San Francisco Unified School District Board - Regular Meeting

The regular meeting of the board of education of the San Francisco Unified School District for December 16th, 2025 is now called to order at 5:06 p.m. Could we have a roll call, please, Miss Leno? Commissioner Alexander here. Commissioner Fischer here. Commissioner Gupta here. Vice President Healing here. Commissioner Ray here. Commissioner Weisman Ward here.

And President Kim. That's it. Roll call. Thank you. Do we have any um at this time? Do we need to do the second at this time before the board goes into close session? I call for any speakers to the close session items listed in the agenda. There will be a total of five minutes for public comment. Are there any speakers for public comment and none online? At this time, we don't have any speakers. Vice President,

thank you. I now recess this meeting to close session at 5:07 p.m.

Uh hello and welcome to members of the public to the regular meeting of the board of education of the San Francisco Unified School District for December 16th, 2025. We will begin with item C, public comment. Our public comment period lasts for 1 hour today until um we'll give some round it up to 6:45 p.m. We look forward to hearing from the public before we conduct our board business. Our goal is to conduct board business in an efficient, effective, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. And we aim to respect staff, family, and community time by ensuring move to board business immediately after um our comment period. Each participant may speak for up to one minute. Staff will thank the participant at the one minute mark. At one minute and five seconds, I've asked Mr. Julio to please turn off the music. Turn off the music, turn off the mic, and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same item to collaborate and combine their comments so the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email at board officefusd.edu. Um, we will hear first from students in person, then members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items, then moving to non-aggenda items. Regardless of whether inerson public comment is complete, we will say 15 minutes at the end for remote public comment, taking commenters in the same order as in person. To members of the public, on your right, you'll see signs that outline expectations for public comment and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public model the kind of tone, language, and behavior that we hope to see from our young people, respecting different viewpoints, and allowing for all members of the public to participate. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow up with speakers.

Mr. Trio.

Thank you, President Kim. We have 27 students in person. As I call your name, as I call your name, please line up. Andre Sophia Venitz, Andrea Sophia Bonitz, my apologies. Joseline, Meltney, Julysa, Angel, and Helica Jones. No, my name is Andre. I'm a newcomer. Newcomer. The idea Okay.

Okay. My name is Andrea Sophia. Um, good good evening. Um, I'm a student in the eighth grade at the newcomer program in Visitation Valley Middle School and I'm here before you to ask you to respectfully as a district not eliminate the elective classes um for students in the newcomer program. I am currently taking uh a music elective class and it's had such a positive impact on my academic development and in me being able to work with instruments uh participating in presentations and working as a team. It's also helped me significantly to improve my English language abilities since it's one of the few classes where I can speak with general education students. This is not just uh a simple class that we learn uh English as a second language in but in all of our classes and we've been able to show our abilities day after day eliminating these elective classes based on the status of learning uh of a single language is an unjust decision. I ask you to please consider the value in education, emotional, and social well-being in these elective classes that continue uh helping us to move forward. Thank you so much for your time and attention.

My name is Wait, can I go now? Oh, my name is Jocelyn and I'm a student at Viz Valley Middle School. I am against the proposed staffing model especially against especially about cutting electives because students should be able to learn and take elective classes even students who are learning English. Electives are important because they help students like me discover who they are through classes like art, ethnic studies, and music. These classes give students a way to express themselves at schools and feel included. When students enjoy what they are learning about, they do better in school and feel more motivated. Taking elective classes away would make school less fun, less meaningful for many students, which is why I think elective classes should be protected and not cut. I am a student in Miss Lauren's music class and I think you should come and check it out.

My name is Mean and I'm at I'm a student from Viz Valley Middle School. I am against the staffing model. the district is trying to put in place. I think elective classes are really important because they help students learn more about who they are and what they enjoy. When students get to choose electives like ethnic studies, music, art, and other classes, it makes more it makes school more interesting and meaningful. Electives help students like me feel connected and excited about learning. Taking electives shouldn't be taken away because they are a big part of what make they are a big part of what makes school a place where students can grow and feel like they belong. So, please don't take our electives away. Thank you.

My name is Jalissa. I'm a student at Viz Valley Middle School. I'm against against the proposed staffing model because I think all students should have elective class including my peers who are still learning and mastering English. I was one once of those students who had to take an EOD class. But thankfully because we had seven periods, I was still able to have one elective. If we change to six periods, my friends and peers who are still in EOD or newcomers who won't be able to have an elective electives are important for all students to find their passion in life. They help students feel included, confident, and excited to come to school. Taking electives away would make school less fair for students who already have extra challenges. And I believe everyone deserves the chance to explore their interest. Also, at our school, elective classes are the one place where newcomers and GED students come together to share space, learn from one another, helping to build community at our school, big. So, please do not cut and take away our electives, classes, and teachers. Thank you. Hello all. I hope this message finds you well. My name is Angelina Jones and for the past three-ish years, I have attended Willie Brown Middle School. I have heard about your recent budget cuts and attempts to remove certain staff and programs like chows, elective teachers, social workers, counselors, etc. from San Francisco schools. And not only I, but many other students alike feel like this is very unfair. School should be a safe and fun space where kids actually enjoy the process of learning. and the removal of said things can and will disrupt that. My school values our steam program so much. In fact, it is one of our greatest values. As students, a promise was made to us and our resources should under no circumstances be taken away unnecessarily. What happens if there's conflicts with nobody to solve them? What happens when a kid feels unsafe or unhappy in their home environment and they need someone to talk to? Not only will this affect children, but also the staff that are being let go? Some people really depend on these jobs to provide for their families. What happens to them?

I spent all of my educational years in the SFUSD and sorry I spent all my educational years in SFUSD starting at Lakeshore and these like opportunities are important. Uh, please line up as I call your name. Danielle, Monroy, Alanteo, Marcus Potch, Michaela Loggins, Ree Yen. Am I allowed to go now? All right. Hello, my name is Daniellea Monro. I have been enrolled in SFUSD since first grade, graduated from Bret Hart, and have spent three years at Willie Brown Middle School. Additionally, I am the student body president of my school. I have recently heard of the budget cuts specifically at my school. I'm going to be talking about electives and why they are needed at my school. I hear the proposed plan is to take from a seventh period day to a sixth period day. This would likely mean we'd lose teachers. Those teachers would most likely be the elective teachers. When I first arrived at Willie Brown, I was unsure of what I wanted to do with my future. The reason I was able to find out what makes me happy and what truly makes me me was because of the elective program here. I have taken robotics for 3 years and it's completely changed my life for the better. I now know that I want to be a mechanical engineer. From what I've heard, the budget clubs includes therapists being removed. I've had therapy for a total of 2 years. Therapy in my eyes is an absolute necessity. Therapy has been there when I thought that nobody was. Cutting that

fund would make a massive impact on the students. Many students in SFUD have had or have severe mental illnesses. And that concludes your time. All right. Thank you.

Wait, where to go? Oh, greetings. My name is Marcus. I'm a current student attending William Bound Middle School. Like oh wait, sorry. Like other students, I also heard about this discussed arrangement. I feel like these attempted actions are quite unpleasant and very disagreeable. And I will list my opinion as I end the sentence. Growing up, I was always enrolled in the SFUSD district. Graduating I mean graduating from Glen Park Elementary to now almost graduating Willie Brown Middle School. For all my three-ish years attending Willie Brown, I have taken three years of art, um two years of visual and one year of textile. Electives meant a lot to me over these years. Electives gives me and other kids the ability to create and explore from from other perspectives. Electives are also a way for people to interact and try out new things and to create hobbies. Without this, how do you think it's going to affect kids next year? Will they ever will they ever have the same freedom as we do? Will they um be able to exploit themselves and get into certain activities? These are some important questions that you guys need to consider before you propose to this deal. Along with the like this, wellness plays a big Oh. Wait, is that my time?

Hi, my name is Michaela Loggins. I'm an eighth grader at Willie Brown Junior Middle School. During my time at this school, I have taken every elective my school has to offer. Robotics, peer resources, computer science, art, music, and health. These classes are not extras. These classes give students purpose and a reason to stay engaged. They support different learning styles and help students discover who they are. In peer resources, we learn conflict resolution, leadership skills, problem solving, and stress management. Students often feel more comfortable talking to trained peers about issues such as stress, bullying, or friendship problems. This helps prevent isolation and pro promote mental well-being. In robotics and computer science, we learn career preparation and critical thinking. This enables students to gain early experience in STEM fields fields and build skills they will use in school life and in future careers. Music and art. Hi, my name is Reys Yen. I'm a student from APG Middle School and APG Nenny Middle School and I'm here to speak up about saving wellness. Wellness has helped me throughout all three years and I talk about wellness during AVID school tours because I really, really want kids in elementary school going into middle school to know that there's always a place you can go to talk to someone like our social worker, Miss Dean. When my friend and APG student Alex died, I felt that the only place I could turn to was my wellness center. Even though it was really busy, there's always space made for me. I also love going to wellness group where I get to talk about everything and anything that's bothering me. I always feel comfortable in my group space because everything is confidential. I also always go to wellness to vent and talk about drama at school with our child, Miss Danny. When I'm taking a break, wellness has helped me so much, like giving me a space safe

space to vent or when I have a sore throat, I can go and get tea and snacks. I want to have I want to have kids be able to go and have the same middle school experience as me and know that someone is always there for them. Wellness is always being used and in use. Thank you for your time.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Alent. I'm a senior at Jun Jordan School for Equity. The proposed staffing model will cut 56 full-time classroom teachers and 45 social workers. It would cut campus security in half and eliminate other essential positions. These staff are not extra. These are the adults students rely on every day to feel safe, supported, and able to learn. When these rules disappear, teachers are forced to do more with less burnout increases and push a school back into survival mode. If the board believes these cuts are necessary, then you should be willing to come to our schools and explain directly to our students why they're losing the adults they trust and that tell them if these cuts are worth it. If you are not willing to do that, then you should be voting no on this staffing moment. At Juno School for Equity, our social worker, Miss Aaron, has been with our school since almost since it almost opened. She is kind, funny, and has personally supported me during moments that could have der sorry derailed my education. She is not replaceable. Miss Aaron provides at June Jordan is the same care, stability, and support that students across this district get from their social workers every day. That's why we are calling for a 5-year moratorium on school closures. Our schools are still recovering from RAI 1.0. Schools cannot improve while constantly bracing for loss. Tonight, I'm asking you to choose stability, equity, and students. Pause school closures. Reject the staffing model. Invest in the people who make our schools work. Our schools deserve a fair chance and we are not backing down. Thank you.

As I call your name, Sabrina Lee, Islam Ahin, Jamila Wang, Lino Sardin, Alonzo Diaz, Hi, my name is Sabrina and I'm from AP Gen Middle School. Um, I want to talk about my own experiences today while going into wellness. I have anxiety and depression and I'd love to talk about things with my social worker, Miss Dean. And I also play lots of sports where I get lots of injuries, so I go to wellness, too, to see nurse Judy, our nurse, who helps me tend with my injuries every single day. Also, one of my questions is like what am I supposed to do without wellness and like how am I supposed to like where am I supposed to go when I like break an arm? Also, when security guards are like nowhere here, like how am I supposed to feel safe at school? Like the security guards are like part of our community and also like they're also like imagine having your own kid go to school knowing that there's no security guards and then they're not even safe. Also, just let that sink in for a moment. Thank you for your time.

Hello.

Hello. My name is Isa Mahan and I'm from AP Gen Middle School. I came here to talk about how wellness has impacted my life. When I first came to APG Middle School, I had a hard time transitioning from elementary school to middle school. During my sixth grade year, I was struggling with my classes and I wanted someone to be there with me. I turned towards a non center, Miss Dean and her student. This helped me because I was struggling with my classes and overall sixth grade experience. Without their support, I wouldn't be as confident as I am right now. This year I want to step out of my comfort zone and develop my leadership experience with the help from my sh Miss Danny. I get to be a part of snack club and branch to mine. Without these opportunities I would not have made the friends I have today or get to teach others about pure pressure nutrition and a belt mental health. I could not imagine all SFUSD SFUSD students having the support from SH social workers nurses and wellness centers. Thank you for your time. Hello, my name is Tamir Wong. I'm an eighth grader at APG Nini Middle School. I'm here today to talk about why wellness is so important. I know it's been a bit since most of you have been in school, but I've been growing up with this extreme pressure to be mature and to be perfect and productive and focused. And that is an overstimulating amount of stress. I avoid a lot. Like when school got harder in sixth grade, I avoided it as much as I could. I would pull the little hair dryer against the thermometer and such and I would make excuses resulting in even more stress and then even more avoidance as it always goes. Um, that cycle would continue until I happened to find a wonderful community in wellness. Like when I struggled with self harm and unavoidable drama in our school, our social worker, Miss Dean, would be the one to help me through that. She would be the one to come for me when I needed it. So, as I got to know all of them more, my attendance increased, my grades got up, and I personally got happier. And now, as I apply for middle for high school and deal with all life has for

me, they are my backbone. Thank you for the time. Hello, my name is Lionel and I'm a student from AP Gen Middle School. I came here to speak about why we need wellness centers within our schools across the district. They build community and help my peers to continue working hard and stay devoted to the future they wish to have. Well centennis also uplifts students who have felt judged, disrespected, and are criticized by others. Roughly 10% of students from middle schools to high schools in San Francisco have considered attempting at suicide. And in May of 2025, it was reported that 244 people died from suicide in California. I have seen my own classmates walk up to the staff and ask to take a break from academics, to take a break from all the pressure and expectations they face from not only teachers but from friends and family. You're all about mental health and awareness yet suddenly it's a it's ignored and pushed aside. So taking away well centers, chows and social workers is like taking away a piece of someone and you don't realize the risks of harming your students. Who knows what could happen to them? Suicide risk can in increase, numbers can increase. Anything can happen and you're really taking about that risk. you. What do you care more about? The student or the person inside that shell? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alonzo Diaz. As a student from APG Middle School, the wellness center is a vital resource for every student. It not only provides first aid help for anything from a scrape to a bloody nose, it's also an important anchoring point in our school's community. The wellness center impacts everyone in our school community through events that are essential for creating a strong community, bringing together students from different grades as well as families. Our chow, Miss Danny, has organized events like high school night, inclusive schools week, and resource fairs. These events create a fun and connected as atmosphere that everyone can be a part of. Another extremely important service that wellness provides is a free confidential therapy with our um social worker, Miss Dean, and other therapists. I know from personal experience that middle school comes with a lot of drama, and it can always feel like too much. It's also reassuring to talk to a trusted adult who's trained in helping kids rather than just talking about hard topics with their friends, which can be uncomfortable. By taking away wellness centers in San Francisco middle schools, you are taking away a safe space for all students to fall back on when they're in a rough spot. You're also breaking apart strong bonds in the community that support our school experiences across the city. Thank you.

Please line up as I call your name. A AC acuna Justin Chen Langston M Vance Freda or Freddy Johanner. Oh, let me call him again. ACV Aluna Justin Chen Langston M Vance and I think it's Freddy. Um, good evening district leaders. My name is Justin Chen. I am an SFUSD student at L High School. I am here to represent SFUSD middle schools and the Chen Foundation to deliver a quick statement regarding the middle school matter of changing the school day from a seventh period day to a sixth period day. As a student who has experienced both schedules, I believe it makes the school day harder to focus because without transitions to different classes, the classes become longer. With seven periods available for students, students can take their electives, learn more, and have fun. Longer classes, longer class periods without transitions can feel overwhelming and reduces engagement. I hope the board of education won't remove a period from the middle school schedules. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

No touching. Good evening, SFUSD Board of Education and cabinet members. My name is Max Vance and I'm a fourth grader at New Traditions Elementary School and a member of the student council. I'm here to share our thanks for saving our school social worker, Miss Lenicia. See, uh she helps students when we are having problems at school or at home and she truly understands us. She leads the rainbow club and the crochet club, teaches us how our brain works, and helps our school uh be a safe and welcoming place. Miss Lenanisha makes a big difference in our lives, and we respectfully ask that you support keeping social workers in other schools as well. On behalf of the student council, I also want to ask middle school students to able to to be able to keep two electives. We don't want to have to choose between learning a language, playing in a band, or trying something new. Thank you for listening to Student Voices. We hope you will consider our request, and I invite you to our student council meeting time on Tuesdays at 1:30. Thank you.

Bye.

Hi everyone, my name is Linka Montgomery. I'm back in my second home. Um I'm a senior at Washington High School, former student delegate, and now uh president of the student advisory council. So about a month ago, the student advisory council had a meeting with uh board president uh Kim and with uh Vice President Huing. And what we heard over this hour and 15 minutee long meeting was uh counselors, the lines that are 30 minutes long or more around all of our high schools with students concerns on their scheduling, on college, and every other issue have counselor. And now we've already dealt with devastating cuts and now we're going to see more devastating cuts come in for our school counselors. This position is solely focused on the well-being of our students and cutting them further after devastating cuts last year is not student centered. It's not focused on teachers and it's certainly not a student outcomes model. So I really hope that this issue becomes fixed because right now our students and our counselors are struggling and right now you're telling them that no help is coming. Hello, my name is Freda and I go to James Lake Middle School. If we take away the security guards, kids are more likely to be on their phones during class or be skipping class entirely. The security guards are not just security guards. They are our coaches and our friends. Many kids form trusting relationships with the security guards. The security guards help support kids and encourage students to go to class. At James Lake Middle School, the security guards do much more than watch our hallways. They coach our sports teams and lead cubs and help find support and make them feel comfortable and safe in class. If you cut our security guards, it will not only make us feel less safe, it will make take away our coaches and our friends. Thank you.

Please line up as I call your name. I think this is Mabel, Nina Johnston, Megan, Angelo Goddisano, Alejandro Goddisano.

Good evening board members. My name is Mabel Brennan and I am an eighth grader at James Lake Middle School and I come from the debate team. Our district is facing historic financial challenges. SFUSD is balancing a budget by planning more than 113 million in reduction for 2025. These cuts are already hitting the core of our student support. The latest proposals would eliminate counselors, classroom teachers, assistant principles, and hundreds of other assist uh staff. In one plan, one staffing plan, 45 of 99 student school site social workers could be cut alongside 56 teachers and 15 counselors, severely reducing the support students rely on for academic and emotional success. I'm especially concerned about cuts to AP and other advanced coursework. Advanced placement classes are not more not only elective options or more than elective options. Research shows that 85% of college reports that AP experience positively influences admission decisions and AP coursework increases the likelihood students will perform well and complete college degrees. Removing or scaling back AP classes disadvantages SFUSD students when competing to get into colleges. AP classes help level the playing field for first generation and unre under underrepresented students by giving them access to advanced coursework and sometimes college credit before they even step on campus.

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

President Kim. That concludes student comment. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it doesn't.

My name is Nina. I am in fourth grade at Leonard RFlyn Elementary School. I am here to support the social workers who have always supported us. Our social worker, Miss Alisa, is the one who holds our school together. Wellness centers and social workers help all around the school. Making sure everyone is included and has a place where they know they're safe. A peaceful mind is a strong mind and letting go of the social workers will be devastating for all the students. There is still time to fix your wrongs now when students need it. All students deserve to be equal. Just because some families have less or more money does not mean that they need social social workers more than others. We all need social workers. Thank you.

Good job. We got this. Hello, my name is Andrew. Um, I'm from BB Chem School and um I was wondering why are you guys doing this? because we need teachers and staff cuz it's chaos in there and it takes if you're one of the secretaries it takes a lot of guts to get in there. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Alejandro Gordisano and I go to BBHM school. I ask you not to cut positions in my school or any other school because the more the less people we have the the less students feel comfortable and safe at school unless they succeed in life and school life. I think that

Hi. Um, I don't want you to cut um our school bus. It's cuz like are you guys expecting us to drive like 12 miles just to get to our school? You like if you're thinking then you'll like lose a lot of money cuz you'll lo lose a lot of kids and everything cuz then they'll have to move schools. Bye.

Okay. President Kim. Now that concludes student comment. I'm sorry. Oh, but we call all the names. Yeah.

Do you want me to go get them? If students have submitted cards, they should come forward to the podium. And that's there because flowers. Hey. All right. I think I got this. You got it. As you speak, please uh give us your name, okay, before you start.

Good evening. My name is Bloom Moxider. I'm a senior at Academy High School here to talk about school closures and funding cuts. To cut as many teachers and social workers as this plan proposes is to leave students like myself without vital support. If it were not for my teachers, security guards, and wellness staff, I would not be standing here today alive and well enough to advocate for my community. In a world where our federal government is doing everything in its power to tear apart families and communities, each and every one of you should understand that no dollar amount justifies doing the same to our students. These budget cuts will kill students. I am asking you to choose their lives and stop these cuts. Thank you for your time. Hello well wishes. My name is Raven Jenkins. I am a former academy SF at Macarier student. For 5 years I had a family at academy before I was transferred against my will between lifelong friends, teachers that enjoyed what they taught and counselors that uplifted me when I needed it most. I understand that many of you do not have experience in schools and classrooms. And not unlike all of you, many of the people that decided what was best for me did not know me in the slightest either as a student or as a person and thus underestimated how important academy was to my learning experience. Without the community that I had here, I would not be able to stand in front of you all today to reconsider closing down San Francisco schools, especially academy. My story is the pain that you all will be inflicting to hundreds of kids who will be left without anywhere any other safe place to go and dozens of students, teachers, and staff who will leave left to wonder if you take your life their livelihoods away from them if you go forward with closing these schools. An important choice lies in front of you. Please do not tear these young strangers souls apart like my family did mine. No student needs to make do like I had to. Thank you and good night.

Hello, my name is Tenzen Namsce and I'm an eighth grade student at Jamesl Middle School. Hearing about the proposed cuts that would affect the arts, AP classes, counselors, and more shocked me, but in particular the security staff being affected makes me realize the severity of this. In my years at James Lake, a school in a safe neighborhood, I've gone through three lockins. I never felt safe in any of them, even in my school with a full security staff. Imagine what that would be like with a half full security staff. This cut would increase security in the wake of a school shooting at Burton High, which has caused many to suggest hiding security. But school shootings and lockins aren't the only worry. Fights are common and escalate quickly, which can end badly without security staff nearby. If we consider education a top priority, then we can't endanger students or make them feel unsafe. In the end, the trade-offs outdo the benefits of this. And I know that the there aren't many ways to plug this deficit, but this particular solution is way too detrimental to students. Thank you. What I'm going to say today is pretty short and it's very short. What I'm going to say today is don't do it. That's it. That's really it. Hi, my name is Silus and I'm a student at Jameslick Middle School. I'm here today to urge you to reconsider the proposed staffing changes that directly affect middle school students. If middle schools go from having seven periods in a day to having six periods, students will not be able to take as many electives as they do now. Additionally, students in the math support, EL, newcomer, or Spanish immersion programs will not be able to take any electives. As a student in the Spanish immersion program, I think that no one should be denied an elective just because they speak two languages or they have a disability. Electives like art, band, dance, and drama teach students real life skills and how to express themselves. Although one solution is to have a zero period before school starts, how will this save money if you still need teachers to teach those classes? The proposed fiscal stabilization plan

should not include reducing the number of periods in a day. Don't sacrifice middle school students education to solve the district's problems. Thank you. Hi, I'm Mina. And I'm Elelliana. We're sixth graders at APG Middle School. We love our school, the teachers and staff. Our teachers deserve a ver contract. We need them at school. The cuts also affect security and counselors at our school.

Our school has experienced a recent tragedy and a security incident. We could have not have gotten through these serious events at school community without our wellness staff and our security staff. We have learned that our wellness staff has had over 1,800 visits visits in just 3 and 1/2 months. What happens to students in need when the staff isn't there to help them? Kids being safe at school, both physically and mentally, should be at the top of the school board's priority. Learning cannot happen without it. As two 12-year-olds, we should not have to stand before a school board asking that you keep us safe and that you care about the mental health of kids. Please don't make these cuts. Thank you for your time.

Hi, I'm uh Sienna and I'm Margo. And I'm Lou. We are here to support the T10s at Denman. Um they are our security guards and they're more important uh I mean sorry and more importantly they give us fist buns so they care for us. There are coaches to our sports teams. Also please don't cut our counselors, wellness centers, school leaders, teachers. Everyone deserves to have all opportunities at school. Stabilize the budget without cutting middle school staff.

Thank you. Hello, I'm Esta Flores Scolin and I'm an eighth grader at BBHM. To say I'm disappointed is the least. BBHM is a close community. Everyone knows everyone and by taking away the support systems, you are turning our school into ashes. We are now in a new campus that is in Mclaren Park. We're isolated. We don't know where we are half the time. with fears. From high school to ICE, my my school counselors are the support system. You are tearing my community apart. Your job is to keep me safe. Your job is to keep my classmates se safe. So look at me in the eye and tell me this is what you're doing when you are taking away the person who holded me when I was about to break down. Look me into the eye and tell me you're doing the best for me, for my classmates, for my friends, for my teachers, for my guardians. Please look me in the eye and tell me that. Willie Brown. Glen Park

Good evening. My name is Rosa. I'm 11 years old and I'm in the sixth grade at Willie Brown. I'm a student um in special education and since I was in the second grade, I um stopped doing physical therapy even though I still needed it. I've had some serious accidents uh at school that have um where I have not received the support of physical therapy. When I was at Glen Park School, I fell so hard that I still have a knot in my head and it hurts a lot. If I hadn't had therapy taken away from me, I would have improved so much and I would have felt so much more secure at school. And like me, there are many other kids who have lost services due to the cuts that you're planning. I am true and today I'm going to be talking about the our health and awareness and why you shouldn't get rid of it. To begin, um our health team is really nice and they always are there for us when we need it. It's really important that you don't get rid of it. our our health and wellness center because when we are in serious accidents and we need help, they're always there for us and showing support for us. This is really important for students like us in the community that need help.

Hello, my name is Anna. I'm an eighth grader at Willie Brown Middle School. I am here today to discuss about the budget cuts which would drastically affect my education. What I'm going to talk about is removing our health and wellness programs. It is not okay because health and wellness programs help with mental health issues and stu with students and talking about it their problems and talking about their problems and a way to fix it. It is also a relaxing place to take a break. It is important and it should not be removed. Thank you. Hello, my name is Yaning Garcia. I go to Willie Bell Junior Middle School. I am in eighth grade. You guys cutting health and wellness uh health and wellness center is wrong. Every single student in there has some type of issue. Either anxiety from doing all the work that we have to do or just having anger issues which is not fair and you guys cutting that out is not right. Every single student needs help in a special way. Thank you for your time.

Hi, I'm Amelia Cook and this is Laura Helens and we're seventh graders at James Dun Middle School. I think we shouldn't lose an elective. One way these budget cuts will negatively affect students is it will cut funding for electives. In our school, if we lose this money, one elective will be cut. Electives like art, bands, health, computer science, California history, and geography. Electives let students explore a variety of subjects and figure out what they want to do when they grow up. In sixth grade, we had an elective called wheel. This elective was really four electives: computer science, art, health, and DMA. We had each of these electives for a quarter, letting us try out different things without the commitment of a semester or year-long elective. I had the wheel. When it was over, I learned I love DMA and wanted it for a semester next year. This is what electives can do for us in the big picture. By trying different things in small amounts in a safe space like school, we can learn what we want to spend our time on later in life. Electives can also offer an extra boost in areas where students are struggling. One elective in our school is geography. In this elective, you can learn about countries and people all around the world. Another elective that will be cut is band and orchestra. Playing an instrument can give you a better memory, stimulate cognitive growth, and boost an understanding of patterns that can greatly benefit you in math by interpreting notes. By having a variety of electives that can give students a boost in certain areas where we can give them a better school experience. You shouldn't cut electives from school. They are necessary. Thank you for your time. That concludes Thank you for your comment. That concludes your tip. is Valentina Galia. My name is Valentina Galysia and I'm in the first grade at Cleveland School.

Please don't cut funds for my school. Remember that for evil to triumph, good men must do nothing. Hi, my name is Luna. Please don't love my school and don't take out my teacher because I need her to learn. Oh, good evening board members. My name is Doug. Uh, I come from public housing and I think it's wrong that y'all trying to take, feel me, the wellness center and all that therapy stuff because, you feel me? like coming out of public housing like I I went through a lot of stuff and I had therapy right there and it helped me out, you know, and I come from downtown high school in case y'all ain't know.

Good evening board members. My name is Ryan and I'm a youth making a change member at Coleman. At a moment when families are facing heightened fear due to increased threats of ICE activity, violence, and lack of resources, schools must be havens of safety and support. Instead, many families and youth are questioning whether the district is doing enough to create safe, welcoming environments for us. Currently, schools like mine are struggling to do so due to all of the cuts we have taken in the past. Budget cuts that reduce school staffing, mental health support, and equity programs only deepen our desire to leave this district. Ensuring a stable, transparent, and student centered budget is not optional. It is essential to restoring confidence so families and youth feel safe sending their students to school. Let's stop talking about school closures and budget cuts to our sites, especially when such cuts are unnecessary. In the past 5 years, there was only been in reality one year with an actual deficit. Instead, please get creative and fix our enrollment system, adjust your central staff, and get your vision together.

Um, good evening board members. My name is Na. I'm a youth with Coleman. Um I'm here today because it seems like we're missing um Okay, I'm just going to say what I'm going to say. Um I think it's wrong what you guys are doing. Like I think a lot of people need to support people, kids in special education, immigrant children in classrooms. We're losing a lot of support for the kids who do need it. And yeah, sorry. Good evening all board members. My name is Darlin and I'm here with uh YAC and with Coleman. I'm here today because my education is under attack at John Oonnell. We lost our nurse and after school program. I listed as all the things I've been taken away from me in the last two years I've been at Okano and I take more than one minute. Here we are again one more year and take more cuts from you guys and schools are getting considered nearly half of the sites for social workers could cut and with all due respect it is not fair that you five voted yes to put 1,000 or 100 million and sign our release.

Good afternoon board members. My name is Katherine. I'm a youth making a change member at Coleman. As many folks have mentioned, it is a highly stressful to go to school with in this district. We do not ha know whether our schools are closing or our teachers are well are well supported or have enough security to protect us from the craziness happening in our country. San Francisco should be leading. Instead, we are sitting low and serving as a stepping stone for the for the rich to start their career. I am sad to hear that we have over 400k to pay our superintendent, but we don't have enough money to have our to have our schools fully staffed. I know that there is money because we have not been in a real budget crisis all these years. And if some Um, good evening board members. My name is Carla Prola and I'm a student at Wallenburgg. I'm concerned on how cuts in funding and teacher shortages are going to affect my learning as well as my peers's learning. I go to a small school and I have already seen effects from these issues. For example, at school, one of the classes might doesn't have a teacher and not even a sub. Miss Harris, our principal, has to go and teach these students when obviously as a principal, she has other responsibilities she needs to attend to. Also, a lot of my peers and I are worried about losing our wellness center next school year. I know many people who enjoy wellness because it serves as a safe space where they can talk to a trristed adult. I know that for my school, Gabby, our wellness coordinator, always caters to students needs and also makes sure that we leave wellness feeling better than when we entered and that is true for many other schools as well. Removing wellness centers would cause a lot of damage. No cuts to

counselors and wellness centers. No cuts to our public schools. Thank you students for taking the time to be here and sharing your thoughts. Um given the number of folks who are remaining in person, I believe we have nearly a hundred comment cards. Um we will um instead of going to online public comment, we'll continue the rest of the time with in-person public comment. At 7:45, I believe today is Frank Lara from UESF will be speaking to close out our public comment portion before I move on to uh board business.

Thank you, President Kim. Please line up as I call your name. Katrina Kilo. If you if this is a student, you don't need to come back again. Katrina Kilo, Maria Angie Moreno, Reato Juano, Mira Fizz. Before we get started, um considering we only have 15 minutes, um it might make sense for folks to group themselves when they come up to make sure that we hear from as many people as possible.

Good evening everybody. My name is Maria Angie Moreno. I work centrally and I support the child and uh youth programming. Uh uh there's so much that was said tonight by our students, which is why I'm here. I'm here every day for students, for youth leadership, for youth development, for them to have that voice to be able to speak for themselves. So there's very little new things that I can say that they haven't said already. All I want to remind you all is that we're here for students to center them and to make sure that we're changing their lives positively. They are the future of tomorrow and we need to think about the next seven generations and not just what's filling our pockets today. So, can we please think about students and uh like that young little girl said, evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Let's not be those people. Thank you.

If members of the public can step just a little bit away from the mic, the translation unit just needs some Yeah. Got it. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Meer. I'm a central social worker and a parent of SFUSD. I'm an alumni as well. I can't repeat anything that the students said and say any better. They said everything we need to center our students needs. Last week, my colleagues were up here and shared the work that wellness and social workers do and the community health outreach workers. Kevin Goen, who helped build up wellness programming, said that wellness saves lives. Our work is vital. According to the data from the 2023 youth risk behavior survey, we have almost 8% of SFUSD students who made one or more suicide attempts in the 12 months before the survey was taken. For our transgender students, that number is almost 32%. And our LGBTQ plus students, that number is almost 19%. You need to let that sink in and understand what that really means. If you eliminate these social work positions, where is that work going? Who's doing that? Who went through the education and training to do the risk assessment? Did any of you do that? Who did that? We did that. Okay. So, one of the core principles of social work is to do no harm. Sorry. We cannot watch our schools be actively underresourced and our wellness programs dismantled. We need our T10s. We need our men middle school health teachers. We need our chows and we need our social work.

Thank you for your comment to close your time.

Good evening uh board of education. My name is Rea Teo. It's nice to see you again. Um I just want to remind you that these proposed cuts violate the board of education's guardrails for the superintendent. According to guardrail number one, effective decision-making made to decisions like this fiscal stabilization plan must be developed through meaningful consultation with the parents, guardians, students, and staff who will be impacted by those decisions. And as I've seen tonight and as you've seen tonight, that is not happening. And so until that is addressed, please reconsider all of the proposed budget cuts. And lastly, thank you for removing the strong schools resolution from the agenda today. I echo the demand for a school uh closure moratorium of 5 years as this allows the weight of the shoulders that was placed by SFUSD leadership on the students and families um so that errors such as the RAI process won't be repeated. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Hana. I'm a SFUSD alumni and a member of the small schools coalition. I want to shout out the hundreds of people who are outside and who were here early this evening for a rally that united students, parents, educators, admin, grassroots organizations, and UEISF to reject the budget cuts and staffing model. I'm also here to deliver 30 letters and art pieces written by sixth to eighth graders at Viz Valley Middle who are art students, uh, health students, and ELD students. These times call for being visionary, and that means investing in public education because these are more than just classrooms and more than just frontline staff. These are community anchors with vital resources in our neighborhoods. I hope you listen to the students and all of their public comment tonight in their call to reject the staffing model. Um these are the adults who prevent crisis and are the very stu the people who build safety relationships and support academic stability. We cannot balance the budget at the expense of the students. Remember that these cuts will have a long impacts which are far more expensive than

maintaining the support positions that would be cut. We need a moratorum on closures and even if it's not on the agenda tonight, we'll be ready to fight and we will be back. Please line up as I call your name again. If you're a student, you do not need to come up again. Allison Dean, Christopher Pepper, LS uh Wanka, Gabby Gomez, Carara French.

Hello. Hello. I'm Christopher Pepper. I'm a teacher on special assignment with health education. On January 1st, 2016, almost a decade ago, uh the California Healthy Youth Act went into effect. This is a revolutionary law that requires every school in the state to offer comprehensive sexuality education once in middle school and once in high school. I'm proud that San Francisco's middle and high school health classes are taught by credentialed health education teachers and our district's program has been a model for schools all across the state. Our health teachers understand how to sensitively cover all of the required content. And when you hear about comprehensive sexuality education, it's really comprehensive what you're expected to teach. So our teachers teach about condoms, birth control, STI, pregnancy prevention, human trafficking, intimate partner violence, ministration, childirth, adoption, abortion, and much more. The way I understand the proposal for what you want to do with middle school health education is to have it kind of slid into the side of PE classes. That is not acceptable. We need to have really solid health education classes taught.

That concludes your time. Hello, my name is Allison Dean. I'm the school social worker and wellness coordinator at APG and any middle school. Dr. Sue, I met you in October when you came to APGNI to support our school with the tragedy of our students murder. You were there when we discussed how to best support our 1,200 students and our 100 plus staff. The APG and Sunset communities are still reeling from that tragedy today. myself, our cow, the counselors, security clerks, we all showed up for and continue to show up for our students every day. If not us, then who? If there was no wellness center, who would refer students and families to therapy? Who would do risk assessments or make safety plans? Who would call for help when children are in crisis? Who would bring in therapy groups, sex and health education, social skills groups, community services? Who would make home visits when students are avoiding school? who would provide those families with resources they so desperately need so their children can attend school. You've heard from students at our school and across the district that their wellness centers provide them with safe spaces, most importantly with a sense of belonging. Do not do this. It will be detrimental to SFUSD students across the city.

Good afternoon members. My name is Gabby. I and I'm a community health outreach worker, a community member, and an SFUSD alumni. Um, Charles and school wellness centers are essential to create safe, healthy, and equitable learning environments. Charles are doing the groundwork every day, building trusted relationships with our students, families, identifying needs early, and connecting communities to critical health, mental health, and prevention services. Their cultural responses on the ground support allow students to remain engaged and succeed academically. Continued investment in child and wellness centers in an in is an investment in student well-being, academic success, and stronger school communities. Thank you.

Hi, good evening. My name is Loose and I'm a parent of a high school student in the district. I am also with parents for public schools. I am here to urge you to vote no on the devastating cuts proposed by district staff. These decisions are not just a numbers on a page, but they have real consequences for our children's safety, well-being, and future. Wellness staff, security staff, school buses, social workers, counselors, assistant principles, and other support staff are the people our children see and rely on every single day. They are the ones keeping our schools running, supporting our students through crisis and making sure our kids get home safe. They're not these supports are not extras. They are lifelines. School school cuts and closing essential services is cruel. It sends a devastating message to our our children that they are expendable. Our kids deserve stability, care, and meaningful investment. Please vote no on these cuts and stand with the students and family of San Francisco and communities and families. Please also join us at with the San Francisco education alliance as we also uh fight against these uh proposed cuts. Thank you. Hello, my name is Kiara. I am an SFUSD parent, an alumni, and community member. I'm here because I care deeply about this district and the children it serves. When we talk about budget cuts, I need this board to understand that they don't land evenly in black and brown communities. These cuts mean fewer counselors, fewer nurses, fewer special education supports and overcrowded classrooms. That mean the children is losing trusted adults and families are being asked to carry burdens the system should be holding. We are already seeing special education services delayed, language supports reduced, and school sites stretched so thin that discipline

replaces support. These are not abstract losses. They shape how a child feels safe at school and whether they believe they belong. For many black and brown families, school is the most stable place our children have. And budget decisions should protect that stability and not take it away. Please lighten up as I call your name. If you're a student, you do not need to come up again. Alex Schman, I think Diana Müller, Alexia, I think a Jennifer Cowwell.

Hi, my name is Alexia. I'm a parent at SFC of three kids. Um, first I wanted to bring up a couple of process uh topics tonight because I feel like it was very difficult to put in a comment uh request and also you shorten the comment time on a day like today where there's so much to say and I don't think that's fair. Um, so I think that should be changed and um I wanted to bring up two main points tonight. I mean, first there was a lot of talk last week about that 110 million that got sted away. That supposedly is money that is, you know, not daily money that has been saved. This is this money belongs to all the students you saw tonight. It's does not belong to a reserve. It's money that you didn't spend on all the teachers that you didn't hire. for all the students who didn't have a math teacher at SFC for instance for a year for all the other students who didn't have other teachers or or or conceros for years. So you don't get to put that money aside. You need to spend it on these students. Hi, my name is Alex Schmouse. I'm a special education instructional aid at Francisco Middle School. I'm also the committee on political education director for United Educators of San Francisco. Um, I'm here like everyone else, it seems to speak against the staffing cuts and schedule changes being proposed by district management. Um, and the budgetary practices advanced by Deputy Superintendent of Business Services and School Operations Chris Mount Bonedz. You all do not have to follow the direction that he is leading you in on the budget. You have a choice. Um, you all are considering elimination of low-wage security aids a weeks after the first school shooting in San Francisco in a decade. These are

low-wage workers. They do not cost that much money, unfortunately. Um, you have the money to spend on them. Um, the district has for years overestimated expenditures and underestimated revenues. You have manufactured a deficit Hi, my name is Diana. I am a mom of four SFUSD graduates, a UESF member, and 17-year veteran special education parah in this district. I currently work at Burton High School. Superintendent Sue, Board Commissioners, as you know, our Burton community is grieving. In these first two weeks of December, we have experienced a school shooting where one of our students was hit and then separately another student's untimely death. On December 2nd, the same day as the school shooting, Dr. Sue, you emailed staff saying, "We encourage families to remind students that if they need support or someone to talk to, they can reach out through their school's wellness center, social worker, counselor, teacher, principal, or any other trusted adult on campus. How will these students access these trusted adults when they are among the very positions you choose to cut? This is not student centered. This tears down the guard rails. these you should use today's dollars to for today's students. Thank you. My name is Jen Caldwell and I'm the school social worker at Daniel Webster Elementary. I want to be very clear about what is actually being cut when a school social social worker is removed from a campus. At Daniel Webster, I run the Wellness Center, which has already had 565 student drop-in visits so far this year. I facilitate evidence-based counseling groups and conduct risk

assessments for students who may be at risk of harming themselves. I lead the coordinated care team, write behavioral and mental health 504s, and assist with bullying and harassment and title 9 investigations. I facilitate student success team meetings, coordinate schoolwide social emotional learning, run the Rainbow Club, consult daily with teachers and families, support behavior deescalation, and respond to crisis in real time. I also supervise interns who provide on-site therapy and support our mentoring program along with lunch and yard duty because our job description states other duties as assigned. These are not extras. These are essential services. Would you want your child attending a school without these supports? The students and families who showed up today in this room and outside would say otherwise. Fund social workers full-time at every SFUSD school. Uh at this time I invite United Educators of San Francisco Vice President Frank Lara and United Administrators of San Francisco President Anna Cler to provide comment. Good evening. I'm Anna Cler. I'm a high school principal and the president of United Administrators of San Francisco. I emailed a letter uh signed by our board of directors to the board of education and I'm just going to read a couple highlights because no one can put it like the kids did earlier. Um we the leadership of United Administrators of San Francisco are writing to oppose the district's staffing model as written and to ask the district to consider a more studentfocused process that takes into account the different needs of our school sites. decisions to broadly cut key school personnel and adjust periods at school

sites did not involve school leader import input nor any meaningful community input process. Um these cuts are harmful and will undermine our efforts to achieve our academic and enrollment goals as a district. The rationale for these cuts does not make sense and these proposed cuts violate the board of education's guardrail for the superintendent which requires meaningful consultation with the parent guardian student staff who will be impacted by these decisions. According to guidance from the Council of Great City Schools, if a budget or fiscal plan does not prioritize accomplishment of the district's goals while remaining in the boundaries created by the guard rails, then the board has the responsibility to vote no and send staff back to the drawing board for revisions. Thank you.

Evening commissioners. I was asked to turn in these statements by our students at Visitation Valley and Wash. So, I'm going to put that there. And also, I want to I want to be respectful to our crowd, particularly the youth. I don't think I've ever witnessed that many young people coming out to defend their own education. As an educator myself, I think it's important that the young people know their power. We're living at a time in this city where everything feels manufactured, where everything's presented as cleancut and uninterrupted. And all of a sudden, right, compared to the city where the billionaire has bought off the elections and bought off democracy, luckily we are still a public institution. This is still public education. So these folks have to answer to you. And when they talk about cuts, it isn't a generalized thing there. When you offer a vision that says fiscal stabilization, that is not a vision, right? That's just toast. That's bland. You as a family don't want to hear over and over fiscal stabilization while they cut your social worker, fiscalization why they cut your counselor, fiscal stabilization while they offer no actual innovative programming happening across the district. So I say that build if you're still outside organizing organize because every time we take a step back they find an opportunity to continue the same culture and same narrative given the fact that we're in the richest city in the richest state in the richest country. So, make sure you continue organizing. And again, UESF stands and I'm giving the the speech today for the 6,000 members of our unit. And we're urging the board to vote no on this proposal. And we stand with our community that spoke here today. And the following statement that I'll read and sorry to bore all of you with it, but I hope you take some of the talking points. This is the unified statement by the executive board of our union, right?

That's a 45 member, fully representative of our groups and our UBC's. So again, United UF strongly imposes the school district's proposed staffing allocation and schedule changes that would eliminate essential positions, including T10s, security guards, counselors, social workers, and other critical staff. Today, it was announced that social workers will not be cut. We are making progress. We are making momentum, and that's thanks to you. The structural deficit has been put in place by management practices that year after year overestimate expenditures and underestimate revenue. After 5 years of this practice, they have accumulated a surplus. We as a union know they are not serious about addressing fiscal stability because we are still not talking about the fact that SFUSD loses more students than it enrolls last year. And they have not fixed the terrible enrollment process. They have not actually worked with schools to expand programming that keeps families. the fact that we last year announced in spring that we had a thousand families coming into TK programs and now we're being told that the projected B budget actually doesn't include them because we lost more families than that. Okay, hold on to that. That's the money that's families want to come. This this this doom loop narrative that is being projected that somehow kids aren't being produced, right? Every time they open up a program, families flood it. The problem is it's not supported. It's led by substitute teachers which I remember are trying the best, but it's not being prioritized in our programming. Additionally, how can you go and say you're going to cut $110 million and then say you're also going to put that in reserves, right? This narrative from FickMat, these state institutions that sell us this doom loop that say you should put things in savings. We are not a savings account, right? We are not a bank. We're a public institution that

you invest today's dollars in today's students. I'll say this, the cuts to our wellness staff, I'm almost done. The cuts to the wellness staff and security staff, to our social workers, to our counselors are unacceptable. The set aside of 1101 million to reserve is equally problematic. It was recently announced that we have moved over to a qualified status. And I think you should all know why this is important. We have stated during every contract struggle as a union since co. We were told that they claimed they had no money for raises and pointed to concerns about state takeover as the reasons why our members should be satisfied with status quo. And our union along with state expertise. We have people who do this job across the state. So when we tell you we know their finances better than they do, we know their finances better than they do. Okay. And when it got when it got moved and now we're in qualified status, it proves that our demand for a better managed district was justified. It is not our raises. It is not our pay that is causing this deficit or this structural quote unquote state takeover. It was always about management's capacity and decisions. So just in wrapping up, United Educator San Francisco will not sit idly by as this district management attempts to balance its budget by undermining education. Our members are graduates of SFUSD. We have children in SFUSD. We call SFUSD our district. It is our efforts that have forced the district to be better. And as folks are coming on this break, our members who are here today, our members who are at home, our members who will see this, get some rest. January is going to be a busy month. We will announce at tomorrow's assembly the second strike vote. That second strike vote would happen in mid

January. We tell you this because the last time this happened was in 2005. We continue to want to negotiate a fair contract. We continue to be open to get to that fair contract. But as you see tonight, if they're not listening to families, they won't listen to educators. And the the thing that will change that is power is coming. The last time these our educators had a strike was in 1979. This doesn't happen. We don't take the decision lightly. So we ask you get some rest. We ask our families to build on this momentum. Support your educators and come back ready in January. Thank you to members of the public uh especially our students for coming here today to provide comments. Um we're very proud of you and thank you for speaking up. Um as a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or answer questions. And if members of the com public can please move out quietly. If you are going to stay with us, please find a seat.

Is there another way for me to get my comment heard by the public or what? All right, you guys need to give us more 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 agenda is made public on our website, board members have a commitment 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 in item E3 and we invite the members of the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussion today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we'll be moving most of our items to consent calendar and identifying our only our highest prior items to discuss. Members of the public, if you can please lower the volume. Thank you. In Friday's release of the final agenda, commissioners and members of the public may have noticed that certain items have shifted. I have separated out the staffing model and the fiscal stabilization plan. The board does not direct staff, nor do we de develop uh have a formal role in developing or approving the staffing model. This is the work of staff and the superintendent. Today it is agendaized however as a discussion item not as an action item. We do however have a fiduciary responsibility and legal authority to approve the fiscal stabilization plan which is why you see that agenda as a standalone action item. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance, but to instead bring forward strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards

our goals and the underlying strategies so that we can be better informed in our decision-making and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Moving to item D, report from close session in the matter of San Francisco County Superior Court case number CGC-24-616370. The board by a vote of seven A's, eyes's and zero naz, the board gives direction to the general counsel. The SFUSD Board of Education is committed to effective school board governance that centers student learning. Based on community input, the board has adopted our vision, values, goals, and guardrails. In order to increase the portion of board meeting time we spend on student outcomes, every other regular meeting is a monitoring workshop. Our approach to governance also calls on the board to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach those goals within the guardwell 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 on the unseated ancestral homeland of the Ramataloni who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaticon have never seated, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders and relatives of the Ramach community and by affirming their sav rights as first people.

Without objection, I would like to also call an item three as I call on item um some also call on item I3 um out of order uh alongside item E uh four the student delegate report to allow student delegates to make their appointments today. Any objections? Seeing none, I call on the student delegates Cruz and man to share a report if you have one.

Hi, I'm student delegate Cruz and today I'm going to be appointing uh Justin Muen from Lowel High School to the PAC. Also, we don't have a report on SEC because we haven't had a meeting since last time. Uh student delegate Moon, she gave the last report. Yeah. Thank you. also want to highlight that Justin was here tonight to give public comment. So, he is very involved in this whole thing. And I believe um I'm not sure when, but SACE did appoint someone I believe in like my freshman year, so I believe like three years ago, Lauren Lee. And I just want to give her a huge shout out because she's now the chair, like co-chair of the Pac Peak. So, I thought that was really cool and just wanted to applaud her for that. Thank you again. If members of the public can take your conversations outside so we can move forward with board business, we would really appreciate that. Thank you.

Um, Superintendent's report. Dr. Sue.

Thank you, President Kim. Um before I start my report, I I do want to just take a moment to acknowledge um and thank all the students who came out and shared their their thoughts, their concerns, their advocacy, their desires um for a better school district. Um I hope that uh we as the adults in the system will also reflect the same level of passion, commitment um and desire for excellence um in all the things that we do. and and I for sure want that as well. Um, so, you know, I I took a lot of notes. I I I hear you. I know that um that these cuts are are hard. Um, and I know that we need to work together to make sure that we together build a very strong school district, not only for our students today, but for our students for many more years to come. Um, on that note, before I I start as well, I I have another section here, but I want to say because I think some of our our students are still out there. I want to be clear part of the staffing model that was shared uh particularly for social workers stated that we needed to make a technical adjustment to our allocations for social worker. Um and that was because we needed to use a special type of funding to fund social workers. Unfortunately, we were not able at that time to share how we were going to pay for the remaining numbers of social workers which we know are really important for our students. As many of you and actually many of our students shared, there were a lot of very painful events within the last couple of months. and I was at the school, I was with parents, I was with young people, I was with our students and I was with our

social workers. Um, so I am happy to share that we have been with the additional time over the last several weeks um have identified restricted sources to be able to fill the gaps that um were for for the allocation of our social workers. That doesn't mean and and for sure we're not taking it from from things that uh from the restricted sources that that many people have mentioned already. But it what it does mean is that our budget is still developing. We are still working every single day to make sure that we have a budget that reflects the desires and the needs of our students. So I just want everyone to know we are working on trying to turn every single rock to find those restricted sources to then allocate to make sure that we meet the needs of our students. Thanks Ruben. But we have a lot to go. There are many more things that we need to do to support our students. But I want to be clear that that was something that I wanted to say first because I know that this was really important for our students. Okay. So, moving into our my presentation, I have a short one because I presented last week already. I want to remind everyone of our enrollment season. Um applications are open for our 2627 school year. Families, please, please, please submit your application in the main round. They are all due January 30th. Um so that you can then be be able to receive your uh student assignment by March 16th. Please visit our website sfusd.edu backapply

for more information. And for anyone applying um for next school year, please remember oop sorry just please remember that the main round ends um January 30th um and that you can apply online. You can walk in to our enrollment center over there. Next slide, please. I can't believe that winter break is almost here. Um uh for SFUSD families, please know that uh we our schools will be closed from December 22nd to January 2nd. Um and that they will reopen on Monday, January 5th. Uh our uh SFUSD offices will be closed for in-person services and support during this time. However, you can email us and call us if you need support. And with uh winter break, uh please know that student nutrition services will not be serving meals at any of our sites. Um especially during the holidays, we know that that might be difficult for some of our families. So, we encourage families and students to please visit some of our partner agencies um such as uh the human services agency, the San Francisco food bank um and other and all of our nonprofit agencies have meal programs and meal options uh that they um are opening up during the winter breaks um during the time when we are not open. And then finally, I want to close my um presentation today uh with an immemoriam uh for a long time and cherished member of SFUSD's community who passed away

last week, Mr. Allan Lovan Lovasan, sorry. Mr. Allan began his career with SFUSD as a TK to2 dayto-day substitute teacher on January 11th 20 uh 2000. Over the course of 25 years of service in SFUSD public schools, Mr. Allen served in multiple roles, including as an early education substitute teacher, a special education paris substitute, an early education para educator substitute. In addition to school year assignments, he worked consistently as both a substitute teacher and substitute parah during all summer school sessions for the past 25 years. Most recently, since 2022, Mr. Allen served as the dedicated core substitute at Cleveland Elementary School. His colleagues and students remember Mr. Allen as an integral member of the school community who showed up every day to support students and staff. Mr. Allen willingly helped whenever needed um and often went above and beyond for our schools. Please join me in taking a moment of silence in honor of Mr. Allen's memory. And with that, President Kim concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Dr. Sue. Uh, moving to item F1, draft school year 202627 staffing model. This is a discussion item. No action will be taken tonight on this item. I call in Dr. Sue or her design to read this uh into the or share this.

Thank you, President Kim. I'm going to invite our senior team to join me. um Deputy Superintendent Chris Menites, our CFO um our associate superintendent of ED services um to join me at the the DAS here because well I want to make sure that everyone understands how complicated and hard it was to put together um the staffing model and that there there is a desire for a intentional um alignment ment between our budget and how we as a school district want to move towards student outcomes. Next slide, please. Thank you. So, the draft the draft staffing model um is is is the way that we want to show how we're going to move towards resourcing our schools. It is not a way to show how we want to cut and dismantle and break our schools. We are using a formula to make sure that we balance our number of students that we have in our school district with unfortunately the resources that we have as well. While prioritizing student outcomes, we want to make sure that our staffing model anchors our vision, values, goals, and guardrails by aligning the budget priorities with our student outcome goals. We met with a lot of our community through town halls, through dozens um of conversations with parents, with educators, with community leaders, with students. And we heard consistently we need to keep our students at the

center of all decisions. Student learning was highest priority. Student support was also important and we need to make sure that our students felt safe and heard. We needed to make sure that whatever budget we were going to present had to align to that. Next. So to remind everyone, SFUSD has a $1.3 billion budget with a structural deficit. Many folks have already mentioned before earlier and of course our deputy superintendent um of business services have shared what that means is that we are projecting to expend way more than what we are taking in in revenues. But that doesn't mean that we are breaking our system. It means that we need to work harder at aligning the practices that we have and making sure that we have appropriate projections and are using our resources wisely. We did a lot last year. We worked really hard with our communities to make sure that we focused our budget and our strategies around student outcomes. We made sure that we completed that first year of budget reductions while keeping our students at the center. We did cut $114 million from our system. We also had to say goodbye to a lot of individuals, a lot of people. But we did it while continuing to honor the focus and the goal of of moving towards our student outcomes. What we

need to do now, we need to continue to prioritize our students. We need to continue to show our commitment to our educators by working with our labor partners, by making sure that we get to an agreement that supports our educators as well as not compromise our fiscal stability. And we have to do that by engaging our community. And I want to pause here by saying we haven't done a good job at that. I should have done more. I should have gone out more and communicated more with our community. We should have had more meetings and we should not have rested on the 20 meetings because that was clearly not enough. We should have gone more and I commit to doing more and we will continue to have more conversations. We will continue to vet through all of these options. Next slide, please. As a quick reminder, SFUSD has a vision, values, goals, and guard rails framework. This is part of our student outcomes focused governance framework where it calls out the visions and the values of our community. Our board sets the goals that this school district will move towards as well as the guardrails where it will pro that provides the structure to align us and to focus us on the work of the district. But what does that really mean? What does it mean to have a students outcomes focused governance framework? What does it mean to have visions, values, goals, and guardrails? How do all of these things interact with each other and connect with our budget?

This is my attempt to demonstrate that cohesion. I want to thank Commissioner Alexander for chairing the ad hoc committee on performance monitoring over the last two committee meetings. I legit and I keep sitting I sit next to him and I keep telling him I am blown away about the power of the VVGs and how we need to do a better job at implementing it. Our district made the decision to move towards the students outcomes focused governance framework in 2022 and we've been trying to implement it and I'm very much committed to implementing it this year. But what that means is that we take the board's vision, values, goals, and guardrails, and I as the superintendent need to work with my team to figure out how we will implement that. And through our executive cabinet, they will set with me our policies and design the the strategies on implementing the values, the v the VVTGS. And this is an iterative process where it does line up with how how are we going to design a vision, values, goals, and guard rails framework that will move the needle for our students and align the with the resources that we have. Again, this is my best attempt at trying to show that cycle of alignment and coordination. Next slide, please. Many of you have seen this slide before. It shows the total budget of the

district, $1.3 billion. I'm going to attempt to do this, but I'm going to look to our budget folks here. The main takeaway here is that the majority of our budget goes towards our students, goes towards instruction, instruction related services, student services. There's a small portion that goes towards operations and that's how we should look. That's how we should be. Now the question is what portion of this goes towards all of those areas within the goals and guard rails. Next slide please. I want to start moving towards a place where when we talk about moving our goals and guardrails, we are talking about how are we investing in them as well. The local control funding formula, the LCFF, is the state's way of allocating resources to districts. It is our job as a district to try to balance and and align these two. So, here's my attempt at doing that. Our LCAP goal one of student achievement in literacy, math, college, and career readiness aligns with our goals one, two, and three as well as guard rail 3. Currently, the total investment for this strategy is $233.8 8 million. You will see it go all the way down. Our LCAP goal of serving the whole child aligns with our guardrail 2. We are allocating $56.4 million towards that. LCAP goal three, strategic partnerships align with guardrails one and five. We

are allocating 16.9 million towards there. Goal four, anti-racist culture and equitable supports, aligns with all of our goals and all of our guard rails, and that is $8.2 million. Our LCAP goal five of operational coherence aligns with guardrail four of guardrail four of resource allocation, which is $21.4 million. As we continue to build better budgeting systems, we will have we will be able to get even more nuanced into showing how we are allocating u each of our dollars towards each of the interim goals and interim guard rails. Next one. So, as I shared earlier, our staffing model, our staffing model was designed to demonstrate our worstcase scenario of staffing towards a budget. If we did not have enough budget, what were the minimal things that we could afford to do? And I'm sorry I did not share that appropriately. I didn't tell people that that's what the staffing model that I sent and posted that it was worstcase scenario. It wasn't best case scenario. In my conversation with our educators, we committed um our administrators. We committed to working with them throughout the entire month of January to negotiate, to align, to be flexible so that the their total bottom line

allocation will reflect what their school community needed. And so I want to make sure that everyone knows we are resourcing schools. We are providing schools with the obligations of having a principal, having a clerk, and of course having teachers, but we also recognize that schools need more. Schools need to have those support staff as well. And that is why over the last several weeks we were able to identify restricted sources, which just means they're not not not the the regular dollars that we get for teachers. These are dollars that are restricted for specific things like social workers and social work activities. So, we were finally able to identify those funds and now we're able to allocate those funds to close the gap. I commit to our community that we will continue to do that. We will continue to look for restricted resources to make sure that we have the funds to have social workers, T10s, instructional coaches, assistant principles, and par educators. But please know these are restricted sources. They're limited funds. And so we're going to have to constantly do this every year. So where are we in the budget process? Last year, last year, last week feels like a year. Last week we shared the first interim and yes we were excited about it because we demonstrated in the first interim that we were doing the right things about staying on task with our fiscal diet. We were learning

how to flex a new fiscal allocation muscle that kept us within the limits of our budget allocation and we were very excited about that. I'm very excited about that because again last year we made really hard decisions and today we will be sharing with you a fiscal stabilization plan which again will demonstrate worst case scenario of a fiscal budget. It does not mean that is the cut plan. There's no cut plan here. We are just demonstrating the worst case scenario of the budget. In January, we will be out sending all of our site leaders their budget allocation and we will be working with all of our site leaders to ensure that again their budgets reflect what their communities want. On January 10th, we will be hosting schoolside council summit where all of our families will come together to talk about the budget to make sure that the budget reflects what they want for their schools in their schools. We will continue on this process. our educators uh and our administrators will come in and meet with our leaders here to make sure that we are hashing it all out and we'll then share a final budget at the end of January. In March, we will come back and share our second interim budget with with the board. Um and then continue to June where we will share the final budget with the board. I'm gonna pause here and ask if any of our team members here have any questions. Okay. Um and and oh well that's it. That's my presentation.

Um but I I just thank the board for your patience and again fully acknowledge that uh we should have been clearer in sharing the the staffing model. We should have had more engagement in what this meant for our community and I commit to continuing to do that. Thank you. Um I will open it up for comments and questions from commissioners. Commissioner Meis Ward.

Thank you. Um and I appreciate this is a discussion item. It's not one that we're voting on. Um but I guess a follow-up question for you, Dr. Sue, in terms of the rec I I thank you for for recognizing that sort of the the the the quantity and quality of conversations with community was was was insufficient. And so I guess my question is what will it look like that in a what will be different in terms of how these conversations will continue and and what can community expect in terms of of these dialogues? Well, again we will um share with our school leaders their budget um in early January and we hope that our school leaders will continue to engage with our with our parents throughout the month of January. During that time, I am we'll we'll continue to have engagements um and we will maybe should have more engagements. Um we h I haven't we haven't fully formed what that would look like. I'm not sure. Do you want to speak to that?

Um yes. Thank you, Commissioner Wisman Ward for your question. Um, you know, the the power of local control is really having school communities have autonomy and self-determination of the resources they're allocated to school sites so that they can make effective decisions for their school communities because we know there's not a cookie cutter way um for serving the diverse needs of our diverse school communities in San Francisco. So part of what we heard uh when we went out to do the budget engagement this time around was that they are um you know school communities as school site councils are eager uh for us to come out there engage with them listen to them understand what their priorities are um that is going to be aligning um the the work that we're doing in winter and spring um to continue engaging listening and being in dialogue with school communities. Um I think also the the second piece here is really reducing the barrier of entry. Um we had designed a uh fall budget engagement campaign aimed at building uh budget fluency and literacy among um the community. Our our hope is that with what we have begun to do in the fall to continue building off of the work that we are doing to align um our budgeting process and budget development process with our VVG cascade throughout the organization and also I think just to name that we're starting very early this is the nent stage of our budget development process and so you know this this dialogue and conversation is absolutely necessary it is absolutely difficult um and and we are you know gearing up um for once we come back from winter break.

Thanks. I I think I I think one of the maybe the sort of the disconnects is that when we see um actual like projected changes, one would and and and again I understand this discussion item but but when there's an actual description of positions and projected changes if community if if it feels like well this is our starting place and now we're going to talk about it with community I I think it's a reasonable sort of feeling that well this is already done because here it is on a slide or in a in a document as opposed to we have the these projected changes and we're going to tell you this came from these conversations and this is obviously not everyone's going to agree and I understand that but the ability to articulate the reason why we say you know projected reduction of 56 FTE is because of these conversations and this is how it maps on to what we're thinking about student outcomes. I think that's what we need to hear. Otherwise, it's like, well, this is a starting place, and you're sort of going up a hill to to to sort of be proven why this isn't appropriate.

Yes. And I and I fully acknowledge that the way we drafted I'm looking at the staffing model here. the way we drafted the staffing model. Um again it says it says draft and um it's you're right that it it doesn't convey that there is an opportunity to engage and um and I do I do apologize that I think the one the one area where um we did note in in the social work section um that the re that we were allocating a very spec a very particular type of restricted sources for for social work. And then we put a note that said that we were still looking for additional re restricted sources to cover the gap. But again, you're right that it did not demonstrate that there was a desire to engage along those along those conversations. Um, and we need to do better.

Just one more thing. I think a desire to engage, but also that these numbers came from engagement to begin with. I think that's that's the other point like like that that we we you know looking this number came from you know talking to administrators and thinking about like what would be yes we want as many APS as possible but knowing that there are some constraints there what feels like a reasonable number and that's how we got this um and I think sort of that that that these numbers came from engagement from the from from the beginning but then also that there we can continue to iterate and and talk so I think it's like that before, during, and then closing the loop. If there's a disagreement, we hear you, and this is why we're not agreeing to X, Y, and Z.

Hi. Um, yeah, I also really wanted to just give a huge shout out to all the young people that came out today. I I also understand because um a lot of them were high school students and it is finals week and 8:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. So um props to you guys. Um I had a couple questions on uh Okay, I think my first question is um Superintendent Sue, you mentioned um when you were going over the slides that it's a worst case scenario and I was wondering like how likely is the worst case scenario to happen and like what does that process look like?

I'm going to start and then I'll hand it over to our deputy super business business services. Just want to remind everyone we're only in December. So school just started and that's why we and that's why we have our first interim which is the first checkup of how we are doing in budgeting within the framework within our guard rails, right? and and so because we are actually doing a really good job at budgeting within those the allocation um we're not anywhere near worst case scenario right now but I will say there are three big unknowns at this moment in time because again we're only in December there are three really big unknowns first unknown we do not know what the governor's budget is going to look like that is going to come in January. We do not know. Number two, we do not know uh what our student enrollment is going to look like and that will come at the end of January. And number three, we still do not know what our final labor contracts will look like and hopefully that will come in the next few months. So because of that, I I am saying right now at this moment in time, we are nowhere near worst case scenario. But because we are currently under state oversight, we have to demonstrate and show the state if there was a worst case scenario if these things happened. How will you address it? Going to hand it over to our deputy superintendent to add anyone.

Yeah, that you hit everything, Dr. Sue. Uh so the only thing that I would say is yeah it's an iterative process right at this point we have to still plan for all those variables and hope they come in better than we anticipate. Uh and and they aren't even considered in the current documents as far as being actualized because we don't know what's going to happen. Right? So right now it's just all based on assumptions and and the guidance that we get from the state. Vice President.

So I think one thing that is difficult about these conversations is because we reference the vision, values, goals, and guardrails a lot without explicitly saying and reminding our community what they are and why and what that means in practice around budgeting. So our three student outcome goals are third grade literacy, eighth grade math, and college and career readiness. And ultimately that means that we're trying to safeguard our investments in academic outcomes for students on those things to my understanding. But as a board member, I should not be in the position of defending a staffing model as to what investments are being protected and what cuts are being weighed. And to me, I think there's just been a lack of communication, two-way communication with our communities around saying things that we've heard on the board like we've are investing in instructional coaches to help make sure that the new third grade literacy uh the new, you know, literacy curriculum that we've invested in, a new math curriculum that we've invested in are being taught. with fidelity that students are reaping the full benefits of that. We're actually seeing benefits to student outcomes, to student achievement, and we want to keep that going. And so, we're going to make tradeoffs in other areas. And the lack of communication around that to me makes it really, really difficult for our communities to understand where we're choosing. Um, and so I'd like to ask, for example, um, Theresa Ship to talk about, you know, why certain choices were made here to keep certain

staff and not others and what the student outcomes data is that backs those tradeoffs.

Absolutely. Thank you, Vice President Huing. Um, in particular, I think, um, you described the instructional coach position. exactly the way it should be described. Right? So through our ad hoc work and through our work with the um VVGGGS, we know that we really do need to focus in on instruction and bringing meaningful instruction to our students. We also know that with a roll out of a new curriculum, two new curriculums in some instances, that's a huge lift, right? And we also know that in order to do that effectively, our teachers deserve coaching. Our teachers deserve that support and our students deserve the teachers who are getting that support. The instructional coach we have really um built into our implementation our metrics. We've used we've we're um measuring our walkthrough tools with our instructional coaches. All of these different metrics we're using because we are truly our theory of action is that our instructional coaches will bring positive impacts for academics for our students. And if that is the vehicle we are all signing on for through our VVGGGS and through our work with the ad hoc and and through our beliefs with the VVGGGS then that is where we need to invest our money. Um we need to make sure that our budget shows what our beliefs are for our students for their academic outcomes. Um and so that is the perfect example of the instructional coach

VP healing. Um actually can can we put up the slides again? Do you sorry Min um so in in my slide deck for um this item at the in the appendex what you will see is is well we didn't we haven't done it we will do this um is to really show the investments it's like 123 Oh. Oh, there you go. I'm sorry. I'm looking over there. Um, but this is going to we're going to slowly move towards this model so that we can really clearly show everyone how we are allocating our resources to move the needle on each one of these interims uh interim goals as well as interim guardrails because this is the alignment that our students deserve. If we as a as a a governance team say we want to move third grade literacy rates and these are the things that will help us move third grade liter literacy rates then we need to know how much it costs and we need to know how much money we are either adding or protecting. And so the next exercise after this is for us to start populating each of the the costs, the current costs and the projections for next year so that we can have clearer understanding of what it what it truly costs to move the needle for each one of these metrics because it will cost money. It actually will will force us to make really focused and and sometimes difficult

decisions because we're going to say we really want to move literacy rates for our African-American and Pacific Islander kindergarteners. And if we say that, then how much would that cost? And what are we going to not do because of that? And oh, sorry. That's the exercise that we will have to do.

Absolutely. And I just wanted to add to that, Dr. Sue. So Dr. Sue is talking about alignment and making sure that our VVGs are really guiding all of our different decisions. Um, and there's a throughine there, right? So we heard um some feedback when we were looking at instructional coaches in the model because we'll stick to that topic. We heard feedback from the school sites that they found it to be challenging to hire the instructional coach. They found they they felt like the um the communication had been that they couldn't hire an instructional coach until 95% of our classrooms were full. And I don't want to steal um Amy's thunder from HR, but she is highlighting in the supplemental hiring guide that no, we are doubling down on our belief in the instructional coaches. And instructional coaches can be hired on the same hiring timeline um before that 95% is reached. And that is because we don't want that to be a challenge for schools. We don't want schools to say, "Well, we would like to change it in for X, Y, and Z. use that money amount um because because of the challenge of we're never going to be able to fill the position, right? So, we're saying no, we believe in this and and we understand your challenge and we understand your feedback. So, thank you for that. Um, so working with human resources, which is that alignment part, making sure that we're all on the same page and making sure that if this is truly our implementation and truly our metrics, that we are making it possible for school sites to be successful in that.

Thank you. The the other thing I wanted to ask about is um from superintendent's presentation what we heard in the listening sessions and I know all of us as commissioners were able to attend probably about a half dozen a piece. Um and one of those things that we heard was impro the need for improved communication and sensitivity to impact on school communities. And one thing I'm concerned about about this school staffing model is that it does appear to be a bit one-sizefits-all. And we know we have really diverse schools with really diverse needs. And where is the flexibility for schools to make choices about what um works best for them while serving our student outcome goals? I've heard from some schools, for example, that the instructional coach um being substituted for an artif led them to lower go lower achievement in literacy, which isn't what we saw on a district-wide level, but we want to maximize for each school's achievement and needs.

Um that yes, and and we heard that consistently. give the educators and the administrators the flexibility to really um allocate uh to meet the their school community because each of our schools are unique and the needs of our students are very unique. Um, which is why uh we have at this point scheduled out all of uh the one-on-one meetings of our site leaders with uh business, HR, and ED services. Um, so every one of our administrators will have an opportunity to sit down with our central office leaders and walk through their budget and and demonstrate and ask or negotiate or explain what they need and why they need it. And we get to have that conversation and dialogue with our school leaders so that we can land at a place that truly meets the needs of our community. Because again, it cannot be one-sizefitit all. We have to have these one-on-one conversations. And we will do that in the month of January. All 125 meetings. Mel,

good evening. Thank you all. really appreciate um the work that's been put in because I know it was significant and uh also there's been a tremendous amount of community feedback and uh concern surrounding things um in part as I think folks have alluded to because of how they were presented and um in the the sense that there really wasn't or isn't an opportunity for a community input putting feedback. and we hope that we will be sure to provide it and make it clear that we are doing so. There's a few things that I wanted to check on um and and sort of comment on the staff excuse me the um Q&A the commissioner Q&A with regard to questions around affected schools for instance which schools are affected by you know particular changes what the overall impact is on various schools the answers that were provided indicate that the district can't can't provide that type of information um until we have more information about enrollment and allocations or that with regard to impact assessments, there's sort of a very general answer about engaging with site leaders. But I think these are things that everybody has at the at the heart of their concerns about their schools, what you know, what is going to be the impact on our school? Have people thought about mitigating those impacts and so forth? And I'd like to ask uh what our what our plan is to address those sort of fundamental issues for everybody. Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, I believe we talked about this yesterday as well, so I can take the first part. So, the allocations are not complete until we actually have projected enrollment information because the the staffing allocations are based on the number of students that are enrolling and we're two months into the enrollment period. It ends in January. Uh, we'll be

working over the break to develop the allocations based on the latest information that's in the enrollment system. uh as well as uh basically the supplemental projection of what's what we believe is going to occur through the rest of January. Um but all allocations will still be preliminary uh because we will need the ability to change them if there's any surprise in the enrollment process. So for example, if a school gains 20 more TKers than we anticipate, then we would have to reallocate resources to provide the services for those students. Uh so we'll be working through that process uh through the winter break. We will have allocations out in early January. At that time, we can share them. Um, but until they're done, we just don't have anything to share. Uh, as far as how they compare to the past, I think that there are a number of issues that I've shared with uh, the public as well as commissioners and that is the quality of data and the transparency of data in the past has not been high. Right? So, we will we will share what we've done this year. The only item that we have from last year are the actual allocation letters as individual PDFs. That's what we have at this time. Uh because no one seems to have kept uh the master allocation schedule or methodology in a in a source document. So we will share last year's PDFs as well as next year's allocation preliminary allocation PDFs for folks, excuse me, for folks that want to to look. Um, but we have to get the work done before we have it for people to look at. As far as the impacts, that I'm not certain about that one. Does anyone want to address impacts? what analysis for instance the district has or can do to uh determine what the impacts are beyond just the cost savings

from taking a particular action. So what those impacts are of proposed reductions and essentially like what are we going to provide to folks to be able to mitigate those impacts or allow folks to do at school sites.

So I think you might need to add more clarification. So an allocation methodology uh the impact would would be based on enrollment. So if enrollment goes down it might mean that there's one fewer teacher or two fewer teachers if enrollment goes down that amount. Uh that's all the allocation methodology does. I think what you're asking about may be more related to the FSP. Um I'm not sure what the impact that you're asking about here is. I'm asking more about things like fortunately we know that we now have ability to you know to retain social workers which is fantastic but you know if schools need to end up cutting 50% of their security which is a massive concern for almost everyone at their school sites especially given the terrible incidents the number of incidents we've seen this year what if anything will the school be able to do about that? Um yes. So so again the the staffing model that we shared and posted online right now is the worst case scenario. Hopefully we don't have to get there. We hopefully we don't have to be there. Um but uh having conversations with our administrators to to figure out what are the impacts if we were to reduce you know worst case scenario 50% of their T10s their security aid security guards um what would that impact look like what I have done is uh also asked our city partners our CBO nonprofit agencies if there was an opportunity for some of our CBO those to come in and provide additional supports. Um, and so I think that there is an opportunity for us to in some ways open up our arms and say please come and help us. And a lot of

our CBOS and our nonprofit partners are saying yes, we can we can provide supports. Um, not to say that we are taking over or supplanting any jobs or any roles, but it's to provide additional supports. Um again, we won't know final numbers until we have greater clarity on some of those um open remaining uncertainties right now.

Okay. Thank you. I I also hope that we will be able to have strategies beyond just partnering with CBOS because while that's certainly great, I would like there to be as many opportunities as possible for school sites to be proactive in the district to be proactive in mitigating impacts. Um I I sorry yes and thank you for replying to me. Um it also means that we have to go out and and um look at other restricted sources, restricted funds so that uh we can either go and look at grants or other um opportunities that are out there. Um but those are those are not those are additional things and additional resources that we would be able to bring in. Thank you. Um I think the last thing that I wanted to ask about uh today is again about the sh the proposed shift to a sixth period day which I think was it caused a tremendous amount of consternation and confusion among people. I still feel unclear on what that proposed shift entails and whether uh whether it impacts middle schools, high schools, and both or both. I don't think our answers or our documentation has been consistent about what that is intended to cover.

Thank you. Why?

Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Rhea. I appreciate that question. Um I'm going to separate it into two kind of conversations if that's okay with you because they are very different. the high school conversation and the middle grades conversation. So, I'll start with high school um first. So, currently we fund our our high schools um at a seven period staffing day model, right? That model, but we also have to follow the UESF contract. The contract says teachers can only teach five classes, not in, you know, then we take away APs or department head preps. I'm not going to get into all of that, but let's use the basics, right? So when we expanded from a six period day to a seven period day, teachers still remained teaching the five classes, which means we haded to we had to add more teachers to cover the courses, right? Um we know that our 9th and 10th graders are absolutely accessing seven periods a day. Currently 16% only 16% of our 12th graders have a throughg courses for seven periods a day. Now, some of you think, "Oh my goodness, what are our 12th graders doing?" Right? It's because we have a lot of other opportunities. We have dual enrollment. We have Mission Bay Hub. We have workforce development. We have internships. We have all of these different classes, but yet we're funding for a seven period day, right? So if we say we're going to fund for a sixth period day, but I'm the principal of the school and I know that maybe my juniors, which are only at 47% of students taking A throughG 7 period classes, right? So if I know my 11th is only 47%, my 12th is only about 16%. I know that I probably don't need to really cover my afternoon classes as much because my students are going to city college or my students are going to an internship or a job or whatever they may be going to. So, I'm really going to pack my classes in the morning, which means even though I'm funded for a sixth period day, I can

still offer a seven period day through manipulation of the master schedule to my 9th and 10th graders who are accessing those classes. Right? So, it's really a funding model and bringing it differently to the master schedule. So, um yeah, go for it. I'm hearing the terminology in in real time and just want to clarify funding for a six period day meaning funding the staffing allocation for a sixth period day does not mean that a school site can't offer a seven or eight period day. So three of us up here are former high school teachers and principles. Uh that's the common model in California. So you receive your number of staffing because of the base five classes plus a prep. Um, but that doesn't mean you can't have a zero period where some teachers like to start earlier and end their day earlier. That also doesn't mean that you can't do, and I mean an academic zero period, not just not just sort of a a home room or an advisory, but an actual academic period. It also doesn't mean that you can't do one that's after and maybe somebody starts later and and and ends later uh based on on the schools. Uh so we have those models here. they existed when we funded on the six base uh allocation. Uh they can continue to function afterwards. So I just want to decouple the idea of allocation versus telling people that they're limited to a particular schedule. That's that's not the case, right? So so middle schools and high schools were doing seven and eight period days here prior to moving from the six to the base seven and they can do so after as well. Now the program impact that's yes that's where Teresa is adjusting but just providing base six versus B 7 does not change that flexibility.

Um just I just want to also further clarify because we know with our VVGs we want to make sure that we are reaching our college and career goals. We are really making sure that A throughG eligibility is there for all of our students. Um, I'm also pulling each um, high school master schedule individually and really looking. So, I we have one high school who's over 65% of their current 12th graders are enrolled in a seven period day and that's because they they have a really strong CTE pathway. So, we need to look at the CTE funding there and make sure that we are still allowing those opportunities, right? But if we also have another high school that has less than 10% of their um seniors in seven periods, again, that's because they're accessing dual enrollment and all these other opportunities. So, we need to look at that funding model and really figure out how we're supporting that model also.

Sorry, also for middle schools.

Yes, I was going to go there. I just I thought you were gonna ask another question, so I wanted to Okay. Um, so for middle schools, again, what we did was, and I think it was incredibly well-intentioned to make a seven period day, but we didn't expand the actual day at all. We added a class into the same amount of time for our students, which actually the impact led to less core instructional time. So, the CDE recommends 300 minutes a week for our students in English, English language arts. um in a seven period day unless they have an acceleration period which I pulled the master schedules and we don't have many sites offering that um we are not meeting our minimum recommended minutes for our instructional core and again going back to our VVGs we know that we really need to be driven by our values our vision values goals and guardrails and if we're not offering the recommended minutes for our instructional core. Then how are we going to be doing this impact? Again, I want to clarify that we do have several middle schools currently that don't have a seven period day. They have a sixth period day. And the way they are still continuing to offer a seven period for their students is they've staggered the teacher schedule. So they have a teacher starting at zero period. Um so maybe the PE teacher starts at zero period because we know everyone needs to go into PE. So PE starts at zero period. Students are accessing it there. Then another teacher stays through seventh period. They start at second period. Right? So we have that flexibility, but it's still funding it on a sixth period day and allowing for our students to get their recommended minutes in the instructional core. Again, it's a flexibility model. Um but the funding model would still be a sixth

period day. One more interjection. Sorry, people need to be clear, right? Everything that Teresa just said is correct. However, it's not recommended. It's required and as your compliance person, we are required to offer those instructional minutes. Okay. But we are hitting the total number of Okay. So, let me just clarify what Chris just said. I was about ready to

we I know. No, no, no. We have a total required instructional minute which we absolutely hit. That is a requirement. they will kill all of our funding. We we hit that. What we don't hit is the recommended individual core instructional minutes. And that's because we have a seven period day without actually expanding the day. We added another class in there, which is wonderful, but we didn't actually change the bell time, the start or end. The way we can do that is through a staggered day. for the teachers. The students may not see any difference, but we can stagger it for the teachers.

Thank you for that clarification. Um, student delegates, I know it's 9:00. Um, student delegate Cruz, is there anything you want to add before you

Yeah, I wanted to ask something about, so I got confused by a lot of point of views. I felt like a lot of public comment was talking about social workers and those resources at schools. How did that even come into consideration as uh you can say defunding of a budget? Because I felt like it for it to potentially be a worst case scenario. I felt like it shouldn't be considered at all cuz I feel like if we want to keep those margins of having our SFUSD students stay in school, let's not remove what keeps them in it. I felt like that for me was like what are we what like what is the plan because we can't preach safety of schools and students mental health if we're our actions aren't aligning to it. I felt like it was something that shouldn't be considered at all or brought up at all. So, I just wanted to add that because that kind of like hit me to a certain extent because I know a lot of students who benefit from that. So, let's like keep that nod in consideration. Find different alternatives and let our like your comments be clear to the public. I felt like that's really essential because we are discussing a lot of confusions, but it's also the message you guys are trying to give aren't clear enough. So, how do you want parents or students to understand what you guys are trying to say when you guys aren't making it clear enough? So, that was just my comment, but overall, thank you. Yeah,

also just want to add something before I leave. Um, yeah, similarly very want to echo that. Um cuz I know when I was listening to the public comment, I heard a lot of um students from APG, which is a middle school that I went to and like they were talking about the wellness center and everything and I was I really resonated with that. Um as well as like the Willie Brown Middle School because I go to LOL and we have like a program where we tutor kids from um Willie Brown and my friends are part of it and I go visit every Wednesday. And I just again wanted to add about how um the youth are so amazing tonight. And um from what you mentioned about the seventh period to 6th period um thing what I'm understanding is that there is like there is a shift but there is no real shift that like the students will experience and therefore the concerns around the electives that a lot of the students a lot of the students were talking about tonight like will their electives be affected because of this change or does it not matter?

Yeah, I appreciate that question. Thank you. And I I appreciate the feedback from both of you. Um it's always really important to hear that and it really does resonate. So thank you. Um the shift and I'm going to smile when I tell you this, the classes will be longer, you will be spending more time concentrating in on your instructional core. Um, and so although you, you know, at your school if you decide to take the zero period or the seventh period, however you'd structure it, or you're in dual enrollment, I'm not sure, but your your core classes will be longer, the minutes will be longer. You will spend more time in school. And so the elective classes in the middle schools, wouldn't would they be affected?

So it would it would be all according to the master schedule, right? So, if you're in a language program and that is your decision, right? Let's say you're going to take Spanish immersion class, that would be your elective during the periods 1 through six, but you can stay for a zero period and access something else or stay for seventh period and access something else there. Could you I think it would be helpful um as high school folks. I know there's three of us here um but also for all schools talk about how local control impacts that because we're talking about scheduling and and so the local control we allow in San Francisco is traditionally that we allow that control locally.

Absolutely. We don't have Can I do you want Okay. Um because you also have experience building master schedules. I didn't know if you wanted to jump in. Um exactly. So bell schedules um your school site will decide on that. Your school site will decide on if it's a rolling block, if it is, what do they call it? Flash Monday where you go to every single class and then you go to the block the next day. All of those different aspects are decided through normally a UBC, your union, your union building committee, your SSC, your faculty, and your administration. Thank you so much for answering all the questions.

Thank you, student delegates. Yeah. Good night. Have a good evening. Good night. Thank you, Commissioner Alexand Thank you. Happy holidays. Holidays. Good luck with finals. Yeah, Commissioner uh Alexander.

Yeah, I was gonna Thank you, um, Associate Superintendent, um, Ship. I was going to say I was going to actually make a request that all of us former principles not be the ones to be having this conversation. And I think I would like to request that some actual current principles uh come and have this conversation because I I've well and I and I I'm joking a little but I'm actually quite serious because I've gotten a mountain of feedback in the last couple weeks from principles. I have relationship with a lot of principles as a former principal in the district that's all negative. Like I haven't had a single principal that supports this plan. So, so I guess it's a little it feels confusing I think to hear this kind of idea. Oh well, we can fund our schools at six periods and they can really have seven. I don't actually think that's true, but maybe I mean I could get that there's like some creative things that could be done, but but I would love to hear from our principles um and particularly around guardrail 4, right? We've we talked a lot about guardrail one and I appreciate that conversation, but guardrail 4 says that our allocations to schools must be quote baseline sufficient to operate all schools while addressing inequitable inputs and creating more equity and excellence in student outcomes. So I've had principles come and say uh you know I had outreach from some middle school principles who said the impact on schools serving low-income students was of the staffing model was much greater. like some schools were losing 15 staff and others were losing one staff and it was schools serving low-income students that were losing 15 for example. So it felt like that the and another principal said to me it's just not possible to run a school at this staffing level. Um another one said these are these are just quotes. It honestly feels like the the staffing model proposed was made by people who have never actually worked in a school. Um so and these were just these are SFUSD principles that reached out to me. Um I had teachers reach out

um talking about the impact on EL students of taking away the seven period day. Um the um oh another teacher said the seven period day is what allows for our common planning time. If you hire instructional coaches but don't have the seven period day, we're not going to have time to meet with the instructional coach. So the instructional coach is going to be sitting in the staff room with nothing to do. Um so oh and the seven period day was put in place as a strategy to achieve our academic goals. two years ago, according to one teacher who reached out to me. So why are we pulling the rug out from under it without a real databased analysis, um, decimating our schools would only drive families away, another teacher said. So again, these are these were just comments that that were unsolicited that I received that seem to indicate that guardrail 4 was not actually being met. And so I'm just curious like, do we have any principles that actually support this staffing model? Do we have any teachers that support it? Do we have any families that support it? Is this like I guess I don't even understand where this is coming from.

Yeah. Again, so I too have had many many different conversations with various educational partners making sure that we truly are working in partnership, right? That we really are there. And I think um there's a couple of things. Number one, what I'm hearing from you is that we've not done a good job communicating, which we've talked about, right? and we absolutely need to to do a better job there. Normally those presentations and communications come out at the school site council summit meeting. We are trying to do everything so much earlier and really be transparent every step of the way. Um and so I appreciate that feedback. I have committed absolutely to meeting with every single principal if they would like to to really go over their allocation, look at their look at their master schedule, look at impacts to students if it is what what is the actual impact to a student. Um, and let's go there. That's not a problem at all.

Yeah. But I think I guess my question I I appreciate the one-on-one meetings, but again I think it's a more of a systemic question as to how did this how was this plan developed and does it h how do what is our evidence that it actually is quote baseline sufficient to operate all schools while addressing inequitable inputs and creating more equity and excellence in student outcomes. So I was just giving those examples of feedback from practitioners in our district. I haven't had a single person say that they thought it met that standard. So, I guess I guess if you all are asserting that it meets that standard, I guess I'm saying kind of what's what's the evidence. Does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely, Commissioner Alexander. And I think no one wants cuts, right? So, I think that's the first the first thing. No one wants to be a leader during a time where we have to be making these cuts. So, I just want to state that no one comes here every day and thinks I want to cut some change some things up today, right? But what we do want to do is make sure that we are making positive impacts for students. So if we do have to cut, what is our basis for that? And how can we make sure that we are continuing to do the VVGs? So when you look at instructional minutes and we're not meeting our recommended instructional minutes, that is a very hard conversation to have. What does that look like? If we're sitting here and we're saying that, you know, 8th grade math is our goal and we're not meeting our basic instructional minutes for middle school math, I have some major concerns.

But that's a different conversation than whether or not we're going to make reductions. Right? So, those are two different conversations. If you're saying, "What's our strategy to meet our goals?" And you want to increase math instructional time, that's that actually probably requires an additional resources, right? You're talk we're talking here about making reductions and I'm saying how how do we and the reductions are not required. I mean we voted the board voted last week to put $111 million in reserve. The the approximate total of the schoolbased cuts in items three and four on the fiscal stabilization fund is 26 million. We could decide to take $26 million a year over the next three years and and not make any of these cuts. So you all as staff are recommending the super is recommending these cuts and so I'm just asking how does that how are we since we do have a choice right it's not like we're bankrupt because we actually have we've been building up this surplus so so what how does it align with guardrail 4

that it's baseline sufficient to operate all schools while addressing inequitable inputs and creating more equity and excellence in student outcomes and just to recognize that sorry the timer wasn't running but I know I really love that actually Thank you. That's respect. I'm not going to ask it. That's my I'm done. I'm done. I was running the clock. Thank you. Um that's why he didn't stop. I actually I feel bad. I actually I did notice that.

Take advantage. Take advantage. Uh so two things and I'm not going to be able to answer uh all of your question but I do want to point out that the that the allocation methodology is based locally on what we've done in the past primarily as codified in our various collective bargaining agreements right which are lower as far as meaning that it's uh more staff or lower studentto staff ratio than any of the the state recommendations right so we are exceeding that and so we used as a baseline what we've always used as a baseline which is providing all of the staff that our CBAs call for as well as additional uh and I would tell the board um from the perspective and and I have some more folks uh now including NU from other districts we're used to doing staffing throughout the state uh because of our local resources we actually allocate far more uh because we have those local resources than than most districts enjoy. So it is it is far and above any minimum state recognized and it is meeting and exceeding uh in almost all cases RCBA right so that's that's the baseline that the district and that's what the allocation methodology is and so now how does that how does that meet or exceed the guard rail that you're citing I mean if we want to change the CBA or say that we need more uh so and I also want to remind folks this is not a cut conversation. I heard the word come up three times in that exchange. Uh that's the problem that we've been experiencing is we keep using the wrong language for the wrong items. Cuts don't happen for a school district until no later than March 15th as the board is all aware. Right? So this is just a staffing allocation for next year. It is not a cutting conversation. The only deltas you see here are if a

funding has expired or enrollment's projected down. And I will note for the board that enrollment has been going down for four years and we have not really adjusted the model. Uh so so we've been allocating more than uh the model called for. So I just want to be clear on those points not to address the specifics but that's that's the basis of the message. No, I appreciate that and I think it's a I mean fair opinion that our staffing may be as you're suggesting it's generous but I'm not sure the public agrees but but I think that I guess just again I the equity point again if if we're the the if the prop staffing model proposal results in cutting 15 staff from one middle school they're going to experience that as a cut. So just

yes I agree want to say that. So, Commissioner Fischer,

this has been a very robust conversation and and I do want to thank our our very new business and budget service office staff. I mean, like we've come a long way, baby. You know, I mean, um, with we've got a new bunch of new systems. They're giving us a whole bunch of D. I wasn't calling anyone baby. That was the just, you know, it's it's 9:30. That was the we've come a long way, baby, is what it was supposed to be. Anyway, okay. I just for you know some just yeah need to clarify um uh much better fiscal practices. There's a lot of great things happening. So thank you and I mean and we're having more detailed conversations this year than we could last year. So really just thank you all. Um I want to follow up on Commissioner Ray's conversation where you were asking about um uh impact, right? And I want to reframe it as unintended consequences. and we'll use the T10 model as an example. Um, so if we do not I recognize we're just talking about baseline. There are other funding streams from which T10s could come and these are very valuable to members of our communities. I but in for the this perspective right here if we do not have that T10 and it essentially would feel like a cut to the team whatever we want to call it to the school staff. It feels and the school community it feels like a cut. um then all of a sudden we've got kids roaming in the halls, kids hiding in bathrooms, like and we don't have kids. It doesn't matter if we add more instructional minutes to get to the point of actually meeting the state recommendations. The kids aren't going to be in those like So this is where like have we done the the trade-offs of understanding the the unintended consequences of these cuts and the real impacts they're going to have at the school sites. So that's question one. Um, and the same thing with buses, like how much is that $5 million cut to busing going to actually cost us in reduced attendance and A$D8 dollars, right? Like some of these we need to

know this data before we say yes to some of these things because the consequences are real. Um, and I I just going back to transparency, right? Um, and I really, Dr. Sue, I'm going to quote you from a couple weeks, a couple months ago, progress happens at the rate of trust, right? And so, and you just said a couple minutes ago, we found funds that we were able to allocate and we were able to allocate them to social workers. I think you are a master at coming up with money and and finding looking under every couch cushion in basement that we didn't know we had. But I think that's also part of the struggle is thank you for finding the money and where the heck did it come from? Right? Right. And I think this is what we all need to understand because until we get to the point of of trusting the processes that that's where that's why we have meetings like we do tonight. I have six seconds left.

No, no, I know. Sorry. This is not me trying to correct you. I just wanted to remind us right now the conversation is about the staffing model. I was going to do one whip round of the staffing model and then introduce the FSP just because I know that we have a lot of questions about the FSP as well. So I just I wanted to acknowledge because the GE transportation is not in the staffing model.

Okay. Thank you for that correction. So then um my final comment will be around um the sixth period day frankly is discriminatory. We have especially in middle school we have students who are in study skills classes and English language developments classes who won't have access to an elective and that is discrimination. that is unacceptable and it is part of why we went to the seven period day and a lot of groups fought for it. Um and we can say that yes, we'll add a zero period, but it's not local control when the school and the families are dependent on central office funded transportation as a related service. And unless we're willing to adjust all the bus schedules to give all the kids access through those extra periods, it's discrimination. Yeah. So because we transition into multiple documents with that. Uh so a couple of things remember uh and and the board's been told this before and the board needs to keep in mind. Uh so the purpose of that FSP is to identify things that the board does have control over. Uh so for example taking the idea of transportation. uh it was in your FSP last year. Uh I was asked to keep it in this year because it was pushed to further discussion. Uh remember when I cost an item for the board, right? I'm costing the item but without having to put my own bi bias because I'm your fiduciary, right? I've also shared with the board. I hate that idea. I think I believe I believe I said the same thing about social workers. But again, I'm not supposed to cost things about my bias. I am supposed to give you the cost and what the savings or the additional cost would be. That's my responsibility, right? And that is the part of the FSP. The FSP calls out categories that the board the board has authority over,

right? So I keep reminding the board of this. the board in this district because we are so heavily uh reliant on restricted funding has very little portions very few portions of our staffing model in our district that they can actually change. Right? So let's use the social worker conversation there uh for a second. So the reason of returning to the base allocation of social workers was that we were previously using our title one funds. It's our largest portion of federal funding that we receive as a district and we were struggling annually to expend our title one funds because as title one has and this is you can see this history in the district by the way. It's sort of interesting to look at as title one has come up with an innovative idea to fund that they provide to title one schools. it becomes popular enough that the district moves gradually over time to provide it to all schools and that trips the the supplement versus supplant trigger in title one and then makes those things that were previously title one unfundable by title one that is actually mo most recently the actual story of our social workers right and then title one struggles to spend their money and it puts us in the situation of potentially having to return money that I desperately want to spend for our students locally not return it. I I know that we all agree on that concept. I'm not saying anybody doesn't. However, to get back to making sure that we are supplementing, we need to carve that out for title one. And then we have to read the title one rigs carefully to see if there are other funding sources that we can use that don't trigger that supplant function. Right? So, I could I could do in the time that we had, I could say, "Yes, we can get back to Title One providing social workers, but it needs a little bit more time for me to go through all of the different terms of all of our different restricted funding to see which of those items would potentially not trigger the supplant and

not be able to use that money effectively for the school district. So, I've done that. I've identified a source. I I will not by the way share it because I have to follow the constraints of that funding source and get permission from that oversight committee before before I actually put that in the budget. But that takes time, it takes effort, it takes research uh and actually it was uh conversations with with uh your new CFO and I that we figured out how to do that effectively. But that takes time and so uh we have solved it. I I told uh Dr. Sue uh that I figured it out. It's I don't even think it's been a week yet. Um, and now we have to go to the oversight committee with Teresa because she has some folks in that in that group too and make sure that they're okay with that use of funds because it is a restricted resource. So that's the process that we have to go through in order to get that flexibility. And I will tell you now, I'm really good at finding solutions for you, but it doesn't mean I'm going to find a solution for every single thing that we're looking for. So the board just needs to to keep keep that in mind.

Thank you for I I really appreciate that context and this level of transparency is absolutely what the public is craving. It's exactly what our principles are craving. It's exactly what our families are craving. It's it's what we need. And so I guess the question is how do we find out where else to have that other than here in the boardroom at 9:30 at night, right? So, um I think that's that's a follow-up question not to be answered today. Um um but definitely appreciate that. Um so, thank you, Commissioner Gupta.

So, I'll I'll be quick because a lot of my colleagues have shared a lot of uh my own sentiment. So, first of all, I I do appreciate all the students that came out. I will make a shameless plug and say please do come out to the public engagement uh meeting that we will have on January 8th because we need student input on how the board does public engagement so that we can make sure it's as great as great as possible. Um two I do want to recognize the progress that has been made. If if folks remember where we were last year, I remember in March, our sites, our school site councils were freaking out, understandably so, because we did not have budgets yet. Uh when we did come out with it, the staffing model was incredibly confusing. It was unclear what people could could not use money for. And so the fact that we're right now at this point where hopefully by January we'll have something for our school sites would be a dream. I remember when I was school site chair, I would be happy if I got something by the beginning of March. So I do appreciate that we are going to have these conversations earlier. Um, I I will say that what I'm hearing over and over is something that I feel like teachers tell my daughter all the time, which is show the work. Um, it just it feels like, you know, if if we're saying things like staffing is generous in our school district, I would love to see it. You know, let's show the public, let's show the board, you know, where how we compare compared to our our fellow school districts. um you know, ELA, I I can happily be convinced, you know, uh you know, with the argument for six periods if it means that we'll have greater instructional minutes for uh ELA and math. I mean, you know, I would I would respectfully uh disagree with my

colleague in that, you know, to me it's discriminatory to stand by when our focal populations have some of our low lowest scores. So if there is something that improves that, I would love to see it, but I have not seen that work. I've not seen the evidence uh demonstrated. Um and and then finally, you know, how is what we're talking about reflective in the conversations? I think it goes back to what Vice President Huling was sharing in terms of um how I think it was Vice President Huing. How are we how are we seeing what has been the input of our administrators or our teachers in what we see here and how's that you know the practicality of what we're asking represented. Um the last thing in my 20 seconds that I'll I'll ask is um I see there are site discretionary funds and I'm curious if there's any guidance in terms of what that can or cannot be used towards for our school site councils and our sites. Uh yes. Uh so the principles requested in in my time with them with with Dr. Sue that they have more flexibility. Uh so what we've done is we've lifted the restrictions. So there's there's a couple of different types of money discretionary that goes out to sites. There's unrestricted general fund as well as restricted money that goes out and that does not count all of the individual grants that a school site might have or PTA or PTO money. But what we've done is we've said we will lift the restrictions on that to give the max on on all of those to give the maximum flexibility possible to the school sites. Um we're actually also now engaged just because people reach out and I say hey that's cool I'll help uh is actually N is going to help on this. She just doesn't know it yet. Uh but but how do we get the funds from our various community partners such as PTAs and PTO's considering their budget cycle so that the money is there to be used as

soon as the first day of school or that contracts can be pre-bookked so that things are ready to go day one. And so it's evidently been a longtime pain point for the district. It's not difficult to figure out by the way. Um we just need to sit down and do it. And so we've we're doing those interactions as well. So so we're working on multiple fronts. I know it feels like a lot or slow and it can be. It's a lot of work. Um Nu just found out one of her new tasks. She's super excited. Uh and uh but we are taking those things and we're we're creating systems so that people can do that year over year over year. Right. So we are providing that flexibility.

Can I add something? Um, I like your enthusiasm, but lifted the restriction sounded a little too uh, you know, uh, joyous for me. So, I just wanted to be clear that uh, the supplemental hiring guide, the muchbeloved supplemental hiring guide will be back again this year. Um, and it will provide instructions to sites and departments about what they can use their restricted dollars on, what the timeline is, and again, we'll be prioritizing classroom teacher staffing. So, we will be allowing more flexibility in hiring once we reach the 95% threshold for classroom teachers.

Thank you for dampening my enthusiasm. Uh what I meant by that was that last year we told them that they could not use some of their funding sources for staff, right? And and that and we actually did it so strictly that some of the grants and restricted money we have out there, we lost because we didn't allow them to spend it in a timely manner. and I'm not good at losing money. So, sorry, one last clarification on that. So, have we reached it? Do we know yet? Have we reached the 95% threshold?

Yeah, we started the year at 95% and so our goal was 92%. So, for next year it we will adjust the goal from 92 to 95%. Um I will hopefully be brief in my comments because I think most of my questions are actually more geared towards the fiscal stabilization plan. Um I think many of my colleagues have already said much of what I was uh wanting to share. Um I'll just first um I cannot underscore enough how different of a position we are in today than we were this time last year. And I want to thank you and your team uh and everyone in the district. it it is a significant milestone for us to be able to speak this early on about budgets and staffing plans and staffing models. So, thank you for your tireless work and I know that you are also relatively new here um half of you. So, thank you. Um I think my two biggest areas are are are one um one like what is the plan and two where do folks go to understand it? and and I think that's going to be a reoccurring theme of my my pushes here both on this item and the next. Um I appreciate the outlining of VVGGGS and grounding it in the VVGGGS. That is the role of the board and setting those VBGs. The interimm goals and guards aligned to that is the role of the superintendent and her team and so those have been articulated last spring and slash early fall. Um, what I still don't understand and and I know that this is coming based on the what was just flashed up most recently with the screen is just what the strategies are and the resources that are needed to fund those strategies that go to fulfilling our interimm goals and guard rails that eventually be like support our VVGs. I think there's an order of operations here that I'm confused by mostly of how do we know then what we are funding in our staffing model if we haven't yet gone through

that exercise and I think that's my concern. I just don't know how we're coming out with a staffing model if we actually haven't gone through those cycles and actually shared that with the public to know where our resources going to support which interim goals and guardrails that ultimately support our goals and guardrails and yet we're talking about a staffing model and a stabilization plan. So I think there's a there's a there's a question around what is I hear that it's coming. I think there's a question of when is it coming so that we can understand that and then there's an order of operations question around that. The second is pretty straightforward and I have the same question for the board as I have for the general public is where do we go to understand it? I mean it's very clear that you all have thought a lot about this that you all are meeting a lot about this and I think I we get so much outreach from folks asking questions about it and I still don't I'm not quite sure where to point them to and say I hear your question. and I hear your frustration. This is all really hard. Go here. And and so I think that I'm struggling with reconciling that. And so I think those are the two things. I I will bring a very similar sentiment into this next item as as well, but and I don't know if there's any sort of comments or reflections on that, but I just wanted to say that.

Well, I can I could start. Um, I think the reality is that we need to learn how to build this muscle of of integrating our vision, values, goals, and guardrails into our budget planning process. This is the first year that we are attempting to do this. Again, this district started our SOFG process in 2022 and I was looking through our old documents and we went as far as developing the interim goals and interim guard rails, but we didn't actually get to the last part, which is starting the budget allocation process. And again, I thank Commissioner Alexander um for for for doing and and you know, for President Kim for for having um the ad hocs on performance uh moni progress monitoring um because it it allowed me to really think through and think about how we start doing that. And so, yes, you're right. We haven't done it, but we are going to start doing it. And yes, we're going to be a little bit off schedule and backwards. Um, but we're going to try our best to make sure that we do map it because we do know that we want to ensure we have highquality instruction in our classrooms. We want to make sure that our teachers have the resources and tools they need to be successful. We know that instructional coaches are yielding the results that we want to see. Um, we know that our the the the transition to a new curriculum is yielding the results that we want to see. Um, we know that having um a

focused one-on-one tutorings are doing that. So, these are things that we know and these are things that we want to make sure that we continue to allocate towards. I understand that it is still a little bit not aligned, but we're going to continue to try to do it.

Just just to help clarify, financially, how are you going to track it, right? So, this is not unusual for a school district. Um so, uh first of all, your tracking is typically done through the model of the LCAP. And so um I've discussed with the superintendent the VBG's concept I'm very familiar with uh from council of great city schools but the LCAP is what we're used to tracking budgetarily and so if there's alignment there uh you have brilliant people in curriculum and instruction that manage the LCAP and if they are clear on what the goals and activities are then we can pick those items out of the budget and we can report on how much they're budgeted for and how much they're spent annually as a portion of the overall budget allocation and we can get down to a really really close numbers of what's budgeted if not exact. That's a that's a standard practice for districts. Uh so that's the alignment that could happen that would enable us to do that better better for the board and for the superintendent.

And if I may add on to that, um I I really appreciate that question. uh President Kim and as you can see that that work around aligning our VVGs with the LCAP has already occurred um in the in the LCAP that was presented to and adopted by the board this past June in the year that we are in. Um I wanted to also take the opportunity to thank AJ um for supporting us in this process of trueing up and aligning um these efforts. uh you know this this is work that is ongoing and also just an appreciation for the progress monitoring ad hoc committee. Uh it really is about being able to instill a culture of accountability throughout the entire school district where we are cascading our initiatives, our inputs and outputs against resources but also against um the the most important investments that we're making as a school district, our personnel, our people to be able to follow through and deliver on student outcomes. Um and so you know it really is a work in progress. There is a lot that we have to do in the upcoming weeks. Um but I wanted to take this opportunity to just also express our appreciation um to AJ as well.

Thank you. I know that this next item um will carry forward in some of the elements that we just discussed. Uh and so I will move on to the next item. Item 2512-165 SP1 fiscal year 2526 fiscal stabilization plan. Can I have a motion and a second? I move that we approve uh read the numbers. It's fine. Uh 2512-16 SP1 fiscal year 2025 2026 fiscal stabilization plan. Good. Do we have a second?

Everyone's Everyone's scared to say second. You do, bro. Second. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve item 251216 SP1, fiscal year 2526, fiscal stabilization plan, and call the superintendent um and her staff to introduce this item. Thank you, President Kim. We have a short presentation as well. Um, oh, it's it up. Sorry, I keep looking over there. That's why.

No, it's fine. It's fine. Now it's up over there. Okay. So, actually the first couple of slides are actually similar to my section. So, I'm going to let's we can go through it very quickly and I'm going to hand it over to our amazing business and services ops team. Oh. Uh, okay. I will take this one. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um, again, uh, SFUSD has a 1.3 billion dollar dollar, uh, budget. Um, and, uh, we need to make sure that we, the discussion we just had, tell the story of how we're allocating towards supporting our students. Um, and just as a reminder for everyone, these are the goals that we're trying to move towards. Third grade literacy, eighth grade math, college career career readiness, all supported by serving the whole child. Um, next slide, please. And now I will hand it over to our amazing budget team, business. Sure. You need to turn on your mic, please. Your

mic. Your mic.

Sorry, my coordination of fingers and buttons and computers. I'm behind a little bit. Uh, so we can go through these fairly quickly. These have been part of our standard report, so I'm not going to linger on them very long. This is just our our sources as a percentage of our various funding sources. Next slide, please. Uh and then of course our LCFF allocation which is the basis for our unrestricted general fund uh per student assuming 100% attendance. Uh and then of course the next slide our student enrollment trends. Uh this is the most salient slide. You see this in a lot of presentations not just mine. Uh we are the ones that I think most recently updated this but you'll see it in a lot of the different departments. This just shows uh the issue over time. uh we continue to have fewer and fewer students over roughly the same number of schools uh which is is part of the struggle as far as spreading resource as we continue to have fewer and fewer students and supporting all of the staff. Uh next slide just is the the bar graph again about overtime uh revenues versus expenses versus fund balance. Of course, the only salient bar in here is the middle one that says uh 2425. That's the last year of actuals we have. That's last year. And you can see that the the red bar because they're actualized from that point moving towards the left x-axis. Uh that is that little bit of orange you're seeing there is the amount that we overspent this past year. The projection is how much we're currently still budgeting over the revenues received. knowing that of course we don't fully expend those but we still have to address it before the orange runs out. Next slide is state budget certification. We just went over this at the last presentation uh with the boarding community. Uh of course we have we are currently at negative at first interim. We self-certified as qualified. We are waiting for concurrence from CDE before that's a

genuine certification. Uh, of course, the board's goal, uh, guardrail 4 is getting back to that positive certification. Uh, for 2526, next slide. This is the slide the superintendent already reminded folks of. Where do we spend the money? Uh, this represents 86% uh, directly in the schools and in the classrooms. Uh, the portions that are not directly in schools and classrooms are the green, orange, and the two little slices at the bottom uh, with the description of what those are. We presented these at all of our community sessions and in multiple board interactions. So, I'm not going to again linger. Uh the multi-year projection. Next slide. This is the multi-year projection that was presented at the first interim last week uh with all of the uh assumptions and items that we mentioned uh to the board. and the next slide which is the restricted multi-year projection and then it gets down to uh slide 13 which is the draft fiscal stabilization plan for the first interim for fiscal year 26. Uh so typically and this is a little bit unusual uh which we've uh discussed with the board the fiscal stabilization plan is actually a part of the first interim report uh it's required by law. So statute says that as long as the district is in a negative or qualified certified status that we are required to produce a fiscal stabilization plan. Uh and what the fiscal stabilization plan does is it outlines all of the different things that we have the ability and the when I say we I mean the district and the board has the ability to cut uh and the amount of savings that could be yielded out of making that cut. um it is not a cut plan and cuts don't occur until the board takes action in February or March of that year. The fiscal stabilization plan is also a plan which is why it's called that. Uh and you have to change it at every single reporting period to reflect the current status of

your budget. Uh and so that's why if we go Marina if you could advance one more slide please. And you can see at the bottom what we're tracking is the current projected budget deficit in the unrestricted and restricted general fund and in a three-year period what would be the savings uh to that to try to eventually get the district to a balanced budget. So that's the concept. It's required by law. It's required by the CDE. It is technically a part of your first interim report and it should have been done last Tuesday. uh we got permission to do it this Tuesday thinking it was too much for everybody to absorb in one meeting. Uh it was and you have passed it in the past. It was just incorporated probably pretty far in the back of a much longer slide deck presentation but you have passed them multiple times. Um you are not passing cuts. You're just passing or the concept of a plan and where you know that you can cut from and the values that you can cut from. Right? So that is the concept of a fiscal stabilization plan uh and and what is uh before you tonight.

Thank you. I'll open up for comments and questions from the board. Alexander.

Okay, I'll kick us off. Uh oh, and before I do, I want to um notice that beautiful banner that I've been noticing on TV behind you all was apparently made by James Denman Middle School students. So, shout out to James Denman Middle School students for providing their feedback. Um, so, um, I want to go to this question of whether the cuts are necessary or the potential cuts, however you want to talk about them. Um, because I do think it's confusing. And I heard this in public comment and I've heard it from others giving me feedback about this idea of when we talk about the worst case scenario and last year we last excuse me last week we set aside this money in reserves which theoretically we could use to pay for some of this. Um but another confusing thing is this notion of deficit spending. um you know when the truth is that we've that really we've we've had projected deficit spending for the most part and it's turned out to be okay in the end and we've actually had these surpluses and built up this $430 million fund balance and so I've asked about this before but I guess in particular I want to ask about the revenue projections um and I appreciate that you mentioned earlier that the governor's budget or the superintendent the governor's budget and some other you know there's some things that we don't know But we do know that for the past 3 years for which we have actuals, we've underpredicted revenue at this time in December the previous year for 2223 by $219 million. We were $219 million underpredicted revenue 23 24 $85 million under predicted revenue and 2425 $82 million under predicted revenue in the previous December when we were sitting here. So if we do the same this time and have 80 million more dollars coming next year, we really don't need to make these reductions. And so again, not to say that we might not want to reduce spending in certain areas still, but but

we're not under the gun if the revenue projections are anything like they were for the last 5 years. So I guess my question is based on this idea, I mean, in some ways, somebody said to me, maybe you don't have a structural deficit, you have structural dysfunction in in how you do your budget. So I think I think that's where I think we need to be able to say to the public, you know, are these projections really accurate? Right? So I guess my question is what is different about the 26 27 revenue projections that are leading to this plan compared to what we've done for the past 5 years that have led to these wildly inaccurate projections. So uh the observation you made is exactly what I actually presented to the board in October is that the revenues and uh expenses in the district have been all over the place in the past and I gave the board and the public a detailed presentation called the budget to actual uh variance report which the district had never engaged in before. it should be standard practice and it's basically a way of seeing how well the budget process is working and I think I was pretty clear with the board that in the past it has not worked well uh and that is part of the fiscal problem that the district is continuing uh to suffer from right uh so uh no time machine had but we can change that moving forward uh I'm sure you've noticed and I pointed out at the first interim that you're already not seeing those swings right So you did not see a huge uh advance advancement in unrestricted uh general fund revenues. But I also would caution the commissioner and the entire board. Uh the budget cycle in the state of California does not allow for and the reason that they always make us use the word projection is because you are not on the same fiscal cycle as the state for which we have to pass a budget.

Right? So for example, last June you voted on a budget and you had to adopt a budget by law before the state adopts its budget and actually gives us our allocations. So what you adopted in June, right? And I it should be made clear to you every year so that everybody's reminded is the projection based on the assumptions that the state gives us to give to you. And so if you see any difference between what you adopt in June and the first interim, it's because after they pass their budget, you've already passed yours. And so the very first time that we update it for you is at the first interim and we show you any differences of what has materialized versus what they told us to assume for your June adoption. That is actually the purpose of an interim report. I will also say this, those numbers change. Yes, if they don't change, someone's not doing their job. But they should change and be able to be labeled which is what we did for you the first interim. Right? So here's how the unrestricted changed both the revenues and expenses and this is why they changed and the amount that they changed and the source of that change. Right? That means that we're tracking things correctly. Right? So your projections are getting better. You're already not seeing the huge variances. Now avariance cannot be avoided meaning positive or negative. So, if anybody is good enough in your home budget that if you get $100, you only spend $100 and it's exactly $100, then congratulations, you are a an anomaly, right? People budget $100, they frequently spend 102. Or they budget 100 and they only spend 90. That's what a variance is. It's spending less or more than what you actually plan on. However, by law, we have to account for everybody's budget that they submit to me. I can't take a budget. If if Commissioner Alexander, you were still a principal and you gave me your budget, I don't get to say, "No, I'm not putting it in. I have to put in everything that you give me." Whether you end up spending it or not, I don't get to make

that decision, right? Um, but I have to put that in as the aggregate amount that the district's budget, right? So, we've put more controls in so that that variance doesn't go up and down. So for example, we used to let anybody budget and change their budget entirely throughout the school year. Everybody, schools, offices, if you had a budget, you could change it. We don't allow that anymore, right? You get your allocation, you budget your allocation, we monitor it, and we will actually be taking what you'll see in the second interim is we'll be taking savings because we provide we are now applying uh a burn rate and sort of what we call a predictability trend. So if we get to second interim and you've spent 60% of your budget, right? Uh we know you only have by the time we present the second interim, we know that you only have two months left to spend. I can look at your spend analysis and I can tell you that we are not going to spend all of that money. So I will be including that in savings for the board so that they get a more accurate picture over time of the actual spend. All of that is just good fiscal management. uh it's clear based on where the district is right now and has been that has not existed right I don't I know that there were a lot of changes that knowledge base was lost uh we are teaching staff the basics of entering budgets into systems right now right so so uh the other thing I would caution everybody on is is pointing out that there were big uh additional fund balance ads during COVID when we were getting billions of dollars of federal money uh that was rather unpredictable and then not spent well. That is not just the story of San Francisco. That's the story of education in the state of California. The majority of reserves in the state of California in K12 schools come from COVID federal dollars, right? And that's true for San Francisco, by the way, as well. And I I really appreciate all the fiscal uh

tracking and the actuals um things you mentioned. I and I think I said at that at that last meeting that I'm super grateful for your leadership on that. I think my question was a little different. It was really specific about the revenue projections and so we've projected revenues inaccurately including for unrestricted general fund not just for other funds by at least $50 million in unrestricted general fund. So I guess what I'm asking is what's different now especially because you know for this fiscal year you didn't make the prediction predict projection someone else did but how much like what what is different in how we project revenue now that means that it's that that will assure us that it's not underproing I don't know if I'm asking the question right because I

that was the part you didn't so and I and I've talked about this before the reason that they were so off in your prior years is no one knew how to do it, right? So, what you see as a difference right now is less than $3 million in the first four months, right? So, that that was a that was presented at the first, but we never got those reports before. So, I don't I mean, I guess I haven't seen to I don't think it's to just say, "Oh, they didn't know how to do it and I do know how to do it." doesn't show. I want I want to know what did they do wrong and what are we doing right to sort of provide evidence that those revenue projections are in fact accurate because otherwise again we're asking the public to make cuts without knowing that they're needed. So,

so it's not about doing it right or wrong. It's having the knowledge to know how to maintain it. Right? So, there's a lot that goes into that number. We get all the formulas from the state, right? We have to go all over all of our local property tax rules. It's a very lengthy, somewhat tedious process and there's not a lot of folks that that have learned that process. So, we we've taught that process. So, there the knowledge is here now. We've taught folks how to do it and we will we will continue to do so. Um, we are maintaining those revenue. We need to I guess what I'm saying is we need to see it publicly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going to move us to Yeah, for I just he just is I'm just trying to clarify like what I'm asking for. Yes.

Cuz what he's saying is we know how to do it and trust us and I'm saying we need that evidence publicly. Totally. So So help just help us up as help us out as followup and define what the it is for us because it's it's not clear what's being asked for. But if you make it clear, I will I will try to get it for you. Okay. Okay. I'll try to clarify. Commissioner Gupta.

So I most of my comments were were provided before and I actually don't really have question. I mean I I I just want to acknowledge that we have a fiscal stabilization plan and as I understand we are obligated because we're currently negative certified to adopt a fiscal certification plan. Is that correct? That's correct. That's the statute and that is from the California Department of Education. It's actually an ED code, but the Department of Education is our oversight agency that's that's making us comply with the ED code. Correct.

Got it. Um I I will say I mean I can't actually say it any better than um the way Miss Clafter put it in terms of you know kind of the the contraindication of being obligated to do it by code and at the same time I don't feel like we've met the criteria that we've set forth for oursel by you know our visions values goals and guard rails. Um and and I will I will just say that um my my ask and this actually isn't of the financial team. This is of the superintendent that you know what the public saw for the longest time was just two tables. One that had to do with staff and and staffing costs and one that had to do with fiscal stabilization plan that was centered on what cuts would be made. And I think the the common thread that's being expressed here is you know what is the impact on our communities and if we can communicate it and such and I know you've received that message loud and clear from various public comments as well as commissioners but my ask you know so that I hope that I can fulfill my duty as a board member to what's required of us from the fiscal stabilization plan is that we have that information that meets our visions, values, goals, and guardrails uh so that we can vote on this.

Yes. And yes, Commissioner Gupta, I've I've heard that very loud and clear. Um, I've also heard that feedback from actually all of our commissioners here is that we need to continue to do better at sharing information and it's not enough or appropriate um to just say, "Yeah, we checked a box. We talked to some folks." Um, we need to make sure that we are engaging and and I will also say that um it means that I need to I we need to have staff that has the time and the bandwidth to do it. And so we're going to I'm going to have to re-evaluate my own team's time and bandwidth and and really make some decisions about how we prioritize certain things and and what are some things that we're going to have to say let's press pause on because we have to do this thing at this moment in time. Um because this is all we got. Yeah. Thank you.

I do want to build on that quickly. I think every single person on this board has said very clearly to you, whatever you need to move our district forward, ask for it. And I think we have gone above and beyond to try to resource that for you. So I just want to make sure that I say that in front of staff, say it in front of you, in front of the board and public. We want to get to a place where we are structured in a way where we can actually fulfill the obligations and duties that we that we have for ourselves. And it I think it's a question of just what is that ask, right? I go back to what I brought up in the last item. Uh and and maybe I'll simplify even further of just uh what happened and how do people know what happened? And and and I and as as I reflect on the conversation with with Commissioner Alexander, there is a lot of thinking it sounds like that is going on into how some of these dollars are being determined. I think the question that I have is again where outside of this boardroom do we go to to understand that and I you know we as a board have continued to say that the boardroom is not the place for two-way engagement and if it's not going to be the boardroom then where do we go where do the p members of the public go where do our constituents go to understand what is happening internally to be able to digest something like this because it is kind of shocking and jarring to see a document ment like this where and I think the experience that I had even as board president has been hearing new talking points and context being added right until the 11th hour and I think that's my primary concern as a body here and our positioning to accept a document like this and I think that's that goes

back to what happened and how do people know what And and so I I want to make sure I I I reiterate as I've shared with with Elliot who I know is listening. This board I know is incredibly dedicated to bringing our district to financial solveny. That commitment has not changed. I think the questions that we are asking are largely around how do we ensure that we bring ourselves and the public along in that journey because if we can't if we can't understand it through all the briefings that we have I I don't know how to communicate that out and for for others to understand that and I think that that is where I think I have most of my frustrations in in in understanding this and I do want to thank you uh Chris I think we've mostly interacted with Thank you for for bringing us along. I think when we have sitdowns with you where you do walk us through, we do understand better. I think the again my frustration is around the timing of all of this of of of experiencing that um in the moment when it should be things that are being communicated externally. I I just I I and I hear you um President Kim and and other commissioners as well who's provided the same um the same feedback to me and uh so so first this is this is the earliest we've ever shared the the um well this the the staffing model. Um we've shared the fiscal stabilization plan previously but not to this level of detail. Um, and I think because we did it so early, we need to we need to continue to engage our families even earlier and need to

make sure that we build in um that into our bustle. And you know, something that we've talked about internally within our teams here is we've got amazing advisory bodies. We've got many, many councils. we need to lean in and and and work with our parents around um how do we communicate clearer? How do we engage um our our DAXs and our LCAPS sooner, earlier? Um so that we are not rushing to the end to try to share information and you know very technical information just lots of things that have um lots of feelings inside. And so I think um we need to do a better job at building that engagement um timeline and and I I hear the frustration of the board and I I fully acknowledge that. I'd like to push back on that a little bit more because engagement did start really early. I believe the first um engagement um that I went to is in October or November. And my understanding is that probably internally a lot of the ideas that are reflected in this FSP were being discussed among staff and the instructionbased ration and the budget- based ration were being discussed among staff. And to me, it feels very disrespectful to our community, to their time, to the people who took time out of their busy schedules, many overwhelmingly working parents, who showed up at school sites, who logged in online, to not have told them what we were actually thinking about in so many words and why. to not share our rationale for a sixth period day. To not share that we only have so

many places to cut. One will inevitably be security. And so what is our plan to keep your students who you entrust to us safe? And to me, this feels very much cart before the horse in that we're looking at the numbers first instead of hearing from not our not our budget uh department but from our superintendent, from our instructional staff, from comms around this is how these decisions are constrained. This is how they're aligned to achieving our goals. These are the difficult decisions we're making and our plans to make sure that students don't suffer because of them. And we received a lot of coaching uh about our student outcomes focused governance. And at the core of that is that we cannot vote for budget decisions unless the rationale for why they are student centered is there. that we start budget conversations at a no and it is the superintendent's job to prove to us that we should be a yes. And so for me, there was engagement, it just was not meaningful in the sense that if we were thinking about making a massive change to middle school schedules that might impact, you know, English language learners, students with IEPs, students in dual immersions ability to take an another elective, like why was there not a designated middle school engagement around those issues to hear from middle school communities? Um, and so I really struggle with just not necessarily what is here, but what

are we doing to bring people along and to actually iterate? Like it concerns me that UA is who's been engaged around some of these decisions, but that they're saying that their feedback is not reflected in these plans. Um, I said a lot of what I wanted to say before and but I do want to I I mean we have much smaller central office than we've had in a long time. We have a lot of new folks and so like I I do I do appreciate like thank you. This is a hard conversation, but like we've got folks who are already working two and three jobs and so thank you for doing it. And um and two things can be true at the same time, right? You know, like we need better engagement around this and the folks who are there who are doing the work are working their butts off to do it. So, so both of those things can be true and I want to recognize our staff. So, thank you all for that. Um I I just have about the you know fiscal stabilization plan generally like a lot of what I notice here realignment you know things that are potentially focused on reducing allocations not cuts reducing allocations. Um, but I'm wondering, do we ever get an opportunity to focus on investments, right? Like, um, I'm wondering, uh, like for example, making sure that everyone who can checks the medical box on their IEP so we can do a better job of like could we write that in here like that and like maybe like we're going to focus I don't I don't even know if that's legit to do in an FSP. I don't know. Is there any way we could maybe focus on some of the revenue generating the low hang like we're going to apply for x number of dollars of state and

federal grants we're going to like can we do more aspirational money attainment instead of uh reductions I don't know if that's so that's just one question um and I'm also wondering pre all of this you know we just historically to oversimplify we had a weighted student formula Um and with when we went under um FICMAT control, we we switched from our weighted student formula to a more centralized staffing model. Have we done any equity analysis of of the the difference between the weighted student formula and what was provided under the weighted student formula which was it had its problems, but it was very equity based and that versus the new um you know the the new staffing model like do we have any comparisons year-over-year for that? just those are my really two follow-up questions.

Thank you, Commissioner. No, I actually don't know your the the one that you're referencing. Um we're we're struggling even to find document evidence as I shared with the board earlier of how how it was done over the past couple of years. People didn't leave a lot of guides. Just just so everybody understands, every every district in the state in either December or January uh engages in an allocation model that's usually based on their local CBA. It's it's the same here, right? That's that's the beginning of building a budget which is why we're working on the staffing model so early because we really need to have the budget the broad strokes of the budget done by ear uh late January early February uh to be aligned with the way that the state does budget development right and then to make sure that you can meet your statutory obligations right that's the reason that we are moving it up so much because we have long been out of step with what districts are told to do as far as their budget development right so that's that's that's the push That's why we're having these discussions so early. And the staffing model is how we start that by looking at the enrollment. And this district does actually uh it's really interesting. We do a great job on enrollment data. Kudos to the enrollment department. Um but for some reason we've never started the budget development which should be done at the same time uh to make sure that that happens together. I don't know why. I just I wasn't here at the time. But it is interesting. An FSP does not anticipate new revenues. Uh an FSP is reflective of the first interim multi-year projection and any new revenues are in the first interim which would then lessen the the amount of need that the FSP would represent. I hope that makes sense. So in other words, if you have more revenues than you then the potential delta worst case scenario that you would have to cut is smaller, right? So, and I also heard uh a couple of folks say, "Well, you're trying to cut the $103 million deficit." Please note,

the FSP doesn't call for $103 million of cuts. It calls for less than 50. Uh so, so no one's ever said that we should try to do it all at once or that we should do both the unrestricted and restricted. So, the the goal of an FSP is very specifically the unrestricted side. Commissioner Ray,

thank you. Um, I don't want to de labor, but sorry, excuse me, belabor the point too much because, you know, we still have things to do and folks have very well expressed, I think, um, concerns that we've had as a board. I just want to strongly strongly encourage the incorporation of feedback and input from our communities in a real way in a demonstrable way and to the extent that you know we may not be able to do something that a community wants we need to be able to articulate that and explain why. Um something that was particularly telling to me in the various town halls that I attended like um all of us as Jamie me as Commissioner Huling mentioned attended a number of these and one thing that came out over and over and over again was the concern that our community members at those meetings had for social emotional well-being. And yet, you know, and yet we see that social workers were identified um essentially for, you know, as a potential thing for reduction and done so in a very very bare way with no context or explanation whatsoever. Like on its face, it looks like we didn't it looks like we just flatly ignored the community feedback there. So those kinds of things are sort of own goals for us that I would like to make sure that we try to avoid in the future and that if we are doing something that's contrary to um our community's pretty clear preference that we are explaining why we can't do that. Um, I also really appreciate that the district is going to be t taking the steps, as I understand, of actually clearly identifying our strategies and initiatives and costing those out. Uh, that's something I've actually asked

about in in a few of the past meetings. So, I understand that we haven't done that before. I think it's really critical and I really appreciate that we are going to do that. I look forward to seeing that information. And I just wanted to um concur with what some folks have said like it is an absolutely top priority for me to be fiscally responsible and for our district to be solvent for a multitude of reasons. The most important of which is having a stable functioning school district that works for our students, our families, our staff, and our broader communities. Um but it has been very difficult to be faced with this situation where we haven't had the information we need and that you know where we have been in the dark in many ways or or surprised to see things as well as the public. So I appreciate the efforts um that are being or what you what superintendent Sue is saying about moving towards more transparency and explanation. Thank you. Commissioner Alexander, do you want to make a comment?

Um, okay. Um, are there any other question commissioner or vice president healing? I just want to ask questions for clarity for the public. One is that the approval of this fiscal stabilization plan does not mean that these cuts will be enacted. Is that correct? That's correct. It's it's to meet the statutory requirement. And if we don't meet the statuto requirement, the consequence is that we remain in negative fiscal certification at this time.

That's that's the worst potential outcome, right? Uh the other outcome is that they're silent on it. However, in the letters from the CDE, uh they have specifically directed the school district and the board that they expect a fiscal stabilization plan approved at each interim period. Thanks. But to clarify, they didn't give us a timeline per se, did they? with each interim report.

Okay. Um well, I'm going to just continue to ask questions until uh Commissioner uh Gupta returns. Um so quick question about that and I I know that uh Mr. Duchon Elliott you are listening in. Is that correct? Yes, I am here. Would you like to make comment?

Well, I cannot tell you what CDE will respond to if you don't give them a fiscal stabilization report or plan. The responsible thing to do is to give them a plan. If there's part of the plan that you are uncomfortable with as a board, you can either modify it or make a proviso in your motion that you're going to commit it in some other way. That's pretty much the the language in the letter that you received from CDE said that they will require you to produce an FSB. It's right alongside or FSP. it's right alongside the interim report. They should go hand in hand. Um, they lose meaning if they're not paired together. I mean, the the problem is if you were to want to negotiate some kind of something different with them, that would have to be a direct conversation with the people that sign off on the interim report and the FSP. So my recommendation is to in some way, shape or form pass it in at least concept and commit to making the cuts as needed. Not necessarily the cuts in there. You can replace one cut for another. I mean, it's it really has got to be and we're talking Oh, I want to clarify that most of the plan that we're talking about, if not all of it, is in your unrestricted general fund. So, it's those nine points. It's what's funded in unrestricted the the money you get from the state basically under your LCFF and um that's it. It's not your it's not your federal funds. It's not other state grants. It's not PEF. It's not all those other

multiple funding. And you have lots of places ultimately where you could move money out of the unrestricted fund. I know that was part of the intent here, but that you could still and and like any budget, it's dynamic. It's a work in progress. You know, I think this has been pointed out before. What you pass in June can change in July. What you pass in July can change in October. And the state comes back. You have different information. And you obviously are going to have to modify it as time goes on. If enrollment comes up, you get more money. If it goes down, you trim your loading. Not your loading, but the number of teachers you have. That's always going to be an issue in front of you. Um, thank you for that, Elliot. Um, Superintendent Sue, if If we were to vote down the fiscal stabilization plan um and the district were to bring one a revised fiscal stabilization plan back at the second interim, could you tell me anything you've learned about what you would do differently for um community engagement and how it might change between now and then? both the community engagement and the actual substantive plan in response to that community engagement.

Sure. Well, first um by January we will have more information from the governor's budget and our student enrollment numbers as well as by that time we would have shared our budget allocation to our with our um site leaders. Um, so we'll definitely have a lot more information which which then means that we're not talking to people in the abstract. Um, so I would go back to and start with talking to our site leaders. Um, engaging with our uh, school site council. Um, we will have a school site council summit on January 10th. Um, I've already seeing a lot of invites in my box here for for um community meetings. Um, so just continuing to engage with our communities. I think um uh Commissioner uh Alexander suggested to talk to current principles um about what would it look like for us to change um a you know a a master schedule in the way that we're proposing um and really think about impact. So I will commit to having more meetings with our community. I will say that I've had many um meetings already. We'll just continue to have more meetings. I think again this time around I will have more clarity around where the budget is and so therefore we can be more refined about that. Um I you know short of saying that I would go back and and continue to engage with our with our families um that is exactly what I will do. Um I will also go back and talk to our our team here um including all of our site leaders and um central office leaders

around um having some more some because part of the fiscal stabilization plan includes redu proposed options uh for central office staff as well. So there's multiple factors moving in this in this in this plan. Um so I will have to then go back with our own central office um staff and have those conversations. So within the next three months we will have a lot more conversations. Yeah. Commissioner Gupta then Commissioner Ray. Go ahead. Commissioner Ray.

Um thank you. I'd just like to follow up on Commissioner Healing's question. um you referred to having uh continuing to have more meetings. I'm wondering if there are other forms of engagement that you would consider doing that could reach a larger number of people. It's it is difficult for many people to come out to these meetings and I don't feel like we necessarily get a representative cross-section of our community. So, are there other ways that you would consider whether it's, for example, surveys, going to uh or having folks go to school sites to actually meet with people at those different sites so that there can be a meeting there just or other things, some other means. Yes. And that's what I was alluding to when I was saying that we have a lot of advisory bodies, um, a lot of parent councils, um, the DAX, the ELAC. I will definitely go back and have those conversations at those committee level. Um and of course our school site councils. Um I can we we have the summit coming up in in January. Um and we can I we can figure out how we can deploy ourselves so that we can have more focus maybe a couple of schools together to to talk about um how a plan like this could impact them. um we can be creative like

okay um the the one concern I have around that is that we often have um sort of the folks who are uh most engaged and capable of being engaged in in those sorts of fora and we don't necessarily reach folks you know who are sort of more just kind of more ordinarily attending families and community members and I just I wonder if there's some way to do that. I don't know how best we could do that, but whether it's a survey or not, but maybe even we could have somebody not necessarily even set it up by email, but stand around at some schools and, you know, offer, you know, to just say like here's something you can fill out and let us know just ideas about how to reach people who would not otherwise participate.

Thank you. Maybe we should come and talk to you about some of your ideas and then see what is possible. I can see where maybe Commissioner Ray is assigning all of us jobs. I hope the ad hoc committee members on public engagement are taking notes.

So So I also just want to touch upon you know the same idea of a public engagement because I I think as Vice President Huing was referring to earlier it's not just a matter of more. I don't know if more of the same kind of meetings we've been having would get us to the answers that we need and and so you know I'm I'm curious how do we collaborate with I mean right now it feels like a lot of inform on that spectrum as opposed to collaborate and empower. So, how do we engage the public in a way that actually collaborates and empowers our administrators, our educators, our family members that does reach out to different in different ways like Commissioner Ray is suggesting? Um, and and then also, I mean, what kind of data are we providing? I mean, we understand that and and I I think the public understands that we have to make difficult choices. And so, what information, what data are we providing? I mean, it sounds like we finally have good data that we can provide where we can provide those trade-offs and allow for our sites, uh, our community members to be able to make those choices and we can trust them with being able to do so. I mean, no one's going to agree on everything, but um certainly it feels like there's an opportunity to to better engage.

Um yes, and and again, I would love to um talk to commissioners about some of your own ideas about how you are engaging with our communities. Um again, uh our initial thinking was to to really start with talking to our site leaders, site administrators, um and and have and lean into their expertise around their school community uh because that is what the SSC is about. The SSSE is really about bringing together the entire school community and having those conversations with our school community about what they need. And so I again we can bring our our our administrators together, our site leaders together to to to share with them the proposals and then gather their feedback and then support them and then in in engaging their school community around how what the impact would be like. um what are their what are parents and famil family's fears um or what they're excited about and and we can continue to gather that. Um you know, I know that Chris wants to um finish the budget development within within January. But maybe what we could do is extend that process for a little bit longer so that we could have deeper engagement. Allow families a little bit more time, a week or two, a little bit more time. Um, so that we can do that deep engagement so that families are not feeling rushed. So that our site leaders are not feeling rushed. Um, but again, I want to honor the the fact that our site leaders are truly the the leaders within our schools. um and and really lean into the expertise um and quite frankly the role of the SSC.

I'm just as a followup, I'm curious what has stopped what stopped the team from doing that already because I thought that's what I thought was going to happen honestly when we talked this summer about start it was I was so excited when we were like oh we're going to do outreach super early like we had a plan around budget development and so I thought that this plan was going to have that level of input and that's why I was honestly surprised to get the feedback I've gotten from principles that were like I you know we had one meeting and they just told us and then all of a sudden that it was a done deal. And so what do you think stopped that that and again I'm not not necessarily even you as superintendent because it's this is done by folks at levels below you like what what stopped the team from being able to actually engage with principles and site councils up to now do you think?

Um yeah that's I mean that's definitely something that I'm going to have to spend a little bit more time debriefing with our team. I I do know that when we started the engagement with community um in October uh we we had we started out with a vision of like we wanted everyone to have level setting foundational understanding of budgeting um and in that first town hall meeting the the feedback immediately was no we don't we don't want to engage in that way we want to engage in a different way and so then in our second town hall meeting we pivoted again and changed the way we engaged um and talk to families and then in our third meeting because then then they're like no no no no we you can't talk to us and then we I I think by the time we um had our fourth our fourth meeting or even our fifth meeting um we we we continued to iterate and and went deeper and deeper in the way we were engaging. Um, and so I really do believe if we continue to engage and continue to have those conversations, I think we will get to a place where there's there would be more clarity. I will say in all of our engagements there there were consistent consistent themes of you need to prioritize teaching and learning. That is what we want. We want to see you do that. we want to see you make sure that you're allocating resources through the lens of equity and uh and that we wanted to make sure that um that you know schools um had flexibility. So, so those were some of the things that bubbled up through those engagement and and again I I fully acknowledge that when we posted these two spreadsheets, there were no explanation behind it. And and so all of that engagement and we we just didn't continue the loop and and

didn't go deeper. So what I want to do is continue pick up those conversations and go deeper and continue to have um now the impact conversation because we will pretty soon have clearer picture and understanding of what the budget looks like and as we're now saying okay this is what we know um and now we're you know proposing some of these cuts let's have that conversation. I'm going to bring us to a roll call vote. Before I do that, I want to just acknowledge that I will acknowledge that as a commissioner, I feel like we're kind of stuck with a statutory legal requirement document that we are needing to face because of the financial situation that we're in. a a document that was brought to the public that didn't have the necessary engagement leading up to it to actually inform us and the public about what was happening with a with a I think a loud desire for there to be improved engagement and communication across the board. And and I just want to acknowledge that tension and that frustration. Uh and and so here's what I would say. I would say regardless of what happens with this cont or with this contract with this FSP, I think it is very clear that this board has an in a a an expectation, let me just say it that

way. um that we see a stabilization plan come forward from staff that incorporate um and kind of just explicitly calls out areas in which uh you superintendent have heard from members of the public on on what they value. I mean ultimately our job here is to reflect the values of the community and I think the push back that you are hearing from us is because we've heard from so many members of the public who have stated um and reminded us frankly of the values that we have as a city. Um and not to suggest that you don't have those either but uh we're all kind of in a tough place right now. And um and again I I just want to name you know as the Elliott and team are listening we are incredibly committed to building a solvent district. Um and we have to do it the right way. Um and so I I just want to say that as we enter into this vote here. Uh roll call vote please. Miss Lenov. Commissioner Ray,

no. Commissioner Alexander, no. Commissioner Healing or Vice President Healing, sorry. No. Uh, President Kim, no. Uh, Commissioner Wisd Commissioner Gupta, no. And Commissioner Fischer, no. six six nays. Thank you. So that

if I may just before I move on, um I want to just remind staff this isn't necessarily a reflection of the work I know that our district is putting forward to get cleaner, better outlooks for our our financial situation. I think what we're experiencing is a deep call from community around understanding what exactly this is and how this plays out for our district and for our students. And so I I just I I want to recommmit to wanting to ensure that this board partners with you, superintendent, on bringing forward a plan that we can all get behind. Um and and again just affirm our commitment to wanting to build a a solvent district um together. So thank you.

Moving to item two. President Kim, first may I make a motion to extend our meeting past 10 p.m. since it's 10:35. Why do we have this? Second. We have it for good reason. Roll call vote, please. Got it. Um, I'm going back to the reg. Do I go back to the regular order or do you want to just We're going to do the roll call. Yeah. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Alexander. Um, sorry. To extend the meeting. Yeah. We just end the meeting past 10. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Uh, Vice President Hilly, yes. Commissioner Ray,

yes. Um, and President Kim, yes. Sorry, Z. The next item on the agenda is 2512-16 SP2, update on progress of superintendent short-term metrics. Can I have a motion and a second? I move that we approve motion uh 2512-16 SP2. Second. It has been properly moved and seconded that item that the board approve item 251216 SP2 update on progress of superintendent short-term metrics. I call in Dr. Sue.

Yeah. Uh well, let me sorry if we can withdraw that motion uh and add a correction to this item. This is actually more um a of a discussion update on the superintendent's progress monitoring. And so that that just was agendaized inaccurately. Apologies. No, no, no, no. Um so, so thank you for those who motion seconded. I apologize for that. Uh this is a discussion item. So, I'm going to actually move this until after the approval of HIPS and waiverss and then we'll just resume a discussion. Um, and then we'll close out for the But do you want me to make a motion to just postpone it or do we have to have the conversation today?

Uh, I mean actually while the item is out there. Uh, we don't have to have a conversation today. We can have a conversation in January. Um, unless Superintendent Sue, you needed something specifically from the port. No, I don't. We can postpone. Okay, then I move to postpone to a future meeting. Well, I can just pull the item from the agenda. Okay, then never mind. Okay, so we'll pull it. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Uh we'll move to um item 251216 SP3, approval of PIPS and waiverss.

Can I have a motion and a second for that, please? So moved. Second. It's been properly moved and seconded. The board approve item 251216 SP3 approval of PIPS and waivers. I call in Dr. Sue uh to read this into the record. Great. Thank you. Uh and I'm just going to hand it over to our associate superintendent of HR, Amy Bear. Good evening. I'm seeking approval of the board to offer uh five provisional internship permits so that we can have teachers who are working on their credential in the classroom, four multiple subject and one mild moderate credentials. Any comments or questions on the board? Thank you for the continuous recruitment and uh um we appreciate everyone who's coming in to work in our classrooms.

Thank you. Thank you. Debate is now closed on the motion to approve item 251216 SP3 approval of pips and waiverss. Roll call vote. Please let off. Commissioner Alexander, yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Hilly, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Um, and President Kim, yes. Success.

Thank you. Uh, President Kim has a standing recusal from the consent calendar due to his employment with City and County of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SFUSD to avoid any um appearance of impropriety. Um, Superintendent, do you have any changes to the consent calendar? I do not, but I believe you may have.

In in that event, I'd like to move uh to sever uh item H26, which is authorization to enter into a master contract with Alpine Academy and SFUSD for provision of instructional services. So, it can be voted on separately. Second. We have a roll call vote, please. Point of information. Isn't that supposed to happen according to our rules before the agenda is posted? I thought it wasn't allowed to pull things during the meeting. I checked earlier today and was told I could sever it from a motion with

I've been told in the past I wasn't allowed to sever day of or even it had to the the process we've used in the past has been um once we get the Q&A you know we have until like Thursday afternoon to sever or Friday and so Friday morning. So for clarity I'm not asking to make this a discussion item. I'm just asking to make it a separate vote. I'm not asking to open up process. I don't really have a problem with it. I sorry, maybe I shouldn't even object. I just want to be clear about the rule. I I don't have a problem with it, but I just it would be good to know what the whether we're still adhering to that process or not.

That's a great question. I don't know. I don't know whether or not this is something that is continued in terms of custom. Um, but there's nothing from my understanding that precludes somebody from making a motion today to sever something, but we can look into that in the future. There's no objection to Vice President Huing's request to simply have this item number 26 separately voted upon.

Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm not objecting, but I I would just like to let's look up if we could um just make a note to look up the board policy. And I'm actually fine with changing the board policy if it's not consistent. I just think it might be a violation of board policy. And so I didn't want to like do it and then have it come up later, I guess. But I don't have any substantive objection. Is that Can we move to a roll call vote and folks can vote how they want? Oh, there's a second. But but we this is

Yeah, it's just a motion to sever. Okay, Commissioner Alexander. Yeah. Yes. Commissioner Fischer. Well, okay. Point of clarification. Are we actually going to discuss the contract or is it just going to be straight up and down vote? It's just a straight up and down vote. Then no. Um, Commissioner Gupta, yes. Comm uh, Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, yes. Um, I think that's it. That's four eyes to separate the vote.

Thank you. Um, I move the approval of item H26, uh, authorization to enter into a master contract with Alpine Academy and SFUSD for provision of instructional services. It's H26. Yeah, we did just just FYI, we did just violate our work rules.

I'm I'm moving to just vote on age 26. that vote that I just took that was to sever and then this is a motion to just vote up and down on that item. Is there a second? Second. 26. Yes. Commissioner Fischer. Yes. Commissioner Gupta. No. Commission. Uh, Vice President Haley. No. Um, Commissioner Ray. Yes.

Uh, it fails. It's only three eyes. Thank you. Um, and I move uh the approval of the remainder of the consent calendar. Is there a second? Second. Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Commissioner Fischer, yes. Uh, Commissioner Gupta, yes. Vice President Healing, yes. Commissioner Ray, sorry, just to clarify, this is on the rest of the rest of the cassette calendar. Yes. And um that's uh five eyes.

Thank you. So just as followup um so just so because I think there might be confusion about this later. We did just technically violate our rules which say any motions during the board meeting to add, remove or modify items on the consent calendar other than a motion to table an item to a future meeting are out of order. So like I said I don't have an that's under board policy 932. I don't object to the content of this and so I don't think it's a problem. I don't know if that's legally a problem, but I would just ask that we if that if we are going to do that, let's just clarify the policy and I would support changing it if we want to change it just so that we're clear and that the board policy is consistent with what we're what our practices are.

Thank you for the clarity. I did contact district today to see if it was in order and this is the council that I got. So, I appreciate you following up with the details and we'll move forward accordingly in the future. Moving to item I, board member reports. Would any commissioners to speak on any of the following three items? Uh, board delegates to member organizations. Reports by board members for discretionary advisory committee appointments by commissioners. Anyone? Commissioner Fisher.

Right. I have total pickme energy right now. Um, uh, we had a lovely CSBA, California School Board Association meeting in the beginning of December. Um, I was honored to be able to attend as one of our delegates along with Vice President Huing and Commissioner Gupta. Um, who are also our delegates. Um, we got a lot of kudos within region five for having finally a full delegation. Um, and also thank you for reappointing me with consent item number 39. Appreciate that. Um, uh, so we had a lot of great updates in the, um, legislative updates, in the legal updates. Um we got a great um uh update on the political landscape and there were a bunch of great sessions at the um education conference as well. So um there were some really informative conversations around um braiding funding for mental health support that have been shared with staff. We made a lot of great connections with other um other commissioners in in other school districts to be able to um benchmark and share best practices about some of the things we're doing. And um it was I think very productive for all of us. So, thank you both for attending with us in Sacramento. Um and that's it.

Thank you, Commissioner Fischer. Commissioner Ray,

thank you. I just wanted to uh briefly share that I participated this year in the um student outcomes focused governance um cohort training for board members and I very much appreciate the district's participation in this and uh for sending you know sending one of us in in order to go through that training and be able to meet other board members and not just board members but also you know staff and people who for training to be coaches so we can get a variety of perspectives and an understanding of what the student outcomes focused model is all about and how to tackle the sort of um everyday matters that we encounter. So I found it extremely helpful. I particularly appreciated being able to connect with board members from across the country and hear about what challenges they were facing and how they were addressing those challenges. And uh FYI, we are supposed to have a delegate and they are, as I understand, officially considering me the delegate because I was in the program. But if we want to specifically name somebody else, I just wanted to note that because that's what I've been told. So that they consider me to be our district.

I nominate Commissioner Ray as the delegate to Council of Grey City Schools. Thank you. We will take it into consideration. My people will speak with your people. Okay. Uh any other questions, comments, updates? Yes.

Yeah. Um just to follow up on a request to receive uh a list of of um appointees or appointments that we need to make. I I attended a couple of different um groups and and the number one feedback I received was when are you going to appoint people? And so um having that list would be incredibly helpful. So we make sure that we as board members are doing our duty. Yeah, I know that board office staff are working in partnership with uh Hungme and her team uh and Chris to um finalize that list. Um I think there's there's a lot of lists to reconcile. So thank you.

Even on the website like the PEF capac list is not updated. I mean there's a link on our website and when you click through the roster is is old. Yes. Oh, go for it.

But I think Chris is doing something. Yes. So yeah, what we're working on is identifying um quite a lot about each of the advisory bottle uh bodies and uh appointments. Um so yes is coming. Thank you. Okay with that um item Journ I today's meeting at 10:51 p.m.