San Francisco Government SmartTranscripts:

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

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Street to honor the mural project started by Amos Gregory. What began as a blighted alley is

[Speaker 2.0]: play about the Compton's cafeteria riot. You know, we strive to work with as many, like, neighbors and neighboring organizations as possible to create really diverse programming for a diverse neighborhood. Tenderland is like an incredibly close knit community in just like the almost decade I've been working.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'll check again. Check, check, check, one, two. Check, check, check, one,

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: check, check, check 12.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: 2. You got it? Okay. Cool.

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

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

[Speaker 5.0]: SFGov TV, San Francisco government television.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Before we conduct board business, our goal is to conduct our work in an efficient, effective, and accessible manner during reasonable hours. We aim to respect staff, family, and community time by ensuring a move to board as soon as possible. Each participant may speak for up to one minute. Staff will take the participant at the one minute mark. At one minute and five seconds, I've asked Mr. Trujillo to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so 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 the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email to boardofficefusd dot edu. Having connected with Mr. Trujillo before the meeting, it's my understanding we already have a significant number of comment cards. So if there are folks who would like to group their comments together, please do so so that we can hear from as many people as possible. We will first hear from students person, the members of the general public in person, beginning with agenda items then moving to non agenda items. Regardless of whether in person public comment is complete, we will save fifteen minutes for remote public comment to 07:30PM, taking commenters in the same order as in person. To the 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, respecting different viewpoints and allowing for all members of the public to participate. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow-up with speakers. Today, we also have representatives from United Educators of San Francisco who will be speaking at the end of our public comment. Mr. Trujillo?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Thank you, president Kim. We'll start with students. Please line up as I call your name. Amberly Garibay, Martia, Rafael, Jerius Signion, Angelo Guinto.

[Speaker 6.0]: Hi, my name is Amberly and I'm a fifth grader at Flynn Elementary. I have a math learning disability called dyscalculia. That means that sometimes math can be harder for my brain to understand. The teacher that helps me with math takes a lot of time to help understand me and how I learn. When I go to middle school next year, I hope to have someone else to keep me on track. I hope to get ahead in math with the extra help that I get in my IEP. Thank you.

[Speaker 7.0]: Good evening my name is Rafael and I'm with Yohana and I'm a student at Galileo. We are here because every student deserves to learn in an environment free from the fear of immigration enforcement. We're calling on superintendent Maria Sill and the board of education to meet with us youth parents and community groups to commit time of SFUSD to collaboratively create a school safety plan adopt the school safety plan and the board policy and then have all those school sites implement the school safety plan. Yohana has been collecting postcards from students teachers parents and community leaders all across the city of San Francisco. So far we've only gathered only a thousand to deliver to the board today. Each of these postcards carries personal messages stories fears and hopes from students parents and community members explaining why we need safer schools and these are real voices from our community and they deserve to be heard. I urge the board of education to meet with Yohana. Thank you.

[Speaker 8.0]: Good evening. My name is Jay and I attend Galileo High School and I'm with Yohana. I'm here today to call on the board to establish all SFUSD schools as safe havens. Every student deserves to learn in an environment where they feel safe and supported without fear of immigrant immigration enforcement. Right now, many families and students are living with fear and uncertainty. This affects students mental health, participation, and ability to focus in school. Personally, this matters to me because I see how fear impacts students in our community. School should be a place where we feel safe and supported. We asked SFUSD to commit time to collaboratively create a school safety plan with youth, parents and community groups. Adopt this plan into board policy and ensure all school sites implemented. I urge the board to prioritize the safety and well-being of all students. Thank you. Hello. Good evening everyone. My name is Angelo. I am also from Yohana. I am here because I want every student and their family to feel free from the fear of ICE and immigration enforcement. Many families and students are struck with fear and uncertainty towards ICE and this anxiety affects their daily life. Parents and students feel that their ordinary school routine might lead them to unexpected interactions against immigration authorities. And so I urge superintendent Maria Su to meet with Yohana, safety youth, parents, and community groups to discuss about a school safety plan that we can adapt, implement and commit to. Thank you. Please

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: line up as I call the next group of students. Sahari, Catherine, and then the group of eight that starts with Jalisa. So teacher, I don't know where you are, but that's the group that's coming up. Good

[Speaker 9.0]: evening board members my name is Sahori, I'm a YMAC member and I go to June Jordan High School. I am here today because our schools are lacking safety when our immigrant community is being attacked. Schools should be safe should be a safe place for us to learn. We already are going through a lot by getting educated in school districts that continues to put more money into the central office and cutting from our schools. We need to make a change and provide more services for our community to ensure they can succeed. I ask you to commit time to creating school safety plan to Yohan youth parents and community groups for our community to learn in a space that is supposed to celebrate diversity, please, Phil Kim, meet with the youth to ensure protection for the immigrant community. Thank you.

[Speaker 10.0]: Good evening board members. My name is Katherine. I am a YMAC member and I go to June Jordan School for Equity. I'm here today because across the school district families and students are struggling with the increasing fear of uncertainty surrounding immigration enforcement. We watch the news and it makes me nervous. I know if it makes me nervous as a citizen, I cannot imagine how it feels for the rest of the undocumented community. This anxiety is not just an abstract concern, it's affecting daily lives and deepened and personal ways. Parents worry about dropping off their students off to school fearing that the ordinary routine might lead to unexpected interactions with with immigration authorities. We, the youth, worry about being racially profiled and being grabbed at our spaces such as school, safe spaces such as school. Please work with us and make school safety plan.

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

[Speaker 12.0]: dear Phil Kim. We are a student from San Francisco International High School and we are tired about Maria Su ignoring us. On January 13, four students from our school spoke at the board of education meeting, who is here, to explain the impact of implementing the budget cut for immigrant students. On January 25, we come back for the same reasons. 40 students from our school spoke here and asked Maria Su and the board to pass budget cuts and develop a plan together. And our classmate write 100 of emails and sent to you guys and there has been no response.

[Speaker 13.0]: Hi, my name is Gabriela from San Francisco International High School. On January 27, 300 students, parents, neighbors, and teachers come to our school library and show their support of our school. We're explaining why newcomers program are important for our education. We asked Maria Sue and Phil Kim for a one year pause of the budget cuts, and they were no answers.

[Speaker 14.0]: Hi. I am a student from San Francisco International High School, and I am here today to advocate for my school. We invited Maria Sue to our event last Thursday and conduct a solution with newcomer education in San Francisco, USD, and. So we want to know if there is a plan for immigrant students because we have not here any plan for that. And we are worried about how they make impact on public school. So we want you to pass the project codes to newcomer education and can make a plan together for newcomers students.

[Speaker 15.0]: Thank you.

[Speaker 16.0]: Hi. I am Valeria. As a newcomer student, I deeply understand that for newcomer students, it is very important to have a bilingual and well trained teachers who can patiently introduce a new language to the students. It's very scary to be in a new school in a new country with a new language and come into a classroom where no one can understand you. In our school, you can learn together with English another English learners. We have group work that helps improve our English and there are always different translations for the keywords in class so everyone can understand.

[Speaker 13.0]: Moving to another country's challenging emotional support should be fundamental for newcomers. SFI has many groups of support that helps youth feel comfortable in the San Francisco International. Also, the wellness center is a safe space where some students, including myself, can you to tell to some when we meet.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Please remember to give us your name, okay, before Hi, you

[Speaker 13.0]: my name is Melanie Gomez, a student at San Francisco International High School. Being in The United States, always has been easy. But joining sport and clubs has helped me feel feel comfortable and welcome. I have meet people from different countries, cultures, and language, and that make me feel proud. My school support a student like me, and that is very important. I will keep coming back and speak up for my school and for new immigrant students until we get the support we need. Thank you. Yeah. Hi.

[Speaker 17.0]: My name is Julie, and we are here again for advocate for budget cuts. Being a student in San Francisco International High School has a big impact on my life. Has been I received support for all the teacher, counselor, and other adults in a very special way. Thanks to them, my knowledge and skills have been developed, has ensured that we receive our strong foundation or education, especially us, the new immigrant students. It is difficult for us to adapt to a new environment as learning English. And what makes SFI special is that our teacher have experience teaching in multiple languages. And we are learning together. I feel confident in in my academic progress in this environment that provides me with everything I need, emotional and academic support. I also want to share that I participate in programs where I learn about multicularism and leadership. Thank you.

[Speaker 18.0]: Hi. My name is Steven. Especially newcomers who need resource, such as legal support or help with our housing. Many students come to The US without having a place to stay. SFI helps students who come to US be being homeless or can't afford a lawyer to help them with their migratory process. We trust our teachers and counselors, and we can talk to them in our language to get help. And in a a in s f u s d, the enrollment center is making it difficult for new students to come to our school and to other newcomers programs, saying that we don't have any space or not telling families about school for newcomers. We heard from a mom at Mission Education Center that the enrollment center tried to transfer her kid out of that program without her permission. We know that immigrant families value newcomers programs when they are giving good information and not mislead. Thank you.

[Speaker 16.0]: Our school SF International, has been recognized across California and The US as a model school. But now, SF USD is not helping immigrants when we need your support the most. NBC, Fox, Delamondo, Univision, Michelle Local, The Frisk, and El Celacote are coming to our events because people want to know what is happening with immigrant students. We know that San Francisco community support us, and we will not give up fighting for immigrant students. Phil Kim, since Maria Sue is ignoring us, we're calling you to help us stop this attack on immigrant students. We invite you to meet with a small group of students at San Francisco International High School on April 16 at 5PM. We will also send you a formal email invitation and we hope you want to listen to us. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Please line up the following students so I call your name. Estrella Flores and Mark.

[Speaker 19.0]: Good evening. My name is Mark and I'm with Yohana. We are here because every student deserves to learn in an environment free from the fear of immigration enforcement. We are calling on superintendent Maria Su to meet with Yohana, youth, parents, and community groups to commit, adopt, and implement the school safety plan. Many students are scared to fully participate in school activities because of fears that they could be targeted or identified based on their immigration status. Again, I urge superintendent Maria Su to meet with Yohana, youth, parents, and community groups. Thank you.

[Speaker 9.0]: Hello. I'm miss Toya Flores Colleen, an eighth grader at BBHM.

[Speaker 20.0]: How many times have I been here? How many times have I been here fighting for my community, for my family? You ripped us away from the mission saying that you were going to modernize our building, which we still don't know anything about that. And now, when we barely got back on our knees, you came to our community and said, we're taking away your money, we're taking away your people, we're taking away your family. And now, how am I supposed to feel knowing that next year, another girl like me who had to learn English from scratch, not because I was an immigrant, but because I was born to immigrant parents. How am I supposed to feel knowing that there's another kid over there that is learning the bare minimum? How am I supposed to feel? You know, you don't get to do this. You don't get to go to our community and tell us, oh, we're losing staff. No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to do that unless you come here, you come to our school, and you're going to tell us why. You're going to look at our faces and tell us why and how. You're not going to get away from this scot free. These are for the board members. Okay. Thanks. All

[Speaker 21.0]: the positions were reviewed.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: We will now move to adults. Members of the public, Please line up as I call your name. Mandy Rahimi, Autumn Brown Garibay, I think. Danisha Joy Coleman, Maya Kay, Paul Gallagher, Chanel Beatwell, I think. I apologize.

[Speaker 22.0]: Go ahead. Hi, commissioners. My name is Maher Rahimi. I am the parent of an SFUSD kindergartner. It is encouraging to see this board finally prioritizing literacy. We know that illiteracy is a policy choice. Success requires three pillars, a science based phonics curriculum, comprehensive teacher training on that curriculum, and rigorous accountability for all. The data presented tonight is deeply concerning. One third of our teachers are still not using the curriculum this board has spent millions on. My son is fortunate to have an incredible teacher this year and is thriving on reading, but a child's ability to read should not be luck of the draw based on which classroom they happen to be in. Our teachers work hard, but they need the clarity and support of a unified system. That is why I support SF Parents Kids Can't Wait campaign. My question to the board is this, what is the specific plan to ensure every principal and every teacher is held accountable for using the approved curriculum consistently across every school? Our students cannot afford to wait. Thank you.

[Speaker 23.0]: Good evening, commissioners. My name is Autumn Brown Gadibai. I'm the parent of three SFUSD students. I'm here to talk about goal two for math. I want to share my perspective on math math outcomes for students with learning disabilities like dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is a learning disability that affects how people understand numbers and basic math concepts. It's not about effort. It's about how the brain processes math. I also want to say that the teachers and RSP staff at my child's school are doing an incredible job with the resources that they have, and I see that every day. I also have dyscalculia. I know what it's like to be given interventions that do not match how you learn. You keep trying but you don't make progress and you're left with gaps in your understanding. We know from the district's recent report that math outcomes have remained mostly flat and strong instruction isn't consistent across our classrooms. For students with learning disabilities, students like me and my child, that matters even more. What is needed is more consistent core instruction and support for teachers and RSP staff to better understand dyscalculia. Thank you.

[Speaker 24.0]: Hi my name is Maya Keshwin. I first stood here in the 2013 pleading with the district not to delay algebra one. The then superintendent would insult people during public comment. No, I'm not an elite tiger mom who only cares about Ivy education. Fast forward, my kids graduated from a strong stem college, not an Ivy or top 10. They moved back to the city and living their best lives. My concern was and remains equity. This means access to opportunities for the under resourced. District talks a good game, just done nothing to move the needle for the kids who depend on you. Every year, people have to stand here and beg for basics. You've left generations of talent behind, yet there's no sense of urgency, just a lot of performative grandstanding. The budget mess and associated enrollment decline is a result of years of foolish choices. Making more will not solve anything. Finally, to the twenty thirteen Board and Central Office, I told you so. Thank you.

[Speaker 9.0]: Good evening, commissioners. My name is miss Coleman, and I'm a parent of a third grader in elementary school. For me, this is really about reading. However, I know there's a ton of things going on in the district. Third grade is such an important milestone and it's hard to hear that we are off track and that not all classrooms are using the curriculum consistently. If we know what works to teach kids to read, then every child should be getting that instruction, especially students who need the most support. I also know teachers need time and support to make that happen. This isn't about putting pressure on teachers. It's about making sure the system is set up so they can succeed and so students can succeed. That's why I'm also supporting SF parents kids SF parents Kids Can't Wait campaign. It focuses on making sure strong instruction is actually happening in classrooms, not just planned at the district level because our kids, especially in the elementary school these years, really matter.

[Paul Gallagher (Teacher, 8th Grade Math)]: Good evening. My name is Paul Gallagher and I've been teaching eighth grade math in SFUSD ten years. For the past two years at my school, about half our eighth graders have taken both math eight and algebra one. I had doubts going in but what I've seen matches the Stanford research. Students make significant gains when they take both courses because they have more time, more support and a stronger foundation. That's why I strongly support the expanded math model. But I want to be clear, this model works because students take Math eight and Algebra together. If the students skip Math eight, the model breaks. Math eight includes essential topics like solving linear equations, slope, exponents, the Pythagorean theorem, content algebra builds on but does not reteach. So skipping math eight is not acceleration. It's missing the foundation. I urge the board to adopt expanded expanded math and ensure all students receive the full Math Aid experience. Thank you.

[Speaker 26.0]: Hi, Chanel Blackwell. It's been a minute and what that guy just said. And also, I just wanted to add about the eighth grade math. It showed that the math data showed that increasing curriculum use alone is not improving student outcome. The core issue is that students are not consistently experienced through math instruction, especially the opportunity to explain their thinking, engage in problem solving and work with grade level and contact. But, personally, I just want to say my son took eighth grade math last year in middle school and I realized that this year he struggled because he skipped most he didn't get all the math that it should be. It should have been he should have had some in sixth or seventh grade and then had the eighth grade math. So, urge you that to slow it down, because I know there's a lot of kinks in the math, but just to slow it down and have it in sixth and seventh. And then, in eighth grade, that child will be prepared. And so, my son will keep the kids like my son did, like he doesn't have to suffer this time. And also, want to address additionally about the third grade. I noticed that the third grade is the reader is not doing I mean, it's decreasing. If you don't have third grade math mean, you don't have third grade literacy, how can you do eighth grade math? So, get on the ball with that. Thank you. Okay.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: We will now move to non agenda items. Please line up as I call your name. Jessica Agnos, Doctor. Christina Velasco, Harini Ara, Christopher Pepper, Nashua Ahmed.

[Speaker 27.0]: Hi, my name is Jessica Agnos. I'm a parent of two and a community schools coordinator at Star King as well as an SEIU steward. I want to stand in full support of newcomer programs especially since they are overwhelmingly recipients of the student success fund to implement the community schools model. These sites are receiving voter approved grant money because they serve our most vulnerable students. To undermine schools and programs identified to be recipients of this grant is also undermining the will of San Francisco voters. The questionable practices surrounding the enrollment of these programs is alarming for several reasons, not the least of which is the climate of fear created by the federal administration now being upheld by the district. This is San Francisco. Our newcomer programs make SFUSD a shining example for the country and the world. It's a testament to the values we hold dear. These programs are highly specialized and designed to support students and families who need it desperately so they can thrive. We need these programs now more than ever to stand against the cruelty we see happening all around us. Thank you.

[Speaker 28.0]: Good evening board, Doctor. Sue. My name is Christina Velasco and I've served this district for twenty eight years as a teacher, coach, principal and Tea Li leadership coach. I'm here to ask for a strong support to fully fund Tee Lee. Tee Lee is not just a program. It's our leadership pipeline, a coherent strategy. If we're to honor our guardrail of inclusive decision making, we must ask, have we actually included the voices of our leaders? Because if you ask 143 leaders that are currently serving at our schools, they would tell you that matters. That Tilly grounds itself and our leaders in an equity focused induction coaching program that is centered around our district's VBGGs. Without it, SFUSD would be the only Bay Area county without an equity centered leader induction program. This is not progress, it's a risk. And from a fiscal lens, research shows that replacing a single leader can cost over $75,000. And we know that this is not just a financial expense, it's an academic expense. So please consider inviting us to have a conversation to fully fund our program.

[Speaker 29.0]: Evening. My name is Harini Ara. This is my eighteenth year in this district and I am also a leadership coach with the TLE program which is a county program that provides coaching, professional development and clearing credentials to leaders that are new. Recently we were told by executive cabinet member that funding for our program has been cut. I believe this is a detriment to the district reaching its goals for academic for student academic achievement. Our program provides coaching around instructional leadership, strong team development, and we have have data that shows high impact on student achievement with a low cost. I ask that you follow guardrail one of inclusive decision making by inviting us learn about, to have a conversation to learn about the program, to invite TEALI leaders to talk about their experience with the program. We ask that you fully fund Tealy public records show County Fund V has money. Thank you.

[Speaker 30.0]: Hello, welcome. Thank you for having us here. My name is Christopher Peppa. I'm a teacher on special assignment in health education and I've been working for San Francisco Unified for twenty four years. As a ninth grade health education teacher at Lincoln High School and Balboa High School, I often found that students were arriving in my class having not had much of any formal health education at that point. So, were coming into ninth grade and some of them had never had any anyone actually tell them how puberty happens, explain facts about pregnancy, explain menstruation, talk about substance use. So they were learning those that information from their peers, from from the the environment around them. We have made great strides to incorporate that into middle school health classes at this point, but I'm here to say that we are facing a crisis where right now we have 11 middle schools that have formal health classes on their schedule and next year we're looking at having two, two schools that have health classes. Please address that issue, it feels like a crisis.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Katrina Cubillo, Darius, Ram, Chris Chilson, Mason Waller.

[Katrina Cabello (Health Teacher on Special Assignment)]: Hi, my name is Katrina Cabello. I'm also a health teacher on special assignment as well as an SFUSD parent. I'm here to continue talking about the proposed cuts to middle grade health education. While they may not be formally on paper, there is no funding to support our health education in middle school. The vast majority of our dedicated middle school credentialed health teachers have been told that there's no room in their school site budget for them next year. Additionally, the district recently shared that they're keeping the seventh period in middle grades, meaning that there is space in the agenda for a middle grade health course. But there is not budget at those sites to keep those teachers. So if there is an extra period, where is the funding to support that extra period? Are the kids just going to sit around for a period? So without a dedicated health course, young people will get their health education from somewhere. I just went to the Common Sense Summit. Kids are gonna get false information from AI chatbots if they don't have adequate people to talk to. That's how kids die.

[Speaker 15.0]: Hello, board. Good evening. My name is Darius. My parents were both teachers. They couldn't afford to buy a house. They had to build their own house, and I couldn't understand why. Until years later, after the payroll debacle in 2022, I joined SFUSD as a data engineer to help with taxes and retirement data. What I saw from inside was outrageous. Expensive systems, spitting out wrong paychecks, consultants that don't deliver, and payroll leadership that gets overtime just to lay off our teachers. Here is an audit report from state retirement system from seven years ago. And until this moment, we haven't even fixed one of the audit issues we found. The next one is my cofounder actually.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: So I can Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time.

[Speaker 15.0]: Here. This is my co founder. Yeah. Come here.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Is the next person? Is that him?

[Speaker 15.0]: Yeah. This is him.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Ron?

[Speaker 15.0]: Okay. Yeah. Good. So how much? How are

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: I'm sorry. If he gets to speak, so one person. Sorry. Okay,

[Speaker 15.0]: we're good. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Davis? Good

[Chris Chisholm (Teacher, Galileo High School)]: evening Doctor. Sue, board members. My name is Chris Chisholm. I'm a teacher at Galileo High School and I'm here advocate for the retention of Doctor. Rogers as site supervisor at Galileo. She's the fourth site supervisor that I've seen at the school and she's by far the best. She's a powerful leader, educator and a fierce advocate for students, for staff and for the school in general. Every time I hear about Galileo, including the outstanding students that spoke before you today, I'm filled with pride knowing that there's at least a part due to the outstanding leadership of Doctor. Rogers. And I hope that you will have the good sense to retain her. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 33.0]: Good evening. I think it's time people in this district stop saying that they actually care about transparency and inclusion. President Kim, you responded to public comments at the last board meeting by saying people were confused if they were concerned about losing the support of their bilingual staff, because bilingual staff wasn't on the agenda for that meeting, and the district doesn't intend to get rid of any. And Doctor. Su, you agreed. Doctor. Su, you are literally planning to cut newcomer programs. That's bilingual support. And it doesn't take much imagination to see that it's at least related. And when it comes to it's not the district's intent, was it the district's intent to agree to an eight hour work day security and then turn around and send a bunch of layoff notices to T10 security? All this says is you and admin want to be the ultimate arbiters of every decision. You have the power to do just that, and everyone else who doesn't have that power can just pound sand. Stop pretending. You don't genuinely value transparency or inclusion. You just don't include anyone in any information or any decision unless you're forced to or you already agree with them.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Gioma Ortiz, Claudia Valdivier, Blanca, Roberto G? Roberto G? I'm not sure. Dina Pluck. Hi,

[Speaker 34.0]: my name is Gilma Ortiz and I am a retired teacher of thirty eight years in this district. I worked my first year at Newcomer Center at Mission Education Center. I was also proud to finish my career my last four years there and I'm here because the district is dismantling this newcomer program. This newcomer program had hundreds of students. This year has 11 and the projection is zero for next year. This is unacceptable. MEC is a place where students can receive. I'm sorry I'm emotional receive the resources that they need to transition into the system educational system and also to acclimate to this city and to this educational system. I asked the district to restore these services and actually provide a safe haven at this very critical time in our history especially here in San Francisco where we claim to be supporters of immigrants. Thank you.

[Speaker 35.0]: Hello, my name is Claudia Bolivia. I'm a speech language pathologist and I'm here to also represent the coalition of the Safe Schools Committee. So I hope everyone on this board already knows that the district has proposed to close MEC and slash the budgets of SF International and Vis Valley Middle. At our meeting two weeks ago or so, you said that it was because parents are no longer choosing to attend newcomer schools. That's been the justification. However, we have numerous accounts of the following. Many parents have told us this. That they are not told about MEC or other newcomer schools when they come. And so, you know, that's not parent choice if they don't know it exists, that we're full. We have 11 students, we're not full. That we're not good schools. Actually when they tried, oh I want to go to MEC, oh that's a bad school, you shouldn't go there. We have multiple accounts of that. And also in October, on a Wednesday, suddenly EPC called the 15 students that we had at that time, that they were suddenly unenrolled at MEC. I don't know if you board members know that that happened, but our parents received a phone call. That's not transparency. Phil Kim, I'll be g chatting you a message. There will be a student led conversation where we hope to get your support in trying to get these budget cuts stopped.

[Speaker 36.0]: Good evening, Board of Education members and Superintendent Doctor. Maria Su. My name is Blanca Catalan and I'm a mother of three students at SFUSD. My little one has an IP and I'm here today in support of having a strong safety plan for students and family regarding immigration enforcement. As parents, we need clear two way communication between this district and our communities because when students and families feel safe, they show up to school. They engage and they succeed. Families across the district are already facing fear and uncertainty. Schools should be safe spaces where every child feels protected and welcomed regardless of immigration status. I also want to highlight the importance of the program like Tilly. Tilly is a mentorship. It's essential, especially in our city, as diverse and culturally rich as ours. Through this program, principals have received support from them. Please adopt the heaven safety plan.

[Speaker 37.0]: Many principals have gone through the Tili program and 143 of them have remained in the district. With the great need that we have for teachers, it's essential that we continue working arduously for more programs like this one to continue growing and becoming stronger. My name is Roberto Guzman and I'm a parent of three students at Guadalupe Elementary. You are presenting a monitoring workshop but monitoring is not taking action. Under guardrail one you say student outcomes for the most underserved students are the priority. So I ask what is changing tomorrow for Latino students who are 78 points below standard and for students with disabilities who are over a 100% a 100 points below standard. Under guardrail five, you say that families are being engaged. But where is the proof that our input is actually changing your decisions? Under LCAP, you are required to increase or improve services for those priority students. So how are services improving when schools are losing bilingual staff and access to programs? Because here's the reality, funding does not mean implementing. You approve positions that remain vacant. You approve services that never reach students. So I ask you directly, what corrective action will you take and when to ensure these services are actually delivered? Because our students cannot wait. Their education is right now.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 39.0]: My name is Dana Pluck. I'm a parent of a former SFUSD high school student, class of 2024. She has a open legal title nine case against the district and her former coach. To date, it has not been discussed. It has not been listed as a closed session agenda item with the board. The SFUSD legal team has not responded to many attempts to resolve this matter, and I would like to know why this has been ignored and when it will be addressed. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Please line up as I call your name. Oops. Sorry. Supryia Dolan, I think. Manuel de la Rosa, Genesis Sanchez, Ramon Ramon or Damon, I think. Angelica Cabande, Maria Moreno, and Tiana Taylor.

[Speaker 40.0]: Hi. First of all, you for taking the time to listen to us. I'll try to make this quick. I hope that you've received a number of letters from parents at Bryant. We received the horrible news that essentially the heart of our community is being ripped out of our school. During the strike, I worked with mission grads to help make sure that kids were taken care of. Hearing people talk about ICE, that's who we would work with. And I'm sorry. I'm getting a little emotional. I also am quite scared of talking publicly about this. There is a culture of fear at the school that needs to change. I want to acknowledge how brave it is of all the parents who are showing up. A lot of them are on Zoom. It's hard to get here in person. But this is the tip of an iceberg. I want to take a minute to say how much I love my community, how grateful I am. I'm sorry, my name is Shwando, and I'm a parent of a second grader who has been there since pre K in the biliteracy program. I want to say thank you to all the teachers. He's receiving a wonderful education. I'm grateful for the opportunity that he's had in a public system. However,

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: outside Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time.

[Speaker 37.0]: Hi, my name is Manuel de la Rosa. I'm a parent of a student at Bryant in the second grade. I'm here to express my concern regarding the community involvement in the process by which the selection was made for the new provider of the Beacon program at the school. The community was excluded from this process. Families deserve to know what decision was being made and to participate in the process. None of this happened. The only outreach that was done by the district and the school was a single survey emailed that made no mention of Beacon. And, it was deciding on a contract for a relevant extracurricular. This is not participation by the community. This is the appearance of it. When parents asked questions about and shared their concerns during the school site council meeting, the response was historically this is not shared. It's a confidential process. This raises serious doubts regarding participation by the community at a school that is significant significant and was not supported adequately. We respectfully ask that there is a revision made in the evaluation of participation in the community at Bryant. Good evening. My name is Hennessy Sanchez, and I have three children at Bryant Elementary School. I'm here because I am concerned about the security of my children. Because, I spoke out related to immigration issues, my children have been harassed. I've spoken with the principal twice, and I don't feel like I'm being heard as a mother. I'm afraid for the security of my children. I'm also afraid for my children's safety because the people who have targeted my children have relatives that work at the school. And I feel like that is the reason why I have not been listened to as a mother. I feel that my rights have been violated. That's everything. Thank you.

[Speaker 41.0]: Good evening. My name is Ramon and I'm with Yohana and as well as Somcans Out of Market Community Action Network. Again, we just want to remind you Yohana has been collecting postcards from students, teachers, parents, community members all across the city. So far, they have gathered over thousands of postcards to deliver to you today. So please, we'd love for you guys to read the message from our, from the students, teachers, parents, and community members. Each of those postcards carry personal message, stories, fears, and hope from students, parents, and community members explaining why we need a safer school. Those are the real voice from our community. They deserve to be heard. Again, we are all here because every student deserves to learn in an environment free from fear of immigration enforcement. We are calling on superintendent Maria Sue to meet with us, the youth, Maria's the parents and the community groups to commit time to SF USA to collaterally create a school safety plan, adapt school safety plan in the board policy, and have all school sites implement the school safety plan. So again, please respond to our email. We have been emailing you for months now.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Thank you for your time.

[Speaker 21.0]: Good evening. My name is Angelica Cabandi. I'm the director of Sam Can. Since 2007, the board of education has adopted numerous resolutions, including the commitment to the education of all immigrant children and opposition to recent ICE raids. For nineteen years to date, there has been little to no clear communications to families and staff about how these policies are being implemented in practice from the staff level to student level. That is why we're demanding Superintendent Maria Hsu to meet with and commit time of the school district to collaboratively create a school safety plan with our youth group, Yohana, students, parents, and community groups. And after we collectively create a detailed plan, we want to come back here and have you Board of Education members to adopt the school safety plan. And after that's voted, we want to have the that all implemented in all across the school site. Let's not wait until another plan of massive ICE deployment in San Francisco for us to act. Prioritizing safety of our immigrant students is prioritizing the safety of all students, their families, and all the staff of SFUSD.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Thank you.

[Speaker 43.0]: Hi. Good evening. My name is Maria, and I'm the campaign director with Jobs and Justice San Francisco. And I'm working with organizations like SUMCAN and unions like United Educators of San Francisco across the city. I've been helping family, schools, and concerned community members organize school patrols to keep eyes watch at different schools in an effort to help students and their families feel safe. I'm here because this is only one part of a safety plan that many schools have had to figure out themselves in the absence of a more structured plan. The district of a sanctuary city should be guiding the way. We demand the district to meet with Yohana and other community groups to figure out a real plan and implementation across the district to help schools feel like safe havens. And, separately, also want to ask for full funding for newcomer programs since our families have enough to worry about with ICE on the street. Their kids should get the resources they need at school. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Tiana?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Tiana, I'm sorry. Can we go to online public comment and have you come at the end?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Oh, Thank I'm you. I apologize. Okay. We will now move to Zoom public comment. If you are a student and would like to speak in Zoom, please raise your hand. Once again, if you are a student and would like to speak, please raise your hand. Interpretation, go ahead. Julieta, we'll hear from you. Go ahead and unmute. Julieta Miranda. We can't hear you if you're speaking. Okay, Huleta, we'll have to come back. We'll now move to members of the public on Zoom that would like to speak. Please raise your hand if you're a member of the public and would like to speak. We'll start with Ms. Marshall. Ms. Marshall, go ahead and unmute.

[Ms. Marshall (NAACP San Francisco)]: Thank you so much to President Kim, Commissioners, Doctor. Sue. On behalf of the San Francisco branch of the NAACP, we strongly urge and encourage you to make sure to use equity as a center and make sure every student in SFUSD concurrently enroll in math and algebra. Of course, they will need to have a credentialed math teacher and support for those who might need that extra help. In the words of the Reverend late Jesse Jackson, he taught us to say this mantra, I am somebody. Our students can say that mantra because they can learn mathematics. It's not just for one ethnic group. It's for every child in SFUSD, but they will need support. And also, we are disturbed to hear that health is only taught in two schools. You must provide health classes for every SFUSD high school student. Thank you so much.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll go back to Julieta. Okay, sorry. We'll go with Gina. Go ahead Gina.

[Gina (Teacher Librarian, Aptos Middle School)]: Hi, my name is Gina. I am the teacher librarian at Aptos Middle School. And I wanted to talk about the new proposal to increase instructional minutes in middle school to two twenty. At my school and at most others, the only way to make this happen is cut lunch to thirty minutes. This does a huge disservice to our students. Their physical, their academic, their social emotional development and well-being, it already takes them like fifteen minutes to get through the lunch line. So that is giving them almost no time to eat and almost no break for the entire day. I don't know if you've ever tried to teach a 13 year old who hasn't had time to run around, play, or socialize for hours. But it is not an easy task. This proposal completely neglects the needs of our students, especially those who are neurodivergent and need a break from the intensity of what will now be maybe four straight hours of classes. Please reconsider. I know the board does not vote on this, but you do have

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

[Speaker 43.0]: Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: We'll now hear from Erin Antcliffe. Erin, go ahead and unmute. Erin, can you hear us?

[Speaker 46.0]: Can you hear me?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Yes, go ahead.

[Speaker 46.0]: Great, thank you. My name is Erin and I'm an SFUSD parent, and I'm here to speak about the proposed elimination of the K to five Spanish newcomer program at Mission Ed Center. And more importantly how that decision is being handled. So NEC has served Spanish speaking families for over fifty years and yet staff and families only learned that the program was being cut when the preliminary budget arrived with zero teachers budgeted. So I think this was not just a process failure, it was deeply disrespectful to the community at MEC and especially to the staff that were working with these families every day. So we are left trying to piece together what's happening without a clear understanding of any of the reasons and rationale behind these decisions. I did some public data analysis which suggested that eliminating this program may actually lose the district over $1,000,000 annually in grants and funding. So it doesn't seem like we're eliminating the program for budget reasons. We're being told that declining enrollment is the reason for closing it, but there's been no transparent investigation into why

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

[Speaker 46.0]: Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: We'll now hear from Bernice Casey. Bernice, go ahead and unmute.

[Speaker 47.0]: Hello, my name is Bernice Casey. I'm a parent of two SFUSD school students. Unlike the other people who've come, I really applaud them coming. I'm just asking you to be honest and quit saying things that you are allocating your resources effectively, that you are effectively working with communities, that you are being transparent. You are not. You are not prioritizing the children that need the most protection. Visitation Valley kids have shown up multiple times. I started crying today seeing the San Francisco International kids here again. Doctor. Sue is not engaging with them. What are you as seated board members doing to ensure that you're actually living up to these guardrails, these vision. You've heard from all of these communities that are being ignored by your administrator that you put in position of power. And I don't hear any of you saying what you're going to do to meet Thank you

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: for your comment. That concludes your time. We'll now go to Elliot Kent. Please go ahead and unmute.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Are you going to do it tomorrow or no?

[Speaker 49.0]: Elliot? My name is Elliot Kenhirtam and I'm speaking on behalf of the SF Parent Coalition. We've seen the data. SFUSD is off track in both reading and math, and the pattern is clear. The district has taken important steps by adopting new curriculum and investing But these efforts are not yet reaching students consistently across classrooms. We know that access to high quality instructional materials is an important part of the solution, but it's not enough on its own. What's needed is greater coherence, clear expectations for instruction, consistent implementation across all schools, and strong ongoing support for teachers to deliver high quality instruction every day. We also need a complete picture. The math report included elementary classroom observations, but all data was not shared. Families deserve transparency across grades. Parents are ready to be partners in this work, but we need clarity, consistency, and urgency. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Thank you. We'll now hear from Maria Angie Moreno. Maria, go ahead and unmute.

[Angie Moreno (Wellness/Health Education Youth Leadership Coordinator)]: Hello. My name is Angie Moreno, and I am the wellness health education youth leadership coordinator. I work supporting secondary schools, and I really just want to emphasize the importance of saving our health classes in our middle schools and the impact that it would be if we are not able to fund those classes and have teachers support students who are going through this very, very, very important transition in their lives in adolescence from puberty to questioning and all these different things that our students go through and not having somebody that can provide them the proper information and them getting it elsewhere is very dangerous and is very irresponsible from the district honestly as educators. So I really want to emphasize the importance of saving our health teachers in middle schools and making sure we find some sort of funding. I also want to emphasize the importance of saving all our newcomer programs. As somebody from the Latinx community, it is very important that we have these resources and we have all these programs to support our students and our families that are being targeted by the government. And I feel like the district's doing the same, that they're targeting our families because of under documentation and not understanding how the systems and the structures of this country work.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. We'll now hear from Sarah Meskin as the last comment on public. Sarah Meskin, go ahead and unmute.

[Speaker 51.0]: Hi, my name is Sarah Meskin. I am an educator myself, and I'm also the president the PTSA president at James Lake. First of all, I want to thank SFUSD for reinstating the seven period schedule. Think it's important for kids to have access to electives. I'm here to speak on the new math placement policy. I think this is a really good step in the right direction in terms of attempting to expand access to algebra. But I have concerns with the rollout and how it's going to work. The plan seems really convoluted. It seems really complicated. I'm someone who pays attention to this stuff and understands the public system. And I think that it is going to be hard for people to access information and to kind of figure out what path they want to take. I think that access to algebra in middle school should not be, you know, only for kids whose parents are able to navigate the system. I think parents really need a clear and transparent explanation of how this is going to work. I also have concerns about how this is gonna impact kids in terms of scheduling. And so I would personally like to hear more from San Francisco Unified about how they're going

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: to Thank you for your comment. That concludes your time. Present, 07:45. Hey,

[Tiana Tillery (UESF Vice President of Paraeducators)]: y'all. Hey. Good to see everybody here tonight. So for those of you who don't know me, now my name is Tiana Tillery. I'm the vice president of paraeducators. I'm also a long time paraeducator here at SFUSD. And I'm here tonight not just frustrated. I'm exhausted. This is my fifth year standing at the podium talking about paraeducator layoffs. Fifth year of the same conversation. Fifth year of the same fear. Fifth year of preliminary layoff notices being sent to the lowest paid workers in this district. And this year, the frustration is even greater because the wrong paraeducators received layoff notices based on seniority. People with more seniority received notices while people with less seniority did not. That mistake has caused panic, confusion, real emotional harm at school sites across this district. But tonight, I also want to talk about something that is not being talked about enough, the impact on students. When a paraeducator receives a layoff notice, it does not just affect one adult. It affects the students they work with every single day. Paraeducators are often the adults who work with our most vulnerable students, students who need extra help learning to read, extra help in math, extra help managing their behavior, extra help feeling safe at school. They run small groups. They provide one on one support. They step in when a student is overwhelmed. They build relationships with students who sometimes trust them more than anyone else on campus. At Charles Brown excuse me. At Charles Drew, educators are running small group learning centers with well developed lesson plans, sight words, and interactive boards. They're providing targeted instruction and intervention to students who are behind and trying to catch up. So when you send those preliminary layoff notices to paraeducators, you're not just sending the letter to an employee. You're sending a message to the students who depend on them that the support they receive might disappear. And let's talk about what happens when paraeducators leave, because they do leave. This constant cycle of preliminary notices is causing what we call layoff notice fatigue, and experienced paraeducators are leaving this district for more stable jobs. When they leave, students lose small group instruction, one on one academic support, behavior support, relationship based support from adults that they trust, safe campuses supported by security. And those losses show up in classrooms. They show up in behavior. They show up in attendance. They show up in academic outcomes. So when we talk about layoffs, we cannot just talk about budgets. We have to talk about students because the real impact of these potential layoffs will be felt by students first and hardest. And now on top of all this, we have paraeducators who received preliminary notices who should not have received them based on seniority. And we're telling them to go through the hearings to fix a mistake that they did not make. Yes, we're recommending for our paraeducators to request a hearing because they have the right to defend their jobs. But let's be honest, many of these hearings should not even be necessary. So tonight, I'm asking the board and the district fix the seniority list, fix the mistakes, resend the layoff notices for the paraeducators. Because this is not just about employees, this is about students, this is about stability, this is the kind of school system we want to be. Once again, this is my fifth year standing here asking you to protect our paraeducators and the students they serve. And I'm asking you again tonight, please do the right thing and resend these notices. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you to members of the public, and especially our students for joining us tonight to share your experiences and perspectives. As a reminder, board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or answer questions during public comment time, but we thank you for taking the time to be with us here today, both in person and virtually. The superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft of each agenda twelve days in advance for board members to review. Once that agenda is made public on our website, board members have submitted clarifying and technical questions, and staff have responded to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q and A doc is linked into each board agenda on board docs today linked in item H1. We invite the public to view these questions and answers alongside our discussions today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we will be moving most of our items to consent and identifying our highest priority agendas to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions in advance answered in advance by staff, but instead to bring forward strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards goals and the underlying strategy so we can be better informed in our decision making and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Moving to item D, report from closed session. In the matters of anticipated litigation concerning KW and the Board by a vote of five ayes, the commissioners and Commissioners Fisher and Huling voting nay, the Board gives direction to the general counsel. In two matters regarding employee discipline, dismissal, release, the Board, by a vote of seven ayes, agrees to accept the resignation of employees 17,147 and 41,074 through settlement agreement that gives direction to the General counsel. Moving to item E1, workshop on student outcomes. Goal one, third grade literacy and interim guardrail 3.2, use of data for instructional improvement. I call on the superintendent, to bring this item forward.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: What's up? I'm listening to this meeting.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Sarah, can you mute? Sorry.

[Paul Gallagher (Teacher, 8th Grade Math)]: I'm sorry, this is in jeopardy. Believe oh, okay. Sarah Maskin was still with her mic on, but it seems that she's done.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: That's okay, yes. We muted them now. Sorry about that.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Thank you President Kim. As the team starts to approach the dais, I want to introduce the presentation of Goal three. In tonight's presentation it's a little bit longer than our usual goal three presentation because we want to spend some time diving deeper into I'm sorry, goal one. Oh, third grade. Third grade goal one. This is why math is so important. Sorry. Yes, we wanted to spend a little extra time diving into the data, looking at where we are doing well and trying to understand and learn on where we can do better. As we've heard from public comments, there are lots and lots of room to grow. And I just want to start to acknowledge that. And I know that there's a lot of willingness and a strong desire for us to continue to push the needle forward to grow to make sure that we reach the targets that we have laid for ourselves. And more importantly, to fulfill the promise that we've made to our families and to our young people. So with that, I'm going to hand it over to the team, to Jeff Ray.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Doctor. Supryia, is this Doctor. Herrera presenting on this item as well? Is this the one? Okay. Okay. So let me spotlight. Give me one second, please.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Sorry. And Doctor. Christie Herrera is on Zoom. So we'll have a virtual person and then we'll have the rest of our team here. But maybe, Jess, you can just start.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you, Doctor. Sue, and good evening, board commissioners and members of the public. My name is Jess Reyes in research planning and assessment. On behalf of the team here, we're grateful for the opportunity to share this Goal one progress monitoring report. Next slide, please. Great. So we begin with our vision, values, goals, guardrails, grounding this update in goal one, grade three literacy, and an interim guardrail 3.2, which is around the use of data. This report brings together three key data resources the Winter Star results, December educator survey data, and January instructional walkthrough observations. The intent is to connect instructional practice to student outcomes by examining patterns in classroom practice and how they align with student literacy results. A side note, Interim Guardrail 3.2 sits within Guardrail three but is reported separately based on the data availability. Moreover, this work is directly aligned with goal one through PD and data cycles tied to the STAR assessment windows. And with that, I will hand it over to my colleague Moon Haak Kim to walk through the data.

[Moon Haak Kim (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you, Jess. Greeting commissioners and greetings superintendent Sue. Following the usual structure, will start with data, but we'll be more intentional next slide, please, actually in displaying the theory of action to connect the dots across our narrative as we go through the presentation. So we're starting from the far right side of the theory of action with the impact on student outcomes, and we will work backwards. And you will see this slide pop up throughout the presentation to anchor us. Next slide, please. Overall, we have mixed results. As you can see, the overall goal one on the far left decreased slightly, as did interim goal 1.3 for third grade ELs. On the other hand, we have noticeable gains for 1.1, which is a kindergarten African American and Pacific Islander students' STAR early literacy assessment, as well as for one point interim goal 1.2 for first graders. Grade one is especially to celebrate given not only the continued growth, but we can actually see the parallel lines compared to the previous cohorts progress through last year. One thing to note, as we noted in the report, is that the teacher strike in February likely affected student learning and certainly interrupted the assessment administration. But of course, trying to understand exactly the amount of that impact in that counterfactual is challenging since we don't have that alternate scenario of what might have happened. Next slide, please. This is the interim guard rail 3.2 that I just talked about. So it's measured through a biannual survey asking teachers throughout the district. And what this shows is a percentage of teachers who responded that they independently reviewed data and monitored progress for continuous improvement of instruction at least a few times a month or more frequently. So the data coming data from at the end of last school year, June 2025, we came in at fifty seven percent this required and increased notably in the December 2025 data to sixty seven percent of teachers responding in that manner. The target that we have set for the end of this year is sixty two percent. So yes, we are already higher, but of course, depending on how the survey results come back in June, we might be lower or higher, but we are seeing some good gains. And as Jess will talk about more later, our continued PD implementation has been very fruitful. So we expect to see continued growth. Next slide. And with that, I will actually hand it off to Devin.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. As previously spoken to by my colleagues in research planning and assessment, for this progress monitoring report, we wanted to make clear and more transparent for the audience and for the commissioners the relationship between each component of the theory of action, and how our work associated with organizational change and building consistency and coherence impacts student outcomes. So as was just spoken to, the team highlighted the current data that we have with regards to winter administration and the impact on goals one, one point one, 1.2, and 1.3. As we talk about often in student outcomes focused governance, student outcomes are a result of adult behaviors. And so we wanted to start by explicitly building the connection between high quality instructional practice and its relationship to our student outcomes. So in this section, we are going to start by highlighting data from our January round of learning walks. So as a quick reminder, SFUSD contracts with TNTP for a series of external learning walks across K-eight classrooms in language and literacy and math. Those learning walks are conducted in September, in January, and just concluded in March. We do run these external learning walks concurrently to district led learning walks with SFUSD staff. And the purpose of this is having two systems that can support our understanding of calibration, how well our site educators are aligned to what we might consider our external auditors to help us understand how better to support professional learning and instructional practice in classrooms. Next slide, please. So the first series of data points and I apologize for the very small text even though that slide is quite large is a series of data points related to essential content both in the areas of reading foundational skills and comprehension. Year one is the sum of last year's twenty four-twenty five Learning Walk data and year two refers to the sum of the September in addition to January Learning Walk data. So across both of these from year one to year two it's meant to demonstrate how implementation and high quality instructional practice has tracked over time. In these areas, you can see both some relative areas of strength as well as growth in the areas of essential content. We have seen, especially in comparison to our initial audit, some significant growth in the foundational skills observed in the lesson making sense for the grade and time of year. We do want to build that connection to some of the growth we've seen in goals 1.1 with kindergarten ers and 1.2 with first graders. And similarly, where students spend the majority of time reading, listening, speaking, and writing about mentor focal texts, similarly, we do see that as related to high quality instructional materials with the adoption. If we can go the next slide. However, there is significant growth needed within the areas related to academic ownership, both across reading foundational skills and reading comprehension. As noted in the slide, these were not observed and the data was not collected in the twenty four-twenty five school year, so this is the first year in which we are comprehensively collecting this data. As you can see across almost every indicator there is need for significant growth. And just as sort of the background to keep in mind, academic ownership refers to students having opportunities to carry the cognitive load in the classroom, also referred to as opportunities for practice. In prior presentations, this has also been referred to as significant opportunities for students to have at bats where they can demonstrate that practice and receive corrective feedback as appropriate. If we can go to the next slide. So in order to even deeper articulate the relationship between student outcomes and these high quality instructional practices that we want to improve within the classroom, we wanted to start by focusing in on our third graders, both in terms of overarching goal three as well as 3.3 grade multilingual learners. So within the STAR assessment, we wanted to first start by demonstrating the difference in proficiency for these groups across the various language and literacy domains within STAR. And these refer to the different components of the standards, in this case specific to language and reading comprehension. So we are looking at our current third graders, their winter, their fall, and then actually their second grade data as well. And you can see both overall and then multilingual learners. So if we start by identifying those two domains where the proficiency lands either below or significantly below the overall proficiency rate, those two domains are both related to the comprehension of informational text, so nonfiction, and then specifically related to student depth of understanding in terms of craft and structure and then integration of knowledge and ideas. If we can go to the next slide. When we compare this relationship between student proficiency on these domains to high quality instructional practices we begin to see the ways in which instructional practice can impact student outcomes. So these are some of our lowest indicators specifically related to academic ownership. So the idea of text dependent questions and tasks, students having the opportunity to share explanation and understanding, and again really that emphasis on students carrying the cognitive load within the classroom. We can go to the next slide. And when we consider how this is related to use of data, we want to make sure that we highlight not just the ways in which teachers are disaggregating and understanding student proficiency, but using that at a site level to inform instructional practice.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: So connecting adult actions to student outcomes is a key leadership skill. And for the third year, RPA and LEAD have led use of data PDs, which occur when the STAR results are available, and focus on collecting implementation data, linking practice to results, and informing next steps. The working assumption here is that strengthening leaders' data use supports stronger teacher practice, which in turn contributes to improved instruction. And as part of this work, leaders engage their ILTs in data review cycles, sharing their artifacts and reflections. And the percentage of sites that were submitting their data analysis artifacts has increased from forty one percent in the '4 to fifty three percent in fall twenty five-twenty six. So a nice increase. Next slide please.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: So again, to continue down with our theory of action, in order to change student outcomes, we want to see increases specifically in the high quality instructional practices that our students need most in order to shift that proficiency. Shifting those instructional practices means number one use of data but it also means ensuring that the site conditions are present in order to make the work of instructional coherence instructional vision and instructional consistency happen. And so that is related to not just centralized opportunities for professional learning, but also site based instructional leadership, instructional leadership teams, teacher collaboration, individual coaching, and again, as named, using student data for progress monitoring. If we can go to the next slide. So if we take a deeper look at our site implementation tracking in relationship to goal one, we do see some inconsistency in terms of ensuring that the conditions are present across all sites for teachers to focus on high quality instructional practices through things like teacher collaboration, one to one coaching, having sufficient instructional minutes, or engaging in lesson and unit internalization. Where we see inconsistency in these implementation actions, we do realize that we need to shift our centralized systems, support, and organizational coherence in order to improve the quality of implementation and the site conditions necessary for teachers to improve the quality of their practice and therefore shift student outcomes. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague to speak to the plan section.

[Speaker 5.0]: Awesome. Thanks, Devin. Next slide, please. So Jen and I are gonna talk a little bit about now what? Now what do we do given this data as two leaders who support schools? We wanna kinda talk about what we would do and what we will do around this implementation. So when we go back to our theory of action, if we do these things as a department, establishing data as in that red box, providing robust professional learning, and engage in high quality supervision and coaching and feedback and cycles with our educator groups, then our output will be high quality implementation, high quality implementation of the curriculum, professional development. Our leaders and coaches can support teachers in the classrooms. Next slide, please. So with that in mind, our the first plan that I'll talk about, number one, is actually completely aligned to the work that we're doing right now. Last week, we held our second leader and coach citywide, pre k through five. When asking them for feedback, they shared the following, which was completely aligned to the next steps and plans that we've had listed on this slide. Across the cohorts, there was a request for support on-site based implementation structures around GLCs, ILTs, learning walks, and unit lesson internalization. While many teams are engaging in this quality work, some leaders and coaches are asking for examples on what strong practice looks like with an example of schools with this strong implementation, along with practical tools and models to support this. Additional feedback from our citywide highlights this shift that's happening from planning to action, ensuring that data driven instruction, focal student work are aligned with the coaching and ILT systems, which then links directly to professional learning so it's consistently implemented in the classroom. And finally, there's an opportunity to codify how supervisors, so leaders, operationalize expectations through structures and protocols that reinforce the shared ownership across the central teams. So lead, c and I, principals, and coaches. So we're all working together to help define what these nonnegotiables are around regular data cycles, protected collaboration, alignment instructional priorities, which will all lead back to academic ownership for our students, speaking up in class, sharing their thoughts, talking to a partner, really showing what they know so that the teacher talk gets replaced with the student implementation of what the curriculum is happening to them in their classroom, how they're receiving the information, and what they're knowing. And I'll pass it over to Jen for number two.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Good evening, doctor Sue and commissioners. Nice to see everyone again. You're going to get real nice and sick of us this evening. We have you all night. I'm going to talk a little bit about the last part, is expanding our partnerships and increasing our coherence. I think one of the things that we're realizing right now is we knew that when we began implementing a math curriculum the year after we implemented a literacy curriculum that there might be some things that we needed to do better. Teachers are going to learn something. Then as they learn something new, they might forget the first thing. And so now what we need to do is figure out alright what next. So our plan for this upcoming spring season is to conduct a series of focus groups among the administrators to better understand and deeper understanding what is the role of the administrator. How does the administrator especially veteran, new, etc? How do they develop instructional leadership in their school? How do they make sure that they're aligned? How do they invest folks in that process? And then also I think the second thing is around roles and clarity of roles Where there's a principal and an assistant principal and a coach, who's holding what? If the principal's holding the instructional vision, what does that mean for the principal? What does that mean for the assistant principal? If there is one, what does that mean for the coach? And then what does that mean for the leadership team? And I think as we get clear on that, we'll begin to see improvements in literacy and in math when we get there. So we want to use those focus groups to increase the guidance to coaches, increase the guidance to coach principal partnerships and continue to bring them together. And then I think finally, really working side by side with C and I and special education to think about, alright what is the tier one instruction for everyone, our multilingual learners, for our students with IEPs, for every single student in the classroom and then what do we do when that's not working and then how do we look at growth, right. We're often talking in this meeting about whether or not we're meeting our proficiency goals and I think that we miss opportunity to talk about how kids are incrementally improving with this new curriculum and where we see it serving our most vulnerable students in those improvements. Thanks. And now I think we open it up to your questions. Sorry, was supposed to say that's it.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. I'll open it up to questions from commissioners. So, oh, go for it. Commissioner Weissman-Ward.

[Speaker 56.0]: I have a question. Yeah. Can I go first? Oh, thank you. I was just looking through the slides. Oh, thank you so much for this very detailed 19 slide presentation. The evidence and the plan, all numbers are very helpful. And I think third grade literacy is obviously very important. I have I did not attend third grade SFUSD, but I know my little sister did. So very full circle moment. The only question I have as of right now is like what exactly is the difference between the STAR test and the SBAC test and how does that like measuring because I noticed like in the first couple of slides that those two were the ones where it was red and negative and specifically for grade three. So I was just wondering how does each one of them measure third grade literacy and why do we have to?

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you for the question. So the difference between the SBAC and the STAR assessments is basically that well, the similarities first is that they both test the Common Core standards, the California standards. And the SBAC assessment is done at the end of the year, so it's more summative in nature, whereas the STAR assessment is an interim assessment and allows for us to know along the way throughout the course of the school year how students are doing towards their proficiency in the standards. And so that distinguishes the two of them and because they are both we've done studies to basically determine whether they're highly correlated, which they are. And that allows for us to have a sense of whether or not students across the course of the year are on track or the extent to which they're on track to do well on the SBAC assessment.

[Speaker 56.0]: Thank you. And quick follow-up. Since one of them is middle of the year, whereas to one being summative, are there adjustments being made in real time based on the STAR test since it is middle of the year? Or is it more of like end of the year reflection type of thing that we're doing right now?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Christie, okay if I respond? Okay. Yeah, absolutely. That's a perfect question. We do a couple of things with the STAR assessments along the way. First, we invite our research planning and accountability colleagues to our cohort meetings. So we ask first principals to engage in examining their star test and to better understand what's happening. What's happening at the global level and then how to drill down. And then in theory, what we're asking principals to do and we do the same thing with the coaches is to then go back and do the same thing with their leadership teams and then to do the same thing at their grade levels so that they can really say, all right, what are we going to do differently? How are we going to adjust? So that is the theory and I think that like as people get better at looking at data, we get better at that. So if you remember the slide that Jess showed us where we, what slide was it, slide 14 where it said that we were looking at data at 41% and now we're looking at data at 53% of the time, we're slowly incrementally seeing that people are getting more comfortable with looking at that data. And that's what we hope to be true is that they understand what to do with the data. Thanks for that question.

[Speaker 56.0]: Thank you.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I feel like the quality of these reports has really shifted in a way that I just want to acknowledge it's a lot of time and it's really labor intensive, but I think it is really helpful to us, to the public, to really understand sort of what's happening, what's working, what's not, what shifts are happening, what shifts are not yet happening. So thank you.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I think that's partly because of the second best ad hoc. Just want to name that.

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

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'm sorry, speaker was not recognized.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Point of order. Thank you to student delegate Mon for the question on sort of data usage. I had a similar question. I'm going to move to my second question, which is about implementation integrity. And we see that 67% of classrooms are using the adopted materials, but ratings for the essential content and academic ownership remain low or are dropping. And so does this suggest that just using the materials is just insufficient and there needs to be some deeper shift in pedagogy? Where do you go if folks are using these materials the way at least 67% are? We want them higher. That doesn't seem to be enough. So what are the recommendations around moving from there to actually seeing results for the students? Because it seems like there's this notable gap between the adult behaviors, which seem to be on track, and the student outcomes, are significantly off track.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Yes. I'm happy to answer that question. Thank you. So one of the things I'll say just to start with is that use of materials well, let me say this. One of the phrases that we often say is that curriculum is the floor, not the ceiling of high quality instructional practice. However, you especially in the Bay Area like would not build a house on a weak foundation. And so when we talk about use of materials we're talking about I would say like the lowest step of that which is observers seeing the materials in use in the classroom. However, high quality instructional materials, particularly in language and literacy, have sort of just a ton of complexity. So for example, within language and literacy there's multiple components. We're looking at foundational skills, at vocabulary instruction, at reading comprehension, at writing instruction. And so the quality of use for an individual teacher might vary across all of those components. In addition, if for example a teacher is not regularly engaging in unit or lesson internalization protocols, they're not deeply studying the materials and so they might introduce the complex text but miss the text dependent questions that are built into that teacher guide and so therefore not use them within the classroom. And so when we look at these different measures of academic ownership and essential content as well We can sort of think of them as the various components of high quality which are curriculum related but sort of have to do with how much the materials translate into practice with that individual teacher. Where we see really strong examples of those materials translating into high quality practice are often at sites with really strong enabling conditions for instructional leadership or instructional vision. So if we think of some of our really strong sites where the instructional coach, for example, does a release day and pulls the third grade teachers together for a full day of instructional planning, they do unit internalization, they plan out the pacing of their lessons, They have a deep understanding of the design and the complexity of the materials. And so they know both how to look at the data and be responsive to their students, but also not to skip this really important part of the lesson because the heart and it's sort of like Jenga blocks. If you pull it out, the kids are going to miss the main idea of the text. So it could be that strong instructional coaching and release day. It could be a site with a really strong practice around teacher collaboration where the grade level team meets every single week to look at student work together and understand, Okay, to go back to the slide, we really need to focus in on craft and structure and, like, let's look at all the text dependent questions related to craft and structure and really figure out where to expand or get different routines in place for students to engage with those questions. And so that complexity is both related to depth of teacher understanding but very much related to enabling conditions at the site and all of instructional systems that kind of give them room to breathe.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Can I also add that we're getting better at supporting our site leaders, our administrators, in understanding the content of the curriculum? So we are having regular PD, professional development trainings, with site leaders so that they can on a regular basis look for certain things when they're walking into their classrooms and observing our educators administering or delivering the curriculum. So I think just consistency in training, consistency in monitoring, supporting our educators in delivering on the different aspects of the curriculum is really, really key. At the same time, making sure that we are clear on the expectations that we're trying to achieve. And I think these components come together will then create greater coherence across classrooms, across educators, and throughout the entire school and then across schools.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I'm like I have a minute twenty nine left. Don't worry, I'm not going

[Speaker 21.0]: use No, it

[Speaker 46.0]: no, no.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I never use all my time. No. But no, thank you. And I just wanna underscore, like the idea that there, you have to have these instructional systems in place, like you can have all of the best materials in the world. If if those systems are not in place, we're just like throwing things out the window. So I mean, that seems to be, you know, where this space comes in to make sure that school leadership and our educators really have the support and the space and the time which I know it's fleeting.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: So I'm going to pick up right there because you stole my questions. I look at the 65%, 67% in year one and year two. So I feel like there's a couple of ways this could go down. Assuming that 65% of our classrooms are utilizing the curricula and have the materials in front of them, there's a question of, is it that the materials are not demanding this kind of work that we would want to see in the essential content? Or is it that the delivery of that curricula is not actually matching what the curricula is asking for? Which one is it? Do we know?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I mean think the curriculum is very high quality and if folks use the curriculum as intended and get familiar with it, I do think we're going to start to see an increase there. I think there's a couple of things and Devin and I have talked a lot about this that like this particular curriculum and the way we're now teaching language and literacy is a shift for fee for folks. And so it's a big it's a big shift from what we've been doing for a very long time. So for veteran folks, anytime we implement a change, it like, you know, it costs us to let go of what we've always known and it takes some time to say, believe in this new thing. Maybe sometimes people like, I'm gonna pick this piece up because this fit this feels familiar to me, but I'm not gonna pick this piece up. And so to Devin's point, we're not seeing some consistency. And then I think the second piece of that is, like, if there aren't the structures on the campus for people to deeply dive in, there are so many components that oftentimes are missing the most, the pieces that are going to support the kids the most. So I do think over time we will see an increase of this. I also think that anytime we have a turnover of a leader, anytime we have a turnover of a coach, or anytime we have a turnover of a teacher on a team that there are some discrepancies there or where we don't have teachers that are fully credentialed. So there's some places there where we have more investment to do in order to see that number go up. But I do think it's not related to the quality of the curriculum, but rather to how we help people to get to be using it consistently.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Great. Doctor. Herrera you mentioned LEAD, C and I principals and coaches. LEAD primarily oversees principals, C and I no. Oh wait, so lead principals, C and I coaches, no.

[Speaker 34.0]: What's that?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: So I guess I'm trying to figure out like what is the gap here that we're trying to close when we mentioned leads, and I, principals, coaches. Those are all groups of people who are doing enormous work in our schools and when we talk about the alignment and coherence that need to come with focusing on something as something like internalization, right? Like when we talk about LEAD C and I principles and coaches what is the role that each of them have in supporting internalization at a site?

[Speaker 5.0]: Yeah I mean I think as far as the work that's happening, lead and C and I, we work collaboratively around supporting leaders and coaches as both teams to make sure that when we're doing our learning walks with the coaches, when we're doing our learning with the principals, that we're looking for these indicators around internalization. So to me, it's one large collaboration effort between C and I and LEAD to support what's happening at the school sites. I think a big piece of what we've been implementing this year that I mentioned is citywide where coaches and principals are coming together three times a year of uninterrupted spaces to be planning, and it's all aligned to the star. So the fall literacy star, the winter, and then the spring. We come together. We look at those results. We have RPA in the room. They're able to really look and do a deep dive of their data, make a plan, bring it back to the school. And our job as lead is to make sure that principals and coaches are having that time together back at the site, that they're doing those walk throughs, they're implementing strong ILTs and GLCs. And then collaboration with CNI who's doing coaching, training with the coaches. I think it's twice a month, if I'm not wrong, Devin. Making sure that whatever we're talking about in citywide is then following the coaching meetings, which is then leading back into the classroom, which is then leading back into the schools. So for us, it's one large collaboration that we are doing together so that teachers, coaches feel supported, but also have high expectations when they are completing their learning walks, ILTs, and GLCs.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: So I can talk a little bit about specifically to C and I. So C and I does not supervise instructional coaches but does provide professional learning and guidance to coaches on their work. So you can think of that relationship as being sort of like a coach of coaches but is not a formal supervisor or evaluator of the coaches.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I'll just add that I think you know I'll talk specifically about the middle school K-eight cohort for a second. In the middle school K-eight cohort, there are eight new principals. And all of them attend TLE. And part of what they do in TLE is they better understand their curriculum. So Emma and I have time with them. They attend monthly meetings with us. Devin and Renee from curriculum instruction come and do work during those meetings to help them understand the curricula. And then during Tilly, they watch videos. They collaborate with one another. They try to figure out what does a good ILT look like so that there is some cross collaboration. And then I think that something that came about this year that I don't think we were doing as as well last year, so I think that there's like still room for improvement is, so what is it if C and I is doing X and lead is doing Y and Tilly is doing Z? How do we make sure that they're all collaborating and cohering versus like everyone's doing something separate? And I think that that is something that we have a consistent team that we're getting better at. And I do think that like, again, to give one specific example, at the beginning of this year when we instituted the learning walks, K-five right away picked up the learning walks and picked up the tool that was developed in conjunction with CNI and RPA and the K8s did not because we had been using something else. And so it took us a while to make sure that, hey, if we're going to pick up this Learning Walk tool, have to give something else up and we need time in order to make sure that we're not just giving something to someone for compliance purposes but that people see the purpose. So now the real the focus is every month when we're coming together we're looking at a specific component of the curricula, the new curricula and we're saying we're going to internalize as principles around this and then this month you're going to go and you're going to look for that and you're going to use that part of the tool to see if you saw it. And so I think that that is slowly improving implementation internalization over time.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: And I wonder if this is partly what you were talking about with creating more tools and protocols for the internalization process itself. But do we have a concrete picture of just what excellent coaching looks like? And is that a shared expectation across all the teams of what excellent coaching looks like?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I can respond to that. I think yes and. So there is clarity around the roles and responsibility of a coach. There's clarity on the expectations for a coaching cycle, what that looks like, how much time, the specific actions associated with each step. What I would say is I think there is significant room for growth around the consistency of implementation of those expectations. And so by that I mean if we set an expectation on how often a coach might be facilitating their teacher collaboration time. And one school has a weekly standard for that, another school has a monthly standard for that, and we see inconsistency in that. What I would also say is that I think there is a component related to the quality of coaching that is sort of the nuanced relationship between the support provided by C and I and then the relationship with the principal who supervises the coach and our coordination with lead. What I would say is that one of our primary focuses coming out of this primary this progress monitoring report on goal one as well as planning for twenty six-twenty seven is improving and codifying like the specificity of instructional coach expectations. I think the current standard in place can be I was going to say specified again can be further detailed in order to more clearly communicate the expectations in a way that I hope would build more consistency over time. So for example, one of the pieces that we're doing is, as part of our partnership with TNTP, we're working with them on revising the guidelines around coaching cycles, the time spent, and the expectations, revising the guidelines collaboration and the frequency and the content of those meetings. We've worked with research planning and assessment on revising the coaching logs so we can get a better sense of which actions need more support or not. Where I think there has been a really high degree of training and specificity is around culture of coaching and coaching stances and understanding how to mediate conversations, how to coach into challenge. So I think those pieces are really strong. I think the pieces around instructional systems are where some of our revision work in coaching expectations currently exists.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay, that's really helpful. I mean, think that's the area where I'm most interested in, right? Because if we're talking about the curriculum itself is not there's no concern around the quality of that curricula then what we're talking about is understanding how do we know that teacher practice is changing which we can look at, I mean this evidence here is really interesting but it's all kind of downstream from what we actually want to see shifting in our system which is the quality of the coaching that we believe if it's getting better and better then presumably the quality of teaching is improving and presumably if the quality of teaching is improving then we can see these indicators improving. But I guess my question would be how are we understanding how the quality of our coaching is improving? And then as a consequence of that, how are we understanding whether or not teacher backed practice and behavior is improving so that these things go up. Does that make sense? So I guess I'll just end with that. I think it's just assuming that we have and the reason I asked about like do we have a point of view on coaching is like if we want internalization to improve then in many ways in order for you know humans are humans. In order for you to change your practice and behavior oftentimes we need to model that and so then this is where the power of coaching comes in. And so then I'm just most curious like do we have any indicators that would suggest that coaching is improving? And who is responsible for that? How do we show that in our system?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I'm happy to speak at least a piece of that. So one of the things I will say and we've touched on this, I think, in various ways in some of our progress monitoring reports, but maybe not at sort of the depth you're speaking to or asking which is how do we understand the relationship between various levels of the system such that if we identify via our coaching logs, via our focus groups, via the supervision or the coaching of coaches, high quality coaching, do we then see measurable shifts in teacher practice at those sites? Do we then see measurable shifts in student outcomes at those sites? And so I think what we have done some strong work in is highlighting high quality examples where I know we keep coming back to this, but where the pipe isn't leaking and that system is in relationship with one another such that student outcomes are moving. So I think we do have very strong examples of high quality coaching. I will say a key component of that is not just the quality of the coaching, but at those sites we tend to also see really strong positive relationships between the coach and the administrators where they're very much in sync with one another with shared expectations, shared messaging. One of the pieces that I will say, which I think is true not just for instructional coaching but when we talk about enabling conditions at sites, is moving beyond the big picture vision into very clearly measurable expectations that folks are held accountable for that are clearly articulated and codified. And I think that is sort of a growing muscle in SFUSD, certainly with relationship to coaching, but similarly with relationship to instructional leadership. Some of our site systems, we see it come up a lot with classroom schedules or with frequency of teacher meeting. And so I think for us, the more consistent and explicit we can be some folks say, what's clear is kind. We are able to improve consistency when we're explicit and clear with the codification of best practices.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Student delegate Cruz?

[Speaker 35.0]: So actually, President Kim actually took one of my questions, which was, how will increased data actually be used to instruct and improve students' outcomes, which you did answer already. But my main question is how will concrete changes how will they be, like, seen or translated in as a result of, like, how the seed is being used? So pretty much how will we actually see, and how will these be, like, shown through mutually by instructor and students, which was something we've kind of all kind of been asking. So, yeah, that's kind of pretty much my question is to get a better understanding of how the actual concrete change will affect students and how that would look like.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: So one of the areas in student so I'll sort of zero in on some of the student instructional experiences that we named in the report. But I think specifically where I'm going to focus in on is like high quality instructional practice and sort of the thinking and doing that's asked of students. So one of the pieces that we highlighted in the report was some of the components related to student proficiency in reading comprehension on informational text. So the two areas we highlighted were around craft and structure and integration of knowledge and ideas, and then name some of those practices that we had lower frequency of that we needed to improve around like text dependent questions. And so to sort of zero in on those, what they're asking students to do in a classroom to demonstrate proficiency on those standards, include, like, determine I'm just going to read from it a little bit but determine the meaning of general academic and domain specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade three topic or subject area, use text features and search tools to locate information, distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text, if you can imagine for third graders. So when we think about a student's experience in the classroom, they're being asked to take on those kinds of actions. So it could be the teacher changing the kind of questions that they ask. It could be students working in pairs or in small groups in order to determine the meaning of academic vocabulary. It could be that they have a writing task where they're asked to do that piece around distinguishing their own point of view from that of the author of a text. So when we talk about what's different for students, it's the kinds of tasks they're being asked to do in the classroom shifting.

[Speaker 6.0]: Okay, thank you.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I love our questions, you guys. This is such a great conversation. And thank you all for the work. Know, think Commissioner Weissman-Ward, I really wanted to follow-up on your appreciations that you started with. I mean, the fact that we're using data this way, like, you know, I'm an old dinosaur who remembers years worth of pilots that collected tons of data that absolutely went nowhere. So the fact that we're actually using data to inform practices I think is just makes me warm and fuzzy. I think my question, and Ms. Steiner, you kind of touched on it when you stated what a huge shift this is, right? And these like, the fact that we're using a structured literacy curriculum, you know, like this is a huge shift. And also related to that is a lot of our educators, you only know what you know when you know it. And we have a lot of educators who went through college in the days of balanced literacy, right? In the days that we teach students by 3Qing, right? And so I'm wondering, it's great that we have instructional coaching and that we're doing, but what are we doing to build our teachers' foundational skills? And what are we doing to build their why? And making sure that they understand, like, the phonemic awareness themselves. Like, of these we can't build the academic ownership if our educators and a lot of them have, to their credit, gone out and done a lot of skill building on their own, right? And we see what's going on at Drew and how much training they're doing, for example, and how that's really like a SPEC test scores increased by 40 points last year because of all their work. So I think really beyond coaching, what pathways do we have for our educators themselves to actually build their knowledge of what structured literacy is and these foundational reading skills that we're asking them to teach our kids.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I'm happy to speak to that. So one of the pieces I'll say, and I just tried to remember the exact school year and then it went out of my head, but 'twenty three, 'twenty four. 'twenty three, 'twenty Okay. Starting on the 'twenty three, 'twenty four school year, prior to the final adoption and implementation of the newly adopted curriculum, we actually started by doing a full year. It was the first year of aligned PD, but a full year of professional learning on the instructional shifts associated with the Common Core, one pillar of which is foundational skills. So we did a sequence of professional learning on foundational skills, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, through on. Since then, throughout summer, January Institute, incrementally across the year, we've continued to do ongoing workshops and institutes specifically targeting foundational skills and specifically related to K2. What I would say just to clarify is foundational skills are true across K5. We have focused in, however, on particular. One of the pieces that I will see related to that is I think shows up in the data where that intentional focus of foundational skills professional learning has both related to some of the bumps we see in explicit and appropriately sequenced foundational skills instruction. I think we see some growth in what we would call out of context practice, where students are doing letter cards in rug time. Where we definitely have room for growth is in that academic ownership where students have appropriate opportunities for fluency practice, for small group instruction. And I think that piece is like the current sort of zone of proximal development growth area for teachers, where they're starting to feel more comfortable in the explicit instruction. However, they need to then transition that comfort into students' academic ownership in a gradual release model. And so when we observe lessons, what we might see is teachers feeling more confident with the front of room components and sort of struggling a little bit with the pacing and not getting to the gradual release time or not having built in significant time for small group instruction so students don't have enough opportunities for independent practice with decodable text. And so that transitional piece is what I would say is like our next stage of professional learning after the two to three years we've done. However, as we know, we introduced to our system a significantly sized cohort of new teachers and administrators and coaches every year. And so foundational skills professional learning and understanding the science of reading will continue to be core for educators as they enter the system as a baseline expectation. But we have started to shift some of that professional learning towards supporting student independent practice, especially with decodable text, which I cannot emphasize enough.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I appreciate that because my next question was the data around the usage of decodable text is scary bad. You know, 0% for students independently practicing targeted skills in the context of decodable text and then student practicing newly acquired text within decodable, newly acquired skills within decodable text in nine. So, I mean, gradual release of responsibility, I do, we do, you do, right? So if we're not doing that gradual release of responsibility, how are the students going to like, so what is the plan to increase the use of decodable text, I think, in that gradual release of responsibility is my follow-up question.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Yes. I can definitely speak to that. I can keep talking. I just wanted to Okay. So I'll say sort of two parts that are materials based. So one piece is I would say SFUSD is not unique in this being a primary focus area. Since the adoption of inter reading and Ariba, but specifically because of the way foundational skills work inter reading I'll speak to. Number one, I would say, is that HMH has revised their foundational skills component. There was sort of an incremental step towards structured literacy and a next step towards a California edition, specifically in alignment with state guidelines. And so we have gradually transitioned sites onto that, which does, in comparison to the initial program, increase the amount of time and direction for student independent practice and use of decodable text. The next piece is they've actually done an increased release of decodable text sets to go with the modules that we have, as funding has become available, continue to do waves of purchasing of. I think one of the things that we still see is, to Doctor. Steiner's point, some of these kind of older habits and mindsets around volume of reading and leveled text libraries and folks sort of struggling with understanding what replaces that. So as more decodable texts have been released, we've made those purchases so that teachers have stronger text sets to work with for more student independent practice. One of the other pieces that is exciting for that independent practice component in both forthcoming California edition, but also in structured literacy, is decodable text printables that can be a backpacked home to increase practice and guidance for families, not just in fluency practice, but also in text dependent questions with decodable text. So there have been some new materials releases that we've picked up in order to support that in addition to some of the professional learning. But when it comes to that, I would say, number one, has focused on independent practice and having teachers understand how to appropriately pace so that they save enough time for that, how to set up small group instruction as an integral component of their day so that they're seeing fluency practice happen with kids. So that has also been a part of both the materials and professional learning.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you. And I didn't mean to mistitle you, Doctor. Steiner. Apologies for that.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Commissioner Ray? I'm going to I will acknowledge you in President Kim's absence.

[Speaker 24.0]: Okay. Thank you.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I also just want to thank you all for the data that's provided and for the specific addition of information that we didn't have before. I think that is really valuable to be adding this additional information about academic ownership, for instance, because that is so critical to our students actually being able to improve their skills and outcomes. So I am, in accordance with what we have been learning in our progress monitoring subcommittee, going to address my questions again to Superintendent Sue. So you're off the hot seat for now unless she decides to turn to you. So Superintendent Hsu. So I also want to nod to Commissioner Fisher here because she asked about two specific things that I have on my list, including the stuff about decodable texts and teacher preparation programs because for quite a long time those programs were not instructing teachers in the foundational skills that kids need, most kids need in order to be able to succeed in literacy. So that is a big and difficult gap for all of us to struggle with and figure out how to address. So Doctor. Sue, a couple of things that I wanted to ask here, sort of following up on what Commissioner Fisher was asking about practice opportunities. If kids don't get the opportunity to practice, it's very, very hard to actually internalize the skill that you're being taught. I am wondering, as a practical matter, how we can promote more practice opportunities, especially given the instructional minutes that we currently have. What is our current minimum for instructional minutes in reading? And does that time allow for adequate practice? And if it doesn't, how can we help to promote that? That's my first question.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Thank you, Commissioner Ray. Actually, that's quite a technical question about how many instructional minutes our students have. However, I just want to first address the teacher prep question. Think that that is a really, really important question. Sorry, maybe you can you shut your turn here. Okay. There was an echo. Because in order for us to continue to lift the quality of instruction, we need to continue to double down on supporting our educators. But in order for us to do that we need to have evidence based practices that will then move the needle. And one of which we've already talked about which is moving to a new curriculum. So this is a brand new curriculum for ELA that has now been in place for two years. And as Doctor. Seiner has already alluded to, teachers are slowly learning it, embracing it, and feeling confident in it. I think as we continue to support our educators and our teachers in delivering the curriculum and also providing supports and guidance to our administrators in going in and looking for key components to see how students are progressing in classrooms as they're receiving the information. That's going to then build the muscles to get better at delivering the curriculum. So in terms of teacher preparation, it is a very iterative process where we have to just continue to provide that support, continue to keep going back, and working with people throughout our entire system. And so that is what the second part of effective practice is which are the instructional coach component. So having instructional coach available to our educators, to our administrators and the learning community that's on school site, that is what helps build this culture of learning and culture of improvement in schools. So I believe that those components together will then move the needle for student outcomes. And part of that is ensuring that there is coherence across supports for educators from room to room, from classroom to classroom. And so those are the components that are really important for us and then of course for us to stay consistent. If we keep changing our effective practices, if we keep changing our goals and desired outcomes, that's not going to get us to the end target of proficiency by third grade. So in terms of teacher prep, is definitely where I see where the district needs to double down on. We need to stay focused on providing those types of professional development supports and opportunities for our teachers. For practice opportunities, I think that there's two types of practice opportunities. One is in the classroom. So helping our teachers have more engaging question and answer based opportunities for students. When I go into classrooms I observe I actually observe this beautiful engagement and interaction between the teacher at the front of the classroom and talking to students. And I can actually see the curriculum in action. And you see actually students being able to play with and engage and think through the the questions or complex activities that teachers are giving students. But I think the other part of your question is do students have enough time in the classroom to really engage in that curriculum? So I'm going to ask the team here, how many minutes do students have in elementary school?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Roughly one hundred and twenty minutes daily. Slight distribution changes for every grade level in the balance of foundational skills, reading comprehension, or other areas?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: So 120. And these are young students. So I believe that with the curriculum that we have, there are some very clear piece and guidance in there allocates different times and different sequencing in how we deliver the curriculum. Now the question is, is that enough time? Should we expand opportunities for our young people to really crystallize learning? Then yes, we need to do that. And we could do that in the before school hours or even in the after school hours. You've heard me talk about how our classrooms are not contained by the four walls of our schools. Our classrooms are really broad and open throughout the entire city. So there is lots of opportunities for us to continue the education of our students well beyond the four walls of our classroom.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Do you think that we do need to add instructional minutes Or can sufficient practice be worked in the one hundred and twenty minutes that exists?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: At this moment in time, based on the curriculum that we have, I don't see us changing the instructional minutes in elementary school. I'm going to ask our team right now.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I'm happy to talk a little bit about this component. So instructional schedules at elementary function pretty differently than they do at secondary because there is one classroom teacher. And so the best way to consider it is that there is a set number of minutes in the day, and every content area has a trade off with another. So if we devote minutes to one area, that means it's not going to another. Generally, just to sort of dig in a little bit deeper, when we talk about this roughly one hundred and twenty minutes, that difference shifts over time. So we might see kindergarteners with a recommended forty five minute daily block of foundational skills instruction. That might be a recommended thirty minutes at second grade, twenty minutes at third grade, and fifteen minutes at fifth grade, where the balance and the trade off there is from kindergarten to fifth grade, the amount of time devoted to reading comprehension is over time. So those minutes are a trade off with one another and meant to balance in response to the standards. What I would say is that one of the pieces when we talk about high quality instructional practice is maximizing the quality of those minutes. And so where we see strong culture of learning, for example, where there's clear routines and transitions, where those minutes have been maximized with high quality practice, I would say matter as much. Oftentimes, maybe we'll just say would matter as much as the quantity of minutes. And so minutes in and of themselves are one measure, but how well they're utilized in the classroom is related to the quality of instructional practice.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I just want to add that we follow the state guidelines for instructional minutes for elementary, so we're required by law to turn in how many minutes on shortened days, how many minutes it is, and how do we make that up for the rest of the week. So in terms of instructional minutes in a day, we're meeting those minutes. I think the complication comes in when you actually enter into a school building and you think about, all right, law also requires us to have a minimum of ELD minutes per day for students that have ELD. We have to do a required number of minutes for PE for elementary school. That's two hundred minutes every ten days or something like that and four hundred minutes every ten days for six through eight. Like those things put constraints on the recommendations for other subject areas. We have a hundred and twenty minutes for literacy and sixty minutes for math and then you have thirty minutes for ELD and then you have the PE which is every 10, but in actuality that's just not how school days work. What about science and social studies? So I think that like when you when you think about this as a puzzle piece, there are some complications that come into play especially when you think about kids who learn in multiple languages or opportunities for electives or opportunities for AIMS concerts and things like that that come into a school day and that might disrupt a regular block of ELA. To answer your question, do they have enough time? Yes and no is the real answer, right? Because if we want kids to have full, robust, whole experiences that include them engaging with one another and then include them developing their sense of belonging and then include community circles and we give them a hundred and twenty minutes, but we can't, we don't want to shorten lunch too much. There is a conundrum with how much time we have and different schools approach it differently, but we're really attempting to make sure that we're staying on pace with what's recommended so that they can get that practice time. So I mean I think I just I just want to be real that like we recommend a certain quantity of time and when you go to make your schedule you're like oh shoot on Wednesdays I run out of time before I get to everything I want to get to so what do I do? Or there's a fire drill, guess what? A fire drill that happens once a month at every single elementary school. For some reason at my school it always happened at 10AM right smack in the middle of my literacy block, but like it was always. So I think I just wanna be real about these are children and they, and real schedules and real things kids get nosebleeds and we're not talking about that but I just wanted to name that, that like it's even if we have the exact rate of minutes on the schedule it doesn't always work out that way. Just a little side note. Right.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I just want to note, I'm not fixated on the number of minutes so much as whether or not it is adequate to provide practice time, is critical. So thank you. Okay. My other questions relate to how absenteeism figures into this. And I've asked this at points in the past, but whether we're looking at this and trying to figure out how much of a correlation or how much we could improve by improving absenteeism, And then also with regard to how the teacher expectations factor in to the results. Thank you.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Christie, you want to talk about absenteeism or would you like me to? Just because you're not physically here, I can't make eyes at you.

[Speaker 5.0]: No, you're Okay. Go ahead, Jen.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I will say absenteeism is a hot topic. Kristy and I attend the elementary we call it like the tier three meeting each week where we talk about students that need additional supports. And we have one member of our team that is the attendance department team. She's the attendance team. And we talk specifically about like who are we noticing isn't coming to school, why are they not coming to school. We have the same structure for middle school as well. So I get to have the opportunity to attend it twice in a week. But it's a really important factor, right? We're trying to identify like why kids might not be coming. Is it a safety factor? Do we need to give them a different school, is there something happening in their neighborhood that makes it hard for them to get to school, is there something happening at home, is it something happening at school that's making it challenging and so especially at the elementary level like oftentimes when kids aren't coming to school it's not because they're like going to the beach, that might be a middle school high school problem. At the elementary level it often is a transportation issue or it's a work issue or it's a, you know, lots of kids and let's get us out the house issue. So trying to really get underneath what's happening in each particular case both at the school level and then at the district level can help us but absolutely if kids are not in school we cannot instruct them. So absenteeism definitely factors in and we partner closely with our colleagues in student family school student division. It keeps changing that, SFSD, support division, thank you. And so we work really closely with them around attendance and trying to figure out what works best and it's a work in progress.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: I'd like to weigh in as well. So on our schools data disks, we also provide that same crosstab analysis as a way of just giving schools a sense of what happens when students aren't able to make it to school. And so what we have when we look at it across any measure for any grade, for any grade span, is that what happens if students are we basically break down the attendance by different gradations from exceptional to satisfactory and then you have chronic and then you have severely chronic. And basically what happens is the percent of students in each of those categories that are proficient decrease as you go down in the attendance categories. So that is definitely a concern and one that we uplift with our school communities as a way of just emphasizing the point that attending school does matter and it does have an impact on student outcomes.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Just to emphasize chronic absenteeism. So just last year or over the last several years, the district has seen a significant loss in number of students who attend school on a regular basis. I think the last number that we calculated was close to up to 4,000,000 hours of instruction loss when students don't come on a regular basis. If we were to calculate back to pre pandemic days, we're talking about almost 5,000,000 instructional hours lost by our students not coming. And then of course there's a financial side to this as well, right? So there's like 50 to $60,000,000 lost. But more importantly when students don't have and they're not attending school, they don't have the opportunities to learn from their teachers to build relationships with colleagues and friends. There's a well-being loss as well. And so that is equally significant and something that you've heard our team talk about that in order for our students to fully embrace the experience at school, they need to feel welcomed and seen and loved and cared for so that they can then open themselves to receive the language arts and math and social science and all of those things. So thank you Commissioner Ray for bringing up the topic of chronic absenteeism because it's definitely something that we need to spend more time in. As I shared with the board sorry, I'm looking over here only. As I shared with the board in the last budget session or budget year, we're working with philanthropic leaders to help us identify ways to either one, incentivize for sure but also figure out how to do a better job at assessing the value, the data of the number of students who are not in school and then trying to figure out ways to engage our students to come back to school. So I can definitely share with you more at a different time on what we've learned so far through our Be Here campaign. But then also where we're going next because it's definitely something that we need to address. Having students lose five million hours of instruction per year is not okay.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thanks. I don't want to take more time, but I had mentioned I'd asked about teacher expectations. I don't think anyone addressed that. If someone would mind addressing that?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Yeah, I would say that while I think the answer will be too long for this evening, but I think the idea of teacher expectation is a good one, right? We do expect all teachers to engage in using the curriculum and we expect principals to regularly visit classrooms, observe what they're seeing, and provide feedback to teachers around the use of the curriculum. Similarly, when people are on evaluation schedule, we want them to examine their practice on the new curriculum in ELA and in math. And we expect that principals are doing that with teachers. Additionally, we've asked principals to add to their principal expectations that everyone use the required curriculum. So those are all pieces that are there and then the implementation of that we can talk about at length at some point.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I would love to do that. On the flip side of the expectations, what about the teacher expectations for the students?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Oh, yes, also that. Yeah, I mean I think that you're asking whether or not teachers have expectations for students or?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Asking about just like with absenteeism, right? There's an impact there. TNTP had previously, in the material they had provided, said the teacher expectations was the most important factor in moving the most disadvantaged students or the folks, I should say, more precisely, the students who are most behind the proficiency up. And what work are we doing around that? Or how can we encourage teachers have higher expectations?

[Speaker 36.0]: Thank you.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I mean, I definitely think that's a very big conversation. We'll come back to it for sure just in light of it being nine. But I will say that I'll just give you one little anecdote. Today I had somebody shadowing me that's in a principal preparation program and we went to three schools together and we went into classrooms in three schools and she and I had this discussion around, oh wow, we should be going across schools more often to see the different expectations that teachers have kids and what it looked like even among the same in the same school what it looked like in three different second grade classrooms. So I think that this idea of educator mindset of teach of expectations for students is a hot topic and as people get more comfortable with curriculum, the part of academic ownership that we're not seeing could be indeed related to mindset and teacher expectations that we want to pick up for sure.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It is 10:00 so I want to thank and excuse the student delegates. Appreciate you. Thank you for your questions. Commissioner Gupta?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Hey, folks. I want to also share my appreciation. I really like this format with the theory of change. Just going down each one, it just connects really well. So well done, second best ad hoc.

[Speaker 34.0]: Sorry. Had to get

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: that in. Well done to you all. So the only question mean, I think a lot of the questions that were asked here covered most of it. Funny enough, Commissioner Ray, I was looking for that very TNTP report around expectations to understand how were you doing and I couldn't find it. So I may reach out to you if you have it or anyone has it. I'd love to go back and look at that because I wanted to see how we were doing with student expectations. I also really appreciate the follow-up on the Q and A because I thought the answers there that were provided, including in the next session that we're going to, were somewhat instructive for this section, particularly the difference between math and what we see in third grade literacy and eighth grade math and where we might see some of those challenges. So for folks here that may not have seen it, I highly recommend going through the Q and A. There was something in the Q and A that I was curious to follow-up on, and it is in the next section, but I was curious how it might pertain to here, which is you mentioned the tracker when talking about eighth grade math. And I see there is similarly this on page what page is 16 action tracking. I was curious in the Q and A it mentions baseline conditions were incredibly important for eighth grade math. And I was curious if that was also true. I see a lot that are very similar between the baseline conditions for third grade literacy and eighth grade math. And I was curious if he found that to be sorry, I guess I should be addressing the superintendent to follow the recommendations of the second best ad hoc. Do you find that the baseline conditions also follow suit for goal one as we look at that and that being incredibly important?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Thank you Commissioner Gupta for the question. I will have to say that the tracker is pretty new for us. And I know that there are, again, a lot of our teams are learning how to enter in and use it. So I think this is a good start for us as we start providing the accountability part of this work for our entire system. So I think as we start building more and more data and information we will then be able to tell a more complete picture of the number of instructional coaches that are meeting on a regular basis with our school community, the number of check ins they have with teachers, the number of observations our coaches are making, the number of our administrators entering in or doing the walk throughs. So I think as we get better at putting together the components of high quality coherence, I think that's it's going to we're going to start seeing that through our student outcomes data. You talked about teacher expectation and student expectation. I just want to go back and say that to me the components of high quality coherent instruction is for us to have clear expectations for both our educators and our students. Extremely important. We also need to make sure that particularly for this implementation action tracking making sure that we are using the right evidence based practices. Because without that, without constant improvement and evaluation and assessment, we're not going to know that we're using the right tools. And as we're using the right tools, we need to continue to monitor how it is being used and implemented to move the needle for our students. And if these are the right tools, if we're using the right ways to monitor our students, then how are we supporting our educators and how are we supporting our administrators to continue to stay focused on doing that? I think these are the components that we need to use in order for us to move the needle at the end goal, these big audacious goals that we have for our students. Devin, do you have anything else? Oh, sorry. It looked like you were going to say something.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Thanks. And the reason I ask is when I look at returning principal, returning instructional coach, fully staffed teaching teams, whether it be gen ed and special ed. Those feel like components that we as a board can actually then look to prioritize. So if we hear from staff, hey, this is really critical, then as we go through budget and so forth and that actually is a great guiding principle to know if that is in fact important. So thank you. Thank you team. Thank you superintendent.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: You have nine seconds.

[Speaker 40.0]: Let's see if I can do it in numbers.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Numbers don't lie.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I really appreciate this conversation. The one thing I just wanted to add is we haven't had any similarly related conversation around MTSS. And, you know, I'd be curious to know if we have any data or even anecdotally around, you know, the change to our RTIF networks and other things that have really impacted some of our children's ability to get differentiated instruction. That's not necessarily I'm not expecting an answer right now in our limited time. It's just putting a pin in

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: that. Great.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: I know, I know, I know. But I I agree. And I think we do need to strengthen our general education teaching. And by really focusing in on this action implementation plan we're going to lift the quality of education for our students which means our general ed students are going to benefit which includes students who need additional supports like special ed students. So I think if we do it right we're going to be able to support the full spectrum of students.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I'm gonna just roll this into Goal two eighth grade math conversation and commissioners if there's no objection here I'm gonna introduce and I think I cleared this with counsel before I wanna introduce item e, goal two, eighth grade math with item f three two six three dash two four s p two, the 2026 math policy so you can have a conversation together about math and then end with an action at the end. Any objections? Okay.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: This is gonna throw off just to warn you, it's gonna throw off my time monitoring if we're doing both together. But we'll figure that out later when we report out minutes, just FYI.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. That being said, with that combination here, can I have a motion and a second to introduce this item?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: So moved.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Second. It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve item two sixty three-twenty four SB two twenty twenty six math placement policy in addition to the discussion for student workshop item goal two eighth grade math.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: I'm sorry, President Kim for clarification are you wanting to do the goal two presentation first?

[Speaker 8.0]: Yes.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Okay great. Well then I'm just going hand it over to just take it away team.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you again Doctor. Sue. We are in round two. This time shifting from literacy to math as we share the progress monitoring report for goal two. Next slide, please. So similar to the goal one presentation, we ground this update in the vision values goals and guardrails focusing here on grade on goal two which is grade eight math. Now this report brings together some key data sources including the winter star results and the January instructional walk through observations. As with Goal one, the intent in Goal two is to connect instructional practice to student outcomes by examining patterns in classroom practice and how they align with student performance in math. The report also highlights key learnings and concrete next steps for the remainder of this year and into next year. And so with that, I will hand it off to my colleague once again, Moon Hawk.

[Moon Haak Kim (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Thank you, Jess. So yeah, this is round two. So we're now talking about math data. And as with goal one presentation, we anchor our presentation with the theory of action throughout. And thank you, Commissioner Gupta, for specifically calling out the value of including theory of action consistently. So we're starting with the student impact on outcomes, then we'll work backwards as we did with goal one. Next slide, please. And as with goal one, we see some mixed results in goal two. So we see small increases for overall goal two on the far left and interim goal 2.3 and small dips. The that's right. Small increases in the far left and in the far right, and then small dips for interim goal two point one and two point two. And Vice President Huling, these are within margins of error, meaning they're not statistically significant. So these are potentially just random flukes that we observe as we go through these times. And more specifically for goal 2.2, this cohort last year when they were in sixth grade had a similar pattern of dipping from 42% in the fall to forty one percent in the winter and then ended up going up to forty three percent on the SBEC at the end of the year. So we might expect a similar pattern, which we've talked about before. For reasons that we're still trying to understand as you go through these, there tends to be a dip from fall to winter, especially in math, that most cohorts tend to seem to recover from by the end of the year. So we're expecting a similar pattern to happen by the end of the year. And again, as we start reading, we can't quite dismiss the potential adverse impact of the teacher strike on these interim outcomes that we have documented. And I'll pass it on to Devon.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Thank you so much. So similarly to goal one, if we can go to the next slide, we are going to make a direct connection between student outcomes and high quality instructional practice in the classroom as measured by the TNTP learning walks that have occurred. If we can go the next slide. However, we're going look at a couple different data points. We are currently in our first year of official implementation of the newly adopted K-eight math curriculum. So we're going to look across three separate data points in evaluating the Learning Walk data. The first data point is from the 2023 instructional audit and diagnostic that was done by TNTP. We're then going to compare the January 2025 and sorry, September 2025 and January 2026 learning walk data. And as similarly was just named in goal one, there was in March another set of walks that did occur. So again, we see relatively in September similar use of materials to goal one. However, we did see significant increases both in use of curriculum materials but also in culture of learning from September to January. Across the measures of essential content, of focus, coherence, rigor, which are primarily related to use of materials, we do see similar increases over time. If we can go to the next set. Slightly differently organized from goal one, but in focusing in on instructional practice and then academic ownership, we do see some relative strengths and growth areas. So as highlighted, we do see, especially in comparison to the 2023 diagnostic, really strong increase in teacher providing opportunities for students to work with and practice grade and course level problems with appropriate numbers and number types as one of our strengths in instructional practice. However, again, in thinking about students carrying the cognitive load in the classroom, we do see a significant growth area around teacher deliberately posing questions and tasks to make students current thinking or current understanding, including misconceptions of the math visual, visible, and adapting the lesson to support student understanding. If we can go to the next one. And again, in further evaluating some of these components of academic ownership where you see some of this relative strength, however, we would still consider something below 50% or even 40% as a growth area. We do see significant need associated with, again, some of these components of students carrying the cognitive load. So in this case, students talking about and asking questions about each other's thinking, relative need also associated with students explaining and justifying their thinking beyond just stating answers. So again, zeroing in on this question of how much are students asked to practice, have those at bats carry the cognitive load, demonstrate their understanding, and have academic ownership in the classroom. If we can go to the next slide. So again, similar to goal one, these high quality instructional practices are present when there are enabling conditions across professional learning and site structures. And not just, you know, use of curriculum with integrity, but again these same things we've been naming around teacher collaboration, high quality instructional leadership at the site. And then if we go to the next slide, we wanted to provide two specific call outs of how student outcomes lead to these practices and how these practices are addressed across a series of school and department systems. So the first one is just a highlight of the teacher professional learning. So at the middle grade level, different than at the elementary level, we centrally pull teachers together. So at the elementary level, these cohorts are significant in size. So we work primarily through administrators and instructional coaches somewhat differently than we do at middle school. In middle school we do pull both general ed and special education math teachers including RSPs and mild mod SDC teachers for release days both for full day in person learning but also for virtual engagements. You can see from some of the topics listed that the focus of these days has been in alignment to some of practices that we have identified as growth areas within the learning walks. So for example, some of this work around like oral language production, explaining and justifying thinking is not just a math practice but related to math language routines and support for multilingual learners. So we have highlighted these components across professional learning. If we can go to the next slide. Similarly, we have focused on identifying the enabling conditions at sites and through site implementation tracking, which measures we need to improve upon in order to significantly grow instructional practice and therefore student outcomes. So again, similar to goal one in looking at the implementation tracker, you can see some of these areas of need, the percentage of teachers at a school site attending release days, the percentage of classrooms on pace as focus areas for us in improving the enabling conditions that instructional practice and therefore student outcomes. So in the plan section, our hope is to address these areas in our strategic department activities. And I'm going to go ahead and pass it on to my colleague for that section.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: You can go to the next slide. So continuing back along our theory of action, right, if we hope that students are going to do something, then we hope that the teachers are going to be changing their practice to the earlier comments, then we have to have schools organized in a certain way. And then in the central office, we as departments need to support this practice so that practice can actually change and systems can change at the school level. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what we've been doing and what we plan to do going forward. You can go to the next slide. So one of the things I'll talk about is this idea of the lesson internalization with leaders and teams. I think the K-five structure of citywide brings every K-five principal together. And the middle school cohort and the K-eight cohort, there's 21 of them, 13 middle schools, eight K-eight leaders. They come together separately from the elementary folks. And we last year didn't have a great way of making sure that leaders were really internalizing the new curricula. And so this year curriculum and instruction and lead, middle school Kate lead got together and said, let's fix that. And we tried something that initially didn't work. We tried some virtual meetings and we tried to bring everybody together. We said, let's bring the Kate leaders together on one Thursday virtually and then let's bring the middle school leaders together on another Thursday and it just was like not working. And so then we put our heads back together and said, alright, let's try something else. And so for the last couple of months, curriculum and instruction has been joining lead in our assistant principal meetings and really going into deep. We've been separating the k eight and the middle school leaders into two groups because k eight leaders do have some unique, specific things. They have two sets of curriculum in nine grades, 10 grades, sometimes, sometimes 11 grades. And so they need a little bit of a different space and really diving into one specific part of the curriculum, curricula area that I mentioned earlier and then trying out these internalization protocols themselves and then we're asking them to go back. So, during that you've seen in the implementation tracker that they have a journal. We were realizing people weren't really using the journal so then we put our heads together and said, aren't they using the journal? Because they saw it as a compliance task. And so now we've adjusted once again and we said, alright, what if we have them start with the journal and say, did you do last month? And then end with the journal and say, what are you gonna do next month? And then after curriculum instruction takes their leave, M and I who have them for the rest of the afternoon say, okay, now we want you to get together with your critical friends and make a plan. We want you to calendar out on your calendar. When are you going into classrooms to try this out with the learning walk tool? When are you meeting with your principal to bring this back? When are you meeting with your ILT? So this idea of, you know, ensuring that we can deepen the common learning walk tool that we can make the space for reflection and that we can then hold them, responsible for their actions. We then added one other layer which was now when I go to schools, I did it this week, I did for the first time. I said, tell me to the principal, tell me about what your AP taught you from the instructional coherence meetings. I got a lot of blank stares this week. But next time I go, I'm not gonna get that because then we came up with a plan that if if on the second or the third Thursday APs get this input, when is your admin meeting the following week and how will you incorporate that into your admin meeting? So this idea of like how do we backwards map into the systems, we're we're starting to get better at that at all the all the levels. And we think that that will then lead to better department meetings at the sites and then in turn that will lead to instruction being higher quality. And then I think I have one more slide. It's not specifically about the schools but rather about the professional developments. And this is not unsimilar to what I said during the goal one presentation, right? We want to continue to get better at working. I really should have brought my water up with me. We want to get better at working with our multi lingual, our English learner, multi lingual department to ensure that we're supporting our emerging bilinguals and our multi lingual learners, that we're thinking about tier one instruction but also tier two and tier three instruction and how to support students with IEPs. And that we're thinking about how to relate what we're doing with coaches to what we're doing with principals to what we're doing with teachers. And so as we get better at aligning our expectations and clarifying whose role is what, we know that the implementation is gonna continue to improve And that really the piece of this, both the academic ownership and the pacing, is what we really want to focus on. Thanks. That was really nice of you. And I think that that's the end of this part of this two part presentation. Thanks.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Why don't we go into the math placement presentation for algebra as well, and we'll just talk about that all together.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Sure. If that's the case, I would love to invite Professor Tom Dee to the dais as well. Do you all want to stay just in case or no? Oh, you're going stay there. You're in the hot seat, professor. Sorry. Can I just really quickly just say that tonight really marks a major milestone for many, many people in the room, started the room out with and remaining in the room, the people who are watching online of just all the work that folks have done over the years? For more than ten years, for over a decade now, San Francisco started out with a really well intended plan regarding supporting our students to gain better math proficiency. Unfortunately, the unintended consequence of that meant that we actually limited or reduced or took away opportunities from our students which is not what we wanted. And so in February 2024, the board voted to bring back Algebra I. We spent the past two years looking at different models to bring back permanently algebra into eighth grade. And thanks to the support of Stanford researchers as well as our amazing administrative team and teachers and educators throughout the entire district, particularly in middle school and K-eight schools. We tonight are proud to present a revised math placement policy option that will bring back Algebra one in all of our middle school and K-eight schools starting in twenty six-twenty seven. I know that the road to get to this place has not been easy, has not been simple. We've had many, many conversations with our community, our administrators, our educators, our parents, our young people. And at the end of the day, the decision for this math policy change, which essentially is a sequencing change for how we administer our math coursework is really, again, continues to be rooted in equity, continues to be rooted in what is best for our students. And so I'm just really, really proud of the team that we have that's been working on this. And I'm really proud of the fact that we are at a place where we will be able to bring Algebra one back into eighth grade for students and that we're doing it in a very thoughtful way. So with that I just again thank the community for coming and joining and working together with us, with me, to make sure that this opportunity is provided for our students. So I'm going to hand it over first to Professor D for no. I'm going to hand it over.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah, that'd be great.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: I'm going to hand it over to Professor Dee from Stanford University. Take it away, professor.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Thank you so much, Superintendent Hsu and commissioners, having me here. I'm really pleased for the opportunity to discuss the results of the algebra pilots I conducted in collaboration with Doctor. Elizabeth Huffaker, who I see is online here and also available to answer questions. You know, in my work at Stanford as a professor, my research and teaching focuses largely on how do we do genuinely credible evaluations of programs and policies. And by and large, that positions me more often than I would like to be the bearer of bad news to folks. So I have to say, tonight I feel a sense of sort of joy and a cause for celebration frankly in terms of what we've seen from the out the the first round of algebra pilots. And I say that particularly being mindful of the long historical arc that Superintendent Hsu described and that has brought us to this point. And really, I mean, what's underscoring that for me is that our research on the two major pilots found that there was no clear academic harm of universal algebra participation at the select middle schools that adopted model. And at the schools where students were able to take algebra as an elective, we saw genuinely substantial learning gains both in the spring SBAC and persistence of those gains into the current academic year. And while I would encourage you and others to join me in feeling good about the success of those pilots, I also recognize that there's really important work going ahead. And I guess I would like to underscore what I see as four critical needs for the path ahead in light of what we've learned from these pilots. One, I think it's particularly important to bring the same kind of research and learning agenda to what's being proposed for next year. In particular, my own personal view is that the braided compression pilot that has been proposed is eminently a sensible one. But that doesn't guarantee it'll work or that it'll be implemented well. So I would love to see a learning agenda like the one we brought to these one point zero pilots occur for that next round. Two, in light of what we're seeing in these pilot results, I think the imperative to make sure parents are well equipped for the informed consent procedure you articulated is really critical because you're asking parents to confront some very serious trade offs if they forgo taking Math eight. The comparative results across the two pilots suggest they're leaving potential learning gains in math on the table for their students while gaining in other domains in terms of an opportunity, for example, to take an additional elective. Making sure parents understand that and also the fact that there may be implications for the risk of having to repeat algebra in ninth grade and for other outcomes that may matter to them, such as the strength of their child's candidacy for elite admissions to exam schools, to low life school in particular. The third imperative, I think, really important involves the equity issue Superintendent Sue mentioned. So much of the national discourse around algebra I find to be sort of crude and reductive because it focuses so narrowly on when and with whom students take algebra, but not the path towards algebra readiness that students take. And what we see in the data is too few of SFUSD's minoritized students are represented in the algebra pilot. And I think we should take seriously the opportunity to help them realize their math potential. And I could talk, and I mentioned some in the slides, what some of those avenues might be involving earlier instructional time, instructional supports, and some of the discussion around pedagogy I see you're already having. Actually, I see some parallels with the needs there and the earlier discussion around literacy pedagogy as well. There are national discussions around math pedagogy that parallel those occurring around the science of reading. So again, thinking seriously about the path towards broader algebra readiness among SFUSD students is the third encouragement I would offer you. And the fourth is really recommitting to implementing automatic enrollment well. So for those of you who don't recall, automatic enrollment is a classic behavioral economics nudge, an opt out default, where instead of allowing placements into a course like algebra to depend on parent requests or teacher recommendations, we identify academically qualified students and place them in those courses by default from which they're free to opt out. No one is being constrained. But that kind of automatic placement is a really compelling signal to students about where they belong. And it could also be another powerful arrow in the quiver in terms of achieving equity goals. We saw evidence of this in the pilot where automatic enrollment wasn't implemented at the sites where it should have been. But at three of these six algebra as an elective school, there was encouragement of students who met the automatic enrollment criteria to take algebra, and we saw that drive participation in the course. And it had dramatic effects among focal students, underrepresented minorities, who were academically qualified and encouraged them to actually take algebra. So algebra readiness gets you to the door or the goal line. And I think automatic enrollment can help take students across the goal line by making sure they're in the courses for which they're qualified. So there are a number of dimensions, I think, to building on the early success and insights of these pilots. The summative results are on the slide that's in front of you now. And I'd be happy, along with Doctor. Hoffaker, who's online, to answer any questions you may have around our interpretation of these results or the research design that substantiates those claims. Thank you.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yeah. Happy to go first. So thank you so much for completing the study. Question on the design. I was surprised to learn that middle schools self selected into models. I think that would potentially create a biased sample. And we saw one of the models didn't have enough in terms of the compression model for rooftop. Was there a reason that we didn't explore that you saw that we didn't explore compression or a braided model earlier?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Well, can't speak to that exact choice. But my understanding of the sort of governance structure in the school is that school sites often have some degree of autonomy. So there was discussions with them about which of these models might suit your needs, and that led to the character of uptake. As an evaluation researcher, I see that as a lemonade not a lemon because there's an aphorism in evaluation research. Evaluate no program until it's proud. And so you want people to take up the program that they think is best suited to their capacities and serves their communities well. And that's why the algebra for all was also taken by a very select set of middle schools that I think on average were higher achieving at baseline. So I was very glad to not see negative effects of universal algebra there because there was evidence of negative effects from the statewide experience with algebra for all earlier in earlier decades. And the fact that there wasn't in the pilot might reflect the exact site selection of models that you're describing.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yeah, I 100% agree, which as in it would have been great to well, it would have been better to see across the diversity of different middle schools what each model did or didn't do and so forth. So I totally but I am kind of curious. So when we see math as an elective in that model, I would think, well, we're giving twice the number of minutes of instruction to students. So is that what, from your perspective, accounts for that tremendous increase that we see, the fact that we have doubled the minutes?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah. While we can't be exactly sure, I mean, that's an eminently reasonable conjecture. And sometimes when I've spoken with people about these results, they'll say, well, how is that surprising if we double the amount of instructional time that we would see these gains? And certainly, there's reason in that. But I sometimes would caution people, the field of education research is littered with well intentioned interventions that everyone thought would work ex ante, only to be disappointed ex post. And I would also stress that even if you're in a world where you expect this model, the additional algebra as an elective model, to drive achievement gains through additional instructional time, those gains are still real and transformative in the lives of students and map into other outcomes that matter. In particular, I want to underscore that on those campuses where kids were taking algebra as an elective, they had half the rate of repeating algebra in ninth grade as the kids that own the algebra for all campuses. And I think that's another complicating factor in thinking about, the fact that they also lost an elective. I think viewing it over a longer time horizon is gonna be important both for policymakers and for parents who are engaging responsibly in your informed consent procedure.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: 100%. I mean, that actually leads to my next question, which is in other school districts that are larger than us, say Elk Grove or Long Beach, have better math outcomes, larger districts, more low income students, more focal populations than we do that are still doing better, I noticed they do more compression models. In fact, Long Beach seems to have two accelerated paths, one where students can jump in middle school, one where they can jump in into tenth grade. And I'm curious. So they're not necessarily skipping Math eight. It's just they're compressing things to a point where then students can complete Math eight and get in and do algebra in eighth grade in these models. So that's kind of where I was curious about the compression model and of ruing that we didn't have that in the initial pilot.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: I share your curiosity about that. And I'm hopeful that there will be an opportunity to study it next year, in part because my understanding of the proposed version of this braided compression model is, one, that it's really thoughtful in how it does that compression. It's not just dropping some things and slapping them all together, but really being thoughtful about the scope and sequence of lesson plans within those courses. And certainly, the additional math course, the algebra as an elective model, I'm not here to tell you it's nature's final word on how this should be constructed and look forward to learning from a different model and seeing whether it's better and might come with fewer trade offs and maybe putting less of a decision making burden on parents who might be unsure how to navigate these spaces?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yeah. No, I appreciate that. I mean, all to say based on the fact that we do have at site sites select the model that they seek. I mean, I hope parents will appreciate principals who are allowing one of the things we have to balance, of course, is if a student is ready, we also don't want to hold them back. I understand the caution against if a student is not ready, if a student would benefit from Math A we certainly don't want them to potentially skip that and have to repeat it. And there are a number of families who unfortunately over the last ten years have chosen tutors or whatever might be on the side because they didn't feel like there was that option for them and so forth. So I hope parents will express their appreciation for their site leaders and then also if they do want to see another model potentially raise that as well.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: had a question. You mentioned briefly you made a comment about admission to exam schools. So I'm curious what the data shows on that. I know that is that a reference to the winter star scores The and how they're used in low

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: spring

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Or spring star scores.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Grade eight star scores. They weren't something we centered in our analysis, but we did examine the effects there and found as an aside, I wanted to mention our analysis was based on a pre registration as well. This is not a standard of practice in this field, but it's one that I feel that should exist where before doing the analysis, we articulated our research questions, the focal outcomes, and the research designs we would consider, and then opened up the data and examined them. We didn't preregister the spring star scores as a focal outcome because the course was still in progress and instead preregistered the fall grade nine star scores. But we examined them and found effects. And that matters because I believe student performance on those measures feeds into their band designation for admission to Lowell. So that's just another element of informed consent that I think will matter to parents confronting these decisions.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: So to clarify, you're saying that the students that took just algebra on average scored lower?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: No effect on their spring grade eight star scores, whereas the kids who took algebra as an elective along with math saw large gains.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Oops, sorry. And so then they would presumably have a higher chance of getting into That's what that was.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Especially just to make sure it's positional.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Got it. I just want to make sure I understood that point. My other question, I think, was just I wanted to raise a question I'd received from a number of middle school educators. And it has to do with the change in the staff recommendation. Because the original staff recommendation, my understanding was it did not include option for opting out of Math eight. And then there was a change to allow for opting out of Math eight. And again, I think what I've heard from educators is there's some level of concern that parents might do that not understanding kind of the implications given the strength of the data. So I'm curious why this maybe is a question more for superintendent as to why was that shift made in spite of the concerns of educators.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Well, know that there were concerns from educators, although and then I also know that there were questions from parents who also know their children well, who believe that their children who's monitoring their students or their child's performance through their elementary and middle school years and feel strongly that perhaps skipping math eight going to be the best route for their child so that their child could continue to take rigorously academic classes as well as other electives and options that's available at schools. So when I asked the team to look at what were some ways for us to consider students' proficiency and readiness for a path where they would opt out of math eight, that was when we started to look at perhaps proficiency on STAR testing. Then also needing to make sure that families understood that if they did choose to opt out of Math eight, then they understood that the ramifications of that which is why we're asking families to make sure that their students talk to their counselor and that we want to make sure that parents sign off on consent for this because as what Professor Dee is saying, there is significant benefits to having a student take what we are now calling expanded math, which is Math eight and Algebra one at the same time. But we heard I heard a lot from families who said that they truly believed that their child was ready to go straight into Algebra one. And we did not want to take that opportunity away from that student. And so we created this other additional path so that students who met the proficiency benchmark would be able to opt out. And we will continue to, of course, provide supports to our students but give students another avenue to take Algebra I.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: So it sounds like there will be some process to make sure that families are informed about the fact that there may be a higher chance of having to repeat algebra in ninth grade. There may be a lower chance of getting into Lowell, things like that so that they don't so they understand those. There will be some kind of a process for that?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Yes. So that is part of the conversation with the counselor. So we're asking that students who and their families have to come to this decision together, have that conversation with the counselor to make sure that they fully are aware of what this means. We do have two schools that we are proposing to have the braided compression model. And we want to see how that yields and what that pans out. We are working very closely with our new math curriculum provider to change the course and sequence of the curriculum. And so I think we're trying to be very, very thoughtful on how we're implementing both strands here.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think the family choice is important. But I do think it's also important that it's informed choice. And I think we heard earlier tonight also again about the problem with newcomer families being apparently directed away from programs that were specially designed to support their kids. I wouldn't want the same thing to happen with middle school students being directed away from Math eight and algebra being taken together. So I guess I just want to be really cautious about this point around what does informed choice look like, right? And how do we make sure that families actually understand from educators the implications of their options? Because the educators are the experts here. And again, it may well be that a parent says, I know my kid better than you do. And I, as an educator, absolutely respect that. I've had that conversation with families when I was an educator. It does require that informed like, look, here are the options. With a newcomer family, here are specialized programs that will benefit your kid. If you opt out, great. But you need to understand what's offered. Same with middle school math. We don't always have a great track record with that. So I just want to make sure that that point is followed up on with families.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Can we show my some more?

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I'm gonna follow-up with my colleague, Commissioner Alexander's point. And also just start full disclosure, I have a kiddo in eighth grade at Presidio who's doing Math eight and algebra and we're thrilled. And I don't know, I mean, he said, I'm gonna take math as an elective. I said, right on. I think that in that moment, if he had been like, oh, I think I can just take algebra, I probably would have been like, cool, take algebra. Right? And I I am but I am seeing as a parent and now I'm also seeing thanks to this this amazing work of all of you up here just how important it is that he is also taking a math eight. Like, sure, he probably could have been okay in algebra, probably. But maybe not. And I think he's going to be better off because he's had the opportunity to take two. So I just wanna reiterate the idea of this informed consent seems so, so, so key. And superintendent Hsu, I appreciate that the the counselors are brilliant and they're amazing and they're doing, you know, God's work at the school. And I also want to make sure that they have the information because if it's being held here and here, that's not helpful. And if it's just like sort of, you know, the sort of it's not actually, it's trickling down little bit by little bit, then you may have one counselor who's got it all and is able to really give all of this information so that the kiddo and their parent, their guardian can make that decision. And another school where maybe the counselor doesn't have access to that information, that's what I worry about. So I think if there is gonna be this opt out, it needs to be really intentional. And it needs to be really, really consistent in terms of what information is being given so that the same information is being given at every school site so that everyone has the same access to that information as they make their decisions. Because don't had I not sort of read the report, I wouldn't have known as much. And had I not sort of been watching my kid do these things, I wouldn't have known as much.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: I'd like to add on this point of doing informed consent well. It really underscores the value of having automatic enrollment, having some automaticity in making sure manifestly capable students are placed there initially and then have that opt out because that's gonna be a signal and that's gonna, I think, shape decisions in powerful and appropriate ways.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Thank you. I I have I guess that wasn't asked. I would not do have done well on our scoring because that didn't I didn't ask a question. I'm sorry. But I just want to underscore. Like, to just I mean, to use superintendency. Okay. No. Yeah. But please can we make sure that there is a process that is consistent, that it's clear so that folks actually have the information to be able to make that decision? And then my question, Professor Gee, I think is for you about the study. So one of the slides notes that or what the study notes that even some students who didn't necessarily meet the eligibility criteria experienced significant learning gains when taking algebra as the elective. I wanna stop calling it elective because I feel like that's part of our problem, but whatever. Does Expanded math. Expanded math. Do you think that this like, is there any indication that student motivation might be a powerful predictor rather than prior test scores? And maybe the motivation is I mean, I hear you saying if you're the opt out versus opt in. But I could see it sort of working both ways. A student saying, yes, I'm gonna do this. Or a student saying, really? My Sorry. Didn't know. It's almost that. A student being like, oh, my school believes I can do this.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Right? And that also seems like a good predictor of or potentially a predictor of I wanna do well.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: It it absolutely does. And in in the in the take up of automatic enrollment that we're seeing across the country, typically test scores are used. That's in part because they're powerfully predictive of success in later academic courses, but they're universally available too. And I think you're right to point out that there are other metrics that could conceivably be used, like motivation, that are relevant to future success and could be used in an automatic enrollment criteria. I just worry about the logistical impediments to that, I think are nontrivial in terms of just getting access to the data in a timely way. We could talk about the company that fields the surveys that are often used. So I think that's one of the reasons you see just the logistical ease and the well established validity of test scores and sometimes grades. But it's not that other metrics aren't appropriate.

[Dr. Elizabeth Huffaker (Stanford University)]: Sorry. Can I come in real quick? If I was also hearing that maybe part of you're thinking maybe part of the mechanism that's inducing those larger gains, right? We see that the students who are above the threshold gained even more. All of the students who opted in also saw benefits from from the additional math class. If we're seeing this program implemented at more campuses next year, there's another design that we'd hope to use that would potentially be available to us next year where we really are looking at effects of those students who are just barely above that automatic enrollment threshold. So hopefully there will be an opportunity in the future to look at those students who maybe just get that nudge and get nudged into the Alpha one as an expanded math class. So we might be able to say more about that kind of marginal student in future study.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Can I just share that in talking to the principal over at Aptos, he actually said that initially he was only prepared for one I think one session of expanded math? But at the end of the enrollment period, he ended up having to open up several more sessions. Five total classes for expanded math just because I know exactly. It means there are students with that gentle nudge where there's someone in school says, I believe that you could do this. I I actually, I know you can do this. So do it. Just try it. And then when they do, they excel. And then they can see they can, they build the confidence and they see the potential inside them. And I think that's what education, that's what we're tasked to do is to help students see the fullest potential of themselves.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Can we vote to extend please? It's 10:00.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move to extend the meeting past 10PM. Seconded.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Okay, so roll call. Commissioner Ray? Yes. I think other people have their mics on. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

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

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

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

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

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Thank you. I'm so glad that we're celebrating the vast number of students who want access to algebra and are clamoring for it in SFUSD. But I'll say, I looked at your data and I interpreted it a bit differently. I saw, for example, that at schools with algebra for all, 89% of students enrolled in algebra. And at schools with algebra as an elective, only 29% of students did if you include all groups of students. I think you have 36%, but that excludes students who are in some more remedial courses. And even with the higher repeat rate of Algebra I in ninth grade, overall in Algebra for All Schools seventy two percent of all students in those schools succeeded in going straight to Algebra I in eighth grade and then to Algebra II in ninth grade. Whereas a huge number of students did not take algebra at all in the Algebra as an elective classes such that only even with the lower kind of fail rate, repeat rate with algebra as an elective, only twenty six percent of all students at algebra as an elective schools had success in algebra in ninth grade and didn't have to repeat. So that's a difference of forty six percent of students who didn't have access to Algebra two in ninth grade and therefore are not going to be able to get to calculus for their college applications. And the absolute difference in that percentage, the effect of that is that six zero three kids at the algebra as an elective schools did not have access to algebra at all. So while I understand Commissioner Alexander's concern that students might be directed away from algebra as an elective toward just directly taking algebra if they're given an opt out. My concern is for the much, much larger portion of students who won't have access to algebra at all if they have to take it as an elective. We have two schools where students won't be able to take algebra plus any other elective. And if they have SDC or ELD, they won't be able to take even algebra. And then we have many, I believe half, like 10 or 11 of our 21 middle schools have language pathways. So if kids in those language pathway programs want to take algebra, all of those kids are going to be prevented from taking arts, which then also prevents them from accessing a selective exam school, which is SODA, where they need a portfolio. So my question is, if there's no academic harm to taking Algebra I directly, why would we restrict any student who is so motivated to be able to take art and algebra and language from doing so?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah. I really appreciate that question and share your interest in how well that particular group of students is being served. And that's why I underscore it as one of what I see as a key step going forward is how do we support their preparedness for algebra. But I think to your other questions of, well, if there was no harm, why didn't we extend it to these kids who didn't have it? We find no evidence of harm at the campuses that selected into the Algebra for All pilot. We can't necessarily infer that the absence of harm would generalize to the campuses that didn't choose that model and to the group of students about whom you've rightfully underscored our shared concern. So that's why I really think it's important to think about their pathways towards the readiness decision, particularly in an environment where parents are going to have more latitude to help guide that decision for their children. But I would be cautious about generalizing from the evaluation results from the three select schools that quite intentionally chose universal algebra to the sites that didn't.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: And I suspect that those schools probably have higher star scores going in.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: That's right.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: And so my question is, would we be able to tell of the eighty one percent of students in Algebra for All who didn't have to repeat algebra, who had success, what a predictive star assessment in seventh grade would be that would predict which those students are in that 81%? Like is there a threshold where above a certain star score in seventh grade going in you'd be likely to have success with that model?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: There may well be and I think my recommendation around that would be to adopt a kind of continuous improvement mindset. Like, we have, let's get good ideas about what those kinds of assessments might be, pilot them, and evaluate them in terms of their efficacy. I'm a committed empiricist in that regard. I think anyone who's making broad ex ante conjectures about it can't really point to data that substantiates those claims.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Professor Deet, what is ex ante? I'm sorry. I'm not a Latin major.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Sorry. Can you Meaning before.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah, as opposed to ex post, which is after.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you. Your timer is going. Would you like to

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Tempest Tempest Fugit is time flies.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I'm not done but my time is.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Just so commissioners know, I know that we combined two topics. So after this first round if there are additional questions, we'll do a second round. Commissioner Ray.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you so much. First, I just want to say a giant plus one to Commissioner Huling's comments. I really appreciate what she's pointing out there. And I'm also interested, Professor Dee, in what your responses were. I think it's critical how many more students were reached through the Algebra for All than through Algebra as an elective. I have a couple of questions, some comments as well. But I want to start with the questions first. One is around compression versus compaction. I've spoken to some folks who've told me that there is a difference between those two. Can you and that what many other schools do is actually a compaction, taking, say, math sixth, seventh, and eighth, and putting it, keeping all those standards within those, but putting it into two years. Whereas a compression model actually skips some number of standards. Can just, can you comment on that or anyone who knows about that?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Thank you so much. I'm happy to answer that question. If we can go to the appendix. We're going to start on slide 40.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Of which?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: The math policy deck. That's Thank the

[Dr. Elizabeth Huffaker (Stanford University)]: you.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: So one of the things that I want to start with is just the concept of compression and course compression in general, which is a fairly generalized term. Simply what course compression refers to is the idea that students would be covering and teachers would be covering content for more than one grade level set of standards within a year. What's highlighted on the screen right now is for Amplify Desmos math the scope and sequence for unit design across what is commonly referred to as math six, math seven, math eight, and algebra one. What I would say is that universal umbrella and the concept of compression is not used in the same way across all districts and across all compression models. The design of that compression course or whichever courses they may be it could be math six, math seven, math eight, and algebra one is going to vary district by district not just in terms of the design of the curriculum but also the design of the compression. So in some cases you might see a design where if we're talking about the compression of math eight and algebra one you might see four units of math eight followed by four units of algebra one another district might have a similar math titled similarly Math eight Algebra one Compression, but they might alternate between Math eight and Algebra one units. So I want to just name specifically this concept of compression is not defined, named, and executed in the same way across all courses across all districts. If we can go to the next slide. So in this case, just to highlight, our adopted curriculum at middle school is Amplify Desmos Math, which provides a publisher ready compression course that is a two year sequence. So essentially three courses across two years. The accelerated six refers to a compression of math six and math seven and the accelerated seven refers to a compression of math seven and math eight within the design of amplified Desmos math compression courses they have utilized what we would have been commonly referred to as a braided model where within a unit of instruction they have linked together standards across grade levels that are sequenced and meant to coherently build on one another so you'll see within for example unit one of accelerated seven content related to math six and math seven that is a specific design for amplify Desmos math that is provided by the publisher

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay, just to clarify, would we be able to use this amplified Desmos sequence? Is this what we would plan to use in the six, eight compression that's referenced in the policy and would that cover all of the standards in math six, seven, and

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: eight or would it omit some? It is the curriculum that we would use within the piloting compression. What I would say is that within compression design, there will always be the skipping of something, whether that is a lesson, whether that is a standard, whether that is a unit. It is impossible to cover a 100% of math six plus 50% of math seven in one school year. So there will always be something skipped within compression. What is skipped and how much is skipped depends on the design of that compression.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you. My next question is about transfer students. So in the policy as currently drafted, it's not clear to me how that would cover transfer students.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Can you say more about that question so we better understand? At what grade level are you talking about transfer and what specifically is the concern?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Sure. Let's say students transfer into FUSD at eighth grade. What do they do in terms of getting into algebra just based on what's currently in the policy?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: For example, if they don't have a STAR assessment from Math seven, then how would we determine whether they're eligible to opt out of math eight?

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I'm happy to address the curriculum and instruction question, if you want to talk about the assessment question.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: With students transferring in, I think we'd have to consider when they're transferring in. So if they're transferring in at the beginning of the year, particularly when we're administering assessments, we can certainly do an off book or off the window type of assessment for that student and then be able to look at it from that perspective based on whatever thresholds are currently applied. I would imagine that students would be transferring in with grades from their previous school district that we could also enter in because the current criteria to get into the automatic enrollment pieces that Professor Dee talked about is to have basically a grade of C or better in the math course and then basically the assessment score. And so then we'd have to think about what the proxy for the assessment score would be.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. So it's not addressed here, but we would figure something out as the basic answer. Okay. So speaking of the assessment score, what's currently in the policy refers to demonstrating an overall score of level four and quote unquote secure in all the CCSS math standards, etcetera, etcetera. And this would be on the fall and winter score reports. This seems like an extremely high standard to be applying, and it really makes me wonder how many students would even qualify based on that. When I look at the fact that students who have a D in Algebra eight, I mean, excuse me, in Math eight go on to Algebra one in ninth grade, I'm a little puzzled by the extreme, what seems to be a very, very perhaps exceptionally defined level for students to reach to get into Algebra I.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Can anyone comment on that? Commissioner Ray, I just, Iill take that first and then staff, the team can add more. Actually, tonight I was going to recommend a change in that board policy around the words and secure because we are I would like to propose to remove those two words from the board policy because when we ran the data we did see exactly that commission array that it was extremely restrictive. It would have prevented students from accessing the opt out option. So that's why we were recommending to remove those words. We are still recommending to move forward with keeping the other criteria to establish eligibility for opting out. But for those two words and secure, we are recommending to remove.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. Thank you for that additional information. Speaking of the other parts which folks were raising here on informed consent, the language here also causes me some concern. There's a reference to students and parents and guardians, or guardians must meet with their counselor to obtain signed parent guardian consent for the exemption. That strikes me as a pretty significant potential obstacle, especially for many working parents, and especially given our counselor to student ratios, which are quite high?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: So I'll start, and then I would love to maybe hand it off to Jen, Doctor. Steiner, to finish. But again, this is in the spirit of having parents and young people be fully, fully aware of what it means for them to take on the opt out option, again, if they're eligible for it. So we just want to make sure that young people are making decisions based on accurate information and data that's in front of them. In terms of having the opportunity to sit down with their counselors and hear this information from counselors, It's very important. And then from there it's making sure that parents sign off on this. The way that we engage parents to sign off on this, I am going to hand it back to the team to explain because I think we were back and forth on what would that actually look like taking into consideration that parents and families have very restricted time availabilities as well as our counselors. Doctor. Steiner?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I mean my bias is going to come out here. I disagree with the informed consent and the opting out. So I'm just going to start by saying I don't think academically this is going to be good for students. And operationalizing it is going to be a challenge because not only will counselors need to meet and we'll have to ensure that counselors have informed consent to the point that somebody earlier made that we need to make sure that they're robustly informed, which is going to be a challenge and will likely fall on principles already very full plates. I also think it's going to be an operational challenge of what we're offering because when we build a master schedule, right, the idea behind the seven period day was that there was a period of elective and a period of acceleration, not two electives. Over time that shifted, right? Because we didn't have enough academic courses to offer kids and we had more electives because of the way funding sources developed and because there was a shift in leadership and we paused on Initiate Wonder. And so while we were moving toward everybody getting a seven period day, we did slow that down and pause it and we stopped having as many acceleration courses. In an ideal world, every student would have one acceleration course and one elective course and we'd all be seven period days. But in actuality, that's not operationally possible currently in our fiscal situation. So to answer your operational question, it is going to be challenging because when they build the schedule, if you are in a school, let's take APG for example, and there are three 100 or four hundred eighth grade students and 90 of them are meeting the academic threshold to opt out, That's an operational challenge to meet with 90 students, but a bigger actual operational challenge is what elective are they gonna have during the math eight period. Because when we build a master schedule, we actually build it so that math eight, ELA, Social Studies, etc. Are there and that their electives are in other periods because they don't need an elective during that block. So it is going to require a lot of operational work between now and the end of the year to make this feasible. This wasn't part of our original policy so having an exact answer right now isn't possible because I haven't actually met with the principles about this yet. Principals are going to need to think collectively with one another about how to make this work and how to do this in a way that also doesn't segregate students into particular classes by racial demographics. And we're gonna need to be really careful about that when this comes to play and we're going to have to take it into consideration as we look at each student that meets the academic threshold to opt out, the informed consent process and then what the options are because all of that will impact their master schedules and their FTEs for elect electives as well. So I don't have an exact answer of what it will look like yet because I'm going to need to work with the principals to figure that out. But we will do that.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Figuero?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I think I already used three seconds of my time asking my Latin question, but

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It was four, but Okay.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yeah, Doctor. Steiner, I appreciate because I think that the barrier to opting out should be very, very, very high. What we're hearing from all of our principals, all of our teachers, all of our central office staff, our researchers are that math aid is critical. And we had some great webinars and I appreciate Principal Schuman from APG really highlighting the fact that there's certain parts that the students at APG who took the course missed. And it's not just Algebra Algebra I, but what they're seeing there is students in geometry now who opted out of math eight. There's so many repercussions that we're seeing after the fact. So that informed consent is really, really key. And I also want to point out, not all students want to get to AP Calculus. I mean we shouldn't prevent students from getting to AP Calculus for sure, but not all students want to get to AP Calculus. And in fact AP Statistics or probability and statistics are even more real world relevant for a lot of our kids. Even as a mechanical engineer, I can't tell you how many times I used my calculus in my real world life. So but I use statistics every day. So it doesn't mean you shouldn't take it. If you wanna be an engineer, you absolutely should. But I also really just appreciate everything we've heard from our community around this. And I'm really, really grateful for this policy coming forward now and the fact that we're addressing it. What I think I'm really most appreciative is, I think Professor Dee, you mentioned it, is that just continue with the research and learning agenda, right? The fact that we will do a much larger pilot of compression. I mean, like, as we're seeing, as we just saw with our guardrails or our goal one and goal two conversations, we're actually taking data and we're using it to make adjustments. I think that is a big change, I think, in practices that I'm seeing in our district and gives me a lot more confidence moving forward that we are actually going to take the data from the compression pilot over the next year, two years, and actually use it to drive programming that works better for

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: our

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: students. So my real question here is though moving forward, especially braided, expanded, whatever it is, like do we have enough credentialed math teachers to do this? Like what we talk about strong implementation, but like what pivots do we need to make to really do this with fidelity?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: That's a fantastic question Commissioner Fisher. As you asked that, our associate superintendent of HR just walked out of the room. I know that this is something that she's very concerned about. And we had a budget meeting with our Ed Services team today. We're sitting down with our staff again tomorrow morning to really map through, map out what are the number of teachers we would need to make this a reality. Again, this was how we realized that having the words and secure was too restrictive because it didn't allow enough students the option to opt out. And so we are regularly going through and running the data to make sure that we allow students who demonstrated the proficiency to be able to take the opt out and students who need the additional supports to be able to stay and get that additional supports in expanded math. But we are working very hard to make sure that we have enough math teachers in order to fully implement this.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. So there are, well first and foremost thank you so much for presenting your research and thank you to staff for bringing forward a plan that I'm really excited by. And I'll say this. So there are a number of factors changing for next year for math in our schools. We have an increase in minutes, we have curriculum, new curriculum being implemented, we have professional learning that's a core focus in coaching, the course progression is changing across our schools. And then we talked a little bit about motivation and students' ability to opt in, opt out. And so that motivation, choice, investment from students is changing. How are we understanding what will actually improve outcomes next year as all of those factors change? Like can you walk us through just how are we thinking through Because there's a level of change management here that is quite significant for our schools and our students and families. How do we know what works?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Well, think I could answer that because I think there are some really compelling design opportunities to generate credible evidence around key design features of the expanded math pilot. And my collaborator, Doctor. Referenced one of them, which is that our expectation is that if automatic enrollment is properly implemented, that creates a uniquely compelling research design because you have students who are likely to fall on either side of a threshold where they'll be strongly encouraged through the opt out default to participate in algebra and that'll be happening at a larger scale throughout the district under this proposal. So that is a really unique happening opportunity to see whether the substantial gains we saw in this one point zero pilot schools that had the algebra elective will generalize across the district and particularly that evidence of impact will be defined for students who are right at the margin of the threshold. So there's also a compelling learning agenda around around whether we have the threshold right because at some level, if you see students on just one side of a threshold are thriving relative to students on just the other side, there's a case to be made for lowering that threshold in a way that expands, the take up of math. So I think that's really important. And then also on the braided compression pilot, two schools will create some opportunity for learning there. And in particular, I think the work that researchers like Doctor. Huffaker I would undertake would be how do you construct a credible comparison group for the change you observe among students participating in the braided compression model and those who don't. And so we would have to look to other campuses and maybe among subgroups of students who for whatever reason aren't participating in algebra and try to identify something that meets high research standards for comparison groups. So I think around those two key features of the proposal, there are really compelling learning opportunities that I know we and I'm sure other researchers would love to take up.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: I was just also going to build on that briefly by naming a little bit about what hasn't changed. So just one of the points of comparison that I don't actually believe we included in the slides but I wanted to name is that as folks may remember while this is technically our first year of implementation of Amplify Desmos Math we did have a pretty expansive pilot of Amplify Desmos Math in the twenty four-twenty five school year and one of the requirements was actually that all teachers across all of the Algebra one pilots all used Amplify Desmos Math so whether they were concurrently enrolled in Math eight and Algebra one or skipped Math eight or were in the Math eight and Algebra one compression course at Rooftop all of those teachers of Algebra one all used Amplify Desmos math so they actually did experience some level of consistency across. And then the one other piece that I did want to build on and just to go back to that compression scope and sequence that we are very excited about is that one of the benefits in this case is that while it is a compression course that makes use of materials across two courses, it does maintain the same lesson and unit design as the Math six, Math seven, Math eight, Algebra one. And so within the context of professional learning and teacher collaboration, it does provide us a shared consistent starting point for understanding design and instructional practice as related to goal two.

[Dr. Elizabeth Huffaker (Stanford University)]: Can I also piggyback real quick on the level setting question? So obviously when we were putting these slides together, the option to opt in to opting out of the expanded mass. So I can already tell we're going to need to refine our language a little talking about this if we have an opt out threshold and opt in to opt out threshold. But we didn't talk about that in the slides because that was a newer addition. But I can share since it does seem like that other level, that star winter score potentially determining that secondary threshold to only take algebra one may be relevant. Just descriptively because it maybe speaks to I think some of these broader questions, we do see very low algebra repetition rates among students that meet about 8% and exceed. That's at level four about 3%. But among students at the algebra for all campuses that were only at that approaching, so level two, it was about 27% and up to 53% among students who are at that level one, so not yet banned or below level one. I suppose that not yet banned. So it does seem like the level setting on that other threshold that is being introduced is also going to be something that has to be a part

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: of the learning agenda. Thanks.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Very interesting. I want to ask about algebra preparedness and foundational math. So we've talked a lot about algebra itself. Beyond the implementation of curricula and all the kind of more obvious things around, talk about coaching again, like can we just briefly touch on what is taking place around our efforts around foundational math? Because I think there's so much attention on what's happening in eighth grade and in the middle years. But I'm very much interested in understanding what is our strategy on ensuring foundational math and strengthening that in our model.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Just as one clarification, in referencing foundational math, are you just one of are we talking about a grade band, standard sequence?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I am mostly thinking about K12.

[Devin (Curriculum & Instruction)]: Thank you so much for that. I just wanted to clarify. So one of the pieces that I will just name is while within the context of the Goal two report, we've really focused because of Goal two on middle school data. We have continued to collect that same data across K-five for math as well. So we have all of the Learning Walk data in both essential content and academic ownership also present for K-five math. Apologies for having that included. So one of the things I wanted to just name was that as one part, but also to say we do deeply analyze that data as part of our work in instructional cabinet, as part of professional development. And then to name specifically again, apologies for the back end from the progress monitoring is that at the elementary level in K-five, for example, our instructional coaches actually attend two coach network days a month, one with a math focus and one with a language and literacy focus. At So the elementary level, instructional coaches do support in those two content areas. What I would say, for better or worse, is that at the elementary level, I think in the realm of academic ownership, we do see somewhat similar trends in terms of need to strengthen the practices related to academic ownership, students explaining and justifying their thinking. And I would say at the elementary level there is sort of this additional component that has two different pieces. One, certainly our elementary educators have gone now through two back to back curriculum adoptions, which is not nothing. And so there is a fair bit of work in the realm of instructional coaches around how do you balance time and energy in year one, year two. How do we certainly within the case of elementary and imagine learning illustrative math, that is I don't want to say simple, but it is a simpler curriculum design than language and literacy because it doesn't have the same set of components. And so what I would say is a fair bit of instructional work is trying to both build curriculum specific practice while also supporting some of the same trends around internalization and inquiry cycles and coaching. I would say the one other piece that does show up a little bit more in the elementary realm, which I think is not unique to San Francisco situation, is building teacher content expertise in math. I would say specifically at the upper grades in three, four, five, we do find our teachers to be, think, somewhat less comfortable with the content and depth of knowledge in the standards. And so there is a component related to that support that is around specifically building teacher content expertise as part of the work of supporting implementation and professional learning.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: I

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: have feelings about that, but mostly rooted in no surprise internalization. But I will talk about that in a second. So I want to acknowledge just kind of two things that I'm hearing in this and going back to algebra a little bit that I just want to acknowledge. One, feel like one of the we talked about this last time you presented, Doctor. Dee, around part of this challenge with access to algebra was that in previous years, previous models, previous generations, there used to be someone at a young age for a student who told them that they could not do right. And so there is something really amazing about the proposal in front of us today where this auto enroll feature allows for a student without some adult randomly telling them that they can't do math being told that they can, right? So I think that's a really amazing innovation perhaps of this model here where we're telling students, no, some random adult in your kinder, first, second years is not telling you whether or not you can do math. If you can demonstrate mastery to a certain extent by a certain time you should be able to have access to algebra and that makes sense and I'm really excited to hear that and perhaps most excited then about this auto enroll future that's part of our work. The second thing I want to hold is also and I'm going to just take on the liberty of being president right now. The second thing I'm gonna just like hold as attention is our city made a very clear statement about wanting access to algebra for all kids who are ready, right? And I think we can reasonably hold that desire alongside this other desire of agency for a student to choose what course they take and what it means to offer a course progression model that honors that. And we have put a stake in the ground already just to be really clear around eighth grade algebra success being a huge milestone for ourselves so much so that it's a goal, one of three. And in the same way that we think of the brilliance of telling a student that no, you can do math, I think there's a future here in our proposal where we can allow a student to say and I want to just do this so I can do this other thing whether that's a language or an additional elective, art, what have you, that I do think is worth exploring, right? And in this case offering. So I just want to acknowledge there's that tension and desire that like is being solved for I think in what's being proposed which I can appreciate as something that to your point is something to be studied this coming year, right? Which goes back to this informed consent of as long as families are aware and as long as students are informed of what it means to navigate this trade off, it makes sense to me that we would allow them to make that trade off, But I'll get off my little soapbox here and say, any other questions? Oh, Okay. So many. Okay. Vice President Huling.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Well, to that point, I would like to move to make an amendment to the eighth grade math board policy. And I've got language that I provided to Manuel or to our counsel, Mr. Martinez, and to Mr. Trujillo that perhaps they could help me by projecting so everyone can follow along.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Is there a company?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Can email it.

[Speaker 56.0]: I don't have printouts.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: One second. Are we doing the motion first before presenting? The motions are on

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: the table.

[Dr. Elizabeth Huffaker (Stanford University)]: Could I

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Well

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Oh, sorry. Okay. We Commissioner Ray seconded. Did someone motion do you motioned for the amendment?

[Speaker 20.0]: Vice President, motioned.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yeah, I'd like to move to introduce the amendment and hopefully explain its content and also if we could get printouts, that would be ideal.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Can we put on

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: can, well, can I add it to BoardDocs right now? Yeah. Can we give me three minutes, please, so I can organize that. I

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: mean, normally, we

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: So while while we're waiting to get the No.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: But I'm just saying

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I'd like to just give it yeah.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: It's frustrating to not have seen it. Normally, share this stuff.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I'm happy to share.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: May, I'm wondering, considering we're waiting for printouts, and it looks like a bunch of us had hands raised, is there could we withdraw the motion for now or table it for now and let the rest of us ask our questions while we wait?

[Speaker 56.0]: Yeah, happy to.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Otherwise, I could you know me. I could give you I've got a bunch of bad mom jokes I can tell you all while we wait. But

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I don't think you need to withdraw.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Why don't we just move on to while the there's a printout being made. Is that right?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Okay. So while we wait for that, why don't we move to Commissioner Ray to answer any you had a question?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Oh, I do, but if Commissioner Fisher wants to go first, it's fine with me.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Either is fine. Regardless of the I don't think it's related to your motion. So it's more just my last question is really going back to the intent of moving to math six, seven, eight. A big part of it was to reduce the tracking of algebra in eighth grade and the huge disparities that we had. So Superintendent Hsu and team, but Superintendent Hsu, are we doing with the implementation of this new math apology to ensure we don't just end up back on a two tier tracked system?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Well, as you heard from the team, this is technically the first year of us transitioning into a new a new math curriculum. From what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing, there's a lot of excitement about it. Think, well I don't think, I believe that educators or teachers are learning it and using it. I think that there's still more professional development that we would need to provide so that our teachers will continue to build their toolkit to implement it. But honestly, in all of the observations that I've gone into, classroom observations that I've gone into, students are really, really engaged. They're using all the different tools that come with Imagine Math. So because of that, because our students are really engaging in our new math curriculum, I firmly believe that over time we're going to build lifelong math learners. And so we're going to slowly roll into a world where we're going to have a lot of students who are very confident and competent and are able to go right into Algebra I at a later time. And we're going to continue to improve the needle for all of our students. I believe that we need to continue to focus on delivering high quality instructions and that is how we're going to not move into tracking. Having said that, I also know that students and families who choose to really focus on the arts, they're going to make decisions for their students that is going to emphasize having more opportunities in engaging in the arts. Or students who and their families are going to make a decision that's focused on particular academics or a particular type of class by the time of their high school year. They're going to then focus their energy into getting into that particular pathway. Those are options in my mind. Those are how families get to choose and those are the options that we're going to make available to our students and to our student community. Having options within SFUSD will lift all boats. And in those options means that we need to continue to provide high quality instruction.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: A rising tide only lifts the boats that don't have holes in them. So I think that's so hence the importance on the high quality curriculum in the early grades to make sure that everyone is ready. And as we discussed earlier, a robust MTSS system to ensure that everyone has acceleration options if they're not where they need to be. So I think the last part of my question is really in the spirit of learning, what will be our inflection points to make sure that we're not creating this two tiered system?

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I can take that if you want. Sure. I mean, think Commissioner Fisher, bring up a really good point that's very interesting to all of us that are sitting here. I mean, I think we're really interested to Professor Di's point of like what are the questions around continuous improvement that we want to put into place to study the effects of this new policy on our students as they go forward. And I mean part of the spirit of this to go back to what I said earlier around the seven period day is acceleration elective. And so if we fund, if we pass this math policy and then we fund the FTEs related, one of the things that I think Devin did a really good job in thinking about is we don't give a school the point two they might need for who's meeting the minimum threshold or whatever we're calling it criteria for automatic enrollment, but rather when you get a point two you get the one point zero and that one point zero then offers opportunities for acceleration in sixth grade and seventh grade. More and more students are able to access algebra in the eighth grade and that similarly as we continue to get better at illustrative math at the at the TK five level that we're hoping more and more students are going to be prepared as they get into middle school. If we're just focused on algebra, we're missing the point completely because by the time kids are ready for algebra in the eighth grade, we've already tracked them. And so we really want to pay attention to that way earlier from my perspective. And I know that Professor Day also might have had something to add.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: I just briefly wanted to add the embrace of district wide automatic enrollment in the proposal also speaks directly to this concern because it helps ensure academically qualified students, regardless of their background and the other biases and factors that might exist, are going to be nudged into taking algebra. And we got a kind of lower bound proof on the power of that Just by looking across the six algebras and elective classes, I mentioned three of them did something weaker than automatic enrollment. They encouraged students who met the criterion to take algebra. And we saw, as we looked across the three campuses that offered no encouragement to the three that did, that academically qualified focal students participation in algebra increased from 59% to 85%. So I think that's a lower bound on that kind of last mile problem we often have with innovations even if we do all the hard work of getting kids to where they should be in algebra readiness, automatic enrollment can help ensure they end up in the class for which they're qualified.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you. That helps. And a data point that goes to that is Principal Roseboro said during the conversation about Aptos that out of the two years of their pilot and they were one of the schools that highly encouraged or auto, I think auto enrolled actually, they only had three students who enrolled who ended up leaving the class or opting out through. So I thought that was really fascinating and wonderful to hear.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I'm starting over with three, right?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: I'm not trying to do that. Oh, okay.

[Speaker 24.0]: Okay. I wasn't sure if we had a limit or not. Okay.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I would like to follow-up on the question I asked earlier. Superintendent Hsu, you mentioned deleting two of the words. That restricted the pool too much. Can I ask what number do you believe students would be enrolling or would be eligible with those words deleted? You were indicating that you ran some type of thing to determine.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Well it was too restrictive of a criteria and so that's why we are proposing to remove those two words from the original board policy or from the board policy that I had issued last week. My goal is to make sure that we allow students who are proficient to be able to opt out. We want to make sure that students have the confidence and the skill sets in order to be successful. We do not want to set up students to be frustrated and to fail. What you've heard from Professor Dee is that if students miss out on fundamental components of Math eight, they're going to struggle not only in algebra but also in their high school career for subsequent math classes. And I know that we all think our child can do amazing things. But unfortunately, it is going to be based on some level of proficiency. So we were looking at the STAR test. Am looking at this as well now. But we were looking at STAR test results in the seventh grade, the fall and the winter test results, because that is going to give us a glimpse into a student's ability to really grasp complex concepts that will then set them up to enter into Algebra I at a minimum with baseline skills and baseline knowledge. We do not want to set them up to fail.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: So just to get a ballpark, was there a ballpark figure of how many students you felt would qualify if you took out those words?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: No, there is no cap. There's no cap but there's definitely a minimum. I think with the words in it I think we would only qualify like 23 students which just doesn't seem appropriate. Without the words in it, there's a much larger percentage of students. Josh, do you want to add more?

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Yeah. When you look at level four for both STAR assessments in the seventh grade, it would be about four ninety nine students is what we've modeled at this point.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Okay. So my next question on

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: To follow-up on that, do you know what percentage of students in a given grade level that is in middle school?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: It's

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: about 17%, 18%, 20% at most.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Appreciate that. So

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: without the and secure as part of the implementation strategy, we're looking at around 500 students that would qualify. So it's 500 out of approximately four thousand eighth graders. Is that correct, Renee?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: 12.5%.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: So as of March 18, there's three thousand two hundred and eighty six seventh graders currently. So that would be 15. I just did the calculation. That have the level four in both fall and winter star for seventh grade.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. That's still a quite high threshold, especially since it's fall and winter of seventh grade. But I appreciate the information. I have a couple of other questions as well. I wanted to follow-up on something that Commissioner Fisher was saying about equity and so forth and avoiding a two tier system and just note that there was legislation introduced a while back by Senator Booker and Representative Castro around this type of problem is aimed at increasing access historically disadvantaged groups, for instance, to algebra. And they were pointing out that the lack of algebra actually is what disadvantages students who are from those groups, the lack of algebra in eighth grade. If they don't get these opportunities in our public schools, many kids tend not to get them at all. So I think that's actually a really important thing, the auto enrollment strategy really helps to boost in that respect. Okay. Something else I was concerned about around this is actually the impact on our arts programs, on arts and music and various other things. If we are essentially forcing kids who want to take algebra into taking two math classes in order to do that, we are putting people to a choice that I feel is not appropriate personally for the school district to make. I feel that we should leave that to individual students and families to decide what's best for them. But I also worry a great deal that this will have a heavy impact. It's actually a very positive thing. It's one of the major draws in our school district that we have such good arts and music programs. And pitting those two things against each other is really troubling to me. So having the opportunity for kids to decide to take algebra instead of Math eight means that they could continue to take those other elective courses and that we could continue to have strong programs in those areas, which I think are significant strengths of our school system. So I wanted to ask if anybody had looked at this aspect, analyzed what the impact would be on our arts and music programs in a more forced choice system versus where folks could choose to take algebra instead of Math eight.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: I can just speak to what it looks like right now in the schools that have algebra, what we called as an elective versus expanded math is what we will call it now. We're not seeing a reduction in arts participation in places like Aptos where Mr. Roseboro has now renamed his school affectionately the Aptos School of Performing Arts. You know, kids have seven periods and there are times where a student needs to take an, like as I mentioned before, an acceleration or an intervention class during one of those seven periods. Then the other class they have open to take any number of courses that sometimes are arts based and sometimes are other based. Right? There are kids who choose not to take an arts elective in all three years of their of their middle school. They take a an extra computer science class or a steam class or a stem class. So that's true. And in some cases, they take multiple electives because they don't require an acceleration or an intervention class. So we haven't seen a reduction in arts participation in the places where the elective exists right now.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: That could be true in a seven period day class. I can't really speak to that. But my daughter goes to AP Giannini where there is not seven period days. There is no question that if she were in this situation, which we will be deciding, she'll be deciding what she wants to do, And we will probably defer to what she would like to do on that. She would either have to choose choir or algebra. There wouldn't be another way that I know of for her to be able to take that.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Yeah. Mean, I think at APG, it's a particularly interesting situation. Students at APG right now, not all of them have access to an elective, right? Because in the six period day, students that are required to take an ELD course don't get an option to take acquire course or an elective, they have to take their ELD course. So right now with Principal Schumann we're talking about how to add a zero period so that students who want to take the algebra elective still have the opportunity to have an elective and also the algebra course. And so we haven't yet figured that out, right, because again this conversation is is nascent. And so first, we need to ensure that we have proper funding, we, once this math policy will have in place and that we need to work on the master schedule and the implications on those master schedule. But we're looking to schools like Hoover who run a who run a six period plus a zero period. And one of the reasons we chose Hoover for the braided compression is because not only do they have a six period plus a zero period, but they also have a language program that impacts three quarters of their school. So even with the zero period and and the language program, they were still having a forced choice to commissioner Huling's point about language versus versus algebra, whereas in other places they don't have that forced choice because they actually have the seven periods. So we want to model what we're going to do at APG after what we're thinking about in Hoover and ensure that there's access for students in eighth grade to take both if they want to. We just don't yet have that planned out but we will.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thank you for the info. I think my last question, at least that I can think of for now, is I guess maybe more of a comment. It's also building I think on Commissioner Fisher. I think you were the one who mentioned it, but about building a better early learning experience. I can't imagine that anybody would design a math system to say that the way that we're going to fix our problems in math is by having kids take two math classes in eighth grade. This seems to be like an SFUSD thing, a solution to a problem that we ourselves have created over the years, however well intentioned people's ideas may have been. They didn't actually work out. They didn't actually produce a more equitable system or reduce the achievement or opportunity gap. So I would very much like to see us build a much better foundation on the way up and frankly catch up with other school districts that are around us. Are behind. We are disadvantaging our kids by what we're doing compared to many other school districts right around us and certainly compared to the rest of the world. I'm always kind of surprised by how people think about algebra here as if it's some terribly difficult thing. I feel like in my own experience and in many other places around the world, this is a normal part of a math sequence. It's not viewed as some tremendous thing. And along with the expectations idea, it's like if that's the way that you treat it and you build up to it and teach people to do it, it's just part of what they do. Thanks.

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

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I'm struggling with this conversation because I feel like we have seriously deviated from student outcomes focused governance. I feel like we're having a conversation that is trying to micromanage staff on how to meet our goal too And it's deeply concerning to me because I think that if we're gonna do that, like if we're gonna and respectfully, think this amendment, you know, exemplifies that. Like, think if we're gonna govern from the dais and and mandate how they do algebra, that that is that's the board running our schools. And so if we're deciding as a board that we wanna abandon student outcomes focused governance and say, you know what, superintendent? We got this. You you don't have to figure this out anymore because we're gonna make the decisions, then let's just say that. And I've got lots of issues as an educator. I got lots of opinions that I would love to give and I'd be happy to engage in these debates but I thought that we said we weren't going to do this. I thought we said we were going to set academic goals and trust the superintendent to come up with strategies and then vote them up or down and she's come to us with a strategy which frankly my understanding is board members already influenced the process because the educators said they didn't want to have an opt out. Correct me if I'm wrong, assistant superintendent Steiner, but based on your comments earlier, it sounded like there are educators who are the experts were developing an educational strategy to meet goal two said we don't want to have an opt out because we looked at the data from Stanford and we said that the best way to serve our kids is to have expanded math, to have the two periods. So now we've already based on behind the scenes board pressure said, Okay, we've pressured the superintendent to change her mind. So now she shifted and had an opt out, which okay fine, that was her decision. And now we're we're looking at an amendment. We're we're criticizing the the decision. So, again, if if what we're saying is we wanna abandon student economic governance, but but if we're gonna do this, I I think it also is it's hard to hold our superintendent accountable for results because we're not allowing her to to try the strategy and look at the data. She's presented us with data. She's brought a professor from Stanford saying, look, this is my database strategy and we as the board are saying, we wanna we know better? I I have real concerns with this.

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

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: So I if now that everyone does have a written copy, would like to just describe the amendment and the purpose and respond, I think, to Commissioner Alexander's concerns. So my goal is not to micromanage the superintendent. And I have specifically drafted an amendment that does not actually describe any particular cutoff for eligibility to opt out. My goal is to represent community values on the board. And what I have heard very loud and clear and what I see reflected in the data is that more students will access algebra if they are able to make the choice of what is best for them and that there is no harm to student outcomes in doing that. And so this amendment, rather than requiring students to have both a four on the fall and winter star assessment, which we heard, I believe, from Professor was not predictive of success in the Algebra for All pilot. But I believe she said that actually students who had threes were also successful in directly accessing algebra in the Algebra for All pilot. And we know students learn throughout the year and I wouldn't want to require students to essentially come into seventh grade already knowing all of seventh grade math. Like that's what a three means. A three means that you're proficient in the end of year standards. But to say for students who are able to meet proficiency standards in seventh grade that the district determines based on the data that they've collected is predictive of them having success in algebra one, those are the students who should be able to opt out. Which I think to my mind what I tried to accomplish is balancing the community desire for students to have flexibility with the staff subject area knowledge about what the appropriate thresholds are and flexibility for them to determine that. And then the other things that it does are allow students and parents to have that counselor meeting before eighth grade. Because if those STAR and SBAC assessments come back in seventh grade and our counselors are heavily impacted, it seems to me that students might want to begin having those conversations in seventh grade and not have a rush. I've heard concerns from families that if students are all auto enrolled, the students who seek to opt out then won't actually have any classes that they can enroll in or by the time they all try and meet with counselors, it'll be too late to enroll in other classes. Or from an educator's perspective, they might not have an idea of how many students seek to opt out because those opt outs won't be approved until weeks into the school year. So just giving more flexibility for all parties there. Also, another community concern we heard was that there was no kind of threshold for students who enter SFUSD in eighth grade to determine whether they're eligible if they don't have a seventh grade STAR assessment. So this just simply says staff should determine what the opt out mechanism is for students who come in in eighth grade who don't have a STAR assessment. And that it shall be interpreted in a manner that expands rather than restricts students' ability to access Algebra one. I think there's a history in SFUSD of parents being asked to take classes outside or being asked to take tests and then the test isn't recognized and having to jump through hoops and really inequitable practices that require knowledge, deep knowledge of systems and how to navigate them and how to advocate. And we want to just make sure that this is just this is a cutoff. If your SBAC score is whatever, you can go to your counselor, get your informed counseling consent, and make your choice. And everyone should have that option. They shouldn't have to jump through additional hoops. So that's my goal. It's very high level and I think keeping with the policy role of the board but also to my mind better reflecting the diverse students we have across schools who are successful at who are able to access Algebra I successfully. And I do have real concerns that you know we only had twenty nine percent of students take up algebra in when we required them to take an elective and we had seventy two percent when we didn't. And I just want us to able to reach as many students as possible especially because, you know, our goal 2.3, our interim goal 2.3 or the superintendent's interim goal 2.3 is specifically about Latinx students. And many of our Latinx students are in dual language immersion programs. They may not want to and students who are in, to my understanding, dual language programs don't have the option to opt out of that pathway in eighth grade. They've selected it for their entire middle school. So I don't want us to adopt a policy that has an unintended consequence of excluding the very people we're trying to include in access to algebra because we haven't thought through how it's coherent with all of the other things that we ask students to do and other thresholds for decision points and things like that. So that is the goal. And there was also a typo that I couldn't stop myself from fixing because I am compulsive editor.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: I just want to say, Vice President, I really respect all of that. I never want to be opposing you in court as a mean, it's all makes everything you said makes perfect sense. I think my point was more around the process and that the clear intention of this and it says it in the last bullet point of the proposed amendment is to expand access to algebra one without taking Math eight. So it's essentially doing the opposite of what staff is recommending which is again fine. I think you have a lot of good arguments for that. My point is if we're going to start doing that as a board that is I think saying we no longer are going to stick to this student outcomes focused governance where we let them, let the superintendent set the strategy and then evaluate, right? And then hold her accountable. If it doesn't work, so I think that was my issue. Was more, I think your arguments make sense. I may have different ones, but that's and I guess what I'm saying is if that's what we're doing as a board, I would love to hear from other colleagues. If that's what we're to do, let's do it. But if we're going to stick to student outcomes focused governance, I think we need to support the superintendent's recommendation if only to let her do it and see what the results are. And we have people offering to Stanford offering to evaluate, come back in a year and then let's make another decision as a board based on the data. That would be my request. I

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: certainly would have brought this forward earlier if we had gotten the policy earlier. We didn't see it until seventy two hours before this meeting, the final policy. And I will say, I think you and I maybe just have a slight disagreement about how student outcomes focused governance works because to my mind it's really like a separation of powers analogy. And the board policy is the board's. It is not for the superintendent to actually dictate board policy. And so I think that that is firmly within our view, especially as it goes to reflecting community desires and values around these types of things.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I think also just to acknowledge, I mean, the last three weeks were different into how we got here And in an ideal situation, we would have had this come with the draft materials. There would have been questions, opportunities for conversation and amendment. We would have briefed on the policy, etcetera. It did not happen in that way. And so I think that is just worth recognizing the process change there. Let's just go down here. Commissioner Weissman-Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: I'll just say I agree with Commissioner Alexander. I do appreciate that this board policy. However, the language that is in there is so in the weeds and so outside of what our scope and expertise is supposed to be, for that reason it feels really inappropriate. That's just where I am on that and would not support the amendment.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: So I'll name Commissioner Alexander. I struggle with this for bit, but I think where I landed was the critical part of student outcome focused governance is making sure we have proper public engagement. And when I look at the survey that was released, when I look at other metrics other you will, polls, actual data from Prop G last year, if I look at the last survey that SFUSD did, if I look at other surveys that were done, we don't have a majority of people who support this. We also have a lot of folks who said they value their electives. It does feel a little like we're trying to make a decision for a family. I like the idea of informed consent, much like when you go to a doctor. A doctor should give you all the information. But ultimately, it is up to a family and a student. A lot of the conversation here, I'll just name. We've talked about site selecting, what model they seek. We've talked about will we have enough staff. We've talked about master class schedule. If I'm a student, if I'm a parent, if I'm a family, what I'm looking at is what is the math course that my child will take? I'm not looking at it from the perspective of the adult inputs that go into it. I want to know what is that math course that I will take. And so when we don't have proper public engagement, that is where we then have to be, unfortunately, a little more directive. I'm not saying in what that academic piece should be. And if anything, I would love and also related to the outcomes where if we want to talk about outcomes, we see other models that have, for example compression unfortunately we don't have data around the compression model otherwise we have Elk Grove we have Long Beach that do well with those models and unfortunately we don't have what that would look like in SFUSD. Our outcomes for focal populations are worse than areas in the South for example. So I think we just need to be open to what are other models that we can try. I appreciate that this is not dictating, but rather asking for staff to share what they think it should be. I will also say that one of the outstanding questions I have is, what are our metrics for evaluation as we look through these? What are we looking for when we try the new model of four-three compression, when we look at and as we learn around algebra as an elective or those who do take eighth grade math alone? The only one that I've heard so far is the number of repeats for ninth grade algebra. And I fear that if we're only looking at that metric, it may become a bit of a I don't know. It's sort of predicting if we're just taking that raw number, I worry we're already biasing against models that, to Vice President Huling's point, we may encourage more people and perhaps people are ready, but if we're only looking at that. So I guess my question to staff and then also Professor Dee as well as Professor Huffaker, if there are metrics that you'd recommend, I would love to hear them and at what frequency so that we can really objectively evaluate this to see what is successful, what is working, both from an academic outcome perspective, but also from what works for our families in terms of them opting to stay in SFUSD. Because I don't want to create segregation where students are leaving the school district because they're not getting what they seek in terms of us meeting their students where they are. Are there metrics that you all have?

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah. I mean, I'll jump in. I think the ones that interest us are unfortunately the ones that will take time to become available to us. I mean, really want to follow these cohorts beyond this current academic year. I mean, the cohorts are currently in ninth grade, and it's going to take a while to observe their other long run indicators through high school and beyond. You know, in the National Student Clearing House, for example, we could track post secondary outcomes. But we do always try to include district retention as outcome measure, both because it's instrumentally relevant to the district, but also important for assessing threats to causal inference. Because if there's a differential attrition from, say, a treated versus a control group, that's a potential threat to the inferences we make. But unfortunately, there's no way to do this the given the need for outcomes to mature, to do it in the more rapid cycle way. I sense folks here might want right now.

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Someone in attendance.

[Professor Tom Dee (Stanford University)]: Yeah. We do see I'm gonna on attendance.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Have commissioner Fisher ask the last question here, and we can do a vote on the amendment itself.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I didn't get to comment on the amendment.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Oh, I'm so sorry. Thought I I thought you did. Commissioner Fisher, Commissioner Ray, and then we'll do the vote on the amendment, and then we'll vote on the actual well, whatever the outcome is

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: of that.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Go ahead.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: My apologies. Commissioner Gupta, you had mentioned staff's perspective on this as well. So thank you, Professor Dee, for sharing that. And I want to underscore the piece that Doctor. Dee kind of spoke to, and that is kind of the time bound aspect of this. And I'm also gonna kind of go back to something that Commissioner Alexander said earlier and that is that this option only became available to us very recently and the ability to think through the kinds of criteria that would allow for us to know that a student is proficient in Math eight in the ways that we would have to kind of think through all of different variables and things of that nature. That takes time to do. We don't have currently a facsimile for this in that kind of way to be able to replicate something and then do a deep study, which quite frankly I'm looking to our colleagues here to actually help us with. So I feel like in the context of all this, I just want to say from the staff's perspective, we're providing some ideas criteria of what could look like in the order of expediency for a request that we're being asked to fulfill to make this option work. But if I were to tell you that I have full confidence that these are all the things that allow for us to know that a student has command of Math eight, which is what we're trying to guard against given the algebra for all kind of lessons that we learned previously, then I think that's the part where I'm feeling slightly uncomfortable about that because I would love to be able to look and model that a little bit more, but also to be able to, for the various ways that we look at it, do the kinds of longitudinal analyses that are really required to have a better sense of that. That's not to say that if this ends up passing that we wouldn't start with something and then have a way to kind of study that and kind of have that evolve in the future. But the turnaround of this is attention for us to try to think of something that makes sense while we're trying to attend to the multiple layers of guardrails for ensuring that students have command of Math eight, which I think is an important part of the purpose of the exercise and why originally it was level four. Again, that is without having had a ton of time to do all the studying that we need to do. So I just wanna put that caveat out there because you asked for staff's perspective, and I'm sitting in the seat of the person that is actually trying to think through that and just understanding how monumental of a challenge it is in three days time to try to think about that.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: I appreciate that and I appreciate you bringing forth a policy in a very short period of time. Think this is more of a condensed process than almost anyone here would have liked for sure. And I think it's more just an assurance that should this pass, there will be thought that is going to be put at that. So thank you.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: So sorry. The clarification, when you said that this passing, is that the one that was on BoardDocs or the amendment?

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: If the amendment does.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Got it. Thank you so much. Okay.

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Clarification, I was just, I wasn't even talking about the amendment. I just mean the general policy. But I assume this, the answer is the same in terms of whether this amendment passes.

[Jess Reyes (Research, Planning & Assessment)]: Yes, I mean it's tied to kind of the expediency of how things have been moving in a way that we wanna, feel want confident that what we're looking at is going to give us the sense of students having that command. And I think that's an important part of lessons learned and having been a former math teacher myself that I kind of really internalize as I try to think through this work.

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

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Thank you. Yeah, I have to say I agree with Commissioner Alexander. Our goal number two is around eighth grade math. The percentage of eighth grade students performing at math performing at grade level as measured by the state test, SBAC math, will increase from 42% proficiency rate in October 2022 to 65% proficiency by October 2027. That is what we are measuring the superintendent on. That. And in fact, to tie it back further to student outcomes focused governance, as someone who went through the whole year long SBI cohort in this, we actually have not done the work we need to do to be fully implementing. Like, we don't have board guardrails. Frankly, something like this should be covered by a board guardrail. And two, we have not done the policy diet that we should. A big part of the policy diet that we should be doing our own board work as part of the student outcomes focused governance would actually be to remove things like this because it is overreach. So and I understand that AJ is actually online. I don't know if he has more to say if we wanna let him say it. But if we really want to follow this process with Fidel and with the the last point I will make when we talk about technical, tactical, and strategic conversations, All of this is technical and tactical, and those are not conversations we should be having here at the dais. Those I recognize, and so I do appreciate seventy two hour like, we didn't have enough time to have this conversation fully, So by default, we're having it here. But I I agree. Like, this is not this is not our work. This is not board work. This is superintendent work. Frankly, a whole lot of this policy is not board work. A whole lot of this policy is superintendent work. But when it comes to reflecting the values of the community, here we are. So I'll stop there.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Thanks, everyone. I just want to say I really appreciate the discussion that's being had here, because I think it is really useful for us to be able to express what we think so the community can hear how we're thinking about this, how we think about it individually, how we discuss it as a board, and so forth. So I greatly appreciate that. On this amendment, I had thinking about an amendment to offer myself. Because I was so concerned about the language, I asked a lot of questions about the specific languages in this policy, just reading it and seeing things like level four and secure and so forth really made me wonder, like, how many students could this possibly qualify? So I was already planning to do something. And I'm happy since Commissioner Huling has drafted language here. I don't want to complicate this matter. I'm happy to defer to the language that she has here. But I was already inclined to do something along the lines myself and probably go further, like the thing around the parent and guardian thing, for instance. If we've already concluded that students are proficient, why would we need people to come for a counselors meeting? I don't disagree with providing information. I think that's great. But asking parents to come in for a counselor's meeting seems really like an obstacle we should not be putting in the way. We could easily be sending this type of information or analysis in some kind of explainer to people that they could then read and sign off on. And if they wanted to meet the counselor or the teacher, they could request that. So I don't want to put all these extra burdens and hurdles in front of people who just want to be able to choose a path in their education. And there is a paternalistic strand in all of this that bothers me because I don't think that we have seen evidence in what's happened that we do always know best. And so for us to impose our view on other people as to what they should do is just fundamentally troubling to me. The history of what we've done in math has shown that we created a math curriculum that didn't work, that our students performed worse under. We took out algebra, which was grossly unpopular and didn't lead to better results for people and led to fewer people taking advanced math courses. I understand and I empathize with the difficulties that staff faces, the difficulties that teachers face, But I don't think that we're historically in a good position, nor are we in a good position from a trust perspective of telling people that we know what's best for them. So I personally think that it is better for us to leave these decisions up to folks. And to the extent that we can this was very prescriptive. What was given to us was very prescriptive and very concerning to me. So I'm actually glad to see what I think is a less prescriptive formulation of it that gives the district some more flexibility to figure out what the appropriate threshold is rather than what had been in here. Thank you.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Thanks, President Kim. Just real quick, I want to agree with part of what you're saying, Commissioner Ray, because I think and disagree with another part. And I agree with you. I also agree that this is a good conversation. The piece you were just talking about around the failures historical failures of SFUSD with respect to math, I strongly agree with. And I think where I disagree is that just offering families more choice may solve a problem for an individual in a moment, but our job is to build a better system. I think there's some tension there. I agree families need choice and students need choice. And I think the job of the educators is to build a better system, and our job is to hold them accountable to doing so. And so that's where I feel like what we're struggling with here as a board is we're getting all this legitimate feedback from community members who are like, well, it's not working, right? And I think the question then though for us is how do we best move it forward? And that's my concern around the student outcomes focused governance and micromanagement just because I've seen where that goes. And even if these are good ideas, it's like then where do we go? And so I just want to say that but I really respect to the intention of where this is coming from and the reflection of values of community members.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Can we do a roll call vote, please? On the amendment.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: On the amendment roll call, Commissioner Ray. Yes. Commissioner Alexander.

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: No.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Vice President Huling.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: President Kim. Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? No. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: No.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Four yes, three

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: nos. Now we need to vote on the math placement policy as a whole considering the amendment that has been passed. And so this motion had already properly been moved and seconded to approve two sixty three-twenty four SPP.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Can I ask a point of privilege? Because the superintendent at one point had mentioned she wanted to make an amendment. Should we The language is now gone. Okay. All right. Thanks.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: So I will officially close this debate. Debate is now closed on the motion to approve this item. We'll do a roll call vote on the policy as a whole, please.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? No. Vice President Huling? Yes. President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? No. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher? No. Four yes, three nos. Thank you.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Thank you, staff, for your presentation and your work. Deep appreciation for your time tonight. And thank you to our Stanford professors who are here this evening as well. Thank you. We are moving to action item F1, vote on student expulsion matters. I move the approval of the CPLA expulsion agreement for one middle school student, matter number 2020Five-twenty20Six-eighteen, for one year expulsion period until 03/24/2027. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will continue to attend MLK Junior Middle School. Can I have a second? Second. Roll call, please.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Sorry, point of information. Which student are we voting on right now?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Is

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Is this 18. 18. Okay, thank you.

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

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Fisher.

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one high school student matter number 2025202619 for a one year expulsion period until 03/24/2027. During this suspended expulsion period, the student will attend a comprehensive high school from two school options provided by SFUSD. Can I have a second?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Seconded.

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

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

[Speaker 37.0]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes. I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one k eight student school student matter number 2025202620 for the remainder of the current spring twenty twenty six semester. During the suspended expulsion period, the student will continue to attend Paul Revere K-eight. Can I have a second? Second.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Roll call, please. Commissioner Ray? Yes. Commissioner Alexander. Yes. Vice President Huling.

[Speaker 37.0]: Yes.

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

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one k eight school student matter number 2025202621 for one year expulsion period beginning the 2026 until 03/24/2027. During the suspended Point of order.

[Speaker 47.0]: Point of

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: we only have one k

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: a student

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: on the

[Matt Alexander (Commissioner)]: Two one is a high school student.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: That's my typo. I apologize.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: That. All good. For one high school student, same matter number 2025220Six-twenty1 beginning the 2026 until 03/24/2027 during the suspended expulsion period the student will attend a comprehensive high school that's corrected from two school options provided by SFUSD can I have a second? Second. Roll call, please.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? No. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: President Kim?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: I move approval of the stipulated expulsion agreement for one elementary school student, matter number 2025202622 for one expulsion period until 03/24/2027. During this suspended expulsion period, the student will continue to attend Uloa Elementary. Can I have a second? The motion does not carry. The move doesn't happen? Moving on.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Point of information, what happens in this situation?

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Counsel?

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: Under the law, you are required, the board specifically is required to adjudicate these matters within a particular timeline. In this case, if we don't meet the timeline, the board fails to meet its obligations under the law, and we lose jurisdiction, and the matter evaporates.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: That case, I will second so that we can have an up and down vote on it. Yep. Great.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Can we roll call vote, please?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? No. Vice President Huling? No. President Kim? You want to come back? Yes, please. Okay. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Commissioner Gupta? No. Commissioner Fisher? No. President Kim? No. It fails. Okay

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: moving to item two, two sixty three-two FARS P1 amendment to the twenty five-twenty six academic calendar. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move action item two sixty three-twenty four SP1 academic calendar amendment.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approve item twenty six thousand three and twenty four SP1. I ask Doctor. Sue to bring this item forward.

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: I have no more words left, so I'm going to hand this over to our associate sup of HR, Amy Bear, as well as our executive director of labor relations, Apollo Quezada.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Good evening everyone. President Kim, Board Commissioners, Doctor. Sue. Tonight we're bringing forward a proposed amendment, our adjustment to the twenty five-twenty six academic calendar. The proposed calendar change calls for the addition of five instructional days in June. This will allow our students to make up the lost instructional days that occurred during the labor action strike that took place the week of February 9 through the thirteenth earlier this year. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

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

[Parag Gupta (Commissioner)]: So based on the information provided here in this public document, first of all, appreciate your work. Five days at the end of this year feels like it's a whammy for our families. Everyone was expecting to get out at least that week to extend it is not student friendly, is not family friendly. The UASF proposal seemed a lot more reasonable to spread that out over time. However, if we do not vote on this or if we vote it down, it does not sound like SEIU and UESF will go with it, which would mean that we would lose a lot of money, which would then mean we would probably have to cut educators. So given that, even though I don't think this is a family friendly amendment to the academic calendar, I will be voting for it because we do not want more cuts than we already have. And it is unfortunate, but it seems like that's the situation.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I have some questions about this. My first question is whether or not since this was a UE proposal, whether or not the UE's membership voted on this.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: I am not familiar if they've voted on it yet. I could not answer that.

[Apollo Quezada (Executive Director, Labor Relations)]: They typically ratify after the board takes action.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Correct. Usually it's ratified after the board takes action.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Correct. Can you tell us whether or not there's any indication of whether UE's membership itself supports this? I've heard from a number of educators that they are concerned about this addition of five days at the end of the year.

[Apollo Quezada (Executive Director, Labor Relations)]: Yeah, the district's obligation is to work with the UE leadership. We don't have a routine practice of talking to individual members. We work with their leadership, their representatives on the calendar committee, that's who's proposed this calendar. And the majority of our calendar committee participants support the five days at the end of the school year.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Can I also ask what the impact would be on the administrators, the principals for instance? This proposal would bring the last day to the tenth and that is their normal last working day, which suggests that they don't have any time to close schools. I'm wondering what the impact will be on them and what the impact will be, if anything, budgetarily, if we need to I don't know, we need to keep them on to close schools or what else needs to be done that they would normally be doing in the last week.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: So assuming that the adjustments or the adjustment to the academic calendar is approved, that would be one of the next steps. And that would be to bargain and negotiate the impacts of the new adjusted instructional calendar with our labor units, including UASF. So we would have to negotiate that with them.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: What about with a CIU? What would the impacts be there?

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: The same for folks that are school term. Folks that are year round, there are no impacts. But folks that are school term, we would have to bargain that with them as well.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Do we have any sense of what the financial impacts would be with UA and SEIU?

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: I don't have that available. No, we would have to get that from our business services folks.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Okay. I also have a question that I'm trying to remember. I believe that I raised internally, but I don't think I forgot an answer to. I could be misremembering. There is a discrepancy on the document that was provided that indicates that the sixth is the last day for teachers while the school is extended till the tenth. I'm guessing that that is a typo or error of some sort, but can you clarify?

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Yes. No it's not an error yet. It is correct based on how we're proposing the adjustment to the change. Again once it's approved then my role is to negotiate with UE, SEIU, UA the impacts of the new calendar at which point then we would update their working calendar. So right now we're here to discuss the instructional calendar, the academic calendar for students. Once that's done, then our role is to negotiate with our labor partners what those impacts are. So then an adjustment would be made at that point.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Can I ask that, because I had not understood that before? Does that mean that we would be providing an additional five days of compensation beyond the UE members' whatever their normal salary is? It's like the certificate salary, for instance.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: No, not necessarily. And the reason for that is because the five days that or excuse me, the four days that were missed for the labor action are technically docked because they did not work for those days. Folks that did show up to employment centers that did work for those four days, we would have to compensate those folks. And then also the fifth day of instruction because that was a transition day for them, we would have to identify compensation for that day.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I'm going to just reserve my time while I think for a minute. I'm not sure if anyone else has questions.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Thank you, Commissioner Ray.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: Commissioner Weissman-Ward.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: So just quick clarification. So the individuals who, educators who participated in the strike normally get paid for a hundred and eighty days of work. This year?

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Hundred and eighty student days, a hundred and eighty four days for them.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Okay. A hundred and eighty student days. Yes. But because students were out Monday through Friday five days, but educators were back at transition day Friday, they would be paid for a hundred and eighty one student days.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: No, because the purpose of having the five days is so that we can have one hundred and eighty calendar days. If we don't, we're at one hundred and seventy five. So the students would still get their one hundred and eighty days.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Right. But the teachers would be paid for an extra day.

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Teachers correct. Extra one hundred

[Apollo Quezada (Executive Director, Labor Relations)]: 85 on their workdays, not 184. Right. It's the student days are still gonna be the same

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: at one hundred eighty.

[Lisa Weissman-Ward (Commissioner)]: Right. Right. Right. Right. I I understand that.

[Apollo Quezada (Executive Director, Labor Relations)]: There's net one extra day of pay.

[Speaker 34.0]: Okay. Any

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: other comments or questions?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yeah, would like to continue. Think I had a minute and a half left for mine. Can you identify, to the extent that you know, what, if any, impacts there would be on our SPED programs or our extended school year?

[Amy Bear (Associate Superintendent, Human Resources)]: Yes. Those impacts were discussed during the committee meeting. And we had representatives from those various departments present to address those. A lot of them had to do with the buildings and grounds, making sure that the facilities were ready. Both options had those impacts because regardless they would not be able to set up the school over the weekend to be ready to go on Monday so either way they still need the two days to be able to set up clean get ready our ESY folks and our summer school program folks also need a couple of days to be able to prepare and be ready to receive students so everything is basically being pushed back by the week.

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: I really, really appreciate your answers to my questions. And I'm just going to note I guess make a comment here to explain my vote. I'm also going to vote no on this. This is fundamentally not family and student friendly. And I am very, very concerned about the message that this sends to our students and families, in fact, our entire school communities, everybody who works and comes and attends in our schools, that making a shift like this at this stage where especially actually, was mentioning chronic absenteeism earlier. We tell students it's important to come to school every day. But from the sort of just conversations I've had, from all the input that I've taken in talking to different groups, educators, families, students, etcetera, it's a lot of concern that many students won't even show up and a lot of concern over what instruction will be provided in this extra time. I feel like this is a highly problematic message to be sending for us as an educational institution. And it feels to me like a do what I say, not what I do type of situation where we're telling our kids that it's incredibly important for them to attend, that it's incredibly important we prioritize instruction. And like many of the middle school families that I've talked to, the high school families say that they don't even expect their kids will be showing up in these extra days. It's more half and half for students in the younger grades if the families will be here, but this whole thing to me is very troubling and portends problems for us in the future as well. So I will vote no on this. Thank you.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: I think that's well said, Commissioner Ray. I I really do have concerns that you know, there there could have been options that would have increased attendance, increased the actual amount of instruction that students were going to get, respected the obligations of all of our labor units and extra days that they require to shut down schools, not just so that they can leave for the summer, but so that our community partners can run summer programs, which will probably now have to be canceled for the week that school will be extended. There would have been summer camps that students were relying on, and income that our community based nonprofits were relying on after they went above and beyond and provided free childcare during the strike to many of our students. It's a double financial hit. And I think it would have been ideal if we could have had two extra days at the end of this year, three days next year, two days beyond the end of school, and then one take it from the extra day of spring break or Indigenous Peoples' Day or something. And I will say that that was my understanding of what was going to be discussed with labor partners. And so it was very shocking to me to hear that that was not what was initially proposed by the district to our labor partners. And I think puts us as a board in a really difficult situation. Because my understanding is that this is the only proposal that has the possibility of being ratified by all of our labor partners, which is an absolute requirement to changing the academic calendar, And that if it is not ratified, that we would have one hundred and seventy five instructional days, which would essentially reduce the denominator of our calculator for ADA and have very significant financial impacts much greater than the impacts of low attendance on the three days beyond the last week of school that would carry on not just this year but for three years to come as we have a rolling three year average of ADA at a time when we have made significant commitments to all of our labor partners that we need to make sure that we bring in as much money as we can to meet those. So because of our role as fiduciary to the district, I will be voting yes. But I'm very disappointed for our students, for many of our educators and staff, for our families that we are in the situation of having this be the recommendation.

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

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

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray? No. Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling?

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: President Kim? Yes. Commissioner Weissman-Ward? Yes. Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: The next item on the agenda is two sixty three dash two four SP three of approval of Pips and waivers. Can I have a motion and a second?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: I move that we approve item two sixty three-twenty four SP3.

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

[Apollo Quezada (Executive Director, Labor Relations)]: We just have for approval the one provisional internship permit for a special educator who teaches in early education.

[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.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

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

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Yes.

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

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: President Kim has a standing recusal from the consent calendar due to his employment with the city and county of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SFUSD in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict. Superintendent, there any changes to the consent calendar?

[Maria Su (Superintendent)]: There are none. Thank you.

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

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

[Dr. Jennifer (Jen) Steiner (LEAD)]: Could we have a

[Jaime Huling (Vice President)]: roll call vote please Mr. Trujillo?

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Ray?

[Supryia Ray (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Alexander? Yes. Vice President Huling? Yes. President Kim? Commissioner Weissman Ward?

[Speaker 24.0]: Yes.

[Manuel Trujillo (Board Clerk)]: Commissioner Gupta? Yes. Commissioner Fisher?

[Alida Fisher (Commissioner)]: Yes.

[Phil Kim (Board President)]: This meeting is adjourned 11:57PM.

[Speaker 5.0]: SFGov TV.