Thread by @PPSSFBoardWatch

Joining a Special Meeting of the SFUSD Board of Education where the board will be setting priorities with help of a facilitator. Starting with public comment on priorities. #BoardWatch

Comment: Member of UESF bargaining team says families need members alive and healthy more than anything else. #BoardWatch

Comment: Excited that this group of people is taking the time to think about what priorities should be for our students and our district. Be bold and very thoughtful. Think about how to support families who will choose to stay at home. #BoardWatch

Comment: @UESF_Pres notes that students should be at the center of the budgeting process. Need stable staff and enough staff. Prioritize schools and school staff to support students. #BoardWatch

Comment: teacher at Vis Valley MS and part of bargaining team. Have been discussing reopening, but is confusing why the district is resolved to reject basic safety guidelines. How can budget take pressure off the issue of reopening and address current pressing issues of trauma.

Comment: teacher asks board to plan from the perspective of student experience. Look at data about students who perform best regardless of background or family life. Should be looking to give this profile to all students. What staff do we need to make literacy happen? #BoardWatch

(Fortunately, I have a #BoardWatch helper today 😀)

The facilitator, Viveka Chen is asking how commissioners wish to be addressed (first name OK for all). The group today includes two new commissioners, Matt Alexander and Kevine Boggess. Goal is to look for areas of alignment and difference. #BoardWatch

Commissioners received some prep materials in advance with some questions. Here are the meeting agreements #BoardWatch

Commissioners are sharing what they feel will help support equitable and meaningful engagement, based on what they know about their learning style #BoardWatch

Moving on to talk about vision (the Graduate Profile sfusd.edu/about/our-miss…) and core beliefs (including but not limited to strategic plan) #BoardWatch

VP Lopez @lopez4schools notes that "joy" is missing from the graduate profile. Need to clarify what preparing for career and life looks like? How are we maintaining relationships to know work is affecting them? #BoardWatch

Commissioner Boggess @KevineBoggess values creating an accountable district and students having ability to learn what they are passionate about. Feel cared about at school. Core belief: accountability. Song is A Change is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke #BoardWatch

Commissioner Collins @AliMCollins thinks we should go back to look at the text (Graduate Profile) and interrogate if it is true. Concerned, e.g. about use of "achievement gap" vs "opportunity gap." Inheriting baggage that we forget to clean out. #BoardWatch

Collins: Schools don't have inherent "quality" - it is about resources, which are not equal. Thinks what happens about school is more about individual educators or innovators, not about something centrally that creates outcomes. #BoardWatch

Collins: resonates with what Kevine said about relevant instruction. Have in the past talked about differentiated instruction, but don't see any real work to be doing this. #BoardWatch

Commissioners are being held to an agreed-upon time-limit in their comments. Not quite sure what it is—somewhere between 4-6 minutes each. #BoardWatch

Commissioner Moliga: When I look at graduate profile, the data is horrible. If I was a parent from one of these groups (Black, Latinx, Samoan, ELL), why would I put my kids in these schools? My goal is how to close the opportunity gap. #BoardWatch

Moliga: we have been killing it with resolutions, but not sure the school district can do it, given the data and facts. And after COVID it will be the same kids who are suffering most #BoardWatch

Can teach antiracism, but if we continue to have racist practices that prevent our Black and brown kids from succeeding we are not talking about anything in SF. Core beliefs: inclusiveness, accepting, affinity

Moliga: movie choice is Moana. She is a bad-ass Pacific Islander, represents her people and shows how strong Pacific Islander people are. #BoardWatch

Commissioner Alexander @mattalexandersf "sort of love[s]" the graduate profile but feels sad for what it really looks like for Black, Latinx, Samoan, ELL, and recent immigrants in SF. Have more vision now, but gap is the same as ever. #BoardWatch

Alexander: innovation is not systemic. In our district we try to standardize things from the top down. Producing the same status quo. Have a bias towards innovation and trusting the people doing the work: teachers, paraprofessionals, students, and families. #BoardWatch

Alexander: what would it take to change the system so that every single (for example) Samoan student walks into a school and feels like "this is place I belong" and every Samoan family wants to join the SSC and wants to exercise power and voice. #BoardWatch

Alexander: movie is "The Matrix" To change the system. you have to see it. We are exhausted from constructing a reality that isn't true. Need to see reality before we can change it. #BoardWatch

Commissioner Lam @jennyhlam notes that her son will be graduating in 2025 - is product of Vision 2025. Inspired by the vision. We still have much work to realize the promise. What resonates most is 1) content knowledge—that is the core of our mission, including life skills

Lam: Academic excellence is also a core belief. Also sense of purpose and sense of self is core to students we are responsible for. This is upon us to make sure we support what is working #BoardWatch

Lam: Innovation is a core belief. Need to look at what practices are working and support those to scale while not being rigid. #BoardWatch

Lam: Ooh Child by the Five Stairsteps is the song. #BoardWatch

Mark Sanchez @marksanchezsf wants to loop back to idea of joy. Did a search and found the word "joyful" one time on the Vision 2025 document. Back in 2006 had a long debate about use of the word joy. Can feel it when you walk into some schools and classrooms. #BoardWatch

Nomenclature and naming the groups that have been left behind is very important #BoardWalk

What it comes down to is $ and budgeting. The city historically has turned its back on students and parents that have usually been left behind #BoardWatch

This is the richest city with the largest inequities #BoardWatch

President Mark Sanchez's favorite song, he always circles back to the Beatles. Hey Jude or A Day in the Life, then started thinking about Imagine #BoardWatch

Been hearing a lot of alignment from the Board. Heading back to the google doc and writing down where they hear alignment, or places of difference where learning can happen #BoardWatch

Here are some screenshots from the google doc that they are working on #BoardWatch

Sorry all, struggling with getting some screenshots but here we go #BoardWatch

Commissioner @AliMCollins How do we measure achievement? Do we evaluate learning in different ways? Interested in unpacking this #BoardWatch

Commissioner @KevineBoggess brings up how he also added foster youth and incarcerated youth to focus groups #BoardWatch

VP @lopez4schools wants us to move away from an all or nothing way of measuring success. Recognizing that there is a lot of work to do & accountability is important, but we have made things happen. How do we build on those successes? #BoardWatch

President @marksanchezsf adds onto that, that many students do well. There are highly successful students and there is also the opposite going on. Wants to highlight what is working while also recognizing failures #BoardWatch

Looking at our core beliefs and seeing if they can be turned into principles #BoardWatch

We are assigning some roles to do a bit of homework, taking core beliefs and turning them into a statement or a form of a question to ask, before going into a 5 minute break #BoardWatch

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Going on a 5 minute break. Reminder to the public that this is a virtual retreat, they allowed for public comment at the beginning and there will be public comment at the end for topics going into the closed session #BoardWatch

While we are taking a break, just a reminder that at PPS-SF our #ShineALight campaign is going on for a few more days! If our tweets helped you out this year, we would love it if you would consider donating at ppssf.org #ShineALight #SupportSFFamilies

We are getting back from a break and looking at priorities for the coming year for SFUSD #BoardWatch

Each member is writing down two different priorities that I will try and show shortly #BoardWatch

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Next there will be two small group conversations. It will be transparent for the public and also create smaller conversations #BoardWatch

Each group will have 18 minutes. Each person will share their own priorities, trying to only say in 1-2 minutes. In the second round, what are the synergies that are being noticed within the group? #BoardWatch

Are there two mega-priorities (credit to @jennyhlam) that come out of each small group? Don't get lost in the details but name where you are trying to get to. Looking for common interests to head towards #BoardWatch

If we get these mega-priorities for staff, they know what direction to move towards and can create a budget to match it #BoardWatch

Here's a challenge, if these can get it done in 15 then you get a fake type of award, but there will be extra 3 minutes #BoardWatch

The first group is going to be: President @marksanchezsf , Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga, Commissioner @jennyhlam, and Commissioner @mattalexandersf #BoardWatch

Lots of concern around how to balance the budget with trying to accomplish things like making schools parent friendly and an inclusive place for focal groups #BoardWatch

President @marksanchezsf brings up how his second priority is implementing board policies which is directly linked to budgeting #BoardWatch

Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga there are many amazing resolutions but which ones do we need to prioritize that will move us towards our goals? #BoardWatch

Narrowing down priorities but also keeping the vision in mind #BoardWatch

Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga focal groups have to be prioritized #BoardWatch

Potential mega-priority from group 1: Bringing in new and robust resources while reallocating resources to schools and focal groups #BoardWatch

Working on figuring out meaningful measures and ways to close the opportunity gap #BoardWatch

Making sure that homeless students are also one of the focal groups #BoardWatch

Alison's priority around partnerships between schools and parents also resonated with Group 1 #BoardWatch

Group 2 is: VP @lopez4schools, Commissioner @KevineBoggess, and Commissioner @AliMCollins #BoardWatch

Commissioner @KevineBoggess wants to transform the budgeting process so that is better represents students and families. Also identifying staffing needs to reopen safely #BoardWatch

Commissioner @AliMCollins when it comes to central office, we don't always know what people are doing. We need to look line by line and seeing if it creates direct impact #BoardWatch

VP @lopez4schools talking about transparency. Going line by line is a daunting unrealistic task. If we make our priorities clear, then others can follow #BoardWatch

Instead of doing a top down approach, want to use ideas that are already implemented by people on the ground that are working #BoardWatch

Group 2 is coming up with their mega-priorities #BoardWatch

Group 2 is thinking:
1. Classroom centered
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A bit of feedback but no worries it's anonymous dolphin talking through echo-location #BoardWatch

@KevineBoggess brings up making school reopening safely a mega-priority #BoardWatch

Commissioner @AliMCollins brings up how the mega-priority should also include how to support students that still choose to do distance learning and ensuring in-person learning is equitable #BoardWatch

VP @lopez4schools brings up trying to revision reopening and moving away from the politics of it #BoardWatch

Commissioner @AliMCollins brings up how the way the way we approach this work doesn't cost $ but can make a difference #BoardWatch

Some priorities are emerging and so is alignment! If there was a clay pot, this pot is taking a form #BoardWatch

Let's get a temperature read on where we are #BoardWatch

#BoardWatch

Myself and Talullah the cat are signing off for now but thanks all for joining #BoardWatch

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