San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta. Vice president Heuling. Here. Commissioner Ray. Here. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. And president Kim.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Here. Item a, general information, accessibility information, translation interpreter services, and virtual meeting information can be found online.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: At this time, the board of

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: the board goes into closed session. I call for any speakers to the closed session items listed in the agenda. There will be a total of five minutes for speakers. Are there any speakers for closed session?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: There are none in person or online. Great.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Seeing none, we will convene for closed session at 04:06PM.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[Tianna Tillery (Vice President, Paraeducators, UESF; SFUSD employee)]: SFGOVTV,

[SFGovTV Announcer]: San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer [override]]: SFGOV

[SFGovTV Announcer]: TV, San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco government television.

[SFGovTV Announcer [override]]: SFgovTV,

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: San Francisco government television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: SFgovTV,

[SFGovTV Announcer]: San Francisco government television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV. San Francisco Government Television.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: SFgov TV, San Francisco government television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFGOVTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFGOV TV, San Francisco Government Television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SFgovTV, San Francisco government television.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: In one matter of anticipated litigation, the board, by a vote of seven ayes, gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of student SW versus SFUSD, OAH, case number 2025020436, the board, by a vote of seven ayes gives direction to the general counsel.

[Superintendent Soong]: Six. President

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Kim, I think those are the incorrect items.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: To just correct the record very quickly, in the one matter of anticipated litigation, the board by a vote of six ayes. Wait. Right?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes. Yeah. And for all.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see. I wrote it now. It's the wrong word. Can I see which script you're looking at?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Oh, so sorry. This one? Is it this one? Okay. Where is my script accurate though? Sorry. Apologies for the Okay. Thank you. Item c, in one matter of anticipated litigation, there we go. By board, by a vote of six ayes with commissioner Gupta, absent, gives direction to the general counsel. In one matter of real real property negotiation, the board, by a vote of five ayes and two noes, by commissioner Gupta and Alexander, gives direction to the general counsel. Apologies for that. Glad we caught that. Okay. The SFUSD Board of Education follows a student outcomes focused governance model 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. This model also calls on the board, to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach those goals within the gold guardrail set by the board. As we implement this new governance framework, the board will continue to adopt new systems, routines, and policies that improve student outcomes. We encourage the public to follow the this work on our website at s f u s c dot e d u slash governance as we commit to finding new and improved ways to more meaningfully engage with staff, students, and families. Item d, public comment. To align with our effective governance model, the public comment will last for one hour. So let's say seven forty five PM. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by beginning board business at an appropriate time. Our hope is to conduct board business in an effective, efficient, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. Each participant may ask 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 mister Steele to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comment via email at boardoffice@sfusd.edu. We will first hear from students in person on agenda items, then general public in person on agenda items, followed by students in person on non agenda items, and then in general public in person on non agenda items. Regardless of whether in person public comment is complete, we will save fifteen minutes for remote public comment, which according to our timeline will be at 07:30PM, taking commenters in the same order as in person. If any time remains, we will return to in person public comment. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow-up with speakers.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Okay. Mister Seal. Thank you, president Kim. We're gonna start with students. I will call, I'll call all eight of you up, together. So please step to the podium. We'll have one minute each. And just to remind everyone, you don't need to be right up on the mic and not too far away. Just like maybe three or four inches is perfect. So Jaden Knutson, Finnegan Kelly, and I think it says Dolly. I'm sorry. I can't read it. But if you filled out a card, you can come up, please. Connie. I'll come back to that. Perez Waters is the last name. Barbara Slater, Nia Slater. Teto Hannibal. And then there's one more that I I'm sorry, I can't quite read it. But if you filled out a card, you can come line up, please. Thank you. And you can go ahead.

[Jaden (Academy Student Body President)]: Hello. My name is Jaden, and I'm the academy student body president. And I'm here to address my concerns about the plans to close our school next year. During my junior year, the district was starting to close the academy for the third time since I've been there, so I transferred to a bigger school. Then I realized how unique and important academy's small, tight knit community is. After I transferred, my grades dropped significantly. I felt isolated and invisible. I was not getting the support I needed and it felt like staff did not care about me. So I returned to academy. Now my grades my grades have improved, not only because I'm more motivated when I'm surrounded by peers who know and care about me, but also because the teachers at academy truly see their students in a way I've never experienced at any other school. The faculty really cares and makes a genuine effort to help us, something that they're only able to do because they know each of us on a personal level. Every time that I've tried to get concrete answers about the closure and how I feel that the district's been targeting academy since I was a freshman, I've only gotten the response, we understand your frustration. I feel ignored. The academy student body and our families are being dismissed and I wanna know once and for all why the district believes that this closure is justified because it isn't. I hope that you, I hope my concerns will be addressed. Thank you for your time.

[Finnegan Kelly (Academy sophomore)]: Hi. I'm Finnegan Kelly and I'm currently a sophomore at Academy High School. I come here today to address my concerns around my school's closure. In a bigger school like Wallenberg, whose student body after the merger will be six times out of the current academy student body, I will have to introduce myself to a whole new population. As a trans student, I am well aware that this will likely expose me to transphobia, bullying, and discrimination of many forms. To an extent, bullying and conflicts are part of the high school experience. But as a trans student, especially right now, my fear of these experiences is greatly enhanced. Historically trans students have been subject to some of the most cruelest and violent bullying, even in places like San Francisco. I know that the district has policies in place to prevent such occurrences. But given that I've had past experience of discrimination from peers and adults alike and just in larger district schools, I know that such things tend to fall through the cracks. My concern is that in a bigger school with less tight knit community and less involved wellness staff, these issues will be more likely to occur and much more difficult to resolve once they do. If this merger does happen, I will not be able to attend Wallenberg and I will be pulling out of s f USD completely because my trust in our school system will have been lost. And. I know that I'm not the only one with these concerns. I hope that my mine and my peers voices will be genuinely listened to and taken into consideration. Thank you for your time.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Dolly (Academy junior)]: My name is Dolly. I'm a junior in Academy High School. People are forgetting that we have a choice. Every student knows how small Academy is and what they offer and will still decided to stay. The academy is not a school, it's a family. I came as a freshman filling the classes with the most terrible attendance a student could have. But because academy is a small school, they noticed me. As soon as I was noticed, teachers started teaching reaching out to me to help me. I saw it as a place where there was people who loved me and supported me, but I also noticed in a big school, I would not have been noticed. Academy closes is not fair. The district is making it seem that this is a great opportunity, but reality is an opportunity to lose friends, my support system in school, my good grades, and also lose myself. Their academy helped me find a pathway to education, but also for my life in general. Everything is going to be thrown away just because there's not enough funds. I thought this was a unified school district but the district seems to have forgotten what unified means. Mauricio and the rest of the district, do you care about education in our community? Because you don't seem to.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Connie Cetu (Academy senior)]: My My name is Connie Cetu, and I am a senior at the academy. The email regarding academy's the email regarding academy's closure that our families received put an emphasis on how merging with a bigger school would offer more AP classes, sports, and clubs to the current students at academy. However, Wallenberg would not be able to provide the necessary support for academy students to succeed in those AP classes unlike our school. As for clubs, before the academy switched to focus more on college and career, we did have clubs like chess club, yearbook, and creative creative writing slash journaling and more. So if the district didn't decide to implement the CCSF program, we would still have these extracurriculars. Lastly, when it was first announced two years ago that we would no longer have sports because of the changes to our school, school, many of our students transferred out. At the very last minute, it was announced that this was false, and many of our athletes said that they would have stayed if they had known there would still be they would still be able to play sports. Academy sports would therefore not have declined. From my understanding, these reasons came from data three years ago came from data three years ago and do not currently reflect how academy students feel about our school. It is an oversight of the district to close the school based on outdated information. Thank you for your time.

[Alex Perez Waters (Academy student)]: Okay. I'm Alex Perez Waters. I go to Academy High School, and one thing that I don't see talked about enough, in this closure is the campus. The McAteer campus itself is massive with over 80 acres of land, and it's one of the only campuses that serves fresh food instead of packaged food, some of it grown from a student run farm directly on campus. What you're doing by closing the school is taking all the things on this campus away from less privileged students and giving it to a school not only with a higher percentage of white students, but a lower percentage of low income students. I know the district is unaware of how much we love our campus. I know that they seem to think that they're rescuing us from a so called lifeless basement, but that just isn't true. Academy loves our campus, and we've worked hard to fill it with life.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: for your time. Thank

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: you.

[Nia Slater (Academy junior)]: Good evening. My name is Nia Slater, and I'm a junior at Academy High School. Firstly, I would like to say that last year we were threatened to have our school shut down again. Maria Sue came to the academy to apologize for how the district was treating the academy community. Like, we didn't matter or we aren't high schools that have real feelings and are figuring out life. On the topic of convening, I would like to bring up on how this decision is going to break us all apart. The people I am closest with will not be attending Wallenberg because it is not convenient, which is very inconsiderate for most people that attend academy. Moving us ignores the relationships and bonds we have made with every everyone here. We would be left with no meaningful adult or support, which is even more dehumanizing. You guys need to stop treating us like statistics or rats used for testing sorry. You guys are not sorry. You guys need to stop treating us like statistics or rats that are used for the testing in a lifeless basement. Many of us do not have a good home life. The academy makes up for that. We are all a family that supports each other through our hard times. Ever since my freshman year, I have not been able to have a sturdy foundation out of school because we have been lied to and threatened by the district by the district. Academy was there for me through those tough times. We are human. We matter. We need our support systems and people. Wallenberg cannot afford cannot offer people the the same comfort sorry. Wallenberg cannot offer people the same comfort that we feel at academy due to the size. We choose the academy because of the size, because there are 99 people, not 500, because of how the school operates and the classes it offers. One last thing I would like to add is that everything that is happening with ICE right now, it feels the same way in the situation, being taken away from our home and sent away from people that we love. Thank you for your time.

[Bloom Oxider (Academy senior, disabled student advocate)]: Hi. My name is Bloomoxider and I'm a current senior at Academy. I feel that there has been a lot of miscommunication and lack of understanding from the district in regards to this closure. I don't think that you fully understand the people that this closure is impacting. And I've heard a lot from the district that they understand our frustration, but I don't think that is true. Frustration does not begin to encompass what we are feeling right now. What we are feeling is grief and loss over what academy has provided for us in these years. Our academy academy serves a lot of students with disabilities and five zero four plans and IEPs. And although we have received hollow assurances from district employees about our five zero four plans transferring when we go to Wallenberg, what Academy does for the inclusion of disabled and disabled students like myself is much more than what is on paper. And we have received little to no information about what will happen to those services and to our wellness staff if this murder occurs. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

[Toto Hannibal (Academy senior; Student Council VP)]: My name is Toto Honeybell. I'm a senior at academy and I'm the vice president of the student council. The plan to close academy next year is a shameful attempt to rectify an extensive series of administrative oversights. SFUSD has not taken accountability for the repeated failures that have culminated into the decline of public school enrollment, understaffing, a dialogue of funding, and now the destruction of my community. Academy is being made to bear the brunt of the systemic neglect and being lied to that it is in the interest of our students. My black and brown peers and those of us with learning differences will be negatively impacted by Emerge with Wallenberg, a school that is much less equipped to serve our unique student body, something the district has failed to do and continuously demonstrated its apathy towards. Let us not forget the first closure of the just as predominantly black and brown and special needs J. U. G. McAteer High School and the School and the later, frankly, racist exclusion of the Academy of Arts and Sciences from SOTA's disproportionately white art programs despite their use of our demographics and sports teams. This neglect of the smaller marginalized community on the McAteer campus by San Francisco Unified School District is persistent and historic. It is not equity. It is exactly what the SFUSD school what the SFUSD claims to be against. I demand that you stop this closure. I demand that my community is recognized. Thank you. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Were there were there any other students who filled out a card that would care to speak? Okay. We're gonna move on to agenda items. We have one card submitted for that. Darius, you can come to the podium, please. One minute.

[Darius (former SFUSD staff; tech entrepreneur)]: Good evening. My name is Darius. I used to work for SFUSD, helping with master ports for taxes and data engineering. Some of you guys might might know me. As a person who worked here, I know you guys work day and night to fix the problems here, And I know you're dealing with a lot. And we all know we have financial problems here. And these problems might come out at some point, and people might get tax issues, retirement issues. We have budget deficit. As a person who faced these problems, I recently, started a tech company, put a team together and reached out to other county offices in California, and we built a new software for financial management and compliance for county offices. And we don't charge $50,000,000. We charge 1% of that, what we paid already. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Okay. We'll move on to non agenda items. I'm gonna call five people at a time. Please line up with the podium of one minute each. Judith Gibbs, Nancy Petercoupo, Marilyn Laidlaw, Anna Claptor, and Krishna Kasabam. Always forgive me if I mispronounce it.

[Judith Gibbs (substitute teacher)]: My name is Judith Gibbs. I have worked as a substitute teacher in various California school districts for the last twenty seven, almost twenty eight years. First of all, I wanna tell you what I like. SFUSD is my favorite place that I have worked doing this kind of work. A lot of it has to do with the union, really sticking up for us and insisting that we'd be treated as professionals. SFUSD to say that, you know, I really like being somewhere where social justice is part of the curriculum, part of the values that drive us. It's time to live up to them. What's happened to subteaching this year, especially since we adopted the Red Rover absence management system, is just a mess. Okay? It used to be that I really felt I was being treated as a professional. I could choose among many jobs to see where I fit in best. Oh, that's near me, and I like the principal there or whatever else was going on. I no longer have those choices. I brought my phone to show you how I have to find work.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Your time, Judith.

[Judith Gibbs (substitute teacher)]: My time's up?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Yeah. I'm sorry.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. Yeah.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: Hi.

[Unidentified substitute teacher]: I'm also a sub, and I wanna voice my disapproval of Red Rover. It's not working. I might have picked up one job from that system, which they hired too many substitutes. There's an average of maybe 400 subjobs a day, and there must be about 1,500 substitute teachers right now. And, particularly the veterans, people with credentials, I have two credentials. It seems to me that we should be priority because some of this I hate to say this, but some of the people that new hires are like deers

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: caught

[Unidentified substitute teacher]: in the headlights. They cannot handle the students within the high schools I go to. And I was hoping that maybe the board would take a look at Red Rover and see how it could be improved. That's all I got to say. Thank you.

[Darius (former SFUSD staff; tech entrepreneur)]: Thank you.

[Marilyn Laidlaw (teacher/substitute, SFUSD)]: Good evening. My name is Marilyn Laidlaw. I am a teacher in San Francisco Unified. I've been here for thirty one years and I am now a substitute. I would like to, also discuss the substitute situation. San Francisco Unified has over hired subs, last winter to deal with the sub shortage. We have 1,100 subs approximately for 350 to 400 jobs. Veteran subs are having a very hard time getting jobs when we used to work every day. The large pool of uncredentialed and inexperienced subs that are flooding the district, the school staffs are overwhelmed, showing the new people how to do the job and correcting errors on attendance as this happens with quite a bit of regularity. Students deserve qualified experienced teachers, and they also deserve qualified experienced subs. Regular subs know the students in their schools and have far fewer problems. I know the students in the school I am in, and I have very few problems. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Anna Clafter (President, United Administrators of San Francisco)]: Good evening. I'm Anna Clafter. I'm the president of the United Administrators of San Francisco. And we stand in solidarity with our UESF colleagues and union, siblings. Second of all, October is principals' month, so I'd like to give it up to all of our, principals and school leaders. And I'm gonna share a piece of a press release that we're releasing tonight. On October 29, the United Administrators of San Francisco, UASF, will engage in a collective labor action in response to the district's refusal to grant us our raise and the continued deterioration of our working conditions. We will be boycotting a mandatory all administrator meeting at Burton High School on October 29 from 3PM to 5PM and holding a rally outside on the sidewalk instead. Over 220, thank you, of our 250 members have RSVP'd that they will be joining the boycott and rally as well as fellow unions, community organizations, local leaders, and other supporters of public schools. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Principal, Lafayette Elementary (name not stated)]: Superintendent and members of the board, I'm the principal at Lafayette Elementary. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here today as an administrator tasked with ensuring our schools run safely and effectively, and yet we're doing so with shrinking resources and growing responsibility. We're supervising more students with fewer staff, coordinating and overseeing facility issues, and navigating complex budgeting, all while absorbing the duties of eliminated roles like assistant principals, clerks, and parent liaisons. Let's be clear. It's not sustainable to keep asking us to do more with less. Our workloads have increased while our resources have been slashed. That's not innovation, that's exploitation. If the budget is being reduced, the work log the workload must be adjusted accordingly, period. And let's talk about compensation. We deserve pay that reflects the value of our work, aligned with our teaching colleagues and sufficient to keep us in this city. We are here because we care deeply about our students and communities. Thank you. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Okay. I'm gonna call the next group. Please line up. Diane Lao Yi, Dina Edwards, Sam Murphy, Jennifer Melez, Myra Quadros, and Myra Quadros.

[Diane Maillie (Principal, Stevenson Elementary)]: Good evening, superintendent, commissioners. My name is Diane Maillie, principal of Stevenson Elementary and a proud SFUSD educator for nearly thirty years. I rarely speak out, so please hear this as a serious concern. For over a decade, I've led through crises, built trust, and shown up every day for my community. The toll is real. We work thirteen to fourteen hours a day, often sacrificing our health and our families. We are asked to give everything, yet we often go unseen and unheard. Our pay doesn't reflect the expertise or demands of the job. This makes it hard to recruit, mentor, and retain future leaders. It sends a message that leadership doesn't matter. If we want thriving schools, we need supported leaders. We take care of everyone else. Please take care of us. Approve the raise and improve conditions so we can continue serving students with excellence. Thank you.

[Dina Edwards (Principal, Sheridan Elementary)]: Good evening. My name is Dina Edwards, and I'm the proud principal of Sheridan Elementary School. I've been in this district for thirty years and throughout that time I've always understood that everyone has a hard job. I've made it a point to give others grace, but that grace is not always returned. Instead, what we often receive is more work, more responsibilities and less respect. As a principal for sixteen years, I can say without hesitation that the workload has more than doubled. We deserve better. Better working conditions, better compensation, and recognition for the vital role we play. Principals are the heart of our schools and the district's success. It is time that we be acknowledged. Thank you.

[Unidentified educator (threat of strikes)]: I just wanna make it clear to the board that you are asking all educators to accept a pay cut. Our health insurance costs are rising more than 40%. In January, I'll be paying over a thousand dollars a month for two people to get bare bones HMO coverage. A 2% raise doesn't come close to covering this, let alone providing educators with salaries that will live and thrive in San Francisco. I have nearly twenty years in this district. I've won multiple awards for teaching, including mayor's teacher of the year. I have turned down jobs in other districts that pay better and offer better benefits because I wanna work in my home city. I can't afford to keep making this choice. It's not a choice I want to make when you treat educators with such rank disrespect. We are here tonight to tell you to do better. Do better or prepare to be the leadership team that presides over the first teacher strike in fifty years and the first administrator strike in this district's history. Also, I guess this wasn't clear, but last year we made it obvious that closing schools was an assault on our communities. You pursue closure at your peril and Guardia worked hard to recall the school board. He's been recalled. Thank you. We can do it to you too.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. You're welcome. Just wanna remind everybody that just keep a few inches away from the mic when you speak. You can go ahead.

[Myra Quadros (Principal, New Traditions; VP, UASF)]: Thanks. Good evening. My name is Myra Quadros, and I'm the proud principal of New Traditions Elementary and vice president of UASF. I am here tonight to speak about the critical issue affecting administrators, our workload. You want us to do more with less? What would that look like? We wouldn't know because you never include us in anything. We were not invited into any conversations about Frontline, Red Rover, the staffing model, budget reductions, the nursing cohort model, best timing for mandatory trainings for us, just to name a few, which is in direct contradiction of guardrail four, resource transparency that includes all stakeholders. The only way this works is if you make these decisions with us and not to us. Thank you.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified SPED advocate]: Our federal government is engaging in eugenics. The devastation of IDEA is an emergency. I will be advocating for the state and city to fill those, these additional financial holes. I'm planning I am pleading for smart governance of our special education to help us get that money and communicate trust in public schools. The head of special education needs to be on the executive board directly communicating with the superintendent, no deputy in between. Stabilization of our central office SPED and disclosure of staff openings and their impacts. Transparency of data on SPED demographics and the impacts and progress of all con all contracts need to be analyzed. Financial stability and transparency of the SPED budget, a full account of spending from the previous year's SELPA to the public, warts and all, stable and supportive pipeline for SPED educators, paras and therapists. Sharing information of openings with labor partners and collaborative negotiations, we need these educators and staff to feel appreciated so they stay.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. Can call the next group, Eric Perez, Ryan Hightower, Miss Tsai or Miss A, Erica Jungens, Josh Davidson, and and Patricia Willings. Or I'm sorry. I thought I'd be a little bit Patricia.

[Eric Perez (Science Teacher, Academy at McAteer)]: I'm the science teacher at the academy. The students have talked about our past transgressions, but I'm here to talk about the future we confront, a future where successful models that serve a diverse population like the academy will be dissolved to make room for the richest and least diverse school in the district that prevents the enrollment of the exact students it displaces. We're confronted with the future vision of an SFUSD that no longer consults its communities before making decisions that deeply impact them, directly contradicting our district's vision to invest in family engagement and a future where the administration's promise, such as the promise to not close schools, cannot be trusted. There's a future where we have yet to see the evidence that the closure aligns with the SFUSD slated commitments to racial equity and community partnership. It is in your capacity to create a future for SFUSD that aligns with the exact vision, not one that undermines it. Tonight, I urge the board to stop the closure of our school and follow through on our commitment for to a transparent community driven, and student centered discussion.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Ryan Hightower (ELA teacher, Academy at McAteer)]: Hi. My name is Ryan Hightower. I am an ELA teacher at academy and department head. I wanna give a big kudos to our students for coming today and, living their statement to the people who are making decisions about their school. We've been promised transparency for the last three years. I was part of design team processes that were overseen by, the office of the superintendent. And anything, but transparency has been the norm over the course of those last three years. We've been, hit three years in a row with, notices of closure or of program thinning, right at enrollment time for our junior highs. We've, had the removal of our table at the upcoming enrollment fairs, not to mention, last year's kind of backtracking on decisions around school closures at the exact same time that enrollment fairs are going on. So when you look at classes that are diminishing in size and and trying to force that conversation around program modeling not aligning with what students want, doesn't seem logical to me. Thank you. Thank you.

[Ms. Tsai (Substitute/Guest Teacher)]: Hold on. Get my speech together. Namaste, y'all. Hope you and your families are safe. My affirming name is Ms. Tsai, a product of SFUSD K through 12 and now a substitute, or as I like to say, a guest teacher, serving in over 30 low resource schools across San Francisco. Believe it or not, this is one of my favorite careers, a win win win for students, teachers, and admin alike, and I'm thanked every day. For nearly two decades, I've exchanged in culture and knowledge with brilliant students from all lived experiences. Youth who fled war, genocide, poverty, and family separation, yet still laugh at my jokes, take three buses to school, have to work during or after school, and show up ready to learn. Their resilience inspires me every day. But to serve them fully, we need safety care training and proper support. I've seen students bang their heads on walls, throw iPads, Chromebooks, and desks. I saw bruises from one incident last week. In in special education rooms, I've seen teachers so covered in bruises they look like tattoos. Some are now permanently disabled, no longer able to work. We love our students. We show up because we care but care requires action. We're doing our part. Please do yours to ensure we have safe working conditions that students and teachers deserve.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Ms. Tsai (Substitute/Guest Teacher)]: Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Unidentified substitute teacher]: Hi. I'm also part of the substitute cohort. I was looking at the agenda for today, and an item, 33 on the consent calendar is a futility resolution for the district to have a contract with Red Rover. I'm gonna tell you, that really sounds futile. Substitute teachers have been reeling, especially day to day substitute teachers with Red Rover. It has been a a tragedy for very seasoned and teachers who are used to some classrooms. They are not being able to be assigned to those, positions. But I'm here to talk about sick leave. I had COVID. I had to go to work with COVID because Red Rover forgets who is from Pennsylvania forgets that California workers have a right to seek leave except for substitute teachers at SFUSD. For four months, Red Rover has been in operation, and they still did not resolve the problem that we cannot log in for a sick leave. Please solve that. Thank you.

[Josh Davidson (Chef, SF Public Schools)]: Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Davidson, chef for San Francisco Public Schools. The McAteer Campus Community Farm is harvesting pumpkins and kale this month. We have the last season tomatoes, very few of them because we don't get a lot of sun up on the hill, but we do have a few. There I got two strawberries. Many many wonderful things happening. Thanks to the students of Academy at McAteer. I just wanted to make that point. Have a good night.

[Patricia (“Miss W”) (substitute teacher)]: My name is Patricia. Kids over there might know me as miss w academy kids. You're all amazing. And I am so proud to substitute teach to support the incredible teachers and students of SFUSD, but I don't do this job for fun. My rent is due on the first just like anyone else's, although I'm now paid on the fifth for some reason. My health care doesn't pay for itself. And since the sub job shortage cut my hours so much that I'm losing my district health insurance, it's about to get a lot more expensive. Subbing used to be a livelihood, not a lottery. Some mornings, we stay up until 3AM or wake up at five refreshing Red Rover over and over for jobs. On the days we do get jobs, we get nearly no information on them, which is how I taught PE today, dressed like this. Subs cannot give schools our best when we're unprepared, sleep deprived, and constantly worried about whether we'll have a job from day to day or anytime in the future. The whole substitute system is unsustainable as it stands. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. Okay. I'm calling the next group. Brandy Markman, Laura Kennedy, Tianna Tillery, and Natalie Herge. Go ahead.

[Brandy Markman (parent advocate, SF Education Alliance)]: Hello. My name is Brandy Markman. Last year, our current school board president came up with a plan that tried to close quote 12 schools. One of those was my my son's former elementary school, Sule Zutra Elementary. We fought that plan and won, and I stand in full opposition with the amazing students and staff at the Academy at McAteer. Their school should not be closed. We need to have a zero tolerance policy for school closures at SFUSD. School closures do not save money. They are attack on our public school students, and they are unfair. And if you believe we got a lot of union people here, then an injury to one is an injury to all. You will all join as a community, as a city, and fight this. Because this time, it's the academy. Next time, they're gonna go down the line. Harvey Milk, Malcolm x. This is a plan, and they're not gonna stop, so we're gonna fight back. I worked with staff at that school to come up with a petition. It's on my organization's website, the San Francisco Education Alliance. Please, everyone, fill it out and let these students know that we stand in solidarity with them and they're not alone.

[Laura Kennedy (parent, Yick Wo Elementary)]: Hello. My name is Laura Kennedy. I'm a parent to a first grader at Yickwell Elementary. One year ago was my first board meeting after the announcement of Yickwell being one of the potentials to schools to close. That's what brought me here. That's not what keeps me here. Two weeks ago at the board meeting, we talked about the fiscal insolvency and the budget plan and the timeline and the need to have community engagement soon. I haven't heard anything about that since. One week ago, we had our SSC meeting. I wanna acknowledge principal Sanchez and a quote that he shared with us at that SSC meeting. Whatever the problem, community is the answer. When people are anxious and scared, we withdraw from one another. Listening helps us lean in and hold each other. That's a quote from Margaret Wheatley. I just wanna ask us to hearing from the hearing from the students at the academy, hearing from our school administrators and school site leaders, it seems there's not enough engagement and decisions happening in a vacuum. Please lean in, engage. We wanna solve this together. Thank you.

[Tianna Tillery (Vice President, Paraeducators, UESF; SFUSD employee)]: Hey, y'all. Hey. Hey. Hey. Wake up a little bit. That's her. Hey, y'all. How y'all doing? Trying to hype myself up. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tianna Tillery. I'm the vice president of the paraeducators with UESF and an employee of SFUSD for twenty six years. Dang. That's a lot. Okay. For the last eight months, we've been bargaining and asking for what every educator deserves, a fair workload, a living wage, and health care that covers our families. Our paraeducators are the backbone of SFUSD despite how we're treated. We support students with disabilities, provide small group academic support, translate for families, and create safe spaces in every school. We do all this with little to no training and limited resources from the district. Yet, we continue to give everything we have to our students. I'm almost done. Over 4,000 members have signed our strike ready petition, as you can see decorated on your walls. That is not a threat. That is a reflection of our unity and our frustration. We want partnership, not conflict, but partnership starts with respect. Act with urgency.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: No, no,

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: no, no.

[Tianna Tillery (Vice President, Paraeducators, UESF; SFUSD employee)]: Where'd he go? Okay. Invest in the people who make SFUSD work. Our students can't wait and neither can we. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Natalie Hrisey (VP of Substitutes, UESF)]: Good evening. My name is Natalie Hrisey. I serve as the vice president of substitutes, as you've heard from them today, of United Educators of San Francisco. Yes, we represent all substitutes classified and certificated. I'd like to start by saluting the students at McAteer. It takes a lot to stand up as you did, and you model for us what community really looks like and what we should be striving for. Thank you. I also want to stand. We stand with our siblings in UASF, and we'll be there. But what I'd really like to speak about today is

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: the

[Natalie Hrisey (VP of Substitutes, UESF)]: substitutes. Right now, substitute educators who were relied on when there was no one to cover the schools just two years ago to cover the classes are suffering. People call me crying because they have to wake up every morning at four in the morning just to try and find a job, and then they get to the job and it's canceled. The level of competition that our substitutes are being subjected to is unimaginable, And there are solutions, but they need to be enacted right now. And we need partnership in order to enact those solutions and fix what's happening for our substitutes. What Patricia said about the sick time is deeply urgent. It is California law that they have sick time and that it rolls over from last year, and there is no way for our substitute educators to access their sick time. The law is being broken every single day. The health benefits are being denied not only because they can't get work, but the hours are miscounted. We're in constant conversation about these things, but we're here today because those conversations aren't working. The substitutes came out today in our rally, in our picket, and they're speaking to you today from their hearts because they've been in SFUSD, they wanna stay in SFUSD, and right now, district management is making that untenable. It's not just Red Rover. It's the hiring of hundreds and hundreds of subs and the competition that exists right now, and it has to end. So we're here today to ask you all to help us to make that work, to immediately enact the sick time they're legally allowed, to fix the system with the health benefits, and to enact solutions that make the work more sustainable for our kids, our schools, and our communities. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. President Kim, that concludes in person public comment. Should we move on to virtual? Thank you. Alright. We're gonna start with students this evening. Students can speak on agenda or non agenda items. Again, this time is only for students. So if you're a student, please raise your hand if you care to speak during public comment. Could that be repeated in Chinese and Spanish, please? Thank you very much. Again, if you care to speak, any students, please raise your hand. You have one minute. Citizen five?

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Yes. Hello.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Hello? Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Are you a student at one of our schools?

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: No. I'm not.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Alright. So you're gonna speak next, so please lower your hand. Thank you. Are there any any students out there? Okay. We'll move on to agenda items. If you care to speak to an item that is on the agenda this evening, please raise your hand. Adults can do that now at this point. So can that be repeated in Spanish and Chinese, please? Thank you. Again, one meter each. Citizen five, you can go ahead.

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you. I have one minute.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Yes.

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Is it is this on, general public comment or for a specific item?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: This is for agenda items, so it would be for a specific item.

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Can I speak just in general?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: You may not until the next section.

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Then what item is, is up right now?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Again, so this is for agenda items. So after when I say we're speaking on non agenda items, that's when you raise your hand. Thank you. So I I just see a number here. It's 632722. You can go ahead. Again, there's a a number of Hello?

[Marsha Barrett (former principal, Mira Loma Elementary)]: Hi. This is Marsha Barrett. I'm the former principal of Mira Loma Elementary School. I reviewed tonight's agenda, specifically number 12 on the consent calendar. Is there a reason why the attached report of tonight's certificated personnel action is missing? Can this be approved without public transparency? Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. Parents for public schools, Vanessa, maybe.

[Vanessa (Parents for Public Schools–SF)]: Thanks, Judson. Good evening, everybody. This is related to board directions agenda item. I'm here to address some critical concerns that we've raised in the PBS report card. I sent that to all board members. It's also on our website. First, I wanna indicate a disconnect between board decisions and community values. We appreciate that there are complexities in the district and balancing opinions. But we need to make sure that we are moving forward evidence based decisions. Please, everybody, go on our website, read the report. I think it'll help you build towards a sustainable future. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Veronica?

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Veronica? One more time. Veronica, are you there? Okay. Virginia Marshall.

[Virginia Marshall (community leader)]: Thank you, missus Steele. To, commit President, Kim and Board of Commissioners, Superintendent Soong.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: First, I

[Virginia Marshall (community leader)]: want to congratulate the amazing Leticia Irvin and the Ali team. Reverend Brown and I attended Saturday school last Saturday. It was for we attended a Harambee session. It was amazing. It was good to see parents there with their children. The children had delicious breakfast, nutritious breakfast first, and then went to their sessions. And we are commend you on thank you so much, missus Irvin and the OLLI team. We support unions always. It is really heartening, disheartening to hear about the substitute debacle at the moment. And also we support we hope that before October 29 that you always sit down with the with the principals and get that contract going and also to just help us community to feel good about our schools. We figured the red rubber was gonna have some issues. Now, we're hearing the issues and we hope to resolve those. And my last comment is that the n word is being used again. Superintendent Sue, so we need you

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: to Miss Marshall.

[Virginia Marshall (community leader)]: Remind principals to remind her

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Miss Marshall.

[Virginia Marshall (community leader)]: Not to use the n word. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Just Okay. Alright. Okay. Citizen five, we're moving on to a oh, excuse me, let me let me make an announcement before you go. We're gonna move on to non agenda items. So if you care to speak to a non agenda item, please raise your hand. Could that be repeated in Spanish and Chinese, please? Citizen Piven, go ahead.

[Starchild (Chair, Libertarian Party of San Francisco)]: Thank you. This is Starchild, Chair of Libertarian Party of San Francisco, lpsf.org. I'm just here to remind folks that one out of every three eligible kids in San Francisco goes to an independent school or home schools. And if educators are dissatisfied with the government school system, you might consider those as an alternative. I know the substitute teachers are treated badly, but the public is also treated badly in having to pay for all this. And really, we need separation of school and state for the same reasons we need separation of church and state because it's very dangerous to have government involved in telling people what to believe, especially young impressionable children. So schools should really be voluntarily funded and run by the community, not by the government. So I encourage educators and other professionals to consider careers outside the government school system. And if you're in the government school system, please don't just rely on soaking the public. Look at the central office staffing that's over paid and and becoming more and more bloated over the years.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: you. That's your time. Thank you. That's your time. Vanessa?

[Vanessa (Parents for Public Schools–SF)]: Thank you. This is a non agenda item related to academy. The recent California school dashboard paints a picture of strengths via the academy. There's increased ELA scores, high rate of college preparedness. This is testament of hard work of teachers, staff, parents, and students. The composition of the academy is 60% of students who are socioeconomic disadvantaged, and 11% who are English language learners. And so given the obvious successes, I'm hoping that the district looks at how it's going to sustain the resources of the school. Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank you. Sarah Amanoff.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Hi. My name is Sarah Amanoff. I'm an experienced twenty five year experienced substitute, I say, in solidarity. With the sub speaking today, Red Rover is not working, not just for this district, many other districts. It's basically hunger games for teachers. This is not acceptable. Veteran teachers are not getting any sleep. It's we can't get jobs for the first time in twenty five years. We risk losing health insurance at a time when health insurance is gonna be doubling. This year, the district eliminated the preferred list where secretaries put in subs directly at schools where they knew the students and the students knew the teachers. Students need teachers they know. You need to reinstitute that. Red River is not working. Thank you so much for your time.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Thank

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Chris Klaus.

[Chris Klaus (SPED Department Head, Washington High School)]: I'm I'm Chris Klaus, SPED department head at Washington High School. SFUSD has spent months completely rejecting our union's proposals at the bargaining table. Proposals that the district says that they agree with that are in line with the SFUSD's stated values, but they still reject them in full without proposing their own solutions to the issues that we keep trying to solve. SFUSD talks a good talk, but it is clear that our leaders are not interested in walking the walk. Speaking of walking, my one year old is walking and running now, but my husband and I both teach for SFUSD pulling ten plus hour days, so we miss time with him. Not that the district cares since we're both waiting on responses to payroll help tickets. Why is it that we dedicate so much of our time when this district can't be bothered to come prepared to solve problems at the bargaining table? Why are the students and staff at academy putting in so much time when the district can't even be bothered to engage with their community before deciding to shut down their school? It's because we actually do things that show that we care. We don't stop at words like the district.

[Josh Davidson (Chef, SF Public Schools)]: Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Gloria?

[Gloria Mazajewski (parent, former employee)]: Hi. This is Gloria Mazajewski, parent with the district, former employee. I began working in 1997 for the district under Dina with Dina Edwards' father who worked for the district for many years. You've got so many wonderful people working with you through all of the systematic failures of adoptions of things like Empower with through Infosys and Red Rover. It is disgusting to hear about the amount of money spent on broken systems that break the law. It's shocking. Give the teachers and the administrators what they need at the bargaining table immediately. Do not shut down the academy. Please stop strangling schools until you reach a closure point. Thank you.

[Josh Davidson (Chef, SF Public Schools)]: Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Hormel.

[Speaker 45.0]: Thank you. I am a parent of a student at the academy SF. And I would like to say, first of all, that listening to the students speak should be enough evidence right there that you should know that the academy is a success and you might wanna reconsider closing it. I would also like to address the fact that the district itself asked the academy to come up with a new and innovative program to save the school from closure just a year ago. The district capped enrollment on that program and then admits openly that the CCSF enrollment deadlines prohibited adequate enrollment in the school to keep the school open. So what is happening here is that the district is setting the school up for failure and then blaming the school for the failure. That's right. I think that the school district should give the academy enough time to follow through on this program to allow parents to even hear about it so that enrollment can raise to your requirements to keep the school open. You have not done a good job of supporting this program. You have not done a good job of supporting this school. Parents would go crazy.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: That's it. Thank

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: you. You're welcome.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: President Kim, that concludes virtual public comment.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. To align with our effect Thank you for everyone who showed up today, especially to the students who are here to speak on your school. Thank you for coming out and sharing your experiences with us at this time. To align with our effective governance practices, the superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft of each agenda twelve days in advance. Once that draft agenda is made public on our website, board members have made a commitment to submit clarifying and tactical questions, and staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q and A doc is linked into each board agenda on board docs, and we invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussions today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we'll be moving most items to our consent calendar and identifying only our highest priority agenda items to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance, but instead to bring forward strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards goals and the underlying strategies that we can be better informed in our decision making and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Item e, opening item, land acknowledgement. We, the San Francisco Board of Education, acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone,

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: who are

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramachish community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Moving on to item four, approval of board minutes, of regular meeting of the regular meeting on 05/13/2025, the special meeting of 08/24/2025, the regular workshop meeting of 08/26/2026, the regular meeting of August 9 it should say 2025. Sorry. Right? 08/26/2025? Regular meeting is 09/09/2025 and the regular workshop meeting of 09/30/2025. Yes. I think you should

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: May I make a motion?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes. Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I would like to move to postpone the minutes specifically for the special meeting of 08/24/2025 until our next meeting.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Is there a second? Oh, sorry. I second the motion to postpone the minutes of the August or sorry, September 9. Right?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: August 24, the special meeting.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Sorry. August 24 special meeting. Minutes to a future meeting. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves the or correct. It has properly moved and seconded that the board approve the motion to postpone to a future meeting the special meeting agenda of August minutes of 08/24/2025. Are there any comments or questions from the board? Oh, sorry. According to our motion details, can't have a discussion on that, but we would have a roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Student delegate Monn? Yes. Student Delegate Cruz? Yes. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Vice President Healy? No. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? No. And president Kim?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk) [override]]: That is five ayes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. For the remaining approval of board minutes, again, for the regular meeting of 05/13/2025, the regular workshop meeting of 08/26/2025, the regular meeting of 09/09/2025, and the regular workshop meeting of 09/30/2025. Is there a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move to approve the mean the minutes for the meetings listed by president Kim.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves the minutes I just listed. Are there any corrections from the board? Seeing none, debate is now closed on a motion to approve the item or the minutes as stated. Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Student delegate Munn? Yes. Student delegate Cruz? Yes. Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice President Heelink?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim? Yes. Seven ayes.

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: Moving to item five.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Our responses to commissioner questions on the agenda can be found here. Item six, student delegates report. I call on student delegate elect Man and student delegate Melanie Cruz Villanueva to give their report.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: So at our recent SAC meeting, we kind of fit like, finalized our committee assignments, and we selected our committee chairs as well. So we had welcomed a youth loudspeaker from Berkeley, Brian, who is currently studying at the School of Public Health, who is currently pursuing a doctoral research. So he should, like, a lot of he basically did this slide, and he kind of showed, like, valuable insights about what he's trying to, you can say, involve us and also kind of invest us in in a way. So he kind of focused on improving a lot of student attendance across f u like, SFUAC schools and discussed ways that he would plan on supporting our committee through it. So moving on from that, we kind of all got into our committees. And after the presentation, we kind of aimed towards discussing what we were all trying to after we had Brian come in, what were we trying to achieve? And a lot of our committees, want to just kind of address the lack of academic supports that are available at some student schools as well as some are feeling that they wanna focus on promoting school safety. So making students feel safe in their schools and promoting that what ways we can help all as a student bodies at schools to do that. So there's a lot of that, but as well we're we were also kind of going in-depth about how we can get that data. So what ways we can kind of ask students what they're feeling without being, like, all in their faces. So kinda make them feel, like, safe in saying what is actually bothering them in schools and just kind of asking them. So we kinda are relying on surveys, something that our past year in SAC we did, which was really affecting it, and we got a lot of answers. So we are proceeding and probably doing the same methods we did. Something that was also kind of discussed was the understaffing. A lot of students are kind of expressing that, they don't have as many AP classes as options, and it's something that's been kind of shown through smaller schools. So they wanna also kind of do a little bit more of student intake. A lot of students who don't usually kind of express that they want more options. So they wanna distribute a survey about that and kind of go in-depth about it. So, basically, in summary, our committees have chosen what their goal is and how they're gonna do it, as well as finding ways in how we can all get as many student voices to be represented without making them feel like their voices won't be heard. So we're thinking about doing it anonymously and just basing it off of grade level so we can see what the ratio is and what is the difference between eleventh graders or tenth graders, how ninth graders are feeling, and just kind of overall in that aspect. So that's what we're focusing on. And our next SCC meeting is tomorrow. So our research will be discussed, and that's what's we're gonna go over tomorrow. So I'm gonna pass it on to student delegate Moon.

[Shun Moon (Student Delegate)]: Thanks. Okay. And then I just wanted to share a little a couple of our highlights from our cabinet meeting last Friday. Our cabinet met, and our main goals for this year is to update the website because we haven't been updating it for the past couple of years, I believe. I believe, like, the pictures and even, like, the cabinet, like, is from, like, 2022 to 2023. It's kind of insane. So we were we're working with, like, staff here to update the website, the meetings, the agendas, and, like, who's part of SAC and the contact info for it just in case anyone wants to reach us. And, yeah, the main thing is also what Melanie covered about the committees. We wanna update the public on, like, what we're working on on our committees as well so that kinda goes with what we talked about the website. And then also a lot of our outreach is through Instagram, so just having that, like, communication with, like, students and, between students and the SAC for, committee work. And then last thing is, I believe, Langston, the prior student delegate and the current SAC president. He is trying to, work with Judson and, our staff to incorporate, SAC, like, details and shout outs into the newsletter that we sent out, and I believe there's one for the fall, one for the spring, so we're just kind of prepping of a general idea of what we want in those newsletters. Yeah. Thank you.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: I also wanted to add something. So we are working on our social media accounts, and we are also planning on potentially posting the survey on it as well. So a lot of students sometimes don't pay it. Like, you can say advisory, they get the survey, but they you can say they take a picture of the survey and they lose the link or they don't get access to it after. So I think if we involve social media, they can get that second resource where they can just go to our social media account, fill out the survey, which is also a way that we're planning on implementing it as well. Yeah.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you so much. And I know that mister Steele is working with us on finding a time to meet with board leadership, and I'm excited to have that conversation. So looking forward to meeting with you both. Thank you. Moving to item seven, superintendent's report.

[Superintendent Soong]: Thank you, president Kim. I'm gonna try to keep it short today. First, before I start, I I do wanna just thank the students from academy for coming and sharing their voice and their feelings. And I've had many conversations with our students, our staff, our families about this move. And at the end of the day, I greatly appreciate their involvement and engagement in this difficult process. So next slide. I will say that this month is Filipino American History Month. So yay. SFUSD joins the nation in honoring the historic and cultural contributions of the Filipino community this month and all year long. I encourage everyone to check out our SFUSD Fillipinx history resource guide, which includes recommendations on classroom lesson plans, resources, reading lists, and events, and more. And you can definitely find out more at our website, sfusd.edq. And, of course, it's time to start the enrollment cycle again for next year. Yay. For school year 2627. The enrollment sent cycle begins this Friday when the main round of applications open. You can find paper applications right here at the enrollment center office, or you can complete the application online at our website. Please submit the main round application by January 30 in order to receive a school assignment on March 16. As you're making your list and checking out all the different schools, please join us at the enrollment fair, which will be this Saturday, October 18 at Balboa High School. We hope to see everyone there, so that you can also meet your school leaders, as well as parent leaders who are putting together, presentations and, I'm positive are welcome are open to welcoming new parents, and students into their school community. So please join us this Saturday at Balboa High School. And then this week, all SFUSD schools will take part in the Great California ShakeOut, an annual earthquake drill held across the state each October. I'm excited to join the Guadalupe Elementary School community, as they practice their drill, later this week. During the drill, students will practice drop, cover, and hold, which is the safest response during an earthquake. Every school has an emergency plan in place and and our staff are trained to respond quickly. We also work closely with city leaders and emergency responders to make sure that our schools and students stay safe in case of an emergency. I ask all families, and our community to please go on the city's website, sf72.org, to find everything you may need, to prepare yourself and your family in case of an emergency. And then speaking of celebrations, we are celebrating National Custodial Worker Recognition Day on October 7. We are yes. I encourage everyone to please, please, please appreciate our wonderful, fantastic custodians who work day and night and all of our schools in our school district buildings who greet us with a smile each and every day and and who help keep our facilities clean, who make sure that our classrooms, our office space, our buildings are prepared to welcome our students and families and employees every day. So please take a moment to thank our wonderful custodians and and just appreciate for appreciate them for everything that they do for us. Yes. And then last weekend, I had the pleasure of joining students, families, and staff at ER Taylor for the walk and roll to school day. It was wonderful. It was great to see students obeying traffic signs and traffic rules. It was wonderful to see our parents out, as well as, just, our, safe route to school, ambassadors and our, safe, crossing guards, out and about, helping our students. It was wonderful to to join that school community, in in this really great day to remind everyone that our students are walking to school and riding or in all different types of modes, riding Muni and on their bicycles and scooters. So please drive slowly around our school zones, school areas, because we do have students trying to make their way to school or on a bus or to a a car that's carpooling, for them. So, just everyone remember, our our kids are on the streets, so take it slow, take it easy. And then finally, I do want to close, my remarks today in honor of the memory of two SFUSD students, Mackenzie and and Alexandria, and their family members whose lives were tragically lost this week. Please know that our priorities and our hearts go out to everyone who is suffering from any type of mental health, issues and that SFUSD continues to remain a safe place for our students, and our staff and our families. For anyone in our community that is experiencing a mental health crisis, please please talk to someone. Please call the free 988 and crisis life lifeline twenty four hours a day. You can text home to 741741 to reach a crisis counselor anytime. To our students, please talk to an adult. Talk to your wonderful educators. Talk to any caring adult that's on your school campus or talk to someone at home. It's never okay to feel alone. It's never okay to feel that the world is insurmountable. There's always someone there who can help you. I ask that anyone who needs additional support to please call any of these talk lines. There's also Safe and Sound, who can provide additional supports, as well. You can call their talk line at 415441 kids, k I d s, which translates out to 5437. I spent all day Thursday with my staff at, the schools that Mackenzie and Alex went to. And I can just say that everyone, in both of these school communities truly loved these students, and it's never okay that children pass before at such a young age. But their memories will live on in their schools and in their communities and as well as here at SFUSD. So thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: We can just take a moment of silence for the students' slides. I wanna thank the staff who have made their time and moved schedules to make sure that they were available for the school community. Thank you to the commissioners. I know that when we get phone calls like this, it is not easy, but I appreciate us asking how we can support. And thank you to the superintendent and her team for their rapid response in supporting those families and the family and school communities. Moving to item eight, board leadership report. I am excited to share that commissioners will be joining three different school communities this Thursday, Lowell, Presidio, and Balboa. This is a day that I cheekily called shadow student day, which I have said I hated that term because it sounds a little creepy. But the idea here is that we have an opportunity to join a school community from start to mid afternoon to follow students into their classrooms and and experience what it means to work through some hard problems and joyful instruction and for us to really be proximate to the schools that we have the privilege of of governing in our system here. These three school communities are welcoming their doors and their arms to us to allow us to have lunch with students as well. We'll start the day with having coffee with some families and school communities. And my hope truly is to come out of this day having a clear picture and understanding and some context for what it means to both be a student and be a member of a school community and give us an opportunity to really understand truly and experience the instruction that our students experience every day. And so I look forward to hearing the reflections from staff. I wanna thank staff who've helped to organize this day. Hung Mei, you don't get flowers often, but I wanna say thank you. And associate superintendent Shipp, thank you for your help and support in coordinating this day. I really do hope that this is an opportunity for us to learn and not opine, but to learn and experience. So thank you for clearing your schedules and making this time available for our schools. Looking forward to hearing how it goes. Moving on to item f, action items. And just to quickly name, we have two items, primary items on the agenda today. One is an action item, one is a discussion item. For the sake of expediency, I'm gonna put maybe thirty minutes or so as a mile marker for us on the on the clock just to be well, not on the clock, but I'll keep track of it. Just to be able to keep the conversation going. Item f, action item. Item 12510Dash14SP1, approval of the unaudited financial report and the adoption of the GAN limit resolution for the San Francisco Unified School District and County Office of Education for fiscal year 2425. Is there a motion?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: You can just say the code is fine.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: On item two five one zero dash 14 s p one, I move that we approve that.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Second. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves item two five one zero Dash14 s p one. Calling the superintendent or designee to read this into the record.

[Superintendent Soong]: Great. I'm gonna welcome deputy superintendent Chris MontBenitez to, walk us through the presentation.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Thank you, superintendent. Thank you, commissioners. Good evening. So what you're looking at is is what I affectionately call the post mortem of last year's budget. And so that is after we have gone through the entire fiscal year, closed the books, and we know what we actually spent versus what was budgeted for the prior year. As well as do a couple of statutory items such as improving the GAN limit. I've been asked what the GAN limit is. That is actually approving what was spent and assuming that we will spend approximately the same relative to the amount budgeted this coming year. Okay. So what you'll see this evening, is the unaudited actuals. So rather than the budget which is typically what is presented on, the budget is just an aggregation of every school site and every office and every department's planned spending for the year. That's what the budget is. It's our planned spend versus the actual spend, what we actually spent, in all of those departments and schools throughout the year. The expected outcome is just to get a sense of, what our plan in aggregate yields every year versus what we actually spend and to look at the difference between those numbers in our major categories and that's called a variance. So the plan versus what we spend is a variance. It'll be presented to you as a percentage so that you can compare how well we do in planning our spend versus actually spending. This is a high level reflection. This is the first time I know that San Francisco is looking at it this way. This is fairly standard in school districts and we look for what we consider to be a healthy variance. I've been asked what is a healthy variance? Well, typically in a budget this size we look at at a variance of about 10% or under to demonstrate that our, fiscal systems are operating well. That controls are in place to make sure that we don't over plan or under plan compared to our spend. And that simply produces a percentage of a difference between the plan and the spend. It can be a general indicator of the health and well-being of of those fiscal structures and we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go ahead. Next slide please. Just a couple items of note. The presentation is just a high level summary. The board is actually approving all of the attachments which cal which actually presents to you every every penny. We actually go down to the penny in this district. We don't round, what was spent in the past fiscal year. The variance analysis does show you the variance between the budget and actuals at various points in time throughout last school year. It shows you the difference between what you adopted in June, your first interim in December, your second interim in March and how they compare to the actual expenditures. We always know that you will see a variance. There's no such thing as a perfect budget. So just like at home when you plan out your household budget, if anybody claims to get it a 100% correct throughout the entire year projecting twelve months, you probably tell a good story. The variance just demonstrates how close or how good of a planner versus an actual following that plan a household is and it's very same thing for a school budget. So we are just looking at it. It will never be a 100% accurate, right? It's always a plan versus actual. It just gives an idea of the general health of our fiscal controls in the district. Next slide please. So this first slide illustrates

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: all of our main operating funds. The

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: operating funds defined as those that compensation, that's our salary and benefits, as well as non compensation expenses. This lists actually, our all of our major operating funds in the district. It also does include our County Office of Education. So the main operating fund of the district, general fund which is fund one, the county office of education fund five, the adult education fund, 11, the child development fund, 12, and the cafeteria fund, 13. I would like to point out that the general fund is used for all of our general operating expenses and that those other funds are restricted specifically to the function that they serve. So for example, the cafeteria fund only pays for expenses for our nutrition services program or our student, school nutrition program. This chart is laid out, the same way for every fund. So I'm going to run, just through a couple of items here so we can all understand how we're reading it. So the general fund won as we read across that row. The board adopted a budget in June '24. The planned budget spend was about $1,300,000,000 And then you see a 3% in the next column, which reflects all the way to the right, what did we actually spend? So you can see in the unaudited actuals, we actually spent 1,279,000,000.000. And so that tells you from our adopted to actual spend, the variance was very reasonable for a budget our size. It was only 3%. What's interesting here is that as we read across the right, in a typical variance analysis, unless there's something that that we can point to specifically as an occurrence that changes this, you should look at your variance to maintain or to go down. And And so what you'll see, and it's sort of unusual and you do see it in in in all of our funds, throughout the district. Our variance actually increases, which is unusual because a school budget is a one year budget and we try to budget all of our expenses, in the in the winter. And we don't continue to typically add unless we have a very specific action that we know that we're gonna spend. But what you see here is you actually see the variance go from 3% in June to the first interim report. It expands to 9% which means that in the first four months of the school year, a significant amount was added to the budget and you can see that reflected in that, the first interim presented a planned spend of 1,400,000,000.0 but we still only spent, 1,279,000,000.000. You see it go up again in the second interim at 1,400,000,000 which means our variance went up to 11%. So why is this unusual? Because typically, you only add what you think you're going to spend. Remember, it's your budget. So you're you're giving it an idea of what you reasonably think you're gonna spend. And the idea that we actually were reasonably close but then we added things that we didn't spend actually shows a little bit of lack of fiscal control and people say, well, what does that mean? That means people in the finance positions in the district, exerting some control over a thoughtful spend that we don't add something to the budget that we don't think we're very highly likely to spend. And so it's interesting to see that at second interim, right, that we added again even though second interim doesn't come out until March and we only have a few months left to spend it. So that's that's a little unusual. We should see that variance stay the same or decrease. So we need to really, exert more control and thoughtfulness over what we're adding to the budget throughout the year. That's all that indicates. County Office of Education, we see the same pattern. However, we're starting out with a double digit variance in the County Office of Ed. This speaks actually to additional planning that needs to be done. We've struggled since we hold the dual identity of both district and county at constructing a budget that has a lot of fidelity at the at the county level. That is a goal of of mine this year that we plan on having done by the second interim and in place for all of our forthcoming years. Adult Education Fund. This is interesting as well. This actually illustrates the point really, really well. So at the beginning of the year, Adult Education Fund very tightly budgeted at 473,000, very close to their actual annual spend. That tells me that that program was was doing a good job at predicting what they would spend and putting it into the budgetary, system for the year. However, you see a big spike in the first four months and we suddenly are budgeting over $900,000, which means our variance went up to a double digit 50%. Now very specifically last year, we received some CTE adult education funding in the middle of the year. But knowing the way that a school cycle and a school budget works, what we likely should be doing is instead of budgeting it immediately, which seems very responsive, right, but if we know we can't hire or or actually fulfill those purposes, we should be waiting until budget development for the following year. But what we did is we immediately added budget to cover all of the money we got even though the likeliness of us spending it was not high. And so that's what I mean by better fiscal control and and thought. It's a it's a great just little illustration. Again, no one did anything wrong. No one did anything with malintent but it's just a good management of your budget. Child Development Fund, Fund twelve, fairly consistent as well as Cafeteria Fund 13. Double digit variance. It does expand a little bit throughout the year. Again, showing that we're adding more to the budget when we're actually already not spending everything that we were budgeting. Next slide please. That's an overall that was an overview of all of our operating funds. We're gonna focus on the general fund. The general fund is of course where all of the I would direct all the board's attention particularly to the unrestricted side as well as to our community. And so what this does is this is Each of these is gonna be a general fund slide but it's a different what we call a different view or perspective. So this first one is all of our funds, restricted and unrestricted for the year. And you can see now we're gonna sort of look at the same view but going across as well as down. So you can see that our June adopted beginning balance. Our thought of what was gonna be left from the prior year was about 335,000,000. We anticipated about 1,175,000,000.000 in revenues. And we planned for 1,324,000,000.000 in expenses which would then, just using straight math, leave us with 187,000,000 at the end of the year. So I'm gonna address a couple of things here because they're they're interesting. What you're seeing in that first column, the June adopted budget, you're seeing what is frequently referred to as the deficit of the district. This is what I call a planned deficit or a paper deficit. So the plan was to spend $1,300,000,000 even though we knew we were only getting 1,175,000,000.000 in revenues. That's called a a planned deficit. Right? It's a paper deficit. It's not real until you actually spend throughout your year. So you can see that the variance levels were fairly high and or low. So this is interesting. Our beginning balance compared to what we actually had at the end of the year, the variance is double digits. It's 39%. But that's because of the variance you're seeing in the budgeting. So if we are planning so much more than we're spending, remember it's a straight line analysis. So the assumption is you spend 100% of your budget. It leaves less of a projected beginning balance. Right? So tightening the budget up fixes that 39%. The other interesting thing is that look at what happens in first interim and second interim. There's now a zero percent variance. What that's telling you is that the accounting team is doing a very good job at fiscal close and that once they close and actualize the prior year's expenditures, our our actual beginning balance does not change. And because that's when they're actually closing the books and they're actually truing up every dollar that's spent in the district. So the accounting team is is doing a good job there. Our revenue line, if we look across, you can see that it does vary a little bit. But again, at the end of the at the end of fiscal close and for first interim, our revenues are very very stable with less than a 1% variance which again shows you that the accounting and budget team are working and our revenues were very good at at projecting and maintaining. Expenditures and transfers, this is where you see the unusual variance again that our expenditures go up but the amount that we're spending is actually not going up from what's predicted. So this again is is back to the story of the fiscal control. Ending balance is actually a very similar story to beginning balance. If the ending balance is is is created out of the assumption that we are gonna spend a 100% of what's budgeted but we're actually budgeting far more than we spend, then it artificially reduces what we can expect to have. Now, in the CDE letters that we've received or the oversight letters, they're just doing straight math and part of the message there is that if you don't exert better fiscal control and you don't get your planned budget under control, whether you're spending it all or not, if we just do it a current plus two years, on paper you don't have enough left. This results in a negative certification. Right? That's what our negative negative certification is based on is largely our own lack of fiscal control and constraint. Now where is the real deficit? Where's the real deficit? So I said the beginning was the paper deficit. Look over at your unaudited actuals and that's where you'll find your real deficit. So we took in $1,240,000,000 We spent $1,279,000,000, so about a $38,000,000 deficit. So that's a huge difference between a planned deficit of triple digit, hundreds of millions of dollars, versus what we actually spent as a deficit, which is about $38,000,000. So this this actually illustrates the point very well for really needing to do better with our budgeting, and and our controls. Next slide please. Just looking at the restricted side, Just looking at the restricted side, it's a little bit tighter. Now, there is some interesting math going on here. So there's no new trend in this slide so I'm not gonna go through every line like I just did, high level for for the unrestricted and restricted. But there is something interesting here and that is that the expenditure for our restricted side is always a little skewed by fiscal close. And that's because one of the accounting department's jobs is to move anything that we spent on the unrestricted side because that's the school district's and the board's most fungible money. We move those expenses to the restricted side, the hardest money to spend because our first dollar principle is we always spend the hardest money to spend first. And so you'll see actually that the planned expenditures, there's only about a 12% variance here which is actually closer to to norm or what we would like to see. But that's because we're moving, we're doing a lot of work at the end of the year. The accounting team is to move it from the unrestricted over to the restricted side. So it's a little artificially skewed there. But this also shows you your paper deficit. So look at your plan deficit at the beginning of the year for budget adoption. Right? We knew that we were getting about 647,000,000 in revenues and we planned for 719,000,000 in expenses. So that's planned deficit. That's part of what we would need to do away with to have a a balanced budget. But then you look at the actuals. So we actually received and my eyes are not as great as they once were with you with my glasses on. 695,800,000.0 and we spent 7 thank you so much whoever just did that. And we spent 726,700,000.0. So you can see that's the real deficit. Now, you gotta be careful because when we say real, it's it was actual deficit. The problem with having a budgeted a planned spend that's so much higher is in the year that you do have fewer vacancies or you do tighten it up and there isn't as much wiggle room there, that's when you could get in a lot of trouble because your plan, if it actualizes, means you could spend a lot more money than you actually have. So that's the danger and that's part of the negative certification, that we've received. So let's look at the unrestricted side, side, the most important part of the general fund for the school district. This is what the state looks at as a lot of our fiscal health. Next slide. This is the unrestricted side. Right. Same process, same analysis. This just gives you some notes on the calculation. Same same conclusion, but a a an even larger variance on the unrestricted side. Now, that is also partially because we're moving expenses at the end of the year to the restricted side to save as much of money as possible. But it does really skew the budget. I mean, we're looking in this one. We're looking at triple digit variances in some of these or high double digit. And it just again speaks to the amount of work that we need to do to really get this in better shape for the health of the district as well as our employees and stability. Next slide please. These are just a list of what we call significant or major variances that were budgeted and so this just tells you some that were that we were over budget or under budget that are significant amounts. This is clearly not a comprehensive list. To do that, you'd have to read through all of the forms but it gives you the ones that that stick out as as relatively high because if you look at the percentage of what was budgeted versus actually spent, it's significant and it's skewing the budget. Next slide please. And this is just, a reminder of this year and our current budget, our keystone dates, that we're going up through. Notice that community engagement starts this month and throughout the month of November and the December, to start discussing, in town halls and other various locales and and and and spaces, the fiscal situation for the district and what needs to be done to correct it. So looking ahead, we need to start, more dynamically managing our budgets, for not just adoption but first and second interim. We need to account more correctly. We need to start asking the questions of is this a realistic plan. And part of that we can tell by looking at what's happened in the past. Right? So if we keep putting in the same thing but not spending it, it really does beg the question, is that portion of the plan realistic? We will be able to, maximize eligible expenses away from the general fund unrestricted to restricted to make sure that those are are are in good shape. To our budgets after adoption if they can realistically and likely be staffed. So what does that mean? That's sort of a complicated thought. We do get some positions throughout the year which are statutorily required. So for example, the easy one that everybody can probably understand very quickly is a special education position. Right? So if we add a service to a child's IEP, and that we need to provide for that service and we need additional FTE to provide for that service, then we can't wait to add that to the budget. We it's required that we do it and that we advertise the position. However, if we get a new grant source like we talked about with the adult education fund but none of the plans go in place until the following year and we are likely not going to be able to find anybody or anything to enact that plan mid school year, then we should have the discipline to wait to budget it till the following year. Right? So we need to improve those budget controls. We also need to get just better at budgeting. So one of the things that's become very clear, I have a very earnest, and very, thoughtful and hardworking staff. There's not that many of them anymore. A lot of them have have sort of been dispersed over the years. But we've lost a lot of that knowledge at how to budget and how to maintain a budget and how to actually conduct a budget. So we're doing the basics this year. I've gotten some help in that are teaching people frontline as well as how to do the annual budget process and make sure that we're being much more responsive. So we we will see improvement, over the next couple of budget cycles which will also provide relief, to the oversight from CDE for the board and

[Unidentified educator (threat of strikes)]: the district.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you very much. Sure. Oh, oh, sorry. Okay. Cool. Thank you very much for that presentation. I'll open up to the board for comments or questions. Commissioner Weissman Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I have a question about, you you had mentioned that the when we see an increased variance, it's unusual. And in in that one slide, there was increased variance in every category. And you you said that part it it reflects a a lack of control, sort of fiscal controls. And and and so I'm wondering what are do you have specific recommendations, for how to minimize or stop that increase and actually have it level or or decrease? And so what would some examples of having better control look like so that this time next year, we're seeing different numbers?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Yeah. I I do expect fairly quick improvement. It will happen by next year. So what do I mean? So good budgeting practices. The majority of our budgeting practices right now are out of date. I used to see budgeting like this when I first started as a financial professional in the state that were sort of leftovers from the style of the eighties and nineties pre LCFF where we would they call it roll budgeting over and then just tweaking it. We really need to do better than that. We actually have to look at every department and every school, make sure that their budget is realistic, that they do spend within the pattern that they're asking to spend. But also some common sense ones like you'll see the the idea of a paper deficit. That indicates that we're actually allowing people to submit a budget for more money than they actually receive to spend. Right? So just like your household, if you're going to do that, then you need to either have the money in your savings account or you need to cut expenses. But just submitting a budget for more than you actually have allocated to you to spend indicates a lack of of a basic fiscal control. We also have a lot of people working in the budget system. A lot of folks without central control or oversight. Right? So that's usually conducted by my position or the CFO, which we of course have a CFO coming. But making sure that everybody's on the same page, making sure that what we call the resources are balanced, revenues and expenses in the resources so that you shouldn't be entering in more expenses than you actually have to spend. Right? How has that happened over time? A lack of that control and oversight. Right? We've had a lot of turnover. We've had a a dearth of training. So I've been offering training, for example, to all the fiscal staff and they've indicated, including some of our long term employees, that if you weren't a manager, we actually didn't provide training very often. Right? So the idea that people should get training and that we encourage that and you need to have your practices up to date and You need to be comfortable to have a conversation to vet a budget when it's submitted to you to ask if it's realistic and to point out some suggestions. We should be ask acting as advisors and saying, you're doing better at spending x, y, z. So consider putting more of your resources over there because you're not struggling to spend them versus you've struggled for the past three to five years at spending any of of what you've put over in this category. We we've lost that skill. We we've we've actually not been doing an interactive process like that as much. And so my staff has a lot of learning to do, and and the budget should be much more dynamic and and and change so that that variance actually goes down throughout the course of the year.

[Tianna Tillery (Vice President, Paraeducators, UESF; SFUSD employee)]: Can I

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: ask a follow-up since I still have the time?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Amazing. Okay. Thanks. That's that's helpful. And I guess one your response now prompted another question. Is there anything in our current systems that would allow you to understand and see these trends in a way that is not super, super time intensive. I mean, it's gonna take time, but what you note now, it's really it seems really valuable to be able to say, like, we can see these trends and they're happening again. Is that is that an option? And I guess the other thing is when you talk about money, like, a budget coming in that is over what has been allotted, is there is there an alert that sort of a red box that says, actually, this number is not appropriate? Like, who how does that get flagged? And maybe that's a training thing, but, like, where does that come in that sort of that measure to say, actually, this is this is a concern and so let's deal with it now until and not when we're getting our our interim numbers.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Great questions. To take your second one first, in the prior system, no, there was not. That was all done manually, all by manual control, all by manual analysis, meaning that people had to look at all of the different resources and and, codes to see whether they were balanced and and that was not being done. And the system did not do it for you. And in in a district our size and and with such a small fiscal team, it it frankly wasn't possible. They have their day to day work to do let alone making sure that those are all balanced. The other issue I think with the transition so I'm trying to actually teach the team what I call a three to five year trend analysis to come up with what we consider a reasonable budget figure. And what that means is just a three to five year average of a spend in a category just to see if a figure that's being submitted meets a reasonability test. The problem is is because the old system is closed and it was so manual that, no, we don't have that unless we actually go back in and look manually, which takes an awful lot of time going between systems. We will develop that in Frontline as we use it from year to year. But right now the work that it takes to do that is pretty pretty onerous. Juggling multiple spreadsheets, looking back in a system, trying to transpose figures correctly, all that kind of good stuff. I've been doing it at a high level to see whether, for example, the report that I just presented to you, whether there's anything that sticks out as a significant one time discrepancy. So the only thing in the report that that did stick out was that one time funding that we got in adult education last year. All of the others are actually within our norm. And I looked back three years just manually. But that indicates again that it's been it's been a while that this has a has occurred, that it's sort of become, the way that we do business and and without actually keeping an eye on that and training folks up and giving them that opportunity, that's a tough thing to fight which is why we need to sort of get that training in place and those systems.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I will just build on that question. I I had a similar question to commissioner Weisman Ward, but specifically, I'm looking at the looking head slider on the budgets will be reviewed by school, and school compared to prior actual adjustments to match realistic spending patterns. That would suggest that that's not happening right now.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: That's correct.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. That is interesting to know. So in that kind of instance there because that requires a whole human capital component of how we move adult behaviors to be able to match a practice like this. Can you share a little bit about what's going into that work to ensure because a lot of this maintenance of of our our budget requires our site leaders, for example, our lead principal managers, etcetera, to be brought along in this work. I think I have a question just around what are the kind of tools and strategies at your disposal that you're leveraging? Is it a literal drop in PD that we have or are is you and your team working differently with them? How does that actually change the practice to whatever is taking place now to what we need to do here?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Well, so first of all, we have to train our staff, meaning the fiscal staff, right, to provide the support. Fiscal staff right now, I I actually wish they were with me. I I I thought, one of them was gonna be here but I think it's an interesting perspective. They've they've felt, significantly unempowered. Right? They they have considered themselves and their job has been reduced to basically pushing buttons and moving transactions around at at request rather than having a consultative relationship with those that they're providing budgeting and and accounting services to. That also speaks to a lack of a lack of training as well as empowerment, of the staff to to act in that manner and to ask the questions that might make somebody say, maybe that's not the best place to to budget our our figures. It also shows sort of an erosion of of who's maintaining the year to year process, even the budget development process. School districts, because we're a single year budget, we're we're very unusual that way and there's financial issues. It's tough sometimes to do a one year budget instead of a of a multi year budget. But what it also helps with is after budget development, there actually should be relatively few instances that budget development is the heavy lift. After that, staff should be mostly acting in a consultative manner and making sure that they're looking at budgets and seeing whether So for example, we're almost through the month of October, dare I say that, halfway through. By the October, we we've passed a third of our school year. And so a logical question that's asked in most districts is great, Let's let's look for burn rates and see whether everybody's spent about a third of their budgets. Right? Or or whether they've encumbered 0% of a budget in some category. And is there a reason why? That's where the consultative approach comes in. And and it simply just has not been occurring at this point. Right? It's a lack of training but it's also a lack of staff. Remember, we have very few fiscal staff, remaining. And some of that expertise has actually been dispersed from the fiscal department, and has been although people have maintained their access to budget activity, and so it's become decentralized and it needs to all report up to a central fiscal responsibility, which is what we would hold our CFO responsible for.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. So I think as we go into conversations around fiscal stabilization planning for the next Mhmm. Two years and beyond, I think this is the kind of guidance that I look to you and superintendent Hsu of what do we need to be protecting at central office to ensure that these systems and practices that you are working to train up and build on don't get lost in this next phase of our reconciling of the work that we have in front of us. And so I I just want to, one, thank you for articulating in that way and and just remind ourselves that this is the very much the kind of conversation that I think is necessary for us to have when we talk about the kind of trade offs we're going to experience in this next phase of our budget development process. So thank you. Next. Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Sure. My question is actually very specific to what you said at the end about some of our over budgeting practices. You know, for example, and you used the example of special education. If we add services, you know, but we know we're not necessarily gonna be able to hire someone mid year then we need to wait to budget for that position. How did help me understand how that helps us meet our obligations to provide the services with kid to kids with IEPs because it's as soon as the family signs the IEP, we have an obligation to provide that service. So we can't just hold our hands up and say, oops, sorry, you have to wait till next year. So I I really there's a lot of tension in what you said between best budgeting practices and our legal obligations to provide services to students. So where do the two meet?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Right. My apologies, commissioner Fisher. I think you misunderstood me. I used it special education as the example of where we would not be able to wait versus those that are non statutory obligations where I would suggest that we do wait knowing that we're out of a hiring process that's going to not really initiate strongly until the following year.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. But if the budget best practice is not to do that, are you saying that we do make the exception then for a statutory obligation like special education?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Correct. Correct. And so and and we do that now so that if it's, something that's needed now, we advertise for it and even if we can't fill it, it then gives us the ability to maybe contract out or provide it in a different manner. That's why it would be more of a statutory obligation versus a discretionary one.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you for that clarification. I appreciate that.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: So, first of all, thank you so much for this report as well as the explanation. This is exciting. It's very clear. So, I just have a few questions. The first is, do you have a sense of which programs, positions, or contracts are contributing the most to cost escalations? Or is that we don't have the past data so

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: No. I mean, we have the past data in the close that we just did but that's a post mortem, right? And every school district, or every budget every year is different. So part of the analysis once October closes, so we actually close every month too. It usually closes the fifteenth of the month after. So on November 15, I'll be able to get an idea especially since we'll have a CFO here at that point, to help me with the lift is to say, let's look at what we are not burning at an appropriate rate. And what does that mean? So it's spending a third of what we encumber. Right? So that's when we'll start to be able to really look at some current year data to say, where are we underspending? Where are we potentially overspending. What our general spend indicates is we actually aren't overspending in a whole lot of areas. We are still we still have a structural deficit. Right? Our structural deficit this past year was about $38,000,000 but that's far better than the 150,000,000 that was planned. So where are we specifically overspending? Can I then go back and can I match it up with the last two years? Is there a trend there? So we'll be able to start getting better definition at that point. As well as what are we just not spending at all? There's been a couple of little categories that I found that were I call them legacy. They were budgeted at one time and I'm not sure that folks remember that they were budgeted by maybe somebody in the past or sometimes what their intent even was. So that goes again to the maintenance. When you roll a budget over too long, you start to lose that institutional memory of what was that for.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: And actually, that's a great segue into the next question which is where we are over budgeting or if I look at page eight, I see a large set of variances due to, vacancies, vacancies, vacancies across the different categories which is worrying obviously on two fronts which you know very well, both in terms of then how short staffed we are, but then also if we were to fill those vacancies, I mean, just counting the numbers just on this page, we have over 50,000,000 then that we'd be spending in addition. And so that would then create even a larger deficit deficit spending than than we currently are. So I'm I'm curious, how do you approach that in in terms of, you know, what the strategy might be, particularly, I mean, it seems like then staffing has to align with student enrollment and needs but, you know, share a little bit more about how you're thinking about this going forward.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Yeah. So this is this is the primary function of of a position control, in in a district. So we do have a director of position control starting in November. That's our other recent successful recruitment. But the the main task of that person or that team, ours will be a single person so it'll be a busy a busy job, is to basically vet every position that we have on the books and be able to match it up. Right? So here's an interesting thing. It would take a lot of work in this district right now based on the system that we use and how we use it to determine exactly who is assigned to every site, what their position is and for example their classification and their position number. Let alone all of the vacancies that we're carrying on the books, when they were created, what their purpose was, and whether it's a what we call a true vacancy. Right? Whether there's still an expressed need that we're searching for. That fidelity in our system was lost. I I can't tell you when. It was clearly long before I arrived. Right? And so I'm guessing it goes back some time. That is what a big part of what's distorting our budget. So last year, there's a you're you're you're right on. There's over a $50,000,000 variance in budgeted versus actual positions in total compensation. And this year, we're on track for about the same. So that tells you that that's not of an unusual picture for San Francisco. So then the question becomes who's gonna sit down and comb through every one of those positions and find the history And then also be in a position that if we need something relatively quickly that we can get it approved and posted relatively quickly. Right? Both of those things are true of position control because they become the gate keeper to say, no. You have that over here. You don't need another one. You still have one here that you can fill. Or you don't have any of those and you have a need for it right now. You have to open something. Right? We don't have that kind of fidelity in our system right now. Right now we have a a large number of vacant positions as we did last year and folks aren't sure about which ones are real and which ones aren't which is a really tough place to run a budget from.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Got it. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Thank you for all this information. It's very clue clearly presented. My question is how are you thinking about how as you make these improvements in budgeting, about how it relates to strategic planning with respect to the goals, academic goals, and and how we ensure that the the choices we make are actually aligned with making it more likely that that more students, meet those goals?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: I will be careful because I gave up the educational side of the house a long time ago. Right? So I don't want my my opinions, to creep in on that side. But, the alignment of resources has to be done with, first of all, for the district to be able to clearly articulate what those priorities are. Right? It has changed into a compliance document but that used to be the purpose of our of our LCAP. Right? Back when it was 13 pages and very succinct as far as what what it was supposed to be. It's now crept into a multi 100 page document that's mostly about compliance but that was where it was supposed to to be found. And these days, it has to be found in what are the priorities that the district is finding that make a difference for its students and to make sure that we're fully invested in those priorities. However, without that list of priorities, how do we match up to budget? You you don't. Right? So the priorities the budget has to match the priorities. It should be a statement of priorities but without a statement of what's important, then then it becomes everything important which is also another way of saying that nothing is a priority.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Commissioner May.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Commissioner Alexander already did my first question, so now I only have a couple. Thank you.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: So I'm wondering, is there any type of internal system or templates that folks are using or have access to when they're building, or, you know, determining what the budgets should be at different sites?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: We actually have an allocation mod, methodology which is a staffing allocation. So from the center including restricted and unrestricted resources, we allocate what we consider as a district to be essential to provide for the education to all of our school sites, right? So that's a number of teachers based on the number of classrooms at what grade level that you're running or which requirements if you're a middle school or high school that you're running or the number of periods, augmentations such as stipends and and additional periods for AP courses or electives or on our restricted side we provide, counselors and we provide, goodness, arts education and additional allocation for PE for elementary school which is not required by the state. Usually that's a general requirement until you get to the secondary level. But we do all of that in in San Francisco because we actually have a a very generous allocation model that should be sustained. And then, we also give discretionary resources which folks get to spend in whatever manner they feel fit. And so we we sort of do both and, in the district. It's it's a very generously resourced model.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you. My last question relates to just what we hear a lot from folks in the community or at least that I've heard a lot from folks in the community. We have these huge swings or variant, you know, huge variances in what we thought, you know, we would spend and what we actually end up spending. And I've often heard folks ask, you know, like, isn't this money available for us to be able to do other things such as raises? So I'm wondering if you can comment on that.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Sure. My straight line of thinking is we still have a a deficit, a structural deficit. That's the 38,000,000 this past year. The total potential deficit was up to a 150,000,000 if we had spent everything or potentially higher if we had overspent our plan. Right? I do see some budgets that that at times in some school districts are overspent. It's a bit more unusual because of the controls in place but, it does happen. So if you're already spending more than you're getting in, of course, you can give raises but that means you then need to cut more than you already are planning on cutting to get back to a balanced budget. So if the current minimum, if we were just to balance, bring the general and, fund back into balance, that we are budgeting no more than the revenues that we got in, that's the $103,000,000 current paper or budgeted deficit, Right? That's on our radar. The unrestricted side of that is is about 48,000,000. The restricted side is about 53. I'm doing this off the top of my head, but I look at it a lot, so I think I'm pretty close. Right? And that, 50 I'm sorry, 55 on the restricted side. And so if we were to balance that out and get rid of some of that that noise, then we would be able to give ourselves more planning time to provide raises and that would be a more normal position for a school district. Right now, what we find ourselves trying to do while still under state oversight is to eliminate the planned deficit, eliminate the real deficit, and then try to eliminate even more to provide for some sort of compensation increase in the future. Right? That's a that's a triple threat and not in a good way. Right? So that's a lot of different priorities for folks to try to focus on and usually a district is only focused on one of those which they have a balanced budget so then they're just focused on, okay, if we incrementally give more, what do we trim around the edges in order to provide more in in salaries to our staff? Right? To do all three of those things at once is very precarious especially when it's the board's clearly your main responsibility to keep the district financially solvent for the benefit of our community and our kids. Right? So that's the tough place to be and we do have very clear direction from from our advisers that we have to be fiscally responsible with any move that we make.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Vice President Hulink? I already went. Yeah.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: The first slide says variances are neither good nor bad, but it obviously, having a large variance creates a lot of uncertainty in our ability to budget and plan, including around raises and things like that, what is the ideal rate of variance that we would like to work to get toward?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: I I would like to see for a budget our size that it's no larger than 10% in any in any point in time. So for example, if we were as far off as 10% for adopted, I would wanna see that be the starting point and then we decrease the variance over time. And this also comes into like good budgeting practices. Right? So at the first interim, we should be releasing savings from all positions that are currently budgeted that we haven't filled. That's not been a common practice in the district. Right? That would actually reduce your variance from one point in time to another. So again, back to good good practice. It's it's a lot of work to maintain a budget, and it should be, for one of our size to do it well. But that's that's the goal.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Do we expect that when we're looking at the unaudited the first unaudited actuals next year that we'll be able to get to that? Or is that something that's gonna take like, how long would that typically take to get from where we are institutionally to where we wanna go?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: My straightforward answer is it's gonna be more than this year but less than two. Right now, I'm trying to teach people how to budget. My next step is teaching them how to manage the budget through different interims. And and then beyond teaching actually see the service model go into place. And I and I'm also hiring trying to hire up at the same time with, you know, two down. It's taken a lot of effort to get us there but we are we need the staff that has the expertise that they can then transition that expertise and that knowledge to our staff. Right? Because they'll be a part of our staff at that point.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: To follow-up on, I think, Commissioner Fisher's questions, in some places, spending less money than you budgeted is a success. You've saved money maybe on not paying for expensive empower consultants anymore. But some places, it's a failure because you haven't been able to fill needed vacancies for special education educators. Do we have any idea looking at our budget numbers where our variance is representing a success and where it's representing failure due to underspending to meet the needs of our students?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: None at this point. I'd I I would be getting in over my skis to to speculate. Right? I tend to like to look at the data. However, just the idea that we have that kind of a variance, speaks to a distortion that's not healthy for the district. Because then we don't really know what we're talking about financially. Right? Because we can have that huge swing based on what we believe because remember the budget is our plan of what we believe we're gonna honestly spend, that everybody's just submitting, this is what we're spending this year. But if it's that far off, then can we honestly stand by it? That's the problem that we find ourselves in and the answer to that is no. The variance is too large.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Thanks. I think that's a good segue to my next question which is when we're negotiating labor contracts, for example, we need to be able to stand behind our numbers and say what we can and can't afford. Here, our ending balance was 240,000,000 or so more than we expected it to be, does this mean that we have an extra $240,000,000 more that we can spend, on raises?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: So I would direct your attention at the unrestricted ending fund balance. Right, that is your fungible money but it is one time money. Right? So raises are supposed to be based on ongoing money. So for example, the deal that was struck with a number of our units that I believe the board I think you just approved it at the last meeting. Apologies if it was two meetings ago. It was one of those two because I wrote the AB 1,200 for it. But, we can afford that because you're actually taking that one time money out of one time reserves or there it's fund balance. It's actually not even technically a reserve yet. You're taking it out of one time fund balance and we know that the cash is there to pay for it. But you can't give ongoing raises out of one time money. Right? That's the problem and that actually is what we're living with right now is that we gave raises with the thinking that we would make cuts quickly enough to accommodate for getting ourselves in the hole and clearly the system is not that agile because we weren't able to do that.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: And so our current deficit of $38,000,000 a year, is that 38,000,000 more of ongoing money in terms of we're still essentially overspending year over year ongoing money? Or is what percentage of that represents planned deficit of, like, spending down COVID funds or one time funds that we you know that aren't gonna impact our ability to make ongoing commitments.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Yeah. That that one's all ongoing. Right? So 38,000,000 is the structural deficit. That's ongoing money. And that took out of your ending fund balance, Right? Which is your is your fungible money. This is also confused a little bit by the lack of a reserve policy, in the district, which is something that I'll be introducing to you at the first interim. We should have a reserve policy and we should have our reserve separated out so that the board specifically knows what it's setting aside as a reserve versus what is actual fund balance that can be appropriated for an unanticipated expense or, that can fund the the deficit, the structural deficit.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: In terms of our ending balance of about $428,000,000, like, where does that stack up against what a district of our size should have in terms of reserve?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: I I can't answer that on the fly. I'm sorry. That's not what this this analysis shows. To give you a concept of what districts in the state have, districts are broken down into three buckets, unified, which is what we are. Elementary districts, which are typically TK through eight, and secondary and secondary districts, which are which are just high school districts. Most of which actually are located to our south in San Mateo County. But a an elementary school district in the state usually has the largest reserves. Current reserves at elementary school districts are between 2426%. High school districts usually have between eighteen and twenty and unified school districts usually fluctuate between sixteen and twenty depending upon economic times. Just to give you a a rule of thumb, 18% is two months of expenditures.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: It seems like our actual ending balance is pretty significant. It's like closer to 30%. So in an instance like that, if we can't spend that money on ongoing expenses like raises, but it's more than we need in reserves, like, what are the types of things that we might spend that on to best put that money to use for our students so that we're serving our community

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Alright.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: With all of our resources.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: It depends on the board's perspective. So first of all, when you're looking at remaining fund balance, just look at the unrestricted. Restricted does not count as fund balance. Right? Because it's already committed in the terms that we're allowed to spend that money on at what we can spend it on. So just the unrestricted. That's the only one that's the only thing that we can consider fund balance. And so, and I don't believe that that would equate to to to that type of reserve for the district. I'd have to do that analysis. What can you spend it on? So for example, we were just discussing textbooks, An adoption that was made a couple of years ago, textbooks that we still have to buy, a double digit million dollar order that needs to be placed. Where are we gonna find that money? That's what fund balance is for. Some districts invest in specifically, pension liabilities or retiree healthcare liabilities which are called OPEB, other post employment benefits. SERP accounts set up with with CalSTRS or with CalPERS, to offset those costs so that it takes those costs over time out of our budget which provides more general fund money for for current use. One time expenses that you do actually want to do a special initiative or a consultant but that they're time limited, and they're financially limited. So setting aside a specific amount of money for a specific project that occurs once. Those are good uses for one time money versus ongoing expenses. You don't wanna be paying for your rent or your power bill out of your savings account.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Student delegates, do you have any questions that you wanna pose? Cool. Commissioner Fisher, one minute. I believe you had two minutes remaining.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: That's right. Well, and I I just appreciate that the student delegates didn't have any questions because it is always hard to follow the student delegates questions because they ask such good questions.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Question please. Commissioner Fisher. Yes, sir.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Alright. So first, thank you so much to you and your staff. I mean and I know you you mentioned it earlier but you know there's been a huge amount of turnover and staff feels unempowered.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Question please, Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I'm get yes. Thank you. Thank you, President Kim. So I wanted to follow-up on Commissioner Gupta's question about the slide eight vacancies. And so one of the questions that I asked was, you know, about special education. And, you know, does when spending on certificated teachers decreases, NBA cost balloon, is that recognized here? And it's not because those are in object codes 4,005 thousand, which is in which is very specifically listed in our SELPA budget. So one of the things that I don't see in any of these documents and you mentioned truing up quarterly, we're a single district SELPA. So do we ever do any SELPA true ups or do we have any report for our I mean, our our SELPA budget is $283,000,000 That was our project. That's not an insignificant money. So do we ever do the same analysis from a SELPA perspective to see, you know, what of those vacancies I think to some of the other questions? Which ones are special education? Where are we underspending in certificated and classified salaries versus overspending in I think it would be object code 5,000 services and operations? When do we see that reporting from a SELPA standpoint?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: You know, I I can't historically, speak to that. So it is a standard of a SELPA to do that analysis particularly because a SELPA we are a single district SELPA. There's a few of them, in in Northern California. The SELPA is supposed to do that to provide their member districts that are purchasing the services from them to see the actual service they're getting versus what they're committing financially to the SELPA. And so in a single district, it's what are you committing to yourself and what services are you getting out of it, which is a little different. So I haven't seen that analysis. I did thoroughly read the the FCMAT report, but I don't recall them mentioning it either unless it's skipping my mind right now but I don't believe it is. So I don't know that that's been done. Is it possible? Yes. But I haven't I haven't seen it.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Well, two years ago with budget cuts, we removed our financial person from the special education department enrolled the financial responsibility into your department. So surprise, that falls to you. Not surprised. Sorry. I don't mean to be flip. But so I I put it back at you rather than the sped department. I mean, so or pretend oh, the superintendent's not here right now but, with five seconds left. Who should we expect to do that and when can we get it? Oh,

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: perfect. Yeah. Perfect. So,

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: so that is that is not a problem. Right? So, although the responsibility I believe was put into my department and all financial responsibility should be. Right? Just to be clear. We have not had we just lost our special education finance person. We have somebody else temping in it. And one of the reasons that I recruited the CFO that we did is she's a statewide specialist at at special education funding. So she'll be able to get her her arms around it a lot easier and faster. If I had to say, who was better? She's much better at it than I am. I'll do the bond funding all day and night. We all have once we get into fiscal stuff, we all have our specialization. But that's not an unreasonable thing. But I also think there's a need to actually correctly structure the county and the SELPA to make sure that we can report on it and that it's easy to understand.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Thank you President Kim.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I haven't recognized you yet, but yes. Can we put one minute on the camera on the clock, please?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: This will take less time to that. So deputy superintendent, you just mentioned OPEB a second ago. It just reminded me where where would that sit in this? As I understand, we have about a 650,000,000 unfunded OPEB. And I'm curious where above that. Okay. Got it. I thought with interest rates, it had gone down. But, anyway, where where does that sit and where where where does this account for that?

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: So just so everybody's on the same page, other post employment benefits, that's our commitment to folks that have retired from here with a commitment that they get either temporary or lifelong health benefits with the contribution from the district remaining stable or going up or down or whatever our agreement is. Currently we're in what we call a pay as you go which means that we are using funds generated by this year's students to pay for, retiree the the retiree benefits. The way that the state would like us to do it is to invest in a SERP fund which is an investment account with CalPERS to fully fund that over time which would then pay the annual contribution for our retirees for the commitment that we made to them in the past to continue their benefits. That requires, a board or a school district to have the discipline to consistently invest in that account over time and then when that kicks in, when it's fully funded, that means that the general fund for today's students is no longer carrying the burden of what was promised on on basically yesterday's money.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: And that that seems prudent given that we know urban centers are reducing in in terms of overall student enrollment in general. So, it's sort of a a doomsday cliff, it it would seem.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: I wouldn't be that dramatic. We are currently So hyperbole. Who we are we are currently I don't anything with the phrase doomsday in it, I tend to avoid when I'm having a financial conversation over a beer. That would be different. But but, it is not doomsday. Many districts in the state of California are pay as you go for a couple of reasons. Number one, the amount that they need to invest in their SERPs to be fully funded is significant. So if we said that we had a $500,000,000 annual liability, over time, we would need to invest probably close to a billion dollars to be able to to to cover that over time. Right? So there's a significant outlay of money. Most districts, therefore, are pay as you go or they're investing right now hoping to cover that expense in the future.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes.

[Shun Moon (Student Delegate)]: Not a question. I swear. I just wanna say thank you so much for presenting. It's really long. My children going line by line and and and explaining it because I would not have understood it if you didn't, but if you didn't go line by line and explain it. And thank you guys for asking the very insightful questions. I would not have thought of that, and the answers to the questions were also very helpful in understanding, and I think a huge part of being a student delegate that I really appreciate is to be here even though I am here at nine till 9PM on a Tuesday night, on a school night when I was school the next morning. It's just learning more about, like, so much more that happens behind the scenes. I think this is such, like, a cool experience that I'm very grateful to have. And I'm writing my college applications, and there's a supplemental about, like, reflecting on the moment that, like, you're actually that you're very genuinely interested in, like, learning and, like, being curious about learning, and I think this might be one of the moments I I read about in my college applications because there's a lot of things. I think there's just so much to know, and I think I'll never understand, like, everything, but I think that's the really fascinating part of it. And I'm really grateful to be here and, like, for every one of you guys to peekaboom to to be able to explain all of this. So, yeah, thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you very much, student delegate. And it sounds like we have a a district CBO in the making over here. So very exciting.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: We need a lot of people in the field.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes. We do. We do. Absolutely. It is 09:00, so I wanna thank the student delegates for being here. This

[Judson Steele (Board Staff/Clerk for Public Comment)]: I think student delegate person. I wanna

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: make a comment. Sorry.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: Yeah.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I also wanna

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: say thank you guys. If you

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: can turn your mic on, please.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: There we go. Okay. I also wanna say thank you. I'm still getting my head, like, wrapped around all the math. Very confusing, but I'm still, like, I'm just rereading it and honestly, like, it it is a lot. So I just honestly thank you for, like, the time that you take into this because if I had to do this every single day, I think I'd get really bad headaches, honestly. So yeah. But overall, like Shun said, I'm just just being here is really it's really good experience and, honestly, I wouldn't spend an an an indifferent type of experience until nine on a Tuesday either. I feel like this is a good fulfillment, and, yeah, you're doing good, honestly. You're doing good. If if this came up in an AP stats question, I wanna say I'd take a minute on it. So Yeah. You're doing pretty good. Yeah.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: High praise. High praise. Thank you, student delegates. Appreciate you for your time. And point taken, you do have school tomorrow. So

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Good night.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Have a good night.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: I believe we have school tomorrow as well.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I I agree, which is why I look to my left and right and say, thank you very much, mister Mount Benitez.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: This is an

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: action item. Please don't leave yet. I hold on. There we go.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: It's already been.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes. It has been motioned already. Okay. Debate is now closed on the motion to approve 2510Dash14SP1. Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Student delegate Munn. Yes. Student delegate Cruz. Yes. Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Vice President Hulley. Yes. Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And president Kim. Yes. That's unanimous.

[Chris MontBenitez (Deputy Superintendent)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, mister Mompaniedis. And thank you, student delegates.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: It's good night.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. Y'all, you heard it here first. It is a school night. So and we have some business to attend to after this. So item g, discussion item, types of board decisions. Given this is a somewhat of a partly a board product, I'm hoping this can be a little bit more conversational in short. But as this is not gonna be our last our first and only conversation, this was just the first of several. I wanna begin introducing this item and and by acknowledging this is just a discussion. We are not taking any action. This is an opportunity for us to hear direct feedback and reflections and reactions from commissioners as vice president Huling and I work to operationalize more and more of our good governance framework. This table, as you saw in the memo outlined, reflects our first step aligned to the inclusive decision making framework to help us understand where greater public engagement is needed. That inclusive decision making framework, which is linked into the memo, articulates essentially four steps to identifying rather four steps to building a a more inclusive decision making model for for the board. The very first step of that is to identify what are the types of decisions that the board will make. Most obviously, what you'll see in this is that there are no there is no content in the boxes themselves. Today's conversation is just an introductory conversation on do these types of decisions make sense? Does this table communicate what we need? And at the next meeting, we will come with some additional information on the content of this and we'll engage in another conversation at that time. If you follow the q and a responses, staff did follow-up with some examples to provide commissioners for the content in there. Before we go into discussion, I wanna acknowledge just a couple things. This folk this table focuses on types of decisions the board makes, and this is focused primarily to the board. Ideally, the superintendent has our own version of this that articulates the types of decisions the superintendent wants to make. This is primarily geared from the lens and perspective of a board member. This is not a framework intended to describe our legal purview as a board. As you know, our legal purview is quite broad and wide. It is intended to set norms and define expectations for the decisions that the board will make aligned to our good governance practices. The eventual hope is that once we if and when we get to an agreement on this framework and the type of content that's included in this, that we are able to use this to, have more conversations in the second, third, and fourth phases of our inclusive decision making framework. And this may be something that, for example, a future ad hoc on public engagement may leverage to help identify the types of engagement we want to have in service of the decisions that we're naming here. Last but not least, this does not limit board input for the work that's being articulated. Right? There is this just simply names what are the types of decisions. It does not say how input should be considered nor does it define or exclude the ways in which the superintendent and staff, build routines and systems to bring our board along. Again, this is simply to identify what are the types of decisions and just to be transparent, honest, forthright, clear, and focused on what exactly is is it that we're gonna be tackling as a body. That being said, would I'll I'll open it up just for discussion on these items. We'll follow just a round robin style and happy to answer questions about this framework here. Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Well I think this is a really helpful framework because I do think it's really it's important for us to be clear about what's board responsibility and what's not board responsibility. I think what's confusing to me maybe is is sort of what goes in the boxes. You know, I mean, to use an example that came up tonight, the academy, the decision around the academy to me feels like the box it feels like a strategic decision and the superintendent led board decided decision and yet the board was not act asked to vote on that. I think the board actually should vote on that, because I think now we're we're hearing that community members were not consulted and feel like, you know, and have some opposition to it. So I think there there at a minimum, there should be a public process, public comment, the board should have to vote, you know? I think I think that's that's our responsibility as public officials for major decisions like that. So I guess that's for me it's more like this this framework makes sense and it's more about question of like what goes where and then how does that decision get made. You know, I know the superintendent and board president set the agenda but it's it feels like there may be some lack of clarity as to what where where does it come to the board and where does it not come to the board if that makes sense.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. So in service of that question, you may have seen in the q and a doc, there was a document that was attached by staff that articulate some examples of that work. And and so maybe it's worth just kind of grounding this in some examples that I maybe are illustrative of the kind of content that would go into this. For strategic decisions, and I'll just kind of walk walk us through this. For strategic decisions, a great example of a of a board led decision would be, for example, VVGGs. Right? We define what those are. We actually need to go out into the community and ask folks what the vision and value should be and develop goals and guardrails based on that vision and value. That is all board work. Right? We own it. We have to hold ourselves accountable to it. We should build systems to engage annually for it. And that would be a great example of that. Another example of that would probably be, progress monitoring of the superintendent short term metrics. Right? She is doing the work, but we have to operationalize that evaluation cycle, and we own that evaluation of the superintendent and her progress towards those metrics. Right? An example of a strategic decision that is superintendent led but board decided would be, for example, the shaping of our budget. Right? We do have a fiduciary obligation to vote on the budget, to approve or deny the budget, but we are not making the budget. Right? We are not in each line item deciding what goes where. Right? And so we should just be transparent about that. Right? We're not the ones looking at each cell row and identifying where things should be spent or overspent or underspent. We're saying that please provide the work to us and we will then approve or deny that deliverable. What I'm adding in there is this term major initiatives. Now we have not had a conversation as a board, to my knowledge, to a full extent of defining what a major initiative or major decision is. Right? And so what what we are positing here is that in order that all major initiatives or decisions are strategic decisions and that we have to be clear from the onset on what those decisions are. Right? In other words, we can't just willy nilly throughout the year say, now this is a major decision. Now we need to vote on it. Right? Let's just be clear about what those are, give the superintendent guidance and direction on that, and just be focused on those things. Right? For management decisions, a great example of a management decision that is superintendent led but board decided would be, for example, facilities contracts. Right? These are not necessarily decisions that we as a body are always taking into account. They're usually found in consent. They're not necessarily brought to the board unless it's an actual comprehensive plan around our facilities as a great example. But we're not approving, for example, the color paint that goes on the wall of buildings. Right? That's going to be something the superintendent should decide as an operational component of our work on a day to day basis. Right? Of course, those need to be approved technically and legally by the board, but those are typically found in our consent calendar. If you go to a management decision around superintendent led, we provide a lot of feedback, for example, on language pathways. I know that many have a lot of opinions about language pathways. That is a programmatic decision that should be up to the superintendent as it is an operational decision that needs to be made. And there may be opportunities where and and times where that decision will need to come to the board and and it may come to the board. What you'll see under management decisions is that there's some space for that. Right? Some decisions could be agendized as a discussion item as in lim and in limited circumstances or where legally required may be elevated as an action item. Right? So we may need to to take action. I think we should just be honest with ourselves that it is not a strategic decision. Right? It is a management decision that we are choosing to act on. Right? And that's fine. We create the space for that. We legally have that within our authority. But we should just again, what I don't what I wanna make sure that we do is that we're honest about how we're setting strategic decisions and we stick to that. Right? That's an example.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Can I clarify what I was saying? That was really helpful. I think for and especially for the public. I actually had looked at that document and was maybe short short circuiting the conversation a bit. When I look at this document, I think I think that's a really great framework and I think the examples given here were really good. I guess what I'm saying is like in in operational reality, it doesn't seem to be working that way. So again, I'm not I don't wanna harp on the academy example but just to use that as an example, to me it feels like it was put in the bottom right box where the superintendent made that decision as a superintendent decision without consulting the board. I think it should be in the top middle box which is superintendent led, board decided. So I guess to me it feels like, yeah, this framework makes sense but it feels like maybe the superintendent and the board or some of us may have really different ideas of what goes in which box.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. I

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: think that's what I was trying

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: to say. Oh, totally. And and here's what I'll acknowledge. This is meant to be a future focused framework. To turn this retro would be an awkward situation. Right? So because decisions have been made and they have been done. And so part of this is how do we define what the types of board decisions are for the sake of us having a clearer framework and definition moving forward. Now that doesn't quite mean that for things that are active in life right now, we can't do or say certain things. But the spirit of this well, one, some of the work around this predates the conversations around this particular example. But two, the spirit of this was to be able to be clear moving forward about what are the things that we are saying and doing so that we can be, again, honest and clear, concise and direct about what those are. So, yeah, I think there's a unique situation here with the academy where I hear what you're saying around could this be a major initiative or major decision. We never gave the superintendent direction explicitly about what to do with the academy. Right? So that I think is just a it's an exceptional example of this current moment right now. Vice or sorry. Commissioner Ray or my gosh. Commissioner Weissmoor and then vice president Hulley.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I just got called all the names that

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: were that's okay.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you for to to board leadership for for working on this. And I think just to sort of follow-up on commissioner Alexander's, I think some of his points. I think that the document in theory could make a lot of sense. And I worry exactly about operationalizing it because let's be real, everyone no one knows how to stay in their lane or it's really hard. And not because we're bad people or there's ill intent. We just we have strong feelings. We have strong thoughts. I all of us. And so we may it may be that I I will say, I actually really think this is a strategic decision and there's disagreement about that. Or, you know what? Yes. I'll acknowledge this is a management decision, but this is one of those examples that should go in that middle column. And so I just wonder in terms of how to operationalize something where where it is gonna a lot of times, we're gonna have sort of the self or board or superintendent interest where we're gonna wanna put it in a specific column. And so even if we're even if I say, you're right. This isn't a strategic decision and I'm owning that, I might still engage in behavior that's not helpful and say, but I want it in that middle management box because they still wanna be able to have a decision on. So I I mean, I think just thinking about how to how to how do we hold ourselves accountable, when is there flexibility, when is there not, is my question.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: We were trying to be really thoughtful about the language that is used to define these things, which is why you see management decisions are decisions that the superintendent owns and recommends. These decisions do not rise to level of strategic. For decisions requiring board approval, most of these items should go to consent. It does not mean that it has to or must because we're building in that space for there to be kind of these exceptional moments where we have items that either individual commissioners or the superintendent do wanna bring it forward for discussion and or action. So I think those caveats are built in here. Totally hear that feedback, though. But that was kind of the spirit behind adding in that language.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Because I think that what's gonna happen is there's gonna be an inclination to say, well, this is exceptional and this is an exception exceptional and this is exceptional. And that's gonna be sort of our habit and instinct.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. Okay.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: And and

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: just to to address that point, I think that's exactly why we have this item on for discussion right now is so that and why president Kemp has developed this framework for decision making is essentially so that we can you know, we're not voting on this, but so that we can get to a place of understanding and agreement as a board that this is what we are have decided to do. This is what, these are the things that are board decisions, and then these are the things we are going to actively decide to be hands off on in order to create the room for the superintendent to lead. And so part of that is also highlighting this major decisions initiatives part of the box so that those major decisions and initiatives are things that we expect that we, as a board, will have a discussion about in open session and will publicly, in advance, charge the superintendent with making, whether that is, you know, it could be anything, I think, significant, whether it would be related to larger scale school closures, whether it would be related to, you know, large capital investments, whether it would be related to, you know, any number of potential things so that we, as a board, come back and fill in this box in some ways and say, this is what we voted on. This is what we charge the superintendent with as the major decisions, and the other things are not that. I think where I agree with you in terms of also making sure that everything that we're in agreement about where things are in the same lane is that, like, I would put the closure of a single school that you know, or the closure of schools in the absence of board direction if it if we don't identify that as a major decision. I would put that in the middle square of the tic tac toe board under board being decision maker and the superintendent being the recommender and owner because of the legal obligations that we have as a board around closing school codes. And I think I actually might I have a question to, President Kim around why it is that curriculum is in the far right column when we, as a board, have a legal obligation to adopt curriculum, although that is something that the superintendent recommends and owns.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. That's why we have these drafts and discussions.

[Principal, Lafayette Elementary (name not stated)]: And

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: and so well yeah. Noted. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge I know that AJ is on the call right now. So AJ, if there is ever a moment where you want to chime in, please let us know. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you. And I also appreciate this document and just having this information. In the spirit of Guardrail One, I'm hoping that eventually once, you know, and I'm very excited that commissioner Gupta is gonna lead the ad hoc committee on community engagement. But I'm hoping that, once we do some of that work, we'll be able to add a couple extra columns here, maybe at least one. But what level of community engagement is required in order for us to honor Guardrail One in the spirit of and to recognize board community engagement is different than district and leadership community engagement. So, I'd love to see some information tying in here, how we can do that in in the spirit of our inclusive decision making process, which that document was also linked in the q and a. So, hopefully, we can see that tied together and and further answer some of those questions about influencer versus decision maker versus flush that out a little bit more.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I think that's exactly what the next step would be. Right? So, again, part of this is responding to the very first action step there, which was to define what are the types of decisions. The very next step would then be, okay, how are we going how are we going to make these decisions? And being really intentional and clear about that because we do need we need to decide and build for and intentionally plan for when those engagements are gonna be and with whom. So totally agree. Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I just I just want to second Commissioner Fisher's point because I think part of what's coming up from me around, just again to use the school closure as an example, Maybe maybe school closures could go in that middle box that, in that, vice president Huling was talking about. In my view, then the criteria I would wanna be using around a vote was something around guardrail one. Like, knowing that the superintendent had gone through a process. Right? But so again, for me, that is a really important piece. The same with curriculum. Like, curriculum should, I think, go in the middle box as you said. But but I also wanna know that there had been a process. Right? If if the superintendent just said, well, I've picked a curriculum and I didn't talk to anyone and didn't talk to any of the educators and didn't pilot it, I would probably vote no, you know, but not but, again, because of the process. And that's why I think the guardrails matter in terms of this. Because I think for for the strategic decisions, I think what we're if I'm understanding correctly, the the board has especially the upper left one, the the board has a much more hands on role. But even with the budget, I think in some ways, like, we should be applying the guardrails. Like, we shouldn't just be freelancing, you know, for the upper middle box. We shouldn't be saying, oh, well, I can do whatever I want. We still ought to be using the goals and guardrails as our criteria

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yeah.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Around judging how we vote on those things.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Do you

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: know what I mean?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: A 100%. And just to be really clear again, this our goals and guardrails this does not supersede our goals and guardrails. Golden the guardrails themselves apply to everything regardless. Right? It's worth noting that guardrails are meant for the superintendent. There's a worthy conversation to be had around whether or not we wanna set guardrails for ourselves, which I think is a very good conversation to have. It's just not the conversation happening right now. But yeah. I mean, that all of the guardrails, just to be clear, it doesn't really matter where anything is in any given box. Those guardrails should still be honored regardless of where they are on this on this table. And that's, I think, a really important point. Part of, I think, where well, the second thing I would say is, again, this is meant to be directed well, the primary audience for this, frankly, is for the board to understand what we are saying that because if if we are making strategic decisions, what I would push us to say is, like, if that's gonna if these are the strategic decisions, how are we going to engage people in the strategic decisions that we're going to make? And that to me is not just the board led types of decisions, but there's a question to be made around what the types of decisions around superintendent led board decided that we need to engage with people on as well. Right? And so it's actually that whole row of strategic decisions that we need to consider, not just the board led ones. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yeah. I mean, just to to build on that, president Kemp, thanks for putting this together and I really appreciate your comment, commissioner Fisher, in that one, absolutely, this this then informs how we engage the public if we do it well. Two, it's it's we are then also telegraphing or I hope we telegraph exactly how we do engage the public. So every time if we have a school closure, if we can sort of say, under normal conditions, this is how we seek to engage public, the public on this, that would be fantastic. And three, to be able to name what decisions we are looking at for public engagement on. So whether it's curricula, this is how we engage the public. If it's a school, you know, consolidation or closure, this is how we engage the public so that everyone understands what that process will be.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: A huge, I think, deliverable to consider here is is if we can get to an agreement on this, how does our board governance calendar get implicated by this as well? Right? Because we should ask ourselves if these are strategic decisions, then we should see these decisions come in front of the board at some point. And if we know when those decisions are gonna get made, we need to ask ourselves, well, what engagement do we need to do well in advance? Right? So there's a lot of implications that can come from agreeing with something like this or operationalizing something like this. And and I think from again, my from my perspective, that is the whole purpose of this being step one of that decision making framework. Commissioner Ray and then Vice President Huling.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you. So my question, I have a couple questions on this. But first, I was wondering, sort of fundamentally, what are is there something that we're drawing on in in this this matrix here? Like, are we drawing on a particular theory or a best practice or or, you know, a framework? Sort of like, what is underlying what is underlying this, if anything?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: So, again, part of where we are grounding this is in the first step of the inclusive decision making framework. So that framework explicitly says, before you think about ways to include folks in a decision, you need to actually define what are the types of decisions that you're gonna be making. And so, I mean, there are a number of ways we can go about defining a type of decision. One example is it could and you see this in the inclusive decision making framework. One example is you do it based on percent of students impacted or number of schools impacted. All of that is fair. I think what I try to do is tackle kind of, like, two different lenses to this. What I was trying to to do was articulate who is the decider because we should be just be clear about that and who is building the recommendation or who's building that recommendation that the board then needs to decide on. The other lens to this was, you know, we we keep talking about major decisions, but hadn't, as a board, landed on a single way to identify what is that. And it begs the question, if we identify what those are, what does it leave everything else? Right? And so this matrix was in part intended to help, again, get clearer and clearer on what that definition is of a major decision. And here's the reality. Right? Like, there's a lot of decisions the superintendent and her team make every single day. This is not intended to capture everything for all things. Right? What you see here, though, is that for strategic decisions did I put that in here? What the intention here is for strategic decisions is that we give direct explicit guidance to the superintendent. Right? So this is going back to what vice president Huling was saying. One of the opportunities that comes from this kind of framework is that we can be clear publicly and through this framework what is the major initiative that we are directing the superintendent on instead of, you know, this kind of risk here of the goal post constantly shifting on the things that we want her to accomplish or want her team to accomplish. Right? And so that was part of this is that the management decisions, superintendent decision decisions, that cannot be an exhaustive list. It's impossible. It's gonna be a forever list. However, for the strategic decisions, we can be very clear and directive on what those are that we want to do because we have to make a decision on that, and that would require giving direction to the superintendent.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I know there have been many instances this year where either collectively or as individual board members, we have been disappointed or frustrated with the level of advanced community involvement, whether it's, you know, feedback from site leaders, whether it's reaching out to people about, what's happening at to their school or to their learning pathway or program. But I I do wanna remind all of us as a board that Gardener l one doesn't apply to by what this board adopted or not this board, but the SFUSD school board adopted. It doesn't apply, Gardener l one, to every single decision. It says that the superintendent will not make major decisions without utilizing a process that includes meaningful consultation, with parents, guardians, students, and staff who will be impacted by those decisions at the inception adoption and review. And I think as a best practice to we should follow that as a district more often, and that should just be routinized and institutionalized. But initially, when this was adopted, there were five major decisions that the board charged then superintendent Wayne with, and those were the five decisions to which Gardendale one applied. And since superintendent Wayne has left the district and RAI has been stopped. Essentially, there we have not, as a board, adopted new major decisions. And so this framework is essentially an invitation for us to give clear direction in public to the superintendent on what are the, you know, one through five major decisions that we charge her with and expect her to make, and to which guardrail one then explicitly applies. And, you know, there are any number of ways that we can define those, but I think it is also us explicitly acknowledging then that there are other things that are going to happen that will fall outside of those that will be big, that will be impactful, that will be important, but that essentially are management decisions or are, sorry, I'm losing the form or our superintendent decisions. And so those, like, superintendent decisions might include, for example, the move from ninety ten, eighty twenty, fifty fifty progression in Spanish immersion to fifty fifty model. And while we might think it's ideal to, in advance, reach out to all of our dual language immersion Spanish schools to discuss that in advance, it would represent us essentially saying, we acknowledge that that is, you know, not one of the five major decisions that we've charged her with is reforming dual language immersion, pathways, if, you know, if indeed we don't end up doing that, that it's not a decision where the superintendent is the recommender and owner, but by law, the board is the decision maker. And thus, it goes in the far right column of a superintendent decision recommended and owned by the superintendent. And so that is a place where, as a board, that will help us have clarity that, like, we all have our feelings. We all have our ideals. We still want to strive for accountability and for responsiveness to the community, but we have things where we've explicitly applied these guardrails, and then the rest, we do at some level and must necessarily, at some level, lead to superintendent decision making. And that includes, you know, for example, like, executive contracts, at least for non board employees.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. Go for it. Michelle, I'll see.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I really appreciate what Vice President Healing, what you're what you're doing there in terms of that explanation. I think just to clarify one small point which which was that when the guardrail one was first written, we did not the board did not designate the major decisions. It those were chosen by the superintendent as the interim guardrail. And so there was so it's all it's actually this has been a point of contention ever since the guardrail was written because I think some of us interpreted the guardrail more broadly to mean that and I think I I still believe this is is that to me it was always like sort of a cultural it was intended to indicate a value of the community. Right? So it was sort of a cultural thing and it wasn't like, the idea wasn't the board's gonna pick three decisions and it's only gonna measure those. It was more like, as superintendent, you can't make major decisions without first, consulting with the people that are impacted. Now you decide what those what which ones you wanna measure for interims. Right? But that but that really the expectation was that you take that ethic into all that you do. And and I would say, like, that it should trickle down throughout the system. Right? If a principal is making a decision that's a major decision at a school, they ought to consult their community. I think, to me, it was more of a value statement than it was, like, a technical statement. And then I think we tried as a board to make it more technical and I mean, I think this is in some ways the hardest one because it it's like this thing of, like, how do people feel, you know, often when a decision they don't agree with is being made, do they feel like they were consulted at a minimum? Right? So I just wanna say, like, I think there are some complexities here, and I know I'm not sure that we're ever gonna be able to just put it all in the boxes. But I think it's a valiant attempt, and I think it's worthwhile to be as clear as we possibly can. But also recognizing that our job is to represent the vision and values of the community. So, like like, one of the values that I heard loud and clear when we before we wrote the guardrails was community needs to be folks need to be consulted before a decision is made about them. So I'm gonna keep pressing that and even if I'm not, like I don't know. Like, even if it's not a technically one of the three major decisions, I think it's okay if we complain about it. Even if we don't if we as long as we're not, like, stepping out of our lane in terms of trying to micromanage the superintendent. Be like, okay, I respect the fact the superintendent made that decision. I think she could have done a better job engaging the community on it. And I think you know what I'm saying? Like, I think maybe as long as we can be clear, I think this helps us move forward.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. And and I just wanna say, like, it's part of the reason why we're not asking this to be a policy. We're asking this to be a framework that we use. Right? Because there's always gonna be some kind of work that we need to do. But I do wanna just be clear, like, this is meant to focus us in. Right? And to be clear and directive. Right? Because the last thing that we want is to call everything a major decision and that that can't be the case. But we do wanna be clear about what we are directing the superintendent to do as a board. Right? We each can have the things that we are passionate about, but we need to be clear as a board what are we giving direction on so that she and her team have clarity, and that's what's the spirit behind creating this table. Right? Commissioner Ray and then, AJ, I know you're you're on the line here. You've been very patiently waiting since a time that I promised you was gonna be a long time ago. We're gonna be done with this conversation. So I'll

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: turn to commissioner Ray.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I think I'm gonna bring that to you sooner rather than later because my question was whether AJ has any comments so far in our discussion and what, if anything, he'd like to share with us about the framework proposed framework.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. AJ and then also superintendent Sue, if you wanna also share your thoughts because I know that you've had a chance to chew on this for a bit.

[AJ Crabill (Governance Coach)]: Happy to be of service. The board is here because you captured a community value in your guardrail. Your superintendent attempted to interpret it, which is their job. You all found that that interpretation was not in alignment with your intention, which is your job, and then you went back and forth and back and forth. Eventually, my advice to you was that you all need to lead on this issue since you've shown a persistent disinterest in the superintendent's interpretation, which is absolutely your right as a board to do. But to break out of the stalemate, you as a board have to now step up and lead. And to not do so on this issue means that you will continue to fail as a board to demonstrate leadership on what engagement with your community looks like. And so this is no longer a situation where the superintendent, is falling down. You're at a point where the board is falling down by not putting in systemic processes for when and how do we engage with our community. So that's what's at stake is the opportunity to kind of wait and see what the administration will come up with is largely passed. Really, as a board, you need to nail it down. And whether it is this particular process that your board, officers have brought to you or a different one, I don't think is the most important thing. I think this is a reasonable approach. Lisa, you kind of noted on the head that what is expected now is that you all actually have to put a stake in the sand. And, yes, that is necessarily going to be uncomfortable, and none of you are gonna be perfectly happy with it. But it would be better for you all to take action and start moving in a direction so that you can show leadership to your community and to your and to your superintendent than to continue in this ongoing stalemate that has you all not attending to a core function of your job, which is to be actively engaging with your community on major decisions. And so if there is another framework that, board members wanna consent wanna consider instead, that that's perfectly reasonable. If you want to use this one, then my coaching to you is make a hard call, put the pen to paper, and come up with something recognizing it will be imperfect, but it will be less dysfunctional than doing nothing.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Inspiring words. Thank you, AJ.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: For Kim.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'm gonna have superintendent Sue in there. Superintendent Sue.

[Superintendent Soong]: Thank you, president Kim. Those are those are mic drop words that AJ just just dropped there. I I just greatly appreciate this framework because it does provide a greater level of clarity, both to myself and to our team as well as to the public so that the public can clearly see the direction that this governance team is moving in. And so for for us, for me, it definitely provides greater greater clarity and accountability. So I appreciate board leadership in putting this together.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Vice President Huling.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Just to respond to commissioner Alexander's point about the original major decisions having been, identified by superintendent Wayne. I also would remind the board that when we adopted, the superintendent's short term metrics, metric one includes identifying the major decisions and sharing those, and sorry. And and the superintendent's response to the short term metrics, she set for herself a deadline of June to identify and share with the larger community one to three or one to five major decisions that the district is going to make. And we as a board have not seen it publicly communicated what the one to three or one to five major decisions that the superintendent intends to make are. And so unlike superintendent Lane, we continue to operate without identified major decisions shared with the community, and I think that is in part what AJ is getting at that then it falls to us as a board to identify those major decisions and to give direction to our sole employee, the superintendent, on what we expect the major decisions of the district to be and what we expect Garvey l one to apply to rather than having it just linger unresolved so that we can also then have a consensus and direction as a board of this is what we have said as a body is our lane. And then everything else, we have other processes for and other standards for by what we have decided as our vision values, goals, and guardrails, and as our charging with major decisions and short term metrics. So because we all do have our own, I think, thoughts on what those should be, but the superintendent and the district can't operate with each of us having a different set of ideal major initiatives. We need to act, and we can only legally act as a board, as a

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: body. It is nine forty three, so I'm gonna bring us to a close here. So just in terms of next steps, commissioners, what you'll see for the October 28 board meeting, will be an updated version of the types of board decisions document that includes, kind of recommendations around what the content is of these decisions. And so we will come back at the October to do that and carry on the conversation at that point. Okay? Okay. Alrighty. Moving on to our, next item, item h consent calendar. I will turn it to vice president Huling.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: President Kim has a standing recusal, from the consent calendar to avoid the appearance of a conflict based on his employment with City and County of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with, SFUSD and therefore often appears on the consent calendar. So in his absence, I will ask the superintendent, are there any changes to the consent calendar? There are none. And is there a motion to adopt the consent calendar?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I move to adopt the consent calendar.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Marilyn Laidlaw (teacher/substitute, SFUSD)]: Can we have

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: a roll call vote, miss Lanoff? Yes. Commissioner Alexander?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice President Ewing? No. Commissioner Ray?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Wiseman Ward?

[Gloria Mazajewski (parent, former employee)]: Yes. That is five ayes.

[Ms. Lanoff (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you very much.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: We welcome you back president Kim.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Awesome. Moving to item I, four member reports. Item one, report from board delegates to membership organizations. Are there any reports from delegates? Commissioner Fisher? Three seconds on the clock.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. In, August, we used 0% of our time on student outcomes focused things, and in September, we used a hundred and two minutes on student outcome focused things for a total percentage of 0% in August and 13% in September. That's it.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Got a lot of work to do. Right. Thank you, commissioner Fisher. I've also promised her that we will share the burden of taking these time usage reports, and so it is coming. I have a

[Ms. Tsai (Substitute/Guest Teacher)]: couple other report by board members.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Do you

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: have another report? I do. Okay. You have one second.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I just wanna say thanks to, the board and district for, allowing me to participate in Georgetown's agenomics lab on, certificate in education finance for public school, budgeting. I I went to DC and did the first two days in person, and I'm continuing to do the classes remotely throughout the semester. It's fun being a student again, and I think there's a lot of lessons there for how we can do student outcomes focused budgeting and keep our eyes on spending our dollars to best benefit students, including through how we, allocate funds to our labor partners because they ultimately serve our students. So thanks so much.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Both of those were part of all other reports by board members, but we will take it in stride and go to item three.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: That's

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: what I said. I had an all items.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I know.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I know.

[Melanie Cruz Villanueva (Student Delegate)]: Sorry about that.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Discretionary advisory committee appointments by commissioners. Are there any appointments? Commissioner Wright?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes. I have an appointment. Just gonna take a a moment briefly to say I'm appointing Aliza Schneier to the PCAC. I'm really thrilled to be able to make this appointment. Aliza is a working parent of two kids in SFUSD, one who's in Spanish immersion at Monroe, excuse me, and the other who is at John McLaren, EES. So she's got young kids and many years ahead of her in the district. She is also the deputy director of, the Destiny Arts Center in Oakland. So I think she will really bring very valuable, expertise and experience with arts education. And she is so committed that she actually attended all of the board meetings in the past school you know, in the past year virtually. So I just wanted to say how, you know, how thrilled I am to be able to appoint her and have somebody who has shown such interest already and dedication to our district. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, commissioner Ray. At this time, the board will resume closed session, and we will return to adjourn once we are done.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

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