State Board of Education Meeting January 9, 2020

001All right, good. So we're going to get going. All right, we're good. Yeah, everybody on that side was not sitting, so I was like, wait a minute, half the board is missing. All from charters. All right. Good morning. We're going to get started. We're reconvening. All right. Reconvening the January 8th, 9th, 2020 meeting of the state board. Good morning, everyone. Come on. With bright, shiny faces, and this is the way we start our new day. Yeah, there we go. Thank you. I don't know, but we're from a cohort. We're from the same cohort. We could sing it for you, but I'm not quite ready to sing this morning. Item 11 is our first item of the day. It is the special education item, State Annual Performance Report for Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities

002Education Act of 2004, covering program year 2018-19. And the item will be presented by Kristen Wright of the CDE. Kristen, please begin. Good morning. Good morning. Happy New Year, board members, President Darling-Hammond. I'm Kristen Wright, director of the Special Education Division here at the Department of Education. I will be joined up shortly by Shiloh Becerril, who is our California State Data Administrator for Special Education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And she is responsible for ensuring that we collect our data. from special education and that we report it properly and accurately. So I'm going to book in today's presentation, but before I hand it off to Shiloh, I wanted to share a couple quick updates with you. So again, we are excited and overwhelmed with the focus that we have on special education right

003now and our students with disabilities. And we look forward to seeing the needle really start to move around that. We feel like it's a really collective effort that's happening in the state. with the assistance of obviously the dashboard and the accountability system, but also the wonderful colleagues across the state system of support, including you all, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence and Carla Estrada, and our county offices, and all of our partners that we work with in the Special Education Division. It is really an all-hands-on-deck effort. I also want to give a shout-out to Shiloh and her data team, and the CALPADS team, because they have been working tirelessly. to merge the data systems. And I think you all know what a feat that has been to take our very antiquated special ed data system

004and evolve it into CALPADS and all the idiosyncrasies that go with that. So that is still happening. It's real. And the CASEMIS data system is officially retired. Yes. They should throw a retirement party. And I know the Task Force for Special Education would have been happy to know that we are now having more one coherent system of data in California, and we look forward to more of that. And finally, I just want to let you know that we have promoted within the division Dr. Tina Transer, who has taken on the role to oversee our six focus monitoring units. And so you will see her around and hear of her. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as a teacher, principal, and leadership coach from Oakland Unified, as well as some other districts. And she's

005been in the division for the last few years and recently promoted to that position. So she oversees all those units. And we'll be doing a lot of updates to our monitoring system over the next year. So she'll be leading that work. So I'm going to now hand over the mic to Shiloh. who will provide you with the data, it's the what, that we'd like your approval to send on to the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs. And then I'll come up at the end if you have any questions, Shiloh and I will tag team that. Thank you. Good morning, board members. Good morning. It's so good to see you. I see there's some new faces, so I am just going to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about what I

006do. My name is Shiloh Duncan-Bessereel. I'm the Data Administrator for Special Education here at CDE, and my primary responsibility is all the data collection and reporting, state and federal reporting, for students with disabilities in California. So that includes data that was in the now-retired CASEMA system and will be in the CALPADS system. So I oversee all the collection, all the analysis, and all the reporting. I'm lucky I have a really... great team so it's not just me don't worry. So today I'm going to bring to you our annual performance report and talk a little bit about what that is. I'll start with an overview for you all about where we are, the state of the state for students with disabilities. How many students we have, what their compositions are. I'm happy to answer questions as

007we move forward. And then I'm going to walk through the annual performance report, not every indicator, because as much as I love this data thing, I know it's not everybody's thing, and at 8.30 in the morning it might be hard to walk through 16 indicators. So I'm going to select some indicators to go through, but I can answer questions about any of the indicators in the executive summary. This is going to be the first of sort of a three-part set of presentations that we will do before you over the next several meetings. The next, so there will be this annual performance report, which is how we did as a state for students with disabilities during the 18-19 school year. We will also be presenting some extension targets for the 19-20 year and I'll talk about

008that in a moment. And then in your March meeting we'll be presenting our state systemic improvement plan which is known as indicator 17. It's sort of a indicator that the US Department of Education requires us to submit that talks about all of our improvement activities and how we're improving outcomes for students with disabilities. And then We are now at the end of a six-year state performance plan cycle, so we will be coming to you all in the next several months to talk about how we're going to set targets for the next set of six years and what that looks like. So we will be walking through a number of performance indicators and looking at what our stakeholders have suggested for targets and allowing you all. to discuss that pride input and you will need to

009provide approval on those targets so that will happen over the next several meetings there is a little bit of a hitch in that and i'll talk about that a little in a little bit So we are required to submit the report that I'm going to present to you today to the US Department of Education in order to receive our 1.3 billion dollars in federal funds And if we do not submit it they can withhold those funds So that is something to keep in mind and that it the report is due February 1st We do have the ability to do some amendments later on if it's necessary We are also going to review some of the new requirements that the U.S. Department of Education has implemented this year. I always like to start with this education

010code. It's something that Kristen likes to also start with. This is not from the special education section of the education code. It is from 33080, and it says each child is a unique person with unique needs, and the purpose of the education system of this state is to enable each child to develop his or her own potential. And so I feel like that really sets the stage for what we're going to be talking about today. So one of my main jobs that I do is to talk about how many students with disabilities there are in California and what their outcomes are. So I always like to start with that. So in 2018-19, there were, on any given day in California, about 800,000 students with disabilities. Our census count is 795. 047 and those are students

011who are ages 0 through 22. Keep in mind we do serve children who are 0 through 5 by local education agencies. We also serve about 85,000 preschoolers ages 3 through 5 and I will be talking about preschoolers a little bit later and what that composition looks like. We have about 720,000 K-12 students and that represents 11.6 percent of California's K-12 population. So sometimes you'll hear different percentages out in the world, like 12%, 13%. Keep in mind that in order to have sort of an exact percentage where you have the number of students in the numerator, the same as the number in the denominator, we don't have a comparative group for that 0 to 5 population. So we tend to look at, we're talking about percent of students with disabilities. We look at that K-12 population,

012and this is that percentage. I used to do a really great chart called the Pac-Man charts. It was little circle charts that compared the composition of students with disabilities in the different LCFF student groups. This is a table that represents that chart. So about 11.6% is this number of students with disabilities throughout the entire population. But as you'll see in this table, In each of the student groups, the LCFF student groups, you will notice that the percentage of students with disabilities is greater than that 11%. So for students who are on free and reduced price meal eligibility, it's 13% of those students are students with disabilities. Students who are foster youth, 28% of foster youth are children with disabilities. And for our English language learners, 17% are children with disabilities. So there's a greater representation

013of students with disabilities within each. of the LCFF student groups. Sure. Oh I'm so sorry. That's okay. So we have 11.6% of students with disabilities throughout the state. But for students who are free and reduced-price meal eligible, it's 13%. And for students who are foster youth, it's 28% are students with disabilities. And for our English language learners, it is 17%. So a much larger population within each of the groups than we would see in the general, the total student population. And then 70% of our students with disabilities are in one or more. the LCFF student groups. So there's great overlap. So when we started talking about LCFF student groups and we started looking at data from the dashboard, you know, a lot of folks would say well this doesn't include students with disabilities, but it

014does. It overwhelmingly includes them. And so this idea of having all students represented and looking at all your student groups that you don't have one child that sits in one box and isn't touching anything else, this was really illuminating to that, to folks especially at the LEA level. So one of the things you'll notice is that we have increased the number of students with disabilities in the state year after year since 2005-6. And if you look at our total K-12 student population on this chart, you will notice that we've actually decreased the number of students in public schools in California. And, but while the number of students with disabilities has increased. So we increase between 10 and 20,000 students with disabilities every year. While the number of students in California has either remained flat or

015decreased. Folks often ask what is our most common disability categories and so our most common disability categories are specific learning disabilities which is about 37% of our students with disabilities 20% of our students with disabilities have a speech or language impairment and 15% have Have autism we also have 13% who have other health impairment and other health impairment includes students who are have ADHD So you'll find that in there as well And there's been quite a bit of change in what the categories have been over a period of time. So since 2005, we've seen a 10% increase in the number of students who are identified with autism. We have also seen a 7% increase in the number of students who are identified with an other health impairment. While we've seen a decrease in the number

016of students who have a speech and language impairment. So while that's gone down and also specific learning disability has gone down, we've seen an increase in the other categories. And then by race or ethnicity, you'll see the percent of students with disabilities is greater in some of the categories. For example, students who are Hispanic or Latino, there's a 3%. It's 3% higher than what we would see in the general population. And then there's also 3% lower for our Asian population. And then for our African-American population, it's about 2% to 3% higher than what we would see in our general population. So we do see some disproportionality. I'm going to talk about what we do around disproportionality a little bit later, so we can talk a little bit more about that. It is an indicator represented

017in the annual performance report. So there are about 86,000 preschool students with disabilities in California, and these are children ages 3 through 5. So the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act does not go by grade. It goes by age. And so all children ages 3 to 5 are considered preschool students for the purposes of IDEA. What that means is we do have some students who are in transitional kindergarten and kindergarten who are represented in our preschool numbers because they're age 5 on census date. And I'll talk a little bit more about some of the changes that we might see from the US Department of Education around this issue. Overwhelmingly, the majority of our preschool students have a speech or language impairment, about 60%, followed by students with autism at 26%. And that's been pretty steady over

018the last several years. And then we don't have a comparison group for students with, or for students with children with disabilities ages three through five to a general population. We do not have universal preschool, so it's hard to know what those numbers are. So I'm only presenting the students with disabilities here, but you'll see it's very similar to what we would see in the K-12 population, about 57% of our Hispanic and Latino students. students with disabilities are Hispanic or Latino, 21% white. We do see 4.9%, which is a little bit different than what we see in the K-12 population. So I overwhelmed you with a lot of introductory data. Does anybody have any questions before we move on to the meat of our presentation today? That was just the introductory data. Just to make you

019feel good about data, right? the percentage data for preschool by race is slightly different than K-12? What is that? So for example, for African-American students, children with disabilities ages 3 to 5, that percentage is 4.9%. But when you look at the percentage of students with disabilities K-12, you'll see that it's around 7%. So that is a difference. For Asian students, it's about 11% of Asian students have a disability. K-12, where it's about 9% here. So there's some variation. And is the hypothesis that it's under identification in the early? I don't know. I don't have that data right offhand. Something we could look into a little bit more. But it's not something that I have right now. It's just a difference that we are noting. I thought I was saying hand. Okay, I'm going to move

020on, but I'll be happy to come back. So today I'm presenting the annual performance report. And so you'll hear a couple of terms that we talk about throughout this report. One is called the APR, which stands for annual performance report. We'll also be talking about something called the SPP, which is the state performance plan. So the U.S. Department of Education requires states to set targets on a number of indicators that it identifies and then annually report on those targets. So the setting of those targets is the state performance plan. And the reporting on those targets and our outcomes is the APR. We are submitting the APR, and typically during this time we would also be having you all look at targets and submitting targets as well. However, the U.S. Department of Education notified us in

021October that they were not ready to publish the new six-year cycle of the annual performance report and that they would be requiring states to set extension targets. So when we did this last time in 2013, what we do typically is we look at our current levels of data and set new baselines for the six-year cycle, and then we set targets based on that baseline. However, this year we can't do that. We're not setting new baselines. So we're simply setting extension targets So you will notice inside of your executive summary target There is a set of it one-year extension targets that are simply an extension of what the target is So for example, if the target has been 1% per year increase or decrease we followed that in the extension targets and so Part of the

022approval of this item is also to approve those extension targets because we have to submit them to the U.S. Department of Education on February 1st. We will need, over the course of this year, once the U.S. Department of Education publishes its six-year state performance plan indicators, we'll have to set new targets for those indicators. They have indicated that they will make changes to the state performance plan indicators. I don't know what those changes are going to be yet. We have some indication that they are looking to make include students who are in kindergarten in the school age like least restrictive environment and those kinds of Indicators as opposed to putting them in preschool because it does all it didn't always exactly fit And so there's some indication around those things, but we won't know exactly

023what they are until we have the packet We hope that the packet will come out. They told us spring and so spring goes all the way through June So my hope is it's not that long that we will see a packet in April we can kind of work with our stakeholder group and bring you back some some draft targets to provide feedback to us. We will not need to submit targets until February next year. So we do have a lot of time to work with our stakeholder groups, to work with you all, to receive feedback and to identify the right amount of targets. And this has become important because there were some concerns in our federal court case around our targets. We want to make sure we get it right. So the State Board, I'm

024sorry, the State Board must approve this item and the annual performance report consists of 17 indicators. Some of them are compliance and some of them are performance. The compliance targets, we cannot set a different target. It's either zero or 100%. And then the performance indicators, they must be set with the collaboration of stakeholders approved by the State Board of Education. They were re-benched in 2013 and they will now go through 19-20. So the data for the annual performance report for the annual performance report you're seeing before you is collected with data from the CALPAD system and the CASEMA system. 18-19, we still use the CASEMA system. When we present to you next year in 19-20, it will be... only the CALPADS system. So we're very excited to see that KSMIS was now retired as of

025this year. It's very exciting. It's a five long year process. And we included almost 400 new validations around data for students with disabilities. We may see data that's different next year. And that doesn't mean our data this year is wrong or that data is incorrect. What people are doing now, which I think is very exciting, is that they're having a lot of conversations about where students are enrolled because enrollment is being compared, race and ethnicity is being compared. So a lot of LEA conversations are happening around, do we have the right data? Is this correct? We want to make sure it's consistent. Is everybody trained in the right way? And so I think we're going to see a little bit of a change in the data, but I think it's going to be better. So

026I'm actually very excited about it. And the fact that we're going to have longitudinal data around students with disabilities, I can go back and see for a student how long they've been in it and have an IEP, how long they've been in district, what districts they were in. I think that's really exciting. And associating it with enrollment is very exciting. We also received data from the Office of Administrative Hearings for this report as well. This data will reflect 18-19 school year data. There are three indicators that are lag year, which means they are actually 17-18 data, and those are graduation, dropout, and suspension expulsion. Okay, so now we can actually get to the indicators. So I'm going to provide you all in the item and also on the presentation this table, just like this, that

027identifies all the indicators. And these indicators, I believe, are on page 13 and 14 of your item. And it's a very, it's like a one or two page document that goes through all the indicators and whether or not we met the target and what the changes were. I will not be going through each indicator. I'm going to select some indicators. However, if any of you all have questions about any of the indicators, I was joking with one of my colleagues. I started this job when my son was a baby and now he's 10 and this was, has been my, like one of my pieces of work that whole time. So him and my, this and him are like the same age in my life. 10 years. So I do this is one thing I do

028know and so we're going to talk a little bit about I want to talk about disproportionality so in the in the in your performance report we have things called suspension and Assessment and graduation and they're not the same as what's in the dashboard which I know can feel very confusing we The US Department of Education publishes the indicators and also publishes the only ways we can calculate the indicators. So we actually don't have a choice about how we calculate and present this data to the US Department of Education. So it will be different than what's presented in the dashboard. It's a different calculation, different sets of data. However, we have, and we can talk about this in your next meeting in March around the state systemic improvement plan, we have aligned all of our monitoring

029and how we hold districts accountable the same manner. So while we report something different to the U.S. Department of Education, when we work with LEAs, we make sure we're using a consistent methodology. There are several indicators associated with disproportionality. One of them is indicator 4B, which identifies... disproportionality based on race or ethnicity with suspension and expulsion. And then we determine if students, if we review files and if there are non-compliances associated with disproportionality. So we identify a district, we review files. Then we determine whether or not there's non-compliance and that's what this indicator is that's why it's a compliance indicator not a performance indicator and so in 2017 we are at 6.3 percent of districts who were disproportionate had non-compliance and this year we identified 4.8 percent of districts were had non-compliance so that's a

030change of about 1.4 percent keep in mind it's a 0 percent indicator so we did not meet the target Indicator 9 and the subsequent indicator 10 are disproportionate representation by identification. So it looks at the race or ethnicity of students with disabilities and determines if the district is disproportionate. If it is disproportionate, then the district is required to go through a review process, reviewing files to determine if there's noncompliance. Last year we had 0.8% of students... of districts identified non-compliance this year 1.6 percent identified non-compliance so an increase of a little bit less than one percent and then indicator 10 we identified um districts who were disproportionate and this is based on a specific disability category so we looked at all the disability categories by race or ethnicity identified it as if a district was

031disproportionate and then they went through a perform a compliance review last year we had 27. 76% identified non-compliance. This year we had 9% identified non-compliance. So a change of about 17%. But again, we're not meeting the target. The target is zero. So let's talk a little bit about what disproportionality is and how that leads to something called significant disproportionality. Because if you work near or around LEAs, this is probably an important hot topic. the requirement to identify disproportionality has always existed in IDEA and so in 2016 though prior to 2016 districts could identify any method they wanted to identify disproportionality and that led to a lot of variability among states for example in California we always identified districts as being disproportionate and significantly disproportionate but states like Missouri never identified a district as being disproportionate

032in part because of the methodology that they used. And so the U.S. Department of Education changed the regulations in 2016 and required all states to use a common methodology for identifying districts for being disproportionate, and that is the risk ratio calculation. It also required the state to set a minimum end size, a minimum cell size, and to set a determination for reasonable progress, and we also walked through that. So we define... disproportionality, significant disproportionality, sort of as it's put into the law, which is must ensure that LEAs identify students with disabilities and provide the resources and supports they need to have equal access to education regardless of race or ethnicity. And so the way that disproportionality works is we go through that calculation methodology with the alternate risk ratio. And the alternate risk ratio is

033like looking at how you as a district with a specific race or ethnicity category are identifying students compared to how all the other students in the district are being identified. And our risk ratio threshold is three, which means you have to be over-identifying three times what we would expect based on your composition in order to be selected, which is a pretty standard methodology nationwide. And so the disproportionality calculation is a one-year calculation, and each district is required to complete a compliance review. And then if a district is disproportionate over three years, they become significantly disproportionate. As a state, we decided to use disproportionality as an early warning system to districts so that they could make changes prior to becoming significantly disproportionate. Because if a district is significantly disproportionate, then they must set aside 15% of

034their federal funds for students with disabilities and use it to develop a coordinated early intervening services plan. So, it becomes sort of a fiscal implication. So, the first year they're identified for disproportionality, they should do a root cause, identify what the issues are. Second year, if they're identified, they should be changing practices, implementing evidence-based practices. And then if they're still identified in the third year, they will have that fiscal consequence of that set aside. So we applied the new methodology stepwise instead of going back and recalculating previous years of data. We started in 16-17 identifying LEAs and then we added the new methodology each year. So it was a hybrid methodology. This is the first year we'll actually be using three years of the new methodology. In 16-17, we identified 945 LEAs. In 17-18, we

035identified 677 LEAs for disproportionality, the one-year calculation. And this year, we identified 322 LEAs. Some of that was due to some clarification from the U.S. Department of Education around the utilization of the risk ratio. So I don't want to get too statistic-y. That's a real word. The way the risk ratio works is very sensitive to... to small size, small end size. And even though I go all over the country, people say everybody in the country thinks, oh, California has huge districts like LA, but we also have very small districts and rural districts. And because of that, very small districts can easily get caught up in disproportionality when it's one or two students using a risk ratio. And so the US Department of Education has published clarification that we can use an exclusionary criteria when the

036end size is too low. And we work through a stakeholder group also to set the minimum end size. to sort of exclude students or to use an alternate risk ratio where it's appropriate. So that's why you kind of see over the course of time, one of the reasons you see a decrease in the numbers is because we sort of refined our methodology. I also think there's districts who are making improvements over time, and so we're seeing that as well. This year, we're using the three-year significant disproportionality using all. Three years of the new methodology will find 138 LEAs will be significantly disproportionate, which is a big increase. Last year we identified 20. So we'll see about a hundred more LEAs identified in significant disproportionality. They will need to set aside 15% of their IDEA funds

037and they will need to create a coordinated early intervening services plan. These districts have been working through disproportionality over the last three years, so it's not necessarily a new set of information. So I know people typically have lots of questions about disproportionality, so I just wanted to pause here and give folks a minute if they had questions about this calculation, the process, the districts. Well, first of all, Shiloh, I want to begin by saying thank you for the work that you and your department do on this. I've had an opportunity to go to a lot of the stakeholder meetings concerning disproportionality and observe the conversations. They are, the people in the room are intensely interested not only in this policy but the impact of the change and how the risk ratio computations are actually made.

038They were very thoughtful in giving advice on the type of waiver, the type of work that California needs to do as this process and this policy was going to affect or have an impact on rural school districts. I do have a question. Understanding that the plan requires them to encompass some of their federal funds from IDEA to implement this plan. I want to also understand what is the nexus between the type of planning they need to do as it relates to their IDEA program. and their LCAP since we continue to try to educate locals that special ed students or general ed students as well. Is there a nexus in any of this work or consideration in what we task districts or county offices to do with regard to their LCAP? Yes. And we are in

039the process right now of sort of coalescing and making more coherent our monitoring practices including over time this has been a very separate thing even from some of the other special education monitoring activities right so it was kind of sitting over here but what we know is that it's all interrelated this happens coming out of a lot of things from general ed from the beginning as opposed to just a special ed type of treatment so the answer is at this point we are putting significant disproportionality within the context of one plan for special education for districts instead of multiple plans so that there can start to be some cohesion. So when, as we start to develop this even more over time, there can be that direct tie between that one special ed plan that looks

040at... disproportionality as well as the other issues because we have a lot of districts in numerous different activities they're working on increasing assessment scores you know behavioral issues other things that really need to all dovetail into one coherent plan versus all these separate things and then different people are assigned in districts or whatever to these separate things so yes we are absolutely thinking about that, we're enacting sort of a basic model this year and we're bringing significant, so for our districts that are in intensive review. significant disproportionality is going to fit in that category of getting that intensive technical assistance and we're trying to kind of marry those things. Does that help? Yes, that does help. On its face, I know I should be concerned that the number of LEAs identified as being in significant

041disproportionality jumped from 20 to 138. And on its face, I know I should be concerned, particularly because the students who are impacted are language learners. Hispanic students and African American students. But because of the explanation you gave about the state's effort to create some coherence in how to do the planning and in that way exerting the leadership in this vacuum for these LEAs, I'm going to hold on to that concern and that anxiety to see what the sustained effect for this statewide planning and assertive guidance is actually going to look like. Other questions about disproportionality? Is there somewhere that we could see which districts have been, have the significant disproportionality? We don't have it publicly posted yet. We haven't notified all the districts yet, and so we will. So this will actually affect their 2021

042budget year set aside. So we are getting ready to notify them this month so that they can prepare their budgets for the upcoming 2020 fiscal year. Okay, I'm going to continue on. There are a number of performance indicators. Again, we will not be going through all of them. Here's the general takeaway I will give you around the performance indicators. Some indicators we did better. Some indicators we did worse. In general, we are going in the direction where we would like to go. So we are improving where we need to improve, and we are going down where we need to go down. It's just not at a rate we would prefer to see. So, in many cases, it's about 1% change. The thing I do like people to remember when we talk about students with disabilities,

0431% does equal about 7,000 to 8,000 students. So, when we're thinking of it that way, it is a change for those 7,000 students. We want to see more. We want to see more growth, especially in some of the areas that I'm going to point out today. So I want to talk a little bit about the statewide assessment indicator. So again, this is an indicator that is a little bit different in terms of the way that we present the data for the dashboard. So this does not look at how close students are to meeting the standard. It has the percentage of students who are meeting standards or exceeding standards. And it does not take into account the change from the previous year. So the target for participation is 95% and the targets for proficiency is 15.9%

044in ELA and 13.6% in math. Folks often ask me why are those targets seemingly so low in part because when we started the benchmark process when the CASP first came out The results where we started, the baseline was low. And so we've increased since that time, but we started at around 10%, and we're not going to set the target at 30%. We're going to kind of continue that process. But we'd have those conversations when we start the target-setting process in the upcoming year for the state performance plan. So for participation in general, the target is 95%. We did not meet the target in math or in ELA this year. We were a little bit below, 94.5% and 94.1%. We did have indicator three, which is our proficiency rate. So the top chart here is where

045we are this year as compared to last year's, the bottom chart. We met the targets for ELA and math for all types of districts. We separate the data by the type of district because elementary schools are different than high school districts and unified school districts. We do see more variability among our high school districts because typically that is solely 11th grade. So it's that one year 11th grade test. You will see more variability there. We did meet the target for ELA. And in fact, we increased from the previous year in all the categories in ELA. In math, we also saw increases across the board, but we did not meet the target in high school districts and unified districts. So the target for high school districts is at 13.6%. We have been improving. We're still only

046at 8.1%. Did anyone have questions there? I'm going to continue on. So I want to talk a little bit about least restrictive environment. And people typically talk about this about placement. And there are three categories. This is where a student goes to school the majority of their day. So are they spending 80% more of their time in a regular classroom? Are they spending less than 40% of time in a regular classroom? Are they in a separate school or placement altogether? And so our targets for those are 52% for students all day in a class, 21% for students who are in a classroom. 40% of the day are less in a class, and 38% of students, or 3.8% of students who are served in a separate placement altogether. And the good news is that we did

047meet the target for each one of these indicators, which is very good. However, for each one of these indicators, we saw less than a 1% gain. So, for example, we only saw a change from our 2017 result, which was 56.1% to 56.8%, a 0.7% increase. So, we did see an increase. That's the good news. We did not see as much of an increase as we would like. Preschool least restrictive environment. So one of the things that we're measured against, so preschool is a little bit different. It's not necessarily where the student goes to preschool. It's where they're provided their services. Right so are the services being provided in a regular preschool program or they provided in a separate school or somewhere else and so in general we met the target for students who were in

048a Regular preschool program receiving receiving services and then but we did decrease so that's something to kind of point out is that we went from 37 percent of students who are in a receiving their services in a regular preschool classroom to 36.5 percent we do want to see fewer students being served in a separate class and we did see that but a small percentage decline of 0.05 percent so it's really almost the same so The key kind of takeaway that we want to really identify is that while we saw fewer students being served in a regular classroom, we also want to make sure that we're not seeing a decline in students who are having access to a regular education curriculum. And Kristen will often talk about this, is that when we start to have students

049in regular classrooms included at the preschool level, it sort of carries on into their elementary school. It's sort of like that's the on-ramp. And so that idea that we can have students in preschool, more access to preschool, more preschool options for students, children with disabilities at that age, where they're kind of accessing and practicing positive behavior. appropriate levels of behavior for children where they are practicing social-emotional and language skills. That's really important and we want to see that because that continues when they start their school age and K-12 journey. So one area that we did see a decline is in our post-secondary outcomes. I want to always sort of set the caveat on how this is measured. We measure this data by asking districts to follow up on students one year after they've left school

050and then see if the student is going to college, if they're competitively employed, if they're in some other kind of training program, other kind of employment. And so this is a rolling indicator. So the first part of the indicator identifies students in higher education one year after they leave school. The second part of the indicator, B, identifies students who are both in higher education and competitively employed. adding B into A. And then C is any student who's in any kind of employment or education, competitively in great employment and higher education. So one of the things that we did see here was we met the target and increased slightly for students who are enrolled in higher education. However, we decreased almost 7% for students with disabilities who are accessing competitive integrated employment after high school. Almost

0517% decrease. So that's not something that we would typically want to see. We want to see more access to competitive integrated employment for our children who are leaving high school. And then we pretty much, we increase a little bit for students who are accessing some other type of employment or education. So questions about that? So I'm not, those are the only indicators I've selected to go through, but I wanted to provide this opportunity to anybody who had any questions about any other indicators or any of the things I've presented today. Shiloh, thank you so much because this is really... You made what was a really deep dive, pretty simple to understand, I think, even though it can be quite complicated. Can you go back to Indicator 10? Absolutely. Because even though you were talking about

052the challenges of disproportionality, I think in relationship to the decrease you saw there. That's huge there. Can you speak to that? So one of the things we saw is that students with disability, or I'm sorry, districts who are identified with being disproportionate, it's the same districts, and I think they're continuing to work. So they went through a review last year, so they're continuing to work on their practices, policies, and procedures. We're continuing to review that and making sure that we're identifying the right items as we're going forward. I mean, because I think the ad for me is just, boy, if we saw minus 17%, we'd be lighting confetti cannons for any other data. And I think it's important to call out that this is significant. Number two, we've made steady growth, but the caveat is

053not enough. So when we're thinking about this... 7% access to competitive employment, it's probably related to the reality that only about 14% of our students with disabilities are acquiring a higher degree, like a BA and beyond. And that's directly related to the least restrictive environment issue, which is that they have access and high expectations around rigorous curriculum in the general education classroom. So I think the LRE data is probably the key to where we can have a boost, a shot in the arm, because it appears, if I'm, maybe you can speak to that, it appears that even over, even though we've seen an increase of approximately 5,000 students, it's over several years, which is less than, so essentially we're not really tapping the needle. Right? Am I understanding that correctly? That is correct. So we

054do see 5,000 students who are moving to a more integrated classroom, which is exciting. I always liken that to this about the student population of San Francisco Unified. However, it's still just not enough. I mean, if you think about statewide, we have 2,200 school districts and charter schools. That's, you know, two students per. per LEA. And so we want to see more, right, obviously. And I think Kristen can speak to that. Yeah, and I think it's important to keep in mind, too, that every student on their IEP is on an individual entitlement for where their placement is. And so what we do want to see is definitely an increase in access to general education. What we don't want to see is some sweeping, you know, one day you have a system and everyone has an

055IEP that's saying where they're being served, and then the next day... It's something completely different because every IEP has to be discussed, as you know, Matt, with parents to determine, you know, and a lot of this is around a culture shift. And that's why the preschool piece is so important is because you're. telling parents at the beginning that children belong and that their family belongs. And so that does carry on. So I think we're at a really pivotal point in our state. We're really shifting that with all that we're putting into preschool and the partnerships around inclusion in preschool. Hopefully we'll start to see that trend. But we have kids in high school that have been in separate settings their entire life, that started in preschool their entire life. So there is some, you know,

056we talk to a lot of parents and there is some fear about all of a sudden one day you're going to be fully included. in your high school when you've never been included before. And so we have a lot of work to do there, and we're doing a lot of work around our Supporting Inclusive Practices project and other projects around the preschool issues to address those things. And then also to Matt's point about the the competitive integrated employment, we still have a really significant issue around the diploma. And so if you consider that most employers require a high school diploma even to get in the door. And so unless you're volunteering, which is not competitive integrated employment, you cannot get a viable job unless you have a diploma. We're at 66% graduation rate right now

057for students with disabilities. And I know we want to get into in the discussion a little bit more about the diploma question, but we are now getting into discussion and we're supposed to be in clarification. So I just want to give Nikki Sandoval an opportunity as our liaison to make any comments before we then get into public comment and then we'll come back to discussion. Thank you, well it's I Appreciate the great work that you do I just I don't know how you all get any sleep really You're just so deep into this and then also I don't And I think this particular executive summary that we're being asked to review and approve today is the what you know the state of special education in the state and There's going to be more work around

058the data and what we do with it and how do we? Act on it to better serve our students and there is a lot of great work happening. I think to move the needle in a in the right direction and March we'll talk more about the what and what's happening, and I think there's more integration and cohesion now than in than has been in a really long time and a lot of agency coordination And we've got such a great team in place working on this so I just thank you for breaking it down and for anticipating the questions in those key areas, especially around disproportionality, suspension and expulsion, graduation and assessment, because we have some incremental successes to acknowledge, but also a really long way to go. So I don't have any further clarifying questions

059because your presentation was really clear. Thank you. But I do say, you know, stay tuned for a deeper discussion in the how we're addressing it as a state in March. This is the what. So I do want to get to public comment, then we'll come back and really do a deeper discussion. Do we have any public comment? Yes. Gina Plate. And please state your name and affiliation for the record. Frederick Augustus Gale, Jr. September 22nd, 1931. And previously I served on the Rio Linda Union School, not Rio Linda, Elementary School District Board of Directors and the Grant one. And I was just charting some things down. Nash, Packard, DeSoto, Plymouth, LaSalle, Hudson, Tucker, Mercury, Oldsmobile, and Austin. And I'm with Paul Robeson, Thomas Payne, Allison Davids. with Dan Van Gutter, Common Sense Society. But I

060would ask you to read, this is a classic case of special education, Sac City, the Holland case, versus Sac, the Minnesota Unified School District. It was monitored by MacDraw School of Law. Everybody should have it. And some of the questions we were asking about was covered. The common one, we don't have the resources, et cetera, et cetera. Did not pass the muster Read that and you really see you know you're not trying to reinvent the wheel The law is there. It's the Magna Carta of special education time We can't you know poor districts don't have the resources no excuse so I read that it might save some time and If you can get a copy Probably online, but if you make a jump to go to law you can go back and get this voluminous.

061Sac City right here. Time. It was Holland case for the person and the rules were set there. Time. Exclusion was limited and thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning. PRESIDENT DARLING-HAMMOND, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, CHIEF DEPUTY, HAPPY NEW YEAR. GINA PLATE, SPECIAL EDUCATION AND CCSA. And first, I want to thank Kristen Wright and Shiloh for their presentation and share that the Advisory Commission on Special Ed heard this information back in October and are in full support, encourage you to be in full support. It sounds like I don't even have to say that because folks are in full support because of the detail they provided. I also want to commend the department because, as Kristen said early on, this is an exciting time. And the way, you know, Board Member Navo, the way that you

062commented on how Shiloh broke down the data is what the department is doing statewide. And they're doing such a nice job of helping the field understand how to take this complex data and to your point, Board Member Rucker, include it in their LCAP discussions and bring together many discussions in a way that includes each and every child. So I encourage you to support and thank you for the time. Seeing no other public comment. Let's open the floor for a board discussion, which we were well launched on and Remember Navajo. Thank you so much for getting us into that Observation about the places where we're really showing serious gains I just want to add to that as we're launching the further discussion that it would be great to look at some of the places where those

063gains are happening and really study that and be able to speak to what they're doing that's producing that effect. So we should look into that. Other comments that folks want to make? Yes, Member Strauss? I want to thank the team for the really hard work and the presentation. I think the data is really starting to impact local district practice and special education. So from our dashboard and highlighting it and being out and working in districts. districts who are high achieving districts are suddenly getting a red and then having to take a look at what happened. And so in my work out in school districts, just to reinforce the benefit of use of data, it's really helping districts take a look at universal design for learning, more inclusive classrooms, where the traditional practice had been less

064inclusivity in the early training many years ago. And the CTC is working on additional training through credentialing programs, and it's really generated a really strong conversation about what is best practice. for students with a variety of disabilities. So I just want to support the use of the data and the rollout and the work that's going on around the state to help them understand the data that districts are getting now and to recognize that this is so going to benefit our students in the long run. So using data, helping them understand how to unpack it and what practices to do when they identify a problem. because they honestly don't know sometimes what to do to change it because that's how they were trained. So I just think I really am excited about the direction we're going

065in in the use of data and I'd be interested in hearing, I know Nikki said it's coming back in March, about sort of what are we doing out in the field to help them understand and unpack and change practice. Thanks. Yes, member son and my comments are very similar to members rouse I look forward to this data every year I really I appreciate how much work goes into it and it's always so illustrative I always feel however that we stopped short of having that next conversation So I'm very happy to hear that we will be talking about this in March About what now do we do state as a state? We know the issues we don't broach on the funding, resources and funding and our current system that we have for the funding of special

066education. What's not working? What is working what we need to do to fix to make it better? It is a mindset cultural shift as Kristen had had Said about what we need to do at the school site level for many of us, but what are we doing to help shift that and it goes into our Curriculum and looking at how instruction is is done for all students. So there's a lot that we need to talk about. We have shortages in special education. It's hard, very, very difficult to find qualified, trained teachers, psychologists, all kinds of staff. So in order to meet these targets, we have to talk about the surround and I'm not sure that we as a state have really had that conversation. So I'm hoping that in March that we get a little

067bit deeper into that and it's not just looking at the data and we get into really kind of roll up our sleeves and talk about what now we need to do and where we want to go. Think that's a really good point and I'm gonna come over to member Patio Bronson, but I will note that last year the governor put 90 million dollars in the budget for addressing teacher shortages through scholarships for special education teachers math and science teachers that begins this month so those will go out on the street to schools of education to encourage people to you know, go into those fields. And last year also there was an allocation of funding for professional development around social-emotional learning and restorative practices, which we know are really related to the issues of suspension. Again,

068that's about to go out into the field, and we'll want to monitor how some of those attempts and whatever comes this year are helping us really build a support system for those actions. Member Patio-Brownson. I also just want to thank the team, Shaila and Kristen, for the presentation. This data is just very well presented and digestible. One question or maybe area for highlight, and this picks up on Ting's point around what next for March, is around Indicator 12 and early childhood transitions. For the data where we haven't been meeting our our transition targets consistently from the 2013 to 2018 period. And this is the data around the percentage of children who are found eligible for Part B have an IEP developed but not implemented by their third birthday. This gets to this idea of preventing

069the achievement gap early and getting services to children before they become a lot more expensive, candidly. Thinking about as we get to March what we can learn about where it's not happening But also where there are bright spots that can be emulated and shared across districts the I think the the rule of thumb that you had described earlier was that a percentage point is is about 7,000 kids and we're we're falling short by about five percent of our target which is 35,000 kids across the state. This is an area for growth for sure but also one that has huge implications for LEAs who then have the kids a couple years later. May I comment to that? You may be interested that in this last budget, there was a $500,000 allocation for us to convene two

070work groups under SB 75, one for the C to B transition. And so one of our charges, and we've just begun that work with the Department of Developmental Services, is to look at what the barriers are to smooth C to B transition and to make recommendations to the legislature. about what needs to happen if there's some kind of statutory changes or whatever those barriers are whether they're local regional or statewide and So we are really excited to be doing that work and are happy to keep you apprised of that or if you want to be able in some way as well And Part C to Part B. So our Part C program is our infant and toddler program. While we serve about 5,000 children with disabilities in that program at local education agencies, there is

071another about 45,000 infants and toddlers with disabilities that are served at regional centers, which is administered by the Department of Developmental Services. And so it's working in coordination with those entities as the children are moving from those regional center programs into preschool programs. And we know that districts have found that time. timeline to be challenging as they're moving on and ensuring that coordination. So I think part of that work group is also working through helping districts improve communication between the regional centers, help children make that timely transition. And also start those conversations earlier. So not waiting until almost 3 to try to figure out what's next. So a lot of good work happening there. Thank you for bringing that up. Other discussion? Member Rucker? Well, there's a couple of the items in the statistics that

072I wanted to ask you to go and show again because I have both a question and a comment. On the placement goals, and you had the three categories of the placement goals for least restrictive environment, the conversation that we are having about those goals... is very different than the conversation that school districts and classroom teachers have, particularly as it relates to the push to increase the number of students with disabilities who are in general education programs. Because while we have this very specific and important goal, many schools do not understand what the program and support requirements are for those classroom teachers and those students in the classroom. So part of the reason why I asked Kristen what is the plan or what is the nexus in doing the planning for this, because one of the

073things I was struck by Shiloh's data is the continuing increase in the number of students being identified in the special education population. If the percentage of students in general ed classrooms is going to continue to grow, the urgency for the type of planning and the support requirements that should be happening at the classroom level is not happening. And so part two of our conversation in March or whenever we have that conversation, I would really like to hear from your division what is in your plan. What is the... architecture of the support that you're giving and the guidance you're offering in this broad state plan and how does it contemplate that impact. But the other thing I think about is I sit here and I'm the liaison for the math framework. I found this data compelling

074because it informs some other conversations. We're looking at Every single month we have waivers concerning resource programs. And while one of the compelling reasons why we can deny a waiver is because it's not in the best interest of the students, we've done a lot of work to work with districts directly to give them greater responsibility for the due diligence and the decisions they make about staffing these programs. But I think this data tells us we should be doing more in having the conversation about those resource program waivers. what districts are doing because by the time they get to the point that they need to request a waiver from the board, it's not, there's some other things that are going on about the delivery of services for those students that aren't happening. We need to think

075about those things. And then as I sit here looking at the work that we're about to undertake in revising, revising. the math framework and I did actually want to say reviving I'm sensitive to the fact that there's a lot of criticism and what resulted in the adoption that came from that framework and I'm also sensitive to the fact that we still need to do more work to provide an instructional frame for the classroom teachers I think that this information also should inform the way we revise and even rewrite some of those scenarios that are in the framework that show instructional sequences or that give examples of instructional interaction activities because we're not knowing that our students with disabilities are emerging as a priority student subgroup across the state, providing instructional resources and guidance about what

076the integration of those students into general ed programs. and the lesson planning considerations, we have an opportunity in the framework to reframe that conversation as well because this data defines that. So even though it's a separate and related item, I'm hoping as part of that conversation in March, the board also suggests some guidance for what we should be doing in writing about universal designs for learning in our framework and how we write instructional scenarios for the framework that give teachers a great deal of guidance. Discussion before we make a motion to adopt this report Yes, I understand them all. I know this is jumping ahead to March, but it does follow up on member Rutgers but if you could speak just a little bit Kristen about the System of support and the improvement leads and

077I know there's a launch of a website and that has some professional learning resources So those are things that are already happening. You could just elaborate a bit on that There is definitely a lot happening around Understanding that the field and teachers in particular need a lot of support there They're getting a whole new set of students many times in their classrooms, and we've heard back from teachers that they feel unprepared for certain types of disabilities and behaviors. And so how do we make sure we're empowering them? We have, from last year, a series, and in the budget, a series of SUPA leads that you've had presented, coming to present to you before. Those SUPA leads are doing some incredible work developing resources, and we've asked them to not just support, their task is to

078support. other SELPAs in being able to support the LEAs in their district or in their catchment area. But what they're doing is developing resources at all the tiers. So there's Tier 1 resources for everyone and Tier 2 resources for them to be – they're doing statewide trainings. And they're also supporting SELPAs that have districts and differentiated assistance. They're working across the leads. So they're also informing the geo leads. They're working closely within the state system of support as a team member. And so there's a lot of sharing happening that hasn't really happened in our state up to now. And so thank you for asking that question because I do think we are sort of trying to build overall state capacity. We're also doing that from the special ed division lens where we have our own

079projects and contractors that we're also working with. districts directly like our supporting inclusive practice project and other projects that also are now becoming integrated with the system of support. So usually we had our own activities and we did our thing and then the other parts of the system did their own thing. Really everyone is coming together. like never before to be able to build that capacity with teachers. And one of the things we've had quite a bit of research over the past couple years, I think you heard the Ventura research around access to general ed for students with disabilities. The data is compelling around how much better students do when they get access to good teaching and curriculum. And traditionally we've had very separate curriculum. for students with disabilities who are served in separate classrooms.

080And so when teachers are trying to bring in kids to include them in gen ed, they're completely lost because they haven't, they're not even on the same track or trajectory with what they're learning. And so part of this is how can everyone be on the same trajectory with their learning? Because we do require that. IEP goals are aligned to grade level standards. We expect that kids get to learn new information every year and have access to all that's in our frameworks and our standards. And so... the curriculum piece does become a huge piece. And it would be our dream to have that integrated in one curriculum where you have universal design for learning as the foundation because it requires so much less going back and changing things later and modifying because you have so much

081built into that first tier. So thank you. Member Burr and then member Ortiz-Lacalle. I can't let this go by without circling back to our accountability system and Reminding folks that a couple of years ago when we first revealed the data For the dashboard folks were shocked that the student subgroup that was most reflected were students with disabilities Both Shiloh and Kristen's done this before show the important overlap with our also underrepresented groups on the basis on which we fund LCFF But I really believe that the the shining the light on students with disabilities made districts sit back and go whoa We have been you know, maybe paying attention to wrong things or organizing in a way That's not the most beneficial to all of our students And I think I just want to reinforce that

082because to me that's kind of when the light bulb went on and also celebrate again what Kristen said at the very beginning. The elimination of a separate data system for special ed, this sort of segregation to use a nasty word, but we have had with students with disabilities for so many years. is slowly but surely being broken down. And we have to have the next conversation, which a number of people have mentioned, which is what do we do about it and how do we fund it and all of that. But I think we have to celebrate that, that we're moving in the right direction. We have a lot of work to do. And this conversation about the system of support is very important. Again, I think without that initial identification, we wouldn't have gotten additional

083funding. We wouldn't be focused on the SELPAs. I just want to say, yay, we're moving in the right direction. And it's also, I think, an opportunity to say our accountability system that said, if you tell LEAs the information that they need, they will do what's right on behalf of students. Member Ortiz-Lacoque? I actually wanted to touch upon that too because I think that the conversations have been so siloed. I am glad we're moving more towards integration, but we also have to build a capacity going back to what Board Member Rucker was saying, teacher practice and just environments. When you look at students with disabilities, 57% are Latino students, right? When you could look at a student who's Latino, who's an English learner, who has a speech delay, who's low income, there's four different characteristics or

084identities of the student that have to be met in four different ways. And so we also want to make sure that we integrate without melting the identity of that student, making sure that we have an approach and expertise to tease out those needs from that student group. So it's not just a student. a student with disabilities is a student with disability that is an English learner, that is low income, that needs to be taught in culturally competent ways. I don't know that we have those expertise. I don't know that people could look at a student and sort of tease out all of those identities and that intersectionality is going to be critical moving forward. So I think that was initially the concern that we're blending it all into one. So I do think that it's

085important for us to take an approach that understands that these are our students, but within that approach have those expertise that are looking at the different needs that student has. Thank you. Point that member Burr made also note that you know while we're having these conversations the Commission on teacher credentialing is redefining the credentialing standards for general ed teachers to include a stronger knowledge base about students with disabilities and differentiation the the credentialing standards for education specialists are also being changed and that the old standards led to some of the segregation Because of the way they were defined and then teachers couldn't work across groups of students So that we are moving in multiple places and we're going to need to do that because the most fundamental thing For the students we're concerned about here

086is that they have expert Teachers so we've got to solve the teacher shortage we've got to build the capacity and pre-service and in in service and then also do all this work that Kristen has talked about and the whole team about What the service delivery models are etc. I know we want to get to moving this Forward and it's been a great conversation. We're going to come back to it in March And I do want for us to take a minute just to hear what you had to say about the diploma question, but we will obviously come back to it, so I promise you we won't discuss it now. But would you at least flag what that reference was about, and then we'll come back to it in March. So currently, for students with disabilities,

087our graduation rate is fairly low. Shiloh can talk whether or not adding the fifth year has helped that but one of the things that we often hear from superintendents is Especially the superintendents who have taken on a larger percentage of students with more significant disabilities Who have traditionally been on the certificate track and those certificates do not count For our accountability system nor for the office of special education programs overall accountability so if a student is taking the alternate assessments and Is on a certificate track they receive that certificate and it is not a graduation and so it's an accountability liability for schools and districts especially in our accountability system, so There is an option under ESSA to have states develop an alternate diploma or alternate diploma pathway, and many states have already started to

088do this in order to, and this is really just for the 1%, which is 10% of students with disabilities that have the most significant cognitive disabilities. They're the ones that take the alternate assessment. And so it's not, it's a very specific group of students, but it is a group of students who we hear. often become sort of like that piece for superintendents like what can we do so if we're at that point where we're trying to do improvement and there is no way for us to get them a diploma if they're on this certificate track it just brings up the the question of do we want to take some you know do we want to look at that uh in the future and is that something the state is interested in so i'm just throwing

089it out there because it is an option under essa Yet some of these questions over the coming months will be important Do have a motion to move this very helpful report forward I? Move approval of the CDE's executive summary You remember sendable second Thank You member Navajo any further discussion All in favor say aye Any opposed say nay any abstentions all right the motion passes. Thank you so much for the wonderful presentation And so now I'd like to reconvene the board and move to our consent calendars First we'll take up the waiver consent items 1 through 6 and 8 through 12 Item number seven and item 13 were withdrawn by the districts that had originally brought them So we want to start with public comment on a waiver one through six And eight through twelve

090if there is any no public comment. All right Do I have a motion? Thank you a second second. All right. Thank you very much any discussion Right all those in favor say aye aye any opposed nay Any abstentions all right motion carries now? We'll take up the regular consent items and those are items 6 and items 13 through 16 and please note that item 12 Was withdrawn by CDE yesterday, so we'll now take up item 6 and items 13 through 16 are there any public comments on item 6 and 13 through 16 no All right with no public comment ask for a motion on consent for items 6 and 13 through 16 move the consent Thank you very much any discussion All right all those in favor say aye aye any opposed nay any abstentions

091Motion passes. Agenda item 17 is for the new school of San Francisco. And this is a public hearing to consider the petition to renew the charter currently authorized by the State Board of Education. CDE proposes to recommend that the State Board hold a public hearing to approve the request to renew New School of San Francisco, a K-5 charter school for a five-year term, effective July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2025. And the item will be presented by Lisa Constanzo of the Department. Good morning, everyone. I'm going to echo the Michelle Center. I think people are coming in, so let's let people come in. If you need to stretch or grab coffee or something, take a minute and we'll let folks get into their seats. Just so we'll all be attentive at the point where we

092start. But if you get up and leave, you must be back in two minutes. The thread only goes so far. No, I'm fine. If you need to take a break, go ahead. Take a couple of minutes. Everybody needs to run to the bathroom. Everybody who's already had their two cups of coffee. Quick, quick, quick. So we'll try to catch up with them. It's okay. Okay, so we have a quorum and this item will be presented by Lisa Constanzo of the department Lisa Please begin and I want to point out to the board members that in your basket you have two sets of CDe slides for items 17 and 18 and one set of slides from the new school So if you want to follow along and vivid color With your packets you may do so

093Lisa please good morning everyone I wanted to quickly mention that this will be my, in the spirit of Michelle's Center, I started saying, this will be my last charter school presentation. So we have three charter items today, two that are before you about new school, and then we also have a charter item about the public charter school grant program. So the superintendent yesterday announced that Stephanie Farland is the new charter school division director. Her and I are going to tag team today, so she'll be presenting the item on the public. CHARTER SCHOOL GRANT PROGRAM. SO STEPHANIE, IF YOU WANT TO STAND UP FOR A MOMENT. AND THERE'S STEPHANIE. AND AFTER TODAY I'LL BE HANDING OVER ALL CHARTER ITEMS TO STEPHANIE. SO WE'LL GO AHEAD AND GET STARTED. SO ITEM NUMBER 17 IS NEW SCHOOL OF

094SAN FRANCISCO. IT IS BEFORE YOU AS A RENEWAL PETITION. In terms of the timeline, New School of San Francisco is currently a state board authorized charter school, and the charter term ends this June 20 of 19. Pursuant to the Ed Code around renewals, any charter school that is currently a state board school has to first go to their authorizing district locally to see if they can be... to petition there locally before they can come back before the state board. So in this case, New School went before San Francisco Unified School District, not only with an item for renewal, but also an item for material revision, which is the second item we're going to be talking about today. And that material revision is to expand their current charter school. We'll talk more about that as we

095get through the presentation. So the petition for renewal. and material revision was presented to the San Francisco Unified School District on June 14, 2019. On September 24, 2019, the governing board denied both the renewal and the material revision by a unanimous vote of 6 to 0. And then on September 30, CDE received both of the petitions for appeal to the state board. The CDE is recommending that the State Board hold a public hearing to approve the request to renew New School of San Francisco, a K-5 charter school under the oversight of the State Board, for a five-year term which would be effective July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2025. The new school of San Francisco meets the renewal criteria under Education Code 47607 and they do perform overall at least equal to the comparable schools

096where the majority of the pupils would otherwise attend. The school is also consistent with sound educational practice and is demonstrably likely to implement the program. CDE also finds that the petition would be reasonably comprehensive if some additional conditions were actually included as part of this approval. So we'll talk about these a little bit more, but we are actually requesting some conditions in the areas of race and ethnic balance and also in admissions to further... to further add to the concerns we have and address some of the concerns we have as we get into the demographics of the school as it currently is. So we'll talk about that a little bit further, but we are recommending that these changes be conditions as part of the approval for this renewal. The Advisory Commission on Charter Schools met

097on December 10, 2019. The Advisory Commission moved staff recommendation to approve the petition to the State Board, and the motion was passed unanimously. A little bit of background on the school. It was approved by the state board on March 12, 2015, for a five-year term. And as I mentioned, it will expire on June 30. Actually, that should be 2019. There's a typo there. Oh, I'm sorry. It is 2020. Apology. We're in 2020. It's the other slide that was incorrect. I apologize. And the new school has also submitted a material revision, as I mentioned, to expand from K-5 to a K-8. So we'll be talking about that as the second item for new school. And that would begin this school year as well, which, as I mentioned, is presented as a subsequent item. The mission for

098the school that all San Francisco's pupils regardless of their background receive an education equal to their extraordinary potential. The instructional approach incorporates an inquiry based model with personalized learning, integrated social emotional development and connectedness to the community and the world. In terms of their facility, they are currently in a Prop 39 facility with the San Francisco Unified School District. They serve 288 pupils in grades K through grade 5. And they also have petitioned the school district for another facility under Prop 39. In terms of the renewal criteria, we take a look. The renewal criteria is governed by education codes both 47605 and 47607. So specifically, we take a look at whether the school itself has determined that the academic performance is equal to the academic performance of the pupil schools that charter schools would otherwise

099have been required to attend, as well as the academic performance of the schools in the school district in which the charter school is located, taking into account the... composition of the pupil population that is being served at the charter school. Also under education code 52052 in terms of alternative measures, some of these areas as we've talked about before no longer exist. So it does allow for API which hasn't been calculated since 2013-14 and it provides for determining whether a charter is meeting the legislative or programmatic requirements. In terms of CDE for alternative measures we use CAASPP and in essence the dashboard as the alternative measure when we take a look at criteria for purposes of renewal in terms of the comparison schools uh cde selected four grade five through grade K through grade five comparison

100schools and those also are the same schools that the district selected as comparable schools and that new school used as well. In 2017-18 that was the first year the students in grade three took the state assessments so we have some dashboard information here for you but it won't start until the 2017-18 school year. And we did assess that the students performed at least equal to the schools that pupils would otherwise be required to attend. The next couple of slides are the charts that show the actual CASP scores for new school here at the top. And then for the four comparison schools that we used and, again, the San Francisco Unified School District used as well as new school itself in their comparison. And I'll just pause here for a second if there's any. Okay. Also,

101in terms of demographically similar schools, we did also verify information that New School and San Francisco Unified also used. They selected other schools in the district that were demographically more similar, and the school itself did also do better than exceeded in these areas as well, either comparable or better than those schools. This next slide is also in we always include this in charter items. This is the demographics of the comparable schools and as you can tell there are some some significant distinctions here between the students that are currently being served by the charter and the demographics. We'll talk about that a little bit further again. That's just part of some of the conditions we're adding under race and ethnic balance as we get further into the item. This chart here is the 2017 new school

102dashboard indicators again as we as I mentioned this was the first year the third graders took the assessments Then we have 2017. I'm sorry 2018 dashboard indicators And here in chronic absenteeism and suspension rate, again, only the second, until we have two years of data, which is in our next slide here in 2019, is when we can actually see colors in ELA and math. So on this slide, the school is blue in chronic absenteeism, blue in suspension rate, blue in ELA, blue in math as well. And then the local indicators have each been met. And then for 2019, since we have two years' worth of data, we also have here in ELA that they increased their scores by 4.6 points, and in math they maintained, in essence. Okay, a little bit more information now. New

103school also used the same schools, as I mentioned, that we used as well in terms of comparable schools. What they did add in this chart is their scores in comparison to the district and also overall for California. So those are the additions in this chart and also then similarly the demographic chart that they included as well. San Francisco Unified, in their review, the staff of San Francisco Unified did recommend approval. Academic performance was considered under the Ed Code 47607, which governs comparable schools, and stated that the performance is at least equal to the San Francisco Unified schools. that new school pupils would otherwise attend. And again, San Francisco Unified used the same schools as New School and CDE, so we didn't include those charts again, just because you already have those available to you. Past

104history under under State Board authorization They do have a record of educational success as a state board authorized school The program was implemented as described in their petition and they were in compliance with their MOU there With the state board they did have under appropriate responses to concerns They did have some letters of concern from us in terms of teacher credentialing But we those issues were resolved to our satisfaction so We're all cleared in terms of letters of concern with us as their authorizer. In terms of their ability to implement, they are fiscally viable. They do have a positive ending fund balance for the next three years and do have larger reserves than we actually require under our MOU, which is 5%. In terms of their preliminary budget report, it does, again, have a positive

105ending fund balance. And in terms of their audit, there was no audit findings as well. So we wanted to pass that information on to you as well. So in terms of the charter elements, we do find that four of these elements, two in particular, do not provide a reasonably comprehensive description of the charter elements. So the main two that we're focused on are the racial and ethnic balance and the admission preferences. So this slide, it does, in just one chart, show the difference in terms of the racial and ethnic balance and the students being served by the school. and what is being served by the district. And so the chart does show that there's not a reflective, the students that they're serving are not reflective of the school district. So we have had some conversations

106with the school, and one of the conditions that we are asking for as part of this approval is they currently have a community engagement plan that is included as an appendices to their petition. we are asking that that community engagement plan actually be included in the petition as part of their contract. You have a copy of this as well with you in case you wanted to refer to it. But the school itself, they'll talk a little bit more about this in their presentation, but they do talk about their recruitment efforts here. They talk about how they do want to make free and reduced price meal a priority as one of their admission preferences, and we'll get into that. THAT IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING WE ARE RECOMMENDING AS WELL. AND THEY DO TALK ABOUT SOME OF THEIR,

107OF HOW TO BROADEN AND BROADEN THEIR COMMUNICATION WITH THE COMMUNITY IN TERMS OF EVEN GETTING INTO PRESCHOOLS THAT ARE IN AREAS. AND SO I'LL LET THEM TALK A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THAT, BUT WE DID FEEL THAT THIS WAS A REALLY IMPORTANT PIECE THAT SHOULD BE INCLUDED IN THE PETITION. SO WE ARE MAKING THAT ONE OF OUR, A RECOMMENDATION AS ONE OF THE CONDITIONS. And in terms of admission requirements, as I just mentioned, prior to the petition that came before us, the admission preferences were siblings of pupils first, and then the second was pupils eligible for free and reduced-price meals. So one of the conditions is that we are asking that the first... The first criteria in terms of when they have their lottery will be that pupils eligible for free and reduced-price meals is

108the first admission requirement to move it to the very top in the hopes that we know that this hopefully will help in terms of having a better population at the school that will meet that of the district. So that is also one of the conditions that we are asking for or recommending as part of the approval. And then we have two elements in terms of employee qualifications and dispute resolutions that are minor to this, but we do have some language that we'd like to be included in both of these charter elements as well. And I won't get into these specifically because they are minor, but we do have some language changes we'd like there as well. So in summary, CDE staff is recommending approval with the conditions we've recommended. The petition is consistent with sound

109educational program, and they do perform overall at least equal to the comparable schools where the majority of the pupils would otherwise attend. They are demonstrably likely to implement the program. They are fiscally viable. And overall, they have described most of the charter elements as reasonably comprehensive. So that's the end of my presentation. Are there any questions I can answer at this point before we get started? Clarified questions, because we do want to hear from the petitioners, Member Burr and then Member Navo. So Lisa, first, I just want to start by saying thank you so much for your service relative to charter schools. It's been wonderful. We're going to miss you, but I know you're moving on to better things and we'll still get to see you. During the ACCS meeting, there was a lot of

110conversation about the issue that you identified, the diversity of the school didn't seem to be reflective of San Francisco Unified. And clarify one point that the school asserted that they requested a change during the term of their petition, which would have been a material revision. My understanding is that request never came to the board. And I just want to make sure the board understands that because it got a little bit confusing in the public testimony. I think the school was under the impression that the department turning them down. They just had to continue to operate so I think it's important for the board members to know they recognize this issue early in their Operation and we're trying to do something about it, but for whatever reason it didn't come to the board So if you

111could just clarify that I'd appreciate it. Yes, so When I started in 2017 I am aware of one request for material revision. I know that there were others At that time when we took when we received those at CDE we do look at those. We work with board staff to determine if at that time this is an appropriate material revision to come before the board. They only had one year left on their term, so at that time it really wasn't an appropriate time to bring that material revision to the board. So it wasn't something you ever saw. It was handled at the administrative level, and there were also Changes to admission though the law changed ab 1360 for admission preferences as well So that also was part of our decision as to you only have

112a year left We they did bring that before us did to make those changes it with only one year left in their term We wanted them to finish out their term Just want to make sure I understood it because it flew by real quick But I I heard you say the staff for San Francisco Unified recommended approval Correct, but the board denied unanimous vote correct, okay? All right any other clarifying questions. Let's move then I'm going to open the public hearing at 10 11 a.m.. First, we'll hear from the petitioners. The petitioners will have 10 minutes. Then we'll hear from the district that is opposing the renewal petition. They will also have a total of 10 minutes. After the presentations from both sides, there will then be an opportunity for public comment from any individual

113who has not already presented for one minute each. And we'll now take the petitioners. Okay. I'll just remind the board that we will not be asking questions of the petitioners as they present at this moment, but we can come back to them or the district in later discussion if we need to. Hello? Good morning, everybody. Good morning. My name is Sharnice Lazar, and I'm the Director of Curriculum Instruction at the New School of San Francisco. I've been in education for over 20 years, and I left my post at the UCLA Lab School after 10 years when I had the opportunity to help found a public school that centers inquiry and equity, two things that I am deeply passionate about. So in the few minutes that we have, I want to talk a little bit about

114our school. I want to talk about our areas of success and discuss our areas of growth. I was going to introduce you, play a video so you could. Introduce we wanted to bring our entire school community, but that's not possible. We had 850 people who wanted to come But we did want to share We've created a school that takes together many best practices in education and says all of these things really matter and they matter for all kids. So whether that's personalization, social emotional learning, deeper learning, inquiry is a philosophy that guides our work, posing big questions to kids. We believe that this is imperative for our children. I actually think the fundamental thing in the world today is essentially coming from a love-based awareness of other people. And the commitment to honestly teach everyone

115their emotions is amazing to me. I don't know of another school where that's part of the curriculum. Kids are really encouraged to ask questions and take ownership of their own learning and explore things that they're interested in and make mistakes and be unsure of things and work together. I think all of those skills really support the whole child so that they're not just learning a skill in math or a skill in science, but it's all connected. And so the way that New School structures the learning is really empowering for kids. Children don't come to us as empty vessels. They have things to contribute and as a teacher it's my job to pull those out and to tap into those. And those are lifelong skills. I believe inquiry teaches kids how to think and thinking skills

116are the skills that will make kids successful, that narrows an opportunity gap. We are purposely trying to find different types of people to put into this building because that's what the world is and we want these different types of people, smalls and talls, to really like tackle and answer some really big questions. You walk into this building and you walk into every classroom and there's a sense of love and joy. It feels so valuable to know your child is going somewhere every day where the adults and the kids around him are happy and are valuing our kids and loving our kids. That is so special. It's so special. This is back on. Those are, that's some of our community. I want to talk just a little bit about what our school is founded on. It's

117three principles. Equity, inquiry, and personalization. For us, equity is a daily practice. Equity is the curriculum that explores big questions like what is the master narrative and why does it include all perspectives? Or questions like why do we say black lives matter and not all lives matter? And we start these conversations with five-year-olds. Equity is the restorative practices that we teach our third graders about intention versus impact and how entitlement of some oppresses others. Equity is our SEL program that's integrated into every part of our day, specifically focused on students who have experienced trauma to name, understand, and process those big emotions of abandonment, loss, and grief. Equity is filling our libraries with the books like Her Right Foot, a story told from the perspective of the Statue of Liberty, and how we embrace the

118immigrant story with compassion and empathy. Inquiry is our teaching and learning philosophy. It's a philosophy that asks our first graders to elevate their sound unit in science and turn it into a soundtrack of love and joy, or a second grade unit that studies the earth movements to help students spark their own social movements about animals and humans. Personalized learning undergirds all that we do. It's a multi-tiered system that includes community, targeted, and individualized supports. It's therapy facilitated by our full-time counselor or weekly social groups. It's setting 2,240 personalized goals for our students. It's providing a before and after school academic intervention we lovingly call Brain Gym. It's an administrator picking up a student at home. It's coordinating gift drives for our students who are in foster care. It's providing camp during breaks for working families

119and teachers doing visits to all 288 students. For us, personalization is personal. All of this doesn't just happen. We are intentional about everything that we do. This begins with hiring exceptionally and highly qualified educators. It's a strong co-teaching model, which includes a resident teacher program that allows beginning teachers to build their instructional toolboxes. And it's our team participating in over 300 hours of professional development a year. And we don't do this work alone. We have some incredible partners up and down the state that help us. These friends of New School are like-minded, and they're committed to supporting our students. In turn, we're asking... We're doing what we're asking our students to do, and that's share our learning. We're slowly building a laboratory school model, which allows us to learn from others and alongside others. Over

120the past few years, we've had hundreds of visitors from all over the world. We've facilitated citywide learning walks, and we're currently providing professional development to several other area schools. So, Sharnice just spoke about our intent and how intentional we are about what we do. I'm going to talk a little bit about our impact, some of which has already been presented by the staff, so I'll move through it quickly. My name is Ryan Chapman. I'm a co-founder and co-head of school at the New School of San Francisco. It's good to see many of you who are here in our original authorization, and it's a pleasure to meet some who are new. We've gone through our dashboard results, which we are proud of and work hard to achieve. Our outcomes are exceeding both the city and state,

121both in ELA and in numeracy, and we're seeing important increases year on year in both English language arts and in math. Our academic success is all built on a culture and climate, a focus on culture and climate, which we actually look at and spend enormous amounts of time and resources from weeks before the school doors open and every minute of the day from 745. in the morning until 6 o'clock at night. And this has led to a high average daily attendance, low chronic absenteeism, zero expulsions in five years, one suspension in five years, 100% participation in family conferences, and families universally feeling welcomed at the school. We also, as Sharnice mentioned, equity for us is not something you kind of check off having done through a PD, but something you practice day in and day

122out. We start by devoting 30 plus hours to diversity, equity, and inclusion PD for all of our staff. And it's something that we then look at across our communities. We have three student-led expositions per year with our students and families. We have a home and school council which is designed to engage across difference. And we have interpretation and translation in all events and communications. This has led to overwhelming demand for our school. Last year we had 714 families apply, 114 of which were FRPM eligible. We have a 71% accept rate across the school. It's 90% for those families who qualify for free and reduced price meals. And our wait list is long. We have on our wait list currently 109 families who are FRPM eligible. And we're receiving applications from across the city from every

123corner. In total, we received 2,341 applications in our five recruitment cycles, and you'll see year on year we're seeing just extraordinary demand and increase in those applications. We have a lot to celebrate, but we know we still have places to grow. Here are our outcomes for our students by subgroups, and as you see, we are exceeding the district and the state with the exception of two measures, and that's for our... English language learners are economically disadvantaged students, particularly in math. And so we are doing lots to address that. We are laser focused on numeracy. That's become our content focus. We've added math to our already kind of robust suite of assessments. We're doing that intervention that we call Brain Gym. And we've also engaged our ELAC community to really support these English language learners, particularly,

124again, in concepts related to numeracy. Another area of focus for our growth and a priority is the increase in access to families who are eligible for free and price meals. We cannot emphasize this enough that one, those conditions that were set out by the CDS staff we willingly accept and have been trying to put into place for the last three years. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. I think at this point we want to hear from the district and then we'll... Have any public comment and then we'll come back if we have other questions for you. Thank you Good morning to ongoing and new board members. My name is Michael Davis I'm the director for charter schools for San Francisco Unified School District, and I'm here with one of our board members This

125is Allison Collins one of the commissioners of the San Francisco Unified School Board So you've already heard the presentation from the staff and as you know the staff of the San Francisco Unified School District recommended renewal of new school for a five-year period at grades K through 5 which they have are currently operating and we were tasked with reviewing the operations over the last four years of that school, even though it was not authorized by our district. We found, using the criteria outlined in... the law that they did meet the requirement for renewal under the most important factor which was increases in academic achievement across the school and for all significant subgroups. We did note that although the school is or has a mission statement that includes a design for diversity by design that The

126school had demonstrably failed in being diverse particularly in the areas of socio-economic disadvantaged students where the district is currently at about 54% and they are at about 11 and a half percent and in SFUSD the white student population is about 14% and New School is at 52 or 53. So We made the findings for renewal, K-5 only, and presented that to the board. Okay, I can speak. My name is Allison Collins. I'm a commissioner on the Board of Education. I joined this past January. Previous to that, I was an educator at the high school level. I have worked in charter schools at the charter level in charter management organizations centrally, and then I came back to the district when my daughters entered the district, and I became a parent leader because I wanted to help

127families understand how they could best advocate. for quality public schools for all young people because I've seen the ways that at the high school level some of our systems and structures prevent students from accessing higher education. And so I am also an active member of the African American Parent Advisory Council and over the years have advocated. for our schools in getting resources from the district. I decided to join the board last year because I wanted to, I believe that policy matters, right? And so you can advocate on a local level, but policies are actually the ways that we, and budgets, are the ways that we actualize our values. And what I have seen in San Francisco over the 20 years that I've been there is On the one hand, I think San Francisco Unified has

128made me proud as both an educator and a parent. We've increased our investment in wellness in our district. All schools have social workers. All schools have librarians. This goes above and beyond our budget because board members have worked with labor and other organizations to put ballot measures on the ballot for us to be able to supplement services that we know our budget does not provide for. And at the high school level, we have student services. We have, you know. A lot of the services that you're seeing the new school provides, we provide those services as well. And I can speak as a parent. I mean, my daughters just entered ninth grade this year. We entered a predominantly low-income school in Chinatown. Eighty percent of those students were Chinese. Sixty percent were English learners. Eighty percent

129were free and reduced lunch. And I can say that it was an amazing experience for both me and my daughters because... the instruction was exceptional, but also it was an opportunity for them and us to build community with folks that normally I would have been segregated from. And I'm very, very thankful that I was able to be in a community where I could learn from other parents and other immigrants. I have friends who live in public housing about their experiences in our system. And so that is why it's really, really important to me that we create a system that actually supports the needs of our most needy students. And what's been frustrating for me on the board is to see that our system, as we're expanding our investments in programs that meet the needs of

130our neediest students, Charter expansion in our district and just the existence of charter schools is is impeding our ability as an organization to be strategic and intentional in really resourcing students that are of highest need and so to be specific about the new school we as a district have approved other charter schools and those charter schools the ones that really stand out where we are consistently supportive are five keys and and Life Learning Academy, those are charters that have actually met the needs of students that we have not been able to meet. And we're all okay in admitting that. Five Keys supports students that are incarcerated in our juvenile justice system. And Life Learning Academy, they've actually built housing for students that are facing housing insecurity. We aren't capable of doing that. And we're very

131glad that there are partners in that work. Where I am concerned is when there are charter organizations that take space in our facilities and they end up displacing both students and also programming in our district that are meant to meet the needs of our most needy students. So to be specific, I came up here last year as a parent organizer because there was a charter that wanted to take space. we had to co-locate them based on Prop 39, which is a policy. And due to that policy, we had to remove services from a school for classroom space. And so when you look at a school like the new school that is basically a predominantly white and affluent school. It is housed in a facility that is serving predominantly refugee children. The international school is located

132there. And we are not able to expand services there because the new school is there. If we want to expand, then they would have to move and they would displace another program or another population. And we don't see... you know, charters like the new school expanding into schools of ours that are highly affluent, we see them expanding into schools that are low income and are the ones that are actually doing the most work in our system. So for that reason, as a unanimous board, we all unanimously denied their charter application. And I think... The results show that they are doing as well as we are with all the resources that they have. I am not surprised about that. It's very easy to teach white, affluent students that have this amount of support. It's not surprising

133to me that they have a lot of parent involvement. That is evident in many of our schools in our district that serve predominantly white and affluent. students. So that is not a criteria for me about approving a charter. For me, a charter is about thinking differently, thinking outside of the box, and really reaching out and working with students in ways that we are not traditionally able to do. And I am in full support of that. But otherwise, We all need to work together and focus our needs and our resources, both facilities, staffing, and money in supporting students that are the most needy students, and they are not evident in this school. So I just wanted to provide framework and background and appreciate the opportunity and the privilege to be able to speak today. Thanks. All

134right. Thank you. I think at this point we want to take public comment. With the following people, please line up at the podium Michael Juba art Agnes Ethan Chastain Layla Momini Alia Kane Surya Taylor Manwala Gregory Peters Terry Lee and please state your name and affiliation for the record as you proceed Good morning. My name is Michael Juba, and I represent the California Teacher's Association. CTA is opposed to both the renewal of and the request for the material revision of the new school of San Francisco in agenda items 17 and 18. And we oppose these items for the following two main reasons. First, the new school does not serve a student population that is reflective of the racial and ethnic balance of San Francisco Unified School District as a whole. Not only has the new

135school served a population that is not reflective of the Unified School District's demographics, but they've also become even less diverse each year of their existence. And two, the new school underserves students who are homeless. socioeconomically disadvantaged, and have a disability, demonstrating that it is demonstrably unlikely to successfully implement the programs set forth in this petition because it does not serve all students. And for these reasons, we oppose this charter removal. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and members. My name is Art Agnos. I'm the former mayor of San Francisco. And the last time I was here asking for help was in 1989 after a terrible earthquake when I asked the governor and the legislature for a billion dollars. I'm not going to ask you for that today, but I am going to. I am going

136to ask that you approve the new school of San Francisco's request to become a K-8 and add a floor to their admissions lottery for free and reduced-price meals eligible families. About 10 years ago, I worked with young parents in my neighborhood on Potrero Hill in San Francisco, the fastest-growing family area in San Francisco, to save Daniel Webster. public elementary school, a K-5 school that was going to be closed by the same school district that you heard about because of low attendance, even though it was the fastest growing family neighborhood in all of San Francisco. We saved that working with a bunch of mothers and who turned it around. Someone say something? Time. Is my time up? Yes. You know, in San Francisco, we have a tradition where the former mayor gets an extra minute. That

137doesn't work here? Still time. That doesn't work. Well, look, this is a fabulous school. It does a great job. They're asking for your help to increase the conditions and improve on the conditions that you've outlined for them to accomplish. And I respectfully ask you to follow the CDE's recommendations. Thank you. Good morning, State Board. I'm Ethan Chastain, and I'm a third grader. I am multiracial and bilingual in Spanish. This is my first year at New School, and I love it. Last year, my teacher used to say I was a wiggle worm and I wasn't very challenged. Being at New School has helped me grow as a person because everyone has individual learning plans there. My teachers have helped me to learn to take my time with great feedback. I have three great teachers who always

138teach us that mistakes are marvelous. The day before our expo night, I was making and solving my number story. I used a standard algorithm strategy but added it backwards. Then Ms. Chloe checked it. She asked me a question to show me how to correct it. She helped me turn a mistake into a marvelous mistake. They do that every day. State board members, please say yes to new school. Thank you for listening. Don't start my time now because I'm doing this. Hi, thank you for listening. My name is Layla Mominey. My husband and I are educators with years of experience spanning both public and private schools. We are also new school parents to an amazing fourth grader named Zadie, who's behind me. The school's approach to education, referred to as inquiry for all, and the school's

139spirit of hands-on and minds-on is valuable and worth preserving. While standard public schools may contain silos of individual teachers who are passionate about project-based learning and curriculum that responds and adapts to student interest, what new school offers is cohesiveness. The entire school is rooted in these principles, and it is magical. I want you to know that the innate creativity and critical thinking skills of children are valued, encouraged, and further developed at New School. This enables teaching and learning to be accessible, joyful, and relevant for both traditional and non-traditional learners. I've spent my career in special education, so when I say non-traditional learners, I'm being very honest about that. If you understand anything about New School, please know that it is an exciting, humane, and inclusive place to learn and grow. Thank you. Good morning. How

140are you doing today? My name is Aaliyah, and I'm in third grade at New School. Before I came here, I did not like school. Now I do. New School is a warm and welcoming school. The school is nice in a lot of ways, and so are the students. All the teachers try to get you into your comfort zone and they challenge you to do your best every day. I would love to continue to go to New School with my cousin and still have my new friends with me. I want New School to go on to middle school so I can grow here for years. Please vote yes for New School. Thank you. Hello, my name is Surya. Thank you for letting me speak here today. One thing I'm going to talk about is what I

141love about New School. Something I love about my school is we have inquiry. Inquiry is a subject where we get to explore and investigate different topics that we get to choose from. It might be in groups, pairs, or by ourselves. One guide that helps us prepare for our exposition is our inquiry process. That process is to plan, draft, create, redesign, and reflect. And then you are ready for expo. This process might also go for most other subjects. Another thing I would like to talk about is the power of yet. This is something we use so no one feels like they can't do something. For example, I was doing a math sheet, and I didn't know the answer for a multiplication problem. I put on the paper, I don't know this yet, and the next year

142I learned it. The last thing I want to talk about is my favorite subject this year. For me, it is writing. I have loved what we learned about realistic fiction, but every year my favorite subject will change depending on how much I love it. Thank you for listening. Please vote for New School. I'm going to have to move this up just a little bit. Good morning. My name is Cristina Canabaral, and I am reading a testimony on behalf of Gregory Peters. My name is Gregory Peters, and I am the executive director of the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools, a nonprofit whose mission is to interrupt, transform current and systemic educational inequities to ensure all students have access to personalized, equitable, and high-performing schools that believe and demonstrate each student can, should, and will

143succeed. Our organization has been in partnership with New School for the past two years, and in that short time, they have demonstrated the commitment, will, skill, and the courage to engage their staff in the transformative work necessary to address the diverse needs of San Francisco students and families. In response to the school's goal to have and serve a more diverse community, our partnership has been forged out of an honest and integrity-based commitment to do the adult and system-change work necessary to best support the diverse student body they desire to have. Equity work is not easy. New school has demonstrated a commitment to the long haul, as is evidenced by the way they have shifted their discourse, inquiry, collaboration, and improvement efforts to focus on traditionally least served students. While the work of transformation is constant

144in continuance, my confidence in the school's efforts to date lead me to strongly recommend their charter to be approved. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Terry Lee, and I'm here today with my son, Dean, who is a first grader. We are a family that stands with our community, and we stand before you today asking for your approval to reauthorize our school. My son was primarily raised by my parents while I worked, and he had little to no social interaction with other children leading up to preschool. While at preschool, he was a shy introvert. On his third birthday, his teacher sent me a video with his friends and teacher singing him happy birthday the entire time Dean was looking down almost in tears. He didn't like the spotlight. Fast forward to kindergarten, he has blossomed

145into a confident extrovert who is able to stand up in front of the entire student body and lead them in their school pledge. He wouldn't be who he is today without the impact of this community. While on the outside, we may appear to be a minority, but we have always felt at home at New School. The balance of the individualized learning plans and social-emotional learning have made a lasting impact on how Dean learns and carries himself. He has self-declared his most favorite part of his day is going to school. This love has transcended to his four-year-old sister, Lauren, who proudly puts on her very own New School t-shirt despite being two years away from being able to attend. New School magic is real, and I hope with your approval, both my children will be able

146to experience the magic this school brings. Thank you. Would the following speakers please line up at the podium? Hi, SBE. My name is Belen Enriquez. I am a student at New School of San Francisco. I love New School for many reasons. One of those reasons is because of my teachers. They support me in many ways. I love that they teach us how special we are in our own way. I have a 10-year-old brother. His name is Roberto. I love seeing him at recess and lunch. That's very important to me since we get to spend some time together. This is why it is very important to me that New School is approved and expands to middle school so we can continue growing together with the support of our amazing teachers. Thank you for listening. GOOD MORNING,

147EVERYBODY. MY NAME IS LOUIS. MY DAUGHTER IS A FOURTH GRADER AT NEW SCHOOL. I'M HERE TO ASK YOU TODAY FOR THE SUPPORT FOR THE RENEWAL FROM K-5 CHARTER. IT'S UNFORTUNATE THAT THE SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC BOARD OF EDUCATION DIDN'T SUPPORT THEM IN THIS, BUT I'M GLAD THAT WE HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO APPEAL IN FRONT OF YOU. I AM PERSONALLY A GRADUATE OF SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT AND I ALSO AM CURRENT TEACHER IN SAN FRANCISCO UNIFIED SCHOOL TEACHER. I ask that we focus on New School's approach to student learning. New School has created an environment that is responsive to many different learning styles kids have. This learning environment has helped my daughter and many other students to find their vows and become advocates and active participants in their own education. Some teaching practices I've witnessed at

148New School, I've tried to... BRING BACK TO MY OWN CLASSROOM TO ALSO ENGAGE WITH MY STUDENTS. I ASK THAT YOU ALL SUPPORT NEW SCHOOLS REQUEST FOR RENEWAL SO THEY MAY CONTINUE TO INSPIRE STUDENTS TO BECOME COURAGEOUS AND CREATIVE IN THEIR OWN LEARNING. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Hi, everybody. My name is Bita Nazarian. My daughter, Saya, is a second grader, and my son, Ezra, is a fourth grader. I've spent 18 years working as a public middle school teacher and administrator, working the entire time to support low-income students of color through needed school reforms. The process for choosing a school for my children was fraught. I deeply believed in the values and methods Emily and Ryan envisioned, but also questioned the charter school system and felt torn due to my personal investment in SFUSD. Ultimately, I chose

149New School and couldn't be happier. Ezra and Sire are getting a high-quality, joyful education that every single child deserves. My views on charters have also changed as I see the innovation that is possible in the alternative system. Now I serve as New School's board chair. We all agree that we should increase the diversity of our school. What we need is a material revision that allows us to do so and approval of our expansion. Thank you. My name is Matula and I'm in second grade. I think you should reauthorize New School books. I like the unique way they teach. That way it's to ask small questions first and then add on additional small questions to the first and put it all to ask. together to answer a big question. I like this approach because it makes

150learning fun. In exploration, we learned about flowers and pollinators and that bees were dying. Next, in expression, we used all of that knowledge to figure out how do we save the bees. Some kids thought we should build a robotic PI to take over the bee pipe. population got flattened and others thought we should send letters videos to important people since there were so many ideas our teachers split us up into four groups with different missions my group created a model robotic beehive to enhance the bees lives exposition night is when you share with your parents and others what you learned in that hour. I was super excited to show them our beehive. Please reauthorize new school. I really like the school and the way they teach. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Nate Malath,

151and I've been teaching and training educators across the country for almost 10 years. For years, I struggled to find a way to balance my desire for creative, innovative teaching with my passion for serving students and families challenged by our country's systemic inequities. In 2017, I finally found a school that provides that space. And I've had the privilege of teaching third grade at the New School of San Francisco for the last three years. At New School, I spend hours in personalized professional training, developing curriculum, pedagogy, and leadership skills at the cutting edge of cultural responsiveness. It's humbling, challenging, and inspiring. And it's also a typical Wednesday afternoon for us. The work is hard. New School asks a lot of us teachers. It asks us to believe deeply in ourselves and challenges us to find the best

152way to make our teaching magical and accessible to every student. With the trust and support of our fellow educators, we do. Every day. Now I ask you to believe with us and approve our petition. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Maria and I'm a proud parent of a second grader at New School of San Francisco, also a member of the families of color at New School, otherwise known as the 48% and growing, and along with my wife Sarah, a member of the LGBT affinity group. I grew up in a low-income family to a schizophrenic Jamaican mother and a French Creole father who grew up in the backwoods of Louisiana. During the first 18 years of my life, I faced multiple traumas of domestic abuse, food insecurity, and sometimes hunger, late-night neighborhood gunfire, dilapidated housing,

153and the list goes on. We know that similar crises continue to be realities for many San Francisco families. Our city has among the largest academic gaps in California between white and black students, and it's also one of the most segregated districts. I love New School, not only for my own child's chance to never know any of the hardships I endured, but to pay it solidly forward and give the same opportunities to our English learners, our kids with special needs, and our growing numbers of racial and economic minorities. We're trying hard to raise those numbers, and we think that now we have a chance to do that even more rapidly. And we've done it in a much shorter time than it has taken others to do the same. Thank you so much for your consideration, and

154I hope that you will extend our reauthorization. Much respect. Hi, my name is Ruth. I am a non-binary fourth grader at New School San Francisco. Non-binary for me means neither girl or boy. I came to New School SF a week into second grade when everyone already knew each other. My teachers helped my class. learned my pronouns, they, them, theirs, to make sure I felt comfortable in my new community right away. They also invited the author of a book about gender identity to read in our class. Not having to explain my gender all the time gives me room to focus and learn. New School helps me show my true self without having to worry. about teasing and bullying. I've been at New School for two and a half years, which is the longest I've been at

155any school, and I want this experience to continue. Please vote yes on New School SF. Thank you. Hello, my name is Penelope. I'm here to talk to you about why we should keep this school going K-3. One reason is because all the teachers are kind, loving, and respectful to all of us and help us when we need it most. All of them support being unique in ourselves. Any school mistakes are expected, respected, inspected, and corrected. Besides the teachers, I also love how diverse our school is. where everyone is included and respected. On top of that, my favorite subject is math, which may be surprising to some people because I was struggling in math last year. I started to love it when we did standard algorithm. They gave us so many strategies, but that was one

156of them that worked for me. New School believes struggle is good for your mind. I agree because my evidence proves it. There is so much more to talk about, but I will end here. Thank you. Please vote to keep New School K-3A. Eric Premack, Charter Schools Development Center. Glad I'm too old that I'll never have to compete with these kids. By all accounts, this is a very successful school. They do have some diversity challenges, but the solutions that they've put forward, specifically the low-income admissions preference, has proven very successful in many other charter schools in similar circumstances, including some that are authorized by this board. So we recommend approval of that. Thank the CDE staff and the ACCS for their recommendation. And in the interest of time, ditto for number 18, because I'm probably going

157to be off at a dental appointment at that point. So thank you very much. I'm Patience Yee, a parent of a mixed-race child and a board member at New School. And when I was 12, I experienced a major trauma from assault. And because my school was not equipped to support my needs, I went from earning straight A's to dropping out of high school in the ninth grade. And I wanted more for my son and for other kids. And I chose New School because they've done this work. They've done the hard work up front to implement these systems to support these kids, especially kids who need more support like I did. You know, there, the, the. I also chose New School because of their commitment to all kids. The things that they've implemented are things like

158learning plans and goals specific to each kid. They also have an on-site wellness center so kids can go if they need a quiet place to de-escalate. And they have a full-time on-site therapist that's providing counseling and interventions for these kids. And it also has a low student-to-teacher ratio, which is, I can't even explain how important that is for these kids that need support every day. Parents and students call it new school magic, but it is not magic. It's intentional and it's by design, and I implore you to not only let this school continue, but to grow to serve more of the kids that need this most. Thank you. My name is Rika Thomas Antoniotti, and I'm the parent of two new schoolers, a fourth grader and a first grader. My kids have learned many things

159over their years at new school, but they've really become experts at being upstanders. standing up for what they believe to be right and lending their voices to those without one. So I am here today to follow their example and stand up not just for my kids and their classmates, but also on behalf of children whose calls have historically gone unheeded in the current education system. I'm standing up today for children who are overlooked, marginalized, and neglected. I ask you, too, to stand up for these children today by ensuring that they have access to the kind of equitable, robust, diverse, and inclusive public education that New School provides. so that all kids like mine have the opportunity to realize and exceed their potential and one day use their voices to stand up for others. Thank you.

160Ramel Antoine. Good morning, board. Ramel Antoine, California Charter Schools Association, here speaking in support of New School. I'm just here to state that they've met all the criteria for renewal. with Eric Premack's comments from charter school development, that they have had challenges and have done a lot of work to correct that over the course of the past five years. I know that there will be some discussion about what that has looked like and what they've done, but I think the school has shown that they have created a long system of support for students in trying to integrate more and more students. I think it's an important conversation to have. about parents who have access in San Francisco Unified and who don't and what the school is trying to do to disrupt what they call white

161dominant practices. I think that's super important for us to think about. I urge your support. Thank you. I'm assuming that's the end of public comment. Thank you very much. Seeing no other public comment, I will close the public. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I signed in. Impact over intent. Here's the story of focal students at SF International impacted by the new school's co-location who can't make it here today. This is Julie Roberts-Fung, Families Union. This is a newcomer high school for students in the U.S. less than four years. They're high-need immigrant and refugee students. Picture the SF International student body. 87% are ELLs, 71% are low SES, 6% are white. Now picture the New School student body. 9% are ELLs, 11% are low SES. 52% are white. Charters like Mission Prep serve low SES students and students

162of color with no special enrollment tools in San Francisco. At SF International, demographics are not destiny. 82% of grads are in college. 99% persist. They serve our focal students and are recognized for a fifth-year hybrid program where students take high school and college courses and give support to high-risk graduates. Because the new school takes their space, immigrant and refugee students who arrive mid-year can't access this amazing school. While the new school is there, SF International can only shrink, never grow. My kids are at a similar school, and our students arrive year-round, driven by the Yemeni Civil War or the caravan from Latin America. White families have enough choices. If we allow them to choose to expand their majority white charter, it's our most vulnerable students who pay. Thank you. Okay, and now we're done with

163public comment, I think. Yes? Okay, so I'm now going to close the public hearing for this item at 1059 a.m. And I'm going to ask. Sue Burr as our SBA liaison if she has any initial comments, and I would ask if you might include in those What the request for material revision was previously because I didn't really Get a sense of that And then we can maybe open up for further board discussion. Okay, and I might need Lisa's help here and or the schools First I'll just say and I think you heard this in some of the testimony this item was heard thoroughly by the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools. And as you see in your item, the Advisory Commission voted unanimously to adopt the department's recommendation to renew the charter. So I will just

164put that out there. But in the course of the conversation, the issue about diversity was kind of front and center. And what we heard from the school was they saw that early on in their operation. Remember, they've been one of our charters since 2015. and that they requested of the department, which is the process, to make a material revision to allow them to change their lottery preferences. And I believe it's similar to what is being requested now or being suggested as a condition by the department. and as our charter school advocates have testified, that's proven very successful. And if you see on their data that they presented, I think you have 109 students that are on your wait list that qualify already. So just changing that preference was going to give them a big bump.

165in theory, but for a variety of reasons. And I really am not trying to point the finger at the department. I think there were lots of changes going on. We had changes in leadership and the charter division. We also had legislative changes that were affecting the department's judgment in bringing it to the board. But the fact of the matter is, for a couple of years, they tried to make the changes and were not able to because it got blocked. It never came to the board for a vote. So I feel like... the school got caught in a catch-22, and now they're being criticized heavily for that reason, which they actually tried to correct on their own. You might want to clarify, Lisa. I was just going to echo that. That's true. I think there were

166three attempts, and I was aware of the one that I spoke to in 2017, and it was to change their admission preferences to noticing, realizing that they had this issue early on, trying to change their admission preferences to try and address that. without any preference or no the preference if I can I called to your attention Lisa mentioned this but I do think this appendix D the community engagement model that we all have copies of is very helpful this was included in their renewal petition but as Lisa mentioned it wasn't in the dot it wasn't in the petition itself it was an appendix and it's so important we think it needs to be contained in the actual petition but this both talks about what their preferences are let me see if I can find the

167right page here and it also gives targets for the for diversity how much they will increase their diversity based on those changes in the preferences So I would just call that to attention. I think that clarifies. Thank you very much. All right. So with those introductory comments, we want to open this to board discussion. Member Ortiz-Lacone. Thank you. And I want to thank all the community members that came and also San Francisco Unified. I understand why this is a difficult. It's sort of difficult because we're seeing amazing and impressive academic performance, right, and a great model. And so when I was looking through the item, I thought, how are they doing this? Because they had impressive academic gains. Then I looked into the demographic section. I thought, oh, that's how it's happening. When you look

168at the original criteria, it said not to exceed 33% of students free and reduced lunch. I was really confused by that because to an extent the population you have is by design. However, what I think happened was in reading your supplementary, your community engagement model. It seems to me that the initial intent was not to segregate the school or have a racially isolated school. And so there was this effort to balance, because we know that free and reduced is a proxy for race. There was an effort to balance the number of students so that it would be not a racially isolated school, but one that was racially integrated. However, along the way, I am assuming they realized that that didn't quite work because they had a disproportionate number of white students compared to San Francisco

169Unified in the neighborhood. And that's when they attempted to come for the material revision and for whatever reason they couldn't. So what we have now. is really a school that has excelled in academic performance, that has a great model, which I think will really be tested if we change the criteria selection. Because the only real way to understand privilege is to lose it. And if we move to moving the sibling criteria down, you have to be ready for those parents who are going to be inconvenienced by that. You have to be ready for those parents who are going to say, that's not fair for my child because now there's a practical reality of having to go to two different schools. Or I want a piece of that model. But that is what real equity is.

170And so I love your framework, but I have to say, I think it's been in theory mode until you diversify the student population. Then you'll understand what reality looks like when you're working with low-income, racially diverse students from all walks of life. I am very interested to see if you're able to maintain this level of performance and this model intact when you move from theory to practice. Thank you. Want to get in the queue? Okay. Well, this is a difficult conversation to have for all the reasons that Board Member Ortiz-Lacone has laid out. And so... I'm disturbed by a couple of statements that were made. And even though there was probably no harm intended in the statements, these are some classic examples of microaggressions that always pop up in conversations where diversity is one of

171the issues. in addition to academic performance. And so one of the statements I heard, and I'm going to paraphrase the statement without attribution, was that this is a high-achieving school with some minor issues concerning diversity. So diversity is not a minor issue. Diversity is a very important and central issue in a state like California and a community like San Francisco, and in particular at this particular school site where the students who are in the neighborhood who attend that school will be displaced, are being displaced by the students who attend. that charter school. And in this particular circumstance, the charter school was created with the promise of creating recruitment and focused attention on a particular type of student. And while the statements and assertions are being made that they worked really hard on this, the data

172says no you didn't. And while the statements and assertions about how they will improve based on some practices for other schools, the context of the neighborhood where these students attend says you don't need those admissions preferences. I remember years ago when the Department of Ed, when they were first implementing their Public Schools Accountability Act, said that they were having a hard time finding enough black students to give a test to so they could identify the subgroup performance. I'm like, would you like me to tell you where they live? So it is not, diversity is a habit of mind. If you're looking for students to bring into your school and you are in a neighborhood in a community such as where this school is located in a city like San Francisco, it is really not that

173difficult to recruit a student population that is reflective of the community. So no, I do not accept the premise despite the mistake that was made. And I agree and I appreciate the clarification that was made this morning because I didn't have that information until this morning. So I agree that there was an effort made in the fourth year of their five-year charter to try to address this problem. I agree with all of that, that that happened. But it doesn't change the fact that they were hopping merrily along with an enrollment that wasn't reflective of their plan, and they come here today bragging about achievement that is not based on that performance. Since they're saying diversity is their concern and that they're doing all this great work for students, I would have liked them to take

174a look at the data about their students who are their ethnic minority population. present that information to me about their four-year or five-year performance over the arc of time in their school if they really are doing their work. They chose not to do that. So I'm not going to dispute that it's an achieving school, but I definitely dispute that diversity is the centerpiece of the work that they are attempting to do, and I'm not sure I can agree that the plan for recruitment they have is going to work because it truly doesn't consider the context of the community and the neighborhood where they are working. Just because it works someplace else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. But again, given the conversation that we have heard, diversity is taking a back seat to

175the academic achievement and success of this school. And so while that may not have been the intentional statement that was made, that is the priority and the centerpiece of the conversation that was heard and that was discussed in the presentation today. And while I did take a look at what happened at the ACCS, there was a lot of confusion about the diversity plan and what they actually intended to do that really clouded this part of the conversation. While I understand what happened, I do not trust what the outcome is going to be, and I am very concerned. We have spent a lot of time over these last two days talking about stakeholders, talking about the impact of stakeholders, and what we continue to do at this level, because we have the comfort to do that,

176is we continue to isolate, segregate, and even compartmentalize what stakeholders are, what it means to think about stakeholders. And in this particular conversation, what the ideals of diversity are actually supposed to be operating to do. And this has been a wholesale failure. I want to move to Member Sun. Is there anybody else who's... And then Member Strauss. I also want to ask a clarifying question about our process. Item 18 will be about the material revision requested, which is when we will hear more about how the school plans to implement that piece of the proposal. And yet we're asked to... Vote on the renewal before we've had the opportunity to hear the plans for the material revision And I don't know if there's any Yes Just to clarify, the material revision has to do with expanding

177grades. But it also had to go to K-8. The issue about reflecting the diversity and changing the lottery preferences is contained in this item. Right. And then there's more of it that goes in the other item as well. So maybe what we'll want to do is give... plaintiff's an opportunity to come and explain what their plans are with respect to this part of it and then save the rest. Member Sun. So I will respectfully disagree with my colleague that the school is dismissive of equity. In looking at their model, describing the charter and the practices and the testimony of the students who have come up here and the parents who have come up here, it is very clear that equity inquiry is at the heart of the school. And I don't believe that the petitioners

178who have come up, that they were making this up for this particular session. It truly is reflective of what the school is about. The fact that the school has resulted in the lack of diversity within the population as far as ethnicity and some of the areas that the state tracks. They do have a plan for it. It sounds like they did make attempts early on to try to make some changes so that their school can be reflective of what their vision is. I do want to say a couple of things. Having worked with small schools, and when you work with small numbers, percentages can sometimes be deceiving. So when you're looking at sometimes five additional students, increasing, can increase percentages by 15%. So, you know, part of looking at the percentages and kind of weighing

179the percentages and all that, while I completely agree that we want to be reflective of the student population of the district, that the fluctuations there, you will see up and down because of small numbers. The other piece I want to point out about diversity is The state of California tracks these, our kind of traditional numbers of students, foster youth, socioeconomically disadvantaged, racial, ethnic diversity. But there are other types of diversity. And I was very impressed with the student who came up here, the non-binary student. There's LGBTQ students who choose small schools because they are safe and they feel... that they are accepted in those kinds of schools and that is not information and that is not demographics or diversity that we track as a state. And so there are lots of other types of equity

180and I am also concerned that, you know, we say, well, because it's white somehow that it's easy for all those white students. Well, those white students also are inclusive of different types of students within there as well. So I think we just need to be aware of that and look at diversity more broadly than what might be currently in the numbers that we track as a state. I think that's it. Member Strauss and then I'll come back to member Patio Brown. So first I want to thank Lisa and her team for all the analysis and work that you did to present a really clear picture of the data and for the school and for people who came today to testify on behalf of both sides about the benefit and the students and the parents that

181came from New School and the staff I really appreciate. I think we all do the time that you take to help us understand how the school's practices directly impact. your daily lives. I just so appreciate the model. I mean, in some ways, when you listen to the faculty talk about the qualities and expectations of school, you want this for all your schools, you want it for your kids and your grandkids, that kind of energy, but you want it for all kids. I appreciate that the conditions that the CD is... Approving with recommending approving with conditions address some of the issues that we've been talking about about increasing diversity and the preferences I think our board members have shared some issues about the fact that parents do want their siblings in the same school and that

182could be a challenge and As someone who does pick up for grandkids sometimes I understand what the challenges are of different schools But I think what we're trying to do is create an opportunity the other thing that I think the San Francisco Unified's challenged with is prop 39 and where to find the right space in the right community to help schools who are entitled to space. So now we have an area where the space is impacting newcomer school, and that's a decision that the district's going to have to look at with their Prop 39, because we don't want to disadvantage. We want to create great schools for all kids. And I appreciate it. What Member Sung said is... Small schools where kids are known really well, there's some great benefits. And I would say not

183just at elementary, but at middle and high school as well. We want places where kids feel successful, can find their voice, feel comfortable, not judged. And the qualities that the staff at New School is creating is things that I think are great models that we could look at. So, I would support the recommendation with the conditions and the addressing specifically, and I know, remember, President Darlingham had talked about we want to really understand what they're going to do with their preferences to change the admission policy. My understanding is they have some specifics. There's a big waiting list. So that when we look at the data, we will see an increased diversity and opportunity for the students that was the intent initially of the charter. Thank you. Bronson is next I think member Ortiz Lacombe wanted

184to add up something I do want to ask the petitioners to be available to answer some of those specific questions so they may want to come back to the podiums and after those two comments so that we can get questions answered thank you so I find the failure to be able to recruit sufficiently for diversity very troubling these are There are models. There are ways to do these things. And over a long period of time, to continuously fall back on that is troubling. It is also, I think, the case that small numbers in small schools do shift percentages, but small numbers in small schools also mean the difference between a child being a single black child, a single Latino kid in a class. And I think that's also something to think about. MS. Standing up

185for equity and standing up for equity inquiry is one thing, and then there's also standing up for equity in action, which I think you need both. So I'm very interested to hear more about what the plan is that is going to be proposed, because an equity inquiry I think is very powerful and it It very much shapes mental models for the future, but I think part of a diverse learning experience is not just thinking about how equity plays out, but actually interacting with kids in your actual classroom environment. And so figuring out how to make that not just a theoretical concept, but a lived experience of lived applied learning matters. She's looking do you want to hear from the here's some of the answers about the question before you speak or you want to? Make

186a point and then we'll hear from the petitioners, and I have member Pangella now next I actually wanted clarification from Lisa around the admission requirement because yeah you put up the admission requirements In this slide, you don't recommend a minimum of 33%, but the next item does. So how are these two items working? Because if we approve this, I'm assuming that if this is approved, there's a high possibility that the next item will be approved, but what if it isn't, right? And so are we also plugging in 33%? And if we... Put this into the main proposal. They have identified their own projected targets What are we holding them accountable to their projected targets or to our minimum 33% our minimum 33% and then actually with the material revision We're going even further than that

187with the expansion We're actually recommending going to 50% for kindergarten and for their expansion into sixth grade So we're even going a little further in that Okay, so this admission requirement does not include the 33%. It was not on the slide, but it is as part of the recommendation. So it's a minimum. Yes. Well, that's why we're getting these questions answered. Yes, that's correct. It was the minimum. And then, as I mentioned, we'll go a little further in the next item in terms of their expansion. So for clarification, you're requiring those percentages in the grade levels for next year? Coming in is that right if they were to be approved for the sixth grade correct and and also for kindergarten Again, because they're going to expand a grade level per year. Yes, so the only

188next year It'll only go to sixth grade so we are recommending that for the kinder's that are coming in and then for the sixth grade where they're expanding to because it would be very hard if they don't have if not expanding within the current grade levels that right have they own the only places that they can expand these percentages is in the new grade levels. Correct. New classes. And the new classes that are coming. Because once they're locked in, it's hard. You may have two or three spaces, and it's really hard to get to that. So they almost need additional room growth in order to hit some of these larger targets. Okay. I want to move to Member Pangalinaan, who was waiting, and then I'll come back over here. So my comment was almost exactly

189identical to member Bronson, but the idea that Equity does have to live and you have to see hello. Yes, it's on um and you have to see diversity in your own classmates and on the slide about equity specifically it says curriculum that explores Race power and privilege beginning in kindergarten, but I do think that exploring really can't be done unless you're interacting with students from different backgrounds and a curriculum that explores isn't really enough. considering that you need to see that in real life. And then also just I am interested to see the recruitment process because free and reduced lunch, including that, I do think will help increase diversity, but there's so much more than just that as well. And then also if there is in a small school, like you said, you know, one

190student. that is a minority or because those percentages are small in small numbers, what does the staff look like? I don't think that was necessarily presented, but are minorities seeing themselves in the staff if they're underrepresented? So another just concern and something to look into, and I am interested to see the recruitment process that is being planned. So I think those are really good questions, and I'd like to ask somebody from the petitioners to come up and be available to answer some of those questions, and we can ask that they come up now. We've got a couple of more comments from board members. Is there somebody from the petitioners who will be able to answer some of these questions? I think I also will want to ask about this is what we would put in

191the approval, but I'd like to know how the school is planning to implement. those things. So hold your thought. I want to get to Member Rucker and Member Burr, and then we're going to come back to you to answer some of the questions that have been raised. Okay? Okay. So part of what I'm struggling with... is there's some information here that I wasn't clear on in coming into today's meeting. And so what I'm still confused about is what exactly the action that we're voting on is. And let me see if I can explain where my confusion is, and that might be helpful for the staff. Right. The staff from the department. Yeah. No, you won't be helpful. I can promise you. So, the action that we're voting on for this item, and I'm uncomfortable that

192we're talking about two items at once also. The action that we're voting on for this item is related to the approval of the charter itself. The renewal of the charter. The renewal of the charter. And so, but what I'm hearing... for K-5. But what I'm hearing is that because one of the issues is about the diversity of the student enrollment, what I'm hearing is that part of the resolution for that problem is related to the changes that they have made concerning their enrollment practice. And practically, and this is where I'm confused, but practically, in order to make the percentages work, they need the other item to be approved so that they have the grade levels to expand into. This is where I'm getting confused. Yeah. Staff, explain, and then Member Burr, you may want to

193add on. First, we're looking at the renewal. This is Judy Sias, Chief Counsel for the State Board. First, we're looking at the renewal, and staff has analyzed the petition and determined they meet the criteria for renewal. As part of that analysis, though, they have recommended some changes to the mission preferences, 33%. Correct. But again, it's... Member Sun pointed out, that would only be for K-5. So when you have entering kindergartners and you already have a population in grades 1 through 4, she said it would be difficult to meet. But that is what we're going to hold them accountable to should you approve the renewal. met the criteria legally for the renewal. And then moving on as we talk about their expansion, I think that is a separate item. So I would suggest maybe if we

194focus on the renewal, have they met the criteria for the renewal, and then we can talk more about their recruitment and... other issues and how they're going to communicate with families as part of the material revision because that's part of the expansion. Okay, that helps me. That helps me a lot. Okay, so Judy, I just want to pare back what you said so I can make sure I have a clear answer. So the item we're voting on or the action we're asked to take as it relates to this item is purely about the renewal. Right now. So we have heard from the staff and we have heard from the ACCS about issues related to the renewal. And so the motion would be with the conditions you've established concerning criteria for admission as it relates to

195the K-5 program they have in place right now. That's what you're asking us to vote on. Correct. Okay. Now I'm clear. You're clear about that. And should when we hear the material revision, there's additional criteria, we can consider it at that point. At that time. Okay. And Member Burr? So I just, I wanted to agree with you. Yes. Yes. Yes. Correct. And is there a slide or something that we should be looking at that will be helpful to people to clearly see the conditions? Yes, there are two. So there are the ones around the admission preferences and then the conditions around the race and ethnic balance. Okay, so why don't we get to those and we'll just review them so everybody has... Very strong clarity. And then, Member Burr, I'm going to come back to

196you as soon as we've had a chance to. So the first, the one for racial and ethnic balance is on slide 28. That's the first condition, which is the one where we want to incorporate the community outreach plan into the petition itself as part of our, in essence, the petition is our contract with the school. So we want that incorporated. That's our first condition. And then the second condition is on the next slide under admission requirements. And then we lay out what we're actually recommending here on slide 30. And as you've all mentioned, outside of the 33%. So I inadvertently omitted that, but that is part of this as well. A minimum. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. I was in the wrong. Yes, thank you. Okay. Okay. Member Burr. Per your suggestion, I think it would

197be helpful to have the petitioners come back up, and I have a couple of specific questions. Right. And I think hopefully it will respond to some of the comments that folks have asked about. So petitioners. You can now come back up. We do have some questions for you so that we understand the. First, I just have the specific question about how many times did you ask? the department to change your admissions preferences during the first term of your operation? So with this appeal, this will be our fourth attempt. Okay. The first attempt came in October of 2016. So one, you know, recruitment cycle. Right. And it became really clear the demand from our school was overwhelming and that we weren't going to achieve the diversity we needed in our school, period. And access was, you

198know, just... access was being limited by virtue of the fact that we had such high demand in a random lottery. We were denied in that request. The reasons for that, we did not yet have a 5% reserve. And that was the basis for a 5% reserve. And that was the reason for that denial. We then, the next year, followed up almost to the day on October 2, 2017, and requested another material revision. At that point, we also didn't have our 5% reserve, but we were on track to achieving that. In fact, we exceeded that reserve at the end of the year to 8%. But we were also denied based on the fact that we did not have that 5%. We then came back for the third time in February of 2019 to make sure that

199this current year would be impacted by preference. And we're told, as Lisa had said, that it was within the authorization year. It was going to be a really tough request. We were also going to be going up to our local authorizer first. And that out of concerns for local control and others, it would be best if we did it there. So those were the three attempts. This is the fourth. Again, I just wanted to clarify that because I think there was an assertion made that this was your first time. I think the chronology demonstrates that you recognized it very early on in the operation and you made an attempt to correct it. That's right. I also want to just clarify, because I agree completely, that equity as a practice... is something that can't exist in

200theory. It's something you must carry out in your classrooms every single day. So in shorthand, we defined equity as not what's equal, what's fair. For a lot of kids and a lot of families and a lot of educators, that's a really tough principle to organize within a diverse school. We challenge ourselves to do that practically every single day. And I think that's just really, really important. The one thing I would say is our community has come together understanding that our demographics are not what we want to be. And we are not as accessible specifically to those families who qualify for free New Bruce Christ meals as we need to. When we came forward to our community saying these are the conditions that the CDE is laying out for approval. And there were two sets of

201conditions, the first that came before the ACCS. Not one member of our community came out in opposition to a preference for free and reduced price meal eligible families to come before siblings. Not one. Everyone agreed. And then when that was up to 50% in kindergarten and sixth grade, the same thing happened. Not one person came out in opposition of it. Diversity and access is the core of what we do. We started it from the very beginning. It's a principle that, yes, you're absolutely right. We have not been able to achieve, but that we are focused as a community on in achieving. I think that's important from a sense of like we as administrators aren't trying to achieve this, one, for the purpose of reauthorization. This is year upon year upon year of our focus. And

202I want to make sure that Christina has time to be able to take you through not the things that we will do. but the things that we have been doing over the last four years to ensure the things we have control over to help ensure access to lower income communities. So I want to make sure that we do that. I don't know, would you like us to get into that part of our presentation? Yes, let me see if I can ask a question because I know we're going to get. short on time here and you have another item that's coming up I the I just want to point out and it was up on the screen and we changed back to the department but for folks who have the hard copy and maybe we can

203get it back up on the screen the very last slide of the school's presentation which is page 11 slide 21 talks about what they will do to increase the percentage of students or families who are eligible for enrollment via this preference. And it's not just by changing it and magically it's going to happen. And in fact, it's also outlined in quite a lot of detail, again, in this appendix, which will become part of the petition around outreach, around services you're providing, transportation plans, et cetera. if you could sort of limit your comments just to focus on that and let people understand going forward how these changes might help you increase your diversity. How they build on what you're doing now. I'm sorry, could you say that one more time? If it's relevant, how they build

204on what you're doing now. Would it be helpful for me to go through the slides that actually walk through that or just to try and quickly answer? Thank you. Great, because I'm more of like a reading off my paper type of person because I get very nervous, and it will help me to go through the slides so that... Got it. I've timed it and everything. And I will start by introducing myself. My name is Cristina Canaveral, and I stand before you as a biracial Latina and English language learner, a San Francisco native, and the incredibly... proud founding director of community at the New School of San Francisco. And just a little background, director of community, I am both in charge of what is the recruitment of our student body as well as what happens with

205our student body and our families once they are in the building. So as the staff member that leads our recruitment efforts and our school-wide priority of diversifying our student body, I'm here to talk about the area of growth that has been pulled out by the CDE, which is ensuring that our program is accessible to all, in particular for low-income San Francisco families. I want to walk through what we have committed to and have done to date and we are excited that many of the strategies mirror the conditions of the CDE upon approval and that we accept those conditions. So these strategies include adding a preference to our lottery for FRPM eligible families, expanding on an equity based transportation plan that can adapt to changing locations. possible that we might change locations, and continuing our targeted

206outreach, widening access to information, and reducing removing barriers for families that need it, such as pursuing hopefully continued collaboration with the district for a stable location for our school. I think it's important to note that our commitment to adding the preference, as we've already talked about, this is our fourth time coming to it, and we are, I am, and we all are, very thrilled to see this as a condition for approval. And yet, in the absence of this preference, here is what we're celebrating in our efforts. Last year we had two and a half times the number of FRPM eligible families as the number of open seats. Our acceptance rate for FRPM eligible families has grown to 90%. We also have a 90% retention rate from FRPM eligible families. We have a full-time staff person,

207that's me, focused on recruitment and community engagement. We have a full-time counselor and we have the... 30 plus hours of DEI professional development throughout the year for our staff so that they are able to implement it in their classrooms, in our after school program, at recess, in morning care, everywhere. So you might ask what these intentional strategies are to recruit. Well, we recruit solely in underrepresented neighborhoods in San Francisco. As a San Francisco native, San Francisco, I know, is a highly segregated city with neighborhoods that have high concentrations of low-income families that are primarily located in the east and southeast sectors, as you can see on the map. That's where I grew up right there. So I know the neighborhoods that I am going out and recruiting in. Thank you, and this is where we

208go in this area What are we doing when we recruit first and foremost we are building awareness and partnerships because we know that families listen to people that they know In addition to working with well-known organizations and preschools that primarily serve low-income families, we go where families go. We go to parks. We go to libraries. We go to faith-based organizations. We go to food banks. We go to grocery stores, laundromats, and so much more. And when I say we, I just want to clarify that that is myself and my team, which is primarily staff and parent volunteers that go out at night, on weekends, on Sundays, throughout the entirety of the school year. This is a 12-month job. When we engage with families, we are working on building relationships and trust. And I want to

209pause here to highlight that San Francisco Unified is a district of choice and in a highly segregated city. This system of choice by default privileges those with the most access and resource to information. And our targeted strategies attempt to address this inequity by having multiple ways to apply on the phone, online, in person, with me, in paper, and it's available in multiple languages. We provide multiple personal touch points with families in order to provide as much information as possible throughout the application and the enrollment process. This ranges from text-based correspondence with the school application, talking to members of the leadership team, to other families at New School, to teachers are calling their phone banking families once they've applied. Do you have a question about our school? Would you like to come and tour? We give

210private tours to families that are FRPM eligible. And then we also have specific recruitment events where students and families can meet with and speak with members of our team and current families. Thank you. In the 10 years that I have been working with low-income families in San Francisco and across the United States, I believe that having these numerous touch points is necessary because when we think about families applying to school, especially for the first time, all families want the safe, supportive environment where their children can thrive. Right? However, in addition to this, low-income families, and I speak to this primarily as someone who was low-income and now is no longer low-income, but I think about what my father and what my mother needed when they were applying for schools. Right? And so there are additional

211barriers that need to be addressed in order to succeed in a system of choice. Our touch points, our personal touch points, aim to specifically address the barriers that have most come up, which are talking through our transportation plan with families, giving details on our after-school program, which is either free or very low cost for all families that qualify for FRPM so that they know that there is a safe and consistent place for their children from 7.45 a.m. until 6 p.m. on professional development days and during breaks, because that really is helpful, and also, of course, a desire to pursue a stable facility in collaboration with the district, because a moving school... places an additional barrier for working families and low-income families. And so I think with this slide, it's clear that the strategies that we

212have control over, that we have intentionally implemented and grown year upon year, have led to an overall increase in our applications for free and reduced-priced eligible families. And yet when they're matched with the total number of applications without the structural change in our lottery, FRPM eligible families are not receiving as many offers in the randomness of our lottery. I want to pull out some of the things to note in this slide, which highlights our growth of FRPM eligible applications, which last year would have filled five kindergarten classrooms, as well as the exponential growth in applications overall. I've spoken at length about what we do for targeted outreach to see this number grow, but I want to point out that the vast majority of our general applications come solely from our website and word of mouth.

213That's it. We do nothing else additional for the general application. Our entire recruitment strategy is focused on FRPM eligible families. We believe that with a strong foundation we've built, in addition to the lottery preference that ensures a floor for FRPM-eligible families, we will see a meaningful shift in all aspects of our demographics from kindergarten through eighth grade. I hope that answered your question, and I'm happy to answer more. I just really needed to get through that. Thank you. It was expeditious as requested and very informative. So I think at this point we've gotten a lot of information on the table, and I would be ready to entertain a motion if there is one on this part of the petition. So if I can. Yes. Lisa maybe let's put up the recommendations again just so people

214have it because I'm going to move the department's recommendation to approve the renewal with the conditions that they've requested having to do with the Incorporate the community engagement plan in element 7. I want to make sure I get all of these Okay and also to Reflect the SBE as an authorizer and include the necessary language for element 8 admission requirements to reorder the admission preferences to attempt to achieve a racial and ethnic balance that is reflective of San Francisco Unified and I think you just saw in the chart what their hopes are about that and the next page just shows what the preference would be so by the adoption of the motion that would be the preference There's also a condition related to employee qualifications, which these are sort of technical changes, and dispute resolution.

215So that's my motion. I would just also like to say that thanks to the folks that come and that I am proud that we authorized this school, and I would be proud to reauthorize it through this amendment or through this motion. Thank you. Is there a second? I will second that motion. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please both say aye and raise your hand so we can have a count. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? One abstention. All right, the motion passes. Thank you. Now. Now our lunches are here and we're going to take a little break and pick up our lunches and then take up the next part of the petition in about let's say 12 o'clock. Let everyone take a little break. Yeah, and then we'll resume at 12

216o'clock. Good afternoon. We're going to resume. Yeah, do you want to speak to the overflow room? There is an overflow room which is they would get to by going to the left If there's not enough chairs How would they get to the overflow room? Go out the door and turn left and then turn left again past the elevators and turn left again, and you could Have its chair there if you've done enough chairs here or wait right outside Okay, just so people can be comfortable for the next part of the conversation. And we'll beg the indulgence of the audience as we eat in front of you. And we're going to start agenda item 18 for the new School of San Francisco, consideration of a material revision of the charter to change from kindergarten through grade

217five to kindergarten through grade eight. And Lisa Constanzo of CDE will present the item. Great. So as... We mentioned we're talking, this is the second item, which is the material revision. I will go through some of these slides because they will be duplicative of what we've talked about earlier in the other slide and get to the crux of what the material revision is. So in essence, the request is to expand. Now that we have renewed the K-5, this request is to expand the school to 6th through 8th grade. So they're currently serving 288 students in grade K-5. and they are projecting to serve up to 468 if this material revision is approved and they're able to expand to grade 8 by 2024-25. So for material revisions, just very quickly, it's during the term... during the

218term of the charter a school may request an amendment to its current approved charter we took this item in two parts because the district has had done that as well San Francisco Unified looked at us in two pieces so we also did the same which is why this is a separate item amendments may only be made with the approval of the authority that granted the Charter and they're governed by standards and criteria set forth in 47605 and what I mean by that is we take a look at the whole picture again. So in essence, we've done that for the previous item. So there isn't really a lapse time here, but we do look at everything all over again. We look at the petition, we look at their financial standing, and we look at their overall

219ability to implement. So we take a look at pieces. There we go. Aligned in the education. I knew I was live. I know I'm loud, but in the other pieces, we then take a look at their charter elements as well as part of our review. The California Department of Education is proposing to recommend that the State Board hold a public hearing to approve the request for a material revision for new school to change it from a K-5 to a K-8 based on the Education Code 47605 and the California Code of Regulations. We talked a little bit already about the background of the school, so I'm not going to get into this slide. One question I will state, one issue that I will bring up is that initially when the school was before us five years

220ago, they always did have the intention of being a K-12 school. That is where they ultimately would like to be, but the state board approved a K-5, which is what we're dealing with today. So I just wanted to make that clarification. Okay, so the only thing I'll state on here is if the material were but now that the board has approved the renewal for this school if The material revision request is not approved by the board the school will continue to operate as a k5 So just want to make sure I make that clarification So our basis for recommendation is sound educational program and they do not they're demonstratively likely to successfully implement the program We will get into the additional conditions that CDE is recommending as part of this expansion So I'll get into

221that a little further in the in the presentation So one of the recommendations that we are one of the conditions that we are recommending is an additional change to the admission preferences and I got into this a little bit earlier when we were talking about the item and Also, and I'll just mention this here, when we went into the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools meeting, CDE was recommending denial. We did have some concerns about this school expanding, already knowing some of the issues that we had addressed and we had talked about under race and ethnic balance and also the admission preferences. So we continue to have concerns about whether if we recommended the school expand, if those issues would still be there and if the school would be... to serve the students of San Francisco

222Unified. So we listened to the Advisory Commission meeting, continued to talk to the practitioners and the petitioners, and since then have changed our recommendation to the board to recommend approval. And one of the additional conditions that we are recommending is that for the 2021 school lottery, so the first preference will be the pupils eligible for free and reduced price meals. We've established that in the previous item. But we are also asking that the floor be set for the kindergartners and the sixth graders at 50%. So that is our additional condition that we are recommending to the board as part of the expansion of this school. And then the other admission preferences are the same as they were in the previous item Okay, we've also at we also took a look at the community engagement plan

223again as we have continued to talk about that one of the issues and I would say one of the conversations at the Advisory Commission meeting that came up from the petitioner was that it was one of the challenges was outreach and outreach in terms of families being able to get to the school and some transportation issues that they were hearing in the community. So part of our recommendation is revising the community engagement plan to address some transportation challenges for prospective families. So we want them to take an active look in that as part of their outreach and Then we have two conditions that actually will fall upon CDE as part of our oversight. So we will do monthly updates on enrollment of the socioeconomically disadvantaged students. And on a monthly basis, or actually I think

224this is an annual basis, we are asking that after every lottery that the school report back to us what the racial and ethnic balance is of each of those lotteries. So we have even talked about going as far as attending the lottery to have a kind of first-hand experience of what's happening in the at the community level as well and those things will be handled under our oversight responsibilities the Advisory Commission on charter schools considered the petition for renewal and they did not move staff staff recommendation because we were recommending denial at the time so the Advisory Commission moved to approve the material revision and on the vote of six to one so it was a six to one vote to move the material revision So again, as part of our review, it's a material

225revision request. So we do a full review. I won't get into this slide, but we take a look at the entire package, as I mentioned earlier. We took a look at the educational program, their fiscal viability, which we talked about in the last item. Their educational program one thing I'll just call to your attention here is they are planning to expand one grade at a time So they are really being Processed and thoughtful oriented about how they go about doing that so for this coming school year They would add sixth grade Following year seventh grade and then eighth grade and continue with that through the end of the five-year term with the State Board So that is how they're how they're recommending to expand over the sixth to eighth grade term So they do have

226plans for a small community of 60 students for middle school to ensure a low pupil to teacher ratio. So in summary, we are recommending approval of the material revision based on their educational program, fiscal viability, and also the additional language that I mentioned in our recommendation here. And I can always go back to that slide if that's helpful. To see what the additional recommendations are that we are making so they are here. I Don't know that the slide numbers. I apologize on this one, but towards the beginning of the presentation here are the recommendations We're making additional conditions under admission preferences on The community engagement plan and then the additional roles we will play in terms of oversight as well Okay, that's the end of the presentation or questions. I can answer We'll go ahead

227and hear from the petitioners first. So I hereby open the public hearing at 1210 p.m. First we'll hear from the petitioners who will have 10 minutes. Then we'll hear from the county or districts that are opposing the material revision. They'll also have a total of 10 minutes. After the presentations from both sides there will then be an opportunity for public comment from any individuals not already presented for one minute each So the petitioner Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Emily Kilduff, and I'm one of the co-founders and heads of school for the New School of San Francisco. It's a privilege to be back in front of many of you that we spoke to five years ago. Thank you for authorizing our school five years ago, and thank you for giving us the opportunity today to

228talk to you about the growth ahead. So behind me are all of our fifth graders. Can they all just quickly? Oh, they're going to wave their hands. Great. They are just coming from a tour of the Senate with Scott Weiner, and some of them are in the overflow room as well. These are the faces of our founding first graders and our soon-to-be sixth graders. So they are here both to advocate for their school and to share their voice and story as well. And so when I think about them, I think about the path that they want to be on to ensure success in life. We think about beyond just academic readiness for our students. We know that being deeply reflective individuals is incredibly important. and understanding who they are as leaders, the skin they're in,

229their identity, and continuing to make meaning of their experience in life so that they can work across lines of difference to solve big, messy problems, all in pursuit of making the world a more just place for all. So why middle school? Where does that fit in? So four key reasons in our opinion for the middle school. First and foremost, we've made a 13-year commitment to our students and families. And so when we were here five years ago, we talked about a petition for K-12 and why that 13-year continuum is incredibly important for students, both to narrow an opportunity gap. but also to have a highly intentional and personalized approach with students. A lot of research, in fact research by Linda Darling-Hammond shows that a highly student-centered model is one of the fastest ways to narrow

230an opportunity gap and that work takes time. The second reason is continuity. Our families have chosen a small school because it is highly personalized, it's inclusive, and it's inquiry-based. Many of our students will struggle in a more traditional, very large middle school. Third is stability for our families. San Francisco Unified has eight K-8 schools. They receive 596 more applications than they have spots for. Attrition in San Francisco is the highest. from fifth to sixth grade in our city. So if we can eliminate that transition for families, we're doing an important service. Finally, in San Francisco, families need better middle school options. I'm gonna show you the four closest middle schools to where we're located, Everett, James Lick, MLK, Willie Brown. You can see that all four are significantly underperforming, both the city and the state.

231I think it's also worth noting that the city at large for English and math proficiency in our city, Only half of our kids are reading and performing math at grade level. So what did we do? We started the middle school design process over a year and a half ago. We brought together a team of researchers, practitioners, parents to start asking really big important questions about the adolescent experience. What is fundamentally different about sixth through eighth grade? What is happening to our children's bodies and minds as they're going through this period of time? And then in turn, what does that mean they need? What do they need from curriculum? What do they need from peers? What do they need from the educators around them? Don't think I have time to go through every research insight we

232came to, but that's part of the reason we printed out the packets for you. Want you to have in the appendix some of the big research insights that our design team really centered our model around. So at a high level, here are some of the things that we believe our middle schoolers need. One, they need really safe space to continue that identity discovery and understanding of who they are. We know that adolescents can be particularly worried about who they are and in particular what other people think about them at this stage in their life. They are really working to build their own self-confidence and ask important questions about who am I. Who am I in the world? And what do others think of me? Collaborative and social social environments are really, really important for middle

233schoolers. And opportunities to engage with peers and adults as well. Time, again, I mentioned the self-reflection. Middle schools are also asking this big question, I think I said, but like, why does what I'm doing matter? I'm not an adult yet, right? I can't vote, I can't drive, but I want to. And so I want to know that what I'm learning and what I'm doing has relevance in the world around me. So what does that mean? So we took those concepts and we thought about what do middle schoolers need? What are those big questions that they're asking themselves and trying to figure out about who they are? And then how does that translate into the design principles of a program in terms of curriculum and then day in the life? So here's some of our big

234design principles. Our inquiry program continues. We start with the next generation science standards, and then we build the curriculum and the inquiry and the big questions students are asking around those content standards. Our through line of social justice continues into middle school. We allow, again, time and space to have honest, real conversations about power, about white dominant systems, and about race, class, and privilege. The rigorous and personalized approach continues. So you heard earlier, every child in the New School of San Francisco has an individualized learning plan with at least 10. personalize either habit or skill goals that we monitor progress. We come alongside families to build those goals and think about progress. We already have. So we have with our fifth graders five years of data and understanding, a holistic look at who they are

235as a person, what are their stretches, what are their growth areas, and what do they need to continue to be successful. We get the opportunity in a small school to continue building with all that institutional knowledge about how each child best learns. And the next is space to develop self and community. So we've thought a lot about an advisory program. We've partnered with the Institute for Social-Emotional Learning to think about what does that space of the day need to look like in small environments for students to feel comfortable exploring and asking questions about themselves. And then finally, one of the things that gets me really excited, I forgot to mention, I started my career as a middle school math and science teacher. Part of the reason I get very excited talking about middle school. There

236are clubs and specials, so lots of opportunities built into the model for children to try different things, challenge themselves, and figure out what are you really curious and excited about going deeper into. So this is where we were going to now talk about some of the conditions and our recruitment efforts. Christina's already taken us through. I'd love to just point out, and it might be helpful to point out because now we're talking about sixth grade recruitment, which is... Pretty different from kindergarten recruitment. However, I truly believe that the foundation of what I laid out previously Helps to grow that so when one thing I will know is that our fifth grade classes are our most diverse class and so being able to add even more diversity to our fifth grade class when they go into

237sixth grade is going to be incredibly helpful to see that that Equity in action right moving from if they are already doing it in practice every single day and that will only grow more I think When I talked about we will continue to recruit in underrepresented communities however the the organizations change right so I'm not going to head start anymore because that is where preschoolers are however it is worth noting that Many times when I go into a Head Start and I sit down with families and they talk, they're not just filling out one application for their new kindergarten. They're actually filling out one for their kindergarten student. And you know what? Also, I think my third grader and my incoming second grader would also benefit from this model. And so I think that I

238will continue to do that with my team and also switch up some of the organizations going to different places that primarily serve fifth graders, elementary school students. adolescents in general. I think parks will still work because kids love to hang out at parks especially knowing our fifth grade students. And I think that continuing to talk about removing and reducing barriers, building relationships, building trust is incredibly important. And I think highlighting the fact that I do not do this work alone and it is our families and our teachers that reflect the population as a whole of the city also come out with me and are able to talk. And I often say when I am recruiting that You know, I can stand up here all day with families, with you all, and talk about the beauty

239that is hashtag New School Magic, right? And I love it, and I am the director of community. But our families chose to be here. And so our families come with us to recruit, and they are our most important people when they are talking about our school, right? But again, when you think about... barriers in access and those large number of applications without that preference, like families that have more money, well, they have more time, right? And so I need to cater and tailor my recruitment strategy to the families that I want to put in front of families that they want to come and talk to, right, in order to match what they need, right? Because they might be working all day long or they might need to drop off their kids at a daycare in

240order to be able to do that. And so I really... try to personalize it and make it as accessible as possible, both for those that are coming in the door and those that are already with us. Great. You want to talk about it? We've already discussed this, but the same holds true for 6.8, as does K-5. We accept the conditions with open arms. We have been trying incredibly hard for four years to make a structural change to our lottery, knowing that equity is not just hard work, but it's disrupting systemic inequities. And this allows us to do that. Thank you. And we will now take the opposition presentation. Hi, Mike Davis from San Francisco Unified again. I'd like to present in three parts. First, I'll just start by doing a recap of what's already been

241discussed by CDE staff in that San Francisco Unified staff looked at the renewal petition for New School San Francisco, which, of course, had been previously approved by this board on appeal. And using the criteria, we decided that we could make a determination on whether it should be renewed as a K-5. We could not make a determination on expansion to K-8. So we presented a two-part recommendation to our board to approve the renewal as K-5 based on academic performance primarily, and that the board deny the expansion to K-8. And the reasons for the recommendation for denial were basically that we felt that the school was demonstrably not able to carry out the plan as outlined to expand to K-8 in the petition. And we also felt that we really just did not have the ability to

242say we are renewing you as a K-8 when you've only been a K-5. So... That was our recommendation to the board and they approved the staff recommendation to deny the expansion I would also add that as has been discussed here at length the school had a mission of being diverse by design and Has not been able to carry out that mission I would also add that We have a charter school in the Mission area of San Francisco, which is adjacent to Porturale Hill, near there. This school was originally denied by San Francisco, approved on appeal in 2010, I believe, by this board, and then approved for renewal by San Francisco Unified five years later. And that school, Mission Preparatory, has 82% Latinx student population, has 95% students of color, and is one of the highest

243achieving schools in the district for the great span that it serves. So we can see that it can happen. That's as far as what the staff looked at secondly I'd like to read into the record a letter from another board member of San Francisco Unified School District Rachel Norton Ms. Norton states, I am deeply sorry that work commitments prevent me from delivering these remarks in person. Today, I'm urging the State Board of Education to uphold the original finding of the staff of the CDE to deny the K-8 expansion for New School San Francisco. It is crystal clear that New School as it exists today and as it plans to exist tomorrow represents a lack of educational benefit to focal students in San Francisco. Lopsided demographics. San Francisco Unified School District has a well-documented gap in

244achievement between white and Asian students and their African American, Latino, and Samoan peers. This gap persists across income levels. Though leaders of New School of San Francisco have consistently claimed that their school is organized to serve low-income students of color, they are demonstrably serving a much higher percentage of white middle-income students than the district as a whole. In 2018-19, New School SF's enrollment was 52% white compared to 14% for San Francisco Unified as a whole. Similarly, New School's percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price meals was 11.5% compared with 54% eligible to receive free and reduced in the school district as a whole. Based on all achievement data available to the Board of Education, San Francisco Unified is demonstrably serving White middle-income students well across our district school and there is absolutely no data to

245suggest that new school is Providing innovative or superior quality or education to the vast majority of students it is serving There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that new school is making changes to their recruitment or engagement strategies to shift their current pattern of enrollment Danger of displacing focal students. Originally, I received personal assurances from the founders that New School would not seek facilities from San Francisco Unified. Those assurances evaporated when the founders realized how expensive and difficult it would be to find private space in San Francisco. As a result, their ongoing facility requests have introduced a pattern of displacing students of color from their local schools and replacing those students with white, higher-income students. Lack of proof of the efficacy of a K-12 model. New School's original charter application called for a K-12 model.

246However, when the founders realized that they would not be able to get support for that grade configuration, they amended their original petition to be a K-5 school. At that time, I had the understanding that New School had no specific plans to change their grade configuration, so I was disappointed to see that they have again put forward... plan that calls for them to be a K-12 school. I am aware of no data indicating that a K-12 model is superior to the K-8, 9-12 model utilized by the majority of the district's authorized charters and certainly not for the particular population New School is serving. Thank you for your consideration for this vitally important matter to the students and families of San Francisco. Rachel Norton. Hi, okay, so I'm Commissioner Collins, and I guess I just want to

247come back I was I heard equity was at the heart of the school I heard that repeated by folks who are testifying and even on the dais today, and I respectfully disagree Ibram X Kendi is book on anti-racism says we can't be defining racism based on people's intentions. We have to be basing them on actions. And it's not also about individual feelings. It's about actual systems and policies and the impact that they have. Plans and attempts don't mean anything to black families in SFUSD on the African-American Parent Advisory Council, who have repeatedly said They do not want any new schools. They want the district to invest in our traditionally underserved schools. And what is very concerning to me is when we hear all this language about how we're questioning white dominance, that there's a failure

248of... new school founders to see that they are collectively exercising their political power in order to hoard resources and displace students that do not have the power or the resources to be present today. I reached out to several family members. There are people who have to work. There's people who have to take their kids to school, people who live in public housing, people who don't even know that this body exists. And they are not here today. But they do show up at our board. meetings and they make their voices heard and by by moving this kind of this this important discussion into this room right here we're effectively removing their voice and it has direct impacts on them and their children I Before I finish, I just want to note there's a lot of statements

249that this is a needed school. My children have gone through the system. They are currently attending Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, which is a small school in SFUSD. It only serves 800 kids. And they're getting a specialized program where they get 10 hours a week of arts instruction. My daughter identifies as a lesbian, and she's actively involved and feels very supported in her school. We have a trans queer youth advisory commission in our district. Many of our middle schools have queer. queer Q groups where students get support. And we also have gender and sexuality alliances at many of our schools. This is not a new thing that the new school is offering. So to say that they're offering something that we don't already provide, we have over 70 elementary schools. My daughters attended a

250small elementary school in our neighborhood, and we had many to choose from. So they're not offering anything new. What they're doing is they're providing an opportunity for families who want to avoid schools that they may be concerned about to kind of hoard resources and in effect displace communities that that are most needy of these resources I just want to finish by saying that in our district we are committed to to pooling our resources on the most needy students. And when we have schools like the new school expand, they will be displacing services and resources. We are maxed out in terms of space. And we have enough space to meet the need of the demand for students in middle school. But we don't need a new school, and communities of color are not asking for new

251schools. We they had this new school has shown that they have not designed an integrative school serving our focal students They have repeatedly broken promises about whether they're going to use our space They are not serving their majority white student body better than SF USD and they are taking resources directly from our students, so If you vote for them, if you vote for their expansion, that means if they expand, they're either going to expand into international school or we're going to have to push them into a school that is currently using extra space to serve needy students in family rooms and in terms of all the additional support services and wellness centers and homeless services, things that we provide them. So I urge you to vote no. Thank you for your time. Okay, I think

252we are ready now for public comment So we'll take public comment at one minute per person Are there any public comments with the following speakers? Please line up at the podium Lawrence Chung Rob strain Joel Ava Elizabeth Ortiz Janelle Rooley Asta then Kovac a Eric Premack Ellery Clem Micah Meyers Roberto Enriquez, Callum Guerni, Allison Collins, Julie Roberts-Fung, Misha Viettuglia, and Marjorie Alvarado and Irma Acampo. Thank you. Please state your name and affiliation for the record when you begin. Yes, hi. Lawrence Chung, New School San Francisco. Thank you, commissioners, for allowing me to speak. As a Chinese immigrant who successfully completed a three-year English as a second language program in a public school, I was initially very skeptical of a charter school. I was afraid that the charter schools would siphon away resources critical to our

253other public schools. But what changed my mind was when my son... was ultimately diagnosed with severe ADHD and did very poorly in school. He had a condition so severe that we had to remove all the furniture from his room for his own safety. His original school was unable to have the adequate resources to support him. So we took a chance on New School because of its philosophy of inclusiveness. Four years later, I'm looking at a different child. One who can not only succeed in his class, but thrives as an individual. I'm so proud. I hope you'll render your decision not based on politics and re-approve our school. Thank you. Hi, my name is Shul, and I'm in fifth grade. I have a PhD in Tourette's. New School has helped me in making an environment that's

254really helpful and supportive and in the way that I can learn. For example, they let me listen to music while I do my work. I can walk around or lay on the floor if I can't stand still because of my ADHD. I have tools to pay attention that other types of schools maybe wouldn't allow for me or others, like working with the music on. The teachers at New School support us and guide us to understand any school problem. When I get shy or embarrassed because of my tics, they support me and help me overcome it and help me talk it out with my friends. My favorite part of the day is science. Learning about historical events like the space race. It makes me want to learn more. I love how we all grew into a

255community together, and that's why I want New School to be my middle school. I want to keep learning and growing with my community. Thank you. Hello, my name is Lizbeth Luna, and I stand here before you as an advocate for New School and as a proud charter high school graduate. I can relate to New School's fight to stay open and continue giving an alternative education to their students. I was at a public high school in San Francisco, close to dropping out, lost in between so many students, when I found Metropolitan Tech, a charter school. Finding Metro saved my future and my education. I see so many parallels with how New School functions because I too was finally taught to value education and learn to love it at Metro. As with New School, students and teachers

256had a close relationship. There was always an open door and a lending ear. It was there that I was granted hands-on opportunities through internships in the ER and midwifery, and I found my passion. Kids don't all learn the same way, as my nephew Joel has just attested to, but all can be given the chance to excel no matter their background, and that's why New School needs to be given the opportunity to do just that. Thank you. Hi, my name is Ellery Clem and I'm a fifth grader and a founding student at the New School of San Francisco. I believe you should approve our middle school. There are a lot of reasons why I love my school, but one thing that makes it special is how hard our teachers work to know every student individually so

257that they can challenge and support each kid at a just right level no matter what. Having more teachers in classrooms means that while one is teaching, the other can work with individuals or lead small groups. This allows kids to work on different levels or topics so that everyone stays interested and engaged, letting everyone pay better attention and have more fun. Our teachers know us and don't just tell us what to do, but interact with us and ask us questions about ourselves, our families, and how we are doing. They also gave us lots of options and strategies to show our work so we can understand what we're doing in a way that works for us. Everyone's unique learning style is respected. Valuing our differences makes us stronger as a community. Please renew our kind and friendly

258school. Thank you. My name is Michael Myers, and I'm 12 years old and in fifth grade. Here is my story of New School. I came to New School in second grade, and I think it is very helpful. I noticed it was different than my old school. At my old school, I got into a street. I've never been into a street here. Sometimes... Things are really hard still, but even when it's frustrating, my teachers hold me to high expectations because they love me. I should be treated like everyone else, not different. I've been in foster care for five years, and new school has been there for me. I want that community to stick with me in middle school. I don't think school would be the same for me if I went to a different school for

259middle school. Thank you for listening. Good afternoon members of the State Board of Education. My name is Roberto. I'm 10 years old and I've been at the New School of San Francisco for five years. A couple of reasons I would like to keep the New School of San Francisco to be open from kindergarten all the way until middle school is because everything Every three months, we do this thing called Expo. Expo is this thing that we get picked up from school, and later our parents come to school with us, and we show our projects and everything we have worked on. For example, this year I was able to build and code Lego robots, and I'm not sure most schools do that. My final reason is that since I was in first grade at the new

260school of San Francisco, all the teachers want to know all about us, from what we like to don't like. This way they are able to support us in every way possible. Please consider expanding New School for Middle School. Thank you for listening. Good afternoon. My name is Rob Strain, and I'm a longtime San Francisco resident, a former educator with SFUSD, and a member of the original design team that helped to imagine and launch New School San Francisco. Through a national nonprofit, Transcend, and now an independent practice, I support districts and school communities across the country who are seeking to build the future of K-12 education. About 18 months ago, I was asked to help facilitate a dedicated group of educators, parents, and community members here at this school in designing their middle school. During this

261journey, the team conducted extensive interviews with students and families. They visited schools across the state to learn from the best out there. They dug into the learning science, especially the nuances of adolescent development. All of this led to cycles of design, piloting, and feedback from the school community. I can tell you confidently that the middle school proposed here honors the best of what New School SF is today and represents a unique model that can inspire others across the country and create a proof point of equitable education with the diverse learning community. Thank you. Good afternoon, Board President Darling-Hammond and board members, and Happy New Year to all of you. My name is Janelle Rooley. I'm an attorney with the Law Offices of Young, Mini, and Core. We're here today in strong support of the CDE's

262recommendation to approve this material revision. I think, though, that all of us are maybe using material revision in air quotes today. As you've heard from the CDE, from San Francisco Unified, what new school submitted to San Francisco Unified was a renewal. Because, as our office was here five years ago when the school was originally approved by the State Board, this school was always imagined to be a K-12. That was always the intent. The State Board members at the time, some of whom are still State Board members, understood that. They voted. When they were voting to approve it, they knew what they were voting for. It was explicitly acknowledged. The plan for growth for this school always included checkpoints, and the first checkpoint comes at this first renewal as it's expanding into K-12, sorry, into 6-8.

263What I want to say is that our decision today is properly contextualized as continuing on with the plan that was already laid out there. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Callum C. Gurney, and I'm a founding fifth grader at the New School of San Francisco. New School is a sanctuary for learners. If New School had a middle school, we'd be learning at the same school, the same friends, the same teachers, and the same teachings. Today, I am here to talk about diversity and curriculum. Firstly, we are a diverse school, and not just in terms of race and ethnicity. We are all diverse learners, as sometimes we learn different things tailored to match our abilities. Me, personally, New School is the most diverse school I've ever attended. And then there's curriculum, or more

264importantly, ILPs. As I said before, we learn different things and have different goals. One of my goals is that I need to work on explaining strategies in a way that others can understand. Please approve our petition to start a K-8 school to help teach more kids. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, and thank you for having your hearts open. My name is Asta Ben-Slovaita. I'm a proud founding parent of New School. This school is keeping us here in California. I'm an immigrant. I came to this country with $50 in my pocket. We used to qualify for reduced-price lunch. Now we're doing much better. When we needed it the most, New School offered us low-cost aftercare. Their true dedication to equity allowed us to work and better our lives. No one wants to stay poor forever.

265New School is the best place for both of my kids. My son is an anxious fifth grader. I wanted him to overcome his anxieties in a safe place to learn how to listen with respect and talk with kindness. My daughter, a third grader, has a speech delay IEP and struggles with analytical processing and speech development. Because of New School's inclusion model, our girl proudly presents her opinions. She knows no one will laugh at her. The school nurtures kids with special needs by allowing them to shine their own light. New School is the only middle school I want for my kids. I know they will be seen, understood, and supported here. So many families leave the public school because of the lack of options. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Marjorie Rado. And my name

266is Irma Ocano-Campo. We are fifth grade students from the New School of San Francisco. We want New School to have a middle school and keep growing because New School supports us and they're always there for us, even when we're having bad days. We have been in New School for five years, and because of their help of our teachers, we have been learning a lot, like multiplication, division, and what a genre is, and so much more. When I entered the New School, My teachers and my classmates supported me with my English. Everyone welcomes you at New School and that makes every day awesome and gives us a lot of energy to learn. Now we really want New School to keep helping us build our dreams and our future. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Misha

267Villatia, and this is my first year teaching at New School San Francisco. At my previous school, nearly every student looked like me. I used to believe those were the students whose futures I needed to be prioritizing. I know now that we are all at risk if we don't intentionally work to bridge the racial and cultural divides that inhibit us from making our world a better and more just place. As a child, I attended racially and socioeconomically diverse schools, and I'm better because of it. I'm culturally fluid, quick to empathize with others, able to compromise. These qualities are gifts, gifts the students I taught in a racially isolated school didn't have access to. I took a pay cut to go from an assistant principal to a classroom teacher. My commute increased from 30 minutes to two

268hours to be part of a school I believe is on the cutting edge of equity and inclusion. And I couldn't be more comfortable and excited and confident about my decision. Of the fifth graders I teach, 25% have IEPs or five or fours, 13% are English learners, and 52% are children of color. It's the most diverse group of students I've ever taught. Every day we have tough... real conversations about race, privilege, and equity, and it gives me hope for a brighter future. Thank you. Romell Antoine, Charter Schools Association. Again, coming to you to urge your support of New School's K-8 grade configuration. We are talking a little bit about equity here. I heard the conversation a little bit before, and I want to really highlight something that we're glossing over. We look at San Francisco as

269a whole district, and what we talk about our numbers as being in terms of their demographic enrollment. If you look at the data of San Francisco schools by themselves, there are no schools that actually align with that even bar, right? So we have schools that are... having a high number of these of these students that we're talking about and Really skewing that line. I want to point out one school in particular and that's the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts and I call that school out because Commissioner Collins just talked about that school as her daughter growing into as being a Paragon of success a school that we know is doing well by the students that are there That school is currently enrolling 8% African American students and about 15% Latino students When we talk

270about an equity problem, that's the equity problem that we're talking about, where we hold charter schools, one discrete school, to be an entire district when no school in the district does that. But we know that we say yes. Charter schools say yes to accountability. And this school has done so by asking CDE multiple times for material revision. And so I urge your support. Think about that. Would the following speakers please line up at the podium? Seth Chastain, Kristen Devine, Roxanna Aguilar, Sandy Ciracio and Sierra Wang, Wendy Conway, Mariana Carrillo, Orfelea Chapman, and Lauren Berry. Good afternoon, State Board. My name is Seth Chastain, Jr., and I am a multiracial Spanish bilingual fifth grader at New School. My younger brother and I are new this year, but from day one, I loved it and felt like

271I belonged there. At my previous school, I would distract myself and take a long time to do my work because I was not challenged. At New School, we use inquiry, and my teachers create groups that challenge me at just the right level. I'm always learning. I am thankful to have three amazing teachers who give us their best selves every day. They inspire me to be my best self each day. On days that I need extra support, they check in with me and my parents, and together we come up with tools that help me grow as a learner and as a person. I can't imagine going anywhere else for middle school. State Board Members. Please say yes to give us the opportunity to grow and thrive as new school middle schoolers. Thank you. Good afternoon. My

272name is Kristen Devine. In addition to being a director of special education, I am part of the founding families at New School with a son in the fifth grade. In changing schools after kindergarten, I desire to change my son's school experience to be one where he was supported through challenges and recognized for his accomplishments. I struck gold. New school's intentional focus on social-emotional learning with adherence to nurturing core values has been inspirational. I have watched one of the most neurodiverse classes of students grow in their understanding of difference and capacity for kindness unprecedented in my 25-year career. New School has been unwavering in their pursuit to change how we educate the next generation. They have much to share to improve our current approach. I hope you vote to allow their educational change journey to continue

273not only for my son's benefit, but to shape the future of our education. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Roxana Aguilar. and I'm a mother of two wonderful kids, as Ian, 10, and Ethan, 5 years old. And we are a new family in New School San Francisco. And honestly, it's been very happy to be part of this great family. My children are treated with love and respect. The teachers and absolutely all the staff really care about the education and welfare of my children. We previously... Where and another elementary school experience there wasn't good my son constantly come home Frustrated angry and feeling bad When asked to speak to the principal to ask for help it was difficult to talk with him He never had time and we couldn't will finally talk to him. He

274finally let me talking. He left me talking alone and one of the meetings he told me if I don't give medicine to my son, wasn't that much they can do for him. Time. Thank you so much. And I tell you, my kid has been very happy to be in this school and has been changing our lives. Thank you. Hi, my name is Sarah. Our family has been at the new school for five years. You have heard a lot today about diversity, equity, and inclusion and the commitment of this school, and I am here to tell you that this commitment runs deep and it runs wide. Our community believes that equity means that every child gets what every child needs. And you know what? That has been tough for some families. Families that are used to

275putting their own kids' needs first. Kids who are used to thinking that fair means everybody gets the same thing. But this is the tough learning about equity happening at New School every day. Our school is a community that supports inclusion by normalizing accommodations, and boy, have we heard that from a lot of families today. And you know what? Our community is a community that wants... diversity. We want it because all kids deserve the rich, deep, joyful learning that is happening at New School and because diversity leads to better outcomes for all kids, including kids that live and look like mine. And because in these troubled times, nothing feels more important than raising kids that value others and that listen to difference and that are comfortable and enjoy it. That's what New School's doing. Good afternoon.

276My name is Sandy Ciriaco. And my name is Sierra Wang. We are fifth graders at the New School of San Francisco. We came here today to talk about why there should be a middle school. When I first came to New School, I was a very shy kid. I hated talking in front of other people, but then the teachers started helping me be less shy and more open. And I think this is important because I'm soon going to sixth grade, and I know the work gets harder, and I need to be more open to new things so I grow more. New school is preparing me for that. I came from a private school in New School in third grade. At first I was surprised by New School's learning tools and teaching methods. In my old school,

277like 90% of people there were Asian, but in New School there was so much diversity. Plus, the school lets you be yourself. You don't just have to sit there and listen to the teacher. No matter if you have ADHD to dyslexia, you'll have the learning tools to help you learn and be your best self. We really hope you will expand your school, not just... for us but for all the future students in New School. Thank you for listening. Hi, my name is Ophelia Chapman and I go to the New School of San Francisco where teachers feel like family. We each have an individualized learning plan at works. These things let me learn with confidence and an open mind without feeling left behind. We're not all perfect. No one is. We make mistakes. We learn from

278them. We learn from each other. In art, we were looking at superheroes and we noticed the vast majority were white, cisgendered males. That got me thinking, why don't I see myself? Why don't I see almost all my classmates? The real question is, why aren't those who struggled the most the real heroes? I do my best here because I feel safe and supported. I can't tell you how much that means to me and how much I want that to continue. Middle school is the beginning of the road to adulthood. That's really interesting but also a little frightening. Being at a school where your teachers and friends love you and know you as a person is the most important thing now. I ask you to approve our request to be a K-8. Thank you. My name is

279Wendy Conway and thank you board member son for realizing that you can be underserved even if you're white My son max has sensory processing disorder ADHD anxiety and a history of aggressive behavior That's why I value new schools unwavering commitment to reach every child who comes through the door New School delivers on the promise of inclusion. With customized learning, New School meets Max where he is. Social-emotional learning lets Max bring his whole self to school. And he's not just accepted in this community, he's valued. The New School team knows Max, personalizes his education, and gives me visibility and a voice along the way. Four years in max participates in classes and on track and reading he has strong friendships and for the first time this fall He sat down and did his homework on his

280own for kids like max progress is fragile and transitions devastating Without new school. We'd be starting over and likely never find a school that compares Please let's extend and amplify their success not shut it down Good afternoon. My name is Mariana Carillo, and I'm a mother of a third grader Belen and a fifth grader Roberto and we are so lucky to be part of new school of San Francisco community Since day one we knew this was the school we wanted for our kids every year We are blessed to have wonderful teachers teachers that are always there to listen and to teach every kid to respect one of each other regardless of their race gender or social economical level Teachers that accept and include our diversity and culture. Every kid has the same right and opportunity

281in your school. We understand there are very good schools in the district and we believe we have found one where you don't have to live in the right neighborhood or pay a tuition, which is not an option for my family. This is why I kindly ask you to please consider the expansion of New School of San Francisco into middle school. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Lauren Berry, and I am a proud fifth grade teacher at the New School. This community has transformed me. New School is an invaluable place working to disrupt the status quo. As a white educator, this is crucial work needed to best serve my students. We ask questions like, how will we internalize the ways we, our families, our kids, have internalized entitlement and internalized oppression? These critical questions are

282shared with families and incorporated in daily discussions with students. Recently, making superhero art, students unearthed this big question. Do the superheroes we watch represent us? So, like we do, we got rooted in the data, we made meaning, and we reflected together. One student, Elisha, who's in the stands right now, observed and shared words I need you to hear. He said, it's not really about who you are, it's about the choices you make, the action you take, and how you perceive things. Equity, inclusion, these aren't just buzzwords, they are palpably alive at our school. Today you have the power to make a choice, take action. Thank you for listening to our truths. There are no more speakers signed up on the list Thank you very much for the public comment. We will now close the public

283hearing for this item at 1259 p.m. And commence with board discussion in action first I want to ask super our SBE liaison if she has any initial comments, and then we'll ask board members for clarifying questions or comments I'm so sorry to interrupt. There's one student that was forgotten somehow. I take responsibility, but students should be devastated. I reopen the public hearing. Thank you. At 12.59 p.m. Get the last word, Cora. Okay. Hello and good afternoon board members. My name is Cora Collin. I'm 11 years old and I'm a student at New School of San Francisco. I've been here for five years and hope to continue for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. I love my school because we learn in really fun ways, whether it's coding a robot or building Biosphere 3 in our own

284classroom. We make up songs and dances to remember how to write a main idea statement. We do a lot of hands-on projects, not just in science, but other subjects too. Another thing is that our community is really great. We have morning pod every day to get to know each other even more. I'm excited to come to school and be with all my teachers and friends. I've made so many friends, and if new school doesn't become a middle school and we go to different schools, it will be really hard to start over. Please let new school become a middle school so we can keep our community together. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I want to make sure we got everyone. I am going to close the public hearing at 1 p.m. And then I'm going to

285turn to Sue Burr as our liaison to start with initial comments, and we'll open up to the rest of the board. Thank you, President Darlingham. And I'll just reiterate a couple of things that Lisa said. The ACCS heard this material revision, and they voted to approve the material revision by not unanimously, but as Lisa mentioned, the department initially was recommending denial. And they've changed their recommendation, and I want to take just a minute to say how appreciative I am of all the work that Lisa and Carrie and other members of the charter. staff did on this as well as under Kai's leadership you know they listened carefully to what the school had to say and and they really reflected on what had happened especially with respect to their enrollment options under their earlier petition so

286it just goes to show how thoughtful the department is in these reviews and I think how responsible they expect to be going forward with oversight they've built in to their conditions not just the change in the preference but the checks they're going to be checking along the way to make sure that the school is able to live up to the expectations we have for them so those are my opening comments I'm ready to make a motion whenever folks are comfortable with the discussion all right let's see what other discussion member Navajo so I have a couple of clarifying questions too and board member Strauss you hit hit on it I want to I first want to thank the brave speakers and children today. That was quite moving, and I appreciate it very much. I also

287feel obligated to think about the district's perspective on this, even though there's only two of them here. And I think that one thing that I heard that strikes me, and I want to make sure I understand it, is around the facilities. If this is approved, is the district obligated to give them use of facilities even if they don't have room? In other words, do they have to displace programs to provide the facilities? Under Proposition 39, which is not an issue before you all today, all districts are obligated to provide facilities to charter schools who have 80 in-district students. So it's a process that they're going through right now. The deadlines are May 1st, I believe, is when the final offer would happen. So at this point, I don't think anyone knows what facilities any charter

288schools in San Francisco. will be getting. So it's an ongoing process and it's an obligation of all districts and how the district chooses to manage it within their existing programs and their existing schools is up to them. They don't have an obligation to give a charter school the exact facility they ask for, but there are some requirements and regulations and law around this process. Okay. So theoretically, they could be in a situation where they have to displace a program to create the room and consolidate. The district at how they manage their multiple requests from all of their charters, so it's the district can Will determine that okay? That's another clear Is it also the case that sometimes? Districts rent out space that is not amongst their current space for charters or you know work at

289or do they have to stick within the buildings they own, so to speak. You mean like rent out non-district buildings? Yeah. I mean, I think I've seen that happen, but I don't know if that's part of the... I don't know what San Francisco's plan is. We can have them come back up and ask if that's what they do. I just know within the Prop 39, it's applicable to all districts statewide. Can I just offer that there are different types of auctions and districts work with... with their school districts to meet the Prop 939 requirements. So it could be that the charter school leases a building and the district helps to support the lease. So there's different ways. You don't necessarily have to move kids out of one building and another in order to meet the

290requirement. Okay, that makes sense. I'm thinking worst case scenario, there's no place really to lease because space is a premium and a district is required then to accommodate the expansion, which leads to the consolidation of programs and services for students that they are serving. And that's a theoretical possibility. And I would say that is separate from your decision on a material revision or renewal or any charter decision, your decision within the confines of the law. which is to look at the petition itself. Yeah, it's just an impact of the decision. I guess my second question is this. This might be for CD staff. The requirement is 50% of the students that come in for the 2021 school year meet the requirements of free and reduced lunch in kinder and sixth. Correct. Okay, so I get

291the kinder because I can enroll and accept. But I don't know what the percentage of fifth graders are now So if the percentage of fifth graders are 11% free and reduced that means they're either gonna have to enroll A large number of students to meet this requirement or they're gonna have dis enroll current fifth graders to meet this requirement Is that am I making sense of that? They will have a lottery this coming spring And yes, I mean, I don't know actually how many of the current fifth graders meet that percentage currently. I know that in conversations we've had with the school, there was, how many open spots? Why don't you come up so you can help me, yeah, so that we can hear you properly. And maybe it's a poor question. I apologize. Okay.

292Yeah. So the current percentage of students whose families qualify for free and reduced price meals is 27% of that cohort. We are going to expand from 48, this is part of our petition and appeal, from 48 to 60. So there will be 12 additional spots that open up within that cohort itself. But that total is going to have to meet 50% of the total class. students too, along with transitions. Yeah, I mean our retention rate is high, but we always lose in each cohort like two or three, four students per year. So I would say that over the course of the year, especially because what we have is we have families who migrate out of San Francisco. That's the largest reason people are leaving the school is that that target is achievable. And you've been

293having 90% acceptance rate of FRPM students. Okay, we've got a lot of other questions. I want to be sure that Member Navo has had a chance to finish his questions. And I'm going to come along around this way. So, Brenda, you're next. Would that requirement only be for this first class? Because if this is also the most diverse... Classful about the other ones falling behind that would continue in the system. So how would that be addressed in the same way? where each I Don't know if I'm asking that correctly, but meaning in each perspective year. Yeah The the years that are less diverse how exactly would that be addressed as well? so It that percentage wouldn't be for the like the first through current like this coming in this year the first through fourth grade

294I will say right fourth grade fifth grade so it would be for the the classes that are coming up so it'll definitely be the kindergarten class because they won't they have existing students that are going to go from one grade to the next so it's hard for them to meet that 50% with students they already have so we are proposing this as they expand so we'll stay with the kindergartners and it will expand with the grades as they expand one grade per year With the new classes the new that's part of the expansion because it's specific to the expansion does that make sense or died confuse it Okay, and the specific can you repeat the specific question? I'm sorry cuz I wanna make sure I get it right What are the implications for the other

295classes right is the basic question that Brenna was asking in terms of what's expected of their? diversity The expectation is we meet the floor that's set out. So we are petitioning for a minimum, right? And that we're meeting that floor, that minimum in our recruitment. So in previous classes, what we would do is make most use of, one, the extension of expansion from 48 to 60 as each cohort goes from 56, and also utilize... any attrition that we have, so within that cohort, roughly 5%, 6%, to make sure that we're meeting that minimum threshold. And that our preference is that we would prioritize those families that qualify before opening up a random public lottery for everyone else. So we would want to hit that floor. So the 33% floor is still there, but we are

296increasing it for the grade levels that they're going to be expanding to. To 50%. Correct. Got you. I think I understand it, but I want to be sure that everyone else does. Did you have a further question on that point? For the sixth graders and the kinder, you will have a 50% threshold to meet this year, 2020-2021. After that, it's 33% for all subsequent grades from K to 5, except for the rising, I'm sorry, K to 6, except for the rising seventh graders, correct? So then for the next, for the seventh graders, you also have to meet the 33% or the 50. Oh, well, 50, because it would be your students. Correct. So what I don't understand, though, is if you have 27% now and you're going to subject the students to a lottery, right?

297So it's not 27% automatically get in. No that that would that cohort would that court would hold right so you would that this group that just came up and spoke would then transition from fifth to sixth grade and Then we would open up 12 additional spots would go from 48 to 60 within that and then any attrition that we have between in that transition from fifth to sixth grade all would be subject to the 50% So there is no lottery for middle school? I thought I read something that there was a lottery for middle school. There's a lottery for every open spot. And so in this case, if you just look at expansion, it would be the 12 spots that open up from fifth to sixth grade. But you would be able to prioritize FRPM

298families for those spots? For those spots. Right. And you would not fill those spots with other families until you had reached the threshold. Is that right? Our priority and preference. That makes sense and then in each subsequent sixth grade you would be aiming for the 50% For all of for each time sixth grade comes up or 33% I think that was the question from member Ortiz Lacone 50% would then be in the subsequent seventh grade and in the subsequent eighth grade. Okay, got it. Does that help? Yeah. So as it expands, that 50% continues to go. And then it's in the kindergarten and it moves through. So you're really trying to establish that the way it moves through. Gotcha. Right. From both sides. Okay. Yes. Kai. Kai Jackson, Deputy Superintendent. Just to make it clear,

299as Lisa and the gentleman mentioned, of the spaces available in that lottery, in his example, 12. spaces, the first preference would be to FRMP. So at least six of the 12 would be FRMP before they moved on to the second preference, which is siblings, right? So that's how that spiking would go on both kindergarten and sixth grade and how Lisa explained. 50% of the total class as opposed to 50% of the new slots. It should be in the entire class. Okay, 50% of the total class. So we, okay. We're going to go with... And the goal is to get, yes, and ultimately the goal is to get to 50% of the class. But in terms of how that lottery system works, helps to get you there. We're coming around this way. Brenna, do you feel

300like you got your question answered? Member Sun, you're next. Oh, I'm sorry, Member Patio-Bronson, and then Member Sun. We're just going to keep moving around. I'm not sure if I just did the math right, but if it's 33% of 48 kids currently, that's 15 kids. And if we're getting to a class size of 60, you're aiming to add another 15 FRL kids, which means every expansion slot is an FRL slot. Is that right? If you have 12 slots you would it's not six of the 12 slots have to be 50% It's the whole class so if you're not at 50% then that all of 12 slots would have to go right towards frpm and until you get to this Right, so you get to 30 kids right and the fact that they're seeing 90% Acceptance

301and application rates now suggest that that's plausible be plausible if they weren't seeing those kinds of numbers So I actually had a different clarifying question one of the speakers had made reference to the initial proposal being approved as a K to 12 proposal that this board approved The board approved a K-5 proposal. That was what was in their original petition. They had an intent to be K-12, but when the petition was submitted to the board, it was for K-5. And they explained that they were hoping to grow, but it was always our understanding that as they wanted to grow, they'd have to come back for material revision. And so, last clarifying question, the standard by which we're reviewing this is the same standard as Item 17, is that right? No, no because under I don't

302that was a renewal so and that academics has to be the most important factor under renewal And this is a material vision to expand so you can't look at it academics because there's no six seven eight kids So you're looking at it as you would a new school and whether or not they are likely to substantially implement the program, etc Sorry Same standard of review in terms of it is de novo though? Correct. Yes, everything is still de novo. AB 1505 does not go into effect until July 1. So we are all under the old law, the current law. Seem to be old off never son. Yeah, so I it's it's a the threshold that we're requiring of them with the expansion grades is High, but I believe based on what we've heard on the

303plan their recruitment plan and what they have already been doing and The fact that the whatever remaining spots 12 spots 13 14 will all go to our ML students so I think I think it's doable for them given what they've done I am curious to hear a little bit about the transportation piece of it because there is one to going to get the students and then to keep them because of transportation and and somebody had mentioned that so I'm curious to hear what the transportation plan and So is that okay to? Ask the staff and if they need to they can ask the petitioners to clarify At this point, we're asking them to take a look at it. So we didn't ask for anything specific, but one of the issues that came up through ACCS

304in terms of when they had the conversations about the difficulties in outreach and bringing in the families was transportation issues. And so we're asking them to look at that as part of their outreach. And they do a lot of community outreach with... preschools in those areas and as the school and the petitioners mentioned they do a lot of that outreach themselves they're going out and doing that in communities but how do they bring the people in how do they bring those parents in so we've asked them to take a look at that as part of their outreach so we haven't given them anything specific it was just another point to expand their outreach plan okay thank you that helped if I saw the hand go up of the person who does the outreach were you

305wanting to Okay, I thought I thought you were trying to answer the question. I thought I saw a hand you know go up in the class Yeah, so here so I just want to make a comment so districts get transportation money charter schools do not and if there is a huge concern on the part of the district around equity and Providing choice to students who are the most disadvantaged that Partnership or somehow working with the district to provide transportation because you've got those buses going around anywhere And I'm not saying give it to the charter school for free but to buy a couple spots Or a couple seats on a bus that is in route in the same area I think it really would be helpful and it would also be the district putting their

306Money where their mouth is who's next remember Strauss? So first, I just want to appreciate the new school's commitment to continue with their mission. And having been a long-term middle school principal, and those of us who live with middle schoolers in our household, remember the drama, and it just comes with drama and growth as kids go from 11 to 14. So I appreciate parents wanting a safe place for their kids, and I appreciate school staff wanting to create that. It's a different environment than middle level elementary, and it's a whole different... different game than high school. And so I think... And that's not to say that San Francisco Unified is not committed to creating healthy middle schools as well. But I believe that the middle school level is built on important principles which we heard

307in the presentation. I appreciate the plan and the push that the board is doing to make sure that the material revision includes specifics to get to the right diversity that we expect. But when we first heard this, we did hear K-12. And I think there always was an intent. And different families want a K-5, they want a K-8, they want a K-12. Not everybody wants to stay in the same, but there are some unique cases where parents look for the right public school as an option for their kids. And we heard quite a few challenges, I think, of social-emotional issues, learning challenges. And so I just appreciate parents. looking for the right place and trying to find it and the good stories about some successes and the staff that really is challenging to do that.

308I still think it's hard about the relocation and the Prop 39 space that Member Navajo asked. And we've heard other hearings where not only did they expand, they sometimes got moved. So it's my understanding that the district, as Judy Sias was saying, has to decide where to put the school. And do they move the smaller school or do they move the bigger school? And so I think that's the challenge of the space issue. And we recognize that property in San Francisco is challenging to rent and to find a place. But I still want to make sure that we support a quality schools for kids and that we try to work. I mean, what we hope is a collaborative relationship between the district and the school. And I hear some challenges from the board about wanting

309to. put the money and the attention into their own school and I understand that and I think it's a challenge in that it's not about this is not a quality school. I think the commitment that I hear from these educators and what the teachers and leaders are doing is what we would hope for all of our schools. So I just wanted to really thank the school, New School, for what they presented and also for the department really pushing them on the details and so I would say these material revisions with conditions we have to hold them to so that we get what we expect and what the expectations are. Thank you. Well, things got fuzzy. I just want to confirm the math. We are assuming that out of the 60 students, 30, that's a 50%,

310will be free and reduced. That out of those 30, 12 will be new students. That leaves us with 18. So 18 of the existing students must be free and reduced now. That's the math. So is that not what we're looking at? Because 50% of the cohort of 60 would be 30. 12 are new slots. All 100% of those will go to free and reduced, which means that there has to be at least 18 existing students that meet that criteria right now. in grade, in fifth grade, moving on to grade six. And if that's not the case, they're going to not meet the criteria on the first year right now. So if you could clarify that, that would be great. I think that it's also appropriate to note that there's always some people who don't come

311back, and particularly at transition years. Right, and attrition times aren't as good as they feel it is. So they might have to fill those slots as well. Right. Right. They need to come if they have attrition, then they would fill those seats with free and reduced. Yes. But the magic number is 30. 30 students have to be free and reduced with new and existing. Yes, because it's 60. There's going to be 60 students in the proposed sixth grade. That's correct. OK, because I was seeing a lot of nonverbal communication back there. So I want to make sure we're all on the same page. OK, so that said, I do want to learn a little bit more about how you will then. BUILD THE INFRASTRUCTURE, THE SCHOOL, ANY TIME YOU DIVERSIFY, NOW YOU'RE LOOKING AT TRANSLATION

312SERVICES, NOW WE NEED TO INCLUDE THE EEL ROLE MAP, NOW WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT, AND I KNOW YOU HAVE A PD PLAN, BUT THEN MAKE SURE THAT THERE IS A PD PLAN, A SCHOOL CLIMATE, THE ELAGS, THE DIFFERENT PARENT GROUPS THAT ARE GOING TO BE RESPONSIVE TO THESE STUDENTS. SO I WANT TO LEARN A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT THAT. I DO THINK THAT THESE... These charter hearings never get easy because on the one hand you're seeing a model where there is a lot of student support, parent support, and you know there's performance. On the other hand there is a reality that we can't consider the facilities but we know that the minute we approve, if we approve this, that will become an issue at the local level especially when we know that it

313could potentially impact a school. geared at refugee students who have already been displaced in their own home countries. So you're like, wow, you were displaced in your home country, and now we're displacing you yet again in your learning environment. That is, again, where theory and practice don't always align, because the theory of wanting to disrupt systems for the right reason, and then when you disrupt systems... unintentionally. So those are never easy conversations for us, but we cannot consider that piece of it, right? Our legal authority is to consider the actual petition here. But I do want to say to Commissioner Collins that I heard you, and I heard you loud, and it did have an impact, because that's definitely staying in the back of my mind, and obviously it hurts me that we could potentially

314also hurt our refugee students, which are the most vulnerable. Member Rucker, were you waiting to speak? I just took a guess that that might be the case. So, first of all, I do want to thank Member Strauss for her recognition that having a middle school child in the house creates some interesting emotional challenges. As a middle school child myself, I perfected that very feminine charm of getting the vapors. And I still hang on to that activity as an adult. So I had to say that as the reason for my next sentence. I thought I understood this item until everybody started talking about it. Now I'm thoroughly confused. So Lisa, if you could come to the mic, I need to pick apart what we're doing on this item. So I'm going to begin by asking you

315about this Appendix D. Is this Appendix D added to the renewal petition that the Charter presented in an item we've already voted on? Yes. Okay. So what they wrote about in this Appendix D is going to be modified by the action we take now. Is that correct? It would be, it wouldn't, yes. I mean, we are recommending that they add some information about transportation, so that would be included in the plan. The admission additional condition would be in the actual admission preferences in the charter petition. Okay, so. So what we approved in a previous vote is going to be modified by this action. Does that require another material revision or is that already just a part of the conditions that we're approving with this action? It's part of the condition. Okay. So that was my

316first question. So then now let me understand these class size. floor and guarantees. There were, as part of the condition for this action that's being contemplated, there were two grades that some minimums would have to be in place for in the first year, and that's kindergarten and sixth grade. Correct. Okay. So, and for both of those grades, in the first year this would be implemented. there is a requirement that 50% of the enrollment in that grade would have to be free and reduced lunch. Okay, so let me explore the kindergarten piece of this, because I think I can resolve this one right away. So is it a requirement that in the succeeding years, as for the five years that this renewal is in place, that every single year the kindergarten has to have a 50%

317enrollment of free and reduced lunch? Yes. Okay. So that. All right. Is that not? I thought we were continuing the kindergarten. Yes, okay. Okay, some of your staff are saying no. Some are saying yes. This is the reason why I said I was confused. I understand. That was my understanding. You can let me know if I'm wrong, please. Hi, Jackson. To once again put it in context, you're really trying to get to a diverse student population which reflects the community and roughly San Francisco Unified School Districts for some of their schools is roughly 50%, right? So the first piece is the spiking at kindergarten. So when their lottery occurs, what I believe is in March, right, of that kindergarten class, 50% will come in as FRMP, period. So you're already starting out. where you're trying

318to get to, and as they go through, you will have perhaps some attrition. They said they have very little attrition. So, you know, those, you're probably roughly 48, 49% at fifth grade. If you make an assumption that they will then go to the sixth grade, and you then in sixth grade lottery spike that, and it really sort of serves as a topper. to ensure that you continue around there, right? So that's sort of around that 50% mark. So that's one piece. Then there's another piece, and you just don't get diversity instantly overnight. It just doesn't occur that way. So there are already a number of FRMP in their fifth graders. We saw some of them today. So they'll have a lottery. They're estimating roughly 12. If you have half then or FRMP, you then spike

319it again. I mean, you're just not going to get to 50% overnight. So there was some intentionality in that. The other piece is... how we change or the sibling's preference, and there are some caps on that as well. So that is the thought process. Does that make sense? Okay, but my question was on the kindergarten, is the plan that for the five years that the renewal is in place, that each year when they recruit new students to form their new kindergarten class, Is it a requirement that 50% of the kindergartners enrolled for each year of the five years the charter will be in place, that 50% of those new kindergartners must be on free and reduced lunch? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So I'm getting the impression that's not what some of these folks think they've agreed

320to. If you put the slides back up, I think this is what's adding to the confusion. This is your basis for recommendation. Then you have additional recommended requirements for approval one. And then the next one says requirements for approval two. And the first bullet and the sub-bullets under that, I think, are what's creating a little bit of confusion here. So if you could just put that up there and maybe we can work off of that actual text. While you're putting it up there, I'll say what it says. Changes to admission preferences. Pupils eligible for free and reduced price meals with a 33% minimum for each grade. Then the next subsection says, for the 2021 school lottery, CDE is requiring a 50% floor for K and sixth grade. And I think that reads, if I'm interpreting

321what people are asking, that it's just a one-year deal. And what Member Rucker is asking is, is that going to happen subsequently for the term of the petition? And we're getting confused. I am. I can understand. Understand that the intent is for that to continue. That's not what it is. That's what the intent is. And I believe that's what based on the conversation that kept happening, I understood that to be the intent. But that's not what that says. So I need to have some clarification on exactly what's going to happen with the kin and I understand the kindergarten is different from the other grades that would be matriculating through the program so we amend this statement to say for the 2021 2020 21 school lottery and all at all subsequent lotteries The CDE is requiring

322a 50% floor for K and 6th grade. Oh, for K and 6th grade? That's what it says. I'm just adding for subsequent. Well, kindergarten's not a new grade. Kindergarten will be a new class. It's a new class. But it's not a new grade at that school. Right. But what I think people thought they were understanding was that this rule would apply for each year. Then we could clarify this statement to say for this lottery and the subsequent lotteries The rest of that sentence holds you get a new cohort every kindergarten year, and you get a expanded cohort every sixth grade here No, you don't after that's right. That's right because of the okay, so yeah So the English teacher in me is suggesting. I wasn't it always 48 to going to 60 or is it

323not going to grow? Well, wait, let me get to that. I want to handle the kindergarten side of the problem first. So let me suggest this based on what I just heard, that this sentence needs to say, for the 2021 school year lottery, the CDE is requiring a 50% floor for K in sixth grade, semicolon. For subsequent years, for the balance of the renewal. the kindergarten enrollment will remain at a requirement of 50%. Does that make sense? Okay, so that would be, that would take care of kindergarten. So what we just did with that, what was just, let me change that. What was just suggested is that we are guaranteeing every time a new kindergarten class is registered, enrolled, recruited, that the school has to pay attention to their enrollment to guarantee that 50% of

324the new kindergarten students at the school. every year will be on free and reduced lunch. And that doesn't matter what the size of the kindergarten is. If they only enroll 10 students for their kindergarten class, five of them need to be on free and reduced lunch. If by some chance they get a ginormous school facility and they enroll 100 kindergarten students, 50 of those students need to be on free and reduced lunch. So we're clear on that. Okay, so then the idea behind this is Assistant Superintendent Kai says that these kindergartners are going to matriculate through the school, grade one, grade two, grade three, grade four, grade five. According to the charter school staff, we do have some, we have a high retention and we do have some students that fall out or fall off.

325Looking at what the requirement is for grade six, we are saying for the 2021 school year, we're requiring that the enrollment for this brand new grade has to be 50%. Now, there's a difference between enrollment or recruitment. So... Can we stop? This is Judy Saez. When you look at the first bullet, it says for the 2021 school lottery. I think the word lottery is confusing things, too. So back to your semicolon addition, I think what we're saying is for the 2021 school year, the city is requiring a 50% floor for grade K and for all subsequent years of the renewal. For K. For K. So let's get K. Because I think adding the semicolon did not clear up the issue between the word lottery and enrollment. Yeah, but lottery is the recruitment. I'm saying enrollment.

326I use the word enrollment on purpose. Yes. She's taking the word lottery out of this. I'm writing that down and reiterating to make sure because it's different than what's on the screen. You just want to make sure. Yes. Okay, we've got K done. Okay. Okay. So then turning to the sixth. No way. Okay, so then, yeah, wait, don't move. So then turning to the sixth grade, this is where I got confused again. So turning to the sixth grade, everybody got bogged down in percentages. You know, it's easier for me to work on hard numbers. So again, we currently have, we heard from a lot of students who came here today to state that they intend to, if the school, if the grade expansion is approved, they intend to enroll in the sixth grade. So Lisa,

327how many fifth graders are currently at this school? 48. 48 students are currently at this school. And I heard very clearly, because it was said multiple times, that there's actually a low rate of attrition at the school. So that means if these numbers were in place when the new sixth grade class is opened this fall, of those 48 students, 24 of them need to be. on free and reduced lunch. No, that's what Kim was getting at earlier. Yes. There's 48 continuing students. They plan to add 12 slots. No, yeah, okay. So the sixth grade starting next year will be 60. And of the 60, 30 will need to be... Okay, but the reality is they may not get all of those slots filled. So the point I'm trying to make is... Whatever the enrollment is,

328are we saying it has to be at 50% or are we saying you gave it your best shot and that's okay? So that's what I'm trying to get clear about on the new sixth grade class that will be graded. I understand they intend to increase their class size. And part of the strategy at increasing their class size is twofold. One, they will get more students because it's another class. But two, it helps them to deal with their diversity numbers because since they have such a high retention rate, they need the extra space of those seats to help them. Yeah, let me see if I... So what I think I'm hearing you say is because we know we have a fifth grade class that's already going to continue, so maybe for sixth grade it's 100% of

329the open slots in the lottery, 100% shall be FRPM until the school reaches 50%. That would be better because right now the math says they're not going to get to 50%. Right, because we know that. We don't want to set them up. Yeah, right now, the way the math is, that's the reason why I want to take this, pick this apart, because right now the math says they won't get to 50%, and I'm looking at the fact that they keep telling us about their high retention rate. So if their goal is to try to hang on to all the students they currently have or at least allow them the flexibility to choose to stay rather than deal with what my colleague here talked about telling some kids, well, you can't come back because we now

330have this new agreement. If their goal is to try to want to retain the students they currently have, the math says they won't get to 50% as this requirement says. So I have for the sixth grade, 100% of the slots in the lottery shall be allocated to FRPM. Every single year until? And every year until they get to 50% enrollment in sixth grade at FRPM. Well, sixth grade, I guess seventh grade. No, it would be in sixth grade. Since we're creating, it would be in sixth grade. Because then as they successively move up. All right, so wait a minute. I have one more question. We also have some other folks who want to weigh in on this question. So, Judy, I don't want you to leave until I know Ting wanted to get in on

331this particular thing. Are you switching topics? No, I'm still on this. So then what I heard was there was something else that was supposed to happen for grade 7 in the out year and grade 8 in the out year. But that was not made clear to me. Is there a plan for what's supposed to happen with that enrollment in grade seven and grade eight? Or are we assuming that as those sixth graders matriculate through, they will just simply form the new seventh grade class with no conditions and form the new eighth grade class with no conditions? Is that correct? That was the intent. No, the 33% would apply to them. Well, it's still the floor. It's still the intent. The 33% still implies. Okay. So the 33% then would apply to all grades or across

332the school? See, there's a difference between a 33% enrollment at each grade and a 33% enrollment across the school grade span. I was assuming across the school because you're boosting the percentages in some grade levels, others have to catch up over time. And so it mathematically makes more sense to say across the school. Aren't you glad I was last? Aren't you glad? See, aren't you guys glad I'm last? Just say yes. So my attention to detail, see there's a difference between a 33% enrollment per grade and a 33% enrollment in grades K through 8. Because what you do with grades K through 8 is you actually water down the diversity of the whole school if you're looking at the total population of the whole school. So that's the reason why that needs to be clear.

333And then the third thing these conditions don't state. is what's going to happen. I understand that you're going to retain jurisdiction and do the monitoring and do the reviewing and do the reporting. So I need to remind you, they have been in this holding pattern. I'm not going to talk about what happened with all with their multiple attempts to Come back and have a material revision and talk to the board about what they realized was going wrong the fact of the matter is for most of the five years they have been in place they never met their intent of the diversity in their student enrollment so What's going to happen if these grand plans and the attention to detail we're making fails what's going to, because I really don't believe it's going to succeed because

334it hasn't succeeded yet, but what's going to happen now. if it fails now because they said they were unsuccessful in getting your attention and saying we want to do some revising and they didn't do it and they didn't get a chance to do it so i don't want to find out five years from now when the san francisco school board now has to take over the review of this and make some decisions what i while it's beyond the scope of our authority to consider what's going to happen Whatever mess is created, it's our mess that somebody else is inheriting. So we need to be real clear in these conditions about exactly how you, in the authority that the board is holding to create this charter, how we are going to make sure we fix this

335mess while it's still in the scope of our authority. And so that's not in there. That's very helpful. And we have two other people who want to weigh in on this question. So before we... Before we resolve it, can we hear from the other two people who want to weigh in on this question? I don't think I wrote down, and we can get to it if we have a motion, about the ongoing school. I did not write that down. Yeah, and I think we want to hear from some other board members before we get to that. So, Member Sun and then Member Patio Bronson. So, I appreciate Member Rucker's persistence in clarifying this because I... I understand why you're asking those questions, and I think it will, even though we're spending more time on it,

336I think in the long run this is going to help us. So I would agree with the proposal that all of the open slots, what we said was all the open slots would be filled by free and reduced price lunch pupils until such time we reach the 50%. threshold for each grade level. I think that is that gives them a little bit of breathing room in the short term, but in the long term we're actually setting a higher bar than the 33% minimum. Right and so I think that that is a long-term role. It's it's it's gonna be a stretch for them They're not gonna be able to do it right away with every single grade level but as those kindergartners move through by the end of this Charter term we should see something very

337very close to 50% for you and reduce lunch right Population in there. So this is the plan that we would be sitting out and setting for the school And with their commitment to this, I would agree to that proposal. Okay, thank you. Let me sit some on this side of the table, ask Member Patio-Bronson, and I'll come over to Member Ortiz-Lacone. Oh, and we've got another. I just wanted to actually thank Board Member Rucker for going to town on our math skills this morning, or midday, I guess. But I also just want to reflect that I think that's actually. A really helpful upgrade in terms of the conditions that would be attached The 50% threshold actually gets much closer to the actual demographics of the district which I think we've heard from the representatives from

338the district as an aspiration and I I think we've all been impressed by the academic and social-emotional program that folks are offering and are just eager to make sure that it is equitably available to kids throughout San Francisco Unified. So I don't doubt that this would be a stretch and that this will be somewhat taxing but worth the while. And the numbers that were presented in the addendum around what the recruitment and outreach efforts have been to actually boost the number of FRL applicants, I think, actually should support even getting to 50 percent with existing robust recruitment efforts. And then enabled, of course, by changes in the lottery system. So I actually feel much more comfortable with this version of the expansion for middle school. I feel like it's actually a much more well-developed plan

339this way. So your comfort level is with the version that Member Sun just articulated? Okay, great. And that version, I just want to clarify, does not speak to the 33%. It really speaks to the... Yes, actually. Well, we probably are going to need to help write it so that's why I'm and I think the point that members son was making is that if you have a threshold for kindergarten and then you're beginning in sixth grade and open slots that need to go to free and reduced-price meal students until you reach the 50% then That's a clear rule that I believe does no longer necessitates the 33% because it's a very clear just set of decision rules So we can come back around to that because then we have if we if we want to keep

340that other Percentage in there we've got to then go through a very long process of figuring out is that grade by grade and how would that work and what given the grades and where they are now and so on so anyway I think it's a cleaner clearer set of decision rules in it and so the other cooking is That's a minimum the 50% is a minimum. So if their recruiting efforts was such that they had Let's just say 50 slots at their kindergarten, but they were able to recruit 50 families that entire that because of the preference that's actually their entire preference Yeah, that's their growth yeah, okay, I want to recognize it was answered I want to remember guys member Sandoval I am coming back around this side of table But I feel that

341in the in the cause of equity I have to pay attention to this side of the table Member Sandoval Thank you, I appreciate the discussion and the clarification and the diligence member up rocker and I think that the proposed revision makes sense and is Closer to where we want to be And I just want to reiterate what member Sun said that this is a floor It's not a ceiling and so hopefully there will be a lot of learning and growing over the next four or five years and We can exceed that The number of free and reduced price lunch students in this particular school if it's if it's approved but I'm very supportive of the approval and but using these revisions that are proposed right now. Okay. Member Ortiz-Lacombe. Thank you for your patience. No,

342no problem. I want to make sure that the petitioners know what we're asking of them because there was five different conversations going on here and everyone had a different understanding of what we were actually asking. The 33% minimum for each grade is still there. I perceive that as a maintenance effort. So you're going to recruit 50% free and reduced, and you must maintain 33% per grade level across the school, per grade level. And so we want to make sure that, yes, we will eventually up that number, but retention is going to be key, and we still do need to make sure we keep an eye on that floor and making sure it doesn't go below. And so we... we need to if we remove the thirty three percent were removing the minimum requirement so i

343just want us to be aware of that we could say fifty percent uh... recruitment uh... but that is a me retention and so we need to make sure that we keep a minimum in there so if we do that is what a clarify that we will then need to figure out At what point that kicks in for grade levels that are not currently expanding in size? Okay, because that's that's the piece that is Okay, so maybe that's one way to answer that it starts with kinder But I just want to be sure we are clear about that piece as well Let's see what I've got or do we want to keep discussion? Yeah, why don't you tell us what you've got then we'll go back to the next conversation kindergarten for the 2021 school year

344and subsequent school years of the renewal CD is requiring a hundred percent of the open slots will be allocated to frpm students until the school reaches Until the enrollment in kindergarten. Well, that's what my question was. Until when? Is it until the kindergarten enrollment is, but the kindergarten enrollment is different each year. So is it until the whole school is? Until the percentage of enrollment in kindergarten is at 50%. Or more. Or more. It changes every year, so that doesn't make sense. Okay, okay. Again, I understand it changes every year. What I am saying is whether your enrollment is 35 students or 10 students, half of those students need to be on free and reduced lunch. But there are new kids coming in every year, so at the lottery before these kids come, it's 100%.

345It's FRPM. Until the whole school reaches 50% FRPM? That cohort. Until the cohort. Okay, so it's different. Until that kindergarten. All right, so here's what the cohort would be. So next year in 2021, they start this process. And 100% of those slots have to be for students on free and reduced lunch. That kindergarten class moves up to first grade. We're holding them accountable for what is the ratio of free and reduced lunch students in that first grade? They have to meet keep that floor. I think that's different than what was said over here, so I just want to clarify Okay, so let can I can I try yeah, I'll just try And mistakes are honored here, right? respected and inspected and corrected In the kindergarten and in the sixth grade, if I'm trying to go

346back to Member Sun's articulation of this, 100% of slots would go to free and reduced price lunch until a minimum of 50% of that cohort has been reached. Yes, and we're agreeing with you. And then I think if we want to also have a concept of a minimum. We need to come back to that and say at what point does that kick in what I heard? Felice is saying was for those cohorts as it's growing over time They need to maintain at at least 33% FRP and that's one version what we have not kicked that one around the table yet But I'd like to be see be sure we agree on the first piece which was the Sorry, I think 50% the hundred percent of FRL slots going I thought was only applying for the

347sixth grade so that all of the new slots until such time as you hit the 50% Right. And then for the, but we're not saying that 100% of their kindergarten admission needs to be. No, no. I mean, that doesn't make sense. No, the way I understood the proposal is that you accept until you, once you've gotten to 50%. Until you get to 50%. Until you get to 50%, right? Yeah, but Kim's right. It's all open slots at kindergarten, right? Okay. It's all open slots. So at kindergarten, is it? 50% of the open slots or it can't be 100% of slots because I guess that's everyone you know if you could do that right that's he's high so that's over kindergarten It's it's a certain percentage of the 100% well there are all the slots are

348open because they're coming in In other words as a result of their lottery to recruit students to form their new kindergarten class When they get done and they publish a class list of their new kindergarten class. You with me so far? So we're talking about, so what we're really talking about is two things. Recruitment strategies to ensure they goose how many people they target and ensure we'll turn in a form and say, please pick me, pick me. We're saying you're going to have to improve that. But then we're saying when you're done with the recruitment and the lottery is finished, you haven't been successful if over half the kids you enroll still are not. reflecting the diversity of the district. So we're saying when you publish that kindergarten class list, and this is where it

349gets ticklish, we're saying that there needs to be a specific floor as to how many of those new kindergartners need to be on free and reduced lunch. And I suggested every new kindergarten class as a floor should start at 50% on free and reduced lunch. That's what I'm saying. And then I think what Ting was saying beyond that is for the sixth grade, 100% of slots go to FRPM students. For the first year that we do this. Until they reach 50% for the sixth grade cohort. Got it. Which allows some give and cushion so that if they can't reach the 50% in the first year, they could, you know, get to that over time. The fact of matter that their first preference on their admissions is free and reduced lunch If they have more than

35050% of the open slots actually apply, all those slots, it could be 60%, 70%, those slots will go to the free and reduced lunch families. So it's not just about reaching the 50%. It's whatever, by the very fact that their admissions has that preference in it, it's... Whatever percentage is those all those students are going to be going into any open slot whether we put the 50% or not? Which will be at least? Well, and I could agree with you on that assumption, but I can't agree to the assumption because I don't know enough about who's on their waiting list to say they'll be good actors and behave and do that thing because the data doesn't say they've done that up to this point. So read what we've got. Yes, please. I know you all

351have flights to catch. We do, and we need to move this. Kindergarten, for the 2021 school year and subsequent school years that are part of this renewal, CDE is requiring that 50% of the enrollment slots will be allocated to FRPM students until at least 50% of that cohort reaches FRPM. Okay. Okay, got it. Yeah all open this is different than what is on the screen and what Kai was earlier saying So I just want to make it clear. This is a change From what the CDE recommendation may have been for the sixth grade It is saying 50% of all open slots? No, just all open slots will be. Are you talking sixth grade or kindergarten? Oh, I'm sorry. Let Judy try to get us. Okay, well, let me read what I got. For kindergarten, let's

352start with for kindergarten. Okay, for kindergarten, 2021 school year and subsequent school years, 50% of all open slots will be allocated to FRPM students until a minimum of 50% of that cohort is FRPM. 50%. No? That's not right? You can't because their admissions will, it's whatever. Any pre-reduced lunch student that applies in kindergarten will be getting in because their admission is 50%. You're just saying your preference is any student that has that is going to be coming in. They get first preference. So you have siblings and others that are in the list. But that just means. Yeah. Well, no, I thought we thought we needed it. I thought we thought we needed it so that it would end after we track them in first and second and third grade. That's why I had it going

353forward. But maybe I misunderstood it. Okay. So let me try one more time. The end result, the goal for the kindergarten class is to make sure as a floor. the students in the kindergarten class have a composition where at least half of them are on free and reduced lunch. That is different from saying that they need to look at their applicants and ensure that they will look, that they need to guarantee that half their applicants. are on free and reduced lunch. That's not what we're saying. We're saying that when they are skimming through their applications, they need to make sure, based on this enrollment preference we're trying to create, that the kindergarten applicants who are on free and reduced lunch know that they're going to get in because you're trying to get to this 50%

354floor of enrollment. So you don't need to say 50% twice. It's not 50% of who you recruit ending up with 50% of who's enrolled. We're saying when you're done with all your recruitment and you evaluate the success of your recruitment, you've met our condition if half of your kindergartners that you've enrolled are on free and reduced lunch. You want to speak to this there's I think there's a question about how the lottery are suggest maybe that one onto the other items I'm gonna sit down with Janelle and staff and we will type something up and come back that sounds good, so let's okay, so we're gonna come back to this and Did let me ask the person who from was it young mini? Did you want to say something about the lottery functioning or something?

355Yeah, talk to Judy. That sounds good. I also just want to say thank you to Judy for taking all of the feedback. I think we're getting very close to understanding what the goals are. And so we'll come back and hopefully have a very clear articulation that we can then actually take up and vote on. I'm hesitant to give us a break because I know some people have flights that they want to catch, so I'm going to encourage you to take a break as you need one, and then we're going to try to move expeditiously through the other items. So we're going to move to Agenda Item 19, which is to consider California's application to the United States Department of Education for funds available through the 2020-2023 Federal Charter Schools Program. The CDE recommends that the

356State Board approve and direct the CDE to apply for up to $45 million in federal funds under the federal CSP for a total grant award period of three years. I'm going to pass the ball. I thought I was passing it to Lisa Constancio. Hi. This on? This is on. Okay. Hi. I'm Stephanie Farland. I'm the director of the charter schools division. I am hoping that this will go quickly. And there's not a lot of questions about this. So today we are talking about... the federal charter school program. It is a federal grant, a federal competitive grant to provide assistance, financial assistance to charter schools to plan, implement, replicate, and expand high-quality charter schools. It also provides funding for technical assistance to charter schools and authorizers related to best practice. And also it provides funding for

357the... administration of the grant for CDE and the State Board to administer the grant. So today we are asking for the CDE to approve and direct us to apply for the 45 million dollars in federal funds for a total grant award period of three years. We will be doing the work in consultation with the Executive Director of the State Board and State Board liaisons to perform all necessary activities to finalize the CSP application. Purposes of the Charter School charter school grant really is to expand opportunities for all students particularly traditionally underserved students to attend public charter schools and also meet challenging state academic standards provide financial assistance as i said a moment ago for planning program design and initial implementation increase the number of high quality charter schools evaluate the impact of charter schools on

358student achievement families and communities share best practices between charter schools and public schools traditional public schools and support efforts to strengthen the charter school authorization process. So there are some application evaluation criteria that the federal government, the Department of Ed has. The Secretary of Education has outlined the following there as specific criteria from which all applications will be evaluated. quality of the project design, ambitiousness of the state entity objectives, obviously the quality of subgrant applicants, the way we monitor the subgrants, they'll look at that plan, the quality of management plan, which means that we have the appropriate staffing and time commitments to ensuring that the grant is managed appropriately. and effectively parent and community involvement in the implementation and operation of charter schools in the state and degree of flexibility afforded to charter schools under

359state education code. So they look at all of that. The CSP funding may be used for four types of subgrants, planning, implementation, replication, and expansion. Planning is obviously for new startup charter schools, implementation for schools in their first two years of operation. Replication are subgrants for charter schools. and are used with respect to high quality charter schools and then expansion sub grants for high quality charter schools who have been open for at least three years and these sub grants provide funding to cover the costs of adding new grade levels to existing charter schools. So there is a need for a definition of high quality charter schools and the CDE is proposing since we just adopted AB 1505 and there are three three three tier renewal track and we do Talk in that track there is

360some definition around what a high quality school is in terms of renewal We would like to use that highest track for our definition of high quality charter schools And then obviously the federal government has their own definition of high quality, which means that the school has had no significant issues in the areas of student safety, financial, operational management, or statutory or regulatory compliance. And then added into that, and it shouldn't actually be a sub-bullet because it's different than the federal. qualification is how the school will comply with requirements of Senate Bill 126, which went into effect this year. And if you remember, that clarifies certain transparency and conflict of interest laws that will now apply to charter schools, such as Brown Act, California Public Records Act, Political Reform Act, and Government Code 1090. And so

361that will also need to be a piece of any of the subgrantees going forward. We need to see their plan on how they'll comply with that. Quick recap of what we have had in the past. The last two grant awards, 2010 to 2015, we were awarded $273 million and some change. That ended in 2018, and we awarded over 400 planning and implementation subgrants. We returned $20 million to the education department. From 2016 to 2019, we received $49, almost $50 million, $49 million. And one no cost extension that grant we are currently in and it expires June 30th of 2020 We have awarded 84 planning and implementation grants aid expansion and for dissemination sub grants and we're on schedule to return approximately 4 million to the Education Department. We have a long history of approving, the

362State Board has a long history of approving the Charter School Division to apply for the grants, so back 1995 on through to 2016. We have successfully completed the application process and awarded a grant in each of these terms. If approved today by the State Board, the Charter School Division staff are ready to submit another successful application. We've been working on it. The federal government has not released the application yet. I believe they're planning to sometime soon in the middle of January. We were expecting it. Few weeks ago, so we're we're just waiting but but not waiting idly by the staff has been working on it And so we'll be ready to go and when the grant opens Will be will be a good ways towards towards that prior to submission of the grant application We

363will be gathering stakeholder input. So that's an important piece of this And if funded, this application will result in a $45 million grant and local assistance funds. Three years, we're hoping to award to 80 subgrants, 80 subgrant awards. And it also includes $4 million in funding for technical assistance activities and administrative oversight. Any questions? So the summary basically is that we would like your approval to apply for the grants for $45 million in federal funds for a three-year period. Our liaison super and then I'll go to clarifying questions. Thank you. Thanks Stephanie. I appreciate Your update. I have a couple of sort of technical questions one is the funding the approximately 4.15 million for technical assistance activities Is that just related to oversight of the grant or is can that be used more flexibly for

364oversight? Our general oversight for charter schools Just for the grant okay, and then the second one is on the the recap of our prior funding awards Can you explain to me why we're returning so much money to the federal government 20 million one time and this time 4 million? I would love to have someone come up and Heal me who has had has been working on the grant. Hi, and he'll me maker. I'm former project director of the charter school Grant program in 2010 I believe we were over ambitious and what we asked for and so we cannot we can only give out the funds to charter schools and You can't use them for anything else and so if the charter schools don't meet the requirements of the grant We can't award it to them

365and so we didn't have enough eligible applicants. We did the three-year no-cost extension on that particular grant and did our very, very best to get all of it out and then ultimately decided to move forward with a new grant, return the money, and then we had some additional flexibilities with the new ESSA legislation that allowed us to continue funding. So the last grant was a little bit more conservative and so that's why there's less funds being returned. Member Rucker and then we'll take clarifying questions from others if there are any I'm always happy to be second to board member burr and asking questions because she asked both of the questions I was going to ask so thank you Other clarifying questions before we go to public comment All right. Thank you very much. We're gonna

366go to public comment. We have any none No public comment. All right Do I have a motion? I would move the department's recommendation that they be authorized to apply for $45 million in federal funds for the charter public school grant program. Do I have a second? I'll second. I'm not sure who was first, though. I'll second. All right. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, I will call for a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? Okay, the motion carries. Thank you, Lee. That was very quick. I was going to say Lisa, but I apologize. Yeah, I'm going to go on to item one, reopen agenda item one. Then when we see the lawyers come back, we'll be ready to go back to number 18. So

367we will now reopen agenda item 1 our state board projects and priorities item to take up our minutes from the November 2019 meeting consider the state board screening committee's recommendations for appointment to the ACCS and receive SBE liaison reports so the state board staff recommends that we first approve the preliminary report of actions minutes for the November 6 2019 meeting AND SECOND, CONSIDER THE SCREENING RECOMMENDATIONS FOR APPOINTMENTS TO THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON CHARTER SCHOOLS. DO I HAVE A MOTION FROM A BOARD MEMBER TO APPROVE THE NOVEMBER 6, 2019 STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION DRAFT PRELIMINARY REPORT OF ACTION MEETING MINUTES? THANK YOU VERY MUCH. SECOND? SECOND. THANK YOU. ANY DISCUSSION? NO DISCUSSION. ANY PUBLIC COMMENTS? I don't believe so. Okay. If there's no public comment, we are ready to vote. All those in favor say aye.

368Any opposed? Any abstentions? Motion carries. Oh, thank you. One abstention. Second, I'll ask Vice President Strauss, as chair of the State Board Screening Committee, to share the committee's recommendations regarding appointments to the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools. So you have a blue addendum, and I'll just kind of summarize. We saw applications for the Advisory Commission on Charter Schools. We call that ACCS. We looked for that in the fall of 2019. We reached out very, very far. We got 70 applications. They were submitted on time, and we reviewed the screening committee. So Kim Petitbron, Senator Feliz Ortiz-Lincón, and staff members from CDE and State Board. went through all of them. We narrowed it to 17 applications to do full interviews with. So just so you know, ACCS has commissioners that represent one or more of the

369following groups. school district superintendents, charter schools, teachers, parents and guardians, members of governing boards of school districts, and county superintendent of schools. Also, the state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurman, also appoints a single member of his or her choosing to ACCS. So today, the screening committee is recommending three commissioners for reappointment. First West Seaver to serve as chair of ACC s West the superintendent of Kingsburg Elementary Charter School District He's been the chair and he will represent school district superintendents. We're recommending him for a one-year term We're staggering the terms to try to build some stability Because it just turned out that all the terms were up at one time and we wanted some continuity like we do all of our commissions. Gail Garbolino-Mojica is recommended for a two-year term of office. She's the

370Placer County Superintendent of Schools and she'll represent county superintendents of schools on the commission and she's been on the commission. And Jared Austin who's recommended also for a two-year term, he's a reappointment. He's a parent of two children who currently attend a charter school and also the director and founder of Kairos Public School in Vacaville. So we have three now that are reappointments and then the rest are all new appointments to it. We recommend the following new appointments. Erica Jones, recommended for a one-year term. She's a kindergarten teacher in Los Angeles Unified School District. She'll be representing teachers on the commission. Brent Walmsley is recommended for a one-year term. He's an English teacher at Da Vinci Rise High School that reaches foster youth and homeless students. He'll be representing teachers on the commission. Mike Walsh

371is recommended for a two-year term. He's been a trustee for the Butte County Office of Education since 2010, so a board member governing. He will represent members of governing boards of school districts. Esau Beruman is recommended for a two-year term. He's the principal of a dependent charter school in the Hawthorne School District, representing charter schools on the commission. And the fifth new appointment is Cameron Curry. He's recommended for a one-year term. He's the chief executive officer for Classical Academies, and will also represent charter schools on ACCS. The screening committee really wants to thank all the applicants who applied to serve on ACCS. The pool was amazingly well qualified, like exceptional. Just to narrow down who we would interview, the screening committee really appreciates the willingness of these individuals to support the state board with the

372charter work. Their vetting in ACCS really matters. As you can see, these are really complicated hearings. The applicants who were not selected, we're going to really encourage you to apply again when we seek applications in the fall of 2020 because some of our members come up at the end of one year. So we did set it up to stagger the appointments, and we've told the applicants as we've called them, please consider reapplying. We don't have an endless number of seats on a commission. This is a wonderful representative, I think, of a really balanced commission to consider, especially because the law stays the same through June and then changes in July. So these are our recommendations from the screening committee to the state board. All right. Thank you very much. Is there a motion? So I'll

373make a motion to approve the appointments. Okay. Is there a second? Thank you very much. Any discussion? No. No. No. We know you're interested in your recommendations, but that's perfectly appropriate. Are there any public comments? Seeing no public comments, we can take a vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Any abstentions? All right. Thank you. Are we we're still waiting so I'm going to ask our state board members to report out on liaison activities that are not related to items in our agenda and then we'll come back to that item 18 so I had promised I would start in the middle of the alphabet this time to recognize the underrepresented middle of the alphabet people Because they never get to go first so I'm actually going to start with member Ortiz-Lacone Thank

374you, and I do want to apologize ahead of time when we change we anticipated that the hearing would be Not take so long. I changed my flight and made the mistake of promising my kids I'll be home for dinner in Southern California So I hate to miss the after party, but it looks like I may my only liaison assignment I Actually went to visit Garden Grove Unified. I was invited by Dr. Gabriela Maffi to visit two of the schools Monroe Elementary, which is a 9010 and Santiago High School, which is an avid demonstration site. I want to thank Garden Grove for having such a warm welcome. I'm actually going to be speaking to students from Latinos Unidos on Saturday as a board member. But I just want to say one thing that struck me about

375Dr. Moffey's leadership is that every teacher, staff member, she herself mentors 100 students in the district herself. And just seeing that leadership and how approachable and accessible she was, making sure that she implements equity practices when she assumed the role, she asked to see all the data for AP courses to see how many Latino students were actually enrolled. And no surprise, they were under enrolled in a district where they are the majority. And so she has worked with her staff to build the structures and protocols to make sure that there is equity in place when we are also scheduling our students to make sure that we are preparing all kids for college and career readiness. So thank you, Garden Grove, and I look forward to seeing Latinos Unidos on Saturday. Terrific. Thank you. Member Patio

376Brunson, since we're in the middle of the alphabet, I'm going to go to you. Then student member, then I'm going to go to... Member Navo said that we're going in both directions. In addition to the work of the screening committee, there was a environmental and climate change literacy summit that I attended on behalf of Board Member Strauss at UCLA at the Luskin School. Actually, I attended the first day of it. And the the goal that they have set out between the UC and CSU system is to educate 500,000 high school students per year in California to become literate in environmental and climate change issues One of the more fascinating highlights was that we heard from a member of the Italian educational Glitterati, I can't remember his title, but what was very intriguing is that they've

377actually now mandated starting an elementary school climate change education as part of their core curriculum because there are so many impacts that children are actually experiencing in their daily lives, but also for a sense of imbuing environmental stewardship as part of what is core to their education. There were a host of both teachers, administrators, school policymakers who are also present. And they will be continuing their convening efforts to try and expand that number of high school students per year that are becoming environmentally literate. Very cool. Thank you very much. And before I turn to Brenna's report, I just want to note that she's been admitted to Brown University and will be attending in the fall. Congress, that's a great school. You have to come back to California, however. Thank you so much. We have a

378condition on approving your going to Brown. So similar to the last meeting when students came and proposed ideas, the California Association of Student Councils put on the Student Advisory Board on Legislation and Education Conference and students were here in the state capitol yesterday and proposed bills to the Senate and Assembly Education Committees so they spent days working in preparation for these proposals. On January 31st, I am planning on attending a World of Work tour in El Cajon, which is luckily an opportunity right in my area. And World of Work is a career education curriculum created and practiced in the Cajon Valley Union School District in San Diego County, which has grown to become a prime example of bringing career technical education to K-12 schools with a unique approach to bringing that into early education. So

379leaders in education from not only this state but other states have been touring schools in Cajon Valley School District and learning from their curriculum. So I look forward to learning something and maybe bringing back some best practices to share. And I was also able to witness the swearing in of San Diego Unified School District's very first student board member. So it was great to see a district prioritizing student voice in taking this step. However, I still know that there are many districts who don't have student representation on their boards. So although it can't be required, I think it's important that districts are encouraged at a state level toward including student voices in their decisions. Change is difficult and transparency is difficult, but I think it's an important part in closing the gap between governing boards

380and communities. Thank you. Member Novo. So I had my first liaison assignment officially as chair of the CCEE, and no one wanted SUBUR back more than I did at that time. So just to be in complete transparency, there was one person in there that was wishing you were there. But in honor of your efforts, it was a well-oiled machine. They held their meeting down in San Diego for the CSBA conference. And they were able to lift up some relevant conversations that are really important in the system of support conversation, one of which was the learning labor management initiative that is coming out of the community engagement work. in Monterey County with Alisal Union School District. And there's some really important and good work going on system-wide that is touching the hearts of the educator in

381the classroom. And I think that's really important. It's been a challenge in the system of support. But going forward, what I want to commend Director Armalino on is I think the two things that are going to be clear as we move forward is, one, defining really clear... roles responsibilities and obligations in the system of support to lifting up the improvement making the improvement of a system of support visible so that people understand it and number two people know what it can do for you and that means all hands on deck communicating that the impact What does it mean when we say system of support? How does it impact teachers in the classroom? How does it support administrators? And what are the roles and responsibilities of each entity that's involved with that? And that's been a

382real challenge. Sue and I have talked about... How to help that happen in a large system that's complex like ours, but I really feel confident going forward that this will be a year that CCE will bring some visibility to that and help bring to light all the good work that's happening across the state and orchestrate it in such a way we can make the right impacts where we need them. So I appreciate it. Go to Member Sandoval and then back to Member Burr. I'm going in both directions. So on November the 14th in 2019, I attended the IQC meeting in my role as a liaison to the IQC. And it was actually, it was an excellent meeting, but it was a very emotional day and for a lot of reasons. I want to begin by

383saying the day began with a closed session, and during the closed session, we approved the, they. I'm saying we just because I was there. They approved the appointment of a new executive director and secretary for the IQC, Shanine Coates, and that was part of the emotional part of the day because we first met Stephanie Gregson when she took over her position as the executive director for the IQC. And in many ways, the IQC grew in depth and... impact under Stephanie's leadership. So it was heartfelt and bittersweet to see Stephanie depart, and I'm happy she's sitting next to you right now, Linda, so she would be able to hear me say these words. But then when Shanine stepped in, part of what Shanine did was she shared with the commission her story. And I was reminded

384at the time as I listened to her story and I offered her this advice that for women of color who find themselves in high profile or high visibility positions, people often look at you and they see a black woman first and they think they know your story. And what I applaud Shanine for was not only was she willing to share her story, but she made clear I am more than just what you see and I am more and beyond what is in my background. So I was happy to see her there. I was happy to see her elevated to this position but more importantly the IQC was 100% behind her work and the work that she has already demonstrated to them in her leadership role in the department. So they were very excited to see

385her take that seat and at the same time sad to see Stephanie go. So that's part of it. of what contribute to the emotions of the day. As part of the agenda, a lot of the work was devoted to the time on listening to preparations and the background and foundational work of the Mathematics Subject Matter Committee. It included a report on the mathematics focus groups that were held and the public comment received regarding the revision of the math framework. They also took a look at the draft guidelines for the curriculum framework, and they made recommendations on who the curriculum framework committee would be. And so, again, they took a great deal of time and were very thoughtful, not only in reviewing as it relates to the composition of the framework committee. They were very thoughtful

386and took a great deal of time before they came to the meeting to review the background and the applications of the members. They were also very careful to take a look at not only balance. and distribution, but form and function, understanding that just because you are an educator, you don't have the same frame of mind based on your assignment. And so they were very thoughtful about looking at who was going to form that committee. And in looking at the draft guidelines, they took a great deal of time to really look at the, and I'm going to use this word purposely, it's my word, not theirs, the mistakes, the things we learned from the first math framework. That was the first framework written after the implementation of the Common Core. We have successively gotten better with

387the development of each framework, and we learned from... what was done well in each of the successive frameworks that we didn't have a chance to consider with the math framework. And so in looking at not only the report from the focus groups, but also looking at what the draft guidelines looked like, they were very thoughtful in adding revisions to those draft guidelines. For us, the next step is working with the writers to start doing that development process, and we are looking forward to, as Shanine said, six. two-day sessions, not two six-day sessions. My employer would, you know, a balk at that if that happened. So it'll be a series of six two-day sessions for working on the development of the framework itself, and so they're very enthusiastically looking forward to that. And then finally, we

388said goodbye to four commission members with a lunch that followed after the commission meeting. And Stephanie, I'm going to ask you to help me in case I forget somebody. But those four commission members that we said goodbye to were the current chair, Su Min Chow, an outgoing chair, yeah, Lisette Diaz, along with, I can't remember who the other two were. Nicole Nadeitz, yes. And one more. No, Julie Tonkovich is still going to be there, I'm happy to say. Anyway, there were four, and I'll make sure for the record, I will make sure I add that, but that's the part that contributed to it. So we started with an emotion. The day opened emotionally and closed over lunch emotionally. One of the things, and we were also graced with the presence of Doc. Dr. Weber, who's

389an appointed member from the legislature at the IQC. It's wonderful to see the legislature supporting the work of the IQC, and for the members who were there, they were gladdened in their hearts to see her there because they know she was there to support their deliberations continuing on the ethnic studies development. So it was a good day. It was a great meeting. There we go Jennifer woo so Jennifer can kill me later, but it was a wonderful afternoon With the outgoing commissioners and we're looking forward to the next meeting that's going to be happening next week as a matter of fact The two-day meeting so thank you very much. Thank you Number send of all we're going to finish this item and then go back because I see our lawyers have returned and come back

390to item 18 Thank you. I just want to follow up on frameworks and the arts framework completed its first public comment period and now the Framework draft will go to the instructional Quality Commission next week Where the Commission will recommend edits based on the public comment and then it'll go out for a second public comment period And just to emphasize that the framework embeds equity, access, and inclusion throughout and is consistent with the other frameworks in that. And there is a wide variety of stakeholders, arts organizations, practitioners, educators, who've provided valuable input throughout the process. So thank you to our stakeholders for contributing to that. The California State Summer School for the Arts. THE APPLICATION FOR 2020, THE SUMMER SESSION IS OPEN AND IT CAN BE ACCESSED VIA THE WEBSITE AT CSSSA.CALIFORNIA.GOV AND THE APPLICATION

391DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 12TH. SO IF YOU KNOW OF ANY STUDENTS WHO ARE PHENOMENAL IN THE ARTS AND WOULD BENEFIT FROM THIS PROGRAM AND CONTRIBUTE TO IT AS WELL, THE DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 12TH AND you're entering high school you're eligible last year there were more than 1,400 applications completed so I encourage you to get help get the word out and then finally the Advisory Commission on special education meets next month February 12th and 13th And as an important element in the system wide, the statewide system of support, the Special Education Division launched a system improvement leads webpage and that's at systemimprovement.org and the site offers a calendar of events, a state performance indicator guide and improving performance of students with disabilities handbook. So those are some valuable resources for our teachers and administrators and thank you,

392that's it. We're in the middle of experiencing my liaison assignments, and I'm anxious to complete them. Yes The other one is on LCFF and we did that already with the LCAP template update. So to the point, member Strauss. So just a couple things as a member records that we both liaison to the instructional quality commission next Wednesday We are swearing in the four new members and training them really a thoughtful We really developed the staff has really developed a really thoughtful training and you might remember when students come up and they came up last fall and they gave us our initiatives well a year before the students had recommended that we should have a student on instructional quality commission this is the first year we are appointing it and while the student doesn't start until

393fall of senior year which is in September she'll be joining for the training next week. So she's local, and so we're delighted. So that's happening on Wednesday, and then a full meeting on Thursday. The core advisory meeting was quite interesting because they're talking, that was in early December, because they talked about their emerging approach of continuous improvement, which really helps to inform, like, what the collaborative's doing, what we're doing, and honestly talked about the discussion, how to change systems, school districts. Those of us who live that know that's complicated at best. And they're working on a breakthrough success community that's looking at freshmen on track. Sort of how do you know kids are on track and are they on, are they, do they need to keep up or do they need to catch up? And

394so do we know if they're ready for, are they vulnerable, are they high school grad ready, are they post-secondary promising, are they competitive at post-secondary? It's really interesting to think about this college and career readiness at a different and deeper level in some of the conversations. So I thought it really does help to inform our practice. We had a presentation about a school district's work on culture, building teacher planning time, which we've been talking about. Their use of data and really changing practice with an interaction. Just really thoughtful, real stories about the challenge of really taking our policy to practice. So just a really thoughtful meeting and just very, very helpful. And then coming up is... in two weeks is the math community practice. So that's a collaboration around regions in the state of teachers

395and leaders who then go out to their county regions to do training. It's here in Sacramento. And Dr. Rochelle Gutierrez from Illinois is going to be talking about rehumanizing mathematics. And we'll get an update for the math success for all. And then all the regions do a presentation. And then early February. There'll be a science community of practice as well. And then I will be keynoting LA County's having a differentiated assistance process for districts and continuous improvement February 7th, and I will have the pleasure of. setting that off at the beginning. And then the last thing is the Credentialing Commission spent a lot of time, I'll try to do this really quickly, November 21st and 22nd, and we've been listening to literacy. We talked about literacy, literacy grant, helping teachers be literacy trained, and so

396they've been talking about the RICA and it being outdated as an assessment for teachers, but... discussing what to replace it with. So a lot of debate about it and some agreement about needing to update it and align it to our new standards. There's legislation involved, so it's not a particularly easy process, but lots of energy toward it and the group is coming together around some recommendations. So I think we'll see some more about how do we help train our teachers. with literacy. And then also a lot of, we've been talking a lot about special education and a lot of talk about dyslexia guidelines and how to help in teacher preparation. So all core teachers have training to work with struggling students with different challenges. So I just think that our credentialing commission continues to work

397on trying to update practice. keep it relevant and those are the things that I'm just trying to highlight that are affected to what we're talking about. As President Darling-Hammond talked about, there's a lot of grants for recruiting classified staff to become teachers and that's managed through there. Lots of ways to fill our shortage in math and science and in special ed. So again, our credentialing commission is complimentary to our work and really trying to help. We're lucky because Linda chaired it for eight years and really helped to inform it with a lot of her research and practice. So I just wanted to bring that up as well. That ends my report. Thank you. Okay, Member Sun. We had a very lengthy item at the end of the day yesterday on the Perkins federal application So

398I'm not gonna go into that other just to say that the California workforce Pathways Joint Advisory Committee is meeting on the 31st of this month so that we can take a look another look at that application with the feedback from the public and with the feedback of this board So and we will be bringing you the application back for approval in March The only other thing I want to mention is that I had the privilege of serving on a panel, an equity panel, at the J-SPAC Annual Equity Conference in early December. And I served along with Deputy Superintendent Kai Jackson and Maureen White of the County. California Community Colleges and it was a panel that really discussed our work and the joint efforts of the three organizations CDE, SBE and the CCC in developing our

399principles guiding principles for career and technical education pathways and working together jointly in order to create quality pathways for students and I think that's it. And JSPAC also stands for the Special Populations Advisory Committee. Many people do not know about it. They're doing some really excellent work, so I want to give a shout out to them. JSPAC is supported and funded by through the Perkins Federal Grant. Great. And I'll just close by saying I guess my major liaison appointment is with the governor's office and the governor's budget is going to be announced tomorrow. And I think you'll see a lot of the state board's concerns represented there. So stay tuned for that. And moving right along, we're going to go right back to item number 18. And hopefully we have a clear proposal that we

400can. consider and hopefully vote upon. Thank you, Judy, for putting it in writing. We tried to simplify it as much as we possibly could given the discussion. So I think everyone should have a copy. So every year for the term of the charter, at least 50% of the kindergarten enrollment shall be FRPM eligible students. For every other grade. So that's one through eight. 100% of any open slots shall go to FRPM eligible students until the entire grade's enrollment is at least 50% FRPM eligible. So nothing different for sixth grade, but there'll be more open slots in the sixth grade, obviously, than there would be in, say, grade three or four. And that's very similar to what was being stated previously. Yeah. And you're simply extending that across the school. Yes, every grade. Member Rucker. Oh,

401I'm sorry. Somebody else also want to I'll come back to you Okay, so if is it possible for us to get back up on the slide? What are the four conditions that we were identifying for this because I want to make sure I know Which conditions each of these statements are intended to replace? Okay, so the reason I'm asking for that is because I know that the action that's being contemplated has several pieces to it and I want to make sure that we know what we're doing is amending what was originally recommended with these statements and I want to make sure we're all clear and agreeing on what it is, which statements are being replaced by these two statements. Well, the 33% is being replaced. Yeah, I wanted to make sure. That's why I wanted

402to get that up on the screen because I wanted to make sure. Yes. Flash drive mixed up and everyone put the wrong one in their bag. Yes, this is a much deeper curve and the school agreed to this and helped us write this. So they are confident that this will be workable for them. Yes, okay. So the first statement, every year of the term of the charter, at least 50% of the kindergarten enrollment shall be FRPM eligible students. So for the statement that's in bold, we are replacing the requirement concerning kindergarten students with this statement. Is that correct? No, we're replacing that entire bullet. You're replacing the entire bullet. So we're not talking about the 33%. We're replacing the entire bullet with both of these statements? Okay, so then the third statement stays and the

403next statement on siblings stays and the next statement on children of employees stays and then the last statement stays. All right, so we're adding two new bullets that will go at the top of this list. So the changes to admission preferences will have five points. Is that correct? Six. Six. These are two and there's four remaining. Okay, we'll have six points. Is that correct? Okay, so that's the explicit change that we have made on admissions preferences. The other question I had asked was on the monitoring, what happens if this doesn't occur? Did you all come to an agreement on that? Well... I think that it's all open slots. So it's going to occur. Okay. Because if 100% of the open slots are going to FRPM, there's no percentages to me where we argue whether this

404is why we thought this was simpler because we don't want to say, oh, you're at 32%. No, you're at 34%. This way, every open slot is going to FRPM until a certain point, until the entire class is 50% FRPM. Okay. Self-enforcing. Yes. So it'll be self-enforcing. So it'll be, so again, the admissions preferences we have now will have six points on them with these two points that are on this page replacing that first bullet. Correct. Okay. Member Patil Bronson never put by Alana and member Burr are in order Is there anyone else who needs to be in the queue members members son? I just wanted to register Thanks again to Judy for our successive rounds of iteration effort to the petitioner for not only sort of taking what we suggested up here But actually going

405a few steps further of making this be something that goes for every grade from 1 to 8 and we appreciate that commitment immensely Thank you. I wholeheartedly support this recommendation, but I am so sorry. I just feel that there's for admissions preferences shouldn't we have as the first bullet students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and then these two are conditions of approval? Sure. We can make these sub-bullets under Yes, thank you. Because it doesn't quite parallel. So that flows with the bullets are all read the same. Yes. We will correct the grammar. Yes. Yes. Member Burr. So I'm ready for a motion. But I do just want to say a couple things. Just to respond specifically to Board Member Rucker, there is a subsequent slide to this. Oh, I understand. Right. Right,

406I know but you also asked about enforcement, right? Yeah, so here these other pieces would be part of the Amendment I mean the motion and also just remember I hate to say this because I don't hope we ever have to go there But if they don't do it we can revoke them That's the ultimate accountability for charters, as we know, and we have revoked other charters. And I know that they're willing to hold themselves accountable to that. So there is a hammer if it doesn't happen. And for the record, I didn't worry about going to this slide because I had already asked what would change in the community engagement plan if we make these recommendations for revision. And it was already stated before we tabled this motion that the community engagement plan would be revised.

407to whatever these amendments would be. So that's why I didn't ask about those things. Terrific. So I'm just watching the clock. I know people have planes and trains and automobiles. We have someone ready to make a motion. So I move the department recommendation as shown on the document that was distributed to all of us. So it includes the changes to the admission preferences plus the additional requirements around the community engagement plan. monthly updates on enrollment and racial and ethnic balance reports And I would just like to say one thing before we and that is first to express my appreciation to all of the folks who traveled here It's wonderful to see how committed people are to the school I also do want to say just a little piece of caution here. This may be your

408last chance to come to the State Board Because the charter law will change. So I want to encourage everybody in this room that's affiliated with the school and who are here representing the school district to do whatever you can to find a path forward. Because the law is changing dramatically and the state board will not be the board of last resort. Well, it will in some way, but in a different way than it is now. Yeah. We need a second for the motion. I will second. Member Sun, any further discussion? All in favor, please say aye and raise your hand so we can be sure we have a count. All right. We're not done voting. I do have to ask, are there any nays? I didn't see anybody who didn't raise their hand. Any abstentions?

409Okay. Now you can clap. The motion carries. And we're going to do public comment. Yep. So we're going to move to item number 20, which is general public comment on any matter not included in the printed agenda. And safe trip home to all of you. Do you have any public comment? We do. We have three. Chris Miller, Trudy Moore, and Aaron Apple. Okay, we'll let them come forward, but wait until we have quiet for them to speak. Do we have our first person for public comment available? Please state your name and affiliation for the record, please. And be sure that the microphones are near you and on. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Thank you. My name is Trudy Moore. I'm simply a Sacramento resident. GOOD AFTERNOON, BOARD MEMBERS. I WANTED TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO

410HOW THE SACRAMENTO CITY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT HANDLES CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RECORDS ACT REQUESTS. IN AUGUST 2019, MY NEIGHBORS AND MANY OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS ASKED ME TO FIND OUT ABOUT OCCURRENCES AT THE MCCLATCHEY HIGH SCHOOL TRACK. I immediately asked SCUSD for information and was told to wait until October 2019. In October 2019, SCUSD's policy and government manager, Mr. Nathaniel Browning, insisted on meeting with me alone without anyone else from the community. He then refused to answer basic questions as if what happened in August was something top secret that he needed to hide from the public, and he instead demanded that I make written CPRA requests when the law does not require written requests. He denied receiving my first request, which I hand-delivered to him in October. Did you call time it is time the remainder of my

411presentation is in the one pager I distribute. Thank you so much Good afternoon, and my name is Erin Abdi I'm the newest legislative counsel for public advocates And I'm commenting today on behalf of the equity coalition The coalition is concerned that several topics addressed in memoranda to the board are not on the board agenda for public discussion Which requires us to comment on them in this item without the benefit of board discussion? Specifically, we feel that the Board's Info Memorandum on Eligibility of LEAs to receive differentiated assistance in the system of support should be publicly discussed. Considering that our new accountability system under LCFF is about providing support for continuous improvement, it's concerning that neither the revised LCAP template nor the instructions require, encourage, or even suggest, including whether an LEA has been identified for

412differentiated assistance for specific student groups and indicators, which is something that all stakeholders should know about if they are to consider and be engaged in improvements. The information in the board's memo raises many important questions that we feel warrant further discussion. In alignment with the interest that was expressed yesterday, to better understand how LEAs are being supported to help their schools for comprehensive support and improvement under ESSA, we request that there also be an agenda item including these same inquiries for differentiated assistance. Thank you. A little bit too hopeful because my head said good morning at the top but My name is Chris Miller. I'm a resident of Los Gatos in Silicon Valley I'm currently serving as a workgroup member of the student mental health policy workgroup through the Department of Education as well as

413a member of the Health Collaboration Committee to the Department of Education Although I'm not representing or speaking on behalf of those groups. I'm representing myself as an individual I'd like to take the time to thank the State Board of Education and the Superintendent of Public Instruction for your support of mental health education advocacy efforts. I'm thankful that Superintendent Thurmond has made mental health and social emotional wellness a key component of the recommendations of the transition team. As a former school board member, I'll be at the local level, although today, after today's discussion, part of me misses the school governance. But I know how important it is for board members and leadership to be accessible to constituents. To that end, I'm especially grateful for Dr. Darling-Hammond and Dr. Ortiz-Lacon, who had to step out, but for

414their willingness to connect over the phone in recent months to discuss mental health efforts. So thank you very much. I also enjoyed meeting with previous superintendent Torkelson back in 2016. WELCOME THE OPPORTUNITY TO CONNECT WITH SUPERINTENDENT THURMAN IN THE COMING WEEKS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.