San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

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

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Here.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Fisher? Here. Commissioner Gupta? Vice President Healy? Commissioner Ray? Here. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? And President Kim.

[President Phil Kim]: Here. Accessibility information, translation, and interpreter services, virtual meeting information may all be found online, under general information. If you have questions, please contact the board office at (415) 241-6427 or Board Office at s f u s d dot e d u. At this time, before 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 public comment?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: There are none.

[President Phil Kim]: I now recess this meeting at 04:07PM.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

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

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: SF GovTV, San Francisco government television.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Sf Gov TV, San Francisco government television.

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

[Speaker 7.0]: SFgovTV,

[SFGovTV Announcer]: San Francisco Government Television.

[Speaker 8.0]: SFgov TV.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: San Francisco government television.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: SF Gov TV, San Francisco government television.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: SF Gov TV, San Francisco government television

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

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[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 2025202603.

[President Phil Kim]: The student will be recommended for expulsion for the remainder of the current semester and the following semester through 06/03/2026 immediately following this full expulsion order. The student will be placed at Civic Center Secondary School during the expulsion period. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call, please, miss Blenoff.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Alexander? Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Vice president Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And president Kim?

[President Phil Kim]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: That's six ayes.

[President Phil Kim]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one elementary school student, matter number 2025202604. Student will be expelled from for one calendar year from the date of approval of the expulsion commencing the day immediately following the expulsion. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call, please, miss Lanoff.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Alexander? Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice President Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim? Yes. That's six ayes.

[President Phil Kim]: In one manner of anticipated litigation, the board by a vote of five ayes, zero nos. And with commissioner Fisher recusing herself and commissioner Gupta being absent, the board gives direction to the general counsel. In one manner of anticipated litigation, the board by a vote of five ayes, zero nos. And With commissioner Commissioner Gupta and vice president Huling being absent, the board gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of Oh case number 2025081017, the board by a vote of five ayes, zero nos. And with Commissioner Gupta and President Kim being absent, the board gives direction to the general counsel. The SFUSD Board of Education is committed to effective school board governance that centers student learning. Based on community input, the board has adopted our vision, values, goals, and guardrails. In order to increase the portion of board meeting time we spend on student outcomes, every other regular meeting is a monitoring workshop. Our approach to governance also calls on the board to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach those goals within the guardrail set by the board. As we implement our governance framework, the board will continue to adopt new systems, routines, and policies aimed at improving student outcomes. We encourage the public to follow this work on our website at sfusd.edu/governance as we commit to finding new and improved ways to more meaningfully engage with staff, students, and families. Moving to public comment. To align with our effective governance efforts, public comment will last for one hour or until 8PM, whichever is earlier. We aim today, 06:45 07:45 today. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by beginning board business no no later than 8PM. Our hope is to conduct board business in an efficient, effective, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. Each participant may speak for up to one minute. Staff will thank the participant at the one minute mark. At one minute and five seconds, I ask mister nope. Mister Steele to turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email to boardoffice@sfusd.edu. We will hear first from students in person, then members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items, then moving to non agenda items. Regardless of whether in person public comment is complete, we will save fifteen minutes for public remote public comment, in this case, at 07:30, taking commenters in the same order as in person. To members of the public, on your right, you'll see signs that outline expectations for public comment and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public model the kind of tone, language, and behavior that we hope to see from our young people, respecting different viewpoints and allowing for all members of the public to participate. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow-up with speakers. Mister Steele?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you, president Kim. We'll start with students. I only have one student card. Are there any other students who care to speak? I'm sorry. I'm a little blind right now. Toto, I think. I'm sorry. I can't see right now. Hold on one minute.

[Speaker 10.0]: Okay. Hi. My name is Toto Honeyball. I'm a senior at academy, and for the past five years, the district has strategically been shutting down my school. Despite the constant threats of closure and all the reasons and opportunities I've been given to leave and the deep consideration I gave them, at every turn, I still chose academy. I chose the friends I've made there, my incredible teachers, our supportive wellness staff. I chose my education, myself, and my community, just as all my peers have. To close academy would be to neglect the autonomy of all our students no matter how few we have. More than that, it would exploit our efforts to integrate a great college and career program, which we move to Wallenberg with or without our students and teachers. A year of testing this program on a student body that benefits from it most on incredible success only because of those students and the support academy provides them. This abuse is captured by the perversely dehumanizing words of high school superintendent Davina Goldwasser in her description of our school as a lifeless basement. Despite this attitude in the treatment of my peers as guinea pigs, despite being on the Bottom Floor of our campus, despite our lack of windows because most of the classrooms that have them are given to soda, and And despite the district's blatant disregard for underprivileged students, we still choose academy and we still choose to stay. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. I don't have any cards for agenda items, so I'll move on to non agenda. Alright. Dennis Fox, could you hear your name? Come line up at the podium, please. Ryan Hightower, Alan Loosen, Eric Perez, Jeff Kent, and Michelle Jatte.

[Dennis Fox]: Tell me when.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Go ahead.

[Dennis Fox]: Untrained substitutes in the classroom. SFUSD has overhired substitute teachers and have failed to provide them with the most basic training. I've witnessed new untrained subs throw ADA attendance sheets at the students, asking the students themselves to handle the attendance. This jeopardizes the accuracy of the daily the average daily attendance. I've seen new untrained substitutes walk out of classrooms, leaving classrooms unsupervised with the classroom doors open. Both of these issues are lawsuits in the making. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you.

[Ryan Hightower]: Hi. My name is Ryan Hightower. I'm the English language arts lead at the academy. I'm really proud of our student, who's got come to speak in front of us and students that we'll hear from a little bit later, on the courage to stand in front of district leadership and demand to be heard. One thing that I wanna remind the school board of is that academy is both an enrollment and employment, a school of choice, an alternative school of choice. And what this means might feel like semantics to some people, but what we have seen is that this fills a building with people who want to be there, with adults who want to take on extra roles, who want to wear many hats, who want to support the many different, needs of our student body, We're coaches, school site council members, instructional leadership teams, fund members, fundraisers, advisors, volunteers, and many of us, wear three to four of these different types of hats. We build a campus community, with the staff that knows who you are for all four years. And, I would beg the school board and the superintendent to reconsider their decision regarding our school. Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 13.0]: The voters of San Francisco approved a parcel tax on 06/03/2008. It has helped San Francisco Unified School District pay for various educational programs and teacher resources, increased salaries, and allowed educators to be compensated financially for working in hardest deaf schools and subject areas. This include 25 Prop A substitute teachers who may lose their jobs because this parcel tax is only good through 07/01/2028. SFUSD and UESF need to work together to replace the Prop eight parcel tax with another measure to provide students with needed funds to ensure their success in school. Additionally, teachers who have reached retirement age are hesitant to retire because they have discovered that due to the under reporting of service credit and financial contributions such as CalSTRS or the major overhaul of CalSTRS database, it affects their monthly interest income and ultimately, their monthly retirement check. This problem needs to be reviewed and acted on immediately to help certificated teachers transition to their retirement successfully.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you.

[Eric Perez]: Good to go. Hi. My name is Eric Perez. I work at the academy. Last week, our students came to speak at the school board with a lot of indignation, and today they're coming again. Even though they, they're teenagers on a Tuesday afternoon, they chose to be here instead. I just wanna extend a a a thank you for some of the messages that our our students said last week, and it seems like the school board heard them and so did doctor Hsu when it came to opening dialogue with community. And I appreciate that the message to talk about budget wasn't just the email or newsletter, but it also went out out as a call too. So all all parents are hearing. But also I wanna extend a a concern too. I think with the closure of the academy, our district does certain things very well. We have programs that students are climbing over each other to get into, one being Lowell. And Lowell promises an academic success plan for the students and promises parents that their their children will have a future. I feel like instead of expanding a school that is also overfunded, like SOTA expanding this school, we could extend academic opportunity as well, something displayed in the academy. So Thank you. Thank you.

[Dr. Jeffrey Kent]: Sorry. Good evening. My name is doctor Jeffrey Kent, PhD mathematics education. This is my seventh year as a mathematics and computer science teacher at the Academy SF at McAteer and my second year as an elected high school representative on the UESF executive board. I rise today to speak in support of the academy community. The dedication and attainment of our students and the efforts of our staff have created a community that is kind, inclusive, and welcoming, a community focused on the growth and social integration of all of our students. This is why the bad faith strategic manipulation of our school has caused such a breach in the trust that is necessary for a school and a district to function. It is an anti democratic process that amounts to little more than the arbitrary use of administrative power by bureaucrats that hide behind a thin veil of insincere reasons and condescending disregard of our community's concerns and needs. Left unchecked, this pattern will ruin the district.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That's your time. Thank you.

[Michelle Jacques]: Good evening. My name is Michelle Jacques and I am a community school coordinator at Groton Elementary School. I wanna thank my principal and assistant principal at my school. I see them every day filling in gaps, managing multiple situations at once, covering for missing staff, supporting other staff, managing all the business that it takes to run a school, and still finding time to meet with families, and doing way too many not way too many IEP meetings, but there's a lot. They are stretched way too thin. This year, 20 schools opened without clerks including ours. Many special education positions remain empty including two at ours. On top of that, our leaders are being asked to implement new systems with very little support. They are doing the work of two, sometimes three people and doing it all with heart. They're often the first ones in the building and the last to leave. It is not sustainable. These amazing leaders deserve a fully staffed school with realistic expectations. Our kids deserve that too. We can't keep asking them to do more with less and I support academy.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Brandy, go ahead right now.

[Speaker 16.0]: Hi, everyone. Brandy Markman, public school parent. I stand in solidarity with the many students and members of the academy at McAteer community asking for an absolute halt to this school closure. As I said at the last board meeting, I have a zero tolerance for school closures in SFUSD, and I think that we all should if we value public education. There have been studies that show that children who have to endure a school closure have an a lifetime, earnings that is lower than than students who do not endure school closures. I think there is absolutely no reason to close this school. This is not something the community asked for. This is this is disrespectful. And the school closures, I wanna remind everyone, are a tool in the arsenal of school privatizers and gentrification. This school closure needs to be halted immediately. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That concludes in person public comment, president Kim.

[President Phil Kim]: Yes, please.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Move on to Zoom. Okay. Thank you. We're gonna move on to Zoom public comments starting with students again. Again, only students right now. So if you're a student and you care to speak on any item, if it's on the agenda or not, please raise your hand. Could that be repeated in Spanish and Chinese, please? Thank you. Raven, go ahead.

[Raven Jenkins]: Hello. My name is Raven Jenkins. I am a former academy student. I see so many of my former teachers and friends. I spent five years with a beautiful family that supported me before I was forcibly transferred because my birth family, like all of you who do not know me in the slightest, thought that that would be best for me. What actually happened is that my teachers were left confused, my friends were bereft, and I was left with years long anxiety, depression, and nightmares of controlling my of losing control of my life that still haunt me. This is what you will be doing to hundreds of academy kids that have no other safe space and dozens of teachers and staff who will be left to wonder as you take their livelihoods away from them. An important choice lies in front of you. Please, as someone who knows what it's like, I beg of you, please do not tear these kids' souls apart like my family did mine. Thank you, and good night.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Dahlia?

[Dalia (Academy senior)]: Hi. My name is Dalia. I'm a senior at the Academy High School, and I'm here to talk about the lack of communication and understanding within the district about our school's closure and the people being impacted by it. The academy is a supportive, tight knit community. Our school's been this way because of our small size and amazing staff, and each and every student chose to enroll here knowing that. At the academy, we genuinely care for one another. That's why there are so many seniors advocating for our community even in the midst of our college applications because we value the futures of our underclassmen and peers. Us seniors may not be impacted directly academically by the closure, but any threat to our community still impacts us emotionally. This closure will fracture the academy community, and the dis district has done very little to mitigate or even acknowledge that harm. Without student or teacher consent shutting down the academy, my community cannot be justified in any way. Thank you for listening.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That concludes our student section. We'll move on to agenda items. So if you care to speak to an item that is on the agenda this evening, please raise your hand. Could that be repeated in Spanish or Chinese, please?

[Speaker 7.0]: Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Miss Marshall?

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Thank you, mister Steele. To president Kim, commissioners, superintendent Hsu, the NAACP has some some some cons a couple of concerns tonight. One is that we are aware that the elementary students took the STAR test last week. And I suppose students across the district had various testing last week. And we encourage the board, especially the commissioners, to

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: ensure that all African

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: American and Latino students and Latino students and anyone who's not performing at grade level have the resources available to them to do well on that test. We're also concerned about the academy students and families. I went through Woodrow Wilson when they closed down decades ago.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: And I

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: know this card that I can look at that leaves our students and families. And we're really concerned of tonight's two board meetings now that we heard about the substitute debacle, and we hope that you will resolve that issue, train the subs, please. We are it has been reported to us an incident at one of the elementary schools, and there was a sub in that classroom that day. We can help you in any way. Please let us know. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Raven? Raven, go ahead.

[Raven Jenkins]: Hello again. I just wanted to fully explain that I am entirely against academy's closure. As many others in this meeting have stated, academy is a place where our tight knit community has been formed over years. If you do choose to take away the safe space, you do not know how many hundreds of lives will be changed by this. Thank you again.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Rhianda.

[Rhianda Batiste]: Good evening, board commissioners and superintendent Hsu. My name is Rhianda Batiste, and I am a parent leader with SFUSD. I show up because my child's experience in our schools is shaped by the decisions made in this room. As we move into budget season, I want to be clear that a budget is a major decision that affects every student. So community input cannot come at the end after upcoming conversations. We are thankful to be included early while options are still being created and considered. We hope to see our feedback shared with us. We want to understand how the district weighed community input and choosing priorities. Transparency builds trust. If families and community partners are asked to participate, our voices must have a real impact. The budget needs to be reflect what we say and our children need. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Vanessa?

[Dr. Vanessa Marrero]: Thanks, Justin. Good evening, everybody. Happy Tuesday. This is related to a couple of your board agenda items. One is, board decisions. I'm really, appreciate the board for continuing to put these types of decisions in front of the public. And I wanna commend president Kim for his leadership. And I also wanna share that, you know, as we make decisions, it is incumbent on the board to ensure that if a school is gonna be closed, it comes before the board, and the board is, able to discuss and vote on that closure. Have a good evening.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That concludes non agenda items. Moving on to agenda items. So we are moving on to agenda items now. If you care to speak to an item that is on the agenda, please raise your hand. Spanish and Chinese, please.

[Rhianda Batiste]: Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Rhianna?

[Rhianda Batiste]: Good thing again, board commissioners and superintendent Hsu. Again, my name is Rhianna Batiste, and I am one of the APEC parent community members. When you say the public is invited to engage, we appreciate the invitation. At the same time, access matters. Families need childcare, translation, trans different locations, and times that honor working schedules. Without that, only the loudest and most resourced voices are heard. We ask for clear participation standards that disrupt performative community engagement. If you want authentic family partnerships, you must build the ways for us to show up. Families deserve a seat at the table every time student success is on the line. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Laura?

[Speaker 8.0]: Can you hear me?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yes.

[Speaker 8.0]: Hi. This may be a non agenda item. I think I got the order confused. I'm, I'm a parent, SFUSD parent, and today, I'm just speaking on behalf of all families who are able to and who are not able to participate in the budget town hall process. I wanna follow-up on what was presented last week, with respect to the unaudited actuals that showed a net shortfall of 36,000,000. This is compared to what was budgeted for the year prior of 148 and a half million. So our on the ground reality in terms of losses, while still losses, was really only 25% of what we expected. And just to put that in context again, it was 36,900,000.0 compared to 148,500,000.0. I think the concern I have is when you look out for the budget for this year and the following two years, we're looking at 221.8 or 9,000,000 in losses. If we were to apply that same sort of ratio, you're looking at something sub 100. Right? And it could be to the tune of 55,000,000.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: So I

[Speaker 8.0]: guess what I'm trying to figure out is how do we have a conversation about cost and have a trust if we don't really work from this That's

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: your time. Towards that trust. Thank you.

[Speaker 8.0]: Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Vanessa?

[Dr. Vanessa Marrero]: Yeah. I think I got it switched as well. But I'll just say yeah. I think I mentioned this the last time. If we we have a deficit of 38,000,000, we're looking at consolidating a school. I'm not sure why we would be renewing any charters. So I think we need to think about what are our priorities, what are our values. We have students who are coming in front of you multiple times to speak tonight. I think that this is a decision that you guys are gonna need to make a bit more carefully, as well as just the work that, you know, we have a couple monitoring tools tonight, math and ELA. And I again, I don't see SPED. I don't see API disaggregated. We need more focus groups because we're continuing to perpetuate some of the same problems that we've had for about, you know, the last, what, fifteen years. Thanks.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Miss Marshall, were you gonna make another comment or was this from before?

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Am I speaking now? This is Sue.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Pardon me?

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Am I speaking now?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yes. You are.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Oh, thank you so much. I couldn't really hear. I I I just wanna join the bandwagon with APAC and Ali and the community for the up forthcoming and board present budget meeting on Saturday. Saturday morning's a precious time with our families, but we will come. And I'm wondering if you when you invite the community to come to to the board budget presentation, how do you include their concerns, their wishes or their what they're talking about, what our wishes wishes are at that board at that station. I hope it's not a dog and pony show. I hope that you're will be open minded and and include the concerns of the of the, of the community. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Connie.

[Connie (Academy senior)]: Hi. My name is Connie. I'm a senior at the academy, and I think that the school closure is, like, rushed and not very thought through. When, like, it was first announced that our school was closing, it was said that the deaf and hard of hearing program was gonna merge with SOTA, but then there was, like, backlash. And then it was then made the decision that the deaf and the the the DHH program was gonna move, with us to Wallenberg. And I feel like that situation alone really shows how, like, SFUSD, like, did like, they were unprepared for it. And I feel like you can't say that this merge is best for our students when you didn't even, like,

[Dalia (Academy senior)]: really

[Connie (Academy senior)]: think thoroughly on where the DHH program was gonna go, especially since it's one of two DHH programs for SFU high schools. And it's just doesn't make any sense to say that it's really best for students when you're not thinking about them.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That's your time. Thank you.

[Connie (Academy senior)]: Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Virginia Avalos. Virginia Avalos. One more time. Virginia Avalos, are you there? President Kim, that concludes That's right.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Oh. That that close is not my last name. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Okay. There's another there's another Virginia, but that concludes Zoom public comment.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you to members of the public for being here tonight, virtually or in person, to share their experiences and thoughts. Appreciate your time this evening to share with the board. Just to clarify, I know there were items for comment cards for item e public comment related to the KIPP renewals. We will have the comments for those specific items at that time during the public hearing. Is that right, counsel?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yes.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. So just an FYI to members of the public, which is actually next, item e. The next item on the agenda is two five one zero two eight s p one. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Chris Armentrout (Director of Policy & Planning)]: So moved.

[President Phil Kim]: Second. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves item two five one zero two eight s p one. I call on the superintendent or designate to read this into the record. Does comment happen before or after?

[General Counsel]: At this time, President Kim, I would recommend that you call the hearing to order

[President Phil Kim]: Okay.

[General Counsel]: And then call for public comment.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. I will call the hearing to order. And if we can turn to public comment, please, mister Seal.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. I'm gonna call everyone up. We'll start with the elementary Angela Williams, Royal Lovelace, Alexis, Lucas De Leon, Naveah Watson, Luis Hernandez, and Josiah and Josiah. You have one minute each.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Before we start, can I ask for a point of clarification? We have two separate public hearings. Correct? But are we doing one public comment for both or are we doing separate separate public comments for each hearing?

[President Phil Kim]: Do they

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: I called everyone but there are there are

[President Phil Kim]: Comments They

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: are separate. Yes.

[President Phil Kim]: They are separate?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yes.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. So we will start with The elementary? The baby elementary School item.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: I'm so sorry for the folks I called from college prep. You'll come up next. So the first four I called, Angela, Royal Space. Alexis, and Lucas.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you for that clarification, commissioner Fisher. Thank you. Apologies.

[Angela Williams]: Hello. My name is Angela Williams from Cape Bayview Elementary. I've been part of this school community for seven years. I started as behavior aid, then became a behavior coordinator, later taught third grade, and now I serve as a content specialist. My background is in educational therapy, so students have a special place in my heart. I help identify students who are in need of additional support. Because of some of the challenges I've seen, I created a group called Boys and Girls Inc, which stands for inclusion, knowledge, and kindness. Our motto is correct accounts. I meet with first through fourth graders each week to set goals, build relationships, and help them reflect on their choices. One student comes to mind who has grown tremendously through ink. When he struggles, we revisit our motto, and I ask, what's your character? Who are you? And what makes you you? And he thinks, reflects, resets, and he's ready to return to learning. It's crucial to invest in our students now so that we can pave the way for their success. I ask that you please renew Cape Bayview Thank you. For five more years.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you.

[Royal (KIPP Bayview Elementary student)]: Hi. My name is Royal, and I've been at KBE since kindergarten. One of the things I love most about KBE is the academics. My teachers have helped me grow so much and in second grade, I learned how to read above grade level. My old teacher, miss Carter, taught me how to split words apart so I could sound them out and really understand what I was reading. Now I'm in the fourth grade and I'm football player or maybe a Frisbee player at Denver University. I hope you'll support KBE's renewal because my little sister is in second grade here and I wanna keep helping her with her homework and still come visit come back to visit the school that helped me learn so much. Thank you.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: My name is I go to KIPP.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: I go to KIPP. It's okay. Mom was here with you. Okay. What, what school do you go to? KIPP. On what grade are you in? Kindergarten. What do you love about Kip? It's okay. It's okay about me. I know. And then remember, what's your favorite color monster?

[Speaker 7.0]: The happy.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: The happy?

[Speaker 7.0]: Because I see my changes all the time.

[Nevaeh Watson]: And what do you wanna

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: be when you grow up?

[Speaker 7.0]: He's trying to close

[Royal (KIPP Bayview Elementary student)]: your school.

[Speaker 7.0]: I don't want to close my school for five more days.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: No. Five more years. Five

[Speaker 7.0]: more years. I don't want to accept my school for five more years.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Eight.

[Speaker 7.0]: A tranecal doctor.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Tranecal doctor. Thank you. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: That concludes public comment for, the elementary school. Kip, thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. I will now call on the superintendent or designate to read this into the record. Also, public comment is officially closed. Do we have members on Zoom of the public?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: I will check right now. If you care to speak to the KIPP renewal, for that KIPP Charter Elementary School, please raise your hand right now. Can that be, repeated in Spanish and Chinese, please? Thank you. Vanessa?

[Dr. Vanessa Marrero]: Hi. Good evening. My name is doctor Marrero. I believe in the power of public schools and that we're the cornerstone of the community in providing common ground where all children of all backgrounds can learn and grow together. And we saw that with that cute little, kindergartner that just, did a public comment. I'm concerned about the focus on charter schools and undermining the commitment of public education. We need to reinvest in our own public schools like the academy, ensuring that they remain strong and vibrant centers for learning of all students. Our public schools are not just schools. They are community hubs providing essential services and fostering a sense of belonging. Let's protect and strengthen them.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Thank you. Virginia Avalos?

[Raven Jenkins]: Hello?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yes. Is this Virginia Avalos?

[Virginia Avalos]: Hello. Yes. This is me. My name is Virginia Avalos, and I am a parent of a first grader at KIPP Bayview Elementary. My son, Gabriel, started at KIPP in the middle of kindergarten after we moved from the East Bay. It was a big transition. I was seven months pregnant, adjusting to a new home, and helping Gabriel catch up academically. At first, it was tough for him. He was behind, missed some days because of my pregnancy, and struggled to make friends. But what stood out to me was that KIPP noticed. The school reached out to check on us and asked how they could support Gabriel and I. Shout out to miss Kata and miss Alexis. They were incredible. They made sure Gabriel felt included and encouraged him to make new friends. Now in first grade, he has blossomed both socially and academically. As a parent, I felt seen, I felt supported, and a part of a community that truly cares about my child's growth. I ask that you renew KIPP for five more years so more families can experience the same support. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Miss Marshall? Deborah, can you unmute miss Marshall? I'm unable to do it right now for some reason.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Can you hear me now?

[Eric Perez]: Yes, please.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Sorry. I'm in

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: a place.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Thank you so much, mister Steele. I commend the children for speaking tonight. Very heartfelt all of them. However, we support public schools 1000%. Charter schools come and they drain the resources. So our our our stands and says NAACP, we support public schools. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. That concludes the Zoom public comment. President Kim. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: I now call on the superintendent. Does he need to read this into the record? The third time.

[Chris Armentrout (Director of Policy & Planning)]: Thank you, superintendent Hsu. Good evening, doctor president Kim, Vice President Heeling, and Board of Education commissioners. My name is Chris Armentrout, Director of Policy and Planning, and I serve as SFUSD's point person to our charter schools. This item this evening represents the decision hearing for renewal petitions from KIPP Bayview Elementary School and KIPP SF College Preparatory. These petitions were first submitted to the board on August 4, introduced at the initial hearing on September 30, and the staff findings and recommendations were published on October 10. The purpose for tonight's e hearing is to publicly share those findings, allow petitioners an opportunity to present, address any questions from the board, and then ultimately vote on the renewal decision for each school. Both schools are classified by the CDE as operating in the middle performance tier, which means that they can be either granted or denied a five year renewal extension. It's important to note that there is no flexibility or discretion to adjust that time period. Under Education Code sections four seven six zero five and four seven six zero seven, staff evaluates each renewal petition and publishes the finding recommendation at least fifteen days in advance of this hearing tonight. These staff reports include input from multiple SFUSD divisions, including legal, curriculum instruction, RPA, and business services. The staff report pays particular attention to the trends in the most recent two years of data and is based on four key criteria from the Ed Code. Number one, whether the school presents a sound educational program. Two, whether it's likely to successfully implement such program. Three, whether the petition itself is reasonably comprehensive. And four, whether the school is serving all students who wish to attend. Our first school to be presented is KIPP Bayview Elementary, located at 948 Hollister Avenue and co located with the Brett Hart Campus in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. The school opened in 2018 as a state authorized charter and currently serves about 135 students in grades TK through four and operates under the KIPP Northern California Regional Office. Beginning with the education program criteria and its implementation, the school is demonstrating academic growth. Between 2023 and 2024, the school improved its English Language Arts distance from standard by more than 40 points and math by 22 points, moving into the yellow tier on the California dashboard and outperforming nearby Bayview Schools. Further verified data using DIBELS, results also show literacy proficient rising from 43% to 69% over a two year period. The school demonstrates stable leadership, sound finances, and a credentialed staff. Audits have been clean and the school maintains an adequate fund balance. There are two notable challenges. Math outcomes, which, while improving, still trail overall district averages, and chronic absenteeism, now at 44.8%, well above district rates but trending downward since the pandemic. These challenges are acknowledged by the school administration, which is implementing interventions, including adoption of Eureka math, expanding teacher coaching, implementing home visits, and offering incentives and wrap around family support through a community schools grant. Regarding the comprehensiveness of the petition, staff findings were that the submission did meet all 15 required elements of education code 47,605, subsection c five. Their renewal petition clearly describes these elements, including the educational model, governance, finances, employee qualifications, and student discipline procedures. Lastly, in looking at whether it serves all students who wish to enroll, the school's enrollment reflects the Bayview Hundred Point community with roughly 49% African American, 30% Latino, and 5% Pacific Islander with high participation from socioeconomically disadvantaged families. The petitioners have demonstrated that admissions are open, non selective, and consistent with state law. In conclusion, staff has found that KIPP Bayview Elementary has met the criteria for all key elements under the ed code. And while attention to math proficiency and attendance is needed, the school has stable operations and is showing a positive trajectory. Staff therefore recommends approval of a five year renewal effective 07/01/2026 through 06/30/2031. I will now invite the KIPP Bayview Elementary team to present. And Judson will just just a second to Judson.

[Jess Wood (Principal, KIPP Bayview Elementary)]: Good evening. My name, is Jess Wood. I'm a school leader at Kitt Bayview Elementary, and I'm really excited to be here with you again tonight, commissioners and SFUSD staff. Thank you for all that you are doing to support students and families of San Francisco. I wanna thank the SFUSD staff for their diligent work on the staff report. We're humbled by a positive staff recommendation to continue our work at KVE. We're proud of the way that our community really showed up in support of our public hearing last month. Tonight, we'll hone in on the staff report to highlight our strengths and take a look at the deep at the areas of opportunity. Two slides. Sorry. I keep forgetting that part.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: One more? Or are we good?

[Jess Wood (Principal, KIPP Bayview Elementary)]: Oh, we're good. Thanks. Over the past year, Kittbabe Elementary has shown double digit growth in both ELA and math. Our students are now performing above neighboring schools in both subjects, and we're proud that KBE moved from the red to the yellow on state dashboard on the state dashboard in just one year, outpacing both district and state growth averages. Next slide, please. While we're proud of our growth, we recognize the need always for continued improvement. Tonight, I'll focus on the two areas that Chris mentioned, math outcomes and chronic absenteeism. Next slide, please. Diving into our math data, KIPP Bavier Elementary has made strong gains in math, moving from red to yellow in the state dashboard from 2023 to 2024. We outperform all neighboring schools by an average of seven percentage points on proficiency. While one cohort's proficiency did dip slightly as mentioned in the staff report, overall proficiency improved. Students enrolled two or more years showed the strongest results demonstrating the impact of consistent enrollment and sustained support. Next slide, please. We're a school that's laser focused on continuous improvement, and we have a plan to support our students and improve math outcomes as our students deserve. This includes consistent coaching, strong staffing, high quality ongoing support to improve instruction, and leverage frequent assessment data while prioritizing, recruiting, and retaining experienced teachers in every classroom. We've also implemented a rigorous inquiry based curriculum called Eureka Math Squared, and we use data driven grouping to ensure that students receive intervention at the right level. Finally, as you've heard in my last presentation, we focus intensely on early literacy, and that strengthens both reading and math problem solving, helping students build foundational skills they need to succeed across all academic areas. Next slide, please. Our second identified area of growth, chronic absenteeism, has been a national challenge, as you know, especially in the years following the pandemic. KIPP Bayview, like many schools, saw a spike in 2021, 2022. Since then, though, we've reduced chronic absenteeism by over 40 percentage points, showing that our targeted family centered supports make a gigantic difference. We continue to focus on improving attendance so so that all students are present, supported, and ready to learn each day. Next slide, please. To address chronic absenteeism, KIPP has a multi tiered system of support to get at the root issues of absenteeism and provide aligned supports to families. These include transportation support, counseling, incentives challenges to increase student motivation, and as a mom myself, I know this next one is important, visual trackers that help families with the morning routine at home. Our students love to take pictures with Barry, our one eyed bear mascot, when their student when their their class earns perfect attendance. As mentioned in our last presentation, with funding from the California Community Schools grant, we've hired a full time community and collaborative support manager who connects our families with wrap around services. These systems and partnerships ensure that every student is present, supported, ready to learn each day, and we remain committed to sustaining and proving these attendance trends. Next slide, please. I am so proud of who KBE is, what KBE stands for, a school that is for all learners, a public school that is rooted in our community where students are thriving. We thank you for your time. You have a positive staff recommendation, and we welcome any questions that you might have.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you so much for your presentation. Really appreciate you being here today. We will turn it over now to comments and questions from the board. No? Or not? Wait for what? Commissioner Fisher? And just

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Alright. I'll lead us off. First of all, thank you so much, principal Wood, for that presentation. Thank you for the tour today. Thank you for welcoming me into the community. It was lovely to see the environment, lovely to meet with families. And all of them raved about you as the leader and being the real heart of the community. So thank you for all of your work. Appreciate it so much. I a couple of my questions are for staff, really, more than for I do have some questions for Kip. But so there are I I do I really appreciate seeing the information you shared with us, but I do have some questions about some of the, the recommendations and where they came from. Because when we look at the middle performance category, first of all, I think we also have some extra challenges here. You are right now authorized under the state. So I I question whether or not this is actually a renewal as opposed to a brand new petition. And so when we look at for us as a district, it is a brand new petition. So when you look at it from that lens, we're not supposed to approve new charter schools when we have a negative certification. So I just have some questions about, and we've had some conversations about this general counsel, but I'd love to share publicly with folks why when this is state authorized as opposed to SFUSD authorized, that's not a consideration or negative fiscal certification. And I appreciate the results that have been increasing. But when I go to the student dashboard, the the California data dashboard, and I look at the data that's there, what I see actually, the scores have decreased quite significantly since 2019. That's the earliest data that shows on the charts. So for example, SBAC math, you were 12 points above standard, and now you're 77.9 below. So when when our charter says that you've improved and and for ELA, you in 2019, you were 1.7 points above the standard, and now you're 76.5 below. So I just materially I I'm con part of the reason I raise these concerns, and one of the other questions I have for staff, is of the 100 there are a 135 students at KIPP, Bayview Elementary School. So how much average daily attendance money would that bring into San Francisco Unified in

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: our

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: budget if the students were SFUSD students? I wanna recognize there are huge challenges to the colocation. That's our doing. We put you at we put you at Bret Hart, but that's also constrains Bret Hart Elementary School. And the facilities that you share, everyone's doing the best, but it's it's not ideal for anyone. I ask these questions not in any way, shape, or form to disrespect the amazing work you're doing, the great community you've built, the very strong parent community you've built because obviously, you know, you all, have built a strong community. You're all here. You're advocating. So thank you so much for that. But charter schools are a constraint on our public dollars when it comes to the schools that we fully have control over. Your teachers are not unionized with UESF and you're not part of our SFUSD SELPA, which also limits some of some of the puts us under additional constraints too. So there's a lot of tensions here, I think, for me with actually following staff guidance and the approval here. And I mean that as zero disrespect to anyone who's here from KIPP. I really do. Like, we're all rowing in the same boat. Charter schools are public schools, so thank you all for that work. But it is a constraint on our system. So

[General Counsel]: Thank you, commissioner Fisher. Just from a legal perspective, this is appropriately before the board. Even though this organization was approved at the state level, it does come back to the board, under the auspice of a renewal. So, these are things that we have talked about before. I'm just without getting too deep into the weeds, that's essentially the reason why it's here. I think you've asked a lot of factual questions in your question as well. I'm gonna turn it over to to staff to be able to address as much of that as possible.

[Chris Armentrout (Director of Policy & Planning)]: So, Commissioner Fisher, to your, to your last question, which was looking at the, attendance impact, it's a little bit speculative. Forgive me because we don't know that every KIPP student would automatically go to SFUSD. But if we looked at their LCFF from the funding, which is really what we're talking about here, it would be approximately $1,900,000 or some percentage of that that is going to the school. From that, I think I've shared with you earlier that we receive 1% in terms of administrative fee from that school. Your other question, was about looking at the decrease since, since 2019. And within the Ed Code and I mentioned this in my presentation the way the Ed Code is structured around the re the renewal process is that we're asked to emphasize, looking at the most recent trending data. And so I would also add that in terms of looking at 2019, it's a little bit difficult, especially given the COVID impact, to to judge based on that one. So in terms of the way that staff presented this, we were really focused on the twenty three to twenty four trending. And, sorry, does that between the does that answer the questions you had? Forgive me.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: I think those were those were my real questions. Yes, actually. So thank you. The the rest of it was more of a monologue.

[President Phil Kim]: Self awareness is critical, commissioner Fisher. Commissioner Weissman Ward.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Thank you.

[Student Delegate Cruz]: I

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: I agree that there's a tension but I'm gonna name a different tension, and then I'm gonna ask you my question. So I think one of the I I appreciate my colleague commissioner Fisher's concerns and questions. I think they're important. I think the tension and the thing that makes me uncomfortable I'll say this, we don't wanna undermine SFUSD public schools. I also feel like the tension is this pitting of families and of students against one another. And what I see here is family and community coming out that are really grateful for the community that they're in at the school. I'm not saying that we don't have amazing other schools that are also options, but but what I'm hearing is folks have made a choice to be in this particular school and that it is something that is meaningful and productive and working for them. And so I think that's where my concern is is that we end up unnecessarily and unwittingly pitting families and kids against one another and we should be working for everyone. And so I just wanna say that. And my question is about the enrollment because I think that was one of the concerns, raised and I I also I there's, you know, SF Chronicle articles about these big fancy districts in the East Bay where enrollment is dropping. I know enrollment dropping is a thing generally, but the reality is if if it gets too low, it gets it's not sustainable. So I would like I know that there's some language about things that you're looking at to try to get that enrollment up, but if you can talk a little bit more about what those strategies are.

[Jess Wood (Principal, KIPP Bayview Elementary)]: I know the staff report rec detailed that we had a 137 students. That was last year's data. We currently have a 165 students enrolled. That's a 20% increase in enrollment this year. We have a waiting list. We have more applications at this point this year than we did the previous two years, and so we definitely see an increased demand for Kip Baguio Elementary in our community. We're also making sure that all of our neighboring preschools know about Kip as an opportunity, forging relationships with them, and I think that's been making a huge difference. But most importantly, the number one way that families are finding Kip Baguio Elementary is from word-of-mouth. It's from families who are here and listening on on Zoom talking about their experiences and why it's working for them, as you said, and that's what's drawing more and more families even beyond TKK in those early grades. We have a third of our third and fourth grades are new students this year because those are families who are looking for something different for their child and finding it at KIPP.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Alexander?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yeah. I appreciate the comments from both of my colleagues. And and I share the concerns that commissioner Fisher brought up about charter schools. I wish KIPP was unionized. I wish KIPP was part of SFUSD maybe. But, but it's but I think the key in judging this for us as board members has to be about, educational quality since it's an already existing school. It's not gonna have a fist a new fiscal impact. And what I see is a school that as an educator really has taken that into account. I mean, like the math, you know, scores going down is a thing that happens. The question is what are the educators doing in response to that? And so I think, you know, the example around math has been really instructive. When I when I came to visit a couple of months ago, I saw one of those inquiry based math lessons with the new curriculum they mentioned, and it was clear that kids were really engaged and that the educators had focused on how to improve mathematics instruction in a really thoughtful way. And so I think that just, I think, speaks to a quality educational experience. I think the other piece around the school being small is really interesting. I mean, I think one of the reasons that charter schools are small is because small schools actually have a research based track record. Right? And so, yes, there is it needs to be a certain minimum and maybe one sixty five is is probably too small to be sustainable, but there are a lot of families that want small elementary schools. And and so this is gonna come up for us as a board when we think about this idea of school closures and mergers. There's a price to that. Right? And I think the the quality work that KIPP is doing partly results from the fact that they are small and that they're not this 600 student elementary school. And so they can they can pivot and they can respond. They can have the kind of relationships that we see here tonight. And so I think for the for us as SFUSD, one lesson is we need to make sure we have small school options for families. I think we heard it tonight, at the high school level from the academy students saying that a small school matters and that they weren't consulted around, you know, where they were gonna be sent to this larger high school, were they really gonna be maintain that small school kind of environment. So I think that's what we're seeing here and I think that, from an educational lens, it's it's they're doing, really high quality work and and just thank Principal Wood and and the whole team for everything that you've put together here.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Ray.

[Commissioner Supryia Ray]: Good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for being here. I just also wanted to thank the families and students and staff again for coming out and showing up to, make your voices heard. We really appreciate that. I actually just commissioner Alexander's comments sparked a question for me as well, which is essentially you know, I see that you've moved from the red to the yellow in I believe it was in both English language arts and in math. And I'm actually wondering what you think were truly the most significant factors in that. Commissioner Alexandra had mentioned small school size as potentially being one of those. What do you think were the major reasons for that type of shift a shift of that magnitude? Thank you.

[Jess Wood (Principal, KIPP Bayview Elementary)]: As you can imagine, there's a number of factors that are really important in a big change like that, but I think the most important factor was the commitment and quality and content knowledge of our teachers. We have really incredible and committed teachers at Kip Elementary. As I mentioned last time, they work longer hours, longer years in support of our students, providing intervention in particular to students who are below grade level to ensure that they're reaching proficiency faster. On both DIBELS and in our math data most recent math data, students are moving out of level one on these tests in a very fast pace at Kittbabe Elementary because of the use of formative assessments to understand exactly where students are at and then to provide targeted intervention to students in a small group format so that students are getting the attention that they need. And then in, like, what we call tier one instruction, full class instruction, we've had a real emphasis on practice or at bats. So how are you making sure that kids are getting opportunities to independently put to practice what they're learning far more with far more repetition than you might expect so that they are really able to master grade level content. I think those two are probably the biggest ones. I'm looking at my my team. Did I get it?

[Student Delegate Cruz]: Do we do we think so? Okay. Yeah.

[Superintendent Hsu]: I'm sorry. I just wanted to jump in really quickly. I just wanna clarify that our SFUSD teachers also work very long hours Of course. And work really hard to support our students as well. So just to be very clear.

[Jess Wood (Principal, KIPP Bayview Elementary)]: Absolutely. And we see that with the Bret Hart staff every day.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Reyes, anything else?

[Commissioner Supryia Ray]: No. That's it. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Any other comments or questions? Mister Gupta.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: I just wanted to similarly extend my thank you to the Cape Elementary team as well as all the community that are out here today. You know, when I look at this question, I do appreciate the comments that some of the other board members have provided and that tension that, of course, we as a struggling district face. I also think of this from the individual family members' perspective or the individual families' member. And I remember at least my parents always wanted to make sure that I had the best education in Scrimpton Saved and sent me to whatever school district or wherever they could get the best education for their child. So, you know, I look at this as, KIPP presents a competitive offering in the area and I look at this as how do we support our staff, how do we support our educators in a way that can perhaps raise some of the scores so that we at SFUSD can give KIPP a run for its money, if you will, and provide some of that opportunity that perhaps, you know, people like my parents when I was growing up would say, okay, well, let me try to find a competitive school. So if we could do that at SFUSD, and I don't know to what extent there is that, you know, I know Mr. Armandtrough, before you and I had talked about how the idea of charters was perhaps, you know, there is an opportunity to learn and engage and figure out what's working well, and I don't know how much of that happens within our school district. I mean perhaps this is a question to the superintendent or to our staff, where, you know, how do we learn about learn from some of the things that are going well at KIPP or other charter programs even and and what might we be able to then perhaps do even better than the charter program so that we are more competitive. It's not necessarily saying you can't have a charter as much as it is SFUSD is simply the best place to go in terms of the schools that we have compared to others.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you for being here and very much appreciate your time. And as a instructional leader, the thing I am most excited to hear is the great work that you all are doing instructionally for your kids. And so I appreciate your time, and I think at this time, we will go to a roll call vote. Miss Lanoff?

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Student delegate Cruz.

[SFGovTV Announcer]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Fisher. No. Commissioner Gupta?

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner or vice president Healy?

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes.

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

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: And president Kim? Yes. Let's six ayes.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. I now officially close the public hearing and we'll move to item two, two five one zero two eight s p two. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: So moved.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Second.

[President Phil Kim]: It's been properly moved and seconded. Sorry. Congratulations. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves item two five one zero two eight s p two. I call the hearing to order and we'll take public comment at this time. Mister Steele?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. I will call the speaker cards I have. Navea Watson, Luis Hernandez, and Josiah. You can set up forty one minute each.

[Nevaeh Watson]: Really? Okay. Hello. My name is Leveille Watson, and I'm a sophomore at KIPP San Francisco College Prep. I've been with KIPP since fifth grade. My experience has definitely been a roller coaster. But even when challenges come, KIPP always is there to overcome them, and KIPP really feels like a family. Everyone is so welcoming, and they all care about us as people, not just as students. One of my favorite memories was when the freshman class went on a field trip to the senior center for community service. It was fun and eye opening experience. We got to cook, dance, and play with the seniors. It was really heartwarming. There's something that's not every school gets to do. I hope to continue with cheer and dance after I graduate and go to college. Please renew Kiva five more years so students like me can keep learning, growing, and giving back to the community. Thank you.

[Luis Hernandez]: Hello. My name is Luis Hernandez. I'm a senior. Hello. My name is Luis Hernandez, and I am a senior at Cape San Francisco College Preparatory. Growing up and ex growing up and experiencing change has been different from taking call English courses to adjusting to new math courses, but my teachers have really supported me and helped me throughout school. One of the biggest benefits of being a being a KIPP is counselors. They're always there to guide you step by step through the college applications process and sure you know what exactly what to do. KIPP has helped me see that I have I do have choices and they have encouraged us to take them knowing that I'm graduating with the option to go to college makes me feel proud and excited for what's next. Please keep my school open for five more years. Thank you for your time.

[Josiah Tsao]: Hello. My name is Josiah Tsao, and I am a sophomore at KIPP San Francisco College Prep. I have been with KIPP since middle school, and it's been a really fun experience. I made so many new friends, and I have great relationships with my teachers. Volleyball has also something that has expanded my horizons and helped me grow as a teammate and a leader. Academically, my teachers always pushed me to do my best. Last year in biology, when my teacher saw that me and my peers were doing really well in her class, she encouraged us to take it take her advanced courses next year, and that really motivated me and my peers to continue to do our best. One of, my favorite memories was our recent pep rally. It brought the school together, and we got to play fun, competitive games with our teachers. It not only led us to grow closer, but it led us to see our teachers in a new light. I hope to become a musician, and I was recently accepted into an honor choir, an opportunity that came through one of my KIPP teachers. I ask that you renew KIPP for five more years so you so more students like me can grow and be challenged and find their voice. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: That concludes in person. I'll move to Zoom, President Kim.

[President Phil Kim]: Yes, please.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Alright. This is for on Zoom now. This is for item e two. If you if you care to speak to the KIPP, charter for the high school sorry, the college prep, KIPP, the charter college prep, please raise your hand now, and please have that repeated in Spanish and Chinese.

[Speaker 7.0]: Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Vanessa?

[Dr. Vanessa Marrero]: Hi. Good evening. So I'm an advocate, and I have significant issues right now related to the decisions that the board is making around KIPP, especially because we are gonna be in a year of a fiscal deficit of 30 almost 38,000,000 and a a school that we have that is potentially gonna be consolidated. And I don't hear any votes about the academy's consolidation or school closure, but I do hear votes about KIPP. So I urge the board to act with more transparency and solicit more input from parents and teachers and community leaders before making decisions that will impact our children's education. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Daisy?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I I'm mute. Give me a minute. I'll mute this one. Can you hear me?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: We can now. No? You're breaking up a little bit or quite a bit, actually.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Can you hear me now?

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yes.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Okay. Good evening. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Translation, please.

[Speaker 7.0]: Luis.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Luis. Thank you. Could you Oh,

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I'm sorry.

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: In English, buddy?

[Speaker 37.0]: Sorry. I got all switched. I want to apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm gonna make this comment in in Spanish because, my English is not too good. My name is Daisy Urquilla, and I have I have two students. One of them is a is a boy and a girl. My girl, graduated, and now she's a college student. And my son is a senior I'm sorry, is a junior. And he likes to they both really like the school. I really like the school because they're really good at communicating. They have a really good rapport between teachers and students. I also like the open house and the school nights. I want to say also that my son is part of the basketball team since the fifth grade. And I he's very proud to represent KIPP. And my daughter was appointed to receive a scholarship to study at the University of Boston. And I I am very proud and she's very smart and that's why she got this scholarship to continue her studies. I, I just want to let you know that if you don't keep, if you don't keep KIPP open, it will be very frustrating for so many students and it's gonna be a very bad idea for a lot of them. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Evelyn Gutierrez.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Evelyn Gutierrez. San Francisco College Prep.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. Luis? Thank you.

[Speaker 37.0]: So my name is Evelin Gutierrez, and I have a twelfth grader. And I have a son who is he used to go to KIPP. And now he's going to UCSF. And I have a daughter who's also about to graduate. One of the things that I really want to say about KIPP is that they always help students and families around. They actually prepare kids to be to continue with their studies and go, go beyond. One of the things that they also do, KIPP, is to, so because at the beginning, we didn't really know the process about going for for our son to go into college. And they helped us greatly, finding the right path to do it. And now they're doing the same to my daughter, who is, she's about to graduate as well. It is really great to see all the events and all and everything that they create, for the students and and their families. And they always make this feel welcome. And I would like you to please renovate the license again for for GIP Academy so so we can continue for another five years. Thank you.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Thank you. President Kim, that concludes public comment.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. I will close public comment and call on the superintendent or designate to read this into the record.

[Chris Armentrout (Director of Policy & Planning)]: Thank you, doctor Su. Thank you, president Kim. Our second renewal this evening is for KIPP San Francisco College Preparatory, located at 1195 Hudson Avenue, also operated by KIPP Northern California Public Schools. The school opened in 2013 under an SFUSD charter, was renewed in 2018, and currently serves approximately 200 students in grades nine through 12. Again, as we consider the school under the four primary criteria of the ed code, we start with the school's education program. Over the past two years, KIPP SF college prep has shown improvement. In English language arts, the school improved its distance from standard by 14 points, moving into green performance tier on the dashboard. In mathematics, results remain in the orange range, though proficiency is higher than district schools serving a similar population. As KIPP is a high school, we also look at the college, the college going culture and readiness from the school. KIPP does exhibit a strong college focus and culture. Ninety six percent of students take at least one AP class, and the college attendance rate of 81% exceeds district and state averages. It should be noted though that the college readiness rate stands at 36%, which is significantly below state and district rates, but again is closer to schools serving similar populations. In review of its program implementation, the school has shown, strong governance at both the site level and under the regional district of KIPP NorCal. School staff also meet all the credentialing requirements. Finances show clean audits, and the school continues to have positive fund balances. There are a number of concerns which have been noted in the staff report. As I pointed out earlier, these include this math achievement, which lags behind district and state performance levels. The school has run deficits in its budget for the past three years in a row, And that can also be contributed to another concern, which is that the enrollment has decreased significantly by approximately 50% over the last four years. And lastly, at 11.2%, the school has a significantly high suspension rate for its student body. KIPP has acknowledged these concerns, and the school has shared plans to address these through extended learning time, tutoring partnerships, attendance incentives, and wraparound family support under its community schools grant. Finally, for the last two Ed Code criteria, staff found that the renewal petition to be reasonably comprehensive, meeting all 15 required elements under Ed Code 47,605 C5. The petition presented a clear and coherent instructional model, governance plan, and financial framework. And in considering the access for students wishing to enroll, KIPP SF College Prep serves a population that reflects the broader Bayview community. With approximately 54% Latino, 25% African American, and 12% Asian or Pacific Islander, along with over 80% of students identified as soci sociognomically disadvantaged. Admissions are open and non selective, consistent with state law. So despite the concerns cited, staff still finds that the school met all four criteria under Ed Code 47,607, and therefore recommends approval of a five year rent, five year extension effective 07/01/2026 through 06/30/2031. Thank you. And I now invite, the KIPP Essex College prep team to share their presentation.

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: Thank you. Can you hear me from here? Thank you. Can you hear me from here? Great. Good evening, commissioners and superintendent Hsu. My name is Greg Chen, and I am the managing director of schools and direct support KIPP San Francisco College Prep. It's great to see you all again tonight. Next slide please. Tonight I'll share a response to the staff report which we are pleased to see recommends SFCP for another five year renewal. And we'll start with our areas of strength. Next slide. We appreciate the strengths outlined in the staff report and are proud of our students' strong academic growth, neighborhood comparative data, AP participation and passing rates, college, enrollment and persistence, and graduation rates. This is a testament to the dedication of our staff, students, and families who work hard every single day. Thank you for your work every day to support our students to fulfill their own dreams. Let's move to the areas of growth. Next slide, please. First, we recognize that while our growth is strong, math outcomes still lag behind district and state averages and let's be clear, we believe that our students can get there. Also we are addressing higher suspension rates with new restorative practices and stronger tier one supports and have a history and record of being able to improve those. We know that they are not good enough. And finally, enrollment has declined over the past five years and we're working closely with families and partners to rebuild and sustain our school community. Next slide. So let's start with math. Okay. Which has been a challenge, but we are seeing steady meaningful growth, including an increase in math proficiency from 23 to 24 of seven points. This moved us to the yellow on the California Accountability Dashboard. Similarly, we, had positive bright spots, in our subgroup and comparative data, which, we feel show that we are making improvements there. Some key moves that we're taking to continue to improve our math performance, including, we've retained some of those teachers who were able to demonstrate those points of growth. And, additionally, we've transferred, a teacher from another KIPP school that was able to demonstrate, strong math performance in their previous years. We also have ensured that students have intervention classes so that they can get the foundational support that they need and we are using a variety of, sup of tools to, gather data that allow us to know what supports those students' needs so we can maximize that instructional time. Lastly, we are focused on instructional coaching because we know strong instruction produces strong results for students, and using data to make sure that we are spending time on the right levers. Next slide, please. Second is we recognize that our suspension rate has been too high, and we are committed to bringing it down. This past spring, we were able to identify some structures and systems which could be improved. And our approach this year combines both restorative and trauma informed practices. We find out what happened, we talk about who it impacted, and we repair harm. We partner also with organizations like City of Dreams, the Boys and Girls Club, and College Track to support students and families beyond school hours. So far this year, we're seeing progress with a suspension rate of just two point eight percent as of October 15, and that is the lowest we've seen in the last four years. We think that our interventions are are working, and, of course, we still have work to do. Next slide, please. Just want to share, at our middle school, Kitt Bayview Academy, we've seen how consistent work on culture with restorative practices and strong coaching can reduce suspensions. Over the past two years, suspension rates have had large declines. We have used high quality instructional coaching to help teachers set clear expectations with empathy, restorative practices for major incidents, and student led SEL and family engagement that built leadership, empathy, and community understanding. This demonstrates what's possible when restorative practices are implemented consistently, and we are applying these lessons at SFCP to hopefully lead to further decreases in suspension rates. Next slide. Our last area of opportunities around enrollment and we recognize that enrollment has been on the decline due to citywide demographic shifts and family displacement in the Bayview, but we are taking deliberate steps to address it. Bright spots include year over year increases in KIPP eighth graders matriculating to SFCP over the past three years and improved student retention up from eighty four percent in 2023 to ninety one percent in 2025. We are also reinstating transportation, for our students that are attending KIPP SF Bay, to reduce access barriers for them and ensure that we can, get them to KIPP SFCP. This ensures we can, maintain high quality education for all of our students. Next slide. In closing, SFCP is a place for all learners where identities are honored and students grow. I'm incredibly proud of our school and thank you for taking the time to get to know us, our data, and our community. Thank you. As we look to the future, we want to thank the SFUSD staff and commissioners for your positive recommendation, support, and partnership in walking with us to this point. We also wanna thank our incredible staff, families, and students for your dedication, love, and commitment. KIPP SFCP is the school that it is because of you all. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you very much. I'll open it up for comments and questions from the board. Commissioner Fisher?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: First of all, thank you, principal Chen, for your time today. I know it's actually great to see Nevaeh and Josiah again. They were part of the panel that today, so thank you both for your time. Good to see you again. I've in response, I I think specifically to what I wanna build on what commissioner Gupta said a little bit ago. I'll do it while he's not here. But I I think it's really important and and I think you raised it as well, commissioner Alexander, but families deserve choice and agency. Our whole system is built on choice and agency. Right? And I think some of when we talk about the discrepancy between services and schools and outcomes in the Bayview, I think and our our schools in the Southeast. I think we really have to recognize that for decades and generations, we as a school district have under invested in Bayview schools, and I think we need to name that. And that's I mean, KIPP is the only high school in the Bayview. You know, in the Gloria R Davis campus, there's the we have a high school in Silver Terrace nearby, but nothing else in the Bayview. Right? So, I think it's really important. And and back in 2018, when we wrote the student assignment resolution, the parent advisory committees put out a joint statement against it, against moving to zones specifically because families were worried about being forced into a part of the city that hadn't where the schools had not been resourced in the way that East Side or West Side schools have. And so I think that's something, as we saw with our previous Mandarin immersion charter school petition that came before us, we have families that are screaming for more programs, that are willing to do what it needs to take to get the programs that we don't offer. And so I think having a high school in the Bayview is is really important. So I I guess my question to us as a board in this budget climate and to you as our superintendent, Doctor. Sue, is what are we gonna do to provide equitable access to schools, to the families that live in the Bayview? I think that's really our biggest question here.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: I I

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: also wanna recognize the difference here and that this is a traditional renewal, you know, and and so the criteria that we we have is different. But I really appreciate seeing particularly the folk I think my real question I'm seeing my time is running down, so I'll stop monologuing. You mentioned tier four in in the slide about restorative practices. I've heard tiers one, two, three. What's tier four?

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: That's a great question. And thank you for the question and thank you for your visit today and coming to see our school and talk to our students and hear directly from them. We really, really appreciate the time. You know, all the tiers are are are meant to be set up to support students at different levels. And, of course, the whole idea and and and philosophy behind the tiered system is as the tiers, go up, they get smaller and smaller and smaller. And, we just are are are using tier four as a way of thinking about another set of supports that we can provide students that's an even smaller smaller group. So, you know, obviously, the tier one supports are meant to support the vast majority of our students And then we have additional things that we do, and then additional things that we do if those don't work. And then we happen to have more additional things that we do. So that's that's the idea behind tier four.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Thank you for that.

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Commissioner Gupta?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yeah.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Thank you again to the community members as well as KIPP staff for coming and leadership that for coming and presenting. We really appreciate it. I'm looking at the enrollment numbers and I am concerned, particularly looking at the trend year over year. Is there a and as we're talking about renewal for the next five years, is there any point at which if knock on wood, I'm hoping numbers go back up. But if they don't, is there any point at which KIPP decides we're we're done? Like, if it were if it gets to, you know, a certain number, is it we're no longer operating? And And if so, what is that number?

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: Frank, do you want me

[Josiah Tsao]: to answer that question? Or

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: We have our, we have our chief financial officer here, who, is helping us with thinking about those projections in those those places. My understanding, you know, this is above my pay grade, but my understanding is that we are committed to being in the Bayview, and we are gonna continue to run the school. We believe we can increase enrollment. We've seen enrollment increases at our middle school, when we have done work to, for example, reduce our suspension rate, to build a school where students are feeling like they're belonging, we believe we can do that at SFCP, and we are hopeful that our enrollment will increase as a result of that work. I think we I think what I want to share with with you all is, my understanding and what has been told to me is that we're fully committed to being there. And we are going to do what it takes to make sure that we're running a high quality school and to get our enrollment up. That is our intention.

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: I would reiterate what Greg shared, which is that we're committed to funding for this renewal of our commitments to our families and students and to the program that we're running. And our intention is to to drive our enrollment results, and we're fully committed as a region to ensuring that the school is available for the Bayview community.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Got it. I I appreciate that. You know, we we don't take this decision lightly as I'm sure you all don't either in terms of maintaining your community and, you know, we wanna make sure that y'all are gonna be there for for the next five years. Or I I I'll speak only for myself, as as an individual commissioner. One of the other questions I had was, I remember speaking to Kip before and what I appreciated was there was an honesty around seeking to raise the, the retention through college. And I appreciated the level of, you know, awareness as well as just sort of saying, hey, this is something we need to improve. And I'm just curious how how is that going for Cape graduates? Do you see an increase in that that given my conversation was, I wanna say, probably four or five years ago?

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: I don't have the data right at my fingertips at this moment, but I can say that, yes, we track our six year college graduation rates for all of our alums, including folks that leave KIPP at some point. Point. And we have a deep commitment to getting those kids to and through college, those that choose to go. We also, of course, support students who choose alternative career pathways, but we are spending a lot of energy and time, being in touch with those students, talking to them about when, crazy things come up in their life, how to belong on a campus when you're, you know, a student of color in on a campus where there aren't that many students of color. We provide tons and tons of services for our students that have left our building, that I think are really, really remarkable. And, it is really our commitment to support them through that six years of college. Recently, we are also we're able to secure a grant that supports our students financially with $15,000 a year through six years of college. And so, yeah, it's a it's a huge commitment for us, and I'd love to get you those numbers because I think they are, you know, quite remarkable, what we're able to do with students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to, how those students tend to fare across the nation.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Thank you. And I look forward to those numbers. I'll I'll be in touch.

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: Yes. Great.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Thank you. At the risk of, sounding like a broken record, I wanna talk about small schools again because I have a I have a well, we have another small school that's before us as a petition, and I I hear my colleague commissioner Gupta's question around enrollment. But but I know that in the in the renewal, the the sustainable size is actually 80 freshmen enrolling eighty ninth graders. I think you have around 60 now if I'm correct. Right? So that's not a huge I mean, I think that's an achievable, goal. I also think I know it's it's a small number. So even if even at full enrollment, it would be around 300 students or maybe a little less, and they are making it financially sustainable. So, again, I would I would question when we talk about we can't have small high schools, here's a small high school that and it's not just about size. It's about using that small size to create a strong, safe community, to provide intensive academic support, to create a a culture of college access. You know, those those things that KIPP is doing and, obviously, there's they have some work to do. As I said, the suspension rate is too high. But it's interesting that they actually do have a higher college entrance rate than surrounding SFUSD schools. In some cases, it's it's comparable, but but they are slightly higher. And so, again, I think this is just speaks to the value of the small school model, which we heard, again, earlier from folks kids young people at the academy talking about the value of that. And it concerns me that I don't see yet a strategy within SFUSD to offer this kind of experience. And so I guess one of my questions for us is are we are we gonna say to our students, you have to go to KIPP if you want or a charter if you want a small school experience, or are we gonna offer that? Right? I mean, maybe to Commissioner Gupta's point around, is this a is this an offering that we're committing to? Because I think the message that the academy families have gotten is that we're not, right? And I I understand there were some complications with that particular situation around the accreditation of the school and so forth, but but I think there should be a board board vote on it. I think it needs there needs to be discussion. And particularly, again, I'm not gonna say that we need to have one particular school or another particular school, but we need to, in my opinion, small high schools are an option we need to offer for our students. If we as a board are saying no, it's just a charter option, then I think we need to have that conversation and say that. And so that's, I mean, one of the reasons why I think it's problematic that we haven't yet had a vote on the academy. So I'll be happy to support this option because it is one a small high school option in the Bayview, and I think that's really important. So thank you, Kit, for offering that when we're not. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Ray.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Thanks so much, President Kim. I have a couple of questions for you as well. And again, thanks to everybody for coming out and just for the, clarity of all the information that's been provided. I really appreciate that both on the district staff side and on KEP's side. So my two questions, excuse me, one relates to English learner progress and the other one to college and career matters. So the first one is what you think the factors are in improving in the, again, quite significant progress that I saw in the report for English learner progress. I would really appreciate knowing about that. And the second thing is I had noticed that there was mention of the graduation rates, and actually, thank you to commissioner Gupta for, these I I would like to also build on what he was talking about there. The college graduate excuse me. The graduation rate from college prep is quite high at ninety three percent, but the the readiness or the college and career readiness rate is at 36%, which is actually a a bigger gap than, than our regular public schools have in SFUSD. So I wondered if you would also speak to what you think is going on there. I had also wondered if you had a means of measuring how the students are doing after graduation, so I too would like the information that commissioner Gupta has requested. But if you could speak to both of those, I'd really appreciate that.

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: Sure. Thank you for the questions. Let me make sure that I'm capturing them. The first is that you'd love to know about our English language learner progress and what's led to those gains.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Correct.

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: And then the second is about, the discrepancy between our graduation rate and our college readiness sort of figure that we have. Correct.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Okay. Thank

[Greg Chen (Managing Director, KIPP SF College Prep)]: you. Great. Let's start with, with our ELL progress. Okay? And I can speak to, some things that we're doing both regionally that have impacted what we're doing, at the school level. Within the last, few years, we have, the academics the regional academics team has, started some work and and and chosen some folks to specialize in particular supporting English language learner instruction. We've trained with a couple different organizations, to try to look at best practices, to support students there. And they've rolled out, some new expectations for us across schools, that SFCP has taken up, including, having a, you know, designated both designated and integrated, ELD strategies for students. In addition to that, we have increased the, the frequency with which we're looking at our, our, English language learner data and the ways in which we're responding to that data. And I think that the combination of those things, including a new curriculum for our ELD students, has really helped us to make progress with them. We know where our students are, and as a result, that allows us to take actions that that support those students. So, data driven instruction, really specifically focused on our ELD kits. I hope that answers your question. Yes? Great. Okay. On the on the other side, with regards to the, the college readiness factor, the our college readiness factor, did decrease, over this past year. And and while I think that that drop is concerning at first glance, I think it's really also important for us to understand what goes into that metric. And so, the college and career indicator includes multiple criteria including SBAC performance, A to G course completion, career and technical education pathway completion, dual enrollment, and AP course success. And while we're doing well in some of those areas, some of those areas are areas, that we continue are continuing continuing to work on. And so for example, SBAC carries a significant weight in the calculation and it's one of the places where we're facing our most significant challenge. That said, students are graduating and able to find pathways after graduation and I think you can see that from from some of our data. So there's a little bit of a mismatch there. Right? And I think part of the reason there's a mismatch is because maybe maybe some of the pathways after after high school are not as concerned with some of the factors that go into the college and career indicator. So for example, ACT scores are a lot more important to colleges than SBAC scores. And so there's a little bit of a mismatch that's happening there, that we potentially could dig further into. But I would also say that, like, one of our part of our what we are striving towards is to get more of our students into the pathways that they desire after high school. And we feel like we are doing that quite well. And I think that our data shows that. And so on the one hand, you know, that number might look low. But if we're getting our kids to where they wanna go, that to us feels like, more important than than than making sure that this metric is high.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Thank you. Sure.

[President Phil Kim]: Any other comments or questions? No? Just wanna do a quick shout out on the all the work that goes into KIPP Forward and the work that you all do to follow students to and through college. It is perhaps the one biggest investment that I've seen from a school system in ensuring students persist through college and beyond, and I think a huge part of why families, and students especially choose that path, for them. So, really incredible to hear and see, and thank you for all your work in that regard. Appreciate your time here. Now debate is now closed on the motion to approve item two five one zero two eight s p two authorization to grant the renewal petition for KIPP San Francisco College Prep. Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

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

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice President Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray?

[Commissioner Supryia Ray]: Yes.

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

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: And president Kim? Yes. Seven ayes. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: I will now close the public hearing. Congratulations to the KIPP team, and maybe we'll take just a few to allow you to exit quietly. Thank you.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Alright. I'm going to step in for

[Superintendent Hsu]: Congratulations.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: President Kim. And our next item on the agenda is 2510 Dash28 s p three, approval of pips and waivers. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: So moved. Second.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approves item two five one zero two eight s p three. I call miss superintendent or her designee to read this item into the record.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Great. I'm gonna thank you, vice president Heuling. I'm gonna hand this over to our associate superintendent of HR, Amy Baer.

[Amy Baer (Associate Superintendent, HR)]: Good evening. The HR department continues to recruit and hire to fill critical vacancies across the district. Due to the nationwide educator shortage. We do not have enough fully credentialed applicants to fill all vacancies tonight. I'm seeking board approval of 10 provisional internship permits, which are pips and three waivers to allow these educators to serve in the positions as they complete their credential requirements.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Thank you. Are there any questions from the board? Seeing none, debate is now closed, on the motion to approve item two five one zero dash two eight s p three, approval of pips and waivers. Miss Lanoff, can we please have a roll call vote?

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

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes.

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

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Vice President Healy?

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes.

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

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. Moving to item thank you, miss Baer. Moving to NMF, workshop on student outcomes. I'm gonna be introducing both items at the same time so we can have a single conversation about it. Item one, commissioner school visits, and item two, interim guardrail 3.1, progress monitoring. And why don't I actually have the super intendant introduce this into the record?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Cleaner for tracking and for recording purposes

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: if they were setting

[President Phil Kim]: Would you would you all prefer

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: to monitor

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: an item and what is

[President Phil Kim]: it? Oh. Just track this. Okay. I see. I see. For tracking purposes. Okay. Alrighty. Let's just start with item one, commissioner school visits. I want to begin by just appreciating, commissioners for taking the day off of their busy schedules to join our school sites, for our, shall we say, first Okay. Annual quarterly? Quarterly annual?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: What do Semesterly?

[President Phil Kim]: Semesterly?

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: That'll be awesome.

[President Phil Kim]: But semesters

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Tricene. Trimesterly.

[President Phil Kim]: Trimester semester.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I I

[President Phil Kim]: mean Our first time in a reoccurring event to visit our schools. And and, genuinely, the spirit behind this idea was to bring, I mean, put some context to the decisions that we make and to and make us more approximate to our school communities. I know many of us have a lot of great long standing relationships with school sites across our city, but this is an opportunity to really spend a day digging deep into a school community, having an opportunity to go into classrooms. So I wanna thank staff for helping to set this up and many of our staff on-site who have kind of coordinated their time and energy to allow us to not just follow some students around, but in some instances, follow some staff around. So it was really amazing to do that. We were at three schools, Presidio, Lowell, and Balboa. And I would love to just begin the conversation by opening up on just reflections from your day. And, ideally, we tie this to some of the work that we're about to do in our guardrail 3.1 progress monitoring. But would love to just kind of open the floor up for commissioners to reflect on their major takeaways. We don't need a whole summary of what you've done. It was many hours that we were at school sites. But we'd love to hear, high level takeaways from your time, that we can bring into our conversation regarding progress monitoring. Sure. Yeah. Commissioner Fisher.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Well, Commissioner Westman Ward and I had a lovely time at Balboa. It was a lot of fun. I realized I need to practice my Spanish quite a bit. I'm not as strong in my reflexive verbs as I thought I was. But I really enjoyed the tour. We had a student panel during lunch that was wonderful to talk and reflect with students on, you know, their desire for more AP classes and more electives. And it was really cool to learn that Balboa, based on student need, hearing from a lot of because it's a as with many of our high schools, it's very diverse. And we have a lot of families who the parents of students there have not attended college here in The U. S, have no idea about the the college process or, you know, what it takes to get into our UCCSUs and other colleges. So, at the urging of some students, they put on a college fair for, for families who need to learn more about the and it was amazing to just like bring in community. And I think, you know, more of that type of collaborative, I think event for families, I think that was an absolute bright spot. We spent some time with educators and really the we had a great conversation about the impact of some of our decisions and the intent of some of our, our decisions versus how they are felt at the school site. And so to me, that really highlighted the the ongoing need for really strong communication, and ongoing feedback sessions with our educators in the classroom, and with our teams at school site. And so I'm I'm really glad that that work is being strengthened. And just thanks everyone for hosting. It was fun. I should have worn my bow jacket today, but I, you know, it was too warm. Sorry.

[President Phil Kim]: You were there with commissioner Westmore. Do you wanna follow-up?

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Yeah. We did get swag. And it's really nice and locally designed by Bell folks. I yeah. It was I really enjoyed the experience. I'll say I only had the opportunity to half day because I had to be to my other job for the second half of the day. But really, really and first of all, the space is just stunning. It's just amazing. And then I then took my whole family back the next Saturday for the enrollment fair and was like, look at this school, how gorgeous it is, and that's a whole another story. But I think a couple things that stood out. So we were we went on a tour with one of the, parent liaisons Mhmm. And then with, the, school, president. The school pres the pre no. The president. The student The student body president. I'm like, what is it? What time is it? It's not even nine. The student body president. And then, of course, then we got to spend some time, with doctor Cat, with doctor Aronson. And it was just really neat to see folks come together. The student body president was phenomenal and so clear why she's student body president, but really engaged, and really neat to see such a confident and prepared young woman ready to to go out into the world. One of the things that, in in speaking with, principal Aronson that that struck me, she was describing that they have, someone who is now full time doing attendance work. And I think that's amazing, that that that's a choice that they made. And she commented, like, he's been here now for a bit of time, and we're seeing changes and it takes time. So I think that's just a reminder. I think we're all so anxious to see, like, we do something and we need to see it happen right away. And, like, that's just not how it works. We see, like, when we roll out curriculum, that next moment, that next inflection point is not gonna be like, oh, great. Everything's solved. So I think it was a reminder that we need to give it time to see if it works before we say no, it doesn't or before we feel frustrated and angry that we made a wrong decision. And I think that was one where she was talking about just the really impressive changes in in attendance and getting folks not only to school, but then in the classrooms. And so I appreciated that.

[President Phil Kim]: Vice president Healing or commissioner Gupta?

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Sure. So vice president Healing and I visited Lowell, and, it it was amazing. Huge appreciation to staff, huge appreciation to our host, principal Batista, was incredibly gracious. Staff, educators there were incredibly gracious with their time, as were the students. I will say my first impression, I did not realize how large Lowell is with 3,000 students. So we really got the full impact of that because as the other What steps

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: did you put in?

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Well well and and it was the day of the great shakeout. So we had everybody out on the field, and just the coordination was pretty incredible. I think what else stood out to me was that I I believe the number was 25% of either staff or the administration are alumni of Lowell, which to me just shows how much folks care, including principal Battista. Also the Lowell Alumni Association. I was thrilled with their initiative where they were, working with Willie Brown Elementary specifically on creating kind of that or sorry, Willie Brown to create that, pipeline into Lowell and really took that seriously to provide students with access to over 30 plus AP classes. I think the most out of any school perhaps in California. One of the things some of the things that stood out were getting over to the West Side could be challenging. So just got me thinking, you know, how do we create greater access to AP classes across the city? So not unlike perhaps what you were hearing over at Balboa. You know, master class planning. I think just as someone who's not an educator who does not have an educator background, hearing some of the nuts and bolts of that was incredibly informative. And, again, just all the more impressive just to understand and get under the hood of that, and and just really grateful. I'd say the last couple of things, I appreciated the curtness of the educators and the administrators there. I mean, in the best way possible, I think I I think people are just at the point where it's just sort of, we're gonna tell you exactly how it is, and I think that's exactly what we need to hear. And and one of the things that actually stood out was, when we were talking to one of the departments, they were less familiar about a curricula change in one of the other segments, you know, in in the the middle school. And so they're asking about that. And that just struck me as an opportunity perhaps to, you know, how do we better integrate that curricula change between the different, pieces because we were asking a lot of questions about how they were impacted by the change, the switch up in eighth grade algebra and some of what our our staff here had presented. So it was great to hear that perspective from the field as well. Vice President Healing, what did I miss?

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Carl, a lot of great stuff. I'd say I agree with everything that you said. I took from the visit, you know, definitely an appreciation for the scale and for the, like, incredible variety of options. I mean, it's really like a small liberal arts college with, like, little music conservatory and a whole language arts wing and just really an incredible set of offerings. But also, you know, I think one thing that stood out to me was the strength of the counseling program. And we did hear that the impacts that our budget decisions have had on their workloads. But we also saw from students the real impact that they're making. We had a student who we were shadowing who chose to spend her free time in the college counseling center and to hear from a college. And there were a number of students waiting to to hear from regular visits from college recruiting offices. We also heard from a student about how you really can't fail at Lowell even if the academics are a challenge from what you might have been prepared for in your middle school because of the strength of support and the variety of pathways. And we thought that is, was a really important message and one that sometimes gets lost in the political, back and forth about admissions policies and things like that that really it's about supporting all students to succeed in, every environment in SFUSD. A couple of other things I would note is I I did really hear educators and administrators talking about how it's important for us on the board to align our governance calendar to when they need to make decisions so that we don't have decisions come to the board that impact them in a way where they maybe have already planned how many of each type of teacher they need to hire, and then we make a change that maybe changes the demand for a class or availability of a class, after they've had to make those allocations. So I thought that was really helpful. Yeah. Also, definitely the impact of or the need, I think, for broader collaboration between middle school and high school because we heard from some high school educators that they weren't really familiar with the new math curriculum that's being implemented in middle school. And so they weren't sure what students were coming in knowing and what they weren't coming in knowing and how they could best build off of that foundation, in ninth grade math. And a couple of other things I heard that I will just name that I think were really valuable. We did hear a variety of a wide variety of opinions about ethnic studies curriculums past, present, and potentially future. But the message that I heard was the students really do not need the school board making them a political football and that they have, enjoyed and appreciated a variety of curricular approaches. And, I think that is a was a very important message to hear. So we really appreciated them hosting us and learned a lot. And it was really, really valuable and really cool, especially to see a lot of the community partnerships around supporting language and things like that.

[President Phil Kim]: Sheree, do you wanna kick us off and I'm happy to add in afterwards?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Sure. Absolutely. President Kim and I visited Presidio Middle School, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I love going to schools. A few of the things that I had, noted and wanted to raise in this, in our opportunity to talk a little bit about our visits were one thing I wanna mention that I think often gets overlooked is the actual physical space. What one of the things I appreciated most about visiting Presidio was seeing how many different kinds of spaces they had, especially outside. So that whether you're talking about gathering or sports or other kinds of activities, lunch, you know, just etcetera, there were so many different ways for kids to be and exist and do things within outdoor space, not just within, you know, within the school building itself. So I thought that was fantastic and just it was something that made the school feel extremely positive and vibrant from the moment that I approached it. And when I arrived, I actually walked around the perimeter just, you know, to get a sense of what was going on in different places. And I felt like it had a really positive feeling seeing people gathering in all these different ways. I really enjoyed the student panel we had at lunch and I Presidio Middle School has its own kitchen. I wanna say how much I think this is an enormous value to the students at schools to have their own kitchen on-site and I would like to see this happen at every school if we could possibly make it happen. I ate the student's meal. I mean, I was offered something completely different as it turns out, which was good, but I didn't eat it because I ate the student meal. I wanted to know what it was. And I really felt like this is good. It's high quality. And I saw a lot of students eating it and, like, just in general, folks seem to really be appreciating that. I spoke very briefly to the folks in the kitchen. I would have liked to have had more opportunity to interact substantively with the, you know, with the staff. We interacted with the, you know, educators and some some classrooms when, you know, when we were able to do so. But to have some time set aside to hear from other staff even with with educators because of the the sort of constrained way in which they were trying to teach the class or observe at the same time they're trying to talk to us. But, you know, I like to talk to I wanna talk to the custodians. I wanna talk to the food service workers. I wanna talk to the security folks to get a a view of what different folks think about you know, think of their school environment experience. I really appreciate appreciated, principal Chewy's, like, ensuring that we were able to go see a variety of classes. And, you know, I had asked, could we also go see an SDC classroom? So for instance, he made sure that we could pop in and see that. We saw, albeit just as a pass by thing, a classroom with one deaf and hard of hearing student. She had no peers there, which was sad. That's just kind of a difficult situation. But also that they were doing everything they could to to manage that. And, let's see. I loved seeing the primary sources on the walls of one of the rooms that I was in where the students were going around both in groups and kind of also looking at somewhat individually to think about what these folks had said and what their perspectives were. Thanks.

[President Phil Kim]: Dream team over here. Commissioner Ray and I, when we visited, huge amount what? It's true.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: I just wanna say that I would have gone except for my kiddo at Presidio said, absolutely not. You are not permitted

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: to come to my school.

[President Phil Kim]: I did see, though, Anna Clafeter's daughter who then turned to me and said, are you the president? And I said, yes.

[Speaker 10.0]: She goes, my mom talks about you a lot.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: But the real question is did you spy on commissioner Weisman Ward's chat?

[President Phil Kim]: I did. We could not find we could not

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: find that. I did tell him. I was like, if you see them, be polite and say hello.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: But many thanks to principal Choo, Princeton Presidio Middle School staff, and the students who were tolerant enough to let us peer over their shoulders. The one, a couple things that I I'm reflecting on. One, we talked a lot about seven period day and the master schedule. I'm glad to hear that there were other conversations around the master schedule. I mean, for for those of us who worked in schools, it is now no surprise the challenge of master schedules and the great puzzle that is the master schedule. When I when I I was surprised to hear that in the schedule itself that that there is no dedicated time for pullouts or how and the question I asked was around how the MTSS structure that we have is reflected in the m in the seven period day or or even less about the seven period day, just how is it reflected in the schedule for students. And and there wasn't quite a response to that. And the question I have then for us as a district is, are we investing in an MTSS system or not? Right? And so, like, what does that what does that mean? Because if you look at the schedule, it just appears that we are going all in on tier one instruction, which is a strategy and definitely something we should talk about. And the wondering that I have is if we are wanting to support our our struggling learners or our exceptional students, like, what are we doing to ensure that our systems match the the structures match the intent that we are wanting to have with with our students who need additional supports? So that was my kind of moment, a reminder, if you will, of the importance of scheduling what that means. Here's my push for us as we think about ways to improve upon this practice is, I think it's easy to go into a school and look around and look at the things on the walls and talk about the operations and talk about the food. And, really, what I would want us to do is is start to look into instruction, the actual student experience in the classroom. What is it that we're looking for when we I mean, and quite literally as you speak, what are the look fors when we go into a classroom? And ask ourselves, are we actually seeing the kind of instruction that we are supposedly wanting? And and and actually understanding, right, like, how do teachers internalize lessons such that it comes out in a classroom? And and I think, you know, my my devious plan here is to get us to a point where we can navigate those conversations with ease, that we can confidently walk into a school. And a classroom, by no means are are we all education experts, but but we should I mean, we are a a district that wants to put in front of us student outcome goals. We should know what those look and feel and sound like in classrooms. More regularly as part of our practice of progress monitoring. And so, Hong Mei, there's an ask coming to help us schedule something in January, but don't worry. That is something to look forward to, and my hope is that we can continue to build on this practice for future site visits. Student delegate Cruz, you are at a school almost every day. I don't know if there's anything you wanna add, and commissioner Alexander not to call you out. But if you if you have anything that you would like to add, please please do. Sorry we couldn't visit.

[Student Delegate Cruz]: No. You. Good. I mean, I I saw a superintendent at my school, and I was like, wait. What is she doing here? I was like, I saw her, and I was like, wait. Okay. She's just my principal. What what's going on? No. But it's really, like it's actually really nice seeing you guys see your perspectives because I have friends that go to all of these schools. And I went to Hoover Middle School, so, like, the friends that I went to middle school went to Presidio and AP Giannini. And it's just, like, all the perspectives are really accurate. Obviously, like, some things are not in there, but they're accurate in a way. So yeah. No. I I used to go to mission for two years, and then so I go to Barton for I went to junior and senior year. So I have two different perspectives of two different communities. And, I mean, I I really love it. So it's just, like, watching. And, honestly, I think it's a really good idea. I feel like you guys should go to more schools and get those different type of experiences. Obviously, you get exposed to, like, the Mission High School, which is a big, big diverse of, like, community of a lot of, like, type of students and a lot of different type of careers they wanna pursue. And Burton is also full of that. I mean, all of these schools are really, like, diverse, and they're amazing cultures and amazing communities, honestly. I recommend go talk to sports teams. They have a lot to say. They're full of ideas and opinions. So if there's somewhere I would recommend going to, I mean, besides the student bodies and ASBs, go to sports teams. They'd really love to yeah. They have a lot of ideas. Yeah. But overall, like, I think it's a really good thing that I feel like you guys are personally connecting to the schools. I feel like not a lot of people who connect to schools have such a greater aspect of what it is to go to the schools, especially when you're in a classroom. I mean, you get perspective what's outside, but you don't really know what's going inside of schools, especially when, like, you're in the classroom and you just randomly pop in and, like, who is that? Like, they'll be like, who is this? And then they'll start everybody doing their homework. But, like, generally, like, they'll be like, yeah. I mean, I've been there, done that. So you know? But, overall, like, I feel like it's a really good thing, and I it was a really nice surprise seeing seeing superintendent at my school. I was like, okay. I was like, I was going. It was my TA, like, period, and I saw her. I was like, oh my god. I was like, what are you doing here? But, overall, it was really nice. Yeah. I just go to yeah. I recommend doing more and going to just getting that experience. Lunchtime, really good. A lot of students love it. Yeah. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. That's a shame you publicly.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Well, now that you've mentioned it twice, president Kim, that I

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: didn't come

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: What school did you

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: to the school I didn't attend that day.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I just

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: well, if you have I actually have a job. Think

[President Phil Kim]: that you wanna participate.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yeah. If I had work commitments that I I was really sorry to miss it. But but I have visited the the other reason I mean, since I was a high school principal

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I mean,

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: it's been a few years, but I visit every single one of

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: our high school

[President Phil Kim]: grandstanding needed.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: We used to do no. But we used to do, principals used to do instructional walk throughs at every school. I don't know if that still occurs. Is that yeah. I'm seeing staff not. So so as a principal, you get exposed to a lot. But I actually have not visited as many elementary schools, and I look forward, to doing that in the coming the our next visit. I will make a priority. I don't know what the date is. I wanna know what the date is soon so I can block it out. But the other thing I was gonna say, speaking of elementary schools and school visits, is I think everyone should have seen in their inbox an invitation to go to Flynn on December 3 to see the lesson study, what's it called, a public lesson. And that, I think, to your point, president Kim, is a great opportunity to see to to really go deep because it's basically one lesson you watch. And you watch the there's sort of a pre, briefing and then the lesson and then a extensive in-depth debrief. And so I think that's a great model for board members who wanna understand how to, like, think about and look at instruction. But, basically, you're watching staff do it. You're watching the educators at that school do it, and participating as well. So I think that's right. December 3, I think, is the day, at Flynn is is another opportunity that that's coming up soon.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: I will note that that is the same time as the California School Board Association conference that the delegates will have to be at. So I would love if there'd be another opportunity to visit another lesson soon.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I'm sure there will be. I'm sure there will be. I just saw that one in my inbox today, I think. That's why I was thinking of it.

[President Phil Kim]: It will be. Commissioner Ray, last word.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Hey. I just wanted to follow-up on what you were saying. I think it was you, President Kim, and now commissioner Alexander was saying about instructional walk throughs or observing in that fashion. While we didn't have an opportunity to do that at Presidio, I actually did unexpectedly have that opportunity when I visited Jose Ortega recently. Some classes and she literally when we went, she gave me a sheet that she uses to, during her, like, walk throughs for evaluation so I could see what that looked like. And she's told me I could fill it out if I wanted to. I didn't really feel equipped to do that because I was sort of just trying to get the flow of what was going on in the classroom. But she did. And then afterwards, when we went back to her office, she went through with me how, you know, how she was filling that out and what she was looking at and what the various things meant. And I actually found that incredibly informative and helpful. And if, you know, if that's an opportunity that that we could do in a, you know, not just kind of like a one off thing because I went there and asked about it. And so she's like, we could, you know, we could do this now. I was kind of wondering how these things are done. It would be great to do. I just I found it so valuable.

[President Phil Kim]: That is actually a wonderful segue into this next conversation here because part of the work of guardrail 3.1 progress monitoring is to ask ourselves, how curriculum instruction comes to life in our schools. And to your point, when we talk about data that we're looking at regarding progress towards our curriculum implementation, I mean, these very questions around essential content and things like that, again, not that we need to be educators ourselves to be able to understand all of that, but, we we do wanna add context to the data that we're looking at. And so without further ado, I will turn to item f two. What's that? Oh, yes. Right? We have a couple minutes, though.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Not on my clock.

[President Phil Kim]: Oh my gosh.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: We need

[President Phil Kim]: to fix that clock. Thank you, student delegate Cruz. Appreciate your time.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. Oh my god. I guess I'm looking at the wrong one. Item f two, interim guardrail through employment progress monitoring. I'm calling the superintendent to read this or to introduce this item.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Thank you, president Kim. As the team is forming, at the dais, I greatly appreciate hearing the conversation just now because it does highlight the need for us to, one, be really intentional with what it means for when we as a leader thank you, Mel.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Have a

[Superintendent Hsu]: nice day. Good evening. Yeah. I would love to to maybe start the process of for all visits, we do do the look fors and have our commissioners have that because I think it does help to just frame the conversation and and then for you to know what it is you're looking for or looking at. It is really important for us to, well, it's easy for us to see good instructions and bad instructions, but it's really hard for us to determine between okay instructions and good instruction. So I think this is this is where we need that structure in the frame. And today, the team is going to share with us where we are in terms of our implementation of our curriculum and how things are going. So I'm gonna hand it off to our interim associate superintendent of ed services, Theresa Shipp, and then she will introduce the rest of the team.

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for this opportunity, President Kim, Vice President Heuling, doctor Su, and commissioners. It's really exciting because your previous conversation focused so much on teaching and learning, and that is exactly the work we're doing. So I'm very excited to hand it off to this amazing team over here, which is comprised of curriculum instruction, LEAD overseeing schools, and RPA for research planning and assessment. Jess, who's the executive director of RPA, will take it away.

[Jess (Executive Director, Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you so much. Next slide, please. So good evening. Tonight, we're sharing the progress monitoring report on interim guardrail 3.1, which is around high quality instruction. Next slide, please. For some context, interim guardrail 3.1 is nested under the much larger umbrella of curriculum and instruction. And interim guardrails three point two and three point three will be presented later in the year. This Interim Guardrail 3.1 report summarizes the ratings on the essential content area of the core instruction rubric during September and October, which were collected by our external partner TNTP. The analysis with the report identifies strengths, opportunities, and outlines a plan for next steps to continue strengthening high quality and instruction. Next slide, please.

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Good evening, everyone. We divide the instructional walk through observation data into two groups as they deal with different contents, different curricula, and grade levels. So first, starting off with language arts and literacy. As Jess just mentioned, these data from walk throughs conducted by our external partner, TNTP, during the month of September. And as noted in the box on the right, will be two additional rounds of observations conduct to be conducted during the school year. And this particular set of data for language arts and literacy represent and cover 31 classrooms at 10 different school sites. And these sites and classrooms are chosen to be demographically and geographically as representative as possible of the district. As you can see from the far left panel, the use of the curriculum material is slightly higher than the average from last year, one up by about four percentage points. But for the remainder of the what's represented in the chart, as you can see, the numbers are noticeably lower, including culture of learning that dipped a little bit and significantly in terms of essential content, both in foundational skills for reading and comprehension for all the grades. One potential explanation for this tip, in addition to the ongoing curriculum implementation, is that the new implementation of the math curriculum can be for time and resource and attention of our educators in the classrooms. The blue triangles in in each of the panels represent the target that we have set to meet by the end of the school year, and they're set to be ambitious but also based on what's possible given the past history of what SFUSD classrooms were able to achieve, in previous years, as well as the continuing progress of the curriculum implementation for both language arts and math. Next slide. So coming to the math data, these represent data coming out of 23 classrooms across six sites. And as we clarified in our answers to the commission on questionnaires, The math data comparison data for the previous year is from school year '24. That's the year when the curriculum audit was conducted, during the year of twenty twenty three, twenty four. So that's why the year is different from the language arts and literacy on the previous slide. Since there was no new curriculum being implemented during the audit, that's why there is no baseline data for using curriculum in the far left panel. But we do have the culture of learning and essential content. Culture of learning dipped a little bit from that audit year to the current year, but essential content ticked up a little bit by about seven percentage points. And just as in the previous slide, we represent the targets that have been set as the blue triangles. I'll pass it on to miss Quirkman.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Thank you so much. Next slide, please. So one of the places we wanted to start was reframing the data and our analysis of it within the context of our theory of action. And to name really explicitly aside from just our due diligence and reporting out on Guardrail three, why we consider this data to be a core component of work towards our student outcome goals. So one of the pieces that we wanted to name very explicitly was the relationship between each of these items. And so within the context of our student outcome goals and in this case, relation in relationship to goal one and goal two, we consider those student outcomes to be impacted by classroom practice. Right? So student outcomes as being a result of classroom practice. That data that we just looked at around learning walk indicators and looking at the theory of action falls under this outcomes for teachers and classroom practice. So in order to shift student outcomes, we wanna shift the quality of our classroom practice. And so part of being able to do that is analyzing which specific indicators, which specific classroom practices need the most work so that we can highlight those in professional learning, in coaching, and other systems. But aside from that happening on a centralized level, you'll see the relationship in terms of school site implementation. We see those classroom practices shift most significantly based on school systems related to instructional leadership and instructional quality. So we also wanna analyze not just the quality of classroom practice, but how those relate to the site systems like teacher collaboration time, one to one coaching, instructional leadership teams, administrator instructional leadership. And that piece tells us how we might need to shift our centralized systems related to professional learning, principal supervision, or other structures within the district. And so we wanted to start in this place just to name the interdependence of the data that we're gonna look at and why we analyze them from implementation to impact. You can go to the next slide. So one of the pieces that we wanted to highlight was the specific relationship. So in this overview chart, as highlighted in the report, we looked at the learning walk data in relationship to some of the site deliverables associated with goal one and goal two related to implementation. And these sets of deliverables have two major components. So one is this set of baseline conditions, which identify per school site the rate of retention for administrators at the elementary level for coaches, fully staffed gen ed or special education teams, whether or not particular elementary that were combination classrooms in grades k through three. And this baseline condition data provides us a little bit of sort of an under the hood analysis of what sort of operational challenges a school might face in order to better understand how to interpret some of their implementation and impact data. From that point, as highlighted by the tracker that's in the report, we track month by month a series of instructional leadership or goal related deliverables. Things like the submission of a PD plan, classroom schedules that align to instructional minutes, the calendaring of things like instructional leadership team or teacher collaboration time, submission of ELD rosters. We have some recurring structures around centralized aligned PD or instructional leadership journals. And so when we look at, the relationship between those items and some of the impact measures where we see, stronger performance in relationship to use of materials and essential content, we begin to see a very clear pattern between strong implementation and the conditions, operational, instructional, that lead to positive instructional outcomes in classroom practice such that we expect to see student outcome gains at those school sites. So we have a couple of spotlights that were highlighted within the report. In this case, for goal number one, we were highlighting school number f, where you see in particular while there was, you know, to a new coach at the school site, While there were still some calendar and meetings, in general, they're starting without combination classrooms in k 3, with a returning principal, with some of these operational systems in place with staffing. And they do have a strong PD plan, clear classroom schedules. So again, some instructional leadership support. And we're seeing that translate into stronger classroom practice. Similar, if we go to the second the next slide, related to goal two, if we look at that six to eight data, we see the same pattern emerge with school number j in particular. So, again, while we're not seeing, you know, 100% in every single area, we do see that some of these operational strengths, instructional leadership strengths translate into classroom practice strengths. And, again, our expectation and what we've seen in some of the previous case studies presented is that that instructional practice strength translates into gains in student outcomes. And so again, we wanna continue to analyze the data in relationship to one another, so that we're seeing, number one, a positive association with our theory of action and its relationship to student outcomes. But in addition, we wanna pay attention to each of these measures individually and collectively because they help us shift as necessary our centralized strategic actions associated with goal one and goal two. So changing professional learning content, changing coaching structures, changing the way we collect learning walk data. But it provides us with an understanding of how best to support school sites. And from that, I'm gonna go ahead and pass it, on to doctor Steiner to talk a little bit about challenges in Roblox and opportunities for growth.

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: Even the slide is having some challenges. That was just to see if you were paying attention. So, I get the wonderful opportunity to talk about the challenges and roadblocks we're having. It's because I'm such a positive person that they gave me this slide. While we know that at the beginning of a new implementation we're going to find some challenges, what we what we do what we have determined and what you could hear, Ms. Krugman saying is that where we noticed that there were issues in implementation, where there was weaker implementation, where we didn't get a PD plan, where we didn't get the calendar, where we do have a new principal, etcetera, then we generally saw lower instructional outcomes. And so I'm a little bit, I was like, wait. Why am I saying this? This is obvious. But then when we started talking about it, maybe it's not so obvious. Right? Maybe if we haven't been collecting this data, we can't figure out where the challenge is in order to fix it. Right? We like to say that challenges, are like where opportunity meets need and feedback is a gift. So this kind of feedback allows us to say, alright. If we can see that these folks haven't turned in a PD plan or these folks haven't calendared their meetings or all of these people are also new principals, there's something there that we have, some opportunities or some ways to do something about that. So we also did notice that not having a returning principal did did then contribute to a lower, use of the new curriculum and lower essential content rating, and that makes sense. When I think about the conversations I have with my veteran principals and I think about the ones I have with my newer principals, Sometimes the newer principals is like, what's that form? What am I supposed to hand in? And the more veteran principals are like, hey. Let's go into this let's see how curriculum is being used. And because I give them the option, you wanna start in a classroom or you wanna start with your big dilemma. And I will say that when I give them that option, the newer principals say dilemma and the veteran principals say classroom, and so now I'm not giving them that option. So that leads us to the opportunities for growth. We did notice that in schools A through E, so quite a number of them, there was a delayed submission of the PD plan and some calendaring of educator collaborations. We've since gone through. Right? We we lock we we talked about, like, we have to lock this data so we know it was delayed, but that doesn't mean we don't still collect it. So rest assured, we are going back and saying, oh, where there wasn't an initial PD plan, there is now. And then in a particular school, we noticed that at school I, where there was both a principal and not a coach, we had the lowest essential content rating. So those are some of the opportunities for growth, and doctor Herrera is gonna tell us about the plan to address that.

[Dr. Herrera (LEAD – Instructional Support)]: Alright. Good evening. Thank you. So three big things that we're working on is really supporting strike site instructional teams that coach and the site leader, how they're thinking about high quality implementation. You had mentioned the learning walk tool. I'm so glad that, the principal at Ortega brought that to your attention. We're really looking at doing learning walks. We have them across our p k eight sites. They're really intentional. And it's not, a check to see. It's really look for us on how to collaborate and support professional learning on the campuses. And then lastly, we're doing professional learning for the first time, for citywide. For p k five, we're having principals and coaches come together to look at STAR data, which is really exciting, and something that we're looking forward to analyzing together. So those are our big plans moving forward.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you very much. I'll open it up for questions and comments from the board. Commissioner Gupta.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: So thank you all for being here, and thanks so much for presenting this information. I will admit some of it is a little bit above my head, so forgive some of the clarification questions I ask. I was curious what seems to be happening with School g when we look at language and literacy? Because I see it seems like it implemented everything pretty well. Maybe there is something challenging with the principle, but then when I look at the impact measures, you know, they don't seem as high. So I'm curious if you can perhaps share what what what your hypothesis is as far as what's going on there or maybe I'm just misreading it.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: We're just taking one minute to double check our coding system because the schools have been anonymized.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: So

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: so I I would say in the case of school number g, this is a school that I would say having a little bit of additional data beyond what's in the table is helpful. There is a new principal. I would say they have had some significant staffing transitions while being fully staffed. Yeah. And I there's some I I will just highlight, like, I in order to protect the anonymity of the school, I think there's certain conditions or certain pieces that, we might just be delicate about speaking to. I do think doctor Steiner was

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: gonna add some more context.

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: Yeah. I can just add that, like, for example, about two thirds of the classroom staff is brand new this year at that particular school, but there's not a baseline that we're collecting about that. They're fully staffed, but there's only a few returning staff from the year before. So that does make a difference in terms of the implementation of a new curriculum, because they're all brand new. And I would say that the they have a new principal, a new assistant principal. And I can't say more without telling you who the school is, but I will say that there are some other factors that are leading us to believe that this school needs additional support and love. And now you know it's part of my cohort so now you can go and think about

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: that. I I appreciate it. I mean, and part of the question as well, I mean, I I I then notice and again, I'm not trying to dig in to figure out who who this is, but they seem to be doing decently well at math though across a couple of the scores assuming that I assume the sites are all the same between the two. So, you know, I see additional context with, you know, tier two math course, but at least in terms of material use and central content, you know. So I'm just trying to figure out what like what the entire story is if what we learn, what we so, yeah, I don't know if there's any anything additional or is this sort of you said too much and can't say anything more?

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: No. I can say one other thing which is that in the case of the math classroom, if I'm not mistake mistaken, we were looking at six eight, which is a relatively small number of math classrooms. And one of the math classrooms observed was a returning math teacher. So there were just two classes observed there. So it was a like, the sometimes the data doesn't tell a complete story. What I'll say, like I said before, is that in the in this case, we have a number of additional supports going forward at this school. I wasn't surprised by this data, but I, think that both the instructional coach and the administrative team knows what they need to do in order to increase the implementation of the curriculum going forward. So I'm hopeful that the January data may look different.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Got it. I appreciate that. And, actually, one one request I would make of RPA is if there is data that's being presented that has low statistical significance, just mark it. Just let us know so that we know that, hey, this there, you know, there there there may be questions around the validity of it, just for good good practice. I know anything under 10 generally is taken out but for for confidentiality reasons. But if there is something where something's less, I mean, I I shudder if we're making any decisions based on, on on data that that is not statistically significant. One one other question I had, I'm conscious of of the time, Student and caregiver voice. So how are students and families experiencing belonging, consistency, and coherence of school? As in is there can you say a little bit more? Is there a survey or focus groups, you know, using TNTP sample questions? So something like, do you feel supported by your schools or do your teachers expect you to succeed in challenging work? Is there anything like that that's done?

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Yes. So those are questions that we ask every year in an annual survey, climate culture, and SEL survey. For that, which is administered together with SEL survey with the culture climate part, actually, we have three stakeholder groups, students, staff, and families. So they all have a chance to answer those questions and more related to the school environment. And that's, where we get that information from. And that's a long running survey, so we have, historical data stretching back almost ten years.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: But I I'm hearing that wouldn't necessarily show up in in this particular

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: That's correct.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. Okay.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes. And I

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: follow just quick follow-up on commissioner Gupta's question about data, and, the authenticity. I'm looking at the TNTP, and the the September, on slide four for the language arts and literacy. The walk through observations, 10 school sites, 31 classrooms in September. Future observations in January and March. We have 64 traditional TK or TK to five classrooms and eight TK to eight schools, right, for 70 plus. So, commissioner Ray referenced the walk throughs that are happening at Jose Ortega and I got the chance to go and see as well. And they have the whole matrix on the the board in, in one of their offices about, you know, like who's touring what and when and whether it's the literacy coach or the principal or the assistant principal and they have a goal of the number of classrooms. Like, this is a this actually in my mind is a teeny tiny portion of the the data that we're actually collecting school by school by school to see. So are we doing any work to integrate feedback from our school leaders and and take that data, rather than TNTP to to build out to get more data points in oh, I see some smiles, so I'll stop.

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you very much for the question. It's something that we constantly grapple with, and it's it's a tension between resources in order to gather data at scale versus gathering data that's high quality. Right? So the the balance that was trying to strike here is we know that TNTP staff are normed. They know how to actually use a rubric and and they have consistency and reliability across all their staff members that come out to do the visits, which is a state that we haven't quite reached with our leaders and educators. Right? That's something that we are constantly trying to but have not reached that scale of having all the principals and leaders at sites to be normed and to be able to rate reliability. At the same time, we cannot pay enough money to TNTP to observe all the classrooms in the district. Right? So we have to be selective. And so they've been very intentional about trying to sample strategically to be as representative as possible demographically and geographically. With that all said, I think our medium and long term plan is to hopefully have all our leaders be normed so that we can increasingly rely on our site staff to do these observations. And right now, I would say that we are at a earlier stages. We're encouraging sites and instructional leadership teams at sites to use the core rubric to do their walk throughs, to build their muscles. And as that number starts to go up, our plan is to compare the TNTP ratings with the ones that are conducted by ILT. As a comparison, as as as a as a check on our growing capacity and with the hope that we can eventually, down the road, fully switch over to relying on our internal measures.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: And reduce our dependency on outside contractors and use some of more of that budget internally. What a great idea.

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Next.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Ray.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Thanks so much. I have a couple of questions. I wanted to follow-up on a question about, essentially sorry. Just give me one moment. When are when the TNTP folks intended to go to a certain number of classrooms or, you know, a certain number of areas and weren't able to go to all of those places, can you could you sort of give us a little more sense of why it is they weren't able to make the visits that were scheduled and what impact, if any, that had on the sort of quality of our assessments?

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Sure. So I can talk a little bit about the process. So once a representative sampling of school sites has been identified and schools are selected for the walk, there is some coordination between the school site staff and the TNTP, team in order to identify the classrooms that are gonna be reserved and to collect or observed, not reserved, and collect classroom schedules in order to schedule their walks because they observe across multiple grade levels. Some for the most part, they observe in one school a day, sometimes two. There is a fair bit of, like, logistical management that happens. What we saw in practice on about 20 different instances is either one, there was not a classroom schedule available. Two, there wasn't a classroom schedule available with the block of time they had attended to observe in. So one of the things you might see is, a classroom schedule that says, you know, language arts, but there isn't a specific foundational skills component named. In addition, they also found, in some cases, there was a block of time, for example, math identified on the classroom schedule. But when they went to the classroom, math was not happening, And that could be for a number of reasons. It could be they're off schedule for that day. It could be they're in some cases, there was, like, a school assembly happening. So in some instances, you know, there's there's any number of events that could lead to that happening. One of the pieces that we take it as is a data point, in order to investigate and understand, you know, the sufficiency of instructional minutes, the reliability of classroom schedules, and some of the site support and supervision that comes with that.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Thank you. Another question I had was around the essential content scores and essentially, the report indicated that there weren't very many opportunities to practice, that we saw a fairly low incidence of opportunities to actually practice the particular skills that, you know, that were on, you know, on tap for that day. And one of the things when I was asking Kip Bayview Elementary about the reasons they thought what factors most accounted for the significant shift they had made in ELA and math. They mentioned that there was a real emphasis on practice with far more repetition than you might expect. I think they used a phrase like at bats or something like that. So I'm wondering if you could if you could sort of comment on how we might be able to increase opportunities to practice. As a practical matter, how can we do that? How can we encourage that and make sure? I I wanna note in connection with this as well. I've been concerned about the the lack of homework that I have seen, and I often get this reported to me by parents that they're concerned that their children are not coming home with homework. I hear it quite a bit actually from middle school parents and thus not having opportunities to practice. So, if you could speak to that, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Sure thing. If we can go to slide 12, which is in the appendix, that would be helpful. So one of the places I just wanted to start was to name, the set of indicators that you're speaking to, which are part of language and literacy associated with essential content. And so, one of the the pieces that I wanna identify is that these set of indicators, similar to what president Kim formally named, are a set of what we might consider to be look fors within a classroom. This is just the set associated with essential content. There are additional indicators associated associated with academic ownership. And these are a nationally normed set of indicators, most of which come from resources such as SAP or Student Achievement Partners instructional practice guides. And so they are considered to be a set of instructional practices that are not curriculum dependent but are meant to be standards dependent, the exception being use of materials. And so where we see some of those lower indicators around, commissioner Ray, what you mentioned for opportunities for independent practice of the target skill and target foundational skill is the whole sentence. But these are practices that we highlighted in administrator PD, and we see this happening for a number of reasons in classrooms. And so one of the more traditional reasons has to do with sufficiency of instructional planning. And so this happens for a number of reasons. So one is, you know, teacher confidence with the materials, you know, balance as previously named of language and literacy and math implementation often can result in teachers doing what we might call, like, a flattening of the materials. So often what happens is they remove some of text dependent questions, opportunities for practice. Sometimes there's pacing that's off, so they get they have the teacher directed component. They don't get to the student practice. And there are a number of strategies that we use in order to address some of those planning and implementation concerns. President Kim and I have both mentioned this term many times, but lesson and unit internalization is one of the primary strategies used nationally to address this. That that strategy in particular is meant to have teachers deeply understand the design and purpose of an individual lesson or unit of instruction such that there's a depth of understanding of each component, how they're dependent or sequenced with one another, what the intention or design is, and to deeply understand in particular the opportunities for student student practice such that they're elevated in the actual implementation of the lesson. So that strategy and that set of practices is something that you'll see addressed in professional learning across different educator groups. One of the things that I will say is, you know, while that practice generally happens in educator or teacher collaboration time, it's also something that can be addressed in one to one coaching. What I will say is those examples are specific to, during the school day and would be separate from opportunities for additional practice outside of the school day. We do have, you know, strong, after school program providers who, we can improve our our work with in order to make sure within those programs, students have additional opportunities for practice and academic support. And I will pause just in case there is, from LEAD side, any additional context around homework policy or consistency, folks wanna lift up from LEAD?

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: I feel like homework is a can of worms that maybe we don't want to get into tonight. The politics around homework is deep, but happy to talk about it at another time. I just kinda wanted to lift up in practicality what practice would look like. Like, tomorrow, we go on a walk. We we have a learning walk scheduled with a group of principals tomorrow. And when I was prepping with the principal who's hosting today, what I said is, what is the question that your ILT is asking right now that you want us to take up as a group? And she said, I want us to look at how students are explaining their thinking as they're practicing their mathematical understanding of the concept in grades three through eight. We're going to classrooms in grades three through eight. In this case, we're going to a k eight classroom. And so we're gonna use this learning walk tool, this companion tool. We're gonna use this question from the principal. We're gonna gather data, and we're gonna break down where we're seeing it and where we're not so that this particular leader and the coach who's coming with us and the assistant principal who's coming with us can say, great. What does our ILT need to do? How does that change what the coach might be doing? How does that change what's happening in the professional learning? So in all practicality, these learning walks that we're doing is changing how we're noticing whether or not students are practicing. And I will say, you know, now we've gone on one every single week since the second week of school. The principals go and then the APs go separately. And what I what I will say that I'm noticing is that as folks are getting used to the curriculum, it there is a lack a little bit of a lack of practice. And we're noticing that that's where, like, they run out of time, And so that's something we'll be working on this year. But, yeah, I will say that the homework policy varies from school to school if we're gonna answer the question about homework.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I I think I'd like to hold off on asking other questions to let folks ask.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. Any other comments or questions from other commissioners? Okay. Commissioner Ray, we're gonna wrap up here. Do you oh.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I I'm happy to wait for, Commissioner Fisher to ask her question before using up the rest of my time if she'd like to do that.

[President Phil Kim]: Well, it's been reset already. So Alright.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Sorry. Okay. I had a minute thirty six left. I do

[President Phil Kim]: You did have a minute and thirty six left. Yes.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Right? Not that you're keeping track of me

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: or anything. I'm keeping track

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: of you.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Kim. But I'm glad that we're here on slide 12. And I really appreciate, Doctor. Stoner, what you just said too about because what we keep hearing is that this is a great curriculum, but the ELA block isn't long enough to fully implement it. Right? And so how you know, we're we're hearing that from a lot of different schools. So how how are we iterating, I guess, is what, you know, and so I I appreciate that we've got, you know, some of these essential content metrics here. But I I think for me, really, it's also just, like, how are we iterating based on the implementation in the classroom? How is that informing and changing practices too?

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I can talk I can talk about a specific example. Decodable text. It's me. Thank you so much. So, you know, both across last year and this year, students having an opportunity to practice newly acquirable newly acquired skills with a decodable text has been our lowest indicator. And so what I what I just wanna name first within the context is that the data that we have from the learning walks is not an answer. It's the start of a question. And so I think for us, that being the lowest indicator has supported us in trying to investigate what is happening in practice that is impacting practice with decodable text. And I think there are a number of pieces. Part of that certainly is related to pacing. Part of that certainly is, I would say, related to a professional understanding around the relationship and interdependency between foundational skills instruction and decodable text. We just did administrator PD about understanding in and out of context practice of foundational skills, which includes out of context. We can might think of this, like, rug time. In context being worked with decodable text. So part of this is a professional understanding, which is a really different focus than the way, historically, educators might have thought about instruction and its relationship to leveled text. Right? So there's, like, a professional learning curve. There's a pacing curve. And then there's also, just a utility of the materials. There are decodable text built into the interreading into reading curriculum. I would say that is a really smaller a much smaller set of text than what educators might otherwise use. So we've also done an additional purchase of decodable text that's aligned to the curriculum. In first grade, we've moved into kindergarten. As more funding becomes available, we'll continue to supplement, and provided more guidance from educators on how to use decodable text in their practice, not just as part of, for example, their foundational skills block, but during small group instruction, during any additional blocks of time they might have. So I would say that that that data point has created a focus area for us, that has created a shift in professional development, a shift in the instructional coaching model, a shift in the purchase design, and guidance associated with resources. So that's just for one indicator. I appreciate hearing that the feedback from the classroom is changing the practices. And I

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: think that's a lot of what folks have been asking

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: president Kim. The the last thing I'd like to ask is essentially, what do you think are the most effective things that that need to be done in order to in order to, like, in order to strengthen, you know, strengthen our educators' comfort and ability and, you know, just their their ability to deliver material as effectively as possible to students. What do you think are some of the key key things that we can do as a district to do that?

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: I feel like if we could just do one thing, at the k five level, looking to see that every grade level has collaboration time and that that's supported by somebody who can effectively facilitate what they're looking at at the six, eight level department time. I think that if we, double down on that, which is one of the things we're looking at this year, that we will start to see a shift because you can't learn everything all at once. And to the point that we adopted math a year after we adopted language arts means that people are juggling something. But if they can go deep into something that we're noticing they need more practice on in this, like, dedicated time where they have their other colleagues that are teaching the same grade level, where they have an instructional coach if they're at the at the k at the k eights or the k fives. I think that really is gonna make a difference on what we're seeing in terms of both educator practice, in terms of implementation, and student practice. And then I think as we also the second thing I'll say is as we get better at using the STAR data, right, STAR data is wrapping up this week, and we know that, like, as we support administrators to get better at, like, drilling down into what's the kind of report, what's the question that you have that what's the report that goes with that question, and how do we bring that back to the teacher level so that they can look at the student level, I think we'll also see a change there. So those are the two things that I would say.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: So I'll just wrap by acknowledging and affirming my deep gratitude towards the plan articulating site instructional leadership learning walks and unit and lesson internalization. Sorry. I keep I sound like a broken record. I think those three are so critical to our work around tier one instruction, and it makes me it brings me little little fireworks in my in my head to know that that those three things are things that we're doubling down on. What I would love to see, I think, is a a more of a direct relationship between that and the work that we are doing for our data collection. I don't know if I'm saying this right. Let me restart this. Part part of what I think is most essential, and I think y'all would agree with me, is the relationship between a teacher and a coach and the coach being able to effectively walk a teacher through, assuming that the coach is effective in this way, walk a teacher through what that lesson internalization looks like, actually be able to be present in a classroom and observe and provide feedback, and then actually sit with them to look at the data from that lesson. When I was teaching, we we at at KIPP, we had this whole cycle called cohesive coaching cycle that was all focused on a single lesson. So you were internalizing a lesson together. You are observing the lesson together, providing feedback on that same lesson, and looking at the outcome of that lesson, and having some sort of data driven instructional protocol. Because our our premise was that instructional knowledge and specifically content knowledge development through the lesson was the most critical lever that we thought was gonna improve outcomes for kids. Is that a similar orientation here? I mean, is that a hypothesis that we are positing here around content knowledge development for teachers and coaches? Or or is there a different approach that we have as a district around how we are looking at bringing these three things together? I think maybe that's my question.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I can speak to that. So I'll I'll sort of talk about the practice, but just wanna also acknowledge on the back end, we do have a system for collecting and analyzing coaching logs, which is part of the work associated with goal one that we will be sharing. So there's a little bit of an analysis there that we'll come back to in November. But one of the pieces that I will say is that so our instructional coach model covers grades p k through five. So we're talking specifically at the elementary level. We don't have an instructional coach system at the secondary level. So I wanna just name that distinction so we're clear about which section we're talking about. So in that context, the instructional coaches both support in a one to one coaching manner, and they also support in the teacher collaboration structure that was just named. So you will see both that one to one individual coaching cycle that you named. You'll also see instructional coaches facilitating grade level team meetings, sitting on their ILT, facilitating the aligned PD, etcetera. So they do hold both of those roles, which is I I named because that is explicitly different than how instructional coaches might function in other systems. There are some systems in which they only do one to one coaching. Just won't get into that. But what I would say is that that inquiry cycle is part of the one to one coaching that they do with educators. And they have a differentiated coaching model at their school site, and so they have not all educators at the co at the school site do they work with equally. There is a little bit of differentiation in terms of the touchpoint and the depth of cycle that you named. One of the pieces that I will highlight, for example, is the coach training that we're preparing, not to give away what's happening in November, but the coach training that we're preparing in November.

[President Phil Kim]: You're on page of the chronicles.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I know. It's a headline. But just to sort of name that inquiry cycle. Right? So one of the pieces that we're working with the coaches on is specific to pulling a very specific standards mastery report within STAR. So that is would be at the classroom level and at the student level, and the work there is identifying specific standards and strands of standards, in this case, language and literacy. So strands of standards related to things like reading comprehension with informational text or reading comprehension with literary text, but identifying certain strands and standards that need additional support in the classroom. So taking those identified strands stand strands and standards, connecting them to explicit practices, so text dependent questions, for example, and then going into internalization and identifying where let's say it's text dependent questions. Where do those show up within the lesson plan? How can we elevate them? How can we extend them in order to give students additional at bats? But that cycle is managed by the instructional coach working, in this example, with a grade level team.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. And I think there's always this, like, tug and pull, right, of well, I guess, this is me just pining now. Tug and pull of of of standards and and internalizing the standards and being able to identify that within a lesson versus fidelity of the implementation of the lesson plan itself. Right?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Can I

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah? Please.

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I literally just did a slide on this. So the example that I'm giving, I'm gonna give because it wasn't the great example, is specific to their analysis of STAR data. Right? So looking at interim assessment data in STAR, analyzing the STAR report, and then using that to inform instruction. The slide that I just did for administrators was understanding the difference between an internalization protocol and standards based planning, which is a reverse system. So in that case, the old method of lesson planning is standards based where people do not have adopted high quality instructional materials. They start with the standard and then find activities, etcetera. And so our direct instruction was the shift away from that into an internalization model where we have adopted high quality instructional materials, and our job is to internalize and understand their design and purpose. So the example I gave was not great because it's utilizing interim assessment data.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. That is so wonderful to hear. And the whole reason why we adopt tier one instructional materials. So I I think that's that answered that part. Did I hear correctly that our instructional coaches are a k five strategy, not a middle school strategy?

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: So we have instructional coaches at k five schools and k eight schools. At the middle school last year, there was funding for one year of middle school coaches for the math. There was fear from the middle school principals around whether or not, one, we were gonna be able to find coaches given how challenging it is to find coaches, especially because we needed to find folks that were coaches for math. And then there was some advocacy because we've reduced both assistant principals and counselors on the part of middle school principals to say, we would like to say that we we we can't do without an extra counselor or an extra assistant principal. We need that instead of a coach. And so what we did was we asked each particular middle school to say, if you are asking for a swap of a coach for an assistant principal or a counselor that will also only be for one year, given that we're about to cut things again, then we need to understand who's in charge of math and how you're supporting math departments and how you're coaching those teachers. So I'll just use the example of, Presidio since we were just talking about them earlier. At Presidio, it happens that it's the principal because the principal is a former math teacher, so he's the person who goes to department meetings, etcetera. At other schools, other people have been identified, whether it's an instructional leader in that department or whether it's an assistant principal, and they're the ones that then attend other professional learning. So there aren't coaches in all of the middle schools. There are three three coaches in the middle schools, and some of them don't have a math background. So they can't actually coach math because they're learning that I mean, they can coach math. They can coach pedagogy, but they're learning the math curriculum alongside of the folks.

[President Phil Kim]: So I think my push would be there would be I mean, I also wasn't a math teacher, but I did coach math teachers. Right? And part of that was the journey of internalizing the lesson with the teacher side by side. And so I think it's less about, like, math or are you did you teach math? Did you not teach math? I think my question now coming to the systems level for our budget conversations is are we invested in our instructional strategy for coaching or not? And if we believe that it's good for educators, then why wouldn't it be a strategy that we're looking at for all educators is my is one possible question to ask. It doesn't need to be answered right now. And, like, then I ask this kind of similar question as we go into budget season around what exactly are our instructional investments that we're making that we are saying we are gonna stand by and not change because we believe that this is the thing that's gonna move the needle for kids, whether that's instructional coaching and instructional leadership or MTSS, for example. Right? I it is a it's a genuine question I have of, like, instead of asking what we need to cut, the first question I'm wondering is what exactly are we saying are the things that we feel deeply about that are the levers that we believe will change outcomes for kids instructionally? Because then that to me is what we must protect at all costs when we're talking about what we need to change and reduce in our budget. And so sorry. I'm, like, way over my time. But that that was that was my soapbox comment, which I will have the privilege of saying as in this time. Don't have to provide an answer to that right now because I know that's not the topic of discussion currently, but if there are comments to make, I would appreciate something. Yeah.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: Well, I

[Superintendent Hsu]: I just wanna say that I I a 100% agree with you, president Kim. I think this was something that was asked by commissioner Alexander in our last budget meeting or our last fiscal and ops update meeting, which is how do we map our funding to our goals and guardrails? How do we ensure that our funding really truly moves the needle? And now that we have two years of the literacy curriculum and a year of our math curriculum and we'll be soon getting the results of our STAAR testing, we're we now have additional data to show and help us identify what are some of the the key levers that are going to help us move the needle for our students. And I think having an instructional investment allocation, again, makes a lot of sense and something that I definitely want us to move towards.

[President Phil Kim]: I don't know what's thank you for all your time. And oh, yes. Commission vice president healing.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Sorry. I've been in and out. I'm getting over, like, the third stomach flu that my kids have had this month. So but I so apologies if I repeat questions other people have asked. Some of my thoughts about this report may be not necessarily about the content of the report, but thinking about progress monitoring more generally and thinking ahead to our progress monitoring ad hoc committee. I did really appreciate that the report flagged, like, and identified some of the causes, for example, like turnover in leadership at schools, turnover in teachers at schools. And also that in the briefing that commissioners had in advance for this meeting that, you know, there were issues with, like, the data is gonna be lower at the in September than the average for the year because it continuously increases throughout the year. And so one of my questions is just, like, when can we then see some of that reflected in the data that we get? Like, if if you think that the appropriate thing to compare is September to September, then I would just encourage the team to compare September to September and then provide, like, based on the growth over the course of the school year last year. Like, this is the growth we expect to see this year so that we can just see that instead of having it kind of as an aside or as a qualifier. I think that would make it more meaningful for us. And just kind of to go to commissioner Gupta's question about, like, one particular school. Like, to me, the goal of the progress monitoring is really to monitor, like, what are we doing about the data? And so I find that I'm having a bit of a frustration around I I understand why this isn't apples to apples from last year's data, but I have a little bit of a frustration around continuously saying, like, we did a sample of random schools and, like, here's some anecdotes and at schools a, b, and c, this happened and at d, e, and f, this happened. But we have, like, a 130 schools. And so it's always some different sampling, and that makes it really difficult to monitor progress. And so I understand this is a guardrail, and it's really good to have then this citywide systemwide data. And it did certainly identify citywide issues like lack of opportunities to practice the skills, in the classroom and the need to then maybe incorporate that into PD, like, district wide. But I think there are also, like, really significant areas for growth that the district has to get closer to meeting our goals by just investing in specific schools that we know have needs. And I think in some ways, when we are trying to anonymize schools in this data, we are actually denying them the opportunity to have the community behind them and investing in them and giving them what they need. Like, I would really like to know what that school is so that we can come back and ask at the next monitoring report, what are we doing to lower turnover for the next year? What are we doing to retain that leadership team? Like, where are our highest turnover schools and what is our strategy around those specific schools? Because I think what the monitoring has surfaced is the importance of consistent leadership over, you know, from school year to school year. And so then if if that's what the issue is and that's what we need to invest in, then, like, I think we should be monitoring that and how well we are doing that at specific schools. And, you know, I think we've talked a number a number of times around whether our goals are look. We're a really high performing district. We perform, like, better than the state average in a lot of ways. And I know we have a lot of room for growth, but we have some schools that are already performing really, really well. And I think we should own that and celebrate that, but at the same time, that means that where our room for growth is and our opportunities for growth in may be not doing everything as a district wide strategy. It may may may not be instructional coaches at every single school. It may be instructional coaches where we need instructional coaches and maybe investing in specific middle schools that need instructional coaches because they consistently have lower growth year over year for their students cohort over cohort, and we know that that's happening. So I guess that would just be my kind of question pushed you, and hopefully, we can continue this conversation in our ad hocs. But, like, what would the monitoring look like that would help you track whether you are doing the things to meet your specific goals and, like, investing in where the growth potential is and where the needs are instead of kind of talking about everything in a generic anonymized district wide way because I don't think that's where the issues are arising. Sorry. That's just my rant. But, like, when could we get kind of strategies that

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: are

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: identified about how we're going to then invest in and address the issues that you found? Because this did surface issues. So that, I guess, is my is my question.

[Dr. Steiner (LEAD – School Support)]: I feel like this is a great question. I also feel like it brings up a question for me, which is that we talk about guardrail 3.1 and we talk about goals one and two in the absence of attendance and social emotional data. And I think what we're doing at the level of implementation around professional learning and coaches, and whether or not we need to concentrate coaches in particular areas and use an equity strategy versus an equality strategy is a great one that we should definitely pick up as we make we face some really difficult budget decisions. I also think, like, thinking about the kinds of things that our students face and how they're coming to school and what we need to do in order to get them to spend time in classrooms also needs to, like, be the conversation that becomes part of these progress monitoring because sometimes, the things that I'm spending my time doing is supporting students in crisis and, families in crisis, and, then they're not getting to access. No matter how good the teacher is and how well they've learned it, they're not getting to access what's there. So I think that there is a way that we could be also, using the Venn diagram of not just belonging, but also, like, what are the adverse childhood experiences that students are experiencing and where do we see them concentrated, and how does that impact turnover and longevity of staff, as they experience that. So that kind of answered your question and I kind of didn't, but it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, as I visit schools across since every single one of my school is a citywide school.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. I think we're gonna extend our time.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: I move that we extend the meeting past 10:00. That clock is wrong. It's actually ten o' one.

[President Phil Kim]: Oh, no second.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I'll second.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. Second. Wonderful. Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

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

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice president Huling?

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes. Commissioner

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

[President Phil Kim]: We'll go commissioner Alexander, commissioner Wray. If you can just keep them quick and direct, that would be great.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yeah. This was more of a comment in response to vice president Huling's comment, which I think is really important. And I think well, I mean, the prog the ad hoc committee on progress monitoring will I think one of the intentions is for to address both the board's practices around progress monitoring as well as the staff's practices around progress monitoring, but it won't create a strategy that doesn't exist. Right? And so I think that that the challenge that I think one or one of the challenge I think staff faces is to develop a strategy for each of the goals that actually takes into account the complexity that assistant superintendent Steiner just mentioned. Right? That it's sometimes it may be the investment might be attendance related or or sometimes and it might be very nuanced and school specific as you've just indicated. And I think there's a challenge around getting different departments to coordinate, getting folks to understand that. I mean, the the when I asked at the last meeting, our deputy superintendent for budget services did it wasn't didn't I mean, there weren't clear priorities that he was aware of around how to achieve our goals that would drive his work around budgeting. I think that is because there isn't a shared strategy yet. I just think we need to admit that and to I I think it's really critically important that the superintendent lead her team to build that. I don't think the I think the ad hoc will kinda support that, but that's not you know what I'm saying? Like, that's not a it's not gonna help us create a strategy that doesn't yet exist. So just to be clear about that.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yeah. And I and I would love to see some of the future progress monitoring. Again, I just broken record, but, like, bringing invoices from schools, what's actually happening. This I think this guardrail monitoring gets

[Speaker 7.0]: to what's

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: happening and is reporting on what's happening, but it'd be great to hear from schools about that. But also bringing in to the superintendent all of the various functions that you need to support that because we can't have, you know, just schools saying we need instructional coaches without budget saying, this is where I'm setting aside the money for the instructional coaches and HR saying, this is where we're investing in hiring or developing internally or, you know, these are the investments we're working to make in retention bonuses or in, like, all of our strategies from labor to budget to schools and curriculum and HR need to be aligned to drive us toward our goals.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yeah. And then that's that's where I'm seeing the gap. And it's not I mean, we can have the most brilliant people in the world, which we do. And but if but if they're only controlling their universe, you know, they can produce the data and the report but they can't drive the HR strategy and the budget strategy and all that other stuff. So I think that's the that's where I'm seeing the gap and opportunity, let's

[President Phil Kim]: say. Commissioner Ray.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I just I had one quick clarifying question and which I'll ask in just a second. I just wanted to emphasize that this what people are raising about attendance from from everything I've read and been able to see so far seems to be huge. So I would hope that that we could really look at that and the district is is is really focusing on attendance as a way to help us achieve many, many of our goals. But my clarifying question came from what commissioner Gupta and commissioner Huling were asking. When we look at the at the charts and we see lettered schools, for instance, is is school a the same school across literacy and math? Is school g the same school, or could it be referring to different schools?

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: They are the same schools. They're not necessarily the same school across reports, but within the same report, yes, they are the same schools.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Okay. In one case, I think there was a school I, whereas there wasn't in on the other side. So it just happened there's more schools in that thing. But otherwise, the letter

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Overlapping with different sets of schools for literacy and language on the one hand and math on the other.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Can I Okay?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: A clarifying question? Yes. Like, what one is a set of k five and the other is a set of k six. Right? Or, I mean, that's what the slides look like to me is language and literacy was select k to five sites and math was select six to eight sites. So how could they be the same school?

[Ms. Krugman (Curriculum & Instruction)]: So the classroom observations for language and literacy occurred in k five classrooms. The classroom observations for math occurred in kindergarten through eighth grade classrooms. We have some schools that are p k to five or T k to five. We have some schools that are six to eight, and we have some schools that are p k to eight. So you might have a school who is a p k to eight school. They might have had elementary language and literacy observations, elementary math observations, and middle school math observations. You does that sort of

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Yeah. Yep.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. I'm gonna move us on. Thank you so much for your presentation this evening. I appreciate all your efforts and work, and we look forward to seeing you back soon. Like, so soon.

[Justin Steele (Public Comment Moderator)]: So soon.

[President Phil Kim]: Like, the next meeting soon.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Can I just sorry, president Kim? I just just reflecting on what vice president Huling was just talking about in terms of restructuring maybe the the way we have these types of conversations. It was something that commissioner Alexander and I have started talking about as well, and it did bring up when when I when I was talking to the superintendent down in LA, they do something that not so public like this, but they do do, like, a deep data dive where they actually bring in their a a cohort of schools and that those schools present their performance, what they are doing. And you do have senior cabinet sitting around, and they can say, well, you know, I'm not moving the needle here because or I am moving the needle here because or my biggest barrier right now is that the elevator is not working. Right? So I think it's just it's a very different way of of really, truly, like, wrapping our arms around our schools and school cohort. I don't think we could do it publicly in this setting, but I or maybe we could. I mean, I think that there could be different ways to approach it. But I think you're right that we do need to have, like, a different approach to how we support our our schools and our site leaders and and educators.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. We'll move to item g, discussion items, types of board decisions. We have two items. One is types of board decisions, and the second is an ad hoc committee on progress monitoring memo. We'll start with the first one, types of board decisions. Commissioners, you'll see, I think, somewhere Maybe it wasn't. There. You'll see in front of you a updated table on the types of board decisions that with now some information included on some of what those decisions might look like. Now I wanna preface this discussion by naming a couple things. One, a a few updates. So part of what you see on the very first column around, whether something is exhaustive and complete or not exhaustive and complete, Just to name, the major decisions and initiatives are what specifically should be exhaustive and complete, whereas the routine and ongoing I mean, there are so many things that are routine and ongoing that are within the purview of the board that are board led. And so that should be a correction around naming what naming that we should be making or identifying major decisions and initiatives early in the school year and being clear about that and that we should be straightforward with what those are. The other things I'll name are just reminders based on our last conversation. This table is meant to articulate for ourselves what are the types of decisions the board is wanting to make and, therefore, wanting to provide direction either to leadership or the superintendent so we can plan thoughtfully for these conversations. It is not meant to articulate a plan, nor is it meant to articulate an expectation of how something happens. It's meant to articulate this is a decision that we want to make at some point. Perhaps the most obvious thing that you'll see on here are, three things listed under major decision slash initiatives, school reorganization, facilities, and enrollment. And then what you see added are examples of routine and ongoing board led decisions, routine and ongoing superintendent led board decided strategic decisions. And then what you see under management decisions and superintendent decisions, some of which may be agendized, in consent, some of it may be agendized as an action, but, generally, are the things that we are, deprioritizing so that we we focus our attention and our energy on the things that you see under strategic decisions. With that, I would love to just open it up for a conversation to be had among our board. No decision is going to be made today, but based on our conversation today, leadership may take this, partner with the superintendent on determining how to best move forward with formalizing anything that comes out of our conversation today. Is there anything you wanted to add, commissioner or vice president Healy?

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yeah. I just wanted to add that, you know, in our last conversation around this, we talked about how the Gardendale one identifies that it, applies to major decisions and that it is within the board's purview to name what those major decisions are to which guardrail one applies and also to charge the superintendent with work that reflects the vision, values, and goals of the community. And so as president Kim said, we're not intending to make any decisions today. But I think as board leadership, we wanted to bring to the board the suggestion, for conversation and discussion and no action tonight that the potential major decisions or initiatives that we could charge the superintendent with executing would be school reorganization, facilities, and change of the enrollment policy away from the lottery toward implementing a more, community neighborhood, geographically based assignment system and just have that conversation and see where the board is.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Clarifying question? Yes. What is what is meant here by facilities?

[President Phil Kim]: So facilities here is meant to articulate, anything from how we our our bond investment strategy to our existing use of facility space in our in our land use. It is meant to articulate the facilities master plan that was included. Essentially, I mean, going back to the difference between that and school reorganization, there is a conversation to be had around programs in school communities that is just distinct from the buildings themselves and how we maintain and consider the use of our buildings or just vacant properties.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: And I think part of it is that the reason we have these three things is because we'd like to, you know, propose that those would be things that the district think about strategically and in tandem. So that if we're looking at potential school reorganization, that may that doesn't is not intended to mean what has become known as RAI or school closures in San Francisco as previously viewed. But it is truly a reorganization of our schools and our programs to meet the needs and the enrollment and the demand that we have. And so that may, for example, involve relocating a school to a larger facility because there's more demand for it or expanding and investing in a facility to meet demand for a program, where it might be expanded and thinking about facilities strategically. If there were a school community that were reorganized and was no longer at a facility, strategically, would we want to have a district plan around what happens to that, to that land? So just thinking about these three things in tandem in terms of, you know, thinking of a new assignment system in terms of what schools would exist, at the time that that assignment system would go into. Where is the demand? Where are students?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: I appreciate the question and I appreciate the follow-up feedback. I'm wondering though because I'm not sure where this one pager is going to end up. I think all that context is super helpful, especially from a transparency and bringing the community along with us in the process. Is there going to be a follow-up, like maybe a second page that articulates that or do you think maybe we could expand on some of these bullet points to be a little bit more, these bullet points to be a little bit more especially because the this says this should be an exhaustive complete list. I'm wondering if we might need to be a little bit more specific in the way those those bullet points are named.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. Again, I think a part of this is I mean, the conversation is helpful. Right? Because I think the what would happen from here is that leadership would meet and kind of digest the information and feedback from this discussion to be able to articulate more clearly to the superintendent where the board is so that we can set a direction for the district. That may mean that we come back to this board with a resolution to move forward a body of work. It might mean that we come back, with a proposed action for the board to consider. Again, part of this is how do we want to focus the energy of our board and leadership and the superintendent? Granted, we can't obviously have a multi page document behind all of this that explains in each and every one. That would actually be an ask for the superintendent to actually take and define further and bring back to us. Right? And so, again, part of this is giving board leadership an opportunity to hear from commissioners so that we can, again, thoughtfully approach the superintendent with with greater clarity on where the board is.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: And because, you know, I think these are pretty major decisions Yeah. We think it's important to have a board conversation in public about where the board stands on, like, are we prepared to move forward as a body in alignment in both directing the superintendent to accomplish these goals, to make these hard decisions, and in, you know, having these be also the items that to which guardrail one applies and then saying we've we've identified these as the major decisions. And so under our types of board decisions matrix, we also will allow for other potential processes for other types of decision.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Okay. Well so then under major decisions slash initiatives and especially based on our previous conversation with tying a more, more holistically budget and staffing to, you know, goals. I'm wondering, do we want to add maybe a fourth bullet point around staffing here under the board decision maker, superintendent, recommender owner. Because I like if, if our, if the, the longterm work around vision, values, goals, and guardrails, it sounds like based on the data we have, like and and we know our budget, staffing is a major staffing is a major driver. Right? We we just have that conversation. Maybe that might take priority over the work around facilities or the work you know, so I'm wondering where some of those operational things like HR hiring practices and things like that would fall here in what in which bucket. We don't necessarily have full control over the operational, but do we wanna provide any additional levers into certain things, like staffing.

[President Phil Kim]: I think the question would be, what would you imagine the board's role to be in staffing conversations? Now this is just meant to articulate the decisions. Right? It's not meant to articulate what we can opine on as a board. Right? And as discussed last time, there's a whole there's a lot of stuff on here that we would expect the superintendent to bring the board along in those work network and those discussions. That's different from, say, suggesting that the board should play a role in determining the outcome of something. Right? So so I think that's the critical difference here. What you see where the current staffing model's named is under superintendent decisions, superintendent led. An example is something that typically does not come to the board as an action or consent is the staffing model. So if you reflect back on the last two years, that staffing model never came to the board for approval. If you're recommending that the staffing model come to the board for approval, that is a different conversation than what this would suggest here. Right?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Well and I think that's the conversation that bay especially based on our last conversation that we just had with staff around the importance of, instructional coaches and perhaps the need for instructional coaches at the middle school level. Like, perhaps that is a conversation that we need to have, in the context of budget and and and how we're out. So, potentially.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. I've I mean, I will say just my point of view was that I was considering that within the context of budget. Right? The way in which we allocate staffing, the way in which we look at resource allocation for staffing is typically a decision that we make vis a vis the budget. Right? Are we going to allocate this amount of dollars for this resource given the strategy that we understand to be undergirding the budget itself? So part of that comes out, I think, in the district budget. Part of that comes out in the fiscal stabilization plan that we are gonna have to see, and and I do believe we approve. I do I think we have to take action on that. Right? Because that will articulate, for example well, I think in December when we receive the first interim report and the fiscal stabilization plan, will have to be a conversation as part of that.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: But But if we want staffing to be part of the strategic decision making, then then it's in the wrong bucket here, I think, is really that's the the one point.

[President Phil Kim]: Did you wanna follow-up on that?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Well, I was gonna try to answer your question. Do you are you you're asking us to answer the question of, like, whether we think this is the right

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP)]: thing. Right?

[President Phil Kim]: Yep.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: So I think generally, yes. Because I mean, I guess my opinion is that that is part of the the those first two bullets, the routine ongoing district budget and fiscal stabilization plan, and progress monitoring of VVGGs. And to me, they're, like, really linked based on the earlier conversation we had, which is that there has to be a strategy to achieve the goals that's really clearly articulated and that drives the budget. And if that's not happening, we should vote no on the budget. I mean and I think, like, the only way that that is our accountability measure, but, obviously, we shouldn't wait until June to do that. We should be saying why we're not, you know, we're not convinced that the budget is aligned with the goals. Right? And so if so in the context there, it's like, well, you say you wanna cut instructional coaches. How is that aligning? What whatever. You know what I mean? That's where I think in my view, that's where the board can weigh in on that, but it's not about the micro details. It's more at the strategic level. Is that

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Yeah. This is all super helpful for me. I just in the in the budget conversations that we have had here in a board in the board, we haven't ever tied the budget to staffing, like, to some like, to recognizing the importance of staff to you know what I mean? So I think that's where maybe a little

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: bit of a I know what you mean. I've never I've I've never voted for a budget that I think was really aligned to achieving the academic goals, but I am hopeful that we're gonna get there at least Right. Closer to this year since I think this is the earliest we've ever really talked about it. Yeah. So but I was gonna try to answer the other part of the question if I may just briefly. So like around the other ones, I it feels to me like enrollment policy as we discussed last time, is one of the most critical things we've heard from the public that I mean, there was just another article in the Chronicle this past week about private school, enrollment that opened with an anecdote about us SFUSD or family saying I can't I couldn't get my kid into the school at at the in the lottery and so I went to private school. And I just can't tell you how many times, like, last year when I was out listening to people during the campaign time, people were like, well, the one thing you've gotta fix on the school board is this stupid lottery system. And not because it doesn't always work, it does work for some families, but it's the unpredictability of it that creates stress and people end up leaving the district even before they enter the lottery because they've heard so much negative things about it. So so I think that has to be done and I think that has to be done in context with whatever school reorganization there needs to there there needs that needs to occur. I would argue that part of that also is this question that I was harping on earlier around the size of schools. Right? What are the but but I would I would broaden that to include k eights versus elementary, language programs, like, all those sort of things of, like, what are we offering? What does that portfolio look like? Where in the city are they located to your point? What buildings are they in? How big are they? Right? And how does that all fit together with a rational, predictable enrollment system where families can be like, oh, my kid's gonna go to this elementary school or these couple elementary schools and then this middle school and this high school.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Right?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: And if I wanna choose an alternative, I can, but I know that there's something predictable for me that I can invest in as a family. And I think that's over and over again what we've heard. So I to me that is all of one piece and kinda has to go together because it's like an interlocking jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces like affect each other. And I think it also would then link to the essential nature of a of a, a community, engagement process for consultation of decision making under guardrail one. Because again, not to keep repeating myself, but the the point with the academy, I think we already I think we still should vote on the academy. I think that that was that was a violation of guardrail one and it should have been in this bucket and we should have voted on it or we still should vote on it. So if that's what we're saying is that that kind of thing is not gonna happen in the future because we're saying very clearly that has to be part of an articulated bigger plan, the board has to vote, and before the board vote, there has to be lots of public engagement, then I'm all for it.

[President Phil Kim]: Any other comments or questions? Commissioner Ray.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Hey. Just a couple of things that, that I wanted to sorry. A couple of things I wanted to bring up. Commissioner Fisher had asked about the exhaustive complete list bullet under strategic decisions, and that had been confusing to me as well. I had asked about that to try to figure out what this applies to. And based on the answer that was put in the q and a, it it seem it seems that that only applies to major decisions or initiatives. So there's there's a lot of things under routine and ongoing that are just meant to be examples rather than an exhaustive complete list.

[President Phil Kim]: That's correct.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: So if if we could modify, can this be revised Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason why we're not voting on it. It it is a living document for us, and we should constantly revisit it to take stock of where we are.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: That's great. Because I was really literally wondering, like, if this is all again Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: A great example, I think, that came up was, like, general counsel contract Right. Our you know, for example.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yeah. It it would be if we can add those, that would be great because then it would just be clear to people what does and doesn't fall under under these things. But to to be clear that some of them are examples whereas some are an exhaustive list, I think is but they're not all exhaustive would be helpful. The other thing actually, I just wanted to check on my understanding of management decisions. I had asked about that as well. When we when we write under superintendent led board board decided maybe action, is that meant to basically say that facilities contracts, executive contracts, and new charter petitions would normally be on the consent calendar, but that they might be elevated to an action item? Is that what that's meant to mean?

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. So let's take, like, new charter petitions, I think, typically are recommended to be an action of the board, whereas facilities contracts are a standing section in our consent. Right? So but we do vote sometimes on consent or facilities contracts depending on the size of it. Right? So so the reason why it says may is because there are some thing I mean, generally, the the as it states at the top of our meeting when I make that kind of long opener, we are trying to move as much as possible everything to consent so that we can spend the time to focus on what we are now calling strategic decisions. Right? So what we are actively saying is that we are trying to focus our attention on the strategic decisions and that then management decisions, superintendent decisions, we are intentionally trying to find ways where that can be addressed in other capacities. Typically, for management decisions, that means consent. Right? But there are legally areas where we have to vote on things that are management decisions as an action, and so we should. Right? So by no means is this meant to, like, circumvent any laws or anything like that. This is meant to, you know, help us focus us in.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Of course. I'm just trying to like, if somebody looks at this, if the public looks at this, or even if I, you know, as a board member look at this, it it's are we trying to tell people functionally that we only wanna elevate some of these action items? If you look to the right, it says maybe consent, for instance. So what does that imply? Does that mean that a lot of these things would normally not even have to go on consent calendar, but maybe sometimes they will? I just I was confused about why we were saying maybe action for these items and maybe consent for these other items.

[President Phil Kim]: So the idea behind there, I think, is the difference between superintendent led board decided versus superintendent led. If it's a purely superintendent led decision, typically, that would not be something that we would bring to an action at all. It would fall under consent.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: But what's the difference I'm confused by this too. What's the difference between that, a budget transfer, and a facilities contract? Like, right now, they're both on consent. Like, why is one of them under superintendent led or decided and one under superintendent led? Technically, we decide on budget transfers. Right? I mean, we have to vote on them.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. I mean, consent, just to be clear, is a lowercase a action of the board. Right? We're just doing it all at once in a single action. Right?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Right. But I don't understand why then, like, budget transfers are in the right hand box and facilities contracts from the left hand box. To me, those are very similar.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I I was confused by a similar thing. Like, why are certain things grouped as maybe actions?

[President Phil Kim]: Certain things grouped as maybe So the way in which this was populated was we looked at the historical actions of the board to determine what was considered a superintendent led board decided example of maybe action. So, like, we have made, for example facilities contracts have come to the board for an explicit standalone item action in addition to executive contracts and new charter petitions. Whereas budget transfers, certificate of personal actions, and MOUs are just standing sections of our consent calendar that we don't typically pull out as a separate standalone action. So that was just the distinction. I mean, again, the idea the headline here, I think, is that management decisions generally, we are, again, trying to move to consent so that we can focus more of our time and energy on the strategic decisions

[Speaker 7.0]: for the board.

[President Phil Kim]: Can I yeah? Sure.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: I mean, maybe I think it might be how we're describing. When I when I saw action and consent, I'm I'm thinking about how it's actually organized on our agenda as action. And, obviously, everything on the consent, we are, in fact, taking an action because we're voting on it. But if you look at the way our agendas are standard and organized, it's like action items is it's a whole another it's a conversation. It's a vote. It's more, and then the consent is more streamlined. So that's how I understood the distinction.

[President Phil Kim]: That is correct.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Where would

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: you put curricula?

[President Phil Kim]: I the so it depends on how you think about curricula. So if you're talking about the cost to authorize the purchase of curricula, I think that would be a budget question. If you're talking about the actual selection of a curricula, that would be a superintendent led decision. Because the recommendation again, the way that typically curricula get adopted is that a recommendation is made by staff, that come to the board for action in the form of a a

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: purchase. So so there's no so

[Superintendent Hsu]: Except when we present to the board a potential adoption of a new curriculum.

[President Phil Kim]: That's true.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Right. So there are times where we ask the board for funds to purchase curriculum for a number of reasons. Could be because we're not compliant with the Williams complaint or because we are now trying to update our curriculum, and we've gone through the curriculum evaluate assessment and evaluation process. And so then we will be presenting the curriculum here. So that one would probably be I mean, I guess, it could be

[President Phil Kim]: super independent. Yeah. Board decided management decision. There you go. Thank you. Another reason why these are examples and not exhaustive because there are limitless pretty much options that could come.

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: But I think the the distinction between those two is critically important. I appreciate the drawing out of that specifically as an example where I I would agree. The curriculum adoption like we did with math, like we'd like the previous board did with ELA is very to me, very clearly in that middle box, whereas it sounds like the the costs the the approval of the cost is more of a consent item down in the bottom right hand corner. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Well, just to clarify, not the bottom right hand corner, the middle right. Right? Because the bottom right hand corner doesn't even come to the board if I'm Yeah. Am I right? Yes. Just to is that right?

[President Phil Kim]: Am I getting That is right. Yeah.

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Look at

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: that. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: We're getting used to it. Yeah. I mean, it's gonna take some time for us to internalize this, but, yes, that would be the difference.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Can I just It it so even even, like, the staffing model or the interim goals, it does come to the board, but you just it doesn't come to the board for a vote? We we still present. We will be presenting.

[President Phil Kim]: Well, I I think the the spirit behind that is that I mean, the staffing model, in many ways, is receives so much tension that we bring it to the board to have a conversation.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yes.

[President Phil Kim]: Right? But there's there are many decisions that the superintendent makes that never needs to come to the board. Yes.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: But it and it's up to you Yeah. Basically, whether you bring it to the board Correct. I think. Right?

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I mean, that's kind of the key there. Like, you don't legally have to bring those to the board, but Correct. Because they're big decisions, it makes sense Yes. As a to to get Yes.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. And that's why something like interim goals and guardrails are here as explicitly a superintendent decision. I mean, we have said in our governance meeting or good governance practices, we do not vote on Right. What the interim goals and guardrails are. You'd bring those anyway because it's important for us to discuss it. Right? But there's no action. This is your decision.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yes. Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: And we should just be clear about that. Yeah. Right?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: In the spirit of clarity, in that sense then, if we're gonna say things like maybe action or maybe consent, we might wanna say something like maybe discussion or or maybe brought to the board for discussion. I think, otherwise, people might read this and think, well, we're we're not gonna discuss it at all here. It's just not gonna come

[President Phil Kim]: to us. Then it would be yeah. That's true. I mean, if if these are

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: Discussion items.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. I see. I see. Great.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: But hopefully, not all would be discussion items. Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: Again, just I will go go back to the the spirit of this is to focus us in on the strategic decisions, right, so that we continue to maintain focus on the things that we are saying consistently are the most important things that we wanna draw our attention to. So

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Yes. And we do wanna hear from individual members of the board about whether you think that those three things that whether we if there's agreement between the board that it's appropriate for the major decisions or initiatives to be school reorganization facilities enrollment policy, that will kick off, I think, a significant amount of work by both leadership to bring resolutions by the superintendent, by district staff. And so this is a kind of please give us your thoughts about whether it should be all three of these things. None of them, one or two, something different. This we'd love to have that discussion as a whole board to get all board input.

[President Phil Kim]: Yes.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: That is the purpose of this discussion is really to discuss are these

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: the three right major nations.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Just to

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: be clear,

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I already said I already answered that. Yes.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: So we've heard

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: from I

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: follow the direction.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: One commissioner. We'd love to hear from other commissioners.

[Commissioner Lisa Weissman-Ward]: Yes.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: For

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: I think these are the the right things. I mean, you know, I recognize that that less is more in a lot of senses. So, I mean, to me, enrollment policy is absolutely critical. I also recognize school reorganization. Facilities is a critical piece, but to me, the the school reorganization enrollment policy take priority over that over facilities.

[President Phil Kim]: Commissioner Ray and then Commissioner Fisher.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I agree with commissioner Gupta. For me, the school reorganization and enrollment policy would take priority over facilities. In terms of facilities, though, I think we're talking here I had to step out a moment earlier, so I'm not sure if this was covered, about, like, not contracts, which is below, but we're talking about the very broadly the the use or the existence or something like that, much more broadly of facilities.

[President Phil Kim]: Yes. That's correct.

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: K. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Was that a you agree on the other two?

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: I all of these seem to me to be major decisions or initiatives, but I would prioritize focusing on school reorganization and enrollment policy. Personally, I'm inclined

[Connie (Academy senior)]: to do that.

[President Phil Kim]: Thank you. Commissioner Fisher?

[Commissioner Alida Fisher]: I think I'm very much in alignment with everyone, but I the major, major caveat is that the the budget, the way it's presented to us, actually has a a staffing plan that is aligned with meeting our goals and guardrails. Right? And

[Interpreter/Multiple Speakers (primary use)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. I think this is really helpful. Yes, commissioner Alexander?

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: This is maybe a little caveat. So I think there has been clear direction from the board around the enrollment policy. I think for me around school reorganization, I don't want to give the superintendent the impression that I'm saying you have to go close a bunch of schools. But I think it's more like we want you to think strategically about opportunities around those topics that we discussed. Right? So then you're gonna come back to us with some thinking on that.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. Right? Yeah. So just in terms of oh, go for it. Yeah. Just in terms of of that particular I mean, the way in which I have described this both publicly and in our conversations in leadership is the reality is that we have too many seats for too few kids. There are a number of ways that we can address that gap. We do need to address it, but there are a number of ways we need to we can address that gap. What we are suggesting here is that we formally begin conversations around that. Right? So, like, we don't have a plan. We don't have a timeline yet, but we do need to have clarity from the board for leadership to be able to equip us with the authority to then kick start those conversations. And so that's partly what this is. Right? Oh, that let me reframe that. That is the signal that we've received in this conversation is that that is a critical conversation to take place. Now to your point, that doesn't mean that any one strategy is the thing that we are suggesting. This is where we turn to the superintendent, and we'll have to work with her to make sure that we get to a place where we have a clear plan.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: And I'll just speak for myself, but I wanna echo what commissioner Alexander said. I think campaigning last year, there was just a widespread understanding around the city that, you know, the board gave clear direction in 2018 in passing a new assignment policy. We are now seven years down the line from that. And in all corners of the city, people want that to change. And they're wondering why it hasn't not been implemented. Why has the board not been able to deliver? Why is the superintendent not been able to execute that plan? And I've heard that, I think, geographically everywhere. I think politically across the spectrum. And I think that we're really at a moment of alignment. And we and I think those moments are really rare in politics. Like, we have just we have district wide elections for school board every two years. We have a moment of sometimes more than once a year. That sounds about that. And we have, I think, a rare moment of potential alignment where we have a board that I think can stand behind the superintendent to say this is the work that this city and this district is ready to do. That we need to create like, look at our schools, look at our programs, and really start responding to demand, responding to the needs of our communities and saying, just because it's always been this way doesn't mean it has to be this way. I think it's a moment of change for the city, and I think, that's only going to come from potential future united board action. That's why I wanted to bring it to to discuss today is to see, like, do we really have that alignment that we can turn into momentum, that we can hopefully turn into the schools that the city deserves for the future.

[President Phil Kim]: Okay. Thank you, commissioners, for that conversation. Hopefully, this next one will be a little bit shorter and more straightforward. We are excited to present a memo to you to officially launch the ad hoc committee on progress monitoring. I want to thank, commissioner Alexander for, for stepping up to the plate here to chair this. And I want to thank, yes, vice president and commissioner Ray for joining him on this journey. This memo is officially our our launch of this, and what we can look forward to is a report back, periodically to hear on that progress. What you will see next in this is dates of when those meetings will occur, alongside a more concrete agenda that will get published, seventy two hours in advance of those meetings, per board policy. And so, thank you, commissioner Alexander. I don't know if there's a few words that you wanna share. No pressure. But I wanted to give you the space if you want.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Thank you. Yeah. No. I'm really excited. Thank you, president Kim, for the opportunity. So the the purpose this is in the memo, but just so that everyone knows. The purpose of the committee really is to analyze our progress monitoring practices, document what's working, what needs improvement, and make recommendations for actions the board can take and the superintendent can take to make progress monitoring a more effective what we we're calling a culture creating activity. So it's this is not just about processes, but it really is about culture. And when we talk about progress monitoring, I also think it's important to say that this is sort of independent of whatever the goals are. This is really the process that that we use to be able to monitor whether students are making progress as as, vice president Ewing said earlier. So I think that that's the goal of the committee. The broad structure is we're thinking of four meetings. You know, we may alter this if we need to do an additional one, but the the first meeting is is scheduled for November 6, and that'll be announced soon. The details, the agenda will be posted. But, and then, that meeting will be a kind of an overview and assessment of where we're at with progress monitoring, what, just the big picture, and what good progress monitoring looks like. And then then the second meeting will be focused on the internal staff process of progress monitoring. The third meeting is on the board and kinda how the questions we ask both before and during and how we engage with progress monitoring. And then we'll have one or maybe two meetings at the end to try to sorta bring together those recommendations and present back to the full board. So that's kind of the I don't know if folks have questions, but that's kind of the broad plan that we've been talking about, and I'm excited to work with my colleagues on this.

[President Phil Kim]: And then many thanks to the district staff who are playing a role in this. It's associate superintendentship, Jess, Devin, Moonhawk, for their time, capacity, expertise, and doctor Hsu. And then many thanks to the many other staff including Hong Mei, who is the one other person in the room, for their support in operationalizing

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: this. Yeah. I should have said they're they've we I've already had some pre meetings with them and they've been fantastic. And I think one of the things we're gonna try to do so for the first meeting for the committee meeting, we're planning on putting the tables back here and having a meeting around the tables to sort of begin to shift that cultural piece to of how do we come together as staff and commissioners and have a really constructive conversation. And so, yeah, it's just been great actually even just doing some preplanning with staff around this.

[President Phil Kim]: Awesome. Thank you. With that, we will move to item h, consent calendar, and I will step out of the room.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: President Kim has a standing recusal based on his employment with City and County of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with, SFUSD to avoid any appearance of a conflict. And so I ask the superintendent, do you have any changes or anything to pull from the consent calendar?

[Superintendent Hsu]: There there no. Nothing. There's nothing. Sorry.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: I have a motion on consent calendar.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I'd like to move that we adopt the consent calendar.

[Vice President Jaime Huling]: Second. Alright. Miss Lanoff, can we have a roll call vote, please?

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

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Yes.

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

[Commissioner Parag Gupta]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Vice President Heeling? Yes. Commissioner Ray?

[Student Delegate Cruz]: Yes.

[Board Secretary/Clerk (Ms. Blenoff/Lanoff)]: Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim's refused. That's excites.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: I have a point of information. That means I can interrupt. I just I noticed that the that the there's not the the appointments to committees is not on here, and I had been intending to appoint someone. Is that because this is supposed to

[RPA Analyst (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: be a monitoring meeting?

[President Phil Kim]: Because it's the monitoring agenda. Okay.

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: Alright. So because it seems like it seems like a lot of other things got added to the anyway, that was just an information. So we're gonna we're gonna only the point of information, I guess, question would be so the the appointments only are gonna happen at the first meeting of the month?

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. This is Yeah. A conversation I've wanted to have on my to do list, but we just haven't gotten to of the difference between now a monitoring agenda versus a regular business agenda. And so we're we need to have that

[Commissioner Matt Alexander]: conversation. Thank you.

[President Phil Kim]: Yeah. Okay. That being said, moving to item I, responses to questions on the agenda can be found on board docs listed under item I. And item j, adjournment, this meeting is now adjourned at 10:50PM.