given us. We all we can do is our best. We we can't figure out the unknowns, right? There's there's there's one of the one of the lacks here as far as transparent systems is there was nothing to start with other than last year's allocations, but then to find out that there's more people that don't even show up anywhere. And we aren't going to know, by the way, until the end of budget development when we do that first position control reconciliation. We don't even know the delta of what we're talking about right now. Right? That's that's pretty highly concerning sis when you look at a systems aspect of running school districts that we can't do that. We'll be able to do it moving forward. That's exciting to me, right? Um and giving transparency to the process and the baseline we developed for the future. That's exciting to me. But we can't necessarily fix the past, right? We we can see the problems, but until we have the time to see the data that comes in, we we can't just fix it. So, it's going to take the board asked me earlier this year, how long is it going to take to get it in good shape, and I said two budget cycles. We're not even halfway through the first.

And I appreciate that. I think my concern is that it wasn't communicated in to site leaders that, you know, this doesn't include your supplemental hiring. it wasn't included in the communication to site leaders that we're dealing with this major discrepancy and many more people may be added in. And sometimes it seems like the approach of the district is to do the harshest thing and then see who yells to get their supplemental funding. And that just should not be how it works. And it should be communicated to communities to not cause unnecessary harm and concern for their students learning and well-being. That this is the beginning of a six-month process that we expect that many more positions will be added in. That we are working through these unknowns that you know maybe you have fewer teachers but you'll have less enrollment. And that message is not being received by the community. They are not understanding that. And so that means that it's on incumbent on the district to communicate either through different avenues in different language, more times, uh not requiring people to go to a three-hour in-person weekend summit to get the information that they need to be reassured about their students while learning. I'm gonna move to Commissioner Weissman Ward um and then we'll come back to the commissioners who had further questions.

Thank you. Um I I also think this question is probably for you Dr. Sue and I just want to sort of it's reiterating um Vice President Heing's point on the communication because I think that there's the numbers are what they are or aren't to to be determined. I think there's the communication to the site leaders. Um, and I I Jamie there, sorry, Vice President Healing, you made this point, but I just I want to sort of push on it a little bit more. I think the understanding of not just the what, but the why. So, we're talking about um six versus seven period days. And when it first came up, it was it to me felt like it was in the context of money saving. Then after learning more and hearing more, I was like, actually, no, this is about instructional minutes for core classes. And in some of our se schools with seven period days, we're actually not teaching the number of minutes we need to be teaching for math in ELA. That's huge. As a parent, that's something I'm interested in knowing. I'm also really interested in the fact that my kiddo gets to take algebra and Japanese. He doesn't have to choose between those. And so to the extent that you all are I know you all are brainstorming what are other options you mentioned the 07 period like until and unless all of that is shared all folks here is we're doing this and it came up in the context of this budget conversation so it's about money and if it's not about I mean it can it's not it's not necessarily mutually exclusive it may also have some slight impact on budget but if the the focus is we need to have instructional minutes happening in these core subjects but also we're looking at ways and exploring how the schools that are doing it are still able to offer multiple electives is really important. Um, and so I think that's sort of that's an example of I think where that communication is really lacking and if folks had more we could have a a I think a more nuanced and better informed

conversation. Um, there was another example I was going to give that was six versus seven. I don't know what it is now, but it's an I it's that communication that isn't just it's why are we doing this? And also how are we how are we being creative and how are we talking to the school sites where if there's a school site that's really doing something really well with the seventh period day, how is it working? Let us see your master schedule and then sharing that with the other middle schools that maybe their master schedule isn't quite up to par. Um so and I know you all are working on it but but no you're not telling people that you're working on it in the ways that are important.

Yes. Thank you uh for the question uh commissioner. Uh yes we are working on it because yes that was and I think I' I've shared this before. It was a mistake to connect and link the fiscal stabilization plan presentation with the allocation the staffing um allocation because they're they are not linked. And I also acknowledge that the way that we presented the staffing allocation made it sound that it was more financial, fiscal, budget oriented as opposed to um student enrollment. Um needing to contract towards our um uh our CB, our our labor agreements. Um making sure that we're allocating towards restrictions of different types of money. and we should have done a better job at that. We've learned our lesson. Um, we are meeting with all of our schools because you're right, um, VP Healing, we can't just do a a virtual town hall, um, and and then call it a day, which is why we've scheduled meetings with all of our principles. Um Chris and I have been meeting with lots of principles um along with Amy from HR, our our associate super of HR and Teresa um so that we can just hear from them how they are perceiving the allocation. Where do they want to make some changes? Because you know I I just heard a principal said well instead of this position can we get that position and we said justify why and the justification made sense and so we made the change and that's what a budget development should be. That's the process. the process is to really allow time for the community

to come to to together and and and build it. And that's the power of the schoolside council. Um now, should we do more? Yes. Do we need to have more meetings? Absolutely. And we're committed and we still have time. Actually, as a matter of fact, I know that we keep talking about middle schools. I I'm going to just say this here. I would like to meet with all the middle school principles um within the next week and a half. And so I I see my staff back there. Please make that happen because I want to sit in front of our principal and and have this conversation with them.

I'll be brief.

No, I I was going to say something, but I'm going to pass it on. Oh, no, no, no, no. I mean, here's I'll just say quickly. I think that my I appreciate the nuance. I appreciate the desire to sit and have a conversation and make changes given rationale. I don't know if that was received, it sounds like by sites, by educators, by principles. I certainly didn't perceive that that was the intention by rolling out of the staffing model. And so, you know, there's this question of like we we believe I I think that one size does not fit all for all of our schools, right? I I think of a conversation I had just recently about a continuation high school about their enrollment actually changes from day one of school to the end of the school year, right? So then if we know that that school grows in their enrollment because it's a continuation high school and by definition they will have more students that they receive throughout the year. What does that mean then for their allocations moving forward? Right? And and so I I think these these are nuance questions. I think I continue to go back to where how is that communicated? what is it what is being said in that in that change and and here's the challenge I think is that that we've already kind of lost the narrative because the message had gone out in December and people have experienced that so as we try to change and pivot between last month and now today and onward we have to almost redouble our efforts to to kind of get the message across that we are that we had not intended to do XYZ whatever that might be and we or that we you know what you you heard us right we do plan on doing this because I think that is fine too we just need that clarity I think right and this kind of resonates from our ad hoc committee

meeting where they you know we heard loud and clear from our community tell us the hard news we can deal with it right tell us what's movable and what's not movable and sure we are going to disagree especially even on this board there's seven of us who are probably going to have seven different perspectives on how to cutundred whatever million dollars and How how do we make sure that we then have a structure and language around that I think okay so I'm going to go to commissioner Alexander Commissioner Ray and then we'll come back around this way

and I just want to give one more example of this one of the I've gotten all these calls from principles in the last week and again they shouldn't be calling me that I think that's the problem they should be calling you all and there's something blocking that system I think part of it is you know one thing I heard was that the staffing model allocations weren't weren't shared even with assistant superintendent before they went out. So, I think there's some kind something happening where there's a small group of people making decisions in the central office. They aren't even consulting with other folks in the central office. But one of the things the principal said to me when he um or they I'll say I shouldn't have said he um called me was um was um that they they had at their school you know a this um I think it was a I'll probably get the details wrong but anyway so I'll probably you probably won't be able to figure out who it is but it's a it's a um it's a I think it was a math interventionist maybe but then now they were being that was being taken out of their budget even though they had data that showed that it was it was improving but then they were being told they needed to have a reading coach. All these reading coach for their teachers. So again that to your point I think that superintendent that you were saying that nuance because that was a student outcomes conversation like this principal was saying I have a strategy around student outcomes. I'm actually working on it. The data is showing improvement and now I'm being told that I have to abandon that. And I just think that conversation needed to happen before they got a budget allocation that they then had to give to their families. I think that's the problem, right? Is it's the cart before the horse. Once these come out, it's like, oh, they clearly didn't know anything about my school when they gave me my allocation, right? So, I think that's where we're behind the ball on this engagement piece as an example.

Use that as an example of let's say a math interventionist was going to be swapped out for a reading coach. What I would want to hear is is does that mean that our strategy as a district is that we're going to double down on reading coaches? Like there's a question here about what where did that messages come from? Right. That's right. And because then we could defend that and say, well, actually our our district-wide strategy is this, which makes sense as to why this is getting pulled over here, but then there needs to be that right. So I think that's the kind of question that I have around.

Yeah. And if they're getting data with their math interventions, maybe there's a way to fund both, right? And not fund something else. I mean, again, I think that the nuance use of resources and again that's not our job at all. like we should but I think our job as a board is to say are you staff doing that kind of process that actually ensures that this results in something that actually does improve student outcomes because we it's not if we just sit up here and say oh our strategy is reading coaches that's not data right principles have actual data about what's working and what's not working in their schools and this is a point that I vice president healing has made a lot we can't have a one-sizefits-all approach because kids are different in every school and yes we need a strategy but we also need space for if they have can show that something is working then we need to support it and I think that's the other piece that this just that's my concern is that if if that's not included then this process undermines our ability to achieve student outcomes.

Thank you so much for that question. Um I I think we've made it clear that in elementary school um instructional coaches are non-negotiables. Literacy coaches are non-negotiables because we want to move the needle on our literacy outcomes as directed by this board in middle school. What we're asking for are instructional coaches that lean towards math. So, it's I don't based on what you're saying. I'm assuming that maybe this is an elementary school person because they have an they have a math coach instead of a literacy coach. So, we'll figure that out. Um, but that shouldn't be right. So for middle school, we want we want our middle schools to really double down and focus on mass because that is part of our VBGs. Um actually even even what uh vice pres uh not vice um uh commissioner uh Wiseman Ward was saying around um her her student having um electives and algebra. Um, I also know that her student has math and algebra, right? Because we want to continue try to try to preserve that because we know how important it it it is increasing instructional minutes for students will increase those outcomes. Um, so yes, we have to sit down, have those conversations. And you know, the other day I did meet with um a handful of principles and and I was walking through the logic of sharing their allocation this early, again, earlier than they've ever received it before. Um because they asked for it to be this early. Now, what I didn't realize what I didn't realize was that because we also then scheduled the school size summit early, it didn't give our principles time to then work with us on building out the the

allocation. Now, in in January, there is this President's Day weekend and and so we were then faced with all of these scheduling issues. However, I knowing what I know now, [laughter] next year will be different, but I think I still think it's important for for our site leaders to have access to their allocation, spend time with us with central office so that we can work through all the nuances because each school is very different and then do the school size summit at a later time.

Uh, Commissioner Ray and then Commissioner Fischer. Okay. Um just uh a couple of things. Uh first on impact that's come up here and I it's absolutely critical that we look at the impacts on schools particularly as they relate to student outcomes as Commissioner Alexandra was mentioning. This is something that I had asked about in the Q&A for the December 16th meeting. And the answer that was returned was unbelievably generic when I was asking about like for instance has a district done any analysis beyond cost savings to assess the impacts of these proposed reductions in the staffing model and the information was so generic as to just be essentially useless. I mean if if our answer is simply the district has been engaging with site leaders to effectively leverage unrestricted and restricted resources etc etc that doesn't tell anybody anything and it doesn't give folks confidence that we are actually assessing the impacts I like I have to keep wondering did we assess the impacts do we have any kind of documentation to show that that we thought about what the impacts were or talked to people about those so I think it would help a lot if we were able to to provide that sort of analysis and I would hope that we are undertaking it in some fashion before we're just suggesting or you know allocating things in particular ways. Um that that was one thing I wanted to ask about like what do do you have that you can show us or show schools around impact analysis and particularly how how that affects outcomes. Um and the second thing I wanted to go back to again was communication because just sitting through this discussion here has made me feel again the disconnect that I have personally often felt but also feel is widely seen in the community. Like there have been a number of questions around like communication

with schools and families and so forth. At one point, Commissioner Huing asked, "What is the plan to communicate, you know, with with the communities?" And when you were answering, Superintendent Sue, your answer was about sharing the budget with site leaders in early January because they requested that, which I mean, it was just it had nothing to do with Commissioner Huing's question about the plan to communicate with with, you know, the school communities. And I I feel like if we like we need to be able to talk with each other and and and show that we're responsive among ourselves and with our communities and so forth. And what I we need to do far far better. And I guess I I would ask that we try to do that that we try to be responsive to the questions people are asking and that we try to uh you know that that we do our best that we can with that. I'm not sure what the fix is for it, but we need to directly my view is that we need to directly answer questions. We can't just provide very general statements that don't mean anything to anybody. And we should directly answer what people ask to the extent we possibly can. If we can't answer, if we don't know, then we should it's better to say that. Thanks. Um, I uh I really appreciate this conversation and uh um I know I took it off the rails where we weren't expecting to go, but thank you all for for digging in and and actually having this conversation transparently. I also really want to recognize between the three of you sitting here, you've got what like maybe you've got less than a year experience in the district between the three of you, right? So I mean like the how far we've come. I I don't want to lose sight of the amazing work that you've done right you know and the fact that we are actually here able to hand data to super

or to to principles in January rather than the end of fe like so yes we need to do better and I also want to recognize you know first year of uh first year front ride and red rover and like so thank you all for the work and the pivot and the work that continues to happen um and We all have very high expectations. Um, and I I think part of the challenge of such a new team is that we don't know what came before us, right? Like when Commissioner Alexander and I were at um, Viz Valley Middle School last night, one of the things that we talked about was just how many cuts year over year over year over year have already happened to them. Like back in the early 2000s, they had this amazing like the the wellness program and the meditation program, the mindfulness program that they had um was huge. They had like the highest uh the lowest level of chronic absenteeism in the district because of it. They had hu I mean they had a huge number of students that were getting into and qualifying for LOL. I think highest per capita back at the time, right? like and that got cut in previous rounds of budget cuts and and so it's it's a death by a thousand cuts to all of our schools year over year over year over year which is part of the trauma. So I I want to recognize that when we when we talk here too um

Commissioner Fischer, may I just add real quick that that it's not as long as the timer gets paused. Sure.

Yeah, pause it. It's it's not just because it's not just the the death by thousands cuts of the school, but it's also like for example the newcomer program. They they were talking about how the teachers in the newcomer program work together really well. They've got a team, right? So, if you just say, "Oh, we're going to cut the program or now we're going to cut a third of the program." That actually will totally disrupt their teaching team and all these procedures they have in the school. Right? So, is there a solution where you move some newcomer students there? I know we have fewer newcomer students, but that's a systemic problem we've known about for a year. So, just to say, "Oh, well, now there's fewer newcomer students. Let's all of a sudden cut equally from each newcomer program." That's not a that's not an effective response. And what you're going to do is you're going to end up losing that expertise that they've so that's the program they haven't lost. They still have it, but our cut is now about to to destroy that program if we don't sit with them and figure out the impact. And this goes to I really appreciate Commissioner Ray's point around impact analysis. So, just to add to that as an example.

See, we're all so much stronger when we're together, right? We build on each other. I love it. Um uh so keep building. Um and and that to I will build on that example of dismantling programs. That was exactly the conversation I had at Buina Vista Horus man yesterday too was um and they love the idea of the creativity of a zero period. Their constraint there is that 75% of their students take SFUSD transportation because they're at their new school. So they and they have students they have a lot of students with IEPs. They have a lot of students who have the ELD and they have no idea how they absolut they could equitably implement a zero period when so many of their kids are constrained by our transportation resources. Right? So I want to make sure that we're I appreciate the conversations and others have said this the conversations we're having at the high level are great but let's use the restorative practices frame. Let's not do things to folks. We've got to do it with not for. We've got to do it with folks. And so I think that's really the struggle that a lot of us are having here is that these are great ideas and really really difficult to implement without the full buyin of the community. Um so the last point I make and then I'll stop. um student outcomes focused governance our framework our job is to go out and and reflect and learn from the community and reflect the vision and values and we're hearing a lot from the community that's our job not the superintendent's job that's our job and we're working on that with our ad hoc committee so thank you chair Gupta um but I look at like where are my levers to impact and not step into micromanagement so we have upcoming votes on for example layoff off notices, right? That's I think our next vote that could really

impact the staffing model. Um, and I just want to make it known to the leadership team here. If you want me to vote on layoff notices that are due to this staffing model, you've got to show me the impact analysis. Like you've got to show if you want me to vote to lay off middle school teachers so that we can go to six periods and seven seven periods. You've got to show me that the access level is still there, that it's not being done in a discriminatory way. Right now, you don't have my vote for layoffs of middle school teachers. If that means I vote no on everything because of the plan, then so be it. But that is my governance level lever right now. And I just want to make it clear here. I want to set that expectation here and now that show me that this is being done in an equitable and non-discriminatory way and I I value my fiduciary responsibility. I think it's important. Help me help you. So that's that's the last point. Commissioner Gupta,

Vice President Healing, did you have a quick comment or did you

just to add to what Commissioner Fischer said, under our student outcomes focused governance model, we are supposed to delegate basically to the superintendent to achieve the student outcome goals within the guard rails however she sees fit. And so we have heard that there is data that our schools with six periods are doing better in reaching our student outcome goals because they have more core instructional minutes. But we have not seen that data. So it is incumbent upon the superintendent and her team to bring that forward in order to secure our votes um to show us how this plan actually moves us toward reaching our student outcome goals. Thank you, Vice President. Actually, I was about to say that, so I appreciate you saying that instead. It is absolutely incumbent that we see that impact data. Um, you know, I I think what I'm hearing over here, what I what I'm hearing across all my my colleagues is we've had these conversations with a lot of different school communities, and is amazing how similar they are across across all of them, right? I mean, across the city really. um you know and and I think you know the the headline is in the absence of information which is what we had and I want to make clear this is not a budget what we're talking about right now is not a budget issue the numbers were beautiful in in terms of the way in which it was laid out even in even to the reserves which actually are being used as I understood from it in fiscal year two and three to get us to a positive certification so that we no longer have the CDE on our back. So there like I just want to put that to rest because there there was artistry in that I sorry I'm geeking out because it actually was you know saying okay here's

how we're going to use our reserves as a last push to get us into fiscal positive certification. This is this is a failure of communication in terms of in the absence of the information when people just got sheets of this is the savings and this is how many people are going to get cut with no narrative they're forced to create their own and and I think that's kind of the main if I take what Vice President Heling was sharing earlier you know how do we all do better in terms of sharing that information upfront and I'll give you an example health continues to come up right now, right? Do we have health? Are we not? Are is is that funding being taken away? Is there a restricted grant towards this? That still is clearly not clear. And we are now in the middle of January. I was having a conversation with educators and I I explained that part of the reason that we were going to sixth period was not funding related, but rather for instructional minutes. And the the the teachers, that was the first that they had heard of it, right? And so this this to me is communication that clearly had to go out before this came out. I I I do appreciate the individual conversations that then happen as a followup after that broad communication goes out to our community. Um and there it seems like there is that ability to sort of indicate well here's the broad instruction as far as why we are going to sixth period. here's the impact analysis that backs that up. And if a school in an individual conversation can demonstrate that they are meeting those outcome goals, you know, is there room for flexibility? I mean, I'll give I'll give you another example. Um, I understand we want to have instructional coaches at one of the schools I was speaking with. They indicated, well, they learn better with CPT. They understand they they feel like they're better with uh some of that peer

learning. So, you know, just just being able to understand and being able to meet our schools where they are, especially if they have the outcomes to back it up. Um, I I do have one question, uh, which is regarding I I am also appreciative of the January, you know, being able to provide this information in January, not at the last moment before we have to do this. And I want to give kudos and credit to our team for for doing that, getting us in that position. I do have a question. And when we look at the impact to our communities, so as I understand, our principles have to come forward with uh their potential layoffs by the end of January. Is that correct?

No. with with especially with the lack of data uh in our district. Uh what we're doing is we're putting together a data set uh that when the principal and same thing uh I guess I'm the only one that's been a principal here. Uh so uh it's Matt Matt was a principal too. So it happens every year. You you you get your central allocation and then you put together all your other resources to see what else you can buy. Uh I think that's what Dr. Christy was referencing as far as principles are sort of masters of putting those puzzles together and getting the staff that they want. But there's always a delta potentially of what can't you get between what they you get centrally in between your resources and between PTA PTO grants all these different things that come in uh title one [clears throat] and that's basically the delta. We don't know what the delta is until the principles finish and then we can run and reconcile position control to say, excuse me, how many positions uh come out of of the bottom that that weren't either afforded by central allocation or by school sites and their discretionary or title one or grants, right? We don't know the answer to that yet because we are at a bad point in data where we can't even we don't have that holistic picture going into this process. Right? So that's that's part of the difficulty uh in doing a budget season without that without that data historically and we haven't had. That's why it's called out so specifically in the CDE and FCMAT reports the lack of position control and and the ability to even know sometimes how many employees we have on payroll. That's not an exaggeration. That's actually in the report. Um, and so we won't know that until January. And to uh, you know, Commissioner Fischer's point, it won't necessarily even be a layoff. You look at our turnover here yeartoyear in positions. Uh, the board was able to do all of its reductions last year without any teacher layoffs

just because of the number of folks we recruit every year. we are not necessarily going to be in a dissimilar situation. But again, we won't know until we have the reconciliation negotiations and put it all together with with what we have to figure out the delta of positions and then what's the delta in the budget and what's the overlap there. So, it's it's a pretty complex process between February and whenever we can get a budget together, quite frankly. So I guess my my question is is they so so our sites are putting together their budgets presumably though. I mean say for example if they're being told you need to lay off or you potentially will have a reduction in three teachers. They have to kind of identify who that might be and as I as I understand that has they have to then submit that to central by J.

No that's all that's all done by rules right. So there are rules uh largely set by law and the unions that that are establishing things like seniority and bumping rights and all those kinds of things. So it's actually not up to the principal or me or anybody else to identify people. they'll see a delta in the FTE of different types that they have and then it's HR's function to then come in and reconcile uh you know clearly a vacant position would go out first right so so they then reconcile what is the actual loss in positions at the school site so that's part of the process as well

thank thank you for that clarification so I guess the the the what I'm trying to understand is when will they have clarity 30 when they would or would not have to potentially lay off uh a position.

So our responsibility is to get to you. This is all set by statute. So in California, it is now for all employees. It used to be just certificated. It's now all employees by March 15th. The board has to act. So you you have to have a pretty good list of first of all who's not being continued, right? So that has to deal with probationary ones and twos and that kind of stuff. Commissioners are probably pretty familiar with that. And then before March 15th, what what is that delta putting together a budget that the problem with that? Here's an interesting thing to consider is that if you still don't have, and we likely won't have based on where we are in the calendar right now, your negotiated settlements, you're going to be in the position that you were in last year, which is you're going to have to then over notice and then pull back once you settle, right? Because there's no predictability when you're in negative certification of of just taking a stab at it. So the CDE is going to be watching that we have enough flexibility for the board that you over notice and then you resend those notices once you actually settle your negotiations.

Um I actually will pause here because I think this moment right now is actually a critical conversation around what we can expect over this coming spring. And so maybe the request here is actually if we can if we can carry on this conversation and and get some clarity on exactly the process from here on out for the spring. We have been trying to do that from a board governance calendaring perspective. But I think from a just being able to understand what we can anticipate as an experience this spring, I think this is actually a very similar conversation we had this time last year around what is it that sites will experience? what is it from a board governance level that we'll experience to be able to know that I know there's a general timeline that's been put out there at the beginning of the budget development process. But I think what we're asking for is one level deeper here of understanding kind of when are those decisions expected of sites that will then impact how we are then going to be experiencing this from a decision-m standpoint.

Yes. And I just want to I do need to Well, I was just saying particularly around because the board voted down the fiscal stabilization plan. I mean, normally if the fiscal stabilization plan is approved, that sets the template for the for any potential layoffs. So, in some ways, it feels like the board hasn't authorized you to begin preparing for any layoffs. I mean, I know you still have to think about it. So, that's why I think it's I think that's that's why I think from a governance perspective, it that's why I keep asking about what's changed and when do we come back to that because if we don't exactly

like if if the board hasn't said here's the direction, it becomes challenging. So, I'll I'll pause us there because I do think that this is too important of a conversation to have past 10 o'clock. And so, uh, thank you very much to staff and the finance team. Um, and we will pick this conversation back up. Um, and much appreciation to the leadership of the finance division here in in bringing us to where we are today. President Kim, may I make a motion to extend the meeting past 10 p.m. reluctantly? Thank you. And I will second. Roll call vote quickly, please. Thank you. Uh, Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Wisman, uh, Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. And President Kim,

yes. Seven eyes.

Thank you. As we move on to the second item here, um, I actually appreciate that we actually had our fiscal and operation health update before this part of the conversation because I do think a lot of the takeaways here um, carry forward into this conversation around updates from the superintendent around her short-term evaluation metrics. Um, as I turn to the superintendent to present um and introduce this item, I I I will just encourage us to now uh reflect on things that are not the conversation we just had as we just had a very thorough conversation around things like communication, engagement with sites, engagement with educators. Um, and so, uh, so I would hope that we message was loud and clear. Uh and so let's let's turn to the superintendent for this next item on update on the progress of the superintendent short-term metrics. This is a discussion item and no action will be taken on this item tonight. Um I will turn it over to Dr. Sue to um to bring this forward.

Thank you, President Kim. And yes, that was a very um lively conversation and and uh it it just so happens that I actually have a memo about our budget development timeline um that we did not I have not shared yet. Um but I will definitely submit I'll figure out a way to submit this into the record so that our community can see um the the budget development timeline that we are sharing with our community. um and and we will continue to uh meet our our school community. Um in regards to to my short-term metric, um I just I just again thank the board for the opportunity to continue to serve our children and um staff and school community. Um just very quick highlights. Um I also have a memo that I will submit into record um so that so that uh folks can can see this. But um I want to say that last year was a combination of a really rough year where we had to make a lot of really hard decisions. Um decisions around our budget, decisions around changes, um and and decisions on how we were going to move forward together. Um, at the end of the day, we were able to to make some really tough decisions to uh prioritize our students to ensure that we continue to have um highquality staff in our schools to support our students. Um, even with a reduction of $114 million within our budget last year, we were able to do that without laying off our teachers. We were able to do that while we continue to ensure that our classrooms um our schools uh were staffed with supports that our students need. Um providing the resources and tools for our teacher so that they could

continue to provide the supports that our students need. Um actually I believe for the first time in many many years the district started this school year at a 95% teacher staffing rate. At this moment in time we are at 97%. Now if you are part of the unfortunate 3% classroom of course this doesn't feel good for you. And of course we do want to be fully staffed at 100% and we are working towards that. But I will say across other large urban school districts, most do not actually fill their classrooms at anywhere close to 95%. I would dare say even some of our smaller school districts struggle to get to a 95% fill rate. So I am very proud of the work that our team has done. While we prioritize having and meeting the staffing capacity within our schools, we continued to provide the trainings and and professional development that our teachers needed and it proved to be very beneficial. So we for the first time in this school district have well first time in 10 years that's as long as I went back we saw an a statistically significant increase in our African-American students literacy rate and that's because it's a combination of ensuring that we have teachers in those classrooms that we are providing the training and the professional development and the resources and tools that our teachers needed to be successful in those classrooms. And that's how we're seeing this increase. We also changed our math curriculum and we are seeing we're slowly seeing the

adoption of those math curriculum. I've spent many uh days going to visit schools where we're seeing teachers embracing the curriculum um and using the manipulatives of this new math u our math tools and it's wonderful. our students are are engaging. They really for the first time in a long time see um their their competency in real time because we're we're integrating um technology into the lesson plan and it's yielding that type of success for our students. Again, we did a lot of work last year in making sure that we have operational efficiencies. We transitioned from a very well doumented broken system, a payroll system, a fi finance system um called empower to now a system um called frontline and red rover where yes there are bumps and hiccups along the way. Um but we are able to respond to those problems in in in hours as opposed to months. we're able to be even forward thinking about potential problems and addressing it sooner. Um, so we're moving in the right direction. We definitely need to bring our error rates down to zero because again, you don't want to be part of the 1% that is getting uh the incorrect uh pay stuff, but we are able to cut checks if we do see the errors. So, we're making real improvements, real operational efficiencies, and yes, we have to do more. As we just shared in the the conversation just now, we are seeing in our system that we have staff

that are not accurately and correctly allocated to school sites or to different programs. And we need to rectify that. Um, and as we continue to build greater operational efficiencies, we're going to be able to have more accurate information so that we can then tell the more accurate story. We also spent last year building and strengthening partnerships with our city leaders. We're we are working and um with San Francisco State. We're deepening our relationship with City College to have more dual enrollment class options for our students. We're reestablishing and double downing our partnerships with Stamford University as well as with um Berkeley so that we can have leading experts in the field of education guiding us and providing supports to us. And of course, we need to do more to support uh to in partnership with our community. They'll never be it'll not it'll never be enough unless we can talk to every single one of our students and our families and our staff. And we're going to continue to push towards um having different ways to communicate with our families, to communicate with our staff. Um so that we won't have the problem of not knowing um at a minimum if you don't know you would know where to go to find the information. So, we're building those systems. At the same time, I'm really excited about what we're going to do in the next couple of months. Looking forward to actually getting and I know our CDE friends are listening. We will get to a positive certification. I know that because I know that we will be able to make the hard decisions. we will be able to find the restrictive sources to then meet the

needs that our schools um and our community um deserves. We will be able to get to a positive certification. We will also be able to have deep conversations with our community to then come to a school reorganization model that will really meet the needs of our students so that we can have instructional excellence in all of our schools. So that we can have instructional coherence from classroom to classroom. so that our community can see that their neighborhood school is the best option or if they want they can go to the citywide school. But we need to make sure that everyone sees that everyone of our SFUSD school is the right place for them, is the place that they want to send their children to. I'm I look forward to working with our community and of course with the board on that. We will continue to double down on on supporting our teachers so that they have the resources and tools to be successful in the classroom in implementing our ELA, our English language arts curriculum, in implementing our math curriculum, in making sure that we have rigorous, highquality math programs and curriculums available to all of our students, particularly middle schoolers. And of course, we look forward to making sure that we stand up some of these really exciting initiatives that we've already shared. We're going to be opening a middle a Mission Bay elementary school. Starting out small, we're only going to have preschool

classroom, a TK classroom, and a kinder classroom. And as the community grows, our school is going to grow with that community. We're going to open a t a kinder a TK to 8 Mandarin immersion school. something that our community has been asking for and something that I'm so excited to work with this board in making um that into a reality and of course making sure that we meet the goals that this board has laid out for us in terms of our literacy rate, our math rate, and our college and career rates. Because what else if not to en make sure that our schools and our students have the resources to be educated to read to write to do math. That is what a school district is all about. So I look forward to continuing this work, continuing to serve our community, continuing to serve our students and our staff, um and of course partnering with this board to make all of these things a reality. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll open up for comments and questions from commissioners.

I'll kick us off here. If there was a banner to be held over the work from last year, I would say it was get a teacher in every classroom. And I will say I think that is a huge accomplishment for this district to be able to confidently say that we've surpassed our goal of reaching 95% of educators in the classroom on day one of school. Granted the work that we have to do to continue to maintain that focus on closing that last gap. I think I have a question around just what would be the next banner for us this year. And I would hope that a part of that would talk would speak to the work for us to be transparent and honest about the hard challenges that we have ahead and to bring our our staff and communities along in that work. Um and so thank you for your leadership in getting us to this point. Um I I think it's I think because of the work that we have done up until this point, it enables us to make this f intentional focus on being able to actually invest in the ways in which we are engaging our communities, our staff, our educators, our families. I just want to be really clear and I think Commissioner Gupta, you mentioned this in your direct comments to staff around the numbers. We have greater clarity today than we ever have as a district and we shouldn't be ashamed of that. We should be very proud of that. But that opens up a whole set of other questions and opportunities for us that we really do need to lean into. And I would hope that we are taking advantage of the great progress that we have made operationally and financially as a district to now lean into the conversations that we need to lean into around our instruction and our vision and the direction of this district. And so, um, so thank you again for your leadership. I I think it it makes it all the more important that we continue to engage our communities, uh, in the in the really challenging work, frankly, and and I think the perpetual work of connecting the fiscal and operational

work of our district with now the instructional and academic work of our of our district. And and we have a lot of work to do in that regard. Uh, thank [clears throat] you for kicking us off, President Kim. Um, I really want to recognize how far we've come from the start of your tenure, Dr. Sue. Um, I mean like it the the community was reeling from RAI when you stepped in and um you were really able to bring a whole lot of gravitas because the community knows you. The community respects you. You have such a long history in the city of going to bat and fighting for families and students. And I really appreciate that you brought that frame to us and um appreciate your leadership there. Um your strong partnerships with the community I think were a a big strength and part of the reason why we're all so excited that you're here. Um and you we talked about it earlier. I won't revisit Red River. you mentioned it, front line, but also I I I think it does you a disservice to not even mention the the the huge amount of you've had a huge brain drain this year. Um I mean, we had a huge number of institutional leaders take the SER last year, right? um you're second in command like we lost a huge number of of folks um with a lot of institutional knowledge and I think that's that's part of what we're feeling now. Um, I appreciate your hiring Deputy Superintendent Mount Bonitas and the expertise he's bringing and you know that just seeing where we are there, you know, and some of the other leaders you've brought in. I I really really appreciate the work you're doing to stabilize leadership and one of the things we've heard from CDE is just how

important stability is to our getting back to a positive fiscal certifi certification. So, um, as much work as we have to do and and I know you're up for the challenge, I I I just also and especially as much as it felt like we were pounding on you and your staff in our last conversation, I really want to recognize how far we've come. So, so thank you for um your continued leadership. I appreciate you.

Any other comments or questions from commissioners? Commissioner Gupta. Um, likewise. I I I feel like, you know, I've I've only been here for a fundamentally fixing and those aren't always present daytoday um in terms of what perhaps the public sees but we do appreciate that and and that is that does not go unrecognized from empower red rover being able to get some of the curricula um piloted approved within the time that that that we've we've had uh being able to hire a stellar financial team as Commissioner Fischer said. So, um we know that fundamental work needs to go on and uh and there's a tremendous amount we all have to partner on with things like enrollment with um making sure we have fully staffed schools for our for our students. Uh and and we are I I will say I and I think I speak for for the board if I may. We we are all up for that challenge and working towards that.

Any other comments or questions from the board? Vice President? Um, one thing that stood out to me from the update about our um, finances was the update just on the very basic systems that are now being put into place to bring us into this century and we're in the 25th 26th year of this century like having credit cards and a things like that. So I I definitely, you know, a theme I think for us has been um that we're, you know, building the plane as we fly it. That there's a lot of work to be done to repair things and uh you know, do essentially deferred maintenance to bring us up to present while also trying to really push us toward the future. Um and it is hard to do everything all at once. Um, and I know that this city demands a lot of of us and of the district of of our leadership. Um, and you know, they deserve that. And so I would just say that I really appreciate the the work that has been done on the very unglamorous things like just fixing broken systems, just getting to the bottom of very basic things that you know any leader should have in place to be able to make informed decisions. Um, but also, you know, I I talk a lot about communication and so I won't retread that, but I think um people really want to come along and support the district and I think it's really incumbent upon you as the district leader to, you know,

give the banner that President Kim talked about and to, you know, really communicate the vision vision of the SFUSD of the future that we can look forward to and the investments that we are going to be able to make in education when we get those basics right. Um so that people can see the light at the end of the tunnel and stick with us long enough to reach it. Um, and so, you know, I know that some of the short-term metrics, um, involve things like articulating initiatives, um, you know, getting key staff into place. And I think there's still, uh, with a great appreciation to all the work that's been done and the many key hires that you've made. Um, I think there's still work to do around that. Um, and so I look forward to um, you know, supporting investments where they're needed strategically to help us get to our destination.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Yeah, I I think um, Commissioner Weissman Ward has said this in the past, but the the job of superintendent is basically an impossible one, right? the the the asks um not just from us, your seven bosses with very very distinct priorities. Okay, President Kim, I'll give you that. Um I know, right? Okay, you both

I'm right. Put you both in a get along shirt and you can figure out who said it first. How about that? Um don't make me turn the car around. Um um so off track

though the um the point that I wanted to make really was um I think in some cases we we have set multiple superintendent in this district up for failure with the impossible asks. And so my ask of you moving forward knowing that we all very much do want you to be successful. Um push back on us, you know, when when you need to and help us understand what um where you need more support, where you need more staff, where you need, you know, us to whatever. You know, I I think we very much for the district to be successful, we all have to work together and we all have to be in alignment and that doesn't and so I that's what I look forward to is more of that this year.

Thank you. Seeing no other comments or questions. Um we will do a lightning round of action items here uh and consent calendar before you call it an evening. Um item I the next item on the agenda is 261-13 SP1 approval of PIPS and waivers. Can I have a motion and a second? I move that we approve action item 261-13 SP1 approval of PIPS and waivers. Second.

It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve item uh 826113 SP1. Are there any uh I turn it over to the superintendent to introduce this item and I will turn it over to our associate superintendent Amy Bear. Thank you. Good evening commissioners. So the first item is to pro um approve provisional internship permits for five teachers, two multiple subject, one art, and two early childhood special education. Are there any comments from the board or questions? Speaking of impossible jobs,

debate is now closed on the motion to approve item A261-13 SP1, approval of PIPS and waiverss. Roll call vote, please. Miss Loff, Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Weisman Ward, yes. and President Kim. Yes. Seven eyes. The next item on the agenda is item 261-13 SP2, approval of local assignment options. Can I have a motion and a second? I move that we approve item uh I2 action 261-13 SP2, approval of local assignment options. Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Any I'll turn over the superintendent to introduce item. Just just a comment that this will make Commissioner Fischer even more excited because it's a local assignment option for eight speech therapists. I saw that I'm so happy. Any comments or questions for the board? Uh yes, I do just appreciate that the we're reducing our dependence on outside agencies. We're hiring more staff and hopefully meeting the needs of students in a much more effective way. So, thank you. Thank you. And thank you to you and your team. Um, debate is now closed on the motion to approve item 261-13 SP2. Roll call vote, please. Miss Lenovo. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes.

Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward, yes. And President Kim, yes. Seven ice. 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 conflict. Um, superintendent, are there any uh changes to the consent calendar? There are none. Thank you.

Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? I move that we approve the consent calendar. Second. Could we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Alexander, I. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing. Yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Commissioner Wisman Ward, yes.

That's success. Okay. Um, would any commissioners like to speak on any items in item K board member reports? Commissioner Gupta, I'll be brief. Uh we had our ad hoc committee on public engagement, the best committee and uh [laughter] and and and I I I will say

we we had uh over we we were fortunate to have over 50 uh I believe it was over 50 participants from our uh community- based organizations. Point of clarification, how many people showed up to the other ad hoc I think that's out of order. President rule that out of order. Okay. Just wanted to know. I was curious.

Enough said. Um so so so we we were very fortunate to have that participation and um very very appreciative of of that. You know, we started off with a bit of a review of what we had done in the past. uh what some of the best practices were. But then we just really turned it over to our community to tell us what were critical issues that they sought public engagement on and what was the method by which they wanted to engage and we were very fortunate as well to to receive feedback that we'll then also incorporate into the second meeting. So, and in the second meeting, I would say one of the things that we will also work on is being able to get more PTA school site council representatives. Um, we're thrilled that we had our student delegates come and be a part of that conversation. We would love more students to come. So, uh, for those who are still listening at 10:32, I will say please do come. It is open to everyone. uh we will figure out the location, but it will likely be in the southeast of the city as we seek to move it around so that it is accessible and we can engage different members of the community. So that is February 5th uh at likely 6:00 pm. So please do keep that date in mind. More information will be coming forth uh

with child care and interpretation and

food. Yes, child care interpretation and food will be provided. Uh so uh we are again very appreciative and also I just want to uh appreciate the staff because the staff did a tremendous job in helping and we will likely uh include even more staff if we can. Um but thank you to Hong May, to Laura Dudnik, to Christina Wong for all of their tremendous work on that and we appreciated you coming as well. Superintendent Sue to participate in that. So, and thank you, President Kim and Commissioner Fischer. And if I missed anything, please. All right. It's going to be awesome next time as well.

It's a great summary for the best ad hoc committee we have. Um, moving forward, if there's no other comander,

I I should give a brief report on the [laughter] the uh boring ad hoc committee. The less exciting ad hoc committee um is happening. The next meeting is next, wait, is that next Tuesday? The 20th. Yeah, that's next Tuesday, right? The 20th. 6 o'clock. Um, I promise it will be less interesting than than commissioner group does ad hoc, but it is uh well and we're it's part of the effort to make school board boring again, which is, you know, a good thing. And um it's a little bit nerdy, but but I actually think it's a it is a good we we've been having some really good meetings and definitely want to echo I want to appreciate Superintendent Sue um uh Devin Krugman, Josh Reys, and Moonhawk, Kim, and Teresa Ship who've all been key uh participants in that. So, and we're going to look at actual it's actually going to be a little bit like um you know how how after a football game the coaches review video with their players. So we're gonna get video of other board meetings and and be doing some analysis of question asking. So it'll be, you know, I think it'll be interesting.

Sounds so exciting. Yeah. Thank you for that report. Sorry, I forgot to say Maren, thank you. And also LA as well.

Well, since you since you said that we did have more people on Zoom as well for that committee. Just saying. Um board members I know have been asking around um understanding better uh what committees that we can appoint to. I want to thank Hungme and the board office who are working together to help us identify who we can appoint to to which vacancies and and through which process. So just know that that is coming uh for the board as well. Uh before we adjourn, um as a proud Korean-American, I wanted to take a moment to recognize today as Korean-American Day observed January 13th of each year, which commemorates the arrival of the first Korean immigrants to the United States in 1903. Tonight, today we honor the resilience and contributions and enduring legacy of Korean-Americans whose leadership, creativity, and commitment to community have profoundly shaped our city, our schools, and our nation. And from educators and small business owners to artists and caregivers and public servants, Korean-Americans have strengthened our shared civic life while carrying forward a rich cultural heritage rooted in perseverance, family, and service. And we reflect on this history. As we reflect on this history, we also recommmit ourselves to standing against anti-Asian hate and to advancing equity and dignity and opportunity for Korean-American students, families, and communities today and every day. Um, so thank you for that moment. And with that, I will adjourn at 10:36