Jessi the Communications & Development Coordinator again! Do you all have a favorite BOE meeting snack? Today I'll be munching on Pocky as we get the meeting started #BoardWatch 
Let's get that roll call going! #BoardWatch
Here's the agenda for today go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board… #BoardWatch
For interpretations, here are the numbers to call #BoardWatch
Shout-out to todays interpreters! #BoardWatch
The agenda for todays informational items #BoardWatch
This is an informational item so the public comment will be focused on the agenda for the board meeting, not these informational items. This is a special meeting so want to respect peoples time #BoardWatch
Hoping to have deeper conversations at committee meetings and in public places, but want to use our time wisely #BoardWatch
After listening to stakeholders, these were the main areas that should be worked on during Distance Learning. Want to ensure all of this is being done in an anti-racist lense #BoardWatch
At the beginning people were really grappling with how to do distance learning, at first very focused on tech. Now there is more ease, teachers are no longer learning about tech but can focus on the actual learning #BoardWatch
Starting to do things in the virtual classroom that would happen in the usual classroom. Not trying to have babies in front of screens. Sent home art kits, math manipulatives, books, and recorders! #BoardWatch
Students are more engaged and giving teachers proper feedback. Students have a lot more choice now, so things can be more personalized. Giving students choice how to respond to work, you could do a written response, slide show, video, podcast etc. #BoardWatch
A lot more break-out sessions for students to interact in small groups with one another #BoardWatch
Just some of the ways that people are listening, responding, and making the situation the best it can be #BoardWatch
Going into public comment about distance learning #BoardWatch
Public comment will go on for a maximum of 20 minutes #BoardWatch
There are 8 hands raised, everyone will get 1 minute. If others want to join on they can #BoardWatch
Parent of 2nd Grader & Teacher: Thinking about the narrative from media about the failure of distance learning & the danger of a single story. Hope as work continues there are opportunities for discussion between teachers and BOE commissioners. Want a conversation w/ each other
Parent of high school junior: Seeing this better distance learning in action. Student doing a dual course between high school & city college and this semester is so much more authentic. This must have been a lot of work. Very grateful thank you #BoardWatch
Dad of 4th Grader: Appreciate all the efforts to try & do things differently. His son is an outlier. Son is falling through the cracks and been met with guilt trips. Not trying to blame anyone but real data about the students that are being lost. Do not think they will be heard
@AliMCollins reminds people they cannot engage with individual comments but please reach out to commissioners with individual inquires #BoardWatch
Parent and Son: Son enjoys small groups, he is making progress and enjoys what is being taught. Huge improvement from spring. He has blossomed and doing well w/ distanced learning. Doing PE & art. Distance learning is hard, but the narrative does get very negative #BoardWatch
Son of above commentor: Really like the conferences w/ teacher because he gets to share about what he likes about the lesson #BoardWatch
Special Ed Teacher: Thank you to everyone. You mentioned there are packets being sent to students. Can packets be sent to special ed students at a higher frequency so then teachers can go to the site less. If that could be addressed that would be great #BoardWatch
Parent of Two: One kid has a parapro. Appreciative of teachers. Distance is not working for either. Especially for the child with a parapro, he cannot focus on zoom. Hope there is some way to try and improve. Zoom is not working, especially for occupational therapy #BoardWatch
Decreasing the Distance: Thank you for the info. Been talking w/ many families who will continue to do distance learning. Hoping to increase opportunities so there can be a conversation between families and the district. Wants improvement in feedback processes #BoardWatch
President of United Educators of SF: Very glad w/ this dialogue. Many educators of UESF have been talking & reaching out to people about how to improve distance learning. Important focus as figuring out what to do in the mean-time. Echoing the importance of paraeducators
Teacher at SFUSD: Happy about conversations about distance learning but this is not an appropriate pedagogical method. Heard the district is giving out materials but its not happening. Had to raise $10,000 for materials. Be more intentional w/ what you ask of teachers
Mother of 2 Students: Today student was put in a waiting room for not having his camera on and he missed his English class. This is not acceptable, works at SF State and this has been happening to BIPOC students. Teacher should be flexible #BoardWatch
Thank you everyone especially Enikia for presenting. Recognize that work is being done on both distance learning and opening for in-person. Wishing people could come together. Thank you to all who are working on making this happen #BoardWatch
Parent of 2: Wanted to talk on supplemental items. Not seen anything. Nothing has been passed out to either student. Maybe its being put out there, but its not reaching them. Heard there are books piling up outside of 2nd grade students classroom. This is not acceptable
Coleman Advocates: Want to speak on behalf of all parents who have no gotten packages. Many parents are still very afraid to take students back to school. Recognize the need for distance learning to be improved. Children are failing, parents are frustrated by closed schools
Cont from last comment: We need teachers and parents to work with us and not shut us down to help improve the system #BoardWatch
School Nurse: Thank you for all the work you've been doing, especially getting us prepared for re-opening. Everyone is coming from diverse backgrounds and we all ultimately want to be back in person, thank you for putting safety first. #BoardWatch
Student: Part of Colemate Advocates. Distance learning is very difficult for everyone in their class. When they talk together, every kid is struggling. They think they need a better way to communicate w/ teachers. The school has done a lot to help w/ but still hard #BoardWatch
Thank you to students who shared! #BoardWatch
@lopez4schools we understand that parents will still choose to distance learn. We want to continue to improve especially w/ giving feedback. Question: can you explain the material distribution to us? #BoardWatch
Encouraging people to reach out to Enikia Ford Morthele if you do have a specific question about distribution, this is her email fordmorthele@sfusd.edu #BoardWatch
All materials were sent to all schools. Sites were given $ to disperse to families. If you did not receive something, reach out to your site #BoardWatch
Can we figure out a way through central office to also help out people with distribution of materials? #BoardWatch
Commissioner @KevineBoggess there seems to be lots of different silos and places that these materials go through. Willing to drive things to people houses if that's what needs to happen #BoardWatch
Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga was very excited to hear about materials getting out to people. What's happening in terms of special education? Where is that information? #BoardWatch
Special Ed services set up a system, think that is what the caller was talking about. Originally you would send the doc, it would be printed out and mailed from a central location. For students who do not usually use zoom. Now using a packet, but will revisit #BoardWatch
There are weekly office hours and talk with school sites weekly #BoardWatch
Moving into the second portion about moving to in-person learning #BoardWatch
First we are going to look at surveys for Phase 2A families. These are TK-2nd grade at all elementary and k-8 sites and families of students who are receiving mod-severe services. Sent out to 14,318 families total #BoardWatch
73% responded total which means that 10,488 total responded. Schools really pushed families to do this, thank you schools! Down to only 5 elementary schools with less than half of survey results #BoardWatch
Correction, the statistic that says 34% it should say 60% #BoardWatch
Wide range of results between schools: range from 17-86% who would plan to return to in-person learning. #BoardWatch
Links to the survey results are available (will attach a PDF of the presentation that hopefully has the links)go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board…
Now shifting to Chief Lau-Smith who is talking about testing for staff and students. Moving from Curative to Color. New guidance for testing students when in red tier (every 2 weeks). At this time beyond SFUSD capacity to test students. #BoardWatch
Lau-Smith says they will be releasing an RFP for student testing provider. Now moving onto vaccination with Daniel Menezes (Chief HR). Working with DPH to determine when staff can be vaccinated as part of 1b. Vaccine scarcity now. #BoardWatch
Chief Facilities Officer @DawnKdelivers is presenting on facilities preparation schedule by waves. Staff led walk-thrus of all schools. 50% will be ready by March 22, the rest by April 19. #BoardWatch
VP Collins is opening it up now for another 20 minutes of public comment. Encourage outreach to commissioners and to Family Link Line with other questions. #BoardWatch
Public comment: need to have convos about inequities before we can have this conversation. Positivity rates are higher eg at Mission BART testing site. Even with class sizes of 12 students, in Mission, statistically would be 1 case per class. #BoardWatch
Public comment: D 11 parent who works with local test site. 4.4% positive test rate in 94112 which has highest percentage of SFUSD students of any zip in the city. Also notes that can't conflate survey data b/c many who didn't respond would respond negatively. #BoardWatch
Public comment: from rep from Coleman Advocates need to consider that many families are losing work, homes, family members, and afraid to let people know they have COVID. #BoardWatch
Public comment: from Decreasing the Distance; hear concerns about data and Latino community. Want board to continue to be more transparent around negotiations, contract, when we will open. What is the new date? #BoardWatch
Public comment: coordinator of Parent Advisory Council has two points on survey data. What was done to reach out to families who did not return surveys? Why were some demographic groups excluded from the slide? Don't really know b/c so many people left to hear from. #BoardWatch
Public comment: unions are asking for bi-weekly testing, ventilation and more. District has not responded to request to meet and negotiate these standards. Would like to request the district to meet soon at the bargaining table. #BoardWatch
Public comment: Parent. Some students may need a para that did not have one before. Answered yes to survey, but only if teachers and paras can provide a guaranteed safe day. Need to listen to paras. #BoardWatch
Public comment: parent of a 3rd grader points to an article by Diane Ravich showing private schools have received 6 times as much funding as public schools to upgrade HVAC etc, SFUSD has a lot of deferred maintenance. Should have more help from city. #BoardWatch
Public comment: wonder why Marin is vaccinating staff and SF is behind. #BoardWatch
Public comment: SEIU president (custodians, clerks, warehouse workers etc.) Concern is community spread in the Mission, housing, and food situation in the mission. Need help in the communities and hopes district looks at safety first. #BoardWatch
Public comment: appreciate focus on distance learning. Want everyone to be safe, but feel like more communication could be given to families. Many are confused about shifting dates and goalposts. #BoardWatch
Public comment: maybe survey data isn't accurate/complete. As an RSP teacher there is no way to social "bubble." Will be intermingling, so staffing will need to increase to make it safe. I do toileting, etc. Will need space to do these things. #BoardWatch
Public comment: public health department has set rules and guidelines, and board and union keep saying the rules are not good enough. Say it is unsafe, but don't say what is lacking, why need stricter rules that private or parochial. #BoardWatch
Public comment: parent of 3 students would like district to consider following blueprint of college online coursework. Parents and kids are getting burnt out on technology. Criminal to open up right now given case rates. Don't plan for us without us. #BoardWatch
Now comments from commissioners. @mattalexandersf notes that Latinx is 15% of city and 43%(I think, may have misheard) of the cases. Thinks district is moving in the right direction to open once rates allow, but community spread is real as is economic pain. #BoardWatch
Commissioner @mattalexandersf notes that support with many basic necessities, outside of food aid, is really not available for many low-income families who are not here at this meeting b/c of many other pressures just to get through the day. Need cash aid to families. #BoardWatch
Commissioner @marksanchezsf reiterates what @mattalexandersf said. Case rate is going up steadily. Question re survey: what might we know about the families who didn't respond? Higher rate of working in service industry, multigenerational living situations? #BoardWatch
Ritu Khanna: in some cases emails were bounced back. Schools helped w/ outreach. But 80% response rate is very strong. The percent that want to come back has stayed the same as response rate has gone up. Over 60% of African American and Latinx families have responded. #BoardWatch
VP Collins is asking a member of AAPAC if she has any thoughts on why people didn't respond. She clarifies that she does not represent whole community, but feels that many do not care to respond, don't know why they are asking, how data used. #BoardWatch
Commissioner @marksanchezsf would like us to do a deeper dive on who didn't respond. Assume it might relate to a higher rate of infection in the Latinx community, or overwhelm with verbiage of survey questions. #BoardWatch
Commissioner @jennyhlam notes it is the responsibility of the board to put a plan forward for reopening schools. Important to allow choice for families and students. Also must develop a plan with labor partners. #BoardWatch
Lam wants to recognize families who did fill out the survey, let them know they have been heard. Wonders what what phase of surveying looks like? Khanna: results are available to schools, they are now building plans for in-person learning based on the results. #BoardWatch
Ford-Morthel: schools are looking at how many students would be coming in person by grade-level, then mapping out space. Numbers used to inform staffing. Teachers doing distance vs in-person learning. #BoardWatch
Khanna: next phase of surveying has not taken place. Matthews: need to respond to new data for next phase of planning, causing us to reassess original plan. That is why no new survey yet. #BoardWatch @SFUSD_Supe
Chief @DawnKdelivers has is talking about the partnership protocol with sites and what has been learned. Site leaders get onboarding to in-person learning. Share safety expectations, how to manage transmission risk. #BoardWatch
Work with site-leaders to designate how each room in the building will be used. Identify stable cohorts for each classroom, areas in the schoolyard to manage pick-up and drop off and create circulation paths for different classrooms, designated bathrooms, signage. #BoardWatch
Create space-use matrix that gets sent to buildings and grounds to install signage, make repairs, create drop-off zones, connect with DPH. Site-by-site walkthrus with site leaders. #BoardWatch
Learning: it is a challenge for those who have been working in buildings for many years, to rethink how space can be used with smaller classrooms. Room for people to come back with questions, make changes to plan. Want sites to open with confidence, know how to locate resources.
Need to maintain the individualized personalized support. Strong feedback about the importance of interpersonal connection, but has resulted in longer timeline #BoardWatch
Do we know the cost for testing through Color? Sounds like it will be billed to the persons insurance. If they don't have insurance it will be billed to the Cares Act #BoardWatch
Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga the same issue with enrollment right now is the issue with filling out surveys from families that are Pacific Islander. CBO's should start knocking on doors to ensure people are being heard #BoardWatch
Moving into consistent communication #BoardWatch
Brief overview of some of the systems in place, feedback, and additional ideas for communication #BoardWatch
Some of the systems #BoardWatch
Different families access platforms differently. It depends a lot on culture, language, and access #BoardWatch
Want everyone to stay connected w/ their child's education. Did a summer/fall survey, it was generally represented of the demographics of the city, survey said they want more communication from students teachers #BoardWatch
Started new practice of wellness calls. Does weekly digest that goes to all readers, all staff, and all families. Increased the # of videos coming out from the Superintendent. Utilizing the PSAs through radio stations. Trying to reach families in a variety of ways #BoardWatch
Started the Student and Family resource link for families who are not as into technology, which is where communication from the district initially struggled #BoardWatch
The challenge is making sure that families have a consistent experience. Increasing communication centrally, established a joint info team from various depts. Regular check-ins w/ instructional teams, Family Resource Link, trying to be responsive #BoardWatch
Thank you for the community support! #BoardWatch
It has been a challenge to raise funds for returning to in-person. Donors want to know how much $ is needed, and when reopening is happening. The fundraising climate keeps changing in addition to the covid climate #BoardWatch
@lopez4schools Many of these are not within the work of the school district but can push the city to try and make it a thing. All of this work is nothing new for schools, ownership of investing in families is what educators do regularly #BoardWatch
Trying to make it clear that if these are not met, student learning is not affected, push the city and state to do this so then families can focus on supporting students #BoardWatch
Commisioner @mattalexandersf One thing that parents can do is advocate w/ your supervisor and your mayor, lets all come together and figure this out as a city. The city and state will have to come together for rent relief #BoardWatch
Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga in terms of mental health and wellness. Kids have been experiencing a lot. Talking about wellness means talking about key players that need to collaborate. Work has been started w/ the coordinated care plan...
Cont from above: need to build up infrastructure to ensure there will be access for kids. Need to revamp billing in our district that works for us. If we want full time social workers, nurses, wellness center, need to know what the medical service billing is in our district
By revamping Medical billing, $ can be recouped, potentially $2-3 million in Medical billing. Wants to have a thorough break-down in curriculum meeting #BoardWatch
Commissioner @jennyhlam shout-out to our IT department! Where is free wifi accessible and where are the gaps in accessibility? Can you do all distance learning w/ the wifi you have? #BoardWatch
Lots of opportunity there will be investments coming for infrastructure from the Biden-Harris administration and Governor Newsom #BoardWatch
Going into public comment, the focus is on communication. There will be 20 minutes and 1 minute per person #BoardWatch
PC: Coordinator for PAC for SF Board of ED. Thank you for including communication in this meeting. The relaying of clear info from the school district is a key area of the PAC since it is also important for parents. Thank you for the info from slides 23 & 24 #BoardWatch
PC: Love the confluence of expertise in our board this year. Thank you Commissioner @FaauugaMoliga for raising the Medical issue. Many students w/ IEPs could be reimbursed by medical #BoardWatch
PC, community school coordinator: Always wondered what the data from the wellness checks looks like. So much opportunity to see what families need based on these conversations. We can see zip code, age, so many things. Great advocacy tool to use w/ state and city leaders
PC: Thank you for the interpretation and increased language support. See the standard three languages and resources in up to 7 languages. Missed the 1st part of the meeting, some of the videos online are only in 3 languages. Figure out what resources are the most helpful
Parent of 3: Hear a lot about this survey, have no participated because no longer computer savvy and do not email at all. Being disabled, have to manage time more. Thank you all for helping educate youth. You all are human too and have responsibilities. Is it possible...
Cont above comment: for parents to communicate by mail. Many parents do not come to these meetings for several reasons but should even just for 10 or 15 minutes #BoardWatch
2 Students and SFUSD Alum: Happy there is more clarity about readiness for reopening. Want to share that sent 9 year-old student 3,000 miles away to go to school with grandparents. Thought they had to do it to combat the depression brought on by covid #BoardWatch
@threadreaderapp unroll
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
