San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Here. Commissioner Huling?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Here.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Vice Vice President Huling, President Kim? Here. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Here.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Commissioner Fisher?

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: Here.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Six pressed and one absent.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: SFUSD will provide child care for regular board meetings and monitoring meetings on the 1st Floor of the Enrollment Center at 555 Franklin from 06:30PM to 9PM 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 office at (415) 241-6427 or boardofficesfusc 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 for speakers. Are there any speakers who will comment?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Not at this time.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: And I'll resist this meeting at 05:03PM.

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

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: SFGov TV, San Francisco government television,

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: SFGov TV, San Francisco government television.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: SFGov TV, San Francisco Government Television.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: .Edu slash board transcript. Attendees who wish to provide public comment to the board and would like an ASL interpreter can use a Q and A box in the Zoom app to type their name or handle and list the items on the agenda they would like to comment on. The attendees will need to have a functioning camera in order to communicate with the 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 boardofficesfusd dot edu by 2PM the day of the meeting. If they do not wish to make the comments during the board meeting, the comments will be read into the record. Translation will be provided, interpretation throughout today's board meeting. Translation, go ahead.

[Speaker 7.0]: Thank you. SFUSD is offering interpretation services in Spanish and Cantonese. If you need interpretation, please dial the following phone number. After dialing, please introduce the PIN number. This message will be repeated in Spanish and Cantonese. Can't drink interpreter, please. Thank you. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Commissioners, if there's no objection, I'm gonna move item, action f one

[Speaker 8.0]: up above section e so that we will start with an action on the audit a discussion and action on the audit report,

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: come back to our workshop on student outcomes, and then resume the actions afterwards. Our auditors are here and we pay pay the hour. So just wanted to make sure that that was Okay. Great. Okay. Moving to item C, protocol for public comment. Hello, and welcome to members of the public to the regular meeting of the Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District. We will begin with public comment. Our public comment period lasts for one hour. And so today until seven we'll extend it to 07:45PM. We look forward to hearing from the public before we conduct board business. Our goal is to conduct board business in an efficient, effective, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by ensuring we move to board business as soon as possible. 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. Chuillo to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email at boardofficefusd dot edu. You will hear first from students in person, the members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items and moving to non agenda items. Regardless of whether in person public comment is complete, we will save fifteen minutes for remote public comment, so tonight starting at 07:30PM, taking commenters in the same order as in person. To members of the public, on the right, you'll see signs that outline expectations for public comment and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public model the kind of tone, language, and behavior that we hope to see from our young people with respect to 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?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you, President Kim. We'll start with students. We have 38 speakers. As I call your name, please line up. Rixun, R U I X U, so I apologize. Zhao Gabriel, Zaini Salgado, Valeria Goykochia, Evelyn Shikai.

[Speaker 8.0]: My name is from China two year ago. I am in tenth grade SFI International High School. My goal in US state is to go to the colleges so I can have a good job in the future. SFI is a school for immigrants. Not everyone can communicate in English when they come to The United States. SFI gave us a safe space to learn. Everyone is learning English together so we can feel safe learning a new language. At SFI, I have the teachers who help me learning new language and who's speaking my home language so that I can adapt to this community. If we do not process the project cap. SFI will not be about to help me and other immigrant students to reach our goals. Thank you.

[Speaker 9.0]: Our school is not just another situation of education. SFI High School is like a second home for many students, including me. A place where I feel safe and supportive for my teachers. Coach p, my p and health teacher that taught me in sophomore and freshman year. I cannot see him as just a teacher. I see him as a old brother that I run when I see problems when I cannot fix my problems. Sometimes I showed at his advisory and say, hey. I need a job. Hey. I need you to decide decide going to work or going to college or even for my family, my relationship with my parents. He would stay with me to help me. And I know that every single student here has somebody like that, that they run when they need help. And I cannot accept those cuts. Those cuts are removing teachers like coach from our school. And those teachers, they are not just teachers. They are people that help us. And I I want to say that we deserve better than that. Thank you.

[Speaker 10.0]: My name is. I'm from Honduras, and one year ago, I come to United States. SF International awakened me the hope to believe that all my dreams can come true, even the biggest one. Every teacher, counselor, coach, and even the clean staff are part of a loving and patient community that makes every SF international student feel safe and supported by everyone. One example from this is when I still didn't know English very well. All the teachers and counselor patiently explaining things to me over and over again. That made me feel the support I needed. And now I feel confident enough to speak in front of you. Programs like CYC and PISC Club provide support and help us to discover new skills. Please do not cut the budget so that people who support us can continue working. I want to conclude by saying that our school creates a healthy and safe place for everyone, and each person of this community is necessary and important. Thank you. Good

[Speaker 11.0]: evening board members. I'm Valeria and I'm a junior at SFI. By cutting our budget, you're putting a wall in front of us telling us what we can and can't do. You're limiting our education. You're deleting everything our school stands for such as programs that help developing our English. Every student comes to The US hoping they will have a good future after graduation. And we will, but there's a barrier. You are limiting us on how successful we can get to be. This is a complicated system and it might not change. But if I can speak up so it changes for me and my school community, I will. I've seen my teachers stay after class supporting students, after school programs staying for hours tutoring kids and helping with homework. The success of the people who graduated from SFI and their next generations, all of that success is thanks to the amazing teachers who guide us to grab a great future. Every teacher at SFI is very needed with no exception. Thank you.

[Casey (community partner)]: My

[Speaker 13.0]: name is Emily and I am Ray from Guatemala and I came to The United States. Please don't call our school and don't take our money from San Francisco International High School because money helps immigrant students with programs and improving our English. SF International helps us feel safe to learn a new language. We have adults who understand our experience and help students with personal issues like leg support, therapy, sports, and activities, housing and and job help. If if we don't pass the funding codes, our school will not be able to help us and other new immigrants to reach our goals and dreams. We ask that the board of the question pass codes to San Francisco International High School and all secondary newcomers, pathways, immigrates matter. Thank you

[Speaker 11.0]: for listening to me. Thank

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: you. Please line up as I call your name. Young, Evelyn Estrada, Catalina Moraluna, Sahili, Mabel Quadros.

[Speaker 14.0]: Hello, my name is Lennon Young. I'm in fourth grade, and I come from Grattan Elementary School. And I think that it's not right to like teachers shape the future and the minds of the future, basically. And they need all the help you can get. And they you need to help them to help us to help the world. And I think that this is the right thing to fight for, and thank you for listening to me.

[Speaker 15.0]: My name is Evelyn Estrella. Two years ago, I returned to The United States from Mexico to achieve my dreams, such as graduating from high school and going to college. SFI is very different from other schools because here we have students from different countries, students who share our same situation or way of thinking and the goal of learning English. The staff has helped me a lot in my time here. Last summer, my mom wanted to transfer me to a different school. In the end, I didn't transfer, but my counselor, Ms. Edith, was very attentive and helped me look for new schools. I managed to convince my mom not to transfer me. Ms. Edith and I explained to my mom the advantage of SFI such as the small class sizes which allow the teachers to get our notes and help us individually in the future. This same teacher will help us apply to college and write letters of recommendation since we as students become close to them and they know as well. Please consider our request to pause these budget cuts so that our teachers and counselors can continue to provide us the support we deserve.

[Speaker 11.0]: I'm Catalina Moraluna and I am an immigrant student at San Francisco International High School. I come to the to The United States three years ago from Mexico. When I start high school, it was a completely new system to explore, and it was too hard for me to adapt and learn everything about educational path because I feel lost and confused. During my eleventh and twelfth grades, I received a lot of support from my counselor, miss Serena, and teachers who provide us with all the information we need about how the college system works and how can we succeed. Thanks to that, I was able to go through the college application process. I was successful in applying, and I have been accepted into four so far, San Francisco State, East Bay, Sonoma State, and Monte de Bay. This is why our school specifically needs more, not less, counselors, teachers, and support programs so more students like me can successfully achieve their goals in a new country. Thank you.

[Speaker 16.0]: Hello. My name is, and I'm a senior in SFI. Something that makes SFI special is that SFI gave us support for our futures. I met a lot of people who gave me a lot of support inside and outside of the school. Teachers always supported me to improve as much as I could by challenging myself and getting out of my comfort zone. Counselors always prioritize what is happening in with the students. One counselor who helped me since the first day I came to SFY was miss Edith. He helped me a a lot to improve my studies and myself by encouraging me to participate in after school programs. I'm almost graduating, and she was the first person who supported me when I was a new student and an immigrant navigating this country's school system. Thanks to the resources that the school gave to me, I've been connected to three college access programs. I've been accepted to six universities so far, and they helped me to apply to several scholarships that will make college a reality. These resources are important to students to discover new programs that can help them in the future. As a result of their help, many students who graduate from SFI still come to the school when they need help. New students also deserve to have someone like Miss Edith to help them build their future. This is why we must portray the staff as SFI and and and pause the budget.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 15.0]: My name is I am from Peru. I am in tenth grade. Something that makes this school special is that SFI gives us a safe space for everyone. Most of the students who study here arrive without knowing any English and discouraged about leaving our country. We were also afraid of not fitting in and not adapting to this new life. When I arrived at International High School, I thought everyone will only speak English or if I won't get along with the students. I was afraid. But when I entered, they rated me in Spanish, my native language, and I was surprised. Then I went into the office and met the counselor, miss Sasha, who spoke to me in Spanish, and I feel reassured. Afterward, I arrived at my classroom, and everyone would call me warmly. Everyone was friendly. And I wasn't the only one who didn't know English, but there were many others learning the language. So I didn't feel alone.

[Speaker 13.0]: I feel safe. Our school is a special place where new immigrants feel supported to learn, protect our budget.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Myter Ramirez, Gabriel Torres, Brian Hernandez, Brandon, Sonia Aguilar.

[Speaker 17.0]: Good evening, everyone. My name is Gabriel. Right now, immigrants and their allies are being attacked all over The United States, and many students feel scared because of the government's actions. In moments like these, schools should be places of protection and support, not spaces where students feel unsafe. San Francisco International High School, I have been part where I have been a student for more than three years and which I consider my second home, shows what real support looks like. SFI provides staff, resources, and programs that help immigrant students stay safe in their education and future goals. As a student at at SFI, I have personally experienced how important this support is. When I struggled with homework, my teachers encouraged me to go to library after school for tutoring. Since that helped, I was able to understand the material and improve my performance. This guidance is essential for students like me who are struggling in a in a school in a new country and its language. That is why cutting aid to a school like SFI is unfair and harmful for for future students who could not get the same help as I did in order to be successful. SFI is not just teaching academics, they are creating opportunities, confidence, and hope. Protecting and expanding these resources is a necessary step toward educational equity for all students.

[Speaker 18.0]: So SFI is a special school because our teacher has parents. They teach us a normal high school classes, but also support us with our English. At the teacher's school, their learning will be more difficult because my English is not completely perfect. The teachers, the counselor give a lot of support. When I arrived from El Salvador in tenth grade, all my teachers were very helpful. Miss Mahika and miss Audrey especially helped me because they spoke some Spanish while I improved my confidence with English. The counselor, miss Sasha, and miss Sidi, support me support me as well. When I went to eleventh grade, my English was better, but all my teachers still support me when I don't understand something. Immigrant's mother, we deserve a quality education and ask you to pass the codes towards school funding. Hello, my name is Brian Mejia. One year ago, immigrant from Guatemala. I came from The United States in January 2025. I want to grow as a person by having the opportunity to learn from good teachers in the future, be able to improve my future and my family. San Francisco International High School has helped me achieve my goals because they helped me improve my English, my college, my knowledge in all subject. Something that makes SFI special that improve with professional teacher that helped me, made me good decision in my life and has allowed me to have a different perspective. For example, in same class, when I made mistakes, my teacher, Ray, advised me not only to improve as a person, but also to make better life decision. Thank you.

[Speaker 19.0]: Good evening. My name is Sonia Aguilar. I'm from Guatemala and I'm a tenth grader at SF International High School. And I am here to speak for my school. I have been in five schools in The United States. I have been the new kid five times, and I know how it feels to be stared at. I know how it feels to be treated differently just because the way I look, but not in SF International. Since the first day at this school, every teacher, counselors, and even security work made me feel welcome, and that doesn't happen very often for an immigrant student in other schools in The United States. I can speak from experience how special is this school for others. I was very surprised when the principal, mister Nick, called me by my name the first day at school and the following days. In my other school, I didn't even know who the principal was, and I'm sure they didn't even know about me either. Mr. Nick, my teachers, the counselors, they all know everyone. They made all the students feel just like me, and that's why our school deserves to have our funding protected. Thank you.

[Speaker 11.0]: Hi, my name is Myta. Turned grade at SFI International High School. I think I'm they are based in making budget decision occurring in agreement. I will know immigrant school and encourage includes and concern the new student. The teachers are so gentle, patient, and supportive. If with new student, we are generally security guards, they use Safari, the bus, the counselor, help you out the result of conflict with classmates, each member of the old school majorities. Thank you for listening.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Oscar Carranza, I believe. Ryan. Melanie Gomez. Gabriela Gomez. Amanda.

[Speaker 20.0]: Hello, staff and students present. My name is Brian, and I'm a senior at SFI International. Four years ago, I came here to The United States from Nicaragua. When I came here, my goal was to graduate from high school and go to college so I can have a better life and help my family. I want to learn and to grow. And, education gives me a purpose and a chance to build a future that I want. Something unique about SFI is the strong support we get from teachers and staff. When I first arrived, I struggled with learning English, understanding the school system, and dealing with the fear of not being good enough to get a better education. I fell alone, but SFI helped me know I wasn't. When I felt lost and without motivation, my PE teacher, coach Parag Gupta, helped me understand that finding a purpose takes time. And my math teacher, miss Guira, helped me discover that learning can happen anywhere, not just in class. This support is important because newcomer students like me need guidance, patience, and people who believe in us. Without this, many of of us will feel lost again. That's why I am came coming here from SFI to fight the student, the staff budget cuts. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Hi.

[Speaker 21.0]: My name is Junior. The district is trying to take away our resources as if we were people without a right to an education. Don't do this to the school and don't take away the work that we can continue. The school is not a family, but it is special. Miss Sasha is an excellent counselor. Don't wear. I received good counseling. Mister Pereira.

[Speaker 18.0]: Okay.

[Speaker 21.0]: Is one of the most helpful people. They are part of my life and my day to day life.

[Speaker 22.0]: They make

[Speaker 21.0]: me a better person, and they support us and my family Whenever they've needed for any reason.

[Speaker 23.0]: We

[Speaker 21.0]: are We are more than you believe, and we can show it. Because we are immigrants, you wanna take away our resources.

[Speaker 24.0]: And

[Speaker 21.0]: we're here today to protest that and to support our teachers. So that you can provide funding and not close down the school. We went through all sorts of borders and more than you can imagine to come to San Francisco. And to SFI. The teachers have told me to go to college and to follow my goals

[Speaker 18.0]: and

[Speaker 21.0]: counsel me every day.

[Speaker 22.0]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 10.0]: Hi. My name is Gabriela Gomez. I am from Guatemala. I am a student of SFI International High School. Something that makes SFI special is that SFI give you counselors and college support. This is important for our school because we have more counselors to help us with college application and financial aid, has helped students get in college. Also, all my teachers support me with my English and teach me every day so I feel comfortable and special because I went to other schools and they didn't teach me as well. Please support our school. Thank you. Hi, my name is Melanie Gomez. I am from Guatemala. I am a student at San Francisco International High School. I am here today to speak up for our school and request the financial results we need to continue supporting our school and our future. What make my school special is the support it gives to immigrant student. Yes. If I have a delicate teacher who help you learn new skill, different subject, and second language that is English. One example is my adviser, miss who has support me since I arrived in this country. Even though in English is her native language, she makes an effort to help me understand Spanish. This support me to work toward my goal of graduation graduating in engineering at university and makes me feel welcome, understood, and confident. Help me overcome giants as an immigrant. Thank you. Good evening.

[Speaker 25.0]: I'm Amanda. I'm a senior at SFI. And I would like to say that being an immigrant is really hard. And not knowing English is also hard. But just imagine a 13 year old girl in a classroom with understanding her and no one trying to understand her. It's like really hard. And that was me back in 2021 on middle school. And literally no one tried to do that. But when I got to high school at SFI, they literally guide me with what I needed and they give me a lot of advices. And now that I'm a senior, I applied to many colleges with which I already get acceptance of all of them. And I'm pretty proud of them. And I really wish for you to not cut their budgets because, I mean, it's really helpful for someone who is little I mean, who's just coming to that country and not knowing English, like, to feel welcome to this country. Because, I mean, right now, the political situation is, like, really hard. And, like, all the students and most immigrants are afraid to go to school. But, like, as they call us, audience, I mean, it's hard. Right? But, like, SFI is just a place where you can feel welcome and not other school will have that. So I would like for you to really consider not cutting the budget of SFI. Thank you.

[Speaker 26.0]: Please

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: line up as I call your name. Cindy Barranca, I believe, Evelyn Aguilar, Chan Gao, Christian, Steven Zarate.

[Speaker 26.0]: Hello, my name is Cindy. Three years ago, immigrated from Guatemala and I come to United States, a San Francisco International High School. Each counselor, like miss Sasha, miss Alida, keeps using information about what we need and give you ideas to how to be a successful student. Each teacher has a very keen and good health to have dedicated time and sharing knowledge with the students from different countries. Each one, the most of the love that they have for their students, and they make feel special. The wellness nurse, like Ms. Dom, are always there from yours to listen and keep and help you when we feel unwell. The security wards, like, he'll have always local out for all well-being and every moment. At the end of the day, they watch over outside the school and say, see you tomorrow, guys. I'm making sure that every student leaves the school safely and gets on their bus whenever each and every worker of this school is special to all of UHS students. And they and they all play an important essential role for each of UHS students. Thank you.

[Speaker 27.0]: Good evening, board members. As a student who have benefited from the new program, I want to say that San Francisco International High School has helped me to learn English and become actively involved in this community. Those resources that are provided by our school are not optional. They help us to stay motivated to learn and feel supported at our school. It's not something that we want. It's something that we really need. Do you know how do you know how difficult it is to teach someone who doesn't speak English at all? Almost the teachers Almost all the teachers in our school are bilingual, even multilingual. They work incredibly hard to ensure the student has access to the same educational resources even though they didn't receive the higher salaries to be multilingual. Happened I believe this happened not only in our school. It happens across the school who serve the newcomers. Cutting the funding for our school not only the limit for our develop, but also what we can the district long term commitment for to its students. Keeping the funding of the newcom program and student services is very important for this community. And we love our teacher and community. We don't want to lose any of them. Please prioritize funding newcom program and support our teachers, students, and community. Thank you.

[Speaker 13.0]: My name is Evelyn, and I am a senior at SFI International. Since I arrived in The United States, the world hasn't stopped talking about immigration. Unfortunately, the focus on immigration is often negative, which causes a student to stop attending school and prevent them for reaching their goals. I can say that if not for SFI, immigrants, low income student like us will not be able to go to school and become successful people. My dream is to become a nurse. Like me, many students want to achieve their goals. SFI is the starting point of many students to reach their goals. And the teacher and all the staff are like for us student. And without the materials and without the support of the teacher and counselor like miss Serena or miss Harry, it will be more difficult for us to reach our goals. I'm asking you to post the codes to our school because if you codes our code budget, you also coding our dreams and our wins. And because this is my last year, that doesn't mean that I don't I'm not worried about the future generation and about their dreams like me. Thank you.

[Speaker 18.0]: Hi, my name is Christian. I am in tenth grade. I immigrate from Guatemala, and I come to United States to have a better life with my family. Thank you to SFI San Francisco International High School because without them, I would not have the confidence to speak in front of you today. Something that makes SFI especially is that we have concerns to help us understand The United States college application and finish aid process. We also have advisories so that students can build community adjust to life in The United States and get mentoring from their advisory teacher or teachers had more experience teaching immigrants, students so that we can learn English together and everyone can feel safe to learn a new language. And I will be so disappointed if this coach in part of any of their jobs. So please don't cause the bridge. Immigrant males. Thank

[Speaker 26.0]: you. Hi.

[Speaker 23.0]: My name is Steven. I am a student at SFI, and I am here today to request the award to support immigrant students. Something that make our school specialists that they give you safe space to learn with many support service. We learn with students from other countries and new cultures, and they offer use after school programs. Thanks to SFI, I have discovered a new sport that I enjoy, wrestling. I have also improved my English while learning about environmental riots, history of other countries and literature. Some of the teachers who helped me are miss Mahika and miss Audrey who helped me gain more confidence in myself, in my reading and writing. All my teachers are helping me prepare me for college support me, my English work, and my justice to US education.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Luis Pinson, Christian Maldonado, Jose Anibal Castillo, Jefferson Fraga, Kevin Chai or Karen.

[Speaker 28.0]: Hello. My name is Luis Vincent. I am a student at SFI International High School. I came in 2023. I've been always supported by the community, SFI students, especially by miss Saudi, who's here too. She's always supporting me, also miss Mahiga. They're always telling me to go to support programs like CYC. This is after school program. They really support students who practice English after school who are struggling with learning. And also in any class that they have, like algebra, science, they're always supporting after school program. And also, who's also English teacher, she gave classes in grade 10, in tenth grade. And she was always there supporting me even when I come late to class. She was like, oh, you can do it. You can improve it. So I would like to tell you tell you all to please support our school and then cut the budget. Thank you.

[Speaker 24.0]: Hello, member of the board of education. My name is Christian. I am immigrant from Honduras. I come to this country three year ago, and today, stand before you as a pro senior from SFI International High School. I'm not here just to speak for myself but for our intercommunity that depends on the school to survive, grow, and success. SFI International is not just a school. It's a lifeline. It is the play that welcome you when everything was new, the language, the culture, and the system. Because of SFI, students like me don't use a lab. We cry. We ran our college. We believe in our futures program like after school tutoring and advisory, where teacher understand our immigrant experience. He used academic support and emotional stability. These resources are no extra. They are essential. If you could or budget, you don't use code funding. You got opportunity, hope, and potential. Please consider investing in youth because we are proud of your investment in the world. Thank you for listening.

[Speaker 29.0]: Hello. Good evening. My name is Jefferson. I'm already a graduate student from SFI. I'm currently enrolled in UC Berkeley, pursuing a civil engineering career. I just came because I don't want this school to be closed. I mean, there's a lot of professors who helped me a lot before I got accepted in my university. There were programs where teachers were just spending their own time like creating programs for extracurricular stuff, counselors that help me a lot with my PIQs, writing style, and even choosing my option between universities because they know more than I. And also they are not just our teachers. They were kind of parents, like friends, more than that. And yeah, thank you.

[Speaker 22.0]: Hello. My name is Jose. I immigrated to The US about four years ago from Nicaragua. I'm currently in my first semester attending UC Berkeley and pursuing a major in computer science with a minor in history. The counselors, if it wasn't because of them and also the teachers, I wouldn't even be here even speaking English to all of you. Even after I graduate, I'm an I'm an alumni already. Even afterwards, miss Harry, she still responds to my text messages. I need your help. I forgot to text you. I have my midterm tomorrow. Miss mister what's his name? Well, mister. Sorry. I forgot. But he basically about about three weeks ago, he just helped me submit my financial aid. He helped me with the dorm applications, with my classes applications, all of it. And there's a saying, the school we might be stoned with the school, but the school is not done with us. So thank you.

[Speaker 30.0]: Hi. My name is Kevin. I am from I am immigrant from Guatemala. One thing that makes Supryia international especially is that they provide youth with support in many different way. For example, when I was my first day from my class in eleventh grade, I feel so nervous because it's one of my first years and upper class student that I went to that's why I went to my counselor and they support me like talking me and motivating me, give me advice, intrusion, and no worries about the class because they are here support to keep trying again and again. Also the teacher are great people. They try to the best teach learn English. We're like a family here. I am proud to represent this school as part of the community. I want you to support you achieving the dreams we have for our future.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Please line up if I call your name. G, just the letter G, Sochit, Laila Mesilla or Mejia, Elena Studley, and Mina. Oh, guy snapped two in one. Okay, Elena and Mina, June Welch, Frankie Welch, Joselyn, and Marcos with a k.

[Speaker 10.0]: Hello. My name is Ji, a soon to be student at James Lake Middle School. You guys are affecting us by using the money on unreasonable stuff that we clearly don't need, which affects me, our students, staffs, and teachers because of you guys who are not responsible for our money.

[Speaker 31.0]: Hello, my name is Sochi and I am a student at James Lake Middle School. I am here to ask you to please stop cutting resources from my school. We need seven period classes to have opportunities to grow and explore different careers and we need security guards at our school to keep us safe. Last week, there were three fights. Please stop cutting resources from our school. We need them.

[Speaker 32.0]: Hi, my name is Lila Meskin and I just like to I attend James Lake Middle School and I just like to say that although I love my other classes, my dance elective and plays after school have been the highlight of my middle school journey. And I just like to say that the budget cuts would put us on a sick period day and I'm in Spanish immersion so that means I wouldn't get those fun experiences that I need to learn and grow. Thank you.

[Speaker 33.0]: Hi. I'm Aliana. And I'm Mina. And we're middle schoolers at APG and Neeni Middle School.

[Casey (community partner)]: We support the teachers in their contract fight and we see how hard the teachers work every day and how much

[Speaker 33.0]: they put up with. In SFUSD, we have more than 200 to 400 teacher vacancies, meaning 6,000 to 12,000 kids without a regular teacher.

[Casey (community partner)]: Teachers are why we showed

[Speaker 33.0]: up today because they always showed up for us. They're the reason we have the courage to stand up here today and fight for the fair pay they need and deserve.

[Casey (community partner)]: We deserve a fair education. We need a good education. The only way we

[Speaker 33.0]: can get that is with

[Speaker 14.0]: the teachers because they're there for us.

[Speaker 33.0]: As two middle schools we shouldn't have to be standing here today asking you for an education and to do the right thing not to cut the budgets.

[Speaker 14.0]: Thank you for listening. Hi, name is June and I go to Graton Elementary and I'm in fourth grade. And the teachers at my school really help us, and there's always extra teachers in the classroom. And if you cut the budgets or anything that would not the teachers deserve to be paid fairly. Yeah.

[Speaker 10.0]: My name is Frankie, and I go to grad school. And my teacher is is loving, and she deserves to

[Speaker 14.0]: get for a bunny.

[Speaker 34.0]: My name is Marcos and I'm a seventh grader that goes to James Lake Middle School. And if you guys cut the budget, we're gonna lose our assistant principal. So, yeah, it's bad because she helps families and supports them and supplies them with the resources they need, especially immigrant families. Yeah. I'm done.

[Speaker 11.0]: Hi. My name is Joseline Ramos. I am from Peru. I am a student at San Francisco International High School. I'm here today to tell you that during my time in The United States, I received a lot of support from my teachers and counselor and also from the school programs. And they support me greatly and make making to feel confident in myself. When I was speaking in Spanish or English, thank you to the I have a lot of myself confident because of the third passion and the care they show to all of you. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Okay. We will now move to members of the community. Please line up as I call your name. I think this is Jahaira Ferreira, Harry Huang, Casey, Blake Miller, Patricia. Sorry. The last name is so please the last name is Patricko Pereira, I believe. Okay.

[Speaker 22.0]: Okay.

[Speaker 21.0]: Good evening. My name is Jaime And And I am representing a student here. And we're asking for you to respectfully not carry out the budget cuts and in fact do the contrary and provide more support. In fact, we ask that you support our personnel so that they can remain there, and that includes our teachers, administrators, laborers, and other educators. Because the job they carry out is fundamental to the development of students, especially recent arrivals. No one knows what we've been through to be in this country and what we've lived through in the past. And they I invite you to realize that San Francisco International High School is an excellent place with staff that has empathy and ethics. Thank you to them and God bless them. Our children have dreams. Don't cut their wings.

[Ms. Harry (Math Teacher, SFI)]: Hi, everyone. I am miss Harry. I'm a math teacher at SFI. Teaching newcomers students is a highly professional specialized job. Even a teacher who has taught successfully for many years in a mainstream school will not automatically succeed in a newcomer students. Without professional training, ongoing support, and a strong community of practice, the teaching simply will not meet students' need. As a department need, I also understand what it takes to develop shared pedagogies and systems that help educators serve students who are speaking many different languages, have diverse academic and cultural backgrounds, and carry the impact of trauma. The budget cut will destroy the efforts we have invested in our high potential and very committed teachers and our community. When the immigration situation changes, which could happen very soon, it will be another earthquake for our school because we have to rebuild the ground with the new community. And, he told us that case to do that. If we truly value newcomer students, real tilingual learners and educational Thank very much.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: That concludes your time.

[Ms. Harry (Math Teacher, SFI)]: Yeah, it's conclusion. That we must protect the staff. Thank you for your listening.

[Mr. Blake (Physics Teacher, SFI)]: Hi my name is Mr. Blake I apologize for my voice I have a cold I'm the physics teacher at San Francisco International High School I haven't prepared anything so I can only speak from the heart I don't know who looks at society right now and thinks that public schools need to be cut. I don't know who looks at what's happening with immigrants right now and thinks that they deserve fewer resources and not more. I don't know who listens to our students right now and doesn't have their heartstrings pulled. I don't know how we can make it with these budgets cuts next year. The resources that we give to our students right now are essential I don't know anyone who could come to our school and think that we have a surplus of resources we're making the best that we can with what we have When I saw what our budget was going to be it was laughable. We need more resources not more. Thank you for your time.

[Parag Gupta (Coach P, SFI teacher)]: Thank you. Good evening board members. SFI community, thank you for coming by. My name is coach p, mister p, or mister Parag Gupta. I am a product of this district. My mother came here in '94, teen mom applied to Hilltop High. I went to Lakeshore Elementary, Burbank Middle that then closed down, turned into Excelsior Middle School, and then to Galileo. Pursued my education at SF State, went back to Galileo for student teaching, and I belong here at SFI. This is a community that has a lot of love, that actually cares about education, and these students want to be here. These students want to grow. And it hurts me to be here right now speaking to all of you. I've shook some of your hands actually in hopes that we could grow here, yet it seems like the bridges are being burnt. And I don't want that to happen. I want a district that supports all of us, teachers and students. I'm a proud member of this district, but I wanna see changes, and these students don't deserve any of that. None of us do. Thank you for your time.

[Casey (community partner)]: Hi, my name is Casey. I have the opportunity to work with SFI and witness the impact they have on their community of newcomer students. SFI holds intentional knowledge on how to effectively support students that enter at any point in the year, from any country, with any level of English or prior education. SFI provides wraparound services and non profit partnerships that ensure students receive mental health support, basic need assistance, and academic mentorship. Staffing cuts threaten this holistic system and put at risk students' right to access their education. I assume members of the board are familiar with the attack on rights immigrants are facing in The United States. You as board members hold agency in the ways you utilize the budget to ensure all San Franciscan youth have the right to access education. Strong leaders use feedback to adapt. I urge you to listen with open ears tonight and reflect deeply on how you're using the power you hold. You are accountable for the impact of the decisions you make. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Before we go to virtual, I do want to acknowledge I mean, I know that we have a lot more remaining speaker cards. Thank you for the invitation for the community meeting at SF International this Thursday. I believe Doctor. Sue and I will both be there. So we look forward to continuing the conversation with you all there. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: President Kim, it is now seven past 07:30, so we will move to virtual. We will now hear from students who wish to speak on Zoom. If you are a student and only a student, please raise your hand on Zoom and we'll call your name. On Zoom, please raise your hand. Okay, I see one hand. Oh, interpretation, please translate. Sorry, if I'm butchering your name, Jiangou Shai, please go ahead and unmute.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Hi.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Go ahead.

[SFI alum (unnamed)]: Okay. Hi. My name is and I'm graduate from SFI in 2022. I am currently working as a preschool parent with SFUSD and I'm graduating for SFUSD SFU this year. I'm here today to explain the experience that SFI has on my life, and I'm grateful to of the opportunity to speak. Both my brother and I attending to SFI, and we have both benefit greatly from the guidance and care of our teacher, student at SFI and come from all over the world, each with different culture background and language experience. Learning in company new language is already incredibly difficult challenge. Because of this, the teacher at SFI are truly remarkable. They understand the stronger immigrant students face to getting us step by step and helping us to find a direction to stay on the right path. Even after graduations. Mr. Poe still continued to help me to getting my job applying master programs, choosing courses and

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time.

[SFI alum (unnamed)]: Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 22.0]: That

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: concludes student comments. We will now proceed to members of the public. If you wish to speak on Zoom, please raise your hand. We'll start with Chris Claus. Go ahead, Chris.

[Chris Klaus (SPED Dept. Head, Washington HS)]: I'm Chris Klaus, the special education department head at Washington High School. I am disappointed that the superintendent sent our SFUSD community an extremely misleading email on Friday claiming that UESF's bargaining team refused to negotiate after fact finding when we waited for but received no written proposals from the district, indicating that SFUSD was not prepared to actually negotiate. We have been waiting since March for the district to come prepared to bargain. We weren't interested in wasting more time. Perhaps her time would be better spent actually getting her team to write up proposals for us to consider or engaging with the communities at schools that she wants to defund and close before those decisions are made public. If the public would like to learn more from UESF about the state of negotiations, I encourage them to attend UESF's virtual town hall tomorrow night, which you can RSVP for at bit.lycommunitysigninwithacapitalc,capitalsandacapitali. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll now move to GM. GM, go ahead.

[Galahad Mai (SFI alum; former Student Delegate)]: Hello?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Yes. Go ahead.

[Galahad Mai (SFI alum; former Student Delegate)]: Cool. Thank you. Greetings, president Kim, vice president Huling, and commissioners. My name is Galahad Mai. I am a proudest international graduate, class of 2019. I also served on this board in 2018 to 2019 as a student delegate. Since then, I graduated from the Stanford University in 2023 with a distinction from the department of management science engineering. I am now a fund manager, a happily married husband, and a father of two cats. Our human baby is the year to come. I I say with grateful feelings that I demonstrated the American dream if that idea still flows around at least. I came to this estate in 2015 with very little English and money in my pocket. What changed my trajectory was not just effort and luck, but also the academic and human support that I received throughout the journey, starting and especially at I can testify from my lived experience that SF International staffs are true educators. They are calm, not showy, but with a steady burning commitment to newcomers. Today, I'm here not to say do nothing. I'm asking the board to say, before you cut the staff too hastily, please give SM International a little bit more time. Circumstances we all know have changed.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: I just for your comment. That concludes your time.

[Galahad Mai (SFI alum; former Student Delegate)]: Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: We'll now hear from Naseeha Razvi. Naseeha, go

[Speaker 26.0]: ahead. Hi.

[Naseeha Razvi]: Can you hear me?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead.

[Naseeha Razvi]: I just want to reiterate what many students have said before. SFI is a village. And it takes a village to raise a holistic child. The whole student is a student who's come crossing mountains, rivers to get here, to be at the doorstep of sometimes an estranged relative, sometimes someone that they haven't met in ten years, to work at the restaurants that you frequent and still come to school with hope in their hearts. And as educators, we do our best to serve them. And it takes not just will, but ability, capability, and training to do this job and to do it effectively. All of the students' testimonies that you've heard tonight are proof that we as a school community are a village that's successfully serving newcomers and helping them achieve their dreams. These budget cuts are very shortsighted. This board needs to think long term about the goal for immigrant students and how we can serve as a model to do that.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Vanessa Marrero. Vanessa Marrero. Go ahead.

[Vanessa Marrero (Parents Republic Schools of SF)]: Good evening. Can you hear me?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Yes. Go ahead.

[Vanessa Marrero (Parents Republic Schools of SF)]: Thank you, Marine. Thanks, everybody, for being here tonight. My name is Vanessa Marrero. I'm the president of Parents Republic Schools of San Francisco. And tonight, I'm speaking on a call to action for equity and advocacy. I stand before you representing 1,600 voices in the community who have signed the Defend Our Schools petition in passionate opposition of school closures and consolidations of our cherished neighborhood schools. This is a reckless plan and does not simply touch the budgetary issues. It threatens every soul in our communities, as you can hear. We implore SFUSD Board of Education to reject these closures and consolidations for the sake of our children and our collective future.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll now hear from MCK. MCK, go ahead.

[Hannah Hazel (District Coordinator, LGBTQ Student Services)]: Good evening. My name is Hannah Hazel, and I use Amherst pronouns, and I am the district coordinator for LGBTQ student services. What you might not know about me beyond being a graduate of Lowell High School and a third generation SFUSD employee is that my first job was in the classroom as a what was then called TESOL educator. I know how much heart, hard work, vision, and experience is required to teach our newcomer students to even consider cutting the resources, the people, and any aspect of the total community that is necessary to ensure that each and every one of these students has the ability to access their dreams and their ability is unconscionable. I call upon the district to recognize that all of us need to stand in solidarity with all of our students, and in this moment, no cuts, keep our schools funded, and keep all of our educators in place so our students can succeed.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll now hear from Autumn. Autumn, go ahead and unmute. Autumn.

[Autumn (Flynn parent)]: Hi. Hi. My name is Autumn and I am a current Flynn parent and a hopeful James Lick Middle School parent next year. I did send an email out to share my concerns with the budget that I saw for the Lick community. Overall, I think it's really important that we focus on some best practices across school sites. And I would really encourage folks to look at the other things that other schools are doing to work within the budget and also challenge why we're here and what that would look like to actually have such less security. We heard from students tonight the major concerns. I'm concerned for my student given their lived experience from their elementary school. And so it's giving me pause to send my middle schooler to a school where security is no longer being prioritized and where they wouldn't have electives because they have an IEP and they're in the Spanish Immersion Program. So that's all. I'm just really concerned and would love more clarity and understanding for how we got here. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll now hear from Sarah. Sarah, go ahead and unmute. Sarah.

[Speaker 45.0]: Hi. Hi. I have a sixth grader at James Sick Middle School. And I am calling to implore the board to do what you can to make sure that the cuts that are proposed that you heard about already tonight, assistant principal position, campus security, office clerk, and I believe around five teacher positions that would force the school into cut one period a day. All of those are cuts that are untenable for this school, for a middle school. But they are not just happening at James Lick. I think you know about these cuts because these were this was part of the discussion when you voted down the fiscal stabilization plan that you were presented in December. And as far as I understand, the superintendent turned around and put most of those cuts, the bulk of them, back into the site budgets and sent them to the sites for the principals to deal with. This doesn't seem right. It seems like a really bad faith move.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Ultimately Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. President Kim, we're at 07:45.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I want to thank members of the public for being here this evening. We've also received many, many emails and apologies in advance for not being able to respond to each one. But please know that we are diligently reading as many as we can. And we thank you for your outreach and sharing your perspectives and experiences. As a reminder, board rules in California law don't allow us to respond to comments or answer questions during the public comment time. But we appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today in person and virtually. The superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft agenda twelve days in advance for board members to review. Once that draft agenda is made public on our website, board members have made a commitment to submit clarifying and tactical questions, and staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q and A doc is linked into each board agenda on board docs. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussions today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we'll be moving our most important items to consent and identifying only our highest priority items to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance, but instead to bring forward strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards goals and the underlying strategies so that we can be better informed in our decision making and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Item D, report from closed session. In two matters of anticipated litigation concerning DTB and DSB, the board by a vote of six ayes and Commissioner Fisher voting nay, the board gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of San Francisco Superior Court case number CGC-two3600000080, the board by a vote of seven ayes, zero nays, gives direction to the general counsel. In the matter of KW versus SFUSD QE claims numbers five hundred thirteen thousand nine hundred eighty nine seven, 719,850, eight hundred twenty three thousand eight six hundred five one, and one one three zero two four two two. The board by a vote of seven ayes, zero nays, give direction to the general counsel. As I shared at the top of tonight's meeting, we're gonna be moving action item F1 above workshop on student outcomes. So I'll at this time introduce action items F1 two sixty one-twenty seven SP3, San Francisco Unified School District auto report for the school year ending 06/30/2025. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move to accept item F1261-27SP3 San Francisco Unified District audit report for the year ending 06/30/2025.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. I ask Doctor. Sewer to bring this item forward.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Thank you, President Kim. I am actually going to hand it over to our auditor. Do you want to sit at the diocese? Sure. Thank you. Unfortunately, White, who normally presents for us, is not available today.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Name is Sarah and I'm an executive

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: senior director.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Click the link. Thank you.

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: This one? Thank you. My name is Sarah Polifox, and I'm an executive senior director with Christie White Associates. And it's my pleasure to present the report on behalf of Christie White, the partner on this engagement. So to go over the audit report, just in kind of a brief summary, our audit report, we issue three opinions for the district. We issue our independent auditor's report, And in which, in our independent auditor's report, we issued an unmodified opinion for the district, is the best opinion that can be issued. We also issue a federal compliance audit opinion to which we again issued an unmodified opinion. And in that testing, we tested the Title I Part A program as well as the child nutrition cluster. And we also issue an opinion over state awards or state compliance. And in that testing, we follow the education audit appeals panel state audit guide for the year twenty four-twenty five. And for that section of our testing, we issued an unmodified opinion, which again is the best opinion that can be issued over the financial statements, the federal awards, and the state awards. So with that, I'd be happy to answer questions that there might be.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. I do have a couple questions before I turn it over to my colleagues. The first one being, there were seven findings, if I am counting correctly. My time cannot be up. I'm just kidding. There were seven findings. I appreciate the corrective action plans. You're doing great. You're doing great. I appreciate the corrective action plans that were included for each of the findings. What is the confidence level that we have that we'll actually deliver on them? There are some of them that have dates attached to them, some of them that don't. And so it's unclear what are ongoing things that we're working on and by when we can expect this. I will just merge this all into one bigger question of, earlier this week, I shared with you the dashboard from the fiscal ops ad hoc last year, two years ago. Is there any desire to bring that back? I mean, think my bigger question here is how are we supposed to be able to track this over time? What does that look like? And what confidence do we have that these will actually get done given that I think three or four of them were continuing from a previous audit?

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: Compound questions. So first of all, please recognize that an unmodified opinion means that we are now able to produce the data that the auditors are looking for in the manner and in the time frame. Two years ago, that wasn't true for the district. So what they're saying is that our processes are responsive to meeting their request so that they can actually audit all of our systems. Also keep in mind that an audit is not just of your financials. It's of many of your systems and programs. So you'll notice that a number of these were not in the financial area. In fact, our largest penalties in this audit are from compliance for UPP, or unduplicated pupil percentage. And that is because people need to get their paperwork and systems done in a timely manner. Managers have signed managers of those departments are the ones that write the corrective action and are responsible for overseeing. In successive audits, what you'll note especially we tend to keep the same audit firms for between three to five years before we rebid them out. And the reason for that is so that they can follow-up and have a relationship with the district and actually see whether we are changing exactly the things that they're pointing out in the prior year's audit that we should be taking care of. So a gentle reminder was making my way through the crowd to get in. Sorry about the loud entry. So this is for last year. And the reason that we were able to be so responsive on these things is because the systems are in place to be responsive to them. And that means managers that are entering in President Kim, what their corrective action will be, are responsible for the implementation of that. So if the corrective action is not taken, then that manager should be held accountable for such.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: But I think my associated question to that is just by when can we expect that? So I'm just looking at finding two, developing and documenting standardized payroll procedures, including processes for implementing salary schedule updates and verifying pay rate changes. Is that I believe that probably is something that will take time. And so my question would be just by when we can anticipate seeing some of these resolved so that we understand the progress we're making towards the recommendations here? Sure. So it depends upon the finding.

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: So the ones that you're mentioning right there so the standardization, remember, this is also in the transition year between the old payroll system and the new payroll system. So we should have anticipated audit findings there. And so the question will be, do they have the same findings when we look at payroll next year? We're also doing a standalone payroll audit next year that is going look at these things because payroll has been a longstanding issue for the district. And so we want to make sure that those things are being updated on a consistent basis. It's considered to be a department that has struggled with compliance, as I'm sure we're all aware.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I don't mean to be difficult. I think my curiosity is still at what point can we anticipate closing these out? And if the answer is just we don't have a concrete date for some of these, I think that's good to know. It would be helpful to understand. I just don't know when to ask when has this been progressing. So in my mind, an audit isn't a closeout.

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: It's a snapshot in time of a systems check, tells us what things need to be improved. We say what we're going to change, and then there's another snapshot the following year to see whether they've been corrected or not. So in that time period, these audit findings should be corrected. If not, then we need to hold somebody responsible for not having followed the plan.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: And I think this is just why I go back to that dashboard because at least at that level laid out by when and who owns it, I think there's this question that I continue to have around by when and just who owns it. I appreciate the level accountability around the manager who is responsible for that item being the one to be held accountable to it. Makes sense from a management standpoint. Think there was a level of clarity that we had when that dashboard was created for us to be able to just follow through and ask questions. It was the whole premise behind establishing the ad hoc on finance and operations. I think that just is my question around that.

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: I would just gently suggest draw a difference between a FICMAT fiscal findings report, two of them, versus an annual required audit of a school district, which is our system's check and updates.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yeah. But I think that dashboard had both FICMAT and audit findings,

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: correct? But that was due to FICMAT finding that we had been non responsive to audits for four years in a row. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Gupta? Yeah.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: I mean, and I don't know if I'll use all my time. But just to build on your question, and maybe this is a question actually less for Deputy Superintendent Mount Bonita. Sorry, I just struggle with titles.

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: Chris works.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Sorry. Thank you. Respecting your title, respecting all the work you do. And Superintendent Hsu, in terms of perhaps we can give a little clarity as well, because you know, we reference the fiscal findings report and for audits. So maybe we can place this in context first as to where we've gone, where we are now, now that we've had the FICMAT fiscal findings report, and how might that relate to this new audit?

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: The only context I can provide because remember, I'm reading documents in the past as well. I wasn't here The system was broken. The district literally could not respond to audit requests. So an auditor was not the same auditor, by the way. But the auditor would come in and give us the typical processes. They give us all of the list of everything that they're testing. That list is designed by a couple of things. It's designed by the federal supplement, which is actually what held us up this year, as well as the state requirements of the annual audit, as well as the standard items that they check for. It's a lengthy list. We divide that list up, and we send it out to all of the departments that are responsible for those items, many of them programmatic. Remember, it's a program audit as well as a fiscal audit. And then we get the information back. In the three years prior to this audit, we were not able to respond to requests for information. That's what the FICMAT report found. That's why our audit was considered non responsive because literally the information couldn't be put into the auditor's hands. So from my perspective, not having been here, that sounds not so good. The idea that everybody is being responsive in a timely manner and getting the auditors requesting, which is what the unmodified opinion your staff is now doing the work. It doesn't mean that we aren't going to find things that they need to do better. I always tell people an audit is my opportunity to see what we need to tune up and get better at, which is how we should be perceiving it. But the idea that we are responding in a timely manner and with complete information and then being able to then follow-up to many follow-up items, which the auditors then ask for and test for, is a pretty significant district. So that's good news. There will always be audit findings. That is the nature of an audit. And it will always be the job of, if it's a fiscal finding or an operational finding, my job and my staff's job. Or if it's a programmatic finding, somebody else's, a programmatic staff's job to fix those things. That's the process. And there always should be. That's the constant improvement process that an audit is supposed to encourage. Don't want to step on your toes, though, if you had something to add.

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: No, I would be happy to share that. This being our third year performing the audit for the district and being involved in all three of those years. The first year of the audit, there was a bit of a of trickle in of the experience that the prior auditors had had. Requests had been there was delays in receiving requests. And looking at where the district is now, being able to deliver, with the exception of the delay in the uniform guidance for federal compliance, the audit being able to be delivered on time, I think, is a really strong testament to the work that staff did to provide the requests that allow us to perform our tests and reach the opinions that we have issued, as well as provide recommendations, be that internal control findings that need to be corrected, which mainly speak to the financial related findings or the compliance related findings that are noted in the state award findings. But I did want to note that just as having worked with the district now for three years, seeing that progression of timely responsiveness for an auditor, it's very helpful for the work that we do to have our main contacts at the district office being able to, in a timely manner, almost weekly, provide check ins of where the audit is and have that goal of having the audit be delivered on time, where in past years it had to be delayed because of document requests not being provided timely. So that not being the case this year, I think, is a great show of how the district has progressed in terms of the audit.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: I appreciate that. As a follow-up question, are there any recommendations from the fiscal finding report that did have timelines as far as when we expected that to be done that are within this audit report that either have not been done or still in work?

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: I don't think there are any non responsive. The comprehensive nature and the timeliness of payroll did not meet my personal standard. I like things done immediately, sometimes too much so. So I think we still have that's our biggest area of improvement in the fiscal house is in that payroll record keeping and responsiveness and accuracy. That would just be my self reflection from my experience. And I believe I see that reflected in the audit. On the fiscal side, that is still the biggest issue for the school district.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: So now I'll ask Superintendent Hsu the question. Superintendent Hsu, is there a plan to share what President Kim has asked for when you look at given that there are audit findings in here that do require improvement. Is there a plan to present a timeline of when we can or when we should expect to see these improvements made?

[Superintendent Hsu]: President Kim did bring up the concept of bringing back the dashboard with Chris and myself and we are going to explore how we can update the dashboard because the old dashboard was really related to all of the FigMat items. We now have a new set of findings or recurring findings. And I think we can figure out a way to create a more simple dashboard that will show progress towards addressing the findings. In terms of timeline, we are in the middle of settling the budget. I know that we do have a lot of staffing constraints right now but I definitely get to hear the sense of urgency from the board. And of course we do want to demonstrate that we do have our finances in order. So I will go back and work with the team and then report back to the board by our next meeting of when we

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: can No, expect

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: I can tell you right now. I'm happy to put it in the second interim as an update. I mean, these are not complicated items. It's just a checklist. And it's not an extensive checklist. This is pretty standard stuff.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: And I want to be clear. The urgency is more of just when are we going to do this? That doesn't necessarily mean that, at least from my perspective, we do this next week. It's just sort of as we waterfall the cadence of different things or many things going on, I think it's just helpful for our community as well as for us as board members to understand what is the prioritization and why.

[Superintendent Hsu]: So my understanding is so I will definitely share with the board by our next board meeting of when we will be able to do an update. And it sounds like perhaps a suggestion could be during second interim, and then we can build on that. But thank you.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you, everyone. I just sorry really want to thank the financial team for how much work you've done to improve our systems and make it possible for our auditors to actually conduct an appropriate audit. It must have been a tremendous amount of work, I'm deeply grateful for it. I have one specific question around immunizations. I asked this last year, and the reason I want to ask it again now is because it is a very specific thing and doesn't seem nearly as broad ranging as some of the financial things that are mentioned. I've gone back to 2023. For three years, we've said we're going to designate an individual, a dedicated individual, to doing this, to tracking these immunization things. That isn't something that required some kind of massive systemic thing on the payroll. Have we done this? This seems like one of the simplest things we could do in terms of addressing these findings. Have we ever assigned a designated individual as has been stated in our plans?

[Superintendent Hsu]: I'm going to ask our associate superintendent, Theresa Ship, to help me with this answer.

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: Thank you for the question, commissioners. Yes, we actually have a team that sit in the enrollment office. They have a desk there. There is a team that is always present to help our families to make sure that immunizations are not only available for them, but they can go through a database to find if their student has ever been have the immunizations and be able to upload it. So yes, we have done that.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: If I may follow-up, the recommendation was specifically for an individual. I think the idea was that somebody had responsible for this. And our response was that we would designate an individual. And it's great we have a team. But is there someone who's an individual who can be, as Mr. Mount Paninis was saying, held accountable if there's an issue?

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: Yes. We have a manager who is over the team.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you. Do you know what type of progress is being made at this point then on this thing that we've at least been able to address in some fashion?

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: LIZZIE Absolutely. It is something we are working on every day and working with families and working with school staff as well, making sure that we're actually logging it. We're finding that sometimes a family will bring in their immunization record to the office, but someone doesn't know how to log it. Or we really need to be also doing the structure to make sure everyone knows how to put it into synergy, log it correctly, send it down to the enrollment center so we can log it correctly, all of the different tools. We are working on it, absolutely.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay, thank you. I hope we can nail this one down because it's such an important issue for the health and safety of our community. Agreed.

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

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I would like to, first of all, thank you very much for the Christie White team, you know, because switching to you, I remember the state of our last audit or lack thereof with the last auditor and then you all taking over. The herculean efforts that you all went through to help get information from previous systems. And now the work that's been done to get us to systems where we actually have data and better accounting practices and position control. We're working on hiring an internal auditor, like doing all the things. So I would actually love to use this as an opportunity to toot our own horn. Would you all I mean, is hugely significant that we're only talking about like we're talking about, one, a completed audit, two, on time, and three, with a few findings. So could you all expand on that a little bit, please? Just toot your

[Student Delegate Cruz]: own horns, please.

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: Listen, the auditing team is great. I actually know Christy White. We haven't worked together in a while. But I was like we saw each other and said, oh, we're back to doing this together. The team is great. They have a good relationship. We still have improvement to make, quite frankly. Doing everything virtually is going to always be a challenge. And I want folks to be even more responsive. But the fact that we've come where we have so quickly, I think, is the persistence of Christie White and their team, as well as us. You can see the improvement that the previous audits have made in our processes now. That's my perspective.

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: Yeah. And I just would like to thank the district, like I mentioned before, the responsiveness, timely follow-up, attention to the meetings that we have, and really action items to follow-up with the items that we've requested and provide those in a timely manner has been really great for the process that we go through to prepare the audit. So there are individuals in the business office that I could name that were really integral in that process. And so I really thank them for that work.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Appreciate that. And Superintendent to Sue, I know last year before we were lucky enough to have both Chris and Niru here, you and Melly were total rock stars in the process. So thank you. Yes.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Last year was year of Team MELI and we greatly appreciate MELI LaSmith. And we are super, super grateful that Chris Mapinitas and Niru are here to make sure that we do have and will continue to have clean audits that is delivered in a timely manner so that we as governance leaders will be able to make our fiscal responsible compliance.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you so much for your time. Very much appreciate I know that we got a little delayed because of craziness. But thank you so much for being here. And I think we're good.

[Speaker 26.0]: We have a vote.

[Galahad Mai (SFI alum; former Student Delegate)]: Oh. Thank you. Thank This

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: is an action item.

[Galahad Mai (SFI alum; former Student Delegate)]: And thank

[Chris (Deputy Superintendent, Finance/Operations)]: you for putting our guest up front so that she could present.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Of course.

[Sarah Polifox (Executive Senior Director, Christy White Associates)]: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Student Delegate Mon? Yes. Student Delegate Cruz?

[Ms. Harry (Math Teacher, SFI)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Vice President Huling. Yes. President Kim. Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Commissioner Fisher.

[Speaker 19.0]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Motion carries.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you very much. We are now going to move to item E, workshop on student outcomes, guardrail one decision making. I call the superintendent to introduce this item.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Every year we we come back to the board to share our progress on our actions towards our guardrails. And in this presentation we will be talking about guardrails one and guardrail five. Guardrail one will be about community engagement as it relates to a lot of our key work in the district for last year and this year. And then guardrail five is about our strategic partnership And we will talk about our strategic partnerships with our city partners within the city family as well as with our growing partnership and deepening partnership with our higher institutions. It's my pleasure to introduce our Head of Communications and Community Engagement, Hongmei Peng.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Thank you, Doctor. Su, and good evening, commissioners, student delegates. Nice to see you. My name is Hongmei Peng. I'm the head of communications and governance. And on behalf of the team, I am very grateful for the opportunity to present to you all the progress that we are making on Guardrail One. Next slide, please. So I actually wanted to start the presentation by thanking each and every one of you, as well as the parents, students, staff, and community members who have joined us during the budget engagement campaigns, both in the spring and the fall, like the superintendent mentioned. We come in front of you once a year to present on the progress that we are making on this particular guardrail. And for this particular progress monitoring milestone, we are focusing on budget stabilization as the major decision. It is a top priority for SFUSD. And reflecting on this priority, we have carried out two community engagement campaigns, one in 2025 and another one in fall twenty twenty five. And the campaigns entailed in person and virtual town halls, advisory committee meetings, school site council meetings, as well as just small scale intimate close conversations between the senior team, superintendent, as well as different parent, principals, and school communities. And as the district continues to engage the different parts of our community, we are learning important lessons on how to strengthen our community engagement process. I definitely want to recognize that particularly given this particular budget process as we have started early this year, we have learned a lot in this process for the need for a comprehensive strategy that builds on our deep and broad assets within the district, including not just one off satellite community engagement activities or events, but really thinking about schools, families, and community driven networks so that we can better activate all of the touch points that we have as a school district to better integrate community engagement as part of our business process, as part of our shared governance process, but as part of our change management process. Because we have to be able to actually carry out the decisions and be able to implement them with Fidelity in partnership with site leaders, educators, advisories, family liaisons, community school coordinators, and so many others who are involved in making our schools great. So before we proceed, I do want to take the opportunity to also express my gratitude to the very small and mighty cross functional team who quickly mobilized over the course of a six week period to deliver a very robust budget engagement campaign, and also to the 50 staff volunteers who have spent weekends, evenings with us, with families throughout the entire city to make sure that we are able to implement this accessible campaign. Next slide, please. So just walking through some of the evidence that we have been able to collect. In the fall in particular, we held four in person and one virtual town hall to provide a community forum where we can share information, solicit input and test proposals about our budget in the community. I do want to recognize that as we wrote this town hall strategy out, there were points where we realized in conversation with community that we did not necessarily hit the market first. We had initially designed the campaign or this strategy to provide broad based information to a very general public. And the goal for that is to be able to lower the barriers for any parent who might be interested in getting involved in their school community. So we wanted to be able to share information so that they can become more fluent in the district's budget process to help them understand the state of our fiscal stabilization efforts so that they can be effective participants and partners in their school communities during the budget development process. However, and as a learning organization, in hearing feedback from the actual participants of the town halls, we quickly realized that there were points that we needed to pivot, particularly as it relates to content. And so based on the real time impact, real time feedback and impacts that we were able to hear throughout this process, we recognized the disconnect and were able to pivot and redesign throughout this town hall trajectory so that we were, at the end, able to if you compare the content that we share in the first town hall and the content that we shared in the last one, the program, the information that was included, we were refining this with the community as we went along. And as we evolved, we also recognized that we engaged with a very diverse audience. So the feedback that we heard over and over again is that the parents or the community members who are engaged enough that they are involved enough to be able to come to a town hall might require more of a two zero one level of budget engagement. They may want to see different information so that they can still be effective partners at their school site councils. And so really thinking about what is this multi tier engagement approach so that we can effectively meet the demands at the various levels of engagement. Next slide, please. So in addition to the town halls, which are large scale events and forums, at the policy level as designated by law or district and board policy, we were able to continue to leverage the diverse family and district advisories to gather their input on how budget decisions may impact parents and students, particularly focal populations. We have about 18 community and parent advisories. We were able to engage with many of them, almost all of them, this spring. That process continues. I think we're going to try to come and meet with the student advisory council at some point and really try to engage student voice and think through how we might be able to work with you all to deliver engagement and input methods with students. But I just want to share the feedback that we heard, which is that there is a desire to work with the district to explore opportunities to grow the investments available to SFUSD students and schools. And also to really think about how to align the budget decisions that we're making with recommendations that advisories might be coming to you, our board, with, as well as how it is being implemented at the district level. So it's really being able to calibrate across these various levels as we continue to have this conversation. So as we begun the new year, as we wrapped up the campaign in December and heard all of this really important feedback, we are convening and continuing to meet with staff in the advisories to further engage and gather their input on how to leverage these important bodies to improve authentic partnerships with parents and the community, and particularly leveraging the insight and expertise on a variety of district policies, but also the depth. I mean, I think there's a lot of talking about how do we leverage the institutional assets that we have. And so many of the parent leaders and actually advisory staff have been with the district for a very long time. And they are holders of a lot of the institutional knowledge and information on what has worked, what hasn't worked. And so really being able to engage with them on what are the ways that we can propel this body of work forward. And it would be remiss of me if I didn't also mention the work that we're doing with Chair, Commissioner Gupta, Commissioner Kim, as well as Commissioner Fisher on the Ad Hoc Committee on Community Engagement. We are so excited to continue leveraging that body as well to deepen our work with parent and community advisories.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: The best one.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: So just moving on to school site engagement. So we had mentioned this when we met in December in terms of, as part of the normal budget process, a lot of the local control decision making, thinking about the IA2P did Did I get that right? IP2. Thinking about that matrix, right? Like thinking about empowering, like where does that occur in our system? And that is really at the school site. And we know so many of the networks and relationships and trusts are cultivated and held at the school site level. So I really want to first thank all the principals who have joined us, superintendent, senior team, administrators over the course of the last several months in providing their thoughtful input and continued engagement as we continue budget development. We've met over, I think, 20 principal roundtable superintendents that you've been to. That's a blur. So in addition to the school site engagement that we have embarked on through the normal school site planning process, and again this year we started very early. Kicked off while the fall town hall kicked off the budget process, We presented a proposed budget in June this past year to begin the process to deliver this with the community and engaging in the school planning process in the spring. And throughout this entire process and it is a long runway, right? So there is an entire process that occurs to align the resources that are being allocated to school sites so that there is school planning happening to be able to line up the academic student programming and resources that occur at schools to account for student enrollment, unique and diverse student characteristics, and what they need at various schools. We are thinking about ways to leverage school communities to provide their insight in the policy decisions that need to be made. And we're working on refining that. But also, what are some of the insights that we can learn from as we really embed ourselves at the school site level to think about integrating this work? I also want to share that we are working with the team to explore more ways to leverage community school networks. That is a really important organizing point in our system. And also build deeper partnerships with PTAs, PTSAs, parent and community based organizations that are rooted in our schools to develop meaningful ways to continue engagement on budget and other key decisions so that we can really collaborate again not just at the point of shared governance where decisions are made, but also as decisions are getting implemented so that they are implemented with fidelity that honors our community's values. Next slide. And just to reiterate and these are some of the key lessons, if you will think of it this way the big overarching point here is that we are in the process of engaging continuous improvement. There are three main points. The first one is that we have heard loud and clear that part of the sort of cycle around continuous improvement is being able to demonstrate and share how the district has incorporated feedback in our ongoing budget development process. So as this process continues, we have already as a district integrated the input and feedback that we heard from the various venues in how we have rolled out school allocations to prioritize student learning, wellness, and safety. We have restored school social workers, T10s, and other key important positions, and these conversations continue. We have increased non FTE site discretionary allocations for focal student populations. Additionally, we heard loud and clear from principals the need for flexibility as well as from PTAs and PTOs and parent groups at schools for the need for flexibility so that we can leverage discretionary dollars to service our student outcome goals. And that is sort of the backbone behind our supplemental hiring guide. We've also put in place an appeals process to work collaboratively with principals to identify solutions to resource teaching and learning strategies at each school. And additionally, based on feedback not just from this campaign but prior campaigns, to provide a one stop sort of fiscal and HR opportunity for principals to work together to reduce bureaucratic and technical issues. We also heard very clearly from the community that it's not just about patching the gaps. It's also figuring out how we can elevate San Francisco's entire community to advocate for additional resources, whether if it's thinking about how do we increase enrollment. But also as a part of our work to advocate for more resources, the superintendent is working with a coalition of superintendents from major urban school districts to engage at a conversation at the state level. And so we really do believe that a lot of the feedback that we're hearing is really important. We are commissioning and also working on several impact analysis that the board has requested us to provide so that we can effectively communicate what are some of the trade offs. What are some of the things that we are grappling with as we are managing more effectively our resources while still being able to meet our student outcome goals. The second key point is being able to, as part of this process, align our resources with the inclusive decision making framework. And this is the continued work that actually brings together the important work that's being done in both ad hoc committees to think about how do we continue to adopt and integrate our vision, values, goals, and guardrails into our business processes, evaluating how do we invest in parent partnership and community schools, and also leveraging these points and touch points to facilitate meaningful consultation. Because it should not

[Speaker 19.0]: be a one and done.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: This is not about checking a thing off the checklist when we're trying to do hard things that impact students and families and the community and staff, but really thinking about it as an embedded way to facilitate continuous improvement. Which brings me to my next point. A huge learning is that we can't rely on town halls. We need to really think about how do we leverage district wide parent partnership strategies to move away from a satellite approach to an integrated approach. But also, again, activating school based networks, there's a lot that we can do to continue to flush that out. On decision making and implementation, being able to refine and strengthen the ways that we use data. This has to occur in the context of how we conduct shared governance. How do we understand who shows up at these town halls, who has access to show up at these town halls, and how do we leverage data points that we gather through other avenues, whether if it's our school culture and climate surveys to understand what are parents concerned about? What do they care about in terms of their students' experience at the school site? But also thinking about ways to, again, engage the community from the point of co designing so that we are partnering with them at each one of our checkpoints. Lastly, do want to point out we're looking at this from a very systems driven point of view. So part of the data work that we are doing is also being able to think about with the resources that we have, how can we maximize our impact and leverage whether if it's systems for data systems or training to promote better accessibility, cultural competency, and also engaging in capacity building of our staff who are here so that it becomes a part of the ethos of how we do work in the district. It's about customer service. It's also about being able to leverage existing voices that have already come forward to be able to inform our work so that we're not going back to the community every time to ask questions that they've already answered. So that we're really honoring their time and their input and feedback in our continuous improvement process. So superintendent, concludes my presentation.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, Hung Mei. I will, you know, just kick it off here with some things, for discussion. So I want to begin by by appreciating you and and acknowledging the immense amount of work that it takes to do all the things when it comes to community engagement and decision making. And certainly, this does not land on any one person's shoulder. So I want to recognize the fact that it takes a village and it takes everyone to kind of move and change behaviors. So just I want to acknowledge and appreciate that work. So I have a couple of things, two that are actually a bit more tactical and more clarifying. So I recognize that this is talking about the budget process that took place predominantly over the fall. But in October, as we kind of developed and agreed upon the types of decision making matrix, I want to make sure that we're clear on the difference between a strategic decision and a major decision because we did identify two major decisions around school reorganization and enrollment that are just uniquely different than other broader routine and ongoing engagements that we have or decisions that we need to make that we just kind of categorize as a broader strategic decision. And so my hope is that moving forward that we see some of the inclusive decision making framework, the next steps that you're talking about in the context of those two major decisions. So that's one. The second is, you know, I I was pulling up the interim goals and guardrails and the metric around 1.1, the implementation metrics and the impact metrics will likely need to be updated because they're right now formed in the perspective of percentage of major decisions. But if those are already decided at this point from October, we should probably change those metrics to better understand our progress towards building inclusive decision making systems. So more procedural, I apologize. I just didn't get that feedback to you prior to today. I think the bigger reflection that I have I kind of am going back to Ajay sitting on my shoulder and saying student outcomes don't change until adult behavior changes. And I want to just continue to talk about this inclusive decision making framework as this was a framework that the district had adopted. I know that the implementation of this is something that we are continuing to work on. But I think my bigger question is how are we changing our behaviors or maybe I'll just ask this in the form of a question of how how are behaviors of staff changing to truly internalize and embody the spirit behind the inclusive decision making framework? This is beyond just the major decisions, and I know this is within the context of the major decisions in particular. But but hopefully, is just a mindset shift, right, of how we work as a as a as a district. And whether that's budget which is the context by which you're presenting or TK or hiring or what have you, I think that's what's driving my bigger wonderings around guardrail one and truly using, like, our major decisions as the kind of premier example of this work that we're holding everyone accountable to. But I guess that's my more strategic question is, like, how is this being internalized as a system? And what can we do then as board members to support or further that effort?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Thank you President Kim. I think I'm just gonna start with I think I shared at I don't remember which meeting now but in one of our meetings that when I was talking about our VBGGs, our vision, values, goals and guardrails with some of our site leaders, a lot of our site leaders are not familiar with this work. And a lot of our site leaders, you know, they this is one of the first times or they only hear it when the board talks about it. So it is crystal clear to me that although we in the district embraced this work at the board level in twenty twenty two, several years ago, I think what happened was that we have not allowed this work to seep into our DNA yet. And so that is going to be the really big lift of really figuring out how do we institutionalize this concept, the concept of deep engagement, of making sure that at every major decision points we pause and we reflect and we look back and we go back to our community to engage. And I think it is truly a muscle that we need to learn to build up. And it's a muscle that we have to continue to work on each and every day. So long winded answer to your question of we're still working at it. And it will start from the top. It will have to start with me to make sure that I remember to pause and to go back and work with our community at every major decision point. It's not the right word, but at every key decision point. We have to pause. We have to check with our leaders, people who are really connected to the work at whatever decision point that we have to make. So it's definitely something that we need to continue to work on. Do you want to add anything?

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Yeah. Thank you. I just also wanted to say, as much as culture eats strategies for breakfast, you can't institute culture change overnight. Right? And I think part of the takeaways that I've gotten just listening to some of the work that's happening through the progress monitoring ad hoc is that how do we really institute systems of accountability as we build out these plans. Because we shouldn't wait till when we have to report on guardrail one to be able to say, how are we hitting the inclusive decision making framework? Like this should be a part of how we operationalize key decision making processes. Part of this is we do need to revisit and think through what are the systems that were in place that maybe have been eliminated, reduced, or has changed in nature as a result of all of the resource changes over the years. An example here is just in terms of internal communications. What are some of the ways that we can strengthen and build our internal communication systems so that we can more effectively deploy the different touch points within the system to engage, gather input, and make that a part of how we, again, conduct business. So not to drill down too, too much, but there are some very specific ways that we can institute continuous improvement efforts so that we can adopt healthier practices in relation to how do we share information, collaborate, and partner with impacted students, families, and staff per the guardrail. And it really is about being accountable to the values of the board and as representatives of the community.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. And I'm glad we're talking about this. And I think this is hard to, I think, conceptualize. It's hard to I think it's easy to talk about, oh, this is a framework. But then really understanding, like, what it mean when we're hitting the mark? It feels harder. So my question is going to be, besides, like what objective metrics besides attendance numbers are we going to be using to measure the quality and influence of the consultation at inception and adoption and review phases? I mean, I think that there's been often a lot of disconnect with what seems like the district feeling like we engaged and community being like, no, you didn't. And and we clearly, there is a real disagreement. And I don't think it's just, you know, I'm right, you're wrong. Like an actual, actual fundamental disagreement on what engagement should be or shouldn't be. And I think what we know is attendance numbers doesn't, attendance numbers or survey responses, while to us as a district may feel like this is engagement, I think for community doesn't feel reflective of actual engagement. So besides these numbers, like how are we going to know when we're hitting the mark? How are we going to know about the quality of this engagement? Because that's where I worry that we're not there and as many town halls as we put on, etcetera, etcetera. I know you're not just suggesting town halls but like it's not meeting the need.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Yeah, thank you so much for that question, Commissioner. I feel like if there is if we do it right, then maybe we don't have to do town halls anymore, which is kind of like personal striving towards that goal. I mean, in terms of some of questions that we got, even in the Q and A doc, right, the return on investment in terms of how many people come, how many touch points do we actually have? And really thinking about which is why it has to be a more systems and integrated approach. And I appreciate your question, Commissioner. I also feel like it's important for us to delineate the metric for measuring success versus having everybody agree on the decision. Those are two different things. And we can do a ton of community engagement, but it is possible that we are not going to achieve consensus with the community because we serve a very large, very urban, very diverse district with very different complex needs and systems. And so I think this is a welcome invitation to continue to develop what those metrics look like to be able to continue to define success. But one of the things that we learn is that we can't put those two things together and equate them as success. I think a few things just looking at the inclusive decision making framework is how do we measure the outreach that we have done to increase, for example, the participation of limited English proficient communities, right, in terms of how do we measure inclusivity. Are we sending out information in different modes, utilizing video and call and text instead of just email? Are we making sure that everything is translated in time two weeks ahead if there is an event? To really think about reducing barriers to participation as a key indicator for whether or not we've conducted inclusive decision making and outreach. So that's an example of systems based metrics that we can start to integrate in how we build out our planning and targets and goals that I would love for us to continue to refine and the team as well as part of the whole system.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thanks. Can I just do a follow-up since I have a little bit more? I appreciate that. And I think it's really I appreciate the point that we have to getting everybody to agree does not mean that you've checked the box or you've failed at engagement if there's not agreement. But I do think that sort of iterative process where it's you heard, you listened, and we're not going to make this, we're not actually going to do this, but here's why. We heard you, these are the things we considered, and here's why we're doing something else. And I think that is something that's so often missing. And so then people just assume, well they didn't do what I thought was the better thing or they didn't do what we suggested and so they didn't listen. They didn't actually care and it was just, you know, performative. And so wherever that loop is, that feedback loop so that we're it's not just we go out, we come back, and the decision is we go out, come back, we go out again. This is what we heard. This is where we are. And so it's like an actual conversation. And I know that's hard given how many places and spaces there are to try to engage this way. But I do think that that is super important.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Can I just say that I really resonate with that because I really do perceive engagement as the opportunity to build relationship? And again, we over the last several years have been trying to reestablish our credibility and establish respect and trust within our system. And I fully acknowledge that it takes time. It takes a lot of transparent conversation. But what does that even mean? It means that we just go out and be honest with our families. Be honest with our constituents. Follow-up when we say we're going to follow-up and respond and demonstrate that we are listening. Again, I think it is not a very strong muscle in the district right now, but we are lifting weights and we're going to build this muscle up because we're not going to be successful if we do not build our relationship with our key community. Our community, period. But yes, it is about relationship and eventually we will have that level of trust and grace that comes with a strong relationship, a strong partnership.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Yeah, thank you. I just think this is a good discussion. I just want to add on. I think there's this other piece where it's actually impossible for the superintendent and you all to do that work with everyone in the forty nine thousand student school districts. So I think there's this question around the systems and how do those how does that get built into the system, right? And again, this is related, I think you said it earlier, around the cultural change as well as the systems change. And it has to happen in multiple levels of the system. And just as someone who's been in SFUSD a long time, know this has always been a challenge. And it's kind of gone up and down in terms of how challenging it is or how unchallenging it gets at times, which is good if when at times it gets less challenging. But so I mean, to use an example, principals need to feel heard by their bosses, and their bosses need to feel heard by their bosses and vice versa so that that feedback loop is going up and down the system. And then principals need to be doing outreach in their communities and with their site councils. So I think, just echoing what my colleague said, I think the focus on town halls in some ways I've always thought was and this wasn't just this administration. I think there's always been a history of focus of of trying to do town halls, which makes sense because as the from the central office, that's something you can control. But I actually think the more the profound change is gonna have to happen throughout the system. And it's harder and it's gonna take longer, but I think it's gonna be that's when we're gonna actually see this guardrail being respected in practice is when we do it up and down the system.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Can I just say I 100% agree? We really, really need to learn how to leverage the key leaders within the system. And that's at all levels. Like even young people can deliver messages to each other. And as we have demonstrated today, our young people are extremely powerful from fourth graders all the way to high schoolers. But we need to be able to figure out how to leverage that. We need to be able to engage key leaders and then have those conversations seep through the entire system.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Yeah and they need to feel like Commissioner Weissman-Ward was saying like they were listened to, right? That that it wasn't just performative, that it was there was feedback, it was received. Even when it didn't get always followed, it was received, it was considered, there's a dialogue going on. So I think that's the that's the piece. I totally agree.

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

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I have a few questions that I wanted to check on. You had made a reference to town halls and essentially hoping that you won't have to do many in the future. And looking at our engagement numbers on them, they don't seem to be a good use of the immense staff time and resources that went through from what I've seen here, and especially since it's not an unduplicated count. It includes people who were there a number of times. So I'm wondering what we're looking at for other methods of engagement, given the virtual town halls engage the most people. What other methods of engagement are we considering? That's my first question.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Thank you so much for that question, Commissioner Ray. So thinking about alternative ways to engage, and as we're talking about the systems change work that we need to do, right? Like one key area is being able to think about how many school sites have strong, working, effective school site councils. Like, are there ways that we can facilitate better participation there, remove barriers? I think another key indicator and this is not so much a town hall strategy. And we have been working with I just want to say thank you to President Kim and Vice President Huling, as well as the Ad Hoc Committee on Community Engagement Chair Gupta and Commissioner Fisher to really think through, if we have these advisories, how do we make sure that those bodies are being effectively leveraged, that appointments are made, we have a strong process, And really leveraging all of the system to be able to deliver. So I think that the good news here is that opportunities abound. And we have a lot of different places where we can measure growth, put a different way. I think that being able to think about true participation in terms of that two way communication is really, I think, the other stretch goal for us to think through not just points in time in terms of when we share our information as isolated episodes and events, but really thinking about what are the mechanisms and the methods for which we can engage in this two way dialogue. So I spoke earlier a little bit about internal communication. And do we have a effective way to leverage systems leaders to empower them with information, to engage in consultation with touch points that they have within the system? But also thinking about leveraging trusted messengers within the community. For, I think, a couple of years now, the communications team have been interested in recruiting a trusted sort of cadre of community and parent leaders. These are community based organizations, parent leader association groups, advocates to be able to share out trusted information in an accessible way. So I think that there are these projects that we've piloted that we can look at just some test data as part of the data work that we do to really identify and hone in on a few key areas that we want to make improvement coming out of this process and as we enter the sort of major decision making for the upcoming key decisions to really identify what those growth areas are and to be able to measure impact from a systems point of view. Sorry, that was very long winded. But I just wanted to give you examples of what it could look like.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I appreciate that. In order to do things like that, there were a lot of expressions in the report of how constrained or limited staff capacity is. And I had asked some questions around that. But I don't feel like I've gotten a sense of what resources would really be needed to do true community engagement of the nature we're talking about. And I, for one, would find it helpful to know that. But I think for the board to be able to be helpful in this respect, we need to have a sense of what kind of resources are actually required. And after this, have one other question.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Thank you, Commissioner Ray. I just want to let you and the board know that as part of the process of reorganizing central office and the central office budget development process, we are engaging in conversations around how do we structure and align resources. But also, I think, in terms of thinking about accountability, as we have to do this work cross functionally, how do we organize ourselves to be able to deliver? So again, it's moving away from silos to a more strategic integrated approach. It shouldn't just be one person or an office doing community engagement. Everybody who is implementing, there should be some level of competency around at minimum. We had service standards, HUD service standards, honor, understanding, guide. That kind of went through its own evolution because of changes in resources. There were also resources around parent partnerships that have evolved and changed over time as a result of resource constraints. So we are doing both a level of forensics to understand how has this change occur because of the last few years of budget reductions, but also as we enter into this work to make a commitment on doing this in this way that is system wide, district wide across school sites and different parts of the city to really be able to think about how do we organize our resources and structure. So I don't have an answer for you right this minute. These conversations are ongoing. But these are some of the key discussions that we're having around how do we structure this? What are the sort of functional swim lanes that we need to create? But also what are some of the cross functional collaborations that need to happen in order for this to actually work?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay, thank you. My last question is perhaps directed to Superintendent Hsu, but if you would prefer to take it, either is fine. And that said, I've heard mention from both of you about leaders and talking about leaders. And talking to leaders is very, very important in various respects. But most of the community is not a leader. So are we actually trying to reach most folks in our communities? And what would our proposed mechanisms or thoughts around how to do that unless we actually are saying and if we're saying this, I would like to know, is it the district's position that we're not able to reach most folks? What's going on in terms of our efforts? Thank you. Or thinking.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Would it be helpful if I just kind of share a little bit and this is like bragging a little bit,

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: if that's

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Okay. We have a very powerful megaphone at our disposal as the school district. Every single week there are two weekly bulletins that go out, one to staff called Oasis. That goes out to about 10,000 recipients. And every Thursday evening the family announcement bulletin, aka FAB, goes out to about 60,000 recipients. The industry average for opening of mailings like this hovers around 15% to 20%. The district open rate for these publications hovers around anywhere between 50 five-zero to 65. When you are looking at analytics and you do the double click into what are some of the key topics or content or resources that parents look at the most, And this doesn't include the outreach that happens at the school site level. You look at clicks, what content is being accessed the most? And when you look at some of these analytics, have a lot of insight in terms of the reach that we have every single week because we are providing essential information. So that's absolutely something that is part of our bread and butter. And staff, we have a small and mighty communications team. They run everything from the systems to the content to the outreach and to leverage internal communication channels like the weekly leaked news that goes out to principals that is a treasure trove of information. So there are these different mechanisms that we leverage to do like a double click or like a reinforcement of information sharing. And also just making sure that we have ways to leverage advisories in improving some of these strategies in terms of user access, user friendliness, etcetera. So I just want to make sure it would be remiss of me to not mention the important systems work that we're doing in terms of informing families of essential information that we do at the school district, but also the opportunity and potential that we have to really improve some of these systems.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'm going to actually student delegates, because we're pressed for time here. So if there's anything you'd like to share.

[Student Delegate Mon]: Yeah, lost, actually. First of all, good evening. Hi. I just wanted to begin with thank you. In the beginning of your presentation, you showed a lot of gratitude to a lot of people involved and everything. I want to show gratitude to you and everyone here for asking amazing questions that provoked even more thoughts in my head to ask here. And the first thing is, I know we talked a lot about the whole system thing and everything and what it means to really bring the community into the decision making and what it means even when consensus is not reached. And I guess my question is, how is this feedback being brought in? And what does it mean to integrate community input into decision making? And I noticed that it's part of the plan, it's to clarify the goal of engagement. What does that look like right now? And what do the future steps what are the steps that will be taken to achieve that?

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Thank you so much, student delegate Mon, for that really thoughtful question. I think one of the things that we have heard that is really important is being able to do effective expectation setting with the community. So when you're looking at all the different ways that, say, a parent or a student can participate in a decision making process, right? Are we informing? Like, this is just one way I'm just telling you. Or are we saying, student delegatement, you have the ability to vote up or down a particular decision that makes you a decision maker and that you're empowered with a different level of shared governance? I think that one of the key things that we have learned in this process is to be very, very clear about what is it that we are looking for as the school district so that going into an engagement, we are meeting and also being able to reciprocate some of the expectations that the community has of us. So I think that as an answer to your question, that is, I think, a really important next step for us to be able to do as for the major decisions and the different decision points that we are effectively communicating the role of the community, impacted students, staff, and families in terms of how they will be participating as part of the decision making. But also, to the superintendent's point, following through on our commitment and being able to honor the partnership that we are building with the community.

[Student Delegate Mon]: Thank you. And then in your presentation, you mentioned a lot about the town halls, the advisories, and everything. And from each slide, I was thinking, oh, what about this? But then you literally addressed it in the next slide. So it was amazing. But I think the thing was I was thinking about town halls. And then I was thinking, oh, what if the people who don't show up to town halls? And then you mentioned the advisories where you meet the parents where they are. And then I'm thinking, what about the parents that are not in the advisories? And then you mentioned the PTSA and the PTA. And I'm like, yeah, that's amazing. And then you also mentioned the SAC. We're really looking forward to having you there, too. And that brings me to my second question. I remember this is a concern at the ad hoc committee on community engagement in our little breakout sessions, like how to continue that community engagement and really bring the people who are often left out of these conversations. Because obviously, access to town halls and advisories and even like PTSAs, something that's based at the school sites, like access to transportation if parents are working. I know my mom works double shifts all the time. So she's rarely able to make it to these type of things. And then I don't know, things like getting your child babysat for, I don't know, just a bunch of stuff that serves as an obstacle to attending these things. And I guess that leads me to my question of how are we going to continue this. I've heard Commissioner Ray ask alternatives to town halls and things like that. And I guess I want to hear more of that and specifically how to bring people who are often not in the community. And I appreciate what you mentioned about the weekly bulletin and how we have over 50%. That was pretty cool. Yeah. Thank you

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: for the follow-up questions, delegate on. I think a huge part of this is we know that the reason why trust and relationships and networks are cultivated and sustained at the school site is because these are daily touch points for you. You see your principal probably most days. You see your teachers every single day. You see your friends a lot, sometimes outside of school. So I think really being able to think about not just sort of like the district, like SFUSD communications in this case, sending you a bulletin, but really thinking about how do we make sure information and outreach and decision making is really moving to the level of the school side, actually working with students. I feel like your social media expertise, we would love to partner with you to figure out how to more effectively outreach and engage students. That's not necessarily coming to a town hall. Maybe it's doing I don't know if you all still do Instagram Live. Or some way to engage that actually speaks to how the different audiences prefer to get information to engage. And I think it's really being able to think through, how do we design that together? And I think one big takeaway is sometimes we put up FAQs that are not questions that are actually frequently asked. So I think we should probably figure out what questions people are actually asking so that we're developing content that is responsive to that as one of the ways that we can do two way engagement. So I think there are so many opportunities. And I would just love to work with you all to figure out what that looks like.

[Student Delegate Mon]: Yeah, precisely. Great minds think alike. I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, I appreciate you mentioning the whole social media thing because obviously, Z, high school, very social media core. And I remember I ran for a student delegate with a whole district wide election thing. Remember I made an entire Instagram account. Mass followed 400 people overnight. All that stuff, very true. And that's one of the things that I made it part of my platform that I was running for, just that community engagement. And I really wanted to bridge that gap between here and back at school or other schools and things like that. Because before I was involved in SAC middle I mean, I see the fourth graders in the middle schoolers, and I think that's pretty impressive. And I didn't even I wasn't even aware of that when I was that age. So I guess, like, of yeah, like exactly what you mentioned and trying to figure out a way where we can do this together. And I think the SAC would be a really great resource and it would be great to meet with you guys, especially because we have representatives from every school. Like I speak here and I'm a senior at Lowell, but then in SAC we have representatives from a bunch of schools and also from a bunch of grades. So they have different perspectives too because I'm leaving soon. I'm graduating but some students are here to stay for a couple more years. Yeah, but thank you. Thank you so much for everything. And thank you to you guys too.

[Superintendent Hsu]: I'm sorry, can I just very quickly just respond? Addition to all the wonderful things that Jaime just shared, we also have a very strong network of community partners, community groups. Are amazing parent support groups and community team, young people support groups, nonprofit agencies that literally almost sit side by side with our students and with our families that we need to bring closer to us as well. And so if you go to MAYIEP or go to JCYC, right, these are, or CYC, we just heard about CYC today. We need to also tap into that network. And we have lots of amazing, amazing parent groups out there like Parents for Public School and Coleman Advocates and all of these other amazing parent leaders who are supporting other parent leaders. And so it's making sure that we continue to engage all of those nonprofits as well.

[Student Delegate Cruz]: I don't really have a question. It's more of like a few comments. I really appreciate what you're doing because not only are you attempting to get a dig like a deeper insight of what our families want, you're also getting to a level that makes it comfortable for them too. I feel like a lot of families don't stereotypically want everything they want to be done. It's rather being considered in decisions. It's not more of like, oh, I want this, do this. It's more of like, when you do something, I want you to take in consideration me and other families. So I feel like that's really important. And I feel like students is such a good resource. I feel like for SAC, we have our own cabinets. For example, at our own schools in ASB, we have a lot of students that are involved. So a lot of families get information, get translated from their own students, from their own kids. So I felt like this is also a really good chance. We are always open for any Our students really love being involved. That's something that they're looking forward to. So if you ever do need any type of resource, let us know. ASPs will know. A lot of other youth organizations do know. And we do all have a lot of orgs. A lot of students are in orgs, we can get that through, especially from EM admission graduates. Actually, lot of the SFI kids that were here I knew, a lot of them are involved in admission graduates as well. So it was really nice seeing them. Yeah. So it's something that we are really, really considering and we can always do with you. But, yeah, I'm really thankful because you you literally answered all our questions. Like, what she was saying, she was you you answered what question I had, and like, you're oh yeah, no, I answered it. I'm like, okay. You know, she has everything. So I just love that you're taking efforts into doing more and that you're taking in consideration. And I feel like a lot of parents don't really want because they've said what they want. They've said a lot of students have said what they want. Everybody knows what they want. They just want to have that be reciprocated and just really be given out in consideration. I feel like that's what really parents want, families and everybody. But yeah, that's something that I really appreciate and I know a lot of students would also. Thank you.

[Student Delegate Mon]: Sorry, one more Wait, I know my time's up. I just wanted to do a quick plug to our youth summit that's coming up in April. We will do an official report next meeting. But I think that's a really great opportunity because we're talking about youth collaboration, community engagement. That's a really great opportunity if any of you guys or anyone from communications wants to table. Or I believe last year we had a couple of people give speeches. I believe superintendent was there to give speeches. Yeah, so if any of you guys are interested in that, we are definitely looking for that. And I remember last year during our little lunch session, we had tables from a bunch of youth organizations sharing their opportunities. We even had a table from school meals where we got to try new recipes, that was really cool. But I think it would be really helpful to have a table with you or with any of your commissioners here just to really get the youth input on what issues that they're most passionate about and that they care for and want to advocate for. And I think the people at the Youth Summit are people who do care about what's happening in the district. So I think it's like the perfect space to do it. I know usually it's like people from student government who are officially invited and encouraged to attend the Youth Summit. And obviously everyone else is encouraged too. But I think the people who do show up to the Youth Summit will be especially helpful to bring into this conversation. And that's, I promise, the last thing I say today. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, student delegates. Really appreciate your work and your leadership.

[Speaker 11.0]: Thank

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you for being here. Okay, picking back up. Yes, wait. Did you go already? No, just kidding. Go for it.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: And I'll just say, take student delegate Cruz and student delegate Mona, I'll take you up on the offer to have more student involvement. On February 5, one of the highlights certainly of the student engagement sorry, of the public engagement ad hoc was your participation and those of some of the other students. It's a really critical voice, especially as we think about how the school district and how this board engages our community. So please come to the next Ad Hoc on February 5, and please do bring as many student leaders as you can. We would love that.

[Student Delegate Cruz]: Of course, we'll be there.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yes, Leola Havard. That's correct. So in community as well. Thank you. So first of all, thank you, Hongwei, for your presentation, as well as I just want to acknowledge all the resources that you provided us as an ad hoc of public engagement, including Marin and a variety of other folks to help with putting this on. It couldn't be done without that staff engagement and the incredible resources we do have. I also recognize that community engagement is much like public speaking or leadership. No one has ever quite done. It is constantly continual improvement in terms of always getting better. So I appreciate the involvement of pretty much on your slide, I think you even have continuous improvement multiple times. I want to just highlight some of the things that have been said around how we do this. And I really appreciated the comments around including our community site members, particularly your principals in this, and what you mentioned about having this up and down kind of ladder with this. And we recognize that it just struck me that perhaps it is more of a train the trainer model when we think about this rather than thinking about it from someone or a department from central trying to do this across 125 communities. I mean, one, that doesn't leverage the tremendous resource we have in our site leaders that have that authentic, trusted relationship with their communities. I I think about my I'm so fortunate to have a fantastic principal at my daughter's school at Roosevelt and Principal Leacham. And I just think about all the fantastic principals that are out there that could similarly do this if provided the resources. And if that DNA and structure was built to connect that into all the departments, so when C and I is considering something, when RPA is considering something, obviously lead as kind of a natural function of reaching our site leaders. I mean, that just feels like something that then also takes into account that we've lost 40% of our central staff in our cuts. Wow, that went really,

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: really To be fair, you spent 45 seconds talking to the student delegates. So you might have more time.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Still counts as part

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: of the

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: three minutes. So it's 09:15

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: y'all. Time wise.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: This is true. This is true. Okay. So I will just finish up and say that as we do this, and I just want to make a plug for the community in general that might be listening for our February 5 meeting where we are actually asking community how the board engages the public, what is that way? And it's sort of this trust in the community to tell us what is the best way of engagement. If it's not town halls, what is it? And so obviously, we ride shotgun with district staff in understanding and then incorporating that as we think about our major decisions, school reorganization, school and the enrollment process. So we look forward to that. And I look forward to your I think if there's just one question I have, it's, I think as student delegate Mon put so eloquently, for every person who's brave enough to come here tonight or engage in an advisory committee, there are 100 who have opinions who are not expressing them or have not felt like they can express them. And so I understand the list that we have. But how are you know, it's perhaps an open invitation. If you have an answer now, great. If it's something that we can co think about together, but how do we reach those other 100 people?

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Yeah, thank you so much, Chair Gupta, for that question. I don't think that there is a silver bullet or a panacea for this issue around being able to reach hard to reach communities. I've worked on the 2020 census as a community advocate in the civil rights sort of world. And this is a perennial issue in terms of being able to address anywhere from attitudinal mistrust to a lack of information to the barriers that student delegate Maun has outlined in terms of actually physically not having transportation or child care. So I just want to say that while there is not a single solution to that, we have as a school district instituted different again, continuous improvement efforts to lower the barrier to participation. And I really also appreciate the Committee on Community Engagement really pushing us to make sure that our meetings are accessible, that we have interpretation, that we have ASL, that we have childcare, that we have food. All of these things contribute to a greater likelihood to open up opportunity for historically underrepresented communities to be more able to participate. Now I think the question around how do we make sure that we're getting the biggest sample possible, right? There are absolutely ways that we can do things like issue surveys. I think that was an option that we have in the past. And still, as a school district, as part of our research work, as part of our planning work, as part of our assessment work that we do, just in terms of policy making and being able to have data. I would say in my conversation with staff who are leading the work on the ground, there are available existing data sets that I think are being underutilized at this moment. And I think as we are thinking about being more effective and efficient as a system, we should really start to understand and start mapping some of these assets within our system. I think it also avoids what I have dubbed or have heard dubbed as engagement fatigue. Because we keep going back to the community asking the same question. They're like, we already told you this before. And where did that data go? So I think instead of starting from scratch, we need to honor the fact that many families have been with us for anywhere if they are with us now starting from TK to graduation. That's fourteen years. That's a long time. That's a lot of institutional knowledge. That's a lot of input. So how do we really account for all of that? I think that's the challenge. And I think that's the task at hand in order for us to really do this from a systems perspective.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I appreciate that perspective, Hongmei. Thank you very much. This has been a really good conversation. Thank you, everyone. I think I'd like to take a step further back though. I wonder, this goes to Commissioner Weissman-Ward's point earlier, like I don't think that we have shared definitions of what community engagement means with our community. I think and if you look at you referenced the IAP2 framework earlier. There's inform, where leadership just informs community. Like, here's what we're doing. Take it or leave it. All the way up to empower, which is, you know, come on in and be you know, we're going to listen to you and we're going to let you make the decision, right? It's a whole spectrum of potential decision making frameworks. And I think we've got a lot of community members who will be happy with inform, but we've got probably a majority who would actually prefer to be somewhere closer to empower. And there's not a lot of clarity about where we are, actually. And I think so making sure that we have shared definitions and commitments and we're consistently following through, I think, is a big part of that, too. I'm going to reflect back something that I heard from the second best ad hoc committee on progress monitoring. One of the in their conversations around progress monitoring. So we are in a progress monitoring workshop. So the strategic type of questions to be asking here are really and we've talked about some of this. What has worked and what has not worked in the past? What data do we have about pest practices? How are we going to use that to inform practices moving forward? And so I think I really appreciate this conversation and I appreciate this, but I would really, based on those questions, love to see a lot more specificity. How did I do, Chair Alexander?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Better than I did.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Hey. All right. But I so and I think you were heading in exactly that direction, like what you were saying, like there's stuff we've done well in the past. We've got some data sets that we so I love this conversation. And I would love to actually see a lot more of that in the reports and see that level of specificity. And I think we have a huge opportunity to align timelines. Right? Like I think the budget town halls that were done in the fall were a great start. And we also there was a I think a lot of disconnect between that and budget decisions that were made in December and the budgets that we're seeing at school sites now. And I think that is a bit like that could have been a great through line. We've talked about that. We talked about that before. But just I think for me, thinking strategically, because this is progress monitoring, the questions I asked before, but also then how do we cascade that into effective timelines and share that transparently, all of it, the commitment, the strategies, and the timelines with community. Those would be my asks for the next report here.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Thank you. I wanted to start just also by reiterating what I think President Kim flagged, is that I believe interim guardrail 1.1 needs to be updated to reflect the two major decisions that have been identified by the board and that the superintendent will consult with the community using an inclusive decision making framework for both of those particular major decisions because guardrail one is required to be met for all major decisions. And I really appreciate this monitoring report as a start for thinking about how do we think about data and what we're doing and how we can change what we're doing around these kind of more amorphous guardrails. I personally think that we are while I have a deep appreciation for what the team has invested in in terms of their time and sweat, in these budget town halls. I think we're probably closer to significantly off track in meeting guardrail one. By my numbers, we engaged about 0.6% of households if every single person who came to a town hall was from a unique household. That's a half of a percent, not 6%. And to Commissioner Weissman-Ward, our forever vice president's point, about getting feedback from families, I think it's really important we cannot get meaningful feedback from families unless we provide real transparency about what the district is thinking about doing or what the district is doing and why. And I think that we were more in informing mode at some of the town halls about the state of the budget and why cuts were going to be made rather than actually sharing in real time the potential options to get feedback from the community to inform and think about the inception phase that is

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: part of guardrail

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: one. Also, just in the name of the progress monitoring report or the progress monitoring committee sorry, I'm gonna lose my time because I'm trying to get through the minutes. One of the things that I think we eventually want to get to if we're going to get totally to adopting student outcomes focused governance is to having all of our reports have the superintendent's strategic plan for actually devoting the resources that we need in order to meet all of our goals and guardrails if we are off track. And to me, this plan does not identify that. Instead, it just says that we don't have the resources. And so if we were getting back to the place where we're voting on whether a report is sufficient, I would say it's sufficient because it lacks a plan and also or because that plan is insufficient. And so my question to the superintendent is what can you tell us about your strategy to devote sufficient resources to community engagement and communication to get us on track rather than just telling us we don't have those resources? Because otherwise it's just a wish, an aspiration that we will not meet. And I think it's crucial that we meet this guardrail with respect to the major decisions. So can you transparently share with us your strategy for devoting additional resources?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Yes. Thank you, VP Huling, for that question. And yes, that is part of one of the reports that has to be attached to progress monitoring. I see our team back there, so let's make sure that we have the resource allocation for part of the report for all of the reports moving forward. In terms of identifying resources to expand or staff the communications work of the department of the district, I'm actually doing active fundraising. I cannot see us depleting and using our very, very precious general fund to fund this work. However, I know that here in San Francisco we have a very generous and very giving community and they want to see us succeed. They really do. I was at an event just a week ago. President Kim was at that event. And the number of funders who came up to me afterwards saying I'm so excited about what's happening at the district. I want to help. And you probably need better communication support. And so let us help you. And so we actually was just talking with our development person this morning or this afternoon. We're putting together a proposal to expand our communications work. So any potential funders out there, please reach out to us because we are looking for supports. We're looking for partners because we do need to staff this work. This work is very important and we need to make sure that we have the resources to have boots out in the streets, on the ground, making sure that we are engaging with key stakeholders from students to parents to staff to other partners in the system.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Do you have a particular ask or have you identified what that need is?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Not at this time, but we are writing a proposal.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Did you want to say okay, great. Well, thank you so much, Hung May. I appreciate you and your leadership. And I Sure.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. Quick. Superintendent Sue, I just want to potentially reframe what you just said. And I appreciate the last part of what you said about community engagement being so important. I was a little nervous about the first part of it, about what you said about, you know, like we don't have the general fund resources to spend on community engagement. I would encourage you to reframe that as this is such an important priority that we will if we have to, but it's also a very important priority of our entire community and people want to step up and fund this so we can use our general fund for other things. I just want to because also, especially where we are in our budget constraint with the state, I know we can't use grants to fund people. So I want to make sure that we're prioritizing this and it is very much going to have to be people powered to an extent, right? So I hear a commitment from you to find a way to fund it as a priority. So I just want to make sure that isn't lost in what you're saying.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Thank you for the clarification, Commissioner Fisher. Yes, we are this is a very important work because engaging with our community is very important particularly as we move into the two big major decisions that we have to move into. And you're absolutely right. We need to be able to continue to partner with external partners to make sure that we adequately resource this work.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Thank you, Hung Mei. Appreciate your presentation. And I know this work is ongoing. So I'm sure we'll see you again soon. I'm going to Well Oh, well, are you going to Okay. The next Well, big transition here to guardrail five strategic partnerships. And Hongmei, I'll pass the mic to you.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Okay. Hi again. It is me. Chat I listened to a lot of Adele this weekend. Okay. So guardrail five, guardrail five. If we can go to the next one and one more. So we have been meaningfully collaborating with key city partners to improve student well-being and outcomes. And this guardrail is there are two interim guardrails. The first one is around the Prop J collaboration, where we have engaged with the mayor's office, city supervisors, and city departments to really lay the foundation for the actual nuts and bolts collaboration delineated by Prop J deliverables. This was a proposition that was passed by voters in 2024. And while we had identified the number of reports to be the metric for measuring our progress, Reports are not yet we have not yet been asked to submit a report. And that is not required this fiscal year. And so as we are working with the city and our partners to make this more concrete,

[Student Delegate Cruz]: we do

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: anticipate that this work will ramp up towards reporting requirements becoming live. The second part of this guardrail is in service of goal three, our college and career readiness goals, as well as interim guardrail 5.2, which is our post secondary educational opportunity collaboration. So we have, very exciting, launched a guaranteed admissions initiative with San Francisco State University and the City College of San Francisco. Both initiatives have specific plans to continue advancing the work that we do for the rest of the current school year and beyond. So next slide, please. So just really quickly to share a little bit more about the work that we're doing around Prop J. So while, again, the metric has not yet come online, the work has already begun to hit the ground. So for those of you who might not be familiar who are watching, in 2024 voters approved Proposition J, which seeks to do a couple of main areas main things. First is to really improve accountability and coordination across San Francisco Departments and SFUSD around the city funding that is tied to youth services. And the second one is to clarify the uses of Student Success Fund, which is an important and significant investment that our voters are making in really being able to fund our schools, particularly around coordinated strategies to deliver on student outcomes. Since the passage of Proposition J in 2024, we have been deeply engaged in planning and implementation efforts. There are a few key goals. The first one is to improve youth and children outcomes around a more seamless experience for children, youth, and families across San Francisco and the city, leveraging resources, whether if it's money, facilities, technology to generate outcomes, share data to facilitate more seamless delivery and better understand outcomes. The second key goal is around budget alignment and accountability. So being able to streamline, standardize, report how we get expenditure how we spend some of these city dollars to facilitate alignment and tracking to provide more transparency and clarity, but also to be more efficient with the very precious resources that we get to maximize impact for young people and children in San Francisco. And lastly, it's really being able to streamline planning to bring together better coordination with other city departments through a shared plan, but also shifting to a planning timeline that is really aligned with the citywide needs assessment because they are not just our students. These are young people and children who are also San Francisco residents who are tied to different touch points within the city. And like I mentioned, while the target was set as the number of reports, that has not yet come online. But we are actively collaborating with the city, with the legislative author, Supervisor Munan Melgar. Thank you very much, Supervisor. The mayor's office wanted to also express our thanks there, as well as, of course, the Department of Children, Youth, and Their Families. So I wanted to give a shout out and thank Executive Director Charisse Dorsey Smith for our collaboration and partnership and for their work to lead this effort. Next slide. Evidence for guardrail 5.2 and I am so excited to share more in-depth the work that we are doing to strengthen the post secondary opportunities as students are engaging in high school at SFUSD. So last year in October, we announced that we are finalizing a partnership agreement with San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco to guarantee admission for eligible high school seniors. This is a really important initiative. This is building off decades of work around San Francisco Promise. It not only carries out the deep collaboration between the district and other higher education entities as envisioned by but it's also I feel like we get more double points here around being in service of goal three to strengthen our college and career readiness outcomes. I also think that just in the moment that we're in, it's particularly significant that we're strengthening our public education institutions across the board. And so for SFUSD students who are eligible for guaranteed admissions, if they meet the California State University admission requirements, A through G, with a minimum of GPA 2.5 in their tenth through twelfth grade year, they will be guaranteed admissions in San Francisco State. So San Francisco State will offer direct conditional admissions. And that would be made official for this incoming class of students based at the point of their receipt of their official transcript data. We will be working with SF State to provide direct support to make sure that in this transitional period for our students that they are able to be set up for success. We are actively exploring ways to strengthen financial aid collaboration and coordination, and also to provide staff training to support the agreement. Next slide, please. So just to quickly overview some of the next steps for us, we have very tangible next steps for both of these areas. For Proposition J, the collaborative working group is now embarking in the budget and data mapping process across multiple city departments. There was a kickoff meeting that was convened late last year. I believe there was a meeting that also was convened earlier this week. Oh, it's only Tuesday. Yesterday. There was a meeting yesterday. So we are working actively sharing information around our allocation, for example, right through our publicly available budget reports to be able to contribute to this mapping effort. And as the city and as we continue to engage to refine the outcomes framework, we will be leveraging much of what we have been working on around VVGG. So it's not just an internal cascading, but also influencing citywide important and audacious and bold student outcome goals and the guardrails that we hold ourselves accountable to so that we are able to align and wrap around these different plans and frameworks around our students so that as we are delivering for them educationally in our school settings, we're also leveraging the resources across the entire city to support them as young people and children in the city. And as we proceed with this collaboration, we would need to develop corresponding internal systems and structures to facilitate collaboration, such as integrating this work into the annual planning and budgeting process and implementation process in this twenty six-twenty seven school year. So to the point made earlier around aligning timelines, this is absolutely where we're doing the work. And then just quickly around the higher ed collaboration, we have actually brought the MOU to you board for ratification tonight. It is on tonight's consent agenda. And so we will be establishing an internal cross functional working group to implement this initiative. And our work would be to identify CSU eligible students, conduct outreach, and provide student support through our College and Career Readiness team and that work stream during the application process. And also just collaborating on student readiness because so much of this requires our students to be set up for post secondary not just readiness, but success. And that work is ongoing and continues. So being able to really have this agreement in place allows us to collaborate, monitor, and really strengthen post secondary success. I do also want to note that independently from the Guaranteed Admissions Initiative, we are engaging in ongoing work with CCSF to explore ways that we can maximize and further leverage the dual enrollment work that we are doing as part of this collaboration and partnership to strengthen not just guardrail 5.2, but also around guardrail goal number three for college and career readiness to be able to accelerate post secondary career opportunity as well as increase diversity of course offerings for existing high school students who are interested in pursuing additional coursework at CCSF. So with that, I conclude the report.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, Hongmei. I will open it up for questions and comments from commissioners, or I will start. Thank you very much for this. I will say I think this is actually one of the areas where you excel, superintendent, in part because I think your experience with the city brings with it a recognition of the importance of deep collaboration and partnership with the city and county of San Francisco and the power, when we partner with our CBOs and philanthropic organizations and what we can do to advance our goals. In many ways, I think my takeaway from this is like in part the purpose of guardrails is to ensure protections for when we understand the kind of growth edges of a superintendent. And in many ways, this is less, to me, not the thing that is most prioritized when I think about the work that we need to do to establish guardrails. And I would much prefer to see work more around the curriculum and instruction teaching and learning side. I will say I think one reflection that I have, especially around the partnership for direct admissions is just how that well, I know it's relatively new initiative, but I would love to kind of start to see longer term impact data of our students who leave us after high school. I don't know the extent to which we are able to track this information as a district and I don't think many districts do, but college matriculation rates and graduation rates I think are things that I'm very deeply passionate about, and would love to understand how particularly with this partnership we're able to get more insights into that work if at all.

[Superintendent Hsu]: So before I introduce Interim Associate Superintendent Teresa Shipp, I will say that it was, I mean, obviously it was very hard to hear students making a plea for their schools, but it was also really heartening to hear students saying that they are, they have already been accepted to multiple schools including San Francisco State. And I think this is what we want to hear. We want to be able to have students see that their potential is great here at SFUSD and that if they choose to they can continue on to higher education. And we have a fantastic partner with SF State here in the city. And so in terms of just reducing on housing costs or transportation costs, like these are real costs that a student needs to consider when they're taking on or going on to higher education. And then also in terms of I think with Vice President Huling's question before of just how are we making sure that we resource these things. One of the things we're doing is actively fundraising again to ensure that we can really tell our students that if you want to go to San Francisco State, we in the city with SFUSD, we're going to try to figure out how to help you go. Finances should not be a barrier to higher education because you deserve to go. And so we're working really closely with our philanthropic partners as well to make sure that obviously right now we can't do it for all students but for as many students as possible to give them a scholarship so that they can go. And that I am going to hand it over to

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: Thank you for the question President Kim. So we are really excited about our partnerships not only with San Francisco State University but with City College of San Francisco also. We have our early college program. We have our dual enrollment program. We have our credit recovery program, which works with the TRST department at City College. But specifically, you asked about, Okay, so all these students are going to college. How successful are they? We can pull those reports. So they're called clearinghouse reports. We are a member of that consortium. And we can absolutely provide any of that data. And it would be really exciting to be able to give a report on that through our VVGG's lens, thinking about the college going culture and really looking at that. But absolutely, we can provide that data.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Great. Yeah, I think I was specifically thinking about like maybe this is more around a partnership or program advocacy standpoint of like does direct admissions into SF State actually yield a higher retention of students to and through college? Like I think that would be my overarching question around this particular partnership because it warrants this next question of, do we need more of these? Or is this actually just resources and time being spent on a well intentioned program, we really need to double down, for example, in teaching and learning in high school. That's the right. So I just I think it's more of a it's a partnership program efficacy question that I think I'm approaching that from and would also love to know generally high school graduates. Yes, thank you. Ask what I'll call you Vice President again. Commissioner Weissman- Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I am no longer Vice President and it's been a minute Wanna echo president Kim's points that I do think this is a place where, you know, we've seen some really positive things happening in the district. And I also would say this is maybe where we could even lean more into the communication. And and the I I saw some articles about this, but I think there could be even more. President Kim's question was sort of looking was forward looking, which I think is really important. And my question, you started to go there and I wanna go there a little bit more. Does this, like how are we or are we tying this specifically into, goal three? Because if the students are not college or career ready, why does this matter? And I think that's where one of the, you started going there with the question and so I think, hi, you coming back, thanks. And again, I think we have a, the district has a long unfortunate history of working in silos and I know that we're being intentional to try to come out of those silos but this seems to be one of those areas where like if the students are not ready to go, having this guaranteed admission doesn't mean anything. It's a hollow victory. So so we'd love to hear more about where where how we're making that connection in addition to motivating factors like you don't have to worry the same about the cost or the transportation, which is great. But we also need kids ready to be there to be academically prepared.

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: Absolutely. So thank you for the question. We need to focus in on our third grade literacy rates and our eighth grade math, right? Going all the way back, it's the cascade, it's the through line, absolutely. But beyond that, we also know that the data tells us many, many years of research that students who graduate high school with two or more successfully passed college classes, whether it's through a community college partnership, San Francisco State partnership, was something like three times more likely to be successful in their first semester of college. The data is there. We know that these partnerships are really important. So yes, we need to focus in our teaching and learning in our own classes, right, making sure that we're giving rigorous, intentional instruction and providing these opportunities for our students to really we need to structure it correctly. So currently in our college and career readiness class not only do we help them navigate how to apply for City College, I don't know how many of you have ever applied for City College, it challenging. But we are helping our students navigate that. And once you've applied, you're in. So now they have the login. We teach them how to go through the schedule. So we are teaching them those life skills, not only enrolling them in the classes, but also teaching them how to navigate that system. And we actually have SFUSD staff members who take the class with our students. So they're taking the notes. They're practicing. They're actually on the Canvas so they can see where they get TA access. They can actually see where our students are maybe having some challenges, where we can have a study session for that specific assignment or wherever we're struggling. So it's also that stepping into going to college, not just saying, oh, great, we signed you up. Check that box. We're really helping to structure for success.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: In terms of dual enrollment with City College, I think one issue is that those college classes, unlike APs, stay on a student's college transcript. And so if you take an AP and you don't pass the AP, that would affect your college admission. But if you take a college dual enrolled course and you don't do well in the dual enrolled course, that actually affects your college GPA, which then may affect other opportunities that you have. And so how are we making sure that students are ready for those classes and aware of the potential ramifications that they might have on their future academics while also making sure that they're equitably accessible and that all students who are ready for them are encouraged to take them?

[Theresa Shipp (Associate Superintendent)]: Absolutely. So this is a two pronged answer. So the first is making sure that we are supporting all of our students in the classes, but also making sure that we are being truthful with our students. So if there's a psychology course a lot of students really want to take psychology it is quite tough. And so we are real with them. And we talk about the amount of reading that the students will have to have. But remember, we're in the courses with them. So we have a really strong partnership with the instructors at City College as well as the deans. And so we're monitoring. That's why we're on the Canvas. We're monitoring before the drop date or the withdrawal date where our students will not be harmed with less than stellar grade. We make sure that we're actually withdrawing our students. So they're not going to be harmed for their future financial aid application or applications into college.

[Superintendent Hsu]: On the flip side, and yes we do that, on the flip side for students who take the college, the dual enrollment class, they get college credit as opposed to if they were to take an AP class they would have to take the AP test and score a three and above to get any type of college credit. So there's lots of benefits to having a dual enrollment program. And it helps diversify the academic rigor of our high school classes.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: My other question would be if interim guardrail 5.2 is kind of declared met, when we could expect a new interim guardrail 5.2?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Lisa will go back and review. Like Jaime said, the well, 5.2. That's right. 5.1, we're still working with the city on. 5.2 I mean, point two, I think it's going deeper. The true desire for dual enrollment is to then dual have students who want to take then they start bifurcating. As students take the dual enrollment class some of them may choose to go into direct admissions into San Francisco State. Others may choose to go right into industry. And so building out the partnerships with our labor partners, with our SF chambers, with industry within the city of San Francisco, I think that there's a lot of work that needs to continue to happen. And we are partnering with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development in the city right now. But we will go back and evaluate and then come up with an interim, a new interim. Thank you.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: And perhaps not until the next year, but just I

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: agree with my fellow commissioners that this is a real area of strength. And so I want to just congratulate the superintendent and staff on all this work. The partnership is super exciting and agree with everything that's been discussed. I think I just had a small technical point. And this is really about guardrail five point one. Well, I I guess I just want us to be honest with the public in how we're doing this. Like, I think it's weird to say that we met Guardrail five point one when we didn't. I mean, I understand that we couldn't because the reports weren't required or something. But then I think we need to change the interim guardrail. Like, it wasn't an appropriate measure, in my opinion and again, this is we're working through how to get this to work. So this is not a critique necessarily. But I just think it struck me as weird that we're sitting here saying, if this is a database model, then we need a data point. And there just aren't any data points to say that we met 5.1, and then we check on the report on track. So that just seems odd to me. So I think I would ask, again, not for this report, but moving forward, if this happens, can we select us an alt like, if the interim guardrail isn't appropriate for whatever it sounds like this one wasn't. Can we select another data point so we have something that we're measuring would be my request moving forward. But but I think, I mean, it sounds like it's on track in the sense of the the process is on track. So I understand why it was presented though.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Hi. I just wanted to second Commissioner Alexander's comment about 5.1. I had asked about that as well since there are no reports, I would like to also see some sort of metric that we could measure with respect to this. I know this is not on the district, but the city is also supposed to have issued reports with respect to the Student Success Fund. That hasn't happened either to my knowledge. I feel like we're not getting any information from any side about how things are going with that. And that gives me cause for concern because the voters have put forward a lot of money for this. And it's unclear to me what is happening from either the city's end or from our end. It would be great to be able to have some kind of way to look at this. Thank you. Oh, I also wanted to second what Commissioner Weissman-Ward was saying about readiness. And I appreciate that. That's something I had asked about in the Q and A as well. If we actually need to be devoting our efforts to doubling down on readiness, which goes to President Kim's point, that would be good to know no matter how well intentioned this might be if it turns out that what we actually need do is devote more resources to our basic readiness. Thank you.

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Just want to say thank you, Commissioner Alexander and Ray, for your feedback. I definitely want to just acknowledge that by way of being able to do better progress monitoring is being able to, I think, just recognize how dynamic this is. Because we were also setting interim guardrails prior to right, so the coordination around timelines and all. But I wanted to acknowledge and appreciate your feedback. I also do want to point the public to a document. And sorry about embedding this in the Q and A document. But we did provide a link to the kickoff meeting where there were additional information points that were shared in terms of the overarching timeline of the rollout of Prop J implementation. Additionally, what are some of the outcomes frameworks? Just to be able to provide additional insight and transparency into the process. Because I completely understand why this would be very frustrating. So I just want to acknowledge and thank you for your feedback and also point the public if there is any interest to the available information that has been linked out in the Q and A document.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Just a quick question or, I don't know, comment. But I really appreciate the connection to community college as well as SFSU. Congratulations on that. I don't think we could say that enough. And I hope the data bears out to President Kim's question, and I look forward to that. In addition to that, I will say, having worked in post secondary success, so Clearinghouse Data is available to everyone and the San Francisco Chronicle actually does a fantastic job of putting those resources online for everyone where you can look at different SFUSD high schools and see how many kids end up wherever. I will say one of the things that was on my wish list, at least when I worked in post secondary success and philanthropy, was understanding what the rate is of retention past the second year in college as well as graduation. So if we do have these partnerships and we're able to understand some of that data and be able to report it out, I think that is incredibly important. Because we know a lot of people, especially if there is this auto enrollment into a four year or a two year institution, they may enroll. But if they're not prepared and then drop out, we're not doing them a service. We're actually doing potential harm. So understanding that, I think, is a great feedback loop then when we look at how we're doing, are we preparing our students, and then doing better.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Can we vote to extend our meeting? And I think we're near completion with the discussion.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Do we want to finish this real quick and then make a motion? Or do you want me to introduce the motion in the middle of this motion? Because we have an open motion, right, for this? Or did we not motion this one yet?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: This is just a discussion. Is just a discussion. Correct.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. Yeah. Move to extend the meeting past 10PM.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Second. Roll call vote please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling? No. President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I'm gonna say yes even though in my heart I mean no.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: What is going on? Commissioner Gupta?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Sorry, in my, mama yes, sorry about that for the minute.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Are you skipping me tonight? Oh.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: So I'm sorry. See, you guys got to slow down. I wasn't ready for it. Commissioner Ray, I was looking at Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: She said no.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Six yes, one nay.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Are there any other comments or questions regarding this item?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Just to follow-up on what Commissioner Gupta was saying, maybe that is the next interim is, you know, if we want to measure our partnership, maybe actually a data point could be graduation rates from those two and four year institutions. Well, mean, it's a demonstration of our partnership and how we're if we're measuring specifically our SFUSD students and I how mean, I'm just throwing it out there.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: The interim guardrails are within the superintendent's purview to set for things that are within her control,

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: for sure. I'm just throwing it out there. This We're just just a discussion item. I'm not directing the superintendent with any

[Speaker 26.0]: Just

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: pontificating. That's actually I'm monologuing superintendent. Part of our strategic conversations and questions that we should have.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I broke my own rule about making a strategic comment.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: You. Thank you very much for your time and presentation for staying in there for this long.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Back to facts.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Moving to item two, we are now moving to section F action items, item two sixty one-seven, sorry, two sixty one-27SP2 approval of pips and waivers. Can I have a motion on the

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: second I move item two sixty one-27SP2 approval of pips and waivers? Do you want me to do them both at the same time or are we voting one at a time?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: My understanding is we have to do one at a time. Second. Thank you. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Doctor. Su?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Yes. Thank you. Would like to

[Student Delegate Cruz]: sorry, I lost my

[Superintendent Hsu]: this item seeks approval of provisional internship permits for three special education and two general education teachers.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Any comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Vice President Huling.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: President Kim. Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward. Yes. Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Next seven, yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I want you to call my name like that next time, too. Item four, update oh, wait, so sorry. Item three, two sixty one-twenty seven SP3, approval of local assignment options. Motion and a second, please.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move that we approve item two sixty one-27SP3 approval of local assignment options.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'll second. Okay. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Doctor. Sue?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Thank you. This item seeks approval of a local assignment option for one speech language pathologist.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Any comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, debate is now closed on the motion to approve two sixty one-27SP3. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Student Delegate Mon]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: The best president Kim? Wow. Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: The best previous vice president.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Absolutely, best vice president. Yes. Commissioner Gupta. Yes. Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: See, this is what happens after 10:00.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Yes. Thank you. Seven yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Item five, vote on student expulsion matters. I move what's

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: that? Did

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I skip something? Oh, I did skip something. Okay, so sorry. Item four, update to board policy 9322, redaction of supporting documents to agendas. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I move update to board policy 9,322, redaction of supporting documents to agendas.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It is properly moved and seconded that the board approve this item. Doctor. Sue?

[Superintendent Hsu]: Yes, thank you. We are proposing these amendments as best practice for hiring policy. This is a way for us to clarify district procedures and find common ground. I recognize that there's been lots of discussions among commissioners around the need

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: for

[Superintendent Hsu]: transparency and as well as the need for us to work really hard to hire fantastic people and invite them to come to our district. So with this update I believe that we will be able to get to that middle ground of ensuring that we are able to hire fantastic people to come here and work at this wonderful school district as well as continue to live and honor and be within the rules set forth by the Brown Act. One:

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Comments or questions from commissioners? So

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I'm confused because I submitted a written question. And the response was that general counsel is in consultation with board leadership on how to provide answers to these legal questions, which may invoke attorney client privilege and state further legal research. But then I didn't get any other response. I'm not sure. I was just trying to figure out if this language actually allows the superintendent to redact the names on the contracts, which I thought was what was going to be proposed here. The language seemed broader than that. And so that was my first question. My second question was, to what extent is such redaction a common practice in school districts in California, which didn't seem to be that it would be subject to attorney client privilege? I wasn't sure why that one wasn't answered. And the third question was, has this practice ever been challenged as a violation of the Brown Act, which was sort of a follow-up to the second question, which also didn't seem like it would involve attorney client privilege. So I'm confused. I was wondering if general counsel could provide some clarity there.

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: Thank you, Commissioner Alexander. Anytime that there's a question that opines on the legality of a decision, the strengths and weaknesses of a decision, and yes, even the facts that go into those decisions, all of that goes to the heart of an attorney client communication. Now, the members of this body, I think, perhaps on a personal level, not on a public level, has been in communication on this very issue for months and has been advised for months on the legality of it. Moving that to a public discussion is the very reason why I think the answer was given because providing attorney client responses that do require substantial research is not something that I can just do unilaterally without a vote of the board to say that there's going to be a waiver of privilege that speaks to these issues. And it's not this isn't the Supreme Court. I'm not arguing or saying that this is something that is going to be earth shattering. I don't think that it's controversial to say that the Brown Act has been in place for almost sixty years. Courts have opined on the Brown Act for over sixty years. It is the it is the definition of transparency in the state of California. There are a number of exceptions that this body uses every meeting. Whenever we go into closed session, the exact same basis is that allow us to talk about confidential information regarding litigation, real property negotiations, real estate, employee discipline, dismissal release, student matters. They all come from the same origins throughout the law that say that there is a blend between what is available to public discussion and what is to be held confidential? I mean, all of these things have been an ongoing conversation about this Yeah.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Get I'm sorry to interrupt, but I get all that. I guess I was really trying to ask a simpler question, which is I'm assuming and I just want to confirm it's true that the language that's proposed to be added would, in fact, allow the superintendent to redact the names on the contracts. Is that the this language I was literally just trying to clarify. Is that what this language does?

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: This language clarifies a practice that this board has adopted. The law supersedes kind of the way that the law treats the redaction of information is very clear. What is not clear is how this board policy kind of comes forward. For instance, there's no clarity in the board policy, absent this proposed language, on how to even handle legal memos. So to your question, does this language allow for the redaction of the executive contracts? The superintendent has mentioned in her statements that that's the intent. The background information speaks to that. So the answer to your ultimate question would be yes. But the way that it kind of comes forward is there's a machinery with the law. The law works in broader strokes than just statutes. It works with court opinions. It works across multiple statutes. So it's not as straightforward as just simply saying executive contracts.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: No, no, no. I appreciate that. And I really wasn't trying to complicate it, overcomplicate it. So I was just saying, so it sounds like, yes, this does cover the thing we were trying to cover or at some there was disagreement, obviously. But I was just trying to clarify that that's what this was. And then the second question, to what extent is such redaction a common practice in school districts in California? Do we have any information on that question? Again, that's not a legal question. It's just a practice question. Do we have any information on that or not?

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: So I've had private discussions with other commissioners. Do believe that and again, there's some lawyers here that I don't want to get overly complicated. Facts do not operate in a vacuum. The facts themselves do implicate attorney client communications. There is no research that I can provide to you off the tip readily available to say, here is kind of this reflection of what's going on in literally over a thousand school districts in the state of California. And it's not just the school districts that use the Brown Act. All municipalities, counties, cities, districts of various water districts, cemetery districts. So mean,

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: the So if the answer is I don't know, that's fine. I'm just literally just asking. So is the answer it sounds like we don't know if it's a common practice or not. That right

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: or not? The answer is that it is a common practice.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Okay. Then that's fine. That's all I was asking. So it is a common practice.

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: This is something that this is territory that we've covered for a while.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Was literally just trying to clarify a simple question about what we're about to vote on. I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm honestly just trying to understand about this vote we're about to take. And I feel like the answers I'm getting are super complex and going lots of circles when I'm just asking very direct and simple questions. If we know whether or not it's a common practice, it is a common practice, the answer to the second question

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: is just yes. My experience I Just from my experience Yes.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Okay, great.

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: From my experience, there's a lot of precision that goes into answering questions. And it's not, in my opinion, comfortable to simply say yes so simply without providing the detailed research. Right.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: But all I'm asking is I thought you said it was a common practice. Everyone so I was just saying, I'm just confirming that that's true, which seems like an argument in favor. I'm probably going to vote no on this, but I still haven't decided. I was trying to determine an argument in favor would be that it's a common practice. So I was trying to determine if it is in fact a common practice. Is that

[Superintendent Hsu]: When we were doing research, when I was making phone calls to other school districts, we did hear that there are some school districts that do do this particularly for high level executive contracts because it is really hard to recruit high level executive people away from their current school districts particularly if we want high level quality people. So yes, this is definitely something that other school districts do practice, particularly for high level contracts. And then in terms of being challenged by the Brown Act, I think Commissioner Alexander is asking, has this particular situation been challenged by the Brown Act? I think this is a very simple yes or no answer.

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: No, it's not. I don't know. I mean, there's a ton of different opinions that are fly unpublished.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: To our knowledge, has it ever been challenged? And it's fine. If the answer is no and then we go and find one, I'm not gonna be mad. I'm just saying, to our knowledge, has this ever been challenged successfully? No. Okay, great. Thank you for those answers. I really appreciate it.

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

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I've expressed concerns before about what I think are overbroad applications of attorney client communication privilege type issues, so I'm not going to beat that horse there. But I do want to express concerns I have and raise that I was frankly by the way, I very much appreciate leaderships bringing this to the board. I've been asking about this for a long time, and so I appreciate that. I expected to see something that directly addressed redaction. However I decided to vote, that's what I expected. When I opened this up and I saw that the language was so general, literally at the three days before meeting similar thing instead of twelve days before meeting it refers to posting the final agenda seventy two hours in advance of the meeting in a manner consistent with applicable laws, such as but not limited to the Brown Act, personnel confidentiality, and any other legal privilege. That statement does not in any way it's not limited in any way to redaction, much less to redaction of any particular information. It is much, much broader. And if the superintendent can post the final agenda in some way that's consistent with applicable laws, not even just including the Brown Act, but possibly anything else, also personnel confidentiality and their legal privilege, it's really hard. Like, I literally cannot determine what that covers. To me, that is a Pandora's box. And we have decided as a district that we are going or as a board that we are not going to do the floor what the Brown Act, for instance, and other things may require, but that we have chosen to do other things. Our whole twelve day agenda is something that isn't required by any state law. We have decided to be above that floor. So of course, we need to act in a way consistent with the Brown Act. But we can also do more, and we have. And I think that's consistent with our values as a school district and as a city to have transparency. And as I've mentioned many times before, think it's really important for public trust. We're in a hole already with public trust. I don't like to dig that deeper. So I feel like this language is highly, highly overbroad. It covers lots of things that I can't even imagine. It's like a Pandora's box. Who knows what will come out of this? The only specificity on this is the last sentence, which refers to any legally redacted information on supporting documents may be unredacted and presented to the public at the point of board consideration, which is literally when we're meeting. So that's the one thing that relates to redaction. All this stuff beforehand could be anything, not just redaction. So I find this to be, separate from the concerns I had before, terrifically overbroad. I was hoping that language would be amended or revised, that the superintendent would come forward with something more narrow to this actual issue we've been discussing, but that has not occurred. I'm concerned about the ramifications here. Thank you.

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

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: So I will say that if we wanted to come back with something and say a policy diet that just sort of said, hey, it's a staffing matter. This specifically belongs in district staff or superintendent purview, I would certainly consider that language. Right now, this is Board policy. I'm looking at this. I looked at the first question asked in terms of commission request for information that I'm inferring is Commissioner Alexander's, as he indicated, and I too was expecting some sort of document. I don't think it's unreasonable. I think this actually should be pretty simple to produce something. That's what I was expecting. I did not see it, and I don't see evidence around what's supporting this, nor do I see even a link to what part of the Brown Act we are referring to. Because I actually looked through the Brown Act and looked at personnel confidentiality. And at the very minimum, if we say something like this, where it's sort of like, this will be provided, I at least expected to see some sort of link to where in the Brown Act we are in violation or just a very, very quick and easy one page explanation. I did not see that. And to me, this kind of goes back to quality control, where it's sort of like the burden of proof is on staff to be able to provide documents that then allow the board to make a decision. I did not see that. I cannot vote for this.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Can I ask a clarifying question here? I assume you were going to call

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: on me next. Commissioner Fisher.

[Speaker 26.0]: You

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: know what happens when you assume them.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: And then

[Speaker 34.0]: you commission So twice

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: the executive contracts that we have historically approved, are those contracts that we are legally required by Ed Code or some government code to approve as a board? Or is it just a board's best practice?

[General Counsel (SFUSD)]: I'm only speaking with the few that I've seen that have come here. Those have all been legally required.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. I think so I want to also I appreciate that clarification because I want to recognize under our governance framework, our job is to manage the superintendent. Our two employees that we manage are the superintendent and general counsel. And it's within the superintendent's purview to manage the rest of the employees, right?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Okay. So I think I appreciate the attempt at clarification here. And under our governance framework, I actually appreciate the vagaries of this to keep us out of the standpoint of micromanaging the soup. I think part of it too is if the attempt is to make sure that there's some transparency with the community, then by the time we get to the approval of this contract, it's too late, right? If we're already to the point where the superintendent has made an offer to someone in her executive cabinet or executive leadership, you know, again, honoring guardrail number one, if there hasn't been the community input in the hiring process. Like, any time there's a SPED leader that's hired, a SPED CAC member sits on that hiring panel, right? When you've got leadership, generally, there's principals and other folks who are on that hiring panel who are in a position of under. So if we're talking about making this public because we're so I think it's late. So I don't think I'm making a very good point here. But I just want to point out that, like, to the point of bringing the board along, like, if we're worried about potentially voting no on a contract in closed session, then that means the superintendent doesn't have our faith, which is a completely different problem. And if there's concerns about community input, those should have been addressed through the practices of the HR department and the hiring and the interviewing process. And that's a whole another set of priorities other than this redaction process. And we're having a really hard time hiring over the past couple of years. So anything we can do to make it easier to bring folks in, I'll stop there. But thank you.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I that I I'm gonna sort of pick up where where Commissioner Fisher left off. I and there sort of seems like we're talking about two different things. One is, like, the Brown Act and is this is are these amendments sufficient to what we want, what we don't? And then there's the the the other the tension between trust and transparency and also the need to get good hires. And I think that there is a tension there. And I think, well, I'm just going say, don't know that that goes away. And to your point about if the trust and transparency isn't there and then there's a name on the list and we vote no, doesn't mean that we all of a sudden have the trust of the community. And I actually think another way to think about getting back more trust from the community is being able to have hires. And if we can't hire competent folks because they are scared that they're gonna rake through the coals because, let's be real, this is San Francisco and that's what often happens. We're not gonna get any trust because we're not gonna have these important positions filled. And so I if I were weighing and I'm not and to be clear, it's not like, don't I want things not to be transparent. Absolutely not. But if I'm weighing, whether I think we're gonna be able to build more trust by being able to have excellent people that are not afraid to come to this district versus a name being redacted for longer, I'm I'm probably gonna go with being able to get those high quality folks who are here. And I I think that this is I, you know, I don't I don't work in a school district beyond being on this board, but I think about many other employment spaces, and it is quite common that no one besides the interviewing committee has any idea that this person is about to get an offer until they get that offer and it's been accepted. And again, I know this is a slightly different context, but it's not as if this is a rare occurrence generally because of the need to if someone isn't gonna get that job, then they've they've it's all all their businesses out there. They've potentially made plans to move, and then it's public that they actually were not getting the job. So I I actually I think it's not as sort of straightforward as we're either being transparent or we're not. I think there's a tension there, and I'm leaning towards wanting to be able to feel confident that we can get quality folks to apply and feel confident in applying.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: And I'll just add, I'm sorry for any kind of confusion that the draft has reflected. I have seen you know, there's been a number of hires where some of our colleagues have voted no based on the principle that the name was redacted until the meeting. And I'm under the impression, as a government lawyer, my own information, that the Brown Act allows for the redaction of names of high level appointees until they're read out loud at the meeting. And generally, the Brown Act is one of the most, if not the most, transparent public laws in the country. And I will say that to Commissioner Weissman-Ward's point, my overarching concern right now, especially at this moment of continued instability for the district, is that we hire the best people. That we're able to steal the best people away from their existing jobs that could be at risk if it became public, that they were applying for another job that they didn't get. And, you know, just to throw leadership under the bus as examples, President Kim in his day job is deputy director at the Human Rights Commission. I'm previously a division supervisor at the city attorney's office. Even though we're largely, like, higher level government employees, it was never publicly posted and put to a vote so that people could have, you know, an email campaign about whether they thought that our jobs should be approved. It is just not best practices anywhere. And under our policy, the law, our student outcomes focused governance, all hiring other than the general counsel is the superintendent's prerogative. And really, there shouldn't ever be a position, as Commissioner Fisher named, where we're in a position of voting down a contract brought by the superintendent. Because it is her choice. And if we have trust issues with her hiring, then that is actually an issue for us to hold her accountable for, not to vote down the hire. So especially as we look forward to our own conduct, which we know that high level recruits are watching, And as we look forward to permanently filling the associate superintendent of educational services role, I would hope that this amendment would just make clear that the practice that the superintendent has put forward of making those redactions until the meeting is there's no ambiguity as to whether it is in line with our existing policies. And because I think we keep spending precious board time that is supposed to be focused on student outcomes and student outcome monitoring on questions about the nitty gritty of our policy. I actually do think it's wiser to just say that although we go above and beyond in many respects, for example, having a twelve day draft that we are aligning our seventy two hour policy with state law. And then we can save having future amendments to, you know, if some other exception in the Brown Act ever becomes relevant, we can avoid kind of spending board time on this and kind of governing by just piecemeal. So I think this would solve that problem and allow us to move forward in confidently recruiting the best and brightest to come help SFUSD.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Did everyone speak already? Commissioner Ray, I want to move this to a vote, but if you have a quick comment to make.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I do. Thanks. I just want to say again, this is not something that says something to the effect like the prose language could have been something like, consistent with the Brown Act and applicable law, the superintendent may choose to redact the name or x, y, or z of candidates for executive positions. That would have been responsive to what we were actually talking about and what the issue's been about. This language does not say that. It is much, much, much broader. And it implicates, I have no idea how many other potential provisions of the Brown Act. I, too, looked at it briefly. And this language is just not a redaction only matter for executive contracts. It could cover I cannot myself identify what the categories are that could be covered under this. So we are putting up tons of possible loopholes that we can't understand the implications of. We don't even know what they are if we approve this language. I think this language is hugely overreaching. Whether intended to or not, that's what it does because it's not written specifically to the issue that we were talking about. On the separate point of the balance of confidentiality, none of us at least Matt and I have not been arguing for putting this out somewhere in the middle of the process, or even at twelve days. We've been talking about the seventy two hour mark, because that was board practice for a long time. And as far as I can tell, that did not impair us from being able to hire people for positions. Having watched for a long time, we hired lots of people even with the seventy two hour rule. If you want to make an argument with the quality of individual people, you could do that, I guess. I'm not getting into that. But we sure hired a lot of people over a long time with that rule in place. And frankly, given that we are in San Francisco in a sense, I know people can be harsh here. I would hope that the superintendent would have enough confidence in her nominee and the candidate she's putting forward to be able to deal with that. It's not like when they come in on day one, there's not going to be anything. I would think it would be better for them to be able to come in with things laid out and with the opportunity for people to express support, too. It's not just opposition. People want to express support. And limiting that to only the people who happen to be in the know, which is what we've seen happen with prior candidates, is really troubling to me. So thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: So I'm going to bring this to a vote. I think my comment will be brief. The language that's being introduced simply says that we are to follow applicable law. Unless we are planning to not follow that law that exists anyway, I don't know what difference there would be. So that's why I'm supporting it. It just affirms that we are going to follow the law and allow for that redaction to take place. What I appreciate is that it says that the information that is redacted will be made available to the public. So that is my comment. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? No. Commissioner Alexander? No. Vice President Huling?

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? No. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Four yes, three nays.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Moving on to vote for student expulsion matters. I move the approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 2025202614 For the remainder of the spring twenty twenty six semester during the suspended expulsion period, the student will attend Civic Center. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: We are, just to confirm, we're on F5 right Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling? Yes. President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher? Yes. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one middle school student, matter number 2025Dash2026Dash15 for the remainder of the spring twenty twenty six semester. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will attend Francisco Middle School. Can I have a second?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Second.

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

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Sorry. I was taking notes. Can you repeat? That's what we're voting on. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: We are voting on the stipulated expulsion agreement for 2025202614.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: That was a yes, right? Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Hongmei Peng (Head of Communications and Community Engagement)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: President Kim? Yep. Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Ms. Harry (Math Teacher, SFI)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student, matter number 2025Dash202616, for the remainder of the spring twenty twenty six semester. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will attend a comprehensive high school to be selected by the high school transfer panel. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling? Yes. President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Alright. I move approval of a stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 2025Dash202617 for the remainder of this spring twenty twenty six semester. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will attend Civic Center. Can I have a second?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Second.

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

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling? Yes. President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Ms. Harry (Math Teacher, SFI)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Alright. President Kim has a standing recusal from the consent calendar by virtue of his or because of his employment with the city and county of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SFUSD to avoid any appearance of a conflict. Superintendent, are there any changes to the consent calendar? There are none. I move to approve the consent calendar. Is there a second?

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Second.

[Superintendent Hsu]: Could we have

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: a roll call vote, please?

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Speaker 45.0]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Speaker 21.0]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Weissman-Ward?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Mr. Trujillo (Board Secretary/Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Hi. You joined this meeting at 10:40PM.