San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Here. Commissioner Fisher? Here. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Here.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy? Here. Commissioner Wray? Here. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? And President Kim?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Here. Roll call. Thank you. Item a, general information, accessibility information, translate translation services, closed captioning information, and virtual meeting information may be found on BoardDocs. SFUSD will provide childcare for regular board meetings and monitoring meetings on the 1st Floor in the Enrollment Center at 555 Franklin Street from 06:30 p. M. To nine p. M. Or the close of the meeting whichever comes first. Child care is for families who will be attending the regular and monitoring board meetings. Space is limited and will be provided on a first come first served basis for children ages three to 10. For questions, please contact the Board of Education office at (415) 241-6427 or board office at sfusd dot edu. 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. Are there any speakers for public comment?

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: None. President.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I now resist this meeting at 05:02PM.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: SFgovTV, San Francisco government television.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: SFgovTV, San Francisco Government Television.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: SFgov TV, San Francisco government television.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: SFgovTV,

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

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: SFgovTV. San Francisco government television.

[Najwa Ahmed, Manager for Wellness and Health Education]: SFgovTV,

[SF GovTV Announcer (bumper)]: San Francisco Government Television.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: SFgov TV, San Francisco government television.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: To

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: type their name or handle and list the item or items on the agenda they would like to comment on. The attendees will need to have a functioning camera in order to communicate with interpreter and board. When it is the attendees opportunity to provide comment, the Zoom host will promote the attendee to panelists and enable the attendees video. Any member of the public may email their comment with the agenda item identified in the comment to board office at SFUSD dot edu by 2PM the day of the meeting if they do not wish to make the comment during the board meeting. The comments will be read into the record. SFUSD will provide interpretation throughout today's board meeting. Translation team, please translate into Chinese and Spanish,

[Spanish/Cantonese Interpreter (translation notice)]: please. Thank you. SFUSD is offering interpretation services in Spanish and Cantonese. If you need interpretation, please add the following phone number. After dialing, please introduce the PIN number. This message will be repeated in Spanish and Cantonese.

[Speaker 9.0]: Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you. Commissioners, without objection, I would like to move item e public comment up to be the first item before we do our readout for closed session. This follows some guidance from general counsel and an opportunity to hear from the public before any decisions are made. If there's no objection, that will be the change. We made the change before, but we needed to have done that for our subsequent meetings. Any objections? Okay. Let's then start with item e, public comment. To align with our effective governance efforts, public comment will last for one hour or until 8PM, whichever is earlier. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by beginning board business 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've asked Mr. Trujillo to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I, as 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 remote public comment, so at 07:45PM, 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 engagement and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public please model the kind of tone, language, and behavior that we hope to see from our young people, respecting different viewpoints, and allowing for all members of the public to participate. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow-up with speakers.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Mister Chiuya? Thank you, president Kim. We have two students. Please line up as I call your names. Alan Tayo and Toto Hannibal. Okay.

[Speaker 10.0]: I have been in every board meeting since the announcement of my school's closure, and I'm the only one of my peers here tonight because we are exhausted of having no response or change. Only the placating nods of the superintendent as I try to describe the hopeless melancholy and silent dread that permeate my school's hallways, which has begun to creep through other schools that are just like mine. This encroachment is the strongest schools resolution, a hoax as in and as much as of a misdirection as the excuse for academy's closure that it is what is best for our students. It is likewise an undemocratic plan that's been described as strong by conversely weak school district leaders who lack the resolve to fight for its most vulnerable students. That word is as much of a decoration as these guardrails on the wall next to me. What is unified about a district that solves its problems by tearing communities apart? What is strong about a plan that must be sugar coated as a reorganization? I will tell you what, it is the students, families, teachers, and faculty that must fight with few numbers a disgusting abuse of power and trust. It is the individuals relying on all of you that you view merely as numbers and the ratios of teachers to students and students to dollars. This resolution is a unilateral attack underserved and marginalized communities. It is the burglary of students' futures, their livelihoods, their sense of safety in their very homes. Nods and thin veils are not enough to repair the disasters you need placed within the school district. We need a moratorium on school closures to end this inequity. Will you make that choice?

[Speaker 11.0]: Good evening. My name is Alan Tello, and I'm a senior at June Jordan School for Equity. I'm here tonight because moving $111,000,000 out of the general fund, the fund that supports teachers, counselors, paras, and school site budgets will impact students. I understand why the district wants to be proactive and save money, but right now, our schools cannot afford for so much to be pulled away. And, honestly, it feels like a contradiction to the message that cuts should stay as far away from students as possible. We're already feeling staff staffing shortages, reduced site budgets, and fewer supports. How will the district maintain the consistent educational programs our schools are supposed to have? Why make this transfer all at once during a time when many many schools school communities are still unstable? I'm especially concerned about equity. High needs schools, including black, brown, immigrant, newcomer, and sped communities cannot be the ones to face more strain while this money is locked away. Every dollar saved is a dollar not supporting urgent needs right now like mental health literacy, paras, art, and other core support students rely on every day. I come to these meetings because I care and I want us to do better for all students even after I graduate. They deserve better. Please make the choices that truly put students first, and please support academy and all of their needs. Do not close academy. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: That concludes in person student comment. We will now go to members of the public on agenda items. Please line up as I call your name. Juan Natello, Ray Natello, Violet Vasquez, Roberto Guzman, Jeff Lucas.

[Speaker 12.0]: Good evening, Board of Education. My name is Reina Tayo, and I'm a parent of two SFUSD students, and an SFUSD alumni. I'm here today to speak on item I3. Thank you, board members. I appreciate the need for fiscal responsibility, but I'm concerned about the impact of committing $111,000,000 8% of the general fund into a restricted reserve. These dollars are direct, are directly affecting our classrooms today. I urge the board to clearly explain how this transfer will not reduce staffing, supports, or programs at our school sites. What analysis has been done to understand the equity impacts on the high need schools? What specific trade offs will students experience as a result of this action? And if the purpose of fund 17 is to support continuity of services during uncertainty, how will the community know when those conditions are met and when it is appropriate to use those funds? Reserves are important, but it's also important to have transparency. I ask the board to ensure that the building of this fund does not come at the expense of urgent needs of the classrooms and provide an equity and impact analysis before

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: comment. That concludes your time.

[Speaker 13.0]: Thank you.

[Speaker 14.0]: Hello. My name is Violeta Vasquez and I am the youth engagement coordinator with Five Elements, so from d ten, d eleven. Also SFUSD alum. And thank you for board members. I appreciate the need for fiscal responsibility, but I'm concerned about the impact of committing a 100,000,000 a $111,000,000 8% of the general fund into restricted reserve. These are dollars that are directly affect our classrooms today. I urge the board to clearly explain how this transfer will not reduce staffing, supports, or programs at our school sites. What analysis has been done to understand the equity impacts of high school high need schools? What specific trade offs will students experience as a result of this action? And if the purpose of the fund 17 is to support continuity of services during uncertainty, how will the community know when those conditions are met and when it is appropriate to use these funds? Reserves are important, but so is transparency. Families need clear reporting on how this decision affects student services. I ask the board to ensure that building this fund does not come at the expense of urgent needs in our classrooms and to provide an equity and impact analysis before proceeding. Thank you.

[Speaker 15.0]: Good evening, commissioners and superintendent Hsu. My name is Juana. I'm a SFUSD alumni relative to students in the district and partner with five through five elements youth program. Community is closely following budget decisions and paying attention to impacts to our most vulnerable students. We're coming up against more decisions aimed at positive certification, and the Small Schools Coalition is concerned about how the district will ensure that reserves don't come at the expense of already underfunded and understaffed schools. Item I three proposes a reserve set aside of 8% from the general fund, which reduces flexibility for urgent needs at school sites in present time and as they arise. How can the district maintain stability if 111,000,000 could be set aside, increasing the possibility to neglect funds for day to day student supports today? We're concerned the district hasn't done enough to analyze the impact or to to establish this fund, which could result in immediate reductions to students facing services. Why is the district considering why aren't you considering phasing up? Why is the district choosing to begin at a 111 versus thinking about impact over multiple years

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: lose your time.

[Speaker 15.0]: Especially during enrollment decline and site level instability.

[Speaker 16.0]: Good evening, commissioners. My name is Roberto Guzman. I'm here as a parent and someone who attended a school that didn't qualify for extra resources. A school where kids like me routinely fell through the cracks. Tonight, I need to raise a serious concern. The proposal to allocate social workers only to title one schools assume that students outside those campuses don't need support. But we know that trauma, crisis, and mental health challenges are now limited to economic designation. And many schools, especially those without title one, without community school grants, and without strong PTS fundraising, as to the school we we all have none. Under this plan, some of these same schools may also lose their assistant principals that leaves our most vulnerable students and environments with less support than they have today. We need clarity. When a student are not Title One school is increases, we support them. What is the plan? A student's needs don't disappear because a formula says they truly exist.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Thank you for calling, man. I don't use your time.

[Speaker 16.0]: Follow actual needs, no zip codes, no funding categories, no grant cycle. Because every charge of the CEPTOCIN and none of them should fall through the cracks. Thank you.

[Speaker 17.0]: Hi. I'm Jeff Lucas, a parent of two alumni, and I still come to these meetings. I wanna talk about three things. First of all, I wanna give appreciation to the finance team who put together the first interim reports. I have some concerns about it, but it's a tremendous amount of work to put this together and for you board members, I do have my own personal copy now. Thank you. Second, I wanna talk about fund seventeen. I understand fund seventeen to be moving money from the left pocket and putting it in the right pocket. Obviously it's very different. The community has a very different understanding. It would be helpful to clarify for the community what this is. And third, and last and maybe most important is you need to approve the administrator contract as been agreed to by the union, not by the district, and it's, it's already time to, to pass that. It may not be perfect, but perfect should not stand in the way of something that is agreed to. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: President Kim, that concludes for agenda items. We now wanna move to non agenda items. Okay. Please line up as I call your name. Ken Helselwood, Michael Kress, Katrina Cubillo, Rocio Pierce, Rebecca

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Hensler.

[Speaker 18.0]: Good evening. My name is Kenna Hazelwood. I am your district coordinator for LGBTQ student services. I use AMR's pronouns and I'm here to speak about the importance in this inclusive week of keeping our schools inclusive for everybody. I work with our queer trans advisory council which is amazing students pulled from our high schools whose job is to tell us if we're doing a good enough job by them. They did a survey in 2023 asking where do our queer and trans students go to for support and help. It is our wellness centers. When you gut those centers, you take away the space where 20% of our students have been assessed as being queer identified over the course of their time here in SF USC. You lose where those students go to for help. It is important also that we keep health intact. Between the ages of 11 and 13 is when most students begin to understand themselves as queer. It's the same time that we begin to see them begin to go into risky behaviors if they're not supported and given information about their health. Keep health and keep wellness.

[Speaker 19.0]: Good evening. I'm Michael Crest, proud principal of Sunset Elementary School. We're here tonight. I stand here tonight deeply troubled, concerned, and appalled by the from the mic to the

[Speaker 20.0]: little bit.

[Speaker 19.0]: Cuts to school social workers. This is particularly enraging due to the fact that when our one of our students and her family were murdered in October, district leadership was on our campus in the immediate aftermath when our social worker, mister Mannion, and other central social workers were the ones consoling traumatized children, coordinating support, and advising families and staff on how to move forward. We would have been lost without their leadership, expertise, and care. Hear me loud and clear. If you vote to cut social workers, you will lose the confidence of the school leaders, educators, families, and students you are trusted to work in service of. We understand these cuts are difficult decisions. However, slashing social workers is the wrong decision. It is ill advised. It is disrespectful. And make no mistake, it will cause harm to schools and students. Reconsider. Thank you.

[Speaker 21.0]: Hi. My name is Katrina Cabello, and I'm a health teacher on special assignment supporting health education p k through 12. I'm here to let you know how you can retain middle school health education and why that is important. First of all, find and allocate funds to pay one point o FTE per middle school site for a health teacher. Standardized health education access so that all seventh graders receive health education, including English language learners and students with IEPs. A current financial gift that provides point five FTE for middle school high health educators sunsets this year. This gift recognized that health education and wellness centers are inextricably linked. Health education being a tier one support for all students and wellness centers being a wrap around support for available for students that need it. This funding for health educators in middle schools has helped our district be an example to others in an effort to support and protect our students from health disparities. San Francisco's rate of health adverse behaviors in middle grades have not only decreased since the implementation of middle school health ten years ago, but they have also consistently been far below national rates. Aside from the harm that it would cause our students to not secure health education in middle school, it would also leave the district vulnerable to more CDE scrutiny as they enforce California Healthy Youth Act with health govern health education in the state.

[Speaker 22.0]: We were audited last year.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Comment that concludes your time.

[Speaker 23.0]: Good evening school board. My name is Rocio Pierce. I'm the parent of two kids at SFUSD schools. I'm also the president of Families of Sunset PTA. I am deeply concerned about the proposed cuts that would eliminate our social worker at Sunset Elementary. I want to acknowledge that you are facing difficult decisions, but cutting school social workers will cause lasting harm and runs counter to SFUSD's values. At sunset, our social worker has served our community for decades. He knows every child by name. He sits in our school side council and in our school PTA board. He is irreplaceable. I urge you to reconsider. And given our recent tragedy at our school that we endured just two months ago, if social workers remain limited to title one schools, please grant Sunset an exception to our students continuing to receive this essential support or grant us autonomy to select which roles are the most impactful for our specific community. Thank you.

[Speaker 24.0]: I'm Rebecca Hensler. I've been a counselor at Denman for twenty two years and been through more lockdowns than I can count. One of those times, there was an escalated student with a gun in the building. That day, counselors were the ones getting 800 students into the building. Head counselors and administrators were in the halls making sure everyone was locked down safely. A security guard risked his own life to disarm that student, and the wellness staff helped our whole community heal from the trauma. But it's not just during or after a lockdown that the very staff you plan to lay off are keeping our students safe. I also can't count the number of times students have notified a counselor or wellness staff before a disaster that a student had a weapon or was flexing with a firearm on TikTok or was thinking about harming themselves and others. You are planning to balance the budget by making cuts through the very fabric that protects our students.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you, Bert. Please line up as I call the next five speakers. Marty Mannion, Alan Ma, Christopher Pepper, Lara Simmons, Angie Moreno.

[Speaker 25.0]: Good evening. My name is Marty Mannion. I'm the school social worker at Sunset Elementary School. And doctor Sue, I really wanna thank you for coming out to our school in the middle of a crisis and for deploying an exceptional team of central school social workers. I understand the need for school social workers at Title one schools. And as I do, I wanna check-in on the socioeconomically disadvantaged students at sunset, one in three of them. You can see after the pandemic, they were three times as likely than their wealthier peers not to meet the SBAC standard. With two years of autonomy for our site where we could create the staffing model we needed, they outperformed their wealthier peers. Eighty seven percent of socioeconomically disadvantaged students meeting the benchmark. Our special ed system would be crushed if we didn't have those tier two supports in place. It's all thanks to this community right here. I am urging you to reconsider. You can see the drop that happened immediately after the RTIF was removed. Save our social workers. Listen to what our community is saying.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: As a reminder, don't speak too close to the microphone, please.

[Speaker 26.0]: Hi. Good evening. I'm just here in full support of mister Manning, our school social worker. He is the most important person at our school at sunset. No offense to mister Mannion, our school's social worker. He is the most important person at our school at sunset.

[Speaker 20.0]: No offense to mister Mannion, I was sent

[Speaker 26.0]: here by my fifth graders to directly tell you they wrote letters for you today to tell you that mister Mannion has impacted their lives positively over the last six years, and he's helped students who have been depressed, anxious, suicidal, bullied, or they were the bully, experienced changes to their family, need to help resolving conflicts, they were the bad student who's not bad anymore, they have equitable opportunities at recess and leadership opportunities, inclusive kickball team, just to name a few. I can give this to you if you like later. Recently, we did experience a tragedy at our school. One of the students who was murdered was a student of mine. We learned that morning that we had the news and we had the impossible task of teaching our students ten minutes later. I just said the word impossible, but maybe in my lifetime prior to meeting mister Mannion, that would have been impossible. But because of our partnership over the last decade, I knew that I had the words and I had the confidence to deliver the news to my kids and to teach, And I owe everything in my classroom to this guy right here. So we need to keep him. It'd be a big mistake if you let him go.

[Speaker 27.0]: Hello. I'm Christopher Pepper. I'm a teacher on special assignment, supporting health education. Last week I started getting alarmed messages asking if we are really gonna be eliminating middle school health education. I'm here tonight to ask for you to really clarify that for our community because people are very concerned. SFUSD opened our first middle school health class in 2015. I was there that day. I'm really happy with how our program has continued to grow. We have health classes in 13 middle schools right now and our intention is to have middle school health classes in every in every middle school. We want a health class. In those classes we talk about sexuality, we talk about healthy relationships, we talk about human trafficking, we talk about, nutrition and physical activity and vaping and, all the topics that need to be addressed with middle schoolers. What I'd like you to do tonight is to actually say to the community, we are not cutting middle school health education. In fact, we plan to institutionalize it for all students.

[Speaker 28.0]: Alright. My name is Laura Simon and I have been the art teacher at Visitation Valley Middle School for thirteen years. The proposed budget cuts are going to disproportionately affect our most vulnerable students like the decision to go back to a six period day instead of seven periods in middle and high school. With a seven period day, every student gets to take an elective. In a six period day, any student that needs an intervention class like an English language development or a reading intervention class does not get to take an elective. If we go back to a six period day, none of our students who take ELD will be able to be in art, music, dance, computer science, and more. For my school with a newcomer program, that's more than 50% of our school. They will not get to have an elective next year. I believe that we have over 10,000 students in ELD district wide. That means teacher layoffs because if kids can't take electives, then we don't need as many elective teachers. If SFUSD has decided that kids who are still learning English don't need to, get to take an elective, then I need you to own that. Come down to Vis Valley and you tell my kids that they don't get to be in art class anymore because their English isn't good enough. If you aren't ready to do that, then maybe you should rethink this decision.

[Speaker 29.0]: Thank you. Hi, everybody.

[Speaker 22.0]: My name is Angie Moreno, and I work centrally supporting school community school court community community CHOWs. Sorry. CHOWs. Supporting the CHOWs and supporting secondary youth leadership programming. I am here to talk about protecting wellness centers at our schools. Recently, we've had plenty of tragedies. Burton, AP, Sunset, all these tragedies have been happening at our schools. And the first people to respond to these tragedy tragedies at schools are wellness centers. Social workers and childs are the wellness centers at these schools, and we need them in our communities. I keep seeing, Marie superintendent Maria Hsu, you send these emails when you're like, oh, check-in with your wellness center. Check-in with your wellness staff. But I feel like, do you know who works in there? Because, that's social workers and childs, and they're not we're we're trying to cut down child social workers. Like, childs are not even mentioned. So can we please make sure to protect these roles and protect the staff and support our students?

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Please line up as I call your name. Jenny Sang, McKenna Hendrickson, Gloria I'm just saying Gloria. Gloria m I don't wanna put your last name. Amanda Fahiko Lee, Janna Walsh.

[Speaker 13.0]: Hi. My name is Jenny Sang, and I'm the school social worker at Aptis Middle School. I am outraged about the planned proposal to cut our wellness team in our middle school and high schools. I'm urging the board of ed to vote against this proposal. When students ask us why this district wants to get rid of wellness and cut our position, should we tell them a lie or the truth? The truth that there's a discrepancy of money where higher ups wanna get raises, add 100,000,000 to reserves, and then cut 110,000,000 directly to student services. Why is the proposed amount of money to be cut the same as the number put in reserves? Make it make sense. This school year, we already had over 1,800 wellness visits with an average of 230 student wellness visits each day. I've already done 11 risk assessments and two threat assessments. We have partnered with eight community orgs for case management and support groups. We haven't done above and beyond what the district asks of us, and yet the disrespect from this district is loud. Day in and day out, the wellness team has prioritized the needs of our students and families, making sure they feel safe and supported, especially during these difficult times of community, state, and nationwide violence. Has the district done the same for their school staff? Most importantly, we ask much more than our positions on our work. Please treat us with respect and dignity. Thank you.

[Speaker 30.0]: My name is McKenna Hendrickson. I'm the school social worker at Commodore Sloat Elementary. Under the proposed staffing model, my position would be defunded. Earlier this year, our community suffered a tragedy in which a parent was killed near campus. I supported students and families through that trauma. I was the person who went to third grade classrooms to tell them that their classmates' father had been murdered. After events like what happened at my school, what happened at Burton, what happened in Sunset, the district likes to send emails telling students and families to talk to their wellness counselors and social workers. We're essential then, but when budget season rolls around, we're extra. Social work is not aligned in an email. It is real trauma informed care and crisis intervention every day. Our my school, Sunset, other schools were examples of why social workers are needed at all schools, not just title one. I understand the need for reductions, but certain non facing student roles are not seeing any changes. All we're asking is the opportunity to keep helping kids. Thank you.

[Speaker 31.0]: Good evening. My name is Amanda Fejokoli. I'm a first grade teacher at Commodore Sloat. I'm urging you to preserve social workers at every school site and not place these funds into a restricted reserve. Social workers provide expertise that teachers do not have. Their skill set is not interchangeable with classroom educators and their absence forces teachers to absorb emotional crisis work that pulls us away from instructional and short changes other students. Teachers' bandwidths are limited and asking us to fill clinical, trauma response, and family supported roles in addition to our responsibilities as educators is setting us up for failure. Nationally, reading scores are in crisis. Removing social workers will not only deepen these academic gaps, strong mental health support is not optional. It is essential for learning, safety, and equity in SFUSD.

[Speaker 32.0]: Hi. I'm Jana Walsh.

[Speaker 33.0]: I've been teaching kindergarten for twenty five years at Commodore Slope. Please do not put money in a fiscal reserve. Instead, put money in our schools. Frankly, I'm speechless at the idea that we could lose our full time social worker. This does not align with the district's vision and values. Our social worker helps every child on campus. She teaches students to regulate their emotions, develop social skills, and have empathy for their peers. Calm, inclusive, supportive classrooms allow learning to occur. Most importantly, she, like every single school social worker, is a very special and specific person who has roots and connections with our students and our families. She is caring. She is a caring and trusted adult in our specific Commodore Slope community. She is more than a budget item. She is essential to our school's success. Our schools cannot survive without social workers.

[Speaker 34.0]: Hi. I'm Gloria Mazajewski. I've been a parent in the district here. Kids in the district have been a former employee of a school that closed right behind this building. I did not have a social worker when I was an educator at John Swett Elementary, and we were all expected to be social workers without the training. It's embarrassing to have to come here and make pleas for that because you cannot have academically successful children in a mentally unstable environment, first of all. But I'm not here to talk about that. Raise your hand if you know what E RAF is. Only a few hands go up. Our city, this is a public record request I made to the state controller's office. San Francisco County receives $764,025,395 of Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund. Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund. That's what ERAF stands for. The allocation to San Francisco Unified of ERAF money stands at $79,000,000 Where is that money? Can we make it work for us? Because community schools grants are not funneling down the way they should.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: They were supposed to be mad at that era. Time.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Please lighten up as I call your name. Matthew Trahan, Nizula Ahmed, Courtney Helland, Sarah Curran, Giovanna So to.

[Speaker 36.0]: Good evening. My name is Matthew Trahan. I am a teacher at Wallenberg High School. There is a phone addiction epidemic at Wallenberg High School and many other schools in San Francisco. SFUSD's mobile devices guidelines state that all devices should be turned off and away during instructional time, including passing period, but at many schools, including mine, we are not enforcing this and we are letting kids opt out of their education. Students are regularly on their phones, texting, FaceTiming, Netflix, so you know them. You know how it goes. As educators, our only authority stems from the positive relationships that we build with students, and those relationships are not strengthened by daily nagging and the forcible removal of a device that students are addicted to. The current policy that we have has no teeth. We can't continue to leave this issue up to individual school sites. I urge you to ban phones in classrooms and to let our students learn. Assembly bill number thirty two sixteen gives SFUSD a chance to reset and establish a district wide policy that works. Thank you.

[Speaker 37.0]: Hello. My name is Courtney Helland. I have three students in SFUSD. I'd like to strongly oppose the 26, 27 proposed school staffing model that got staff from our schools, especially our middle schools. I have a daughter at James Denman Middle School. The change from seven periods to six is very concerning. 30% of the students at Denman are multi language learners and another 20% have an IEP. These students require an intervention class which means we if we reduce the number of electives from two to one, fifty percent of the students at our school will lose access to vital electives, music, art, computer science. This does not serve our students well. Furthermore, many of the cuts to staff, assistant principals, social workers, counselors, security guards are based on the number of students at a school rather than based on the actual students that these numbers represent. Some of the schools serving the highest need, most academically behind students will lose the most. We talk about wanting to improve attendance rates and and we need the support staff in order to achieve those goals. Thank you.

[Speaker 38.0]: My name is Sarah Curran. I'm the parent of three SFUSD students, including a sixth grader at James Lick Middle School and an eighth grader at Denman. I'm speaking against the proposed cuts to the staffing model. Schools need to at least maintain, if not increase, student supports, including school social workers and counselors. Reducing counselors to one per 450 students makes care for the academic, social, and no social, emotional, and behavioral needs of our students so much harder. When students feel supported and safe, they can learn. Schools and teachers have designed curriculum and programs for a seven period schedule. Shift please do not shift to six periods. Many students who receive language and study skills classes will lose electives that allow them access to arts instruction and more. This is what makes kids feel passionate and excited about school. We need balance. Please reconsider all of the proposed cuts to the school staffing model, not just the ones I highlighted this evening. Thank you.

[Speaker 39.0]: Hi. I'm Giovanna, but I'm sharing on behalf of a parent. So hello. My name is Sarah Meskin, and I am the mother of two SFUSD parents, a fifth grader at Daniel Webster, and a seventh grader at James Lick Middle School. I'm also the president of the PTSA at Lick and a lifelong public school educator. I'm calling to you tonight to urge you to consider the proposed budget cuts. I'm outraged that the district is proposing so many cuts that directly impact our most vulnerable members of SF United, our students. Taking away access to health classes, reducing counselors and social workers, and reducing access to elective programs does not seem to reflect the claim that SFUSD is a student centered entity. The notion that immersion students and students in special education who need resource classes could lose access to electives and seems unfair and not reflective of the values the district claims to have. My daughter's dance elective has quite literally been one of the best and most transformative parts of middle school. Access to electives, academic counseling, and mental health services enriches and changes the trajectory of our students' lives. As a parent, as an advocate for public schools, and an educator, I beg you to explore other avenues. Thank you for your time.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Good

[Najwa Ahmed, Manager for Wellness and Health Education]: evening, board, president, superintendent, and student delegate. My name is Najwa Ahmed. I am manager supporting wellness and health education. I'm also a parent of two two SFUSD students and I'm also an alumni myself. I'm here to talk about wellness centers, and health education. Two of the things that are on the list for the staffing model. I think this year has been a tough year for all of us. Right now, students and families are facing discrimination nationwide, but then to be cut centrally here from SFUSD for items that really suit their needs. So for example, community health outreach workers are a really heart of the wellness centers. To take them out and not understand what they do, they really support students. They meet students where they're at. That's why a lot of times students go into wellness. And social workers, as you can hear, there's a lot of crisis happening on around in our city. Social workers are the first to stand to support with this. And health education, I just wanna say, is a tier one approach. If we don't give them health education, they're gonna get it from somewhere else like TikTok, friends, and other aspects. Unless the student centered prefer.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you for your comment. Please line up as I call your name. Felipe Marcano, Sarah Ballard, John Bautista, Val with v as in Victor, and Nick.

[Speaker 9.0]: I invite you to put the any changes to school transportation as part of the strong schools resolution, because the school buses are one of the last things that make the assignment system not something that's just school's choice for the privilege. It's also for many of the 2,500 kids that are going to be affected functionally the same as the school closure if they can't attend the schools they were currently at. Finally, this needs to be cornered with Muni. If you think that there's capacity in the Southeast in particular to take on all those kids, well, you should think the 44 wouldn't be one of those mornings. I want to remind you that Muni put a few million dollars out of their own budget crisis to keep the school crossing guards. Is this how you want to repay them, to throw a wrench in, like, the commutes in one of the low income part of town?

[Speaker 40.0]: Good evening, everyone. I'm Sarah Ballard Hansen, the proud principal at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, the only SFUSD

[Speaker 41.0]: high school in

[Speaker 40.0]: the Bayview District. Over the past five years, we've had to cut an assistant principal, a clerk, two family liaisons, and an attendance liaison, IT IT support, an instructional coach, a CTE pathway, and five classroom teachers. Despite these cuts and the fact that we serve some of those two the district's most vulnerable students whose needs have only increased, I'm very proud of the progress that we made. Our chronic absenteeism is down. Our on track rates are up, as is our sense of belonging, and we have doubled the number of g e ninth graders from last year to this year. The pro the proposed staffing model would stop our progress in our tracks, moving our school back into survival mode just when we are starting to thrive. Thurgood Marshall will not have an assistant principal next year when we used to have two. We'll go down to one clerk when we used to have three. We'd have, only one counselor added allocated to us when we currently have four, and we have 2.5 secondurity team members when we currently have five.

[Jan Bautista, Principal, Lowell High School]: Wow. Good evening, board members. My name is Jan Bautista, proud principal of Lowell High School. In one hundred eighty school days, we have 217 time sheets to revise or review and approve, a 100 staff members to evaluate, 200 IEPs, not counting initials, to attend, a hundred thirty one five zero four cases due to stress, anxiety, and depression to manage, and an average of fifty unduplicated cases of suicidal ideation. Also, 26 acres of 2,600 students to keep safe, well, and educated. By continuing to cut the support staff in security, wellness, counseling, and administration, it leaves us with no time for management of tier two or three supports to prevent students from falling through the cracks and turning towards self harm or violence. By not providing these roles in our base allocations, site leaders are then forced to weigh and fill in the gaps with discretionary funds and forced to weigh the priorities of our students' safety, our sanity, academic rigor, and opportunities and supports for our students.

[Nicholas Chan, Principal, SF International High School]: Good evening, everyone. My name is Nicholas Chan, and I'm the principal at San Francisco International High School. I'm here to speak about how the staffing model may decimate the network of supports that we've built at our school. Our students are all newcomers. Many of them are fleeing violence in their home countries. Many of them are dealing with violence here, including seven after school incidents that we've had to deal with, and many are going to four year colleges. And that's specifically due to our four counselors, our four t tens, our school social worker, and our AP, all of who are on the cutting block for next year. Newcomers do not come to us with CUE files. That means that our counselors have to meet with all of our students. They have to identify students of concern so that they can then work with wellness to connect them to the CBOs that will provide them the very specific services that they need, and they have to explain to them how an entirely new college system is going to work. Our t tens monitor the halls at schools. They monitor how students are feeling. They break up fights. They walk our students to the bus stop so that they don't have to worry about ICE, so that they don't have to worry about people who are coming to school to harass them. Our we are especially vulnerable because the newcomer population changes beyond our control. We've gone from 350 students to 250 back to 280. Please consider how the staffing model will affect the network that we've intentionally built at our school.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Please line up as I call your name. Amy Abreiro, Brandy Markman, Tianna Tillery, Eric Perez, Lara Dale.

[Amy Abaro (sp.), Principal, John O’Connell High School]: Hi, everyone. My name is Amy Abaro, principal of John O'Connell High School. Just to add on to what my high school principal colleague said, in regards to any potential cuts to teacher FTE, additional cuts to teacher FTE will completely erode our high school instructional programmings. Specifically at John O'Connell, we're the only CTE wall to wall CTE pathway school in the district, and further cuts will cause us to close up close a pathway and further reduce access for students from our most marginalized communities. At Balboa High School, further cuts could jeopardize decimating CTE pathways that have been established over the past four decades. During a recent CTE audit, the auditor asked me about access and staffing of our CTE programs. I'd explained to her that due to recent cuts over the last several years in special education, we haven't been able to offer co taught pathways to our students with IEPs, which leaves them with access to only two of our four pathways. She was also surprised to hear that with, so much CTE money available in the state that we only received 2.2 FTE for our four pathways. These shifts kit yeah. Anyways, please consider these cuts, and how they impact our instructional pathways in high schools. Thank you.

[Speaker 45.0]: Hey, y'all. Hey. My name is Tianna Tillery. I'm the vice president of paraeducators with UESF. Last week in front of Burton High School, a student was shot and the entire community was forced into lockdown. In those terrifying moments, it was a school security team or our T-10s who were the first to respond. They ran towards dangers where our students and staff could move safely. Their quick actions, their calm under pressure, and their unwavering commitment to our students prevented an already tragic event from becoming even worse. These are the same workers who now face a threat of layoffs as reported in the Mission Local. Let me be clear. Our security staff are not optional. They're essential. They're the people who build trusting relationships with our students, who deescalate conflicts, who maintain stability, and hold our schools together in the moments of crisis. We cannot claim to prioritize student safety while simultaneously cutting the very people who protect our students every day. Please consider not laying them off. Thank you.

[Speaker 46.0]: Hi, I'm Eric Perez. I'm a teacher at the academy. I would like to speak again about the district's recommendation to close our school. I'd like to emphasize that this decision feels coerced and manufactured by what feels like an intentional mitigation of our enrollment. Whether it be our removal from the enrollment fair for two years or the refusal to reenroll students who wish to be in our school, our numbers inadvertently dropped by over 100. There's a further injustice in the notion that the district leadership alone decided to cancel our WASC without consultation of parents or school site council, a precedent that I find worrisome for the future of any other schools who find themselves with inconvenient enrollment numbers. It all It's also insensitive that students have recently witnessed district officials discuss which walls they'd like to tear down while our students are still on campus to hear these conversations. Our district, you know, if our district were truly squeezed for funds, we should be promoting our public schools, not closing them, and we would not be renewing charters which divert millions.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: That's right. That's right.

[Speaker 41.0]: My name is Brandy Markman. I'm a public school parent. I used to live in Chicago. And I can tell you all, this is exactly what happens when you have five school board members who were backed by billionaire funded pro charter school astroturps. I'm gonna read a letter in solidarity, with the the Academy families. The San Francisco Education Alliance has a zero tolerance policy for school closures. We demand a moratorium on school closures, and the board worked toward making SFUSD a sustainable community school district. Research has shown us that school closures do not save money. They are not a long term solution to a staffing problem. I can tell you, having been from Chicago, how school closures decimated our public school system there. School closures do not result in better academic outcomes for children. You wanna see an increase in the need for school workers and bed them in schools. Try closing and combining them. School closures are tools in the arsenal of school privatizers, billionaire privatizers, and gentrification. And I'm just gonna say lastly, gentrification is a polite term to describe the evil process of purging black, brown, working class families from their neighborhoods so wealthy people can live in their homes. It needs to stop.

[Speaker 47.0]: I'm here to beg you to come up with a district wide cell phone ban in response to AB thirty two sixteen. I've been teaching in SFUSD and therefore battling phone use without real support from

[Speaker 20.0]: the district or my administration for eight years. It's about a quarter of the

[Speaker 47.0]: words I speak in administration for eight years. It's about a quarter of the words I speak on a given day. Please put your phone away before you enter the classroom. In your backpack, not your phone. Chris, phone. Roland, headphones. Today, we will be testing different installation materials. Andrea, phone, please. And every day students come in, hide their phones behind their backpacks or in cubbies in their desks or go on bathroom breaks. And I spend another day harping about phones, cleaning up after distracted students and move one step closer to burnout. When we don't have strong uniform policies, teachers and students pay the price. Teachers get exhausted, demoralized, gripe to their loved ones, and eventually quit. And students fall prey to the most addictive technology ever made and graduate with underdeveloped focus, critical thinking, and relationship skills, and more anxious than ever. In response to AB thirty two sixteen, please actually ban phones in schools. Please do not leave this up to the individual school sites or the individual teachers. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Please line up as I call your name. Nick Chandler, Alexia a, Claudia Delarios Moran Moran.

[Speaker 48.0]: My name is Nick Chandler. I'm the community school coordinator at Buena Vista Horace Mann KA Community School. I also have two students in SFUSD schools. Next year, they'll both be in middle school. Are you guys okay? This budget, I like, this was a misstep. Alright? You can't afford these cuts. You just heard it. Like, the the consequences of this are intense. It's never been harder to be a student ever, especially if you're black, brown, queer, trans, undocumented. Like, we are not battling border patrol on our way out of here, but give it eight months and the same people that you're cutting are who our families are looking to. Like, you can't actually do this, especially not for a savings account. That's not gonna fly. This is manufactured

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Manufactured.

[Speaker 48.0]: Manufactured urgency is December. It's manufactured scarcity. This is the savings account. This year's money for this year's students, you have time to fix this, but not a lot.

[Speaker 49.0]: Hi. My name is Alexia, and I'm a mom of three kids at SFC. SFC has not had a special ed teacher for t k three for a few months now, and, that leaves kids without the support we owe them by law. Now, we're looking at this being just a start for another year of underfunded schools, where you are now talking about removing social workers, wellness staff, security personnel from schools. These are not personal that we may not need. These are critical positions that are needed, and not having them will affect the kids who are most in need and make schools less safe for everybody. It will certainly make schools look more like the Trump administration would like them to look. And, I I really do think that this does not have to be a game of subtraction. Can the district of the state do the courageous things and listen to some of the ideas here and find the money? It's out there.

[Speaker 50.0]: Good evening, commissioner, superintendent Sue. I am Claudia Delarios Moran, the very proud principal of Buena Vista Horace Mann k through eight community school. I also feel very proud to have colleagues from my site here tonight, as well as students. So hi, you guys, and thank you so much for being here. It means a lot. They are all being directly impacted by the proposed staffing model for la for next year, which principals just learned about a week ago. So

[Speaker 51.0]: we are scrambling to make

[Speaker 50.0]: sense of it also because there's not a lot of facts included at this time. We're extremely nervous though because one thing is for certain, we need the staff that is at our sites now to do the bare minimum to hold our schools together and make them the safe, mentally and physically, by the way, the safe and engaging places that students need in order to show up and learn every day. Without our wellness coordinators, without our social workers, without enough teachers to actually make an engaging day, our students are not gonna be successful. They're not gonna show up. You guys are gonna lose more money. So please reconsider this awful staffing model. It's gotta happen some other way. Thank you so much.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: President Kim, that concludes in person public comment. We will now move to virtual public comment. We will hear, from students who wish to speak on Zoom. If you are a student, I repeat, if you are a student on Zoom and wish to comment, please raise your hand virtually. Translation, please translate. We see no students virtually, we will now move to members of the public virtually. If you are a member of the public and you'd like to speak on agenda items, please raise your hand virtually. Translation. Erin. Hello.

[Speaker 52.0]: I'm a parent of a fifth grader in the district. Good evening to the school board. I'm commenting tonight about the proposed budget cuts and raises in central office. I'm here to echo the sentiments of some of the folks this evening. I especially liked the comment. Are you guys okay? Like, this seems like a freaking joke.

[Speaker 28.0]: Did you really think this would land

[Speaker 52.0]: the way that it's landing? I hope you're hearing our voices loud and clear this evening. As the parent of an upcoming middle schooler, cutting health, cutting social workers in this climate seems like the biggest mistake you could possibly make. No cuts to those closest to our kids. Use the money now. Adhere to your visions and values. You can find the money. I know you can.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you, mister Leahy. Oh, no. I apologize. Tom?

[Speaker 53.0]: Hi. My name's Tom. I'm a parent and a special education teacher in the district. I'll be transparent. I think it's gross that these cuts keep happening and people have to fear for their jobs. You know? You you say, oh, we want to improve student outcomes, but then you cut the people that are trying to make that happen so then it doesn't happen. Who gets blamed? School staff. School board, what are you doing to really, like, impact and make a change? Push back, challenge. You know, I hear a lot of talk and, oh, this isn't good, but then you're just gonna go through with it. There's money to be had. Look at the races for the superintendent and the other people. But we're not asking for much. You want students to improve? Then come on. Think with your heart and speak true the truth.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Mister Leahy.

[Speaker 54.0]: Hello. I'm a first grade teacher. My name is Belinda Leahy, and I'm a first grade teacher at Commodore Sloat Elementary School. I'm here today to state that unequivocally all schools, not just title one, should have a social worker. A few months ago, superintendent Sue and many others came to our school because of a tragedy. Our student lost his father right across the street from our school. Our social worker, miss McKenna Hendrickson, who spoke today, went above and beyond not only for the family affected, but for literally every child at Sloat. She came into every single classroom during those two weeks after the tragedy. She led community circles and helped many students help with processing the trauma. And when you left, she is still doing this right now. We need social workers. All schools do. On your banners, your pamphlets, at the end of your emails, it says diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is supposed to be at the forefront of your decision making. If you get rid of social workers at non title one schools, you should know that this decision is the antithesis antithesis of those values. Please do the right thing. Keep the social workers at our school. You know that they are helping. You know that they're helping.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you, miss Leahy. That concludes your time. Miss Marshall?

[Speaker 55.0]: Thank you. President Kim, Commissioner, Superintendent Sue, awesome student delegates, the NAACP stands firm on equity and fairness. We don't really understand how moving one chunk of money to another pot will serve students, especially those students at the bottom of the ladder. Please explain that. We absolutely support the seventh period day. We support social workers, wellness centers, electives that include reading, music, computers, robotics, and so much more. We absolutely must have the t tens and the schools to keep our students safe and other support staff. We also need to make sure students who live in 94124 can get to school safely. So you need funds for to get them to school via bus. We want a well rounded student and a well rounded school, and we'll count on you to make sure that our students get what they need and not all these cuts. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you. We'll go to Aisling Prang.

[Speaker 56.0]: Hello. My name is Aisling Prang. I'm a middle school teacher at Roosevelt Middle School. I teach middle school because that's when I checked out of school. I didn't get to take electives that were interesting. My teachers were burnt out, and I didn't have support staff to help me. Our seven period day at Roosevelt and across most middle schools makes a huge difference. I make sure my students know how lucky they are every day. In my reading support class, many of the students read far below grade level. These are our black and brown students, our language learners that have been redesignated, and students with IEPs. They read far below grade level, but they still enjoy coming to class because they still have a chance to take a second elective, like art, band, or home ec. Next year, if algebra is offered as an elective, students who are learning English or ready for higher level math will still have a chance to thrive there. My ELA teammates and I can plan and collaborate during the school day, so we can attend meetings like this instead of still working at 07:30 at night. And most importantly, when my students are struggling with their mental health or with other challenges, which is incredibly common in adolescents and middle school especially

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you. That concludes your time for a comment. We'll go with Charles. Charles, go ahead. Okay. Charles will skip. Now we'll go to oh, go ahead, Charles.

[Speaker 57.0]: Sarah, sorry about that. Are there cuts to security of 50% plan? I would like to comment on MOU consent items. I speak only for myself. Why isn't there an MOU with SFPD after the school shooting at Burton? Bring back school resource officers. There is no school to prison pipeline in 2025. I don't wanna send my kids to a school where the parents of the other kids have unsecured firearms. Bring back SROs and responsible gun ownership. SROs would discourage gun possession on campuses. A new MOU with SFPD should be a top priority in 2026. This would be a cost free way to increase security without without any cost. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Parents for public schools, please go ahead and identify yourself, please, by name.

[Speaker 58.0]: Oh, hi. My name is Noah Sloss. I'm on the board of Parents Republic Schools, and an SFQSD parent. Just wanna leave everybody with one number, dollars 326,000,000. If you add up the numbers in today's budget presentation, this is what is projected to be left over at the end of fiscal year twenty twenty five-twenty six after paying for everything. Dollars $326,000,000 of which 111 will be set aside in fund 17, hiding it from the reporting on the general fund. At the same time, the district will ask parents to sacrifice things like social workers and nurses at school so that yearly expenditures are lower than yearly revenues. While these huge reserves would be set aside. This is kind of like me as a parent telling my kids they can't see the doctor. We can't afford it because we're spending five to 10% more than we, than we bring in while having 30% sitting in the savings account. And what would fund 17 be in this metaphor?

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. We will now go to Lillian. Lillian? Lillian, can you hear us? Lillian, I don't think you can unmute for some reason. We'll come back to you. We'll go to Carrie. Oh, Lillian? Okay. We'll go to Carrie Maloney, please.

[Carrie Maloney, Principal, Clarendon Elementary]: Hello. My name is Carrie Maloney. I'm the principal at Clarendon Elementary, and I listened very closely at the workshop on Monday of last week to unveil the new funding model. And I was struck by the fact that our LCFF funds, I don't have the numbers in front of me right now, but it's like $10,500 per student or a little bit more depending on the grade. But when I looked at my school and I divided the total budget by the number of students we have, we're only receiving $7,400 per student at our school. If we were actually just funded with the base funds from LCFF and had that available to us, we would not need to make any cuts. We would not need to cut the AP position. We would not need to cut the social work position. We would not need to cut any of our positions. And I'm confused why we're saying that we're using LCFF and we're giving schools that amount of money when that is not the amount of money that schools are getting per student.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you. We'll go. Lillian, can you unmute?

[Speaker 32.0]: Can you hear me?

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Yes. Go ahead, please.

[Speaker 32.0]: Good evening. My name is Lillian Lim, a parent and a CAC member for special education. I understand that this is facing budget crisis, and I appreciate difficult decisions ahead. However, I respectfully ask that you do not close vacant position for special education services. These position must be filled, not eliminated. Our student relied on the staff for their safety, learning, mental health support, and legally requires a visit. Even though a tough financial time, the district must meet maintenance of effort which requires special education budget to maintain or increase each each year, not decrease. We saw that in fall two thousand twenty four, closing special education position ended up causing more and caused loss of trust. So please do not let that happen again. Thank you for your commitment in supporting our students.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you, Lillian. That concludes your time. We'll go to Alana Merchant. Alana Merchant.

[Speaker 60.0]: Hello. My name is Elana Merchant. I am a science teacher at Roosevelt Middle School and I would also like to talk about the proposed budget cuts. I have to reiterate what many people have explained so far is that these cuts would be beyond devastating to every single school in the school district, especially middle schools. As you've heard from many people, our school social workers are vital to our school communities, our school counselors, our health workers, our T10s who are our security guards. They are absolutely vital to our school communities. They keep our students safe. They keep physically and mentally and emotionally. We cannot do our jobs as teachers if we do not have the supports able to help our students as well. In addition, the seven period school day is crucial to the work that we are able to do. As many have explained already, students would lose fundamental supports. They would lose the ability to thrive in ways that they are able to be successful for many of our kids who are struggling in more academic ways. And additionally, as teachers, we would not be able to do the work that we currently do. With our seventh period today, I get to meet with my science colleagues so we can plan.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. Final comment from Sarah. Sarah, please unmute.

[Speaker 61.0]: Hi. My name is Sarah. I am the mom of a sixth grader, and I think you've heard more than I can probably say from, staff who work in our schools and from other parents about the devastation that this budget and these cuts would wreak on our kids. And I think it's really those of you on the school board, I'm not sure that I know some of you have the interests of kids at heart. Students, I'm not sure all of you do. But it really is a dereliction of duty if you're going to vote to approve these cuts on the part of the people who are supposed to be in charge of our district and the system that educates our kids. It's just absolutely outrageous. The fact that that the amount that the cuts would save is the exact amount that the district is proposing to put into a reserve is just shameless.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time, Sarah. President Kim, it's $7.45. We will proceed with the next three in person. Please line up as I call your name. Maria Guillaisaya, Anna Claptor, and Jerry Almanza.

[Speaker 62.0]: Okay. Hello? Is this okay? Hi. My name is Maria Gisela Ramirez. Thank you for letting me speak at the last minute when I fill in the card. I've been really exhausted. I work at at an underfunded, under resourced, understaffed school, and so I have to cover a bunch of jobs. And so that's why I'm here really, really tired right now, and I don't know where my time is running, but I'm keeping it real. I wanna first start off by inviting everyone of you to come to our school during the school day and watch and witness for yourselves what it's like to work at, Vismalley Middle School. Outrig we're right above the Sunnyvale projects. We got over 300 students at our school. Fifteen to 20% are unhoused or in foster care that are reported. There's more than that. We have a beautiful unique sheltered newcomer program, one of the few. I am the only immigrant Latina administrator at this school and our newcomer program is has is also being supported by the only, like, immigrant counselor at the school serving all three grades. You can't cut us. They need us and we need you.

[Speaker 63.0]: Hi. I'm Anna Claptor. I'm the principal at Independence High School and president of the United Administrators of San Francisco. I think we all agree that reaching a qualified financial status is important, but there's gotta be a better way than cutting the most crucial of student facing services, social workers, counselors, and T10s. For every gun incident that makes the news, there are several that don't. And countless crises are averted and handled by these educators and their colleagues every single day in our schools. At the same time, tonight, you're voting to approve leadership consultant contracts, squirrel away over a $100,000,000 and give a 161 unrepresented high level leaders a raise. Student physical and mental health is key. It's literally the least we can do and it's the foundation of any academic achievement we hope to see. Please rethink. Thank you.

[Speaker 51.0]: Good aft good evening. My name is Jeri Almanza. And like five of you that are sitting up here, I'm also a mom. And, we I also have a middle schooler in SFUSD. And I'm an elementary school teacher, but I am serving as a treasurer of United Educators of San Francisco right now. And you guys have heard from many of our educators today. Their stories are what's actually happening in our schools. You've heard from our students. I don't wanna be repetitive of what they're saying, but you all know that, what I've learned as an educator and what you've heard from many of our educators is that we use our data on a daily basis. Right? You've heard from our social workers that tell you how many intakes they have. You've heard from different school communities that tell you how many referrals, how many students are are seeking services. Right? You've also heard from some of our educators at at the awesome graph that was presented by Sunset. Right? We know that one of our goals for SFUSD that you all have set is to establish academic outcomes too. Right? That our students are successful when they're in school. And so in order for us to do that, we need to, one, have fully funded schools. Right? Which means having staff in front of all of our students. So we've heard a few weeks ago, you heard from TK from TK educators and TK parents where there isn't any educators in their schools, where they have a rotating system of substitutes. Right? Substitutes are core and vital to our being, but having a revolving door of strangers that come in to teach our students, our most vulnerable students, students with IEPs, students, that are young, right, and are learning basic skills and learning how to love and adapt to school settings is vital. So at this point, what we see is that SF USC is is in a need to figure out how to establish and have finances to have the proper staff. But at this point, this story that we have here, right, this is something else I've learned. Right? I've had to learn how to read finance reports because I am the treasurer of United Educators of San Francisco. And so there is a lot of just simple things that are like plus and minuses. Right? But it kinda seems confusing because it's daunting with all these spreadsheets and all these rows and columns and kind of thinking of what we don't understand. But all of our educators and our administrators told you those stories. Right? What's represented in here and what's what we hear and what we know that we need is that at this point, this story is not matching up. It doesn't match the need that our educators have in the classrooms. It's not matching the needs of our students in the classrooms, and it's not reflecting in our student outcomes that we've proposed and that we seek to have. A few months ago, I heard you all be really pissed off at the research team that was presenting you some data about how our students are doing. Right? They presented a snapshot. Right? It was an interim assessment of our students and where they're at. It's not the summative. Right? As teachers, we take out a note of records. We have interim assessments. We have end of the units assessments that we look at and that we seek to seek those bridges. What we don't know is the stories of what our students face to get to that point. Right? How the social workers intervened, how the counselors help to support and get that student on track, how our childs help to figure out the attendance, how our t tens walk our students to classrooms that are seeking to not be in the classroom because that kid doesn't necessarily feel comfortable in that classroom or whatever that situation is. Right? And so the all of these things is what ends up giving us these outcomes that we wanna be proud of saying we all work collectively for our students and for the best of our students. Right? And so at this point, we do know, though, that other districts are in the same situation. We've talked about this many times. Right? There's many districts that are at the similar size, but they are not. They are not trying to balance their budgets on the backs of our students. They are not trying to close a deficit that actually doesn't seem to exist. If we're gonna cut a 111,000,000, but we're gonna put away a $113,000,000 in a reserve. Right? Any person here with finances, I I there's a parent here who actually has finance background can tell you that during bad times when you're broke, you don't save money you don't have. Right? So this report is telling us something that doesn't seem real. And as you hear, like, I don't think that anybody's buying it. And this is only a small snapshot of who's listened Because I know you did finance hearings, budget reports. I don't know if you had these many people attend. I did hear that people went and couldn't give comments and didn't get answers and weren't issues were not addressed. I guarantee you that nobody said, let's cut money that we think we don't have and then set it aside in a secret bank account that nobody can use. Right? So I I don't know about that transparency. I know you have guardrails, and and I have not seen since doctor Hsu has been appointed and the contract extended. I have not seen those guardrails uphold. I heard commissioner Huling questioning her on it. I heard commissioner Prag questioning on it, Gupta. And I have not seen any transparency or any kind of like, what what is your end result of what what I I didn't see the result. Where's your receipts? I had I haven't seen that. Right? I don't think any of us have seen that. And so I think that the result of of what we're talking about is that all of us are invested in our schools. All of us are invested in our students. All of us want our students and our educators to be successful, but we need to listen to the people that are actually doing the work. And it's not the unrepresented management that is now gonna receive a a a a brace, right, while the rest of us are doing the work. I want you guys to think about San Diego is in the same situation. They are keeping their 2% reserve, which is a required reserve, and they're looking for ways to cut away from our students. Right? Other districts are doing this. Like, we shouldn't be working alone, and we shouldn't just be working with people that actually aren't doing the work. Right? So we really need to consult our and listen to our educators, and we really need to ensure that the story that SFUSD wants to tell by these spreadsheets is actually a story that can be successful because you have the talent. You have the skills. These people are educators are professionals. They know what they are doing. Our administrators are trying to hang on. Right? But we have a huge rotating system of them because they have been just They have not been treated well. Right? Along with our educators, we had 400 educators. And I'm not sorry. One last thing is when we look at this information, we still know that it's not the the story still has holes. Like, I could just tell you as a treasurer of UESF, there's over 200 people that are not don't have the right job title or the job classification in your payroll. On a monthly basis, we get about 50 off cycle checks for my for our members, which means that SFUSD still does not have control of who they are paying. If you don't even know what staff you're paying and how many staff you need, I don't understand how you can propose to set aside an 8% fund. That doesn't make sense. Today's dollars on today's students, that is what we need you to do.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you to members of the public for joining us today and sharing your thoughts. I will we rearrange today's agenda and going back to now item c, report from closed session. Item c one, anticipated litigation. Student OP versus SFUSD and student AP versus SFUSD. In two matters of anticipated litigation concerning OP and AP, the board by a vote of six ayes and zero nays with Commissioner Weisman Ward absent gives board the general the board gives direction to the general counsel. In two matters of anticipated litigation, the board, by a vote of seven ayes and zero nays, the board authorizes general counsel to initiate litigation. In the matter of student AT versus SFUSD, OAH case number 2025050278, the board by a vote of four ayes, two nays, with Commissioner Gupta and Huling voting no, and Commissioner Fisher recusing herself, the board gives direction to the general counsel. I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 2025202610. I won. Confusingly, it says I won't reconvene to open session. Okay. Okay. Moving on. Thank you for catching that.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: President Kim, the confusion could be because we we sequenced a couple of items and the script wasn't resequenced in real time.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So I should reach read those out during action items or no?

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Yes. During action items. Right. Okay.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: We'll come back to those items. 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. Item d one. We, the San Francisco Board Of Education, acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. We wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first people. I will now turn it over to doctor Hsu for the superintendent's report.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Thank you, president Kim. Before I start, I just I just wanna remind and share with everyone that, yes, we did I did have conversations with our administrators earlier this last week, I think. I don't remember now. Within the last few weeks to start the conversation about how do we make some of these really painful discussion? How how do we make some of these really painful cuts? And and what I shared with them and what I will continue to share is that this is a continued conversation that has to happen because we as a community need to be able to come together to make these really painful decisions. Because at the end of the day, we do need to make these painful cuts. However, we can't do it with a sledgehammer. We have to do it together. We have to do it with, our students at the center of these discussions and these, these proposed cuts. So I just wanna continue to to reiterate that and share that, we are continuing to have conversations with our administrators and site leaders because they are the ones who are closest to our students and to our families and to our staff. And I want to continue to honor their expertise in, the work that they do each and every day. So with that, I'm just gonna start my presentation. Thank you. Speaking of things that we're doing this week, we are this week is actually inclusive school week. And I want to start by acknowledging this really amazing week where where all of our students are are seen and heard and valued. And I want to make sure that here at SFUSD, we do truly honor all of our Want to call your attention to the 2025 theme of children first. This theme and these words are rooted in the powerful Masai message greeting, which translates out to and how are the children? It's actually similar to our Asian culture of always asking, how are the children? How are you? How are you fed? So this tradition of salutation reflects the Masai deep commitment to ensuring that their children are well, recognizing that well-being of children reflects the health and, frankly, the future of our society. I also want to give a shout out to our Grattan Elementary School community for kicking off the week with their inclusion carnival, a sensory friendly school wide celebration. Throughout this week, there will be many webinars, assemblies, professional development, different types of trainings, community conversations, community engagement that will happen throughout all of our school community. And I welcome everyone to please come and check it out. Go on our website to learn more. On December 3, we hosted a virtual event called ninth grade family night where over 300 parents, caregivers of ninth graders attend our main workshop. And every comprehensive high school also hosted their own breakout sessions for specific school supports and programs and resources for our students. If you missed it and you are a parent of one of our high schools, we highly recommend you access the slides, recordings, as it is extremely useful with lots and lots of information. The workshops included a presentation from our college and career readiness office and student speakers who gave some advice to parents on how to support their students throughout their high school career. This event is part of our effort in working towards our vision, values, goals, and guardrails, particularly goal three of college and career readiness. Thank you so much to all of our high school staff and our college and career staff for putting on the event. I hope all of our current students are experiencing a really good school year, but we know that there are some cases in which a school transfer is necessary, or helpful for the student and their family. So if you submitted a spring transfer application, you will receive the, your new assignment results by December 15. If you did not submit a spring transfer application before last Friday's deadline, you can speak with the enrollment center, during winter break to to see if you can transfer schools to any well, particularly to any schools that still have any open seats. January 9 is the final day to transfer schools during this school year.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Next slide, please.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Over the last as I referenced earlier, over the last six weeks, we held a series of community engagement sessions for budget development work. This included five public town halls and met with 11 parent and community advisory groups, one of the groups that we will hear later on today, creating real opportunities for dialogue with our community. Our goal was to amplify community voices, build trust, and to create shared awareness, for our entire community of these very painful and difficult decisions that we are facing now. I want to thank everyone, parents, caregivers, students, educators, staff, and partners for your time, your honesty, and your investment in helping us build solutions. You know, there was referenced earlier today that there were lots of feedback that we got, and every subsequent meetings from those feedback, we kept making changes so that we can continue to iterate and and really practice learning from our community so that we can have community engagement processes that really reflected the need our community. Next slide, please. Oh, and I I also want to just reiterate that we did have I did have many conversations throughout this process with our site leaders, with our administrators as well. Okay. So then, across across all of our town oops. Sorry.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: Go ahead.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: No. No. No. No. Just I I already spoke about this. I just wanted to share that across all of our town halls, all of our advisory conversations, parent advisory meetings, surveys, engagements. These were the things that we wanted that was that we heard from everyone that we needed for this budget process, we needed to be clear, to be honest, and to make sure that we have transparency. We wanted we, as a community, wanted to protect and support, our students so that they could thrive. We wanted real equity at the center of our resource distribution. We wanted to ensure that staff will have the stability that they needed so that they can focus on the work that is in front of him. We needed to have clarity about the future of SFUSD, and we all understood that the district the district had a limited amount of time in order to make all of these decisions. And then, again, these decisions are not easy. Based on the questions questions and comments we received, we were in the process of revising our we are now in the process of revising our budget website and updating our FAQs, our frequently asked questions. We have been posting updates on social media and across our district channels. We will continue to engage our school community on the budget. And, again, I commit I continue to commit that we are working closely with our site leaders, our administrators, and our school community to make sure that we land on a budget that will meet the needs of, of all of our students, our staff, and us as a school district. And then finally, I want to make sure that families are aware of the the, of our winter breaks. The dates for our winter breaks. SFUSD schools will be closed from December 22 through January 2. Schools will reopen on Monday, January 5. During the winter break, student nutrition services will not be serving meals for any of our sites. Especially during the holidays, we know that nutrition and food access are vital for our students, and families. So some available schools, food resources will are still available throughout our school throughout the city. So we ask that you please go on to our website to learn where those sites are. And I just wish everyone a restful and wonderful winter break and hopefully if you celebrate New Year, we'll see you in the New Year. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you, doctor Hsu. Moving to the student delegate report. Student delegate Mon.

[Student Delegate Man]: Hi. Thank you. So for updates, the first one is that our website is officially updated. So if you go on, like, the SFUSD website and you search up student advisory council, everything should be there, everything from our meeting minutes, agendas, like our cabinet, some the list of our representatives, and our meeting schedule as well. So be sure to check that out. Super cool. And then the student advisory council had a meeting yesterday where they heard from the PEAC council and like, the direct the director of the PCAC and, like because I believe Melanie and I have a couple appointments that we can make or that we can make, like, based on the student advisory council. So we're working on, like, trying to find people who are interested, who would wanna be part of this council, and that's what we're gonna be doing for the past or for the next couple of months. And then we also heard from the school nutrition services collaboration student engagement manager, Jillian, to get feedback on experiences in our cafeteria and dining experiences, and I believe they also saw some, like, posters, around, like, school meals and, like, nutrition services, so they shared some feedback on that. And then in the committees, they've mostly been doing a lot of work, with the surveys. I believe I mentioned it the last time I gave an update, but each committee is working on a survey and we've sent that survey out to, our respective high schools. So each high school has at least two representatives and they've been working with their administrators or their student governments on their sites, to send those surveys out so we can figure out, like, what exactly we wanna focus on, and to address in the Student Advisory Council. And then I believe, last month, the student advisory council also met with the president and vice president to talk about the budget, and thank you so much for being there and talking to students about it. Yeah. They said it was really helpful and informative, and I'm, like, as student delegate, I'm trying to to coordinate a thing, for youth outreach beyond the Student Advisory Council to inform the students about what's going on with the budget and ways that they can advocate whether if they would like to come to public comment or, like, email and things like that. That's, like, kind of a side thing that Melanie and I have been working on. And then the last thing is that, like, superintendent Sue mentioned, Inclusive School Week is this week, and then there is a panel, I believe, this Thursday, and four of our student advisory council members will be speaking, Alina, Yuyi, Anna, and Itzel. They're gonna be talking about, the experiences in as of USG and kind of just sharing their thoughts on all of this, so shout out to them. And that concludes my report. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you, student delegate Man. And for a leadership report, I just have two quick things. One, just to build off of, student delegate Man's comments. Thank you so much for having us. It was a really amazing opportunity to hear from so many was every high school represented? Yeah. It was a really amazing opportunity to ask to pepper you all with questions. So thank you for your patience as we sat there learning from you all the entire time. And then a friendly reminder to commissioners that our next Shadow of Student Day is set for January 20, I think, pending your schedules. So if you can please respond, that would be really awesome. I know that Hong Mei is desperate to get the ball rolling on that. Thank you. Great. I will move on. And if members of the public, if you have conversations right now, if you can just take those outside that would be really appreciated. Thank you. Moving to NMF, approval of board meeting minutes. The next item in the agenda is the approval of board minutes from the regular meeting of 10/14/2025, the regular workshop meetings of 10/28/2025, and 11/18/2025. Can we motion in a second?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: So moved.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: It has been properly motioned and seconded that the board approves board minutes from the regular meeting of 10/14/2025 and the regular workshop meetings of October 28 and 11/18/2025. Roll call, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Miss Mung? Yes. Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

[Speaker 29.0]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner

[Phil Kim, Board President]: forward.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Thank you, president Kim. It's my honor to invite our esteemed panelists to the dais. Can I should should I invite all who which one?

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: All of you.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: All of you. All of you. Great. So I am going to invite first Arcela Syat Syataga to the dais, as well as coach. I see coach there. Anna Mahina, as well as Tino, to the diocese, please. And we look forward to hearing your wonderful recommendation. I will say that I had a wonderful time, coming to the Matua oh, you okay? Yeah. Yeah. To the Matua Advisory Parent Park. I'm sorry. The the parent advisory council. And I think I believe I was joined by commissioner Fisher that evening. So it was a really wonderful conversation. And

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: And commissioner Alexander would have been there if he wasn't sick too. But That's correct.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: So it was so it was really wonderful. Thank you so much. And I yield the floor back to

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: you.

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: As important as it is for us to acknowledge the original caretakers of this land, it is equally important for me to acknowledge the honorifics and the salutations of my origins, of my. So, therefore, tonight, we say, honorable doctor Hsu, president mister Kim, our esteemed board members, our fierce student delegation, and to everyone who is here tonight, we say aloha. As you can see, our proverb that we decided to use for tonight's presentation states literally meaning from the mountains flow the blessings for a village. This context or the context of this proverb means one, blessings flowed from the heavens, from our heavenly father who is our creator, who reigns in the highest of mountains. Two, blessings are bestowed upon you by our elders who happen to be the cornerstone of wisdom and knowledge within our Pacifica communities. My name is Herbert Wylie Ilaleo. I am the native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander coordinator for SFUSD, and I firmly support all the title one schools as these schools house the majority of all our NHNPI students in the district.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: My name is Anna Mahina, and I am the special education liaison representative. I also am one of the parents who started the Mato advisory council. I've been here as long as commissioner Max Alexander. Been working with Alita Fisher as a parent. And most likely, the best role is being Mikey's mom and representing him and his voice tonight. Thank you.

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: Good evening, everyone. Talofolava. My name is Tino Felice. I'm actually a community leader within in service SFUSD, but also, you know, we serve a lot of our SFUSD students within our SawMonkey Development Center organization in Visitation Valley Sunnydale neighborhood. I'm glad to be here and thank you, commissioners, president, vice president, and also student delegates and doctor Maria Sue. Next slide, please. So we'll go into the history of the McCoy Advisory Council. In April 2018, Hawaiian Pacific Islander HAPEE resolution passed by the SFUSD Board of Education in support of equitable services for Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students, families, and staff. In September 2020, the HAPEE resolution was amended that included the creation of the FA Samoan initiative with the focus on addressing academic disparities among Samoan students through a pre k, 14 pathway rooted in Samoan on ongananu'u indigenous practices. The native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Makua Parent Advisory Council was under the FASI initiative to help district identify and address the concerns of students, parents, guardians, and community members within the NHPI community. Next slide, please. And this would be the Pacific Islander student demographics within SFUSD, total native and Pacific Islander students, grades, pre k to 12 and school year '25 '26, 869 students identified as NHPI, 541 students identified as Samoan students. School year 2324, 974 students identified NHPI, 344 Pacific Islander students, CSD. A total of 62% of Pacific Islander student population in SFUSD identify as Samoan in the fiscal I mean, in the school year 2526. A total of 22% of Samoan students are receiving special educational services within the year 2526. Next slide,

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: please. Although we are doing our part as a district although we are doing our part as a district, we too must acknowledge the village who have significantly stepped in and contributed to the success of our reading literacy. As you can tell from the slide, these strategies speak to our communal way of life, banding together to drive and accomplish a goal that helps our NHNPI students succeed. Next slide, please.

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: One moment. I think I have the wrong deck where you guys updated it. So let me change it for that one.

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: This slide shows the See what happens when you put us on a ten minute frame? We don't do well within ten minutes. As I said before, this slide shows the strategies that we've been implementing to achieving the VVGGs that have been set forward by the school district. Right? And literacy is just one part of that that's been on the resolution. So, it goes back to our communal way of learning, communal way of relying on one another. And that is what we are. Next slide, please. And the student outcomes, this slide has been shared both, in September 30 and on the eighteenth during the progress monitoring reports, right, which we are extremely happy about, but yet we are not satisfied with it. Right? So with this slide, it shows the potential of what we can do when we come together as a community. Therefore, using these numbers to showcase the ability of our community partnership, our families, to keep on striving to push those numbers differently.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: The MAC recommendations. The district should maintain existing NHPI system of supports for students, families, and staff. Disaggregate NH and PI data to continue to include during the Board of Education progress monitoring workshops and department reports. It should also involve MAC in all spaces where parents, guardians, engagements, input and supports are needed. It should support all our student led cultural showcases and student centered programs at school sites and in community. It should also include communication or to communicate and explore creative and sustainable funding opportunities to support critical work with most marginalized student population such as Pacific Islander students. This includes seeking city partnerships, grants, and community driven resources that align with commute with district goals for equity and student success.

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: With the, MAC recommendations shared by miss Mahina in previous slides, our SFUSD staff has responded in summary of all four recommendations. Recommendation number one, desegregate NHMPI data and continue to include during BOE progress monitoring workshops and department reports. Our staff responses, we agree, and it's very feasible. The segregated data is already included and reflected in progress monitoring reports such as literacy, chronic absenteeism, college access, and career college access, and career and college readiness. Recommendation number two, involve MAC in all spaces where parents, guardians, engagements, input, and supports are needed. Our staff response is we agree and it's very feasible as well. The Matu advisory council works closely with the Fassamo initiative team to identify parent guardian representatives to be in spaces that requires strategic partnerships and parent engagement. Recommendation number three, support. All our student led cultural showcases and student centered programs at school sites and communities. Our responses, we agree, and it's very feasible as well. School sites have continued to request support and collaboration with student led and student centered programs to celebrate students' various identities. And recommendation number four, communicate and explore creative and sustainable funding opportunities to support critical work with our most marginalized student population such as our Pacific Islander students. This includes seeking city partnership grants and community driven resources. And our staff responses, we agree, and it's very feasible as well. The Fa'asamoa initiative has received grants to support

[Phil Kim, Board President]: various community events.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Thank you, coach. And bless you. For our contact, we just wanna say thank you. Follow us on Instagram at FASI underscore SFUSD. Please subscribe and like FASA more initiative monthly newsletter as you should. It is very thought out and has lots of community engagement center. You can follow-up the newsletter on www.sfusd.edubackslashfasi. Stay connected with Matsu advisory council as well on Instagram and also check out our Facebook page to make sure that you are also included in everything about Matoa at matoasfusd.edu. Thank you to each and every one of you all. Any questions? Oh, that that concludes our presentation.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you so much. Thank you, Anna. Thank you, Tina. It's nice to meet you. Good to see you, coach. Sorry. Yes, sir. And, first of all, my my table buddy when I was in the office. It was great great to have you here. Do we have any comments or questions from commissioners? Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes. I would really, like to thank the Muntu advisory committee for your, work as usual. It's excellent. And I also wanna recognize the leadership of former commissioner Funga Malinga in kind of making this happen, which I think, as you pointed out, we've been here for a while, but but I was on the board for the second portion of this or aft maybe after it had been passed, but as it was being implemented. And so, and I so he his leadership was really instrumental, and I just think it's important for all of us to kind of carry on that legacy of the first, Pacific Islander elected official in the city who really took this on and said, look there's a there's a population that has been often overlooked in this district. And so, he's not on the board anymore but he's still really active in the community. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago and so just wanted to sort of say I think we have a special responsibility to to really continue this focus and appreciate your role in in in in work in doing that. My question is for the superintendent. Well I'm really pleased it sounds like all these these recommendations are being taken but I'm curious around the student outcomes on the on slide six I believe it is. There's a there was a big jump in achievement for Pacific Islander students from seven point one percent proficient to 16% and I'm curious what are we, that's fantastic. What's going on? What, you know, and what have we learned from that and how how can we keep up that good work?

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Yeah. We were I was, I think, at the last progress monitoring meeting, we we were so excited about this data. And I think what the conversation we had, which is definitely resonating with me, is that, one, we made a very concerted effort to ensure that we have a qualified teacher in every classroom. So now we have a teacher who's who's who's implementing the curriculum and and is there to support our students. And then two, we have instructional coaches who are supporting our teachers to deliver the curriculum. Those are the the two significant changes that we've made in the last year and it just shows that well and then also because we we transitioned to a new curriculum. But it shows that if we stay focused on this, we are able to see this type of growth. I look forward to continuing to see the growth, in the out years.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: And I'm curious and I know either for you or the panel, I mean, it's but it's interesting. I I that totally makes sense to me. And it's interesting that Pacific Islander students gained significantly worse. Some other students groups made very small gains and so I'm curious, do we know kind of what was it what was happening with our Pacific Islander students specifically? Does anyone have an insight in that?

[Speaker 29.0]: Yeah. So I I think we were able to reflect it on slide five talking about our roadmap to increasing success specifically with our NHPI literacy work and that we love that the work of the district moving into making things happen. And I know that for us here we also want to acknowledge the partnerships that have taken place since the establishing of the initiative has really pushed forward. So when we look at the process of our process like this is how we gather our information, we're talking to everybody. This is how we're identifying some of those needs. We're asking specific folks and some of our strategies are in there. Things like, you know, throwing our, throwing a second annual, Pacifica Reeds event, which is a Visitation Valley neighborhood event. Right? And we have four that the district maneuvers through. And so, for us, one of the asks from parents and guardians were how can we get Pacific Islander cultural books or culturally relevant books? So our our partnership with the San Francisco Library was like, we got you. You know, so they said, do you have a list? And I was like, the same list we give to Malcolm X, same list we give to our libraries of, like, if there's funding, please purchase these specific books of our our students love it. But this that the what happened is we're able to dish out 2,000 books in the homes of our students as well. So in addition to the beautiful work that the district is doing, we're also gaining access for our families that they also have access to these books. Right? So and they love it. They everybody all of a sudden, reading is cool. You know what I'm saying? Like, literacy is cool. Writing is amazing. And we wanna keep that momentum going. And I think that that's we were hoping that this slide would, like, just reflect, like, this is one that we're really, really just for literacy. We'll wait until the the rest of the goals that we're kinda sifting through, but it's it's important to us. And, you look at the alignment, we look at the alignment. We're not just looking at our district goals. We're looking at our CBO partnership, deliverables. We're looking at our goals and values, our mission statement. So, you know, we're looking at everything and trying to really find ways to align, which, you know, we enjoy doing.

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: Just to add on to that too, sorry, Ursula. And even, like, what she said, CBL partners, what we're trying to do is actually, like, one of the programs we have is Tales From the Tides. Really getting books, like Ursula said, from either Samoa, New Zealand or or Pacific Islands where they're getting books that look like them, characters in the books looking like them, talking like them, but also actually having activities to read reading activity and then also to debrief and discuss about what they just read and also seeing what, you know, what they how relatable it was the book was to them. And, you know, most of the books that we do get, we get to send them home with them. So that's one of the great things that we we love about the Savannah books and cultural books that we wanna make sure that they feel that they can be that author or even in the story too because they have the same names, you know, so it's actually pretty common relatable for our our young youth and I think they're getting expired. They're seeing they're seeing their culture within some of these books even in some libraries. Just wanna share

[Phil Kim, Board President]: that too. Thank you, Lisa. Lisa. Miss, Commissioner Weitzman Ward. Then Commissioner Ray.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Thank you. I have two questions. One is, I think, directed to you, doctor Hsu, and the other maybe is to the group. First of all, thank you for the work and for your continued commitment always. One question since we are talking a lot about budget these days is given the current sort of fiscal status as as we understand it to be and proposed cuts, How is the district and is the district ensuring that these programs and the Passama initiative is being protected? And do we have confirmation that there will be protection for funding for the program manager, for the support staff? Is this coming from one time grants or a permanent sort of a more ongoing set of money. And I I think as we're folks are concerned about budget cuts, wanting to know is there a commitment from the district to ensure that this program is protected.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: I will have to turn to Christina Wong to have some more of the specifics on funding for the team here.

[Christina Wong, SFUSD Central Office (Family/Community Partnerships)]: The FOSSEE initiative is definitely one of our priority areas. And so with many of our parent advisory committees and the education programs that are attached to them, we are prioritizing, especially when we're gonna be reviewing our budget. We have access to both local state and federal programs. So, that is the way we're gonna do some mix funding, some creative foundation work to make sure that these programs continue.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Thank you. We all heard it. We I heard it. Okay. The next I

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: think you've heard that we're still continuing to con to support and continue and and

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. In a good way. Like, okay. We heard it. Accountability. This is we are gonna continue to support this program. Yes. It's been said out loud. Thank you. And, I the one question is the, is the Vassa high school pathway still happening?

[Speaker 29.0]: So we're we're definitely regrouping. We knew that, City College of San Francisco is also going, you know, they're they're going through a lot of their budget stuff to figure out, amazing ways to prioritize the work. But we're hoping that it can get relaunched hopefully, soon.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Do we have any, any any numbers? And maybe this would be for RAI, but do we have any sense of, are there any statistics based on that sort of the the year that it was in place and launched in terms of attendance rates, grades, you know, sort of commitment to furthering education based on on folks' ability to be involved in that program?

[Speaker 29.0]: Our college and career readiness team, they they had reports that show the increase in our Pacific Islander students enrolling in dual enrollment, which was a huge thing. So I know that they they have that. We could probably extract that back. But it was significant, for sure, that specific year.

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: And and I just wanted to add on to Christina's answer about the budget when we came together. Right? We didn't come together and we asked SFUSD for a budget. We came in ground running, started doing the work. Until we saw the changes because we leveraged our partnership with our community members and everyone, The message is always clear. Let's continue to work as a community. And then once we start growing, we see the differences, then we'll see how SFUSD could help, which has been a great help so far that we just got our Christmas present today saying that it will continue further on. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Thank you so much, President Kim. And thank you all for being here and for the presentation. I do have a question I wanted to ask. But first, I just wanted to respond to Commissioner Alexander's question because the same question actually came up at a prior board meeting. So it was a a question that I had asked about when we were looking at progress monitoring data. So there's a response from staff on the q and a associated with that meeting, and I believe commissioner Weisman Ward also asked about it at that time. So just to provide a little context, it's possible I'm misremembering, but I believe they, staff indicated that, there was a population of 24 students in that Pacific Islander category there and that the increase represented two additional students becoming proficient. So it should theoretically be possible if staff wants to go back to find out what particularly helped, you know, helped those two students become proficient. It's not some giant pool of people we can't address. So I just wanted to to let you know that. My question, having seen what the district's responses are to the various recommendations you made, I just wanted to get a sense from anyone who might wanna answer this because a lot of the responses were not just things that could happen in the future, but things the district responded

[Phil Kim, Board President]: that

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: it is doing in some fashion. So I wanted to ask, how you feel about how the actions the district have been has been taking, the steps the district has been taking, how those things are going, and whether there are areas in which you think the, that we are succeeding well or falling short. Thank you.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Wow. That's a big question that no one has ever asked us. I think as a parent, there has been a lot of improvements in the partnership with SFUSD.

[Speaker 20.0]: I think when we came

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: first to advocate for our students as parents ask for for that, but just we have gave a a plan that includes everything that we need, including budget, including what how many staff we need for HR, how many you know, what we need to do to make it successful on both Matu advisory to bring a lot of our parents in to support the initiative.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: And I and I say

[Elliott Duchon, CDE Fiscal Advisor]: this because you already have this in

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: your hand. We're because you already have this in your hand. We're just doing our side as parents, as CBOs, as a community, as that village for our kid, or kids. And I we represent a lot of our kids, especially in the Bayview, especially in those spaces. So I think the answer is already there with you guys. It's already written. It's already put in place. We just need to go back to it and revise it and just continue the partnership that was already put on paper. Thank you. I hope that answers. Thank you.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I'm not sure if anyone else wants to comment, but I just wanna provide the opportunity. Thank you.

[Speaker 29.0]: I think one thing to add is that there are very few community based organizations that's been around serving our Pacific Islander students and families. And, I would say what has happened in the last five years in building a closer relationship and partnership has been on the SFUSD side to receive. And I think that for a long time, for example, our Samoan Community Development Center, they've been around since '94? For for '94, 9592. I I was I was there. I was there. I was in high school. And there could have been the disconnect. There could have been the silos. There could have been all these different things happening where the the bond wasn't the glue wasn't glowing. And so I think, now that there's a couple of us in a district that represents the district that is looking forward to like, we we're learning so much and ways in which we can communicate with our community on some of the processes. And I think that those were the gaps. And so we're helping things like having our monthly newsletter. It has both SFUSD, what what's doing what's happening in district and also what the community is doing. So that kind of fuse that gap, which has been helpful. And it goes out to now more than 300 people. So we just get excited. But there was we I think our the community was looking for somebody specifically in SFUSD that they can that can receive their information and and and and help field any questions around processes and folks that they trust. So my hope is that they're happy about stuff that we're moving, but we we really keep it really close and tight knit, and and we love it. It's it's fun to, you know, get paid to do work for your your community. You know what I mean? So it's a fun thing to do. Thank you. Oh,

[Speaker 51.0]: cool. And

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: just to add, just I think, you know, you know, just for us as a Pacifico PI community, like, we just wanna continue to support. We know it's an uphill battle for all of us. So we just wanna make sure that that partnership is there, the relationship is there, and we nurture nurture that vibe, the space between us. We continue to build it, with all the different commission. You know, you guys as the board now, we wanna continue to partner and see what we can do to continue to uplift our community, but also get our students where they need to be at, not where we see them at, where we expect to be at, but where they're at, and then continue to uplift them. So I think, you know, just with a great partnership, you know, and doctor Sue just continue to be there and supportive of our PI community. I think that's where we can continue to start where we can start and continue to build from there. So thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you so much. I, actually wanted to pick up, Ursula, on what you were saying. First, thank you for the presentation, and it is really exciting to see the amount of growth that's taking place, especially with our youngest learners. And we know, NHBS students are oftentimes the furthest from opportunity in our schools and oftentimes lost in the data, and so thank you for continuing to lift that up. One of the things that I was so struck by frankly learning from sitting next to you, Ursula, is how embedded you are with the CBOs that are wrapping their arms around our school communities in SFUSD and I very distinctly remember one of the biggest challenges when I first came on staff was the fact that we didn't have a routine system muscle that had been established for connecting our CBO partners to the district and there were a lot of really amazing organizations doing great work in partnership with different divisions organizations but it was all piecemeal. People were definitely reaching out and doing their best but there wasn't a single coordinated, for lack of better terms, entry system for CBOs who are excited to partner with schools and do their work and you know, SCDC is one of them, SALT, BACR, like and I remember during the RAI conversations when we reached out for community sessions, oftentimes the organizations would say this is the first time the district came to us to ask a question as opposed to us knocking on the door and saying hey we're here with these great resources. And so the question that I have is is actually well what I heard in this moment is an affirmation of the of the work that needs to continue to build that lifeline for our families and communities by maintaining the work that's happening with Pasamoa Initiative and Matua Advisory Council. I think the question I have for the superintendent and staff is is what is the work being done to strengthen especially as we're about to enter a budget season where resources of our own behalf may be going away. I would imagine that we are going to be looking to our nonprofit partners, community based organizations, to actually partner with us more deeply, more thoroughly. Are we what is the plan? Is there a plan around how we're thoughtfully thinking about those partnerships, what it means to come to the table, what it means to coordinate those services across the district, not just for FASSIMO but for many of our student groups, populations that we know I think rely on community based organizations to support.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: President Kim, I mean, for those of you who know, I I spent eighteen years of my government work working

[Speaker 20.0]: on

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: the city over in the city side working at the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families. And it was our singular goal to ensure that we have this kind of conversation. The conversation where we say, what do we as a city do to support our children? Because there are no such thing as the school district's kids or school district's students and city kids because they these these students wake up in the city. They take city public transportation or they're on our streets, and then they enter into our school building. They are the same young people, the same families, the same community. And with that in mind, I have spent many conversations many times with our city partners around how do we build and bring our city closer together. I think just a couple of weeks ago, I was over at SEDC talking about how can we, as as SFUSD, work in a more intentional way with SEDC, with doctor Patsy Tito and Tino there. And we were over at SALT, with BACR there provide, who provide a lot of the staffing support. How do we ensure that there is that level of coordination and coherence? I think it's really important for us to continue to deepen our relationship with our city partners. We do in at SFUSD have the community schools initiative which is funded by the student success fund. We also partner with city departments to ensure that we're leveraging mental health services, that we're leveraging nonprofit agencies who come in to provide supports before school, after school, and during the summertime, to work with other city departments that provide career experiential, career exploration, career placement supports. And then, of course, our newest expansion of working with City College as well as San Francisco State. So, yes, given that we are at a moment where we are asking for help, we're asking for everyone to come to the table to work together for the benefit of our children, for the benefit of our students. And I think this is a conversation that I believe needs to be taken outside of this boardroom and taken out into the community so that we can bring more community members to the table and and we can have that deeper engagement along with our city colleagues.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. And Tino and Anna specifically, I'm curious if there are things that you think from a community partner perspective you need, like, what exact barriers there are of entry for organizations you do want to partner. I think of anything from like the way that you secure facilities so that you can actually be in our schools to what it means to be contracting with the district for services. So I just I have questions about that, that are way more nuanced than right now but just curious what we can do to continue to make progress to more deeply partner with our organizations who are more, in this instance, the closest to our students.

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: Thank you, President Kim. Just for us, I think, you know, just even having, Ursula here and then Coach within our community, they are the ones that are going to these meetings. Also bringing back all the information from the school district to our community and making sure that all of the CBOs that we're partnered with with, the FaSi, FaSaMo initiatives that we make sure that we are informed but also informing our families too. And just to, answer your question about, what are we doing, like, one of, like, you know, if about to me, what are we trying to do to if, sorry, the question you're going back to schools needed more support or how CBOs is. And I think doctor Hsu actually helped us out during the COVID time when we were actually at Learning Hub during that time for about 50 kids. So even taking some of that, some of the page out of that book to see how we can continue to support, students at our school site I mean, at our, organization, but also making sure that we have the right, like, tutors, but also, like, the creek like, what these kids are learning within the schools. Because, again, as we're changing the curriculum and we gotta as staff, we gotta make sure that we're on the same page too, ensuring that we can actually help and support these young folks that are are that are bringing their homework and classwork to us. And we wanna make sure that, you know, just, again, professional development, that'd be the biggest thing piece that I think that we would ask for CBOs. So I know it's more there's more to to President Kim, but, you know, that's just what I have right now.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: I would just like to add. I think the alignment that we already have currently with Coach and with Ursula, and even with, say, La la and HR to help align everything about that FASA initiative, it should continue. And just adding that our students with enrollment is also something that we're trying to also engage with our community especially with the enrollment in SFUSD dropping that we want to make sure that our students are here to stay. These are things that probably beyond school but the school system would be those resources. Housing is definitely something that we're trying to hold in those spaces but as far as SFUSD and our CBOs, I think the alignment that we have here and the continuous of it, is something that we need to support moving forward. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Well, first of all, not only thank you all for being here and

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: presenting tonight and taking time out when

[Speaker 20.0]: you could be with family,

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: but thank you for all the other. What you have proven What you have proven to us over the past five years and beyond is that when we do the intentional work of building the community, the dividends pay off. It's hard work. It's not easy work. And particularly, Ursula and Coach, you know, thank you for building safe spaces. Thank you for building safe, connected spaces that, build on the lived experience and help make our students feel safe. And Ursula, the you're one of the hardest working people in SFUSD so thank you for being the glue. I really appreciate you. I I one of the things that was in the appendix of your report that I really wanna highlight though are the Matua PAC priority recommendations. There's a separate slideshow that's a separate Google Slides that are also linked there. And there are a total of I think 20 recommendations. But, you know, pathways for NHPI educators, more work around college readiness, inclusion of celebration, supports before kids get suspended, improving reading and math scores for NHPI students, better outreach, more pathways, better communication around the transitional grades and expectations. While we had the while we had staff present, responses to recommendations on the four main ones, I think these are also worthy of uplifting too. And and I know we've seen many of these in previous years' presentations and there's been work, but I just wanna to highlight, those additional recommendations as well and just thank you all for being here. And the point of data disaggregation, I really appreciate the work that RPA has done to disaggregate the data but it's very often buried in appendices or, you know, two or three reports back. And unfortunately, when we have printouts like these, it's often not attached. So just making sure that we're actually monitoring, and keeping the data front and center especially for our student populations that can sometimes be an asterisk, at some of our school sites. Figuring out a way to make it reportable and, and see all of our students is key. And thank you for helping us keep this front and center every single day. Thank you all.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: So hello. Apologies. I worked I worked for five years in post secondary success for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders in the State of Hawaii, so it's wonderful to see this work really go far. You know, building on Commissioner Fisher's point, a question for Board leadership, I'm curious and with all due respect for your time, and I appreciate you being here, but I'm curious if maybe when we do have, goal 1.1 next time, if it makes sense to have some of our advisory committees in attendance so that we get that color that you can provide, especially around our focal populations.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah, there's a conversation happening right now with leadership around how we best structure and leverage all of our advisory councils and committees and the report backs to the Board. Right now we essentially have a bunch and we spread them out across the year and we say that they're all coming at different times and one of the conversations we've been having with staff and the superintendent is are there ways to intentionally group them so that because a lot of them have similar recommendations that they're recommending to the board and the superintendent. Can we intentionally group them and can we align them to the ways in which we progress monitor such that there's context given to the conversations that we have around each of the advisory council and committee recommendations. So we'll talk about that actually as some of our next work in our metrics conversation. But, yes, we are are actively trying to figure that

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: part out. And relatedly, the ad hoc committee on, progress monitoring has been talking about how do we best, highlight what practices are actually working on the ground at the school site level. And so, I'm gonna ask about what school sites we should maybe, invite as part of our progress monitoring for, that interim goal. But I'll let you go.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: And then one question for members here. I'm curious. I mean, I know, often, Micronesians and especially stateless Micronesians face a lot of challenges. And I'm curious if you find there is a large population, amongst our students and how are we supporting them if if there is?

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: Thank you very much for the question. Right? So the yes. We have found a few Micronesian families in the school district. Right? Which is why I am totally against the term Polynesians. Right? Every time we teach the language class at a high school, we try to eliminate the word Polynesians because now it's specifically speaking to just Samoans, Hawaiians, Tongans. Right? But my best friend is Fijian. Right? And right. So they somehow feel left out, which is why in the SFUSD events that are catered and sponsored towards the communities, we label it as Pacifica events because we are the caretakers of the largest body of water. And that's what unites us. That's what brings us together as Pacific Islanders. Right? So, yes, there have been I think, last year, there was a, Marshallese mom who came up to us and her son. And they enjoyed our makeshift runway show that we had, with miss Anna and some of the other aunties that we brought along, showcasing traditional wear. Right? This is during the a NHPI month. And she wanted to partake, and she wanted her son to be a part of it. And we have her contact. So every time SFUSD reaches out, we reach out to the greater Pacifica community. Although our nonprofit organizations are Samor Community Development Center, San Francisco Tongans Rise Up. Right? That does not differentiate us as people. It brings us together to accomplish the work that we are very few in this massive state of or the city of, San Francisco, state of California so we could try to align our work. And going back to the other, parent advisories, just because we have our recommendations doesn't mean we're not helping out with Latinx, right, with our Asian partnership. Right? We're working together in finding solutions on how we could broader provide services for to the broader communities. Right? So hope that answers your question.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Thanks so much, Kash. Yeah.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Sure. So my understanding, and forgive me if I'm wrong, is that our Pacific Pacific Islander students in SFUSD are in as a practical matter, many of them are concentrated at a few specific schools. And so I was hoping, you could talk to us about what those schools are and whether there are any particular practices on the ground at those schools that you've seen move the needle for Pacific Islander students. Because earlier, in response to some of the earlier questions, we talked about district wide initiatives in terms of having, you know, credentialed teachers in the classroom or having, outreach about representative literature and things like that. But I'm wondering specifically, like, to move the needle for this vocal group, are there specific schools that we can make strategic investments in, to reach students? And are there specific, programs that are already working? And also so that we can then invite them to our progress monitoring reports, to uplift the work that is happening at those schools for the community and for the kids.

[Speaker 29.0]: Thank you for your question. So, many of the many of our students are located in our Southeast schools, school sites and in our Title one schools. And what has worked well is not all of the schools but many of the schools have a Pacific Islander employee. Or, if they don't have it, the after school program that's connected to that school has a Pacific Islander employee. And so, representation matters. So, I would say the levels of improvement in some of these schools have been because there's someone that looks like them that works there. And that's also the relationship that we have. We build these relationships. We see who's at the school sites. And so far, that's have been that have been helpful. I know coach, this year, has been able to start conversations on launching, with we called it MiniMax. They're like the Mato Advisory Council specifically at the school sites. Again, to support the admin, support the school specifically, better ways we can support our parents and getting our parents engaged and and and and things for our students. So we've been building really good relationships just to find out on the ground what is needed from specific school sites because not all of them are the same. And so some of them would ask us for things like, do you have an NHPI book list that we can have? So, we'll send it to them. Some of them asks things like, can you come provide some activities, catered to, that has cultural relevance. Like this Friday, we're going to little, Visitation Valley Elementary School. They asked if we can do a Pacific Islander reading corner for their events. So we're like, we'll we'll be there. Our mindset sometimes are in the mindset of how can we, give people what they need when they need it, You know? So student how can we give our students what they need when they need it? Our admins. Right? How can we do these things? So we're all over the place, but we know that it's it's there's a reason why we, we need to be. So thank you for that question.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: I was just gonna add that you said, where most of the population is. I think in our small but mighty team, we've been able to reach out to even if there's one student at a school, even if there's two. And I think that's what matters is the representation, but it's also showing up when they ask us to come. And I think that's, it's not just focusing on the greater. It's also just the smallest as well. Yeah.

[Tino Felice, Community Leader (Samoan Community Development Center)]: And to add to just, just for us to, for SEDC, you know, just even school based programs for all the Southeast schools that that are that we serve. Just making sure that we have safe spaces for our students, but also supporting them in the challenges and issues that they face at their school site. And also working with the wellness center. So I know wellness centers is a big thing tonight too, but that's one of the key key efforts that we are always partner with in in the different school sites. And that's where our young people feel more supported. They'll go straight to a coordinator, ask them, can I get PI support? They call us, SAW, SEDC, many other CBOs, Amu, Fotasy, but just many other other, Pacific Islanders, CBOs that they know that they can support. And we wanna make sure that, you know, we're we're always meeting our kids where they're at. Even like sister Anna said, if they're all the way across at Lincoln or Gal or Marina, we still wanna continue to serve those families because they wanna still stay connected to their roots and wanna make sure that their kids are connected to their roots as well. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you so much for being here this evening. Appreciate your partnership and, just deep gratitude, staff, for all the work that you do, on behalf of our NHPI community. Thank you for being here. Happy holidays, everyone. Happy holidays. We are moving on to item H, discussion item one, Board of Education end of year self evaluation. Oh, do we have to leave? It's okay. Thank you so much for your eve for your evening. For your time, Student Delegate Mann. Did you want okay. Thank you. Sorry, we also kept you late. AJ, are you on? Okay. So it sounds like you're gonna be moved to panelists in just a moment. So commissioners, I'm just gonna walk us through just from a where did one go? I am literally about ourselves. Okay. I'm gonna walk us through just the process of what we're gonna engage with and then hopefully this conversation won't take too long before we go to some important action items. So today marks the day where we are reflecting on our evaluation of this calendar year. Next Tuesday will be the superintendent's evaluation. We have two components of this. One is the short term metrics that we've set for ourselves. The other is around student outcomes focused governance work that AJ will walk us through. For this first portion around short term metrics, as a reminder, these were short term metrics that the board approved back in March for us to consider for this year. We had a self evaluation in June and this reflects a conversation to have around our progress to date this year. You'll see the status for each of the sub metrics in the three major metrics that we've defined or two major metrics that we defined. And before I open it up for comments or questions, I think I'll just acknowledge that there's some good work taking place around our ad hocs, which we had committed to starting. It was a little bit of a slow start to getting those up and running, but I'm pleased to say that those two ad hocs on progress monitoring and public engagement are, up and running with deliverables to come to the board no later than June 2026. We have not been able to operationalize our ad hoc on policy yet. However, we made the choice to prioritize for our own time these two to go out the gate first. But as soon as we sunset one of these two, progress monitoring or public engagement, we should be getting going with the ad hoc on policy. Some other things to note that we have ahead of us for next year, depending on the leadership arrangement come January I think we need to ask ourselves whether or not we want to continue with short term metrics in that model and then see through our ad hocs that we have. And then my own personal take is that there are two that we know that we care deeply about. Metric 2a around shared engagement and community expectations for the board that go kind of beyond just the ad hoc and public engagement but asks ourselves how are we engaging with the school communities. And then metric two c around restructuring board and public learning, asking ourselves if what the kind of, like, work we have to do around continued governance, continued effective governance practices, leveraging the types of decisions making framework that we have, and then partnering with staff and the superintendent to update a multiyear governance calendar to build out that aligns to the types of decisions that we have. Commissioner Zuhilling, anything else you wanna add here? Cool. Any questions from commissioners about the short term evaluation metrics in front of us? Oh, commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Sorry. I have a process question first so there may be more. Are we going to actually be discussing each of the items in the chart?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: No. But we can if there are ones that you wanna talk about.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Okay. I may not necessarily need to do that, but let me just I I sort of anticipated that we were, so but I I understand if we're time concerned that

[Phil Kim, Board President]: What I

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: need just to

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: That if we're if we're time concerned, I don't wanna take up a lot of time now. But let me take a quick look and see if there's anything I

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Again, I I think what my hope was is do a verbal walk through of what we still have pending and what we've accomplished so far. This is linked on board docs, so folks can tap or click into the launch documents for each of the progress monitoring work and then the types of decision making framework. But if there are individual metrics that commissioners wanna engage in a conversation about, we absolutely can right now.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I do have, I guess, an an overall question or kind of an overarching question then, which related to the time frames that were indicated for these metrics. In both of the cases, there's a reference to a November 2025 time frame. And I know, like, a number of the things that we did haven't necessarily been done or completed by that time. So I was wondering, are are we trying to are we sort of incorporating that into how we're looking at these metrics? So because for instance, with the full policy diet, if we're going to have conducted a full policy diet and we haven't started it, Is that is that, for instance, what you're referring to when you're saying we might have to revisit these metrics later on?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. Great question. So these metrics were always designed to be one year. Right? Because the way in which we structure our progress monitoring should be grounded in vision, values, goals, and guardrails. So these were intended to be done by December or at least in the case of like 1b to establish the committee. It It was a gut check of what we would be able to do in terms of an order of operations, but I think this will be the conversation and question for the next leadership team, whomever that might be, around how to best leverage these moving forward and probably a conversation in January around what we want to continue doing and not do based on where we are today. I mean we are just at a different place today than we were eleven months ago So it is an opportunity just to reflect on whether or not we want to continue on with this or not. But I will go back and say like, you know, when we launched this, the intention in the same way that the superintendent short term evaluation metrics were called they were called short term evaluation metrics for a reason because we want to go back to monitoring through VVGGs. One thing to note is that we don't like the board doesn't have our own guardrails whereas we have guardrails for the superintendent and so that's a conversation that needs to be had. We also just have a lot of stuff on the on the docket for next year, right? Our VVGGs are set to sunset in 2027 and so there is some good conversation to be had around what the plan is. Leadership team is actively having those with staff and the superintendent around what the strategic plan looks like in 2026 to prepare us for 2027. These are all conversations that weren't again added to these metrics because this was meant for 2025, but it's stuff like that. There's a lot of moving pieces so I think there's just an opportunity to take stock in January of where we want to go from there. Yeah. The purpose of today was just to ask ourselves what is the status of the metrics that we chose and and what where are we right now? Yeah. We can continue the conversation with AJ as we turn our attention now to the student outcomes focused governance. We can come back to this item if folks want. Did you want to say something?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: So just for clarification, two parts. One, short term metrics, and secondly, our evaluation based on the student outcomes focused governance rubric.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Correct. That's what we're about to turn to right now. Yeah. I just put them all as one item so we can talk about them both as well.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I'm just obtuse and need clarity so I appreciate that.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: All good. Your clarity is to everyone's benefit. Yeah. Doctor. Seuss gonna leave. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: I was gonna say, I mean, brief comments on the first part of this. I found it helpful to see your status update on the on 2b and 2c where it says in progress at risk because I realized that I wasn't sure what work had gone on. So being able to see what work had gone on was helpful. And I think just as I think about what we need to do then next, you know, maybe we need to revisit these goals more often or carve out time during closed closed session, open session, whatever it is to be able to discuss where we are so that we make sure that we are coming back to that and the rest of the board is is in line with some of the work that has gone on and if there's anything that we need to course correct. Yeah.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: And I think also probably worth acknowledging, there were elements this year that were just the reality of our conditions. We had some changes on staffing that and on the other hand, we have brought on some external support to help operationalize these metrics. Honestly, my biggest takeaway is we butt off a lot. And if we're gonna do it well, we should probably narrow in on the things that we wanna do. As everyone on this board knows, the work it's taking to operationalize our ad hocs, for example, is significant. And so, I mean, my personal takeaway is we bit off too much, and we should narrow in on what exactly it is that we want to accomplish or staff appropriately so we can get this done. Right? So, like, it's it's either it can work, but I do wanna acknowledge that for everything that's on here, it takes a significant amount of staff time and capacity to support us in this effort. Big shout out to Chris and to Hong Mei who are helping us with that work, but, it's just some of the trade offs to consider. Yeah. Chris, Christine Heumann?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Also, I I to your point about kind of having further discussions around this, I will note that when I was looking at the manual and doing my self evaluation, I noticed that, like, the highest level of mastery involves four time like, four times a year quarterly board self evaluation. So, like, right now, we're doing it twice. But I think that would be kind of a an appropriate time to bring updates to the full board and open session on what's going on. And hopefully, we will continue to staff up the resources needed to improve board office operations to be able to also make progress more quickly on some of these.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Again, let's just continue the conversation. It's the same item. I'm gonna invite AJ to come on here and help guide us through the sec second portion around the senior accounts focused governance indicators.

[Speaker 20.0]: Good evening.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: God? Just kidding. Good evening.

[Speaker 20.0]: You all have already completed your self evaluations, and, you all have done this enough times that your self evaluations were individually and collectively very reflective and collectively fairly spot on as a accurate representation of where you are. You accurately have identified that your performance has declined, but that's not by accident. It's by intention. You all have allowed more time to lapse in advance of doing more community outreach and engagement work, but that's because you intentionally chose to schedule your ad hocs in a staggered fashion. And so the work that will recover some of, that score, will take place, after the first of the year when your ad hoc committee around community outreach engagement, begins its work. In addition, the same story when it comes to policies, that you've allowed a fair amount of time to pass without reviewing, doing comprehensive review of your policies. But, again, you've already scheduled for that. You just staggered it out, and so that work too hopefully will begin shortly after the first of the year. So that said, you really have most of what you need planned in order to really regain all the ground that you've lost, but there are a few things that you need to add to the list. As you mentioned a moment ago, your goals as they currently exist expire partway through 2027. That means, realistically, you probably want to have adopted a new set of five year goals no later than October 2026. But if that is true, that means the community outreach and engagement work, that precedes goal setting, the active listening campaign that the board needs to conduct really needs to start very soon, probably April at the absolute latest in order to have conducted the quantity and quality of listening that I suspect you all intend such that you can have adopted a new set of five year vision, values, goals, and guardrail statements by October 2026. So that is one major piece of work, but, obviously, you mentioned that a few minutes ago that you all are aware of that. A couple of other potential next steps based on what you all identified in when you conducted your self evaluation is several of you noted that board members continue to struggle discerning where the board's work ends and the work that you've delegated to the superintendent begins. What I would recommend for that is that it'd probably be helpful for you all to schedule a series of trainings for the community, to help the community understand, what the distinction between those is. What I typically find is that sometimes teaching something, helps anchor it, in my memory better than just having read about it. The reason that's also important is because another one of the standards in the self evaluation is actively providing training to the community about what does effective school board governance look like. And so in this way, you could accomplish two things at the same time, helping yourselves grow in the work while helping your community grow in the work. Finally, you all also are not yet strong in making sure that you are preparing the next generation of potential school board members. And so this is a third reason why it would be valuable to start providing community trainings now. So that as people over the next four or five years make the choice that they want to run for the school board, that they've had plenty of time, one, two, three, four years in advance, to have an understanding of what that would look like, so that they can include that in their discernment. And so those are the next steps I'd recommend. I've put these next steps in a spreadsheet that will be provided to you all so you don't need to remember these. And I'll certainly work with board officers to try to figure out how to calendarize some of these recommendations. What questions do you have?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Just to acknowledge a couple things, AJ. Thank you so much for that summary and reflection. It's almost as if we timed the public engagement ad hoc to lead to our VVGG conversation. Who would have thunk? Wow, that person is brilliant. That's me. I'm I'm going in. Yeah. Not that there was any intention around setting a public engagement ad hoc well in advance of engaging the public. And then to your point around two around providing training for the public. So, unfortunately, that just to acknowledge, that was metric two b. Right? And we just we we just did not get a chance to prioritize that this year. So thank you for lifting that up, AJ. And then BOE trainings. If anyone's listening, you wanna run.

[Speaker 20.0]: Yes. It should at all times be the intention of the sitting board members that you are preparing anyone who should succeed you, whether willfully or forcefully, that you want them to be as prepared to serve children as is possible. And it's your obligation to help support them in becoming prepared for that.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I do just wanna note that if anybody did not give us a point for communication and collaboration under the belief that we had an eight hour meeting, that we had a seven hour and forty one minute meeting.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Just wanna say that on record.

[Speaker 20.0]: So actually, to that point, I should clarify because several of you mentioned that. You should strive not to be anywhere near that

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I agree.

[Speaker 20.0]: Your technicality is ignored. However, that only in the instrument, that only applies to nonprivileged meetings. And so it is not appropriate to include closed sessions in that calculation.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. Well, I wish you didn't say that. It was still not okay that we ended past midnight Correct. Y'all. Correct. I'm looking at all of us Absolutely. Collective effort.

[Speaker 20.0]: It is incredibly poor governance to subject your community to the obligation of being up at absurd hours of the night just to observe public work being done. And so anytime you can try to contain the meeting to hours that are reasonable for families to be able to observe, the better.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Subject to me subject to us?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Well, and I think every people who are actually listening probably are much more interested in the next agenda item than this one, so perhaps we could move to that. I mean, just if we're gonna talk about public engagement.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Anything else, AJ or commissioners?

[Speaker 20.0]: Those were all the notes I had. And, again, they're in the spreadsheet that'll be shared with you. But if anyone has questions, I'm happy to respond.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I will just comment. I I always appreciate this self reflection and this self check. I actually went back under the unity and trust category. Actually, communication and collaboration. Whereas we gave ourself one point for approaching do not come focus last time. When I went back and looked at the metric, I actually reassessed us as not student outcomes focused specifically because we have not hosted opportunities to listen to the vision and values of the community during the previous thirty six month period. We haven't done that. So I'm not sure why we gave ourselves a point for that. No. We didn't. This is

[Speaker 20.0]: 20 That expired in October.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. This is the old one.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: That's the old one. That's the baseline.

[Speaker 20.0]: The the the data you're looking at is from March Right. When that was true, but it expired in October, which is why it's now not true.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Got it. We were just within the window then. Okay.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: That is correct.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Alright. Just thank you for the clarification.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Group time.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: So just a a process point. So now is the idea, and I think this is perhaps what you're sharing earlier, President Kim. So, between now and when we establish the new goals and guardrails in 2027, do we set a different short term outcome goals like we had before? And your point was that we need to be more focused in setting those between now, I guess, between now and when we adopt the new ones in October 2027?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So I would decouple our short term metrics from the need to define new set new VVGGs. So short term metrics are, again, they were intended to just give us a structure for this year to be able to get our ducks in a row. In January, we should reassess what kind of work we have to do and whether we want to continue with this model short term evaluation metrics. But that's independent from our need to actually engage in a process to redefine vision, values, goals, and guardrails. So it could be that our short term evaluation metrics set that path forward. It could also be totally different from it. It doesn't have to be one in the same. I'll just acknowledge though in the conversations we're having on strategic planning for the district in 2026, the acknowledgement is that we need to do this ideally in parallel and in partnership with the superintendent and staff who are going to be doing some engagement around strategic planning for the district generally too. So ideally they're one and the same. Or at least closely tied.

[Speaker 20.0]: And and, Prad, I would I would encourage you to recalibrate your thinking on the timeline. Your current goals and guardrails expire in October 2027, but you don't wanna wait until they expire, to replace them. You wanna replace them on a timeline that allows their replacements to kick in, for the 2728 school year. But for that to be true, the 2728 school year budget is begins being planned in late twenty six. That's why if you want the new goals to kick in for the school year that the current ones expire, that they need to be adopted no later than October 2026. And so even though they don't expire until October 27, you want the administration to be able to use the new ones for 2728, not the old ones. But that means the time to get moving on those is now, in the next few months, not waiting until 2027. Does that timeline make sense?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes. No. And that that was my intention. I mean, I I heard you loud and clear in terms of we need to start creating those or having the community engagement in April 2026. I was just curious in the interim between now and when we establish those, are we ostensibly creating another set of goals in in the interim? And then when we do have these goals, presumably, then we're just evaluating based on the new goals that that we've set. Okay.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Yeah.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I just wanted to basically flag what AJ flagged, which is that when we're at this point next year, we will be setting the budget that affects the 2728 school year. And so if we don't know what the new goals are going to be for the 2728 school year by this time, it's very hard to develop a budget that is aligned to and investing in achieving those goals.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. Thank you so much, AJ, for your time and your reflection and partnership. Looking forward to continuing that on. Thank you, commissioners, for your reflections this year. Again, as a reminder, next week we will have a similar conversation with the superintendent. We'll be able to present her short term her progress to date on short term evaluation metrics and VVGGs and we'll engage in a similar conversation. Moving to item I, action items, vote on student expulsion matters. The next item on the agenda, can I have a motion and a second, please?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: So moved. Seconded.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So there are individual well, do we need to do that? Yeah, whatever. So we have several votes. I move for the approval of stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student, matter number 2025202610 for the remainder of fall twenty twenty five and spring twenty twenty six semester. During this suspended expulsion period, the student will attend to Civic Center. Can I have a second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call please Ms. Linoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy. Yes. Commissioner Wray. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim? Yes. With seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one middle school student, manner number 20,252,026.11 for the remainder of the fall twenty twenty five and spring twenty twenty six semesters. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will remain at Civic Center. Can I have a second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call please Ms. Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim? Yes. That's seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I move approval of a stipulated expulsion agreement for one middle school student matter number $20,252,026.12 for the remainder of the fall twenty twenty five and spring twenty twenty six semesters during the suspended expulsion period. The student will attend a comprehensive middle school from two school options provided by SFUSD. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call please Ms. Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. President Kim. Yes. With seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one middle school student matter number 2025202613. During the suspended expulsion period of one year from today, the student will attend a comprehensive middle school from two school options provided by SFUSD. Can I have a second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call please Ms. Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Heeling. Yes. Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And President Kim. Yes. That's seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you. The next item on the agenda is a tentative agreement between San Francisco Unified School District and United Administrators of San Francisco, American Federation of School Administrators local three ALF CIO. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move to approve item I two, 2512Dash9SP1, tentative agreement between San Francisco Unified School District and United Administrators of San Francisco American Federation of School Administrators local three AFL CIO. Seconded.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I call on the superintendent to read this into the record.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Thank you, President Kim. I'm gonna hand this over to our associate superintendent of HR, Amy Bair.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: Good evening. This item seeks approval of a tentative agreement with the United Administrators of San Francisco. The financial terms include an increase to each cell on the salary schedule of $7,521 effective 07/01/2025, a 2% increase effective 07/01/2025, a 2% increase effective 07/01/1926, and a 2% increase effective 07/01/1927. Additionally, for the past several years, it has been the district's practice to provide the same me too salary increase to its unrepresented management employees. The same terms are proposed for that group.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Point of information.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: We're being asked to vote on both of those items together.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: They are all part of AB 1,200 which is one document. Correct,

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Scott? Okay. But the the item the agenda item maybe this is a point of order then because I I think the way the agenda item is written doesn't seem to include an unrepresented management raise. Can I get a ruling on whether it's I I mean, the way I read it, this is approval of the tentative agreement? It has nothing to do with unrepresented management and there's this other attachment that is at the end so so I think it would be improper to vote on that unrepresented management raises at the same time. I'm

[Phil Kim, Board President]: guessing that is directed to the council to

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: answer. It's been stated by staff that this is in part and parcel with the AB 1,200. The calculations have been included in that, item.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: So are you ruling that it's not out of order?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: It sounds like it is not out of order for this as it's part of the item.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Well, it's not labeled on the agenda. I think it's misleading to the public that the agenda item says approval of the tentative agreement between San Francisco Unified School District and United Administrators of San Francisco, American Federation of School Administrators There's no mention of unrepresented management.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Counsel, is it appropriate for us to continue to vote on this matter?

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: It is appropriate legally to vote on the matter since the AB 1,200 and the calculations associated with that were grouped into this item. The item has been posted and the item is before the board.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I just wanted to lend my voice of concern about the same matter to what Commissioner Alexander has raised. I understand what our general counsel has said, but I also am troubled by the way this has been put before the public. When unrepresented management is not called out in the action item and it comes up as an attachment as, a salary schedule. Like, it's very hard to discern from this what we would actually be voting on, and I I'm very troubled by that, and I just wanted to register that. I understand that the point of order has been, if I'm going to say it correctly, overruled but or or rejected, whatever the appropriate terminology would be. But I also share that concern.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Can I make a motion to vote separately on the two items given that they're we're discussing them together?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Can I interrupt for a point of clarification?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I would like to make a motion to to if it's proper, to vote to have two separate votes on the two items or if not, then I'll I just make a motion to approve the tentative agreement with UASF without the upper management, the unrepresented management raises, which would in effect invite a second vote on that.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Unfortunately, the the way the AB 1,200 is calculated, it's calculated as one single document. I'm going to look towards Chris Mount Benitez, our w supe of business services. The request on the table is is it possible to separate these two items and have them voted separate?

[Speaker 20.0]: Are we

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: supposed to see if there's a second before we discuss it?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So, your your sorry. Can I just verify?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: My motion is I don't know if there's a second, but is to vote separately on the two items. So either I mean, I can make a motion I'll make a motion to vote just on the United Administrators races without the unrepresented management.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I'm gonna second your motion just so we can appropriately continue this discussion. How about that?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Okay. And and just to be clear, I'd be open to a second vote then on the other one.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I'm not saying I'm

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: No. I understand. I'm saying I would be open to a second vote on the I'm not trying to prevent a vote on the on representative management. I'm just trying to have a vote separately on each.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Just to clarify, so you are requesting a motion to amend?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Is that right? Yeah. So that the so that the because the motion on the table is both. Correct. So I'd like it to just be the first, the the the UASF contract alone. Yeah. And then second, the

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Could I make a could I interrupt to make a point of privilege? Sure. I'd just like to note that the salary schedule for administrative and supervisory employees who are unrepresented. It's noted in attachment g that it's per board of education policy four three five one and that it if you go to board of education policy four three five one, it is the adopted policy of this district that in order to, quote, in order to maintain a fair and competitive compensation system, the salary schedule for administrative and supervisory employees shall be increased consistent with and in an equivalent percentage to any future increases negotiated by the United Administrators of San Francisco.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: That's the one word.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: But Yes. May I clarify that for a second? So vice president healing is correct. That is what the policy states. However, I think that the policy was stricken back in 2023 by the board and that policy that is on the website has not been reflected to reflect the the striking of the language, I think it is worth noting that in January 2024, the board continued the practice. So while the policy was stricken, the practice continued.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yeah. And again, I'm not objecting to voting on the underrepresented management. I just think with the board passed the policy so that it they were no longer linked. I just think there should be two separate votes. That's what I'm asking for,

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: just to be clear.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Just Yeah.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: And just to provide the clarification that you asked for, And I got a second opinion because I've never had this one come up. So the AB 1,200 is to provide detailed financial information about the impact of the vote. You can hold the vote separately. Technically, the AB 1,200 does not change because both costs are called out separately within the same document and so the financial document stands as is.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: And what's the point

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: of So then I think my follow-up question is what's the point of separating them?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. So I guess my question is what is the material impact of voting on them?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: I wasn't advocating one way or the other. The question was does the AB 1,200 stand if the item stays together or is split? It stands either way.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I guess my next question then would be what is there a material impact on the next item we're about to discuss with our with our first interim report and our budget outlook if we don't vote on this at this time?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yes. Yeah. So these are ordered in a very specific order. Right? And so the TA is coming first so that we could reflect those cost changes in the first interim report. And so if any if either or or both are turned down or tabled or postponed, then that means that the, tonight's first interim, will be, overstated by about $6,000,000, but it's it's a conservative overstatement, meaning that it's to the financial benefit of the district. So I would just amend the forms and continue to submit.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So there is a motion on the floor right now that Commissioner Alexander introduced and Commissioner Fisher second did to to essentially amend the motion to split it in half where we are approving the tentative agreement for UASF and then separately voting on what exactly?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: On the upper on representative management raises would be my proposal. So again my motion was simply to separate out the unrepresented management but I'm not proposing we not vote on that, I'm saying there could be another motion after the first vote on that.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Fisher then Commissioner Ray.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Whatever we decide to do here, it sounds like we need to get revised policies onto agenda. Like, this is telling that we need a larger conversation, right? So when are we gonna schedule that or when are we gonna resolve the discrepancies?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Well there's based on this well the discussion right now is about the split vote right now so if that moves forward then we would need to then actually do the votes and discussion for each of the two motions on the floor. So I think that would be a time to actually discuss that. Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I also have a question so if I need to ask this a different time, please let me know. With this coming up, this seems like a very significant significant thing to me, and it's not something that I recognized as, you know, as an issue. And I thus have not had time to look into this or think about it. And I don't think I've been briefed, at least maybe any of us have been briefed on on, the impact, of including the unrepresented management along with this. Like, I just I do not know what to think about this. So I am wondering if we do not if we, you know, if we were to table this, for instance, or something, would there be an opportunity for us to be able to get information on this? Could we bring it back up at the next meeting? Would that cause a problem if we brought it back up at the December 16 meeting?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Well, it sounds like from staff that it would because we you need approval of this item in order for us to engage in the next item. Is that correct?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: No. It's not correct. So you can do whatever you'd like with the item. It just does it does mean that the first interim is overstated as far as expenses because that means this item will not have been passed. So I will have to amend the SACS submissions based on that which would mean that we don't pass the agreement and we don't account for it financially which would be a net savings of between 6 and $8,000,000 to the statement.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So that that is a possibility.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Does it mean that there's additional work that now has to be done? That would be correct.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So again, I just wanna summarize for the sake of clarity of of what exactly is taking place. So I introduced the item for approval. It was seconded. We were in discussion. Commissioner Alexander motioned to amend the item to split it into two votes essentially, right, and so we would need to vote on that. If the majority of the board agrees with Commissioner Alexander's motion to amend, we would then need to engage in a vote separately for the TA and then the management raises. So that would be the process that we're about to engage with. Are there any questions about that process? Commissioner Ray and then Commissioner Fisherman and Vice President Healy.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I am wondering if Commissioner Alexander would be open to amending his motion to put to have a second vote, but to have the second vote be at the next meeting if that is possible to do so that we can understand better what is going on here

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Well

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: or what the implications are. Yeah.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: The splitting of the vote would mean that you that someone could then, in the second vote, motion to postpone to a future meeting. Right? So that's that's an option that would be taking place during discussion of the second motion. This is just whether to split or not to split. But Commissioner Fisher and then commissioner or vice president Healy.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: So what would be the impact of of like, let's say we waited and next week we voted yes on the unrepresented management, does that like, is that just two revisions to the AB 1,200? Like, what does that mean for you and and like how essentially how many hours is that? Like, what what's the workload we're adding to you and your team by doing that?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: If indeed it was agendized at the next meeting, so so I have to turn in the SACS forms by the fifteenth. Right? So the amendment would occur to whatever happens this evening and then we would have to amend them again for second interim because first interim reporting, the SACS forms are due by the fifteenth.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Thank you for that.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. Vice president Healing?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yeah. So that that's my question as well. If if we bifurcate this vote and then the UA agreement passes and the unrepresented schedule increase does not pass, then that would, I assume, make our AB 1,200 that we're supposed to be approving today no longer accurate. And then we would be essentially out of compliance because we wouldn't have voted to approve an accurate AB 1,200 by the December 15 voting deadline.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: The the AB 1,200 will remain accurate. So the AB 1,200 is the detailed statement of costs. It is already split out. So when I received the instruction and the notification about the me too clause whether it was active or not, people believed that it was. So I prepared it so that it has a separate financial statement for each portion of that in the AB 1,200 because that's the correct way to do it so that the public and the board has clarity. And so a portion of it would not apply. So in other words, your financial statement is accurate but it would be overstated for the action taken tonight if indeed your statement occurred. And so because it's still accurate and a portion of it is not enacted, it still stands.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. We need to engage in a roll call vote on commissioner Alexander's motion to split the Alexander's motion to split the original tentative agreement and management salary increase as two separate votes. Commissioner Fisher seconded. Roll call vote, please.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander to separate.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher. No. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commission Vice President Healy. No. Commissioner Ray.

[Speaker 49.0]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Wiseman Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: And President Kim. Yes. Okay. That is five ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So the motion to split the vote passes, We're now going to engage in two separate votes. The first vote is to pass the tentative agreement for United Administrators of San Francisco. I'm gonna reintroduce this as a motion in a second. So I motion to approve the tentative agreement for United Administrators of San Francisco. Is there a second?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioners, questions on this tentative agreement? Okay. Well, now that took all the joy out of the room, I want to thank United Administrators for their work and their partnership. I don't know if they are here or listening but I want to appreciate their efforts. Our school principals are a huge lifeline to our school communities and central to our efforts to achieve our vision values, goals, and guardrails. So I want to thank them deeply for their work and appreciate the labor team for your advocacy or your support of this process. Roll call vote, please.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Heeling. Yes. Commissioner Wray. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And President Kim.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: That is seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So this next vote is on the manage unrepresented management increases that are the second portion of the AB 1,200. Do I have a motion and a second to approve this item?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move that we approve the raises for our unrepresented management as listed on the AB 1,200.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I'll second.

[Speaker 51.0]: I have a

[Phil Kim, Board President]: question? Sorry. So we're gonna open it up for conversation. I think. Comments and questions from the board.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Do you wanna go first?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I just have a question for counsel since this is cited as per BOE three four three five one and the present, accurate version of policy four three five one is apparently not what is posted on the website. Can any staff provide us with the accurate language of the current version of four three five one that we believe that this is pursuant to?

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: So it's I think, hearkening I think the concept is similar to what was adopted in January. I believe it was 01/09/2024. What I can tell from the history is that in 2023, the board collectively struck out vis a vis a consent agenda item, struck down language that compels, offering unrepresented management an identical amount that is granted under a negotiated amount with UA. So there's the language that says we must give unrepresented folks that language. In 2024, the district continued with the practice saying based on policy that has been followed for years in the district going back to 2018, the harkening or at least the citation back to board policy 4351 continued. So it's it is not a good thing that the policy doesn't show the stricken language but I think that in terms of referencing the existence of that policy and the practice that was continued is I think what was meant.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yeah. And, just building on counsel's explanation. I was on the board at that time and and my understanding of the of the intention of the board was not to prohibit raises to unrepresented management in any way, shape, or form. I wanna be clear, I think our unrepresented management do fantastic work and this is not a, it was not a kind of a no raises for unrepresented unrepresented management, but it was a feeling by the board that it didn't really make sense to to have a me too agreement in board policy and that the superintendent ought to decide separately and thoughtfully what should unrepresented management be paid. That that shouldn't just be kind of blindly done in relation to a negotiation with a bargaining unit that are related to principals and assistant principals. And so that was when I, and I I frankly I apologize that I missed this with with the with the earlier part of the board agenda with the twelve day notice because I really didn't see it on the like, I really literally did read the agenda item and it said, UA UA tentative agreement. I thought that's what it was and I didn't catch the last attachment which was this item. So so I wasn't being inauthentic when I raised the point of order. I it really for me was confusing. So my opposition to this right now, I am gonna vote no, but but I'm not gonna vote no because I'm opposed to upper management raises I'm gonna vote no because I think the superintendent ought to go back and decide based on you know some rationale whether you know especially in this budget cutting time we want to spend a couple million dollars on representative management raises Perhaps we do. Again I think they do really valuable work and maybe we need to but but I haven't there's no rationale, there's been no discussion, this was just sort of like a a me too which we which we tried to the board tried to say in 2023 we actually want to sort of stop doing that. Now I do understand there that there was another sort of effective practice of this six months later, so I understand why unrepresent unrepresented management might also expect it and so forth. So I understand it's a complex issue. I guess I just think it deserves some consideration and that's why that's why I'm gonna vote no not because I'm opposed to ever giving raises.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Vice president or vice president Commissioner Ray then Commissioner Weissman Ward then Commissioner

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Fisher. I have a question as as probably as well as some comments. With this coming up the way it has, I really personally would like time to think about this and solicit input about it and so forth and hear from folks. But I have a question, as to whether or not our unrepresentative management contracts cover raises? And if so, is there is there a kind of a any standard provision in them as to that? Or do they vary? Is it not discussed at all? And after that answer, I'd like to ask something additional.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: Yeah. I can take that. The there are three columns on the unrepresented management salary schedule that are on individual employment contracts. That's assistant superintendents, heads, and associate superintendents that are on that salary schedule. Those all refer to a step and column on that schedule. So if the schedule goes up, they're raised they would get an increase, but they're not there's no language in our contracts guaranteeing any tie to any Me Too in any group or, any, fixed raise. It's all tied to the salary schedule. So if the salary schedule went up, then the employee would get more. Does that that make sense?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Okay. As to the point that commissioner Alexander is raising about what the board was thinking or intending in 2023. That is completely new information to me and is, like, is, you know I would just really like to have time to consider this and what the implications are of this and what he is indicating about, the board wanting the superintendent to to consider this. And it is frankly also not something that I had expected to vote on separately because I too had not realized that it was that, you know, that was something we were supposed to be voting on tonight. I didn't read the attachments or, you know, the tentative agreement language that way. So, I personally feel unprepared to, you know, to to vote on this in an affirmative way, although I do not I am not categorically against providing raises to upper management either, but I really do not feel like, you know, I don't feel ready to do this. If possible, I would like I don't know what the better course would be to try to postpone it if other folks agree until the sixteenth or to leave it till later for the, you know, the superintendent to be able to, address further or if the superintendent has a suggestion as to what what she might wanna tell us if she could before the sixteenth. But it would be helpful to me to have some sense of of, where the superintendent is at with this. Thank you.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Thank you, commissioner Wray. I just wanna be clear that the unrepresented management includes more than just the assistant supes and heads and associate supes. It also includes, our manager level one. It includes some of the staff that you just heard present at the regarding the for the Matua report. It includes our maintenance manager. It includes our project manager. So it includes a a variety of of of employees that that are are not represented. And I I know that our employees these employees have been working really hard over the last year and a half as all of our employees have, and we want to be consistent with our appreciation and acknowledgment of that. As I shared earlier with the UA or actually, I didn't get the chance to share. But we also we appreciate our administrators, for for staying, for working with us, for making sure that they are here to provide services to our students and our school community. And we were able to provide the the the the salary increases over the three years, and we want to make sure that that is reflected also for the other managers that are here, that are working literally side by side with our administrators and the rest of our staff. So at this point at this time, I do want to recommend that we move forward with this. There is the other issue of compaction and compression of of salaries. You've already heard before of how some of our administrators, sell they some of our principals were supervising teachers that were making more than them. If if we don't do this, the compaction is going to happen with our administrators. Some of our administrators are central office leaders and they supervise or oversee some of these unrepresented members here, and their salaries are going to get very close within each other. Is

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: sorry. Would it be possible for, you know, I understand your recommendation currently, but would it be possible for you to go back and and sort of present to us something to look at this more closely and present some kind of briefing or memo or something like that to us so that we could consider, you know, the various possibilities here or the pros and cons of taking certain actions?

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Yes. Yes. I can do that. I know that it it would be an administrative burden because now we're separating out the two, But we're already here. So yes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Weissman Ward, Commissioner Fisher, I think was next. Then Commissioner Gupta.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Thank you. So I have a I I have a question. I I have a couple questions, and I think I do also have some concerns. And I do I mean, I think the public we heard a lot of public comment about this. So I do think the public maybe did better reading than some of us in terms of the agenda because there was a lot of public comment on this issue. So I I don't think that folks didn't know. Maybe we didn't know as much as we should. But I I guess my I have two concerns, and I wanna say similar to, commissioner Alexander, it's I'm not against races. I I think that sort of the bargaining that we do with our, bargaining partners is really important. It is, I guess, unfortunate that this is an unrepresented group of folks because there's not that same ability to engage in that same way that we do with our bargaining units. And so I and I don't think it's fair that just because you're not part of a bargaining unit, that doesn't mean you shouldn't have the ability to to see increases based on on your work and your performance and your commitment to the district. I think one thing that is a concern is that we are talking about these massive cuts at the school sites, you know, closest to to students, and it feels like there's a real disconnect with them saying, but we have this money here. And I I do I mean, I know that we're there's bargaining happening with our other partners and we, you know, we are just passed an agreement with UA, which is fantastic. So it's not saying, well well, no. We can't do any of it. Like, we can and we have to because that's how folks stay engaged in the district. When I hear you describe that, you know, some of the folks on this these salary schedules are folks that I think should and do deserve and I'm not sort of making, like, individual determinations like this person, that person, but maybe different grades where, they're not in that grade eight, step eight column. So my question is and the answer might be no based on the compounding things. But, like, it does feel weird to think to be giving raises to step grade eight, step eight in the climate we're in. It to me, it doesn't feel so weird, though, to give a raise to grade one, you know, step whatever or grade two step whatever. Is there a can we this can we say can you come to us with a proposal that says, I want to make sure that we are helping elevate these particular classifications at this moment based on what we have now. And high to our highest earning folks, you're gonna wait because right now we don't have that, and we need to focus on some of us. Can we separate it out? Is that possible? I know it's a table with eight different columns, but can we separate it out?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Do you start with we separate answers from so first from your your fiscal side, it in in my world, yes, anything is possible. However, remember that the raises just like the UA raises are supposed to be budget neutral and one of the things that we're neglecting to address is that that means that raises are being given by reduction in force in the unit to which we're giving the raise. So if we start breaking out groups such as the way you're suggesting then the raise is gonna have to be taken out of those subgroups and you're really going to narrow the pool and the flexibility of what might end up being laid off in this group to pay for the raise. Remember, that's what it means to give a budget neutral raise is that we have to take the cost out of the group. So if we say let's make the group smaller, you're also making smaller the group that we can use to pay for the raise. So I just want everybody to be aware of that.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Just a point of clarification though, a budget neutral raise doesn't mean budget neutral for the bargaining unit. We've defined that. We I mean

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: We we have defined that and that's actually the statement that you just passed including with the UA, and that is the statement that applies to any group that we are currently giving a raise to. So for CDE to be in concurrence with our raises, it has to be budget neutral which means we need to be able to pay for it from the unit.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: And to add a little bit, of context on the salary schedule issues, it's problematic because they're on the same schedule now. I think if the board, moving forward, wanted to separate people who are on individual contracts on the higher paid columns, we can have a method for doing that. They could either be off table or they could be on a different table. It's problematic because two of the columns in particular are very close already. So we but it's certainly something that can be done in the future.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: How far in the future? Like, by the sixteenth?

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: No. I was thinking, like, most of the employment contracts are annual. So as you renew for next year or if you as you do new hiring for next year with new employees, that's an option the board could look at for individual contracts.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I really appreciate this conversation. So thank you all. And I I appreciate the clarification that there's a lot of our folks who were at who are not who don't have that teaching credential but are still working at central office who fall into this category. So I I guess, how many how many people fall into this Me Too category? How many people are we actually talking about?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: So the the FTE are listed in the AB 1,200 for all those different groups. I believe for this group, it was a 140.6.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: 160.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: One sixty point four. I knew it was it's it was one of

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: the Okay.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: One sixty point four. And the total dollar value is of the

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: About 2,200,000.0 for this group.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Okay. Give me one second. 2,200,000.0 divided by a 160 employees. We're talking about a $13,750 raise on average.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: But I I I can't do

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I just did that. Yeah.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I was

[Speaker 20.0]: gonna say

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: So I'm just

[Phil Kim, Board President]: But I yeah.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. I yeah.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: And when was the the last time that many of these folks got a raise was a year and a half ago?

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: It was January 2024.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Okay. What work can we do to move these employees into some of our labor unions to make sure that they have the protections of labor unions that our ancestors have fought so hard to get over the past hundred or so years? Ancestors is the wrong word, but those who came before us have fought for over the past years. Is there a way to move these folks into our bargaining units so that this is a moot point?

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Commission And

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: they then have those protections?

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: That's a great question, commissioner Fisher. We are precluded by law to interfere with bargaining and setting up and we we get into a lot of sticky, thorny issues when management gets involved with organizing or not organizing, encouraging or not encouraging. So there's a bright line rule that we stay out of those questions.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: However, commissioner Fisher, I think that there is something that, you know, Amy and I have been

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: oh. Sorry.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Sorry. Okay. So Amy and I have been talking about or as the executive team is perhaps we separate out into a separate table the all of the people that we essentially bring to this board during open to read out during open contract so that they can just be on a separate table so from assistant supes and above. All of those those individuals get onto a different table, and then we can have a table that really consists of our, supervisors, and managers, and, analysts because those are those are the people that we're talking about here.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Thank you. Yeah. I I just a lot of these and I recognize we're talking about some upper managers, but the majority of these folks we're talking about are at the lower step columns. And so I appreciate that part of the conversation. And I also wanna recognize with the amount of people in our central office that took the SERP last year. You know, we have a lot of folks who are doing quite a bit more this year than they did last year. And, it just it to me, this feels like one way to recognize them for that. And so, we have a lot of really committed folks who I think deserve this recognition. So, I just I I know this is a lot of money, but all of our all of our employees deserve pay raises. Everyone does. And so I I struggle to provide it to some and not to others.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: I was just gonna build on that. I mean, I I think this is I appreciate separating this out, and thank you to the public for bringing this up. Thank you to commissioner Alexander and commissioner Ray for raising this and separating this out. And I hope we can then generate the policy necessary to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future. I wanna be clear. I mean, ostensibly what we're saying is for those who stayed, right, it's sort of like, by the way, we're getting rid of 40% of your colleagues or 40% of your colleagues are gonna be cut and you have this additional work and your colleagues have left, have taken the SERP and you've decided to stick it out in a really crummy situation. And now we're sort of debating whether or not we're gonna give you a raise. Like, to me, that's really crappy. Like, in the same way that we should respect and honor administrators and our educators for sticking it out and being with us during these really tough times, I don't see why unrepresented management shouldn't also get that right now. I mean, we need to stick up for them as well because we're gonna be asking a ton from them even going forward. And if we wanna do the same thing with our unrepresented management and have it be cost neutral, let's do that. And I'd welcome a proposal from the superintendent whether that be tonight saying, okay, we're gonna do this. Let's do 2% and then, you know, we need to figure out another way to to, you know, to to make it cost neutral that 6 to 7,000,000. Or if you need more time to do that, you know, either way, I mean, I I'd say if you do need more time, I would hope that wouldn't come at the cost of potentially releasing what would be the raises for unrepresented management at that time. But I I I just wanna recognize that these are folks that that have continued to work hard even though they've seen all their you know, two fifths of their colleagues leave.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I concur that there are folks in this bargaining unit or non marketing unit who have been doing an incredible amount of work and work that we really value and that serves our students. I will say I am really concerned because when I reviewed this document, I relied on the fact that it was per a board policy that is required, that is automatic, that it and on the board policy as published to the public. And so learning for the first time at this meeting that the board made an intentional vote to revoke that portion of the policy, that it hasn't been updated to our board docs and that it appears that, the practice was continued nonetheless without any sort of transparent flagging to the board or the public, is really concerning to me. And that's not to say that I wouldn't support raises for any or all of our hardworking employees in the district. But I do think that it is problematic to kind of treat it as a given that we would approve raises, including those to our highest paid employees, while we have our biggest bargaining table still open, while we are considering a fiscal stabilization plan without even discussion or without even flagging, that that to me is really concerning. We've had a lot of conversations about bringing the board along, bringing the public along, being transparent in our communication as a district saying what is happening and to learn tonight that this is not automatic and required by board policy, but kind of was presented as if it were. That is very concerning to me.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: PPE Healing, I agree. And when I I agree. We need to make sure that we follow our board policies. We need to make sure that we keep our board policies updated on board docs. Our team heard me talk about this, over this this weekend. I just wanna reiterate to everyone that we're using the same strategy and the same proposal that we used with, UA, which is that the reduction has to be taken within their unit. So the same is going to happen if this goes forward, with the unrepresented managers. The reduction will be taken within the unrepresented managers' unit so that we can continue to ensure that we will be able to pay for it and that it's cost neutral.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So I know. I I'm gonna comment really quickly. This is an this is frustrating. Our board I mean, I think there are a number of areas in which things broke down. Our board policy should be updated so that everyone's aware of what the most updated policy is. The item should have been titled in a way that made reflect was reflective of what we are actually voting on. And, you know, optics is one thing. I mean, I think we all agree that at this time when we are cutting from our budget that giving raises to folks at at central office doesn't feel aligned. I mean, I was one of those folks, to be clear, working in central offices on representative management. And so I think my well, I one, I don't I I actually I don't think we're ready to vote on this. I mean, if assuming that there's no material impact in a negative way on what we're about to vote on in our next item with our fiscal or with our first interim, Knowing that the board policy as it's current, not as it's written on board docs, but as it's current, it actually leaves it up to the superintendent to determine what to do in terms of raises. Is that right? She needs to bring that proposal to the board, but ultimately, that choice is hers.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Yes. And that seems to be what hap what is happening now.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So I'm gonna motion to postpone this item to a future meeting. Now that future meeting could be as early as January. I'm assuming that there's no again, I wanna confirm that there's no material impact on what we're about to do right now with this next item with our budget first interim. But what I'm hearing is that, if anything, we will have a net savings. Well, rather, the AV 1,200 already states the highest level that we would spend anyway. Correct? Okay. So, I mean, the reality is we're we are we have educators who don't have a contract, and we are voting to give management raises. I there's something about that that just doesn't that doesn't really feel right, and and I've shared this with the superintendent earlier today, so I don't think that was a surprise in terms of my perspective. Okay. So I'm gonna motion to postpone this to a future meeting. Is there a second?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call vote, please.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: To postpone the second unrepresentative. Right? Okay.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Are we gonna have any discussion about this before we vote?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes. Is there any discussion that we would like to have about the motion to postpone to a future meeting? Yes.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Motion to suspend can be debated. Can we so

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Oh, actually, I'm sorry. It cannot be debated.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: No. It says oh, no. You're right. Damn.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. Sorry.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Can't get the wrong

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: To suspend the unrepresented. Okay commissioner Alexander

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: sorry to clarify it was the motion to to postpone to a future meeting

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: sorry to correct phone

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: yeah yeah

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: I'm sorry no

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: no no I just want to

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: clear too many I know president Alexander I'm

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: one moment Yeah.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Just yes. According to my notes and I just want to get clarity because right Sure. I originally heard that there was a bifurcation and then there was an emotion by commissioner Fisher seconded by president Kim to adopt the unrepresented today. Then President Kim made a motion which I would interpret as an amendment to the original motion to adopt. So what is being, I think, debated may be actually an amendment because there was two. It was to bifurcate Correct. And then it was to You're

[Phil Kim, Board President]: talking about the original motion to bring the item forward.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Yes. So the original motion before you had made a motion to postpone to a future meeting was to adopt the unrepresented raises today. Motion by commissioner Fisher, seconded by president Kim.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Correct.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Then a second motion to if to postpone this to a future meeting I think is interpreted as an amendment to the original motion. So you're the chair you decide I'm just review I'm

[Phil Kim, Board President]: to

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: avoid what we've gone through before I just want to be very clear that I think that's what I heard. And if that's not what I heard, then

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So that so the first motion was to introduce the item to approve it.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: I

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I I wanted to ask the timeline. That's all.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. That's all. I don't think there is a timeline. That timeline is dependent on when the superintendent wanna bring wants to bring this back to the board. So

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: I have a point of

[Phil Kim, Board President]: That's if that happens.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Information.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Would it help the situation if somebody else made the motion to postpone as opposed to you since you had both seconded the original motion and

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I think that's

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: my question.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I think what council is saying that there's an open motion on the floor. So we either amend that motion that's already on the floor or or rescind

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: it? Correct. My recommendation is that you had a prior motion to adopt the unrepresented raises today, which was made by Commissioner Fisher, seconded by you. Then after much debate, you raised the possibility of postponing it, which I don't know if that was an intent to amend the original motion. Okay.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So just for utmost clarity Can

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I make a point of order? Actually, I'm sorry. But if you look at the how decided on the motion to postpone to a future meeting, it's by the president without a motion. So you could just frickin' end the discussion right here.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Or majority, which I was just about to do.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Okay.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I'm just gonna pull the item and we're gonna move it to a future meeting. I was hoping to do it in a more democratic way so we can all engage, but fair enough. Alright. We're done.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: But thank you for the clarification, mister Martinez.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Thank you. I think it's worth saying we appreciate all of central office and management staff for the work that you do. This is not a reflection of our confidence and faith in our staff at central office who are doing this. It's more a reflection of, I think, frankly, a little bit of messiness that we're engaging with right now on documents that need to be updated, proper noticing to the public, and the proper way to go about doing this. So so that is why I pulled the item, and we will move on because we just have to move on.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Can I move to extend the meeting past 10:00 since it's already October?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I'll second that. Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Vice President Healy. Yes. Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And President Kim. Yes. That's seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes. The next item on the agenda is, fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty six first interim report for the San Francisco Unified School District and County Office of Education. Can I have a motion and a second, please?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move to adopt the item I three two five one two dash nine s b two two fiscal year twenty twenty five twenty twenty six. First interim report for the San Francisco Unified School District and County Office of Ed. Any second? Oh. Second.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: All of that.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I call on the superintendent to read this into the record.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Thank you. I'm gonna hand this over to, our deputy superintendent of business services, Chris Mel Benitez, as well as our new, I'm gonna just say, chief financial officer, Niru I'm gonna say your last name wrong.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: JR

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: JR Raman. JR Raman. I will say that I just wanna thank both Chris and Niru and the entire fiscal and budget team as well as all of central office for working really hard and running the data, making sure that we checked and double checked and triple checked our numbers, because there are a lot of numbers. And we wanted to make sure that they were right. And in that checking and double checking, we were able to see that we are actually implementing our fiscal diet really well and that we are living within our means and we're learning this new muscle of being way more responsible and prudent with the way we're spending, the way we're allocating, the way we're projecting our funds. So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Chris and Niru for their presentation. Thank you.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Great. Thank you, superintendent. Good evening, commissioners, or good night. Whatever whatever we're doing now. I do want to acknowledge that, I did ask, fiscal staff, some of which have been with, the district for a long time, to stay as they continue to work on their skills and their department skills in making not just the budget better while Niru or myself are here but in the future and for the sustainability of the district. It's really really important work. I also so I have Edwin Diaz and Jennifer Schuster behind me. I'm sure they're both to my left. I don't even have to look back. And and Daniel Munoz, our new director of position control, which also shows the board, that we are filling those positions that were being required by CDE and moving the district forward to a more sustainable place. So that's just sort of the introduction. Lots of information to go over tonight. I am going to move rapidly now, through a dense presentation and and hope that you have time to ask any questions. So, of course, the first interim report is required. It covers all changes to the budget from July 1 through the October. We present that, information and and are required to present all of the SACS forms to the state by December 15. In our case, that goes directly to CDE, since we are also our own county. It it highlights any changes in revenues and expenses and most importantly, projects a new multi year projection for the board to consider, for both the restricted and unrestricted general funds. Next slide, please. This just highlights your metric. Next slide, please. This goes through everything I just said except for the one thing that it does also ask the board to make a certification. A positive certification means that we will be able to, pay all of our expenses for the current year and two additional years. A qualified or conditional certification means we may or may not be able to meet our expenses for the current and next two years and a negative certification means that we will not be able to, meet our expenses for the current plus two additional years. Next slide please. We are currently at this December point. It's the first interim. Fiscal stabilization plan is supposed to be done with adoption as well as the interims. We did create a second meeting because of the volume information coming at you and we didn't want to do it past midnight. And so we did separate that and that will be coming to you at the December 16 meeting. You heard a lot of public comments on that tonight even though that's not the item agendized for tonight. This gives you an idea of where we are for the rest of the year. Typically, a school district also brings the audit of last year in December or early January. Because of the federal government shutdown, all of the audit guidelines for our federal funding were postponed. And so all districts are are now going to be doing their audit report in January. Hopefully before the January. Because those audit guidelines are just coming out from the federal government. Next slide please. Context for this interim. This brings the board all of the activities, that we've identified that are both savings as well as new revenues and new expenses. We have been maximizing the use of restricted resources, both new and old, many of which you're you're familiar with, Measure J, QTEA, PIF, the Emergency Block Grant, LREBG. We've also been, removing and cleaning up, the new system, deduplicating positions, making sure that there's less noise in the system, as well as improving budget controls, Such things as making sure our compensation projections are good, making sure that staff is is trained in up to date processes such as how to reconcile revenues for each resource and to make sure that expenses are verified. So you're gonna see some significant differences in this report from reports you've seen in the past. Next slide, please. We are also proposing, another item that a lot of folks were commenting on. However, I don't think that folks were reading the supporting documentation very thoroughly. We are asking the district to create a fund 17. Fund 17 is actually a specific fund for school districts created by the Department of Education and it is called your reserve fund. And that is so that you move your reserves out of your general fund so that it is not confused with fund balance and provides transparency to what the district's actual reserves are. Just to address a couple of items that came up tonight, that fund is not a hidden fund. It doesn't get any revenues or expenses. It is just the board of education's reserve and only the board of education can act to take money out of that reserve. Tonight's report also contemplates using that reserve in the event that we have deficits in the next couple of years. We'll be going a little bit more in more detail into what a reserve means. We have had conversation with the board about developing a reserve policy. In fact, the board of education has a resolution as well as policy directing staff to create a reserve policy and to create a reserve fund. So this is not something we do for funsies. Rather, this is actually something we've been directed to by your own action. So that is why this is coming to you tonight as a part of this report. We did discuss with the board what an appropriate reserve would be. An appropriate reserve for a school district, you have a 2% statutory reserve in your general fund. However, that is a non spendable reserve. You have to keep it there by law. You are not allowed to resend it. If you do spend it, you go into receivership and the state takes you over. However, so what's a reasonable amount to keep for a district of this size in your reserve in a local board reserve, the amount would be about 16.5%, and that is in addition to that 2% statutory. Where does that number come from? That number is what it takes to cover two months of your operating expenses. That's a very practical thing because in a time when the when the state is struggling financially like now, and if they defer our apportionment, which is how we pay our bills, then if we don't have a reserve, we don't have a place to pay for things like payroll. Right? So it is always important for a district to keep a reserve and an appropriate reserve. We cannot at this time. We do not have the money to get up to a fully funded reserve of that two months. We have about enough to get up to about half of that or 8% which is why we are suggesting that here and that's taken out of fund balance. It is not taken out of any departments. It is prior year fund balance. That would replace the commitments that are currently in the general fund of $40,000,000 of rainy day which is what is currently described in the financial documents and $22,000,000 of budget stabilization and it adds to that, roughly another $48,000,000 for the $111,500,000 reserve that's proposed. Next slide, please. So the good news, nothing like burying the good news on the seventh slide, but the good news is that we are recommending a certification of qualified status, for this budget adoption. So this will be the first, certified status that we're recommending the board to adopt of improvement in budget status, since the district has gone to a negative certification. Next slide, please. So this slide, super important. This is your unrestricted general fund and just a gentle reminder how to read this slide, you have now two columns. You have the adopted budget. This is what the board adopted at the second reading in June 2025. And then what we're doing tonight, you're essentially recapitulating your your budget understanding and so we have updated figures for you. So significant changes that you can see here, line a, beginning fund balance at the beginning of the year for adoption. It was estimated to be about 140,000,000. At this time, it's 221,000,000. You found this information out when I actually did the fiscal close report of last year and that's because we were overstating our budget so much and then not spending it in aggregate as a school district, that we are constantly understating our beginning fund balance. So that is an accurate statement, that 02/21. And we know it's accurate because that's based on unaudited actuals of last year. So that's an actual figure. Total revenues, for the unrestricted general fund, you can see have gone up very very marginally a couple of million dollars. That's just as property tax revenues go up and down. That's just showing us the net impact over the first four months of the school district. Expenditures and contributions, you can see, expenses have also gone up. The biggest portion of this is additional transportation expenses for our special education program as well as a couple other, minor adjustments that we called out. So what is our current anticipated unrestricted general fund deficit? If we were to spend everything that everybody is saying they are spending in their budget this year, all of the departments, all the schools, we would be at a roughly a $52,000,000 deficit in our unrestricted general fund. If we were to take and fund 8% of the desired 16.5% of a district reserve policy for two months of expenses, That would take a $111,000,000 of what's currently in fund balance. That's your that's your carry forward balance. This will still end. This will still mean that at the end of this year, if we are to spend and and go into that full deficit amount, which, of course, we hope not to, we will still have $58,000,000 of fund one fund balance remaining, that we would use before, of course, tapping into any reserve. The numbers down below there, those are the components of that fund balance. Right? So it tells you that, our prepaids, which is basically rotating cash through our bank accounts paying bills is about 1,500,000.0. The required statutory reserve for economic uncertainty that's required by the state, that 2% currently equates to about 27,900,000.0. And then the unassigned unappropriated amount, that's the amount that actually no one has said what we are spending it on. Right? That's what pays for things when sometimes we run over budget in the general fund will be about $29,000,000. Right? Now, again, that assumes that we actually go and spend that much money in deficit, which is just the aggregate of everybody's budget that they've submitted. Typically, we don't do that. That's the worst case scenario. But that is the possible worst liability which is what I'm required to state for you. Next slide, please. The unrestricted general fund major changes, you see a little bit more revenue, about $7,000,000. However, we also lost some revenue because we've been overstating some of our lease lease revenues, from some of our properties that we lease throughout the district. You see a little bit of salary increases as well as some savings and books and supplies. So as we've been tightening up the unrestricted general fund, budget, you'll notice that we are literally tightening up the figures, making them more reliable. I actually wanna stop there for a second. This is really, really important. In all of the past board presentations I've seen at each of the interim reports, the expenses balloon. Our expenses are not ballooning. This goes back to when I said at the last board report, we need better controls. We should just not be adding ad hoc every single thing that comes across our table to the budget. We have to stop that. It's poor budgeting. This illustrates that we're actually putting those controls in place already. So notice that expenses and revenues are remaining stable. That's as it should be. Okay? Ending fund balance. Currently, we're we're asking that the board begin their strategic reserve by putting 8% of the, general fund expenditures amount, which is a 111,000,000 into fund 17 as the board's local reserve. That, of course, replaces the existing commitments that are being held in fund balance. Next slide, please. Then we get to the multiyear projection of the unrestricted, general fund. This slide is read the same way and here's a couple of an important things to note here. So in each of these years, the current plus the next two years, we are able to maintain our statutory 2% and pay all of our bills. However however, notice between lines d and e, this year, it says that we set aside the money into fund seventeen as a strategic reserve. Notice what's happening the next two years. We are balancing our books. Assuming that we take no action, we are balancing our books by drawing out of that reserve to make sure that we can pay all of our bills. That would be a good use of a reserve to make sure that we can pay all of our bills moving forward into the future. It just illustrates one of the reasons that a reserve would be important. Notice that the overall shortfall of the district is going down over time. How is that happening? That's happening not because expenses are going down. Notice that revenues are going up. So we are getting better as a district at articulating what future revenues will be based on the current assumptions being provided by the state. And so you can see on the natural if we were not to add any more expenses to the budget, that over time that little bit of extra money we get every year is helping with our deficit. However, remember there are no raises included in this multi year projection yet. The only raises included in here are what you just voted for which is UA. Right? So those are the only raises that are in here and then I have to then back out the additional $2,000,000 that we just discussed. Right? So this is just a nice way of being able to look. You can see that there is, an improved status on the budget. However, most of that improved status, is because we are doing a better job at budgeting and reporting. Okay. Next slide, please. The plan deficit, as of this time, we still are planning a structural deficit. Like I said, it's about $50,000,000 in the unrestricted general fund. Just to give you an idea without adding the additional expenses from negotiated, raises, This year, the the deficit is about $51,000,000 as a planned deficit, next year '32, the third year nineteen. Again, only decreasing because of increased revenues. It's also really, really important to note here that the unrestricted is the side that we need to balance. Right? So I heard a lot of commentary on tonight on this as well as balancing strategies. It is the responsibility of the board and, by the way, it's not optional. You're required by law to adopt a fiscal stabilization plan since we are in negative or qualified status. That's that's the case for both of those certification statuses. But you are required to adopt an FSP that will address that deficit in a timely manner, which is the board's responsibility, right, which is what we're taking up and contemplating on the sixteenth. That's done so that we can balance the unrestricted general fund side. I heard a lot of folks saying a lot of numbers out there, so I just wanna gently remind everybody. The current unrestricted general fund deficit is about $50,000,000 for this year before raises. The total deficit, if we were to look at restricted as well, that's the 103 that folks keep sort of saying. What was cut last year was the 114. So I have to keep all these numbers in my head. I'm I'm gonna keep repeating them until hopefully we remember them all as well. The fiscal stabilization plan does not call does not call for solving structural deficits on the restricted and unrestricted side, just the unrestricted side. So it's less than half of it. So just for some some clarity, the the fiscal stabilization plan does not call for a 113 or a 103. It calls for less than 50 which is a much more balanced approach. So just to keep that in mind contextually for the board. Next slide, please. On the restricted general fund side, this shows you the single year. Interesting. We have a lot of local restricted funds so we have a much larger restricted fund to monitor than most school districts. You can see that we have a significant fund balance on the

[Speaker 20.0]: restricted side. However, all of

[Phil Kim, Board President]: this money is spoken for.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: In other words, we're told how we However, all of this money is spoken for. In other words, we're told how we need to spend it. We have to fend it spend it within terms that are provided based on the funding source. You can see that the deficit in this area has actually shrunk. Again, a little bit on the natural. So one of the comments I saw is that we are seeing an increase in expenditures on the restricted side. That's true. You're also seeing an increase in revenue. So of that $90,000,000 of additional revenue, which you means you also have about $90,000,000 of additional expenses, 20,000,000 or actually I'll say exactly that it was between 17 and 18 is additional money that we've realized since July 1 on an additional ELOP or extended learning opportunity program, support. Districts with large UPP percentages, which we do qualify for for supplemental concentration, were awarded an additional amount. And so we were awarded about $17,600,000 more. Is that right?

[Tina (CDE Fiscal Advisor)]: It's about yeah.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yep. 17.6. Great. Glad the numbers are still sticking together in my head. I appreciate that, Niro. Where are the other revenues and expenses coming from? This is through improved budgeting. Right? So the board adopted a budget with a couple of things that were interesting. First of all, restricted revenues had not been trued up and some revenues had not yet come in. And so the revenues that are here, we knew about last year, but either they were underestimated, right, or we've gotten additional since then more than we anticipated. And so you have more revenues coming in and you do have more expenses and that's because we receive restricted revenues, remember, for specific purposes and we do budget them when we when we realize them. So as those revenues go up, our expenses go up in coordination. Next slide, please. The multi year projection for restricted, notice that the deficit here is much more stable. It does not go down. Why is that? Because on the restricted side, we do program for these things for as long as we receive the revenues. So we don't make them go down in an unnatural way. Here's the other interesting thing. School districts are not as good at spending the restricted money because it's a little bit harder to spend. And so you actually have to keep pushing to spend it in a timely manner so that you don't have to send money back or give money back, which is something that is against the grain of a of a of a finance team. We try to maximize those resources. So we will leave that plan deficit there and try to spend down the fund balance on the restricted side in the support of our students because we need to spend that money in a timely manner so that we don't have to return any of that money. Next slide, please. Now, just switching over to the County Office of Education. The the certification recommendation for the County Office is a positive certification. And in the second interim, I promise that we will see more description, more finality on the special education budget and you will on this on the County Office of Education as well. Next slide, please. So for the unrestricted general fund, you can see that currently, we are balanced which is the way that we wanna see the budgets done. We are spending in about the same amount of money that we're receiving which means that we're balanced and there's no shortfall. Next slide, please. Restricted side, we are planning to spend more than we're taking in. These these funds are similar to the school district. They're restricted. They have terms attached to them. We tend to spend them slower because they're a little harder to spend so we try to over budget a little bit to make sure that we're not leaving money on the table in fund balance. Next slide, please. And for the multi year projection, this is total general fund. This is restricted and unrestricted together. You can see that we plan on running a little bit of a shortfall. This is intentional partially to help the school district to make sure we take a little bit of financial pressure off, but also to make sure that we're fully fully utilizing our county funds to the benefit of our students. Most of this is county programs, special education, a little bit of administration. We still have some other county organs we need to build out such as certification and payroll because we have some significant liabilities there, but the county program is doing well financially. Next slide, please. Other operating funds just as an overview. We are supposed to report out on the general fund primarily during the interim reports, but you do have some other operating funds in the district. Adult education, early education, this school nutrition or cafeteria fund, the building fund and capital facilities. Those are our construction funds. And you can just essentially see where the beginning balance was for these funds at the beginning of the year and the projected ending balance. Some of these are artificially projected to zero just so that you know. So for example, the building fund and the capital facilities fund, those are multi year funds. We we actually budget those for multiple years so that we budget for every dollar but those dollars are budgeted over three, four, five, six years and so we always project a zero ending balance once all the projects are complete. And with that, we will open up to any questions.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Thank you so much for all the work that both of you have been put into this and the rest of the staff as well. The rest

[Phil Kim, Board President]: of the staff.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I'm so excited to hear we hired somebody for position control. Thank you. I I just I may return to ask other questions later, but the main thing I want to ask at this point is around this question that so many people have raised because I think it is not clear to the community. You know, we're we're laypeople. It's it's not clear to the community what's going on with Fund seventeen. And I very much appreciate the, you know, the desire and the intent to get us to two months of operating expenses because we wanna make sure that we have that money if we need it for whatever reason. As I understood from your present we would be getting to more like one month of operating expenses with the, 8%. But can you can you just explain, like, in plain English what's going on? Because I I think the perception or the understanding a lot of people have is that we're we're taking money away in some way that we should and could be using for programs and services this year. And if that is not an accurate perception, we should make sure that we we understand what's actually going on so we can explain that and so we can communicate that to people. Where like, where is that extra money coming from aside from the $40,000,000 for rainy day and 22,000,000 for the budget stabilization

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: fund that they can call.

[Herbert Wylie “Coach” Ilaleo, NHPI Coordinator (Fasi Initiative)]: Thank you.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. So it's it's all fund balance at this point. So all of our expenses, even if even if we overspend to the greatest extent that we've predicted, that's the the projected deficit, that money is just still in fund balance. Right? So it's in your fund one fund balance or carry forward from prior years. So of the 221 that's there, we're not taking it all out. We're leaving quite a bit of it there to pay for our anticipated deficits. But we're suggesting to the board per board direction, like I said, they've asked us to create a reserve and a reserve policy. You need to have a a district reserve not just in the event of a deferral but an emergency. You need to have a place to take that money from, not just hope that there's something in fund balance when you have an emergency. So that's what this does. So all of the expenses in the general fund are paid for. This is fund balance, meaning that it is not included in being spent in this year's budget.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: If I could ask a clarifying question. So the money that is going into fund 17, if we vote for that, That money, could that money be used, for instance, to fund more social workers or to prevent reductions in in personnel? Is that a possible use of that money?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. Anything's a possible use of money, particularly in the unrestricted general fund. Right? So the reason that the district hasn't gone into receivership is it has enough money in fund balance to pay for its deficits. Right? We continue to have enough money that's why we're going to qualified rather than being a negative but I'm suggesting that you put some of it aside per your own request and direction and resolution so that you have a board reserve. Right? Because there are things that you don't anticipate. Remember that that does not mean that you shouldn't be balancing your unrestricted general fund. That's what the reductions are need for. That has nothing to do with fund balance. It's to balance the unrestricted general fund and to keep us out of a negative certification. Right? That's that's one of the stated goals of the board and that's how you get there.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Can I switch one?

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Oh, can I just clarify this is that for for those who are not familiar, the term fund balance means that these are dollars that were that were part of a grant or part of a program that were not fully spent?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Mhmm.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: And so they then when the program ends, it falls into what we call the general fund. These are one time dollars. They don't come again.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. It's it's left over from prior year budget. And, actually, San Francisco's fund balance specifically is is basically left over from COVID relief fund. We use that money to pay for expenses that typically a school district would use their general fund for, which then provided some relief to the general fund and left you with that's what I keep referring to as your as your savings account. Right? So when you do overspend, you have some place to pay for it. Right? So that's that's what fund balance is.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: But it's not best practice to use one time dollars to pay for ongoing expenses.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Not at all. That's that's actually how we've gotten into the deficit situation that we're in.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: That's correct.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Commissioner, Alexander. Okay. I think there's some confusion here. So I'm glad we're having this conversation because the reason we have a large fund balance is because over the last five years since I've been on the board, every year, we've massively underestimated revenue in our budgeting process. And at the end of the year, we've had these huge increases in revenue, and we've actually had surpluses. So, I mean, I think we and I think we need to be careful how we talk about this. I mean, the reason we have $430,000,000 in our beginning fund balance is because that's built up. When I joined the board, it was 128,000,000, I think. And so that is money. We can call it one time money, but we made it one time money by not spending it. Right? So so it's like now it's one time money, but but it's it's a massive it's like 35% of our operating budget. So I think that's where the public is quite right to ask, what if we took $111,000,000 and instead of putting it in reserve, we spread spread that out over four years, that's 25,000,000 a year, we could not cut social workers. That's a decision the board could make. And so I just think that's the conversation we need to be having and I'm concerned that it seems like we're not having it. We're just saying, oh, we're gonna put this in a reserve. I mean, I think a reserve is a great idea, but you you make a reserve when times are good. Right? And then when times are bad, you draw on the reserve. And so this feels like the time that we ought to be drawing on a reserve rather than setting aside money when when when we have these needs.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Commissioner Alexander, I I think that your point is extremely the reason why. It's exactly the reason why we want to create a reserve so that the board gets to decide how best to use these dollars. These are one time dollars that are building up regardless of how they build up in our budget, but they're this is what we see right now in our budget. And the board gets to decide, okay. So if it's now a $111,000,000 in fund 17 and you you determine that the most appropriate use for some of the for the dollars is to allocate it towards social workers, assistant principals, or or to renovate a building or, you know, so so then you you get to you get to out you get to allocate and vote on that. Because once we create the fund, the fund 17, the way we allocate those funds is by the will of the board.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Right. But I guess what I'm saying is the funds exist. Right? So we can keep them in the general fund, which I think, frankly, would be a bit more transparent because when you put them in fund 17, then when you it makes our general fund deficit look a lot bigger. It makes it much harder to compare year to year general fund spending over the last few years because we haven't been using fund 17. I mean, you could put a reserve in the general fund. I mean, there's a space on the Saks code form for a reserve under general fund. Right? So it doesn't have to be in fund 17. I'm not opposed to putting it in fund 17 at some point, but I guess the I think to be transparent with the public, it's we have an enormous fund balance. We have to decide what to do with it. And I think the concern that the public I heard from the public is staff is recommending, at the same time, adopting a fir a first interim that puts a $111,000,000 over here and says we're gonna cut, frankly, a lot less than that from schools that has a massive harmful impact potentially. And we haven't seen an increase in student outcomes. Right? Again, we don't. So so we're in a situation where we're actually disinvesting from our from something that's gonna increase student outcomes. So I guess that's where it feels I think that's where somebody said, people aren't buying it because it just feels dissonant. It feels like and and and frankly, with the budget town hall feedback, the first two points were clear, honest, financial transparency and protecting supports that help students thrive. That was what the community said they wanted and I what I heard all night tonight was, this isn't it. You're not hitting the mark, superintendent and board. So I guess I just I'm very concerned and I think we need to do some rethinking very quickly before next week because I just think this isn't we're not heading in the right direction here.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Would you like to respond?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Oh, I I would just correct factually. Moving this money doesn't actually impact your deficit one way or the other. It's it's fund balance.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Well, it affects the general fund. So it affects when people look at the general fund. Affect your deficit

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: one way or the other. The deficit is still the deficit.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Absolutely. And when people look at the general fund, which is what most people look at rather than this sort of off the books fund 17, it's like this is my your checking account is the general fund. Fund seventeen is like your savings account. So if we put a $100,000,000 over there, it's like, oh, well, our checking account is in deficit. We may not notice the 100 and I think that's the reason for it. Right? The point in my understanding is we wanna do that. In good times, we wanna put money in the savings account so we don't think we can spend it. That's not this to me, that's my concern is in this moment, is that what we wanna do? I think is the question and that's, again, what I was hearing from almost every single speaker tonight. Mhmm.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Can I make a point of information? Because I I think we might be in trouble with this action item in the same we were with the last. Because this is not just one action item. We're not just voting on the fund 17 resolution here. There's also we have to approve the fiscal stabilization planner. That's next week. That's next week. But are we approving our qualified certification tonight? So those are actually, in my mind, two separate votes, especially compared to, commissioner Alexander's concerns, and what we heard from the audience. So can I make an amendment that we, like we did before, bifurcate the fund 17 vote from the the qualified, budget certification vote?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Before you make that. What what it is there an impact on the fiscal stable or, our first interim report and our standing going from negative to qualified if we were to vote on this item separately?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: No. Alright.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Then I set then I I'll second. To reiterate what I my motion, or is it just a We haven't

[Phil Kim, Board President]: introduced one yet. Would you like to introduce one?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Oh, well, I would like to move that we separate out the, the vote on the on the qualified certification from the vote on the Fund 17, resolution.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I'll second that.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Point of, clarification. The full we'd be voting together on the fund 17 resolution and the fiscal reserve policy. There's actually three items, I would say. As part of this, just so we all know what we're voting on is the motion to separate out the voting on the first interim from the other reserve fund items, which are the

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Would it be more clear if it were three separate or should I just should how do you all want me to group it?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I'm suggesting that the board policy fiscal reserve policy and resolution go together, but I just want us to be clear from the get go what what we're voting on with what.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Then to clarify, that is the motion. The qualified certification vote separate from the any fiscal reserve in those two grouped together.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: So to be clear, you're voting on the first interim. Right? You're not voting on a certification. You're adopting it with a proposed qualified certification, the first interim report, and then you're separate separately taking up the idea of the board's reserve policy and the creation and transfer to fund 17. That is correct.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I mean

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Thank you for that clarification.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: Much appreciated.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: That is what you're asking

[Speaker 51.0]: for? Yes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. And that is what you've seconded?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. Where's my little? Okay. So is there any discussion about that item? Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: My question relates to whether splitting this vote has any impacts that again, this is this is coming up now for the first time splitting the vote, and I I just wanna understand what the impact is of doing this. Does it cause a problem for does it cause any problems we should be aware of, including for the upcoming vote on December 16 on the fiscal stabilization plan?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: No. So we try to keep our financial our major financial reports to single points in time, adoption, first interim, second interim. Right? And so what you will see or what you should see, both now and in the future, is you should see the package of all fiscal actions that are being proposed for you to take in every four month period. Right? So that's what's being done tonight. And remember that the creation of the reserve in a reserve policy is something the board has passed a resolution and has policy on. So I would also suggest if that is not the intended action that you take them back because I will continue to act on what the board has asked us to do instead of changing or moving the target in situ. Right? Like, that's really difficult, for staff to do especially with all the work involved. So I would ask that the board go back and and be very clear on what it is it wants with the resolutions and the policies it passes.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I don't I don't I just wanna say

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I just wanna go to commissioner Gupta. Go for it.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: So so I think we're we're talking about two different things. And I I just wanna be clear because I mean, what I the the number that I'm primarily focused on is and and please correct me if I'm wrong, deputy superintendent, is on slide nine, we have twenty five twenty six first interim projection and we have the net surplus or short shortfall. And I see a shortfall of of 51,500,000.0. Is that correct?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. That's that's assuming we spend everything that people have submitted as their budget. So that's the worst case scenario. Correct?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: That is the worst case scenario. So we are we are basically I mean, if we're using the the analogy of someone's bank account right now, I'm spending more than I'm taking in. Now we can I I think I think what I'm hearing in terms of what we ultimately have to sign on the fiscal stabilization plan, what I look forward to further clarification from the superintendent, perhaps the deputy superintendent is how did the priorities in terms of social workers or others kind of rise to the top and what is the, I guess, you know, thinking or or or analysis or evidence behind that that, you know, I I think what I'm hearing is we need to hear more? The the public needs to hear more around that. But in terms of, you know, I I will say, you know, we did have a resolution around creating a a reserve. And, you know, I've I've been working in nonprofits and public institutions for over thirty years. Two months is pretty standard. And I will say at a time where we look at our federal government and the fact that our federal government has tried to build Gus of money a couple times now, it is frankly it's, like, irresponsible when when our federal government is trying to take money away from us, literally sometimes out of our bank account, which then means we can't pay educators, administrators, our staff, making sure, you know, people can get a paycheck when 84% of our budget is people to try to kind of float by with no reserve whatsoever. I mean, I look at 20,000,000 and I'm like, oh my gosh. 20,000,000 on a $1,300,000,000 budget is like paper thin. Like, there's like barely anything there. We're, like, that close to insolvency. I mean, we're we're trying to get out of state control where, you know, basically, we can't make any decisions as a board because they can get vetoed tomorrow. We've seen the threat of that already. And as much as I hate, you know, the fact that we have to set up these reserves when we see so many cuts in our our communities given so much, I mean, frankly, I don't think we really I mean, 20,000,000 in, like, the face of a of an aggressively anti education federal government that gives us 50,000,000 a year at least. And we're like that close. So, I mean, I I would love to hear more solutions in terms of what we could possibly do. But, I mean, like, I I just I don't I don't see it.

[Speaker 12.0]: Please. Can

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: I'm sorry. Just commissioner Rake not commissioner Rake. Gupta, I I just wanna just to emphasize that our monthly payroll is 60,000,000.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: 68.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: 68. Our our monthly payroll is 68,000,000. This is not gonna be a $111,000,000. It's it's not even going to be enough to cover for two months.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: So Yeah. Yeah. You can all look. So we've been doing something else that the CDE wanted us to do, which is every month on your consent agenda, you are now seeing all the warrants. What are warrants? You have two warrants published that you're approving every month now. One is the total amount of payroll paid two months prior and one is the all the other expenses going out of the district two months prior. If you add those two up, they average between a $101,130,000,000 dollars a month. Right? That's why that's why we're coming up with that calculation.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So I'm gonna go back to are there questions about the motion to split the vote? Sorry. No. It's fine. Roll call vote, please.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: To split the vote. Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta. No. Commissioner, vice president Healy.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Wiseman Ward. No. And president Kim. No. That's four ayes. Passes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. So we're gonna go into the first conversation about the first interim report and and it would be appropriate for there to be an introduction of a motion to adopt the first interim report.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move that we adopt the first interim report as presented by staff. Thank you very much.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Second. Are

[Phil Kim, Board President]: there any questions or discussion on this first interim report? Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Thank you very much for this report. And first of all, I am so excited that we have more staff at the table with us. So thank you very much. I look forward to working with you. And I second what Commissioner Ray said about it's exciting to hear that we have finally someone in charge of position control. So thank you so much. My one of my questions particularly so we did hear public comment from the CAC treasurer who is in finance herself. And so when she makes a public comment, I know we don't respond to public comment. But, looking at slide 10, there's a there's negative expenditures of $5,300,000 savings from ending 93 vacant positions and aligning budget to actual projected. How many of those are spread? Okay. Are any are we closing positions in special education? Because that comment and the concern about our maintenance of efforts made me very concerned.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: No. So we would need to align provision of service with staff before we could determine to close vacant positions in SPED. However, to clarify maintenance of effort, the statement was made that it can never go down. It can only go up and that's not accurate either.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: If we reduce our special education budget, we have to have a really good explanation for it.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Well, yeah. It could be anything from fewer students to we stopped a really expensive program, but those annual reports are very nuanced. We we're pretty expert at them and it doesn't mean that they can't go down. It sounds like you know that too. So it it was a little bit of an overstatement.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: So I I just as much as we've been hearing, from community, I think I wanna save the rest of my comments for, the for the reserve conversation in a minute. So but thank you very much. And it is super exciting to be sitting here voting on Qualified. Thank you for all the work. This has been a heavy lift for staff and our families. You know, this is a lot of pain that's gotten us here. And so when we but when and I do the one thing I will say is when we do talk about stabilization and we use the term stabilization, like if you walk into an emergency room, if you want to stabilize

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Fisher, is this related to

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: It is very much related to my vote. Yes, thank you very much. But when we stop because stabilization has been such a key term. When you walk into an emergency room and you stabilize a patient that's having a heart attack, you don't stabilize them with the same resources that you use. You don't just give them statins like you would use if they had AFib. You know, you're going to throw a ton of extra resources. And we're seeing from community in a lot of the things that are happening over the past couple weeks and months, we need a lot of resources in community to stabilize our community and that's exactly what our social workers and our wellness teams are doing. And so thank you all for the work.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: You did have a question. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Deputy superintendent, I'm gonna be quick so we can get through this. So I saw there is negative 4,000,000 in terms of lease and rental projected. Will we see further report on what we're doing with our real estate portfolio and whether there's an opportunity to increase revenue?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. Yes. Preview. So, we are doing a best use study now, with some real estate experts. We don't have as robust of a portfolio as some might think for a district our size, but we are going to be bringing and I would like this the board to have a study session in the in the early summer to look at the portfolio and give me some guidance on where they would like to go with it because that's what I need to be able to actually monetize that. Currently, we're seeing a decrease in leases because we do have tenants leaving our our lease spaces. Lease space is becoming less desirable in in the city as you I'm sure you're aware. But also we haven't maintained it very well. So we've taken a lot of money out of our spaces that rent, but we've actually put nothing into them, which has made them less desirable. So this is the first year that we're starting to try to keep them up and improve them a little bit as tenants go in and out, but we are seeing a net decrease.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Sorry. I forgot to take turn off my thing. It it it would be great to see, you know, I understand you have to spend a little money to make some money. So if there is a proposal or a strategy to do so, I mean, I speaking as one commissioner, I would love to see it, in the future. I understand you have a lot of work right now. Second question I had was, I notice I I understand that there will be further you'll come back to us with SPED funding and or or more more detail around, our SPED programming. This is something that certainly keeps me up at night. I noticed there is an increase of $3,400,000 for SPED transportation costs. Any indication when we look at overall SPED again understanding that there will be more detail later, whether the spud budgetary assumptions are conservative or whether we're expecting a significant variance in either direction at this point?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Everybody's smiling and looking at me. I I I really am going to put off answering that. Right? I I don't like guessing for the board. I tend to be too much of a data person. So I would ask that you let me really get my arms around it. Nira will be a great help in that. She's she's expert at that. I would I have thought at different times that, yes, it's gonna go up and, yes, it's gonna go down and the more I dig, the more uncertain I am. So so I would ask us to please wait until the new year because I really just don't wanna guess for you.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: I I appreciate that and I'd appreciate that certainty as well. The last question I have and I know you've worked significantly with the state, Correct me if I'm wrong but there's still a state determination to be made this year for Prop 98 funding, is that correct? And I know state legislatures have tried Prop 98 maneuvers in the past. Do you have any assumptions around 98 built into this budget reading?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: No. However, since we did this over the last three weeks, I have been notified by the LAO that they are reducing or planning on recommending the reduction of our increase next year by a full 1%. So that we anticipate seeing in the governor's January budget presentation. And the state is struggling financially and they are floating the typical array of things to help the state such as deferring our apportionments which is again one of the reasons that I I I sort of talked about that earlier with the reserve policy.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: So it So that seems like something that we, as a board, should certainly lobby our state legislators as well as families and our labor partners.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yeah. Yeah. A a a deferral, for a district our size, would potentially put me in the position of having to do interfund borrowing or even taking out a bank note in order to pay expenses, which means that the cost of business goes up dramatically in a very rapid manner, especially if we don't have a place to draw from to health.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So I'm gonna just ask, are there questions that may change the outcome of your vote?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: I'm done.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Thank you. Thank you for your

[Phil Kim, Board President]: work. Matt.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I appreciate your effort to try to shorten things, but this is a this is a really critically important topic and it's 11:30 at night. I get it. But, like, it's like I think that part of the problem is that we're having this discussion at the end of the agenda. And I would just like to request that in the future, we do some planning around this. Because I mean, this is I think that's where it's there's tension. Because I want to get out of here too. But it's like, I have some things I wanted to ask about. So I don't know. Well, I'm I'm gonna vote for the first interim because we need to adopt it, but I have things I wanna so I guess that's why I'm Yeah.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I mean, what I would say, if there were questions around clarification around the budget report, they should have been asked in the q and a document. If you have follow-up questions that you wanna ask that get to more detail about some things, I think my question would be

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: if It's a more big picture thing.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Okay. Why don't you ask it? We'll

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Okay. I'll try to be brief. I I guess I wanna ask about revenue assumptions because I think and I've maybe mentioned this in a private briefing, but I don't think I've said this in public, and I think it's important to say. I've in the last five years I've been on the board, every single year, I think I maybe I said this earlier, there have been projections of big deficits that haven't come to pass. So, like, 2021, I was sitting here in December, they were predicting a $113,000,000 deficit for the 2223 school year. By March, March 2 interim was a $1,125,000,000 deficit. We approved layoffs of a 150 credentialed teachers, 30 SEIU members, 20 administrators. By the end of the 2223 school year, the actual, spending showed that we had a surplus of a $138,000,000 that would have more than covered the projected deficit the previous December. Every year since then, it's been not as bad. That was probably the most the worst year, but it's been like that. So I guess I just wanna know again, this is when I hear the public saying, do we really have to cut these social workers, I wanna know, like, do we really know? Because every year at this time, the revenue assumptions are always much lower than what we actually end up getting for the last five years. And so I guess I wanna know like what is the what are the revenue assumptions based on now? Is it different than what people have been doing here for the last five years? What can we expect in terms of that?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: I'm so loud normally. I just assume the microphone's on. Apologies. So, I can't speak to what was done the the past five years. I not I am not seeing mass massive revenue misstatements. I'm seeing that the budget assumptions were so high that that it looked artificially as if the ending fund balance would be lower because we would just take everybody's budget and add it together whether we had enough money on paper to pay for it or not and just let it roll. And that's not a good budget control. Just like you wouldn't run your house that way. But it it wasn't on the revenue side. Now, the revenues we are better at because people hadn't been trained and taught how to accurately predict the revenues using the state assumptions. I fixed that and I I told the board that, I think, the first month after getting here. And so your unrestricted general fund, your revenues are are very stable. Right? And we should be able any variance and this is what you should look for in an interim report. Any variance of that, we should list out what it is, which is what we're doing here. Right? Here's the pluses. Here's the minuses so that we can tell you what we found out during the course of the last four months. Right? The restricted side, you're seeing that adjustment now because people weren't doing the re the restricted as as well and so we've sort of tightening that up, but we are so also getting new revenues in. So I don't see that big variance there. Now, your question to, are people still submitting budgets district wide for which they don't really have high hopes of spending so they're overstating our potential budget deficit? Yes, that's possible and the only way we're gonna correct that is by pulling back the funds so that we don't let them budget for money that we don't have. That's about balancing the budget now and and there will be things if you wanna balance the unrestricted side that will need to to stop. Right?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: When I and I thought that that latter point you just made was the cause of some of this big variances, but when I looked back and maybe this is a longer conversation that we could have offline, but I think it needs to be brought back to the public of I was shocked by the variance in revenue. Again, starting in sometimes by by June budget, it was better, but by, like, this and maybe this is just bad predictions, but December, the first interim and second interim projections for the following year were these enormous deficits. And it was like the sky is falling. We have to do layoffs. We have to cut all the staff. But then in some years, by by the June budget, it was like, oh, no. No. No. Actually, we're gonna be okay. Some years, we made some cuts and then, you know so I guess but I I just for the I just having been through this now, I'm having a little bit of PTSD. Like, I'm it's gonna be hard for me to vote to to to cut because I've done it and then I've been burned. You know what I mean? I feel like the boy it's the boy You're

[Phil Kim, Board President]: just not voting to cut today.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: So No. No. I understand. But next week, we are and I just think I wanna make sure that the revenue assumptions when we make that vote.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: You are so to be clear,

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: right, you are not voting to cut next next week. You are voting to have a plan in place in the event that you do need to cut because revenue assumptions will change with the January budget proposal, the May budget. That's what you have to do and that's required because we have not always spent less than we're getting. We do have actual deficits, right? So that's why it's a requirement of a negative and a qualified certification. Right? But that's but that's still the requirement.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Hi. I I don't wanna beat a dead horse here but I'm still I'm still kind of confused. I I I just wanna clarify if possible. Any particular thing listed in the fiscal stabilization plan for for next, meeting, for instance, social workers or t 10 secondurity people or middle school, health teachers, any given item on there, does our vote on the fiscal stabilization plan or the reserve tie us to any particular, you know, any particular line or or proposed cut in the fiscal stabilization plan?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Does it tie you? No. But your voting and taking action on it tells us to prepare for the eventuality that we have to make those cuts so that you can meet your statutory deadlines on March 15 that are required by the state. So so that's what that's needed for.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: If you have a question about the stabilization plan, that'll be next week. If it's the reserve, it'll be in the next item. But do you have something related to this first interim report?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: The main thing I wanna make sure is that we're what we're doing today isn't locking us into something for for next week. That that was what my question is aimed at. So, I can I think I can follow-up with other things later? Like, you know, perhaps we could have discussions or you could provide some more information to us about what might be required, for instance, to fund social workers or fund particular things. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Are there any other questions that may impact the outcome of your vote? Okay. Roll call vote, please.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Point of clarification.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes. Sorry.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: If I if this in the hypothetical that this passes and the reserve item doesn't pass, I assume this would then be adjusted. The first interim would be re just adjusted to reflect that.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Yes.

[Speaker 20.0]: Right.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Saks forms would have to be adjusted for submission to the state.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Yes.

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

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Gupta? Vice President Heeling?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I'm just confirming this is the vote on the first interim. Yes. Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Sorry. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And President Kim.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: That is six ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: There should be a motion on the floor to introduce a second item, which is the fiscal reserve policy and resolution. I introduce or I motion to approve the Fund 17 resolution and fiscal reserve policy. Do we have a second?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Questions, comments from the board? And I would specify questions and comments Specific. Specific to this item.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I already said what I thought. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Yeah. I do. I I very much do. And it is I will keep it specific to the reserve. I will respect my fellow commissioner's time. And I appreciate commissioner Alexander's time and the comments he made earlier. And and I I tend to agree with the logic of, you know, if this is we could do so much to save money in the long run by appropriately investing this money right now. Like, for example, we cut all of our teacher pipeline and pathway programs a couple years ago. Right? And so now we are paying a lot of money that we don't need to pay for non public agencies, you know, for under credentialed folks who are costing us a lot of well intentioned folks who don't necessarily have all the training they need to do the work that needs to happen in our schools. Could we take a portion of this and rebuild those those like, how could we use this money that we have to invest? Invest, invest, invest to so that in the long run, we do end up saving money. So I am not arguing at all. We absolutely need to build our reserves. Absolutely. When we have payroll that, you know, is, is tens of millions of dollars, our reserve is not gonna cover one payroll. I think this is the tension. It's a yes, and. So that's where I would agree that perhaps we can slowly incrementally work to getting to that 10%. But the way we're spending now, you know, it's it's like the expression, you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Right? What can we make those ounce investments to save ourselves the pounds over the next couple years.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Is that a question?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Can we I guess the question is, would would we all be willing to revise? I mean, especially hearing so okay. So, yes, the question is, are we willing to revise this? I I don't think I I struggle to be able to vote yes on this right now. One, I'm I'm not sure, you know, like and even with our guardrails, you know, like, before any major decisions like this are being made, like, guardrail one is we're supposed to, work with community and get their feedback first. And the we did have budget conversations, thank you very much, but this this is coming at a huge shock to community, which we've gotta move fast. I get that. But I just Commissioner Fisher.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Fisher. Ma'am. Can I just let's just speak to the the, my brain is beginning to melt, but so the ounce of prevention thing? If if we look at the amount of monies that the district takes in to support our schools, For this year, we are looking at $744,000,000. We have expenditures that reach up to $796,000,000. And so there is this significant gap. And if we are saying that we're going to use one time dollars even if we spread it over multiple years, we just need to be very, very aware that we're using multi one time dollars to pay for expenses that are gonna be ongoing. And so, essentially, we're kicking the can down the road. And I think that that is a intentional decision that we need to make because the revenue that we get from the state for the number of students we have is is just this amount, and the cost to run the district is a is a much larger amount. So, again, this is a decision that, we can make together, as a governance team.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Well, and I appreciate that feedback. I I just I think that we are also missing a lot of funding streams. And actually being at CSBA last year or last week, when they talked a lot about the ELOP funding and braiding that with the children's health, the youth, the c what, CYHBI funding.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Question about the creation of the reserve, though.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Yeah. Well, yeah. It absolutely is because I think there's a lot of strategic and they could be one time investments. Like, there's a community, wellness coordinator that would be a one time investment in training someone that then pays off dividends. So I'm not so I I am I'm asking are there ways that we can strategically use this money now in one time ways to build programming, to train people, to do the things we need to do that pay the dividends later that stop costing us so much money?

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Yes. Again, that is a choice that this that we, as a governance team, can make if we're using one time dollars to pay for things that will end. And and I think these are these are things that we can come together and and decide on.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Vice versa. Just Commissioner Weissman.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: And thank you, Deborah. I think that I I feel like I can start to take this down a little bit. I think you adjusted the temperature. Thanks. Chris has still got his head on.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Homay was, like, jiggling.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yeah. It's feeling

[Speaker 20.0]: a little better.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yeah. No. It is. Yeah.

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Homay went over there and

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Okay. Although maybe the cold will keep us awake. But so I have a slightly different perspective in terms of ounce of prevention and I I I view this as, like, this is we are preventing other things by having this money, in this reserve account. We are preventing not if something goes haywire, not being able to not pay our educators and stuff. So I think it's it's also looking at, like, what is it that we're aiming to prevent? I also I feel like it's a a little disingenuous to see we're hearing, you know, why aren't we using this money for social workers, wellness centers? That is not one time money. And so I I I wanna be really clear. I I'm not saying that we can't use it in other ways, but that's not responsive to necessarily what we're hearing. And I don't want us to think, oh, well, that that the two are necessarily pitted against each other because as I see it, this money would not be for social workers because then the same thing's gonna happen every year. We don't have any money for your position again and that we've already heard that feels terrible to every year and not know, do I have a job or not? So while there may be other ways to address sort of could we use this one time funds? What I'm hearing is we need money for wellness centers, for chows, for t tens, for social workers, and that is an important conversation, and this is a different conversation. So

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yeah. And just to build on that, I yes. Do we need to better budget for our dollars that are coming in? Absolutely. Do we need to do a better job of cleaning up our budget? Absolutely. Do we need to make sure that the swing at the end of the year goes down? Yes. And what I'm hearing loud and clear from you all is that the money that going that is going to this Fund seventeen account are drawing from our fund balance at the end of the year, which is money that we cannot use on personnel. Well, let me reframe that. That our advisers that you all are telling us should not be spent on personnel and ongoing expenses because these are one time funds. Is that right?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Correct. You don't spend one time money on ongoing expenses. But the other thing I wanna highlight, and you just said it, but and and so did commissioner Weissman to word a little bit. And and we do have a CDE advisor in the room tonight. I'm I'm waiting for her to throw something at the back of my head. Tina, I know you're back there. The idea because because the finances have not dramatically shifted since last I presented to you. But the idea that we're talking about how to not cut and how to spend what we do have left when I when we have the first movement in years and the CDE is saying they need to see the discipline demonstrated by the board is not lost on me and I'm sure it's not lost on her. I'm waiting for the phone call after the meeting and it's it's frankly pretty late. So I would ask that, yeah, you keep those things in mind that you told me were your goals this year, which is what I'm bringing to you. Correct.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: So I actually don't have anything else to do. Vice president Huling?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yeah. So, I mean, I just wanna ask some clarifying questions that I think I know the answer to, but I just wanna make sure everyone understands. If we use this money to pay salaries, we would just be in a position where we would then run out of money in a year or two and be back in negative fiscal certification. Right?

[Speaker 20.0]: Correct.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: And we did have a real deficit last year to the tune of about $48,000,000. Correct?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: 46.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: 46. So we're and that is where, essentially, our bills were more than our salary to analogize to a household. Like

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Correct.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: And that's what distinguishes one time dollars from recurring dollars. Like, your salary is your recurring dollars. You're gonna get that every year, so you wanna make sure your bills are less than your salary. Whereas this is more akin to, like, a bonus. This is essentially the bone the COVID bonus money that we weren't able to spend. And so we don't wanna use it on getting a new phone plan or, like, recurring bills where it's just gonna be spent down. And then once it is, we're going to have to give that thing up anyway. And is that accurate?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: Well, you can I I I can't overstep? You're the you're the board. You can do what you want. The advice I'm providing you is consistent with your stated goals and the guidance that we've received from CDE.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yeah. I I just want everyone to understand that we're in this position in many ways because we have avoided making hard decisions and avoided rightsizing our bills with our income. And the way to get out of this cycle is to right size our bills to our income, our our recurring dollars to our recurring spending, and also have a good emergency fund. And so this is the creation of that emergency fund. And that our goal as a board, I believe, I believe I can speak for the board, is to get out of this cycle of budgeting for positions that we do not have long term money to fund and then having to send layoff notices every year. And our goal, I think, also is to have a sustainable budget that allows us to essentially preplan for and save up for known labor raises and increases so that we don't end up in positions every time we have open contracts where we don't have any money because we're already running a deficit. So if we start making these decisions, it's not to create austerity forever. It's to get us on a more stable footing where we can come to the table with real money the next time we have labor negotiations because we've actually created a sustainable financial future for the district and gotten out of this cycle of things slips.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: But I I don't that's a misrepresentation of what I'm but that's a misrepresentation of what I'm trying to say.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: It's not responsive to you. I just want

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Well, I There

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: have been a lot of questions, for example, from the public around, like, why don't we spend today's dollars on today's students? Or why like, are we having to cut more money in order to fund the creation of this account? Because I just wanna be really clear to the public that we're gonna have to make the same cuts to balance our budget regardless of whether we create this fund or not.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: But I don't think that's true. That's the point I'm trying to get across, and I'll use your analogy.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: I'm I again, I'm not responding to you. I'm I just am asking questions that I think are useful to clarify to the public based on public feedback that I have heard in my listening.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Move us to commissioner Ray.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Can I just make can I finish the the equivalent analogy, please?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Can I have commissioner Ray go and then we'll come back? Yes. Of course. Commissioner Ray. Oh, sorry. Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I actually love that we're having this conversation, and I think we need to have it again. I mean, a a continued version of it that not at midnight because I think it's because I think this con regardless of how the vote comes out on the reserve, I think I mean, at the end of the day, the money as you pointed out earlier, deputy superintendent, the money is still in our fund balance. It's it whether it's in fund one or fund 17, it's frankly a question of, like, tracking it and just and and, you know, so on one level but but I think it's an I think this conversation is really important. And I think some things that are coming up for me and I think this for me, it has to do with my experience. I said I was sort of experiencing a little bit of PTSD on this because every single year I've been on the board since 2021, there has been a projected deficit. And so when we talk about deficits in SFUSD, they've always been projected. Because every single year until this past year, there has been a surplus at the end of the year. So the actual thing that happened, the actual spending in in 2021 twenty twenty twenty one was a $65,000,000 surplus. This is total general fund, restricted and unrestricted together. In 2122, a $149,000,000 surplus. In 2223, a $120,000,000 surplus. In 2324, a $40,000,000 surplus. And then last year, 2425, a $37,000,000 deficit. Right? So that adds up even including the deficit over five years, a $337,000,000 surplus, actual. So that's why we have all this money. That's why we can stick a $100,000,000 in a reserve fund because we've been not spending the money. I think, is the perhaps the over budgeting, some of that is under assuming revenue.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: To clarify, if you line those years up, I would encourage you to go back further. Those were the COVID years. That's the extra money I'm talking about. Prior to that, we did not run surpluses like that.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Oh, okay. But but my point is that those were all also and those were incorrect budgeting, and we also had bad budgeting practices. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why that happened. So the but the point is we now have this huge fund balance. Right? And so I think the question for the board in terms of the reserve is I'm I absolutely think we should create a reserve. I think we may even be able to create a reserve. I mean, we have so much fund balance that we maybe we could do that and pay for the social workers. I I don't I think that's my question. Like, I don't I don't know that I guess my question around the cuts is how much do we really need to cut this year, again, as opposed to using some of this money, which was not one time money when we got it? Like, it was supposed to be spent, you know, some of that money was one time money, but some of it was just general operating money that we didn't spend. But in any case, it's today's money and and I I got an email from a parent saying, my kids are in the schools today. Why are you all taking all this money, putting it over there? What about my kid? And I do think we have a responsibility as a board to we have these resources. Right? So we need to weigh, is the pain of cutting the social workers worth the trade off? Right? And and I guess my question would be, could we do some of both? My concern with this with this the Fund 17 issue is more just the timing. It's like it was wasn't posted with the original agenda, seventy two hours in advance. This is a really important conversation and I just think we need more time to have it. And I think we need to decide authentically, like, what do we need to really cut? Because like I said, I've been through it and I I know my time's out but I'll I'll stop it. Like, I've voted for layoffs, I've voted for budget balancing plans, And then every single time, come the following year, it's like, oh, we have a surplus. And I'm not gonna do that again. And I think and that's what so if we cut these social workers, for example, and the t tens, all these people, and then we end up with a surplus, how do we look those families in the eye and say, what we were not responsible stewards of the taxpayer dollars? And so I think I just I need to be convinced. I I haven't see seen the evidence that that the that that's that that's really necessary. And I think, again, I don't I'm not trying to be fiscally irresponsible or any of that, but it's it's really based on the experience I've had over five years on the board. And every other time, I just followed the recommendation. So

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Thank you. I also really appreciate this discussion because I think it is an important discussion for us to have. And while we would all rather not be having it at this time, this is when it's coming up. That is not something we can change for today. But I very much appreciate that we are talking about things that the public is asking about and has legitimate questions and concerns about. There's obviously also a gap in information between, you know, what staff has and what the board has and what the public has. We don't all have the same information. So the more that we can actually put this stuff out in the open, the better. I very much appreciate people taking the time to do this. I was actually going to raise a point that commissioner Alexander just raised, which was the way that this came up, something that has turned out to be a major flashpoint for the public and having this come up functionally three days beforehand. So this was kind of a surprise to folks, and it is a big thing. And especially in our current fiscal circumstances, I can understand why it's it's very upsetting. Based on the the questions that I've asked today and the answers I've gotten, it seems to me like it could well be possible to do the, the reserve and also, find a way to fund social workers. Like, that is something that I I had asked about, you know, could we are we tied in some sense? And so I would like to learn more about that from staff in the next week or however much time we have. But I think when we bring things up like this, you know, in the future, it's really helpful and important for us to put them out in time for people to be able to think about them, to get proper information, and so forth. So that that's just something that I wanna bring forward. If there was a particular reason it wasn't raised before, I guess I would like to know that. And I'd also, like to know you mentioned our our fiscal advisers. If they do have any comments they want wanna had have, I would welcome that. From my perspective right now, it doesn't seem impossible to me to vote for the reserve and also find some way potentially to fund items. So thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Agutta?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I had the question both for the advisers and if is is there a particular reason this didn't come up until Friday?

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: So I believe I I put this I don't know who asked the question. Somebody asked that question. Remember that your twelve day rule specifically referenced that some of our budgetary timelines can't fit within the twelve day rules and meet the statutory reporting requirements. And so the timeline I believe I laid out in your questionnaire for last week, I believe it was, is why didn't we have a twelve days in advance? Well, the books for October don't close until November 15 And then we had Thanksgiving, and I already had in fact, I'm waiting for the knives to go through my back behind me. I had people working overtime on the holiday just to get it done for Friday.

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: My question wasn't about that.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: Oh, okay. I was talking

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: about the reserve. It has not to do with the first interim. I was asking why the point about the reserve wasn't brought forward earlier for, you know, because it doesn't seem directly

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: We just no. We just when we when we do an interim report, we we post all the resolutions together. That's just our practice. We can change that and when I say our it's just the way that most most districts do it, they do all of the fiscal items as a package for the interim reports. But that was the only reason why because the first interim wasn't done yet.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes. The the the fiscal adviser question. Do they have comments?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: I I weren't approached. If Elliot,

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Dushawn, or

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Tina, I I don't know if they want to, but if they do, I wanted to provide that opportunity.

[Chris Mount-Benitez, Deputy Superintendent, Business Services]: I I see

[Phil Kim, Board President]: her coming.

[Tina (CDE Fiscal Advisor)]: Good evening, commissioners. Comments. So the district has made great strides in trying to correct its fiscal solvency issues. You're just now making a lot of these decisions that have should have been made previously, whatever. I think what Chris mentioned in terms of the ending fund balance is very true with COVID money. We saw it everywhere. So it is not giving you an accurate picture in terms of the long term deficit that you would have been seeing. So in order to stay positive or stay qualified at this point, you need to make some hard decisions. And unfortunately, that is you are still deficit spending and you are projecting to deficit spend. And that, as Chris has mentioned before, does not include any salary increases. So although we see good things happening, you're still in a structural deficit situation. And if those if the decision hard decisions aren't made, it's like someone said kicking the can down the road. So that's kind of what I see. I don't know. Elliot, what if you want to say anything.

[Elliott Duchon, CDE Fiscal Advisor]: Yeah. I want to comment on on two things. The discussion about social workers, you pay for them out of your restricted funds almost entirely or out of the semi restricted funds in your LCFF. That's not the decision you have before you tonight. It's where to park a $111,000,000. Do you let it drop to the ending balance of the general fund unrestricted general fund or do you set it aside in a fund you're semi restricting but you can un restrict? It's it's not a decision of how you spend that money. And we would highly recommend you don't make that decision right now at this point in the budget year. There's a lot of things that have to follow. And you did not this year make the decision on your final funding of what were called the supplementary positions at the school site. That's an entirely different conversation. So, you you know, maybe I'm oversimplifying this, but I I think what your CBO, what mister Montes Benitez is trying to do is set aside this money and saying this is in reserve if you need it. And if you spend it on anything, it becomes ongoing and you're gonna have to turn around and lay people off next year with that money. So I think there's two different conversations here. One is next year's budget, which you're gonna work on the first step and is again, as Chris said, in your fiscal stabilization plan is really a commitment to make that balance, not where to put this money. And Tina's right. We we also want it. I mean, lost in all this. We wanna say how good a job the district did by eliminating positions that have been on the books for years. And and commissioner Alexander, that's been part of the issue is you've been you've had positions that didn't get filled for year after year and that's being cleaned up and you have a much better picture right now.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner I don't even know where we're at. Commissioner?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I'll I'll just go quick and I wanna start with an apology to vice president Huling. I should not have interrupted nor jumped down your throat or and president Kim, thank you for dealing with my interruptions with grace. Thank you both. Every day. Every day.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Not needed, but I get it.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I do want to continue with I appreciate all the agreed. This is a great conversation. I'll just get to the point. Continue with that house analogy, cause that really, I think, is a great analogy. And I what I would like us to do I'm not suggesting that while we've got a mortgage, we go out and take a vacation to Hawaii and buy another car and get a brand new iPhone. I'm suggesting that we take some of this windfall, this bonus, whatever you wanna call it, and put it towards the principal on our house payment, you know, so that over time, our principal and our interest and our payments are lowered. Like, where are our opportunities to do that? You know, that's that's what I'm asking for right now. I think it's a yes and and I'm not saying take all 111,000,000. But I do think that there are some very strategic investments, one time investments we could make that could end up reducing our overall costs in other areas. And so that's where I'm hoping, you know, that we are if we're gonna kick the can down the road, that we're kicking it down the road in a positive way that's that's going to reduce our costs. And do we need to leave? Is there a fire alarm going on or It's

[Phil Kim, Board President]: just the security door.

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Okay.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: That we

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: have to deactivate the

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: Okay. Alright. Just checking. Okay.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: That is that's

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: a sign.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: That's a

[Mr. Trujillo, Public Comment Moderator]: sign. That's alright.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Gupta, bring us home, please. Okay.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: So I just wanna acknowledge commissioner Alexander's point because I think what Commissioner Alexander is pointing to is a lack of good financial control. And I think Deputy Superintendent went through it in terms of what has been practiced, which is just crazy to me when I hear it in terms of people adding into the budget and they're not being good financial control. They're not being good position control. So, you know, independent, if even if we had COVID money, you'd expect to be able to figure out this is the amount that we have at the end and, you know, have within a 10% budget variance, which is generally good practice. And so I I understand where this kind of lack of trust both with our partners, our community members, as well as Commissioner Alexander who served longer than any of us here. No shade. It's a honor. Kinda comes from, you know, that that having been said, I mean, I I have I I appreciate the analysis that's been done and a lot of the controls in a very short period of time that

[Speaker 46.0]: have been put into place.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: I mean, even the fact that we've been able to get this after, you know, what, it was November 15 and then you had from November 15 till December 5 to basically put together $1,300,000,000 budget, you know, kudos to to you all. I mean this is this is phenomenal. I will say on slide 11, I just want to call attention, I think the deputy superintendent mentioned this, We do use our reserves in order to get to, you know, a multiyear fiscal stabilization plan. If you look on slide eleven twenty twenty six to 2027, '27 to '28, Deanna signed an appropriated amount goes down to zero. So for us to be able to get to positive certification, you know, I I mean, like, there there is there is a certain mastery of this where it's sort of like, oh, wow. Okay. We are we're we're holding this back so that I mean, technically, we're not even gonna get to the the month or the two months anytime soon as far as I can tell because we still have, you know, we still have contracts to negotiate and we we kind of have to use this in order to get to that plan which then puts us into positive certification which then restores gets us to a point where we can restore local control. So I, you know, I I mentioned that because I've heard a couple times now, well, we have enough to both, you know, get the reserve and then get social workers. Don't get me wrong. We do need to have the conversation next week around where we're allocating, how that decision was made because I'll I'll be honest, when I've gone to a couple of these budget conversations, they see more of in that spectrum more of an inform than necessarily collaborate. So let's have that conversation. To me, that's a separate conversation as far as what do we cut how do we work with, say, our administrative partners to be able to hear them and and understand, you know, if we do have to make these these cuts, how are we kind of circling the wagons together to be able to say, here's where we need to cut, here's, you know, it's gonna be painful but, you know, here's what we do rather than potentially, you know, what I'm hearing is people feel like they're being told your social workers are gone. So that to me is a separate conversation but, you know, in terms of the reserve, like, this is, you know, like, you look at this, this has been carefully crafted so that we can get to positive certification in record time. So, you know, I I appreciate that and I I see I see you all in terms of what you're trying to do and thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I think we are ready to vote on this second item. Roll call vote please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Fund seventeen reserve. Commissioner Alexander?

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: No.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Fisher? No. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Hilling?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Yes.

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

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: And President Kim?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Yes. That is five eyes. Thank you. Oh, I don't think you're staying for this other matter. So thank you very much for all of your work. Just did what commissioner Gupta said. Moving to item I four, employment contracts for district executive employees. Can I have a motion and a second, please?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move, item I42512Dash9SP3, employment contract for district executive employees.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Second. I will call the superintendent to bring this item forward.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: I can start it. You may start? This item brings approval of an agreement for the assistant superintendent of student and family services division and an amendment to the employment agreement for the technology services officer.

[Luis R. Martinez, General Counsel]: Thank you. Tonight, the board will be considering two items. First, the board will be considering the approval of an employment agreement with Caldwell Paine as the assistant superintendent of student and family services division. This agreement will commence on 12/10/2025 and run through 06/30/2027. The salary placement for the assistant superintendent of Student and Family Services Division will be salary grade six, step six of the managerial salary table. The other item for the board's consideration is the approval of a first amendment with the employment agreement with Eddie Ngo as the technology services officer. This first amendment will extend the original employment agreement only through 06/30/2026. No other term or condition will change.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Are there any questions or comments from the board? Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray, Commissioner]: Thank you so much, president Kim. I'm gonna speak tonight because I want to explain why I am going to be voting no again on these contracts. As folks who've been watching board meetings may know, I've been objecting to contracts that have been coming before us for months, fundamentally due to issues with transparency and community input. These are matters of process, but I don't think they're for process's sake. They are key to good decision making and public trust. For those who are unfamiliar with the board's policies and practices, the district has, for years, publicly posted employment contracts for high level hires by the Friday prior to our board meetings. Several months ago, the superintendent unilaterally decided to change this process, and one of the results has been that the names of people the district proposes to hire are redacted. They are blacked out and not released until the meeting. I've repeatedly asked the superintendent to bring her process before the board so we can have public input, so we can discuss it, and, you know, and vote on it if needed, and that hasn't happened. So the contracts being presented tonight show, from my perspective, how absurd this new policy can be. Consider that we with regard to the technology services off officer, we actually redacted the name of the person who is already serving in our district in that position. We're extending a contract for mister Ngo, who we hired for this position months ago and whose name is on our our documents, our websites, all over the place. I I just find this incredibly, incredibly problematic, and I think it doesn't speak well for our district. Even if it's well meaning, it looks like we're hiding things from the public. The other contract, which is for the assistant superintendent of student family services, is actually also a current employee here. So, like, I've often heard people refer to confidentiality or fear of retaliation from other employers as a justification for redacting names, but that cannot possibly be those cannot be the issues in this case. So we regularly hear from people that they want transparency and that we need to build trust. I think we're undermining those critical values, So I will, again, have to vote no on the proposed contracts, and I wish I would did not have to do so. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I will just say ditto to commissioner Ray's comments. I think they were eloquently stated. And and I think, you know, the seventy two hour advance posting once a contract has already been negotiated is a very reasonable practice, which deals with the whole issue of confidentiality. The superintendent also has the ability to check with board members individually. That's not a violation of the Brown Act beforehand to see if there's any concern. So there's no way reason a superintendent would have to put forward a contract seventy two hours in advance that she thought might not be approved by the board. So there's really no reason to redact the names, and it just undermines trust and transparency as commissioner Wright has stated. So I'll be voting no also, although I do wanna say a PS, if, and I think Tony Payne is amazing and I've watched his work for a number of years in the district, so I don't want him to be offended by my no vote. I and I don't know the other person, so I'm not that's not a shade to that person either, but I just happen to know Tony Paine.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Any other comments, questions? Roll call vote, please, miss Donna.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander? No. Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Huling?

[Speaker 32.0]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Ray? No. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And President Kim? Yes. It's five ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Item five two five one two dash nine, approval of waivers. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move that we approve item I five two five one two dash nine s b four, approval of pips and waivers.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Second. I call the superintendent to read this into the record.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: In this item, I'm requesting approval from the board to provide, provisional internship permits to two special education teachers, one multiple subject teacher, and one mathematics teacher.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Any comments or questions from the board? Roll call vote, please, miss Lanoff.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Vice President Healy?

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: Yes. Commissioner

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward? Yes. And president Kim?

[Nicholas Chan, Principal, SF International High School]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: That's seven ayes.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Item six, declaration of need for fully qualified teachers. Can I have a motion to second?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I move that we approve item I six two five one two nine s p five, declaration of need for fully qualified teachers.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Second.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Calling superintendent to read this to the record.

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: This is my last item of the evening, and this is an annual declaration that allows the district to identify our hard to staff areas and then allows us some credentialing flexibility within those areas.

[Anna Mahina, Special Education Liaison, MAC]: Any questions?

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Any questions or comments from the board?

[Alida Fisher, Commissioner]: I just have one clarification. In the list of places where we get interns, I didn't see USF or SF State. And I think those are the two schools where we get the majority of our interns. Right? And I'm sorry I didn't bring that up in the technical question in the q and a doc. But I don't know if we have to list them

[Speaker 55.0]: or if

[Amy Bair, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources]: No, not necessarily. Yeah. I can follow-up on that and make sure that the application is accurate before it's submitted. Thank you.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Roll call vote, please, miss Lana.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Commissioner Fisher. Yes. Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Healy. Yes. Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward. Yes. And President Kim. Yes. That's seven ice.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: President Kim has a standing recusal from the consent calendar based on his employment with City and County of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SFUSD to avoid any appearance of impropriety or conflict. Superintendent Hsu, are there any amendments to the consent calendar? There are none. Hearing none, I oh, yes. Do I I request that you introduce it? No. I'll just move adoption of a consent calendar.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: Second.

[Jaime Huling, Vice President]: And could we have a roll call vote, please?

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

[Parag Gupta, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: Vice President Heeling? Yes. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Wiseman Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward, Commissioner]: Yes.

[Ms. Lanoff, Board Secretary/Clerk]: And President Kim is recused. Success.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Are there any board member reports?

[Dr. Maria Hsu, Superintendent]: Next.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: I have

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: an appointment, but not a report.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Oh, sorry. Yes. We Is that the same? Go for it.

[Matt Alexander, Commissioner]: I'd like to appoint Kai Atkinson to the PEAC. Great.

[Phil Kim, Board President]: Any other appointments or reports? Seeing none, I will adjourn today's meeting at 12:12AM.