Transcripts For KGO ABC7 20240703

Venture capitalist who teaches a Financial Literacy class for uc berkeley athletes. A day at the museum designed not for stodgy grown ups, but sassy kids. How a Popular San Francisco museum is helping kids engage with art this weekend in more ways than one, and your family is invited. But first, the math isnt adding up for San Francisco Public Schools. The coming weeks will be critical for getting the district back on track or driving it deeper into the financial hole youre watching. Getting answers. Im kristen sze , thanks for joining us. Schools in San Francisco are facing a massive money problem. The gaps are so bad. A new state report is raising the alarm, saying the district is barreling toward insolvency within a year unless it makes major changes at the end of last year, San Francisco unified had a deficit of 421 million, about one third of its entire budget. The district got that deficit down to around 300 million. But more cuts are needed. So this month, the school board will vote on finalizing nearly 350 layoffs. The district is in the middle of identifying schools to shut down, but a report by the states Financial Crisis Team says San Francisco unified will have to make even more dramatic cuts to get the budget back on track, joining us live now is john trasvina, a San Francisco native and Lowell High School alumnus who has served in three president ial administrations. And hes also former dean of the university of San Francisco school of law. John welcome. Im sorry im not able to hear anything or see anything. Ill assume youre on. Im going to go ahead and ask my first question. The board will hear the full report from state fiscal monitors at its next meeting on tuesday. And it paints a picture of real fiscal crisis. Is this shocking to you good afternoon. Kristin. Its shocking, but its also not surprising, the crisis that the School District faces has been many, many years in coming, every year, though, theres always been an off ramp. Sometimes its been extra money from the state or from the federal government, sometimes its, because of covid, there was additional money, but now the state has made clear the School District must act and act now. All right. I think part of the problem, in addition to just federal and state money drying up after the pandemic, right, is declining enrollment. Lets go ahead and take a look at that. We have a graphic that shows whats been happening in the past decade or more. So john, you walk us through what were looking at here. This looks like a pretty big drop. It it is a big drop, some of it relates to some of the decisions made by prior School Boards and prior superintendents. Like what for example, for example, in 2014, getting getting rid of algebra in middle school, that was a signal to, to many people that they could not get the kind of classes and the kind of, track track forward for the, for their kids into the stem programs and other programs, unlike unlike the other School Districts in the bay area that did have algebra in the middle school, it took ten years to get to get it back, thanks to proposition g. Thanks to recent action by the superintendent and the board, some of the other factors, such as the cost of living in San Francisco, and, and demographics in general. We have more dogs and kids in the, in the city and people are having fewer and fewer kids later. So we are not as child centric as we were in the past. That means fewer, fewer children. And living in San Francisco. But 30 of the children in San Francisco go to private school. Thats unheard of around the country. And why is that leading to a drop in terms of the money that the school has to spend . When you lose students . Well, our our funding for schools comes largely from the state, and its based upon the average daily enrollment, there are extra theres extra funds, for limited English Proficient students, for low income students, for foster kids. But by and large, the number of students you have triggers how much money youre going to have, how much money youll have in the district. Years ago, we had 100,000 kids in the School District. Now were lower than were lower than were in the 40,000. So thats and over the years also we have not we have we have a larger budget of Central Office administrators. We so we have not aligned our expenses with our revenues. So well hear more on tuesday in this report. But tell us what are the things theyre saying needs to be done . Because obviously, as we laid out, the superintendent has already said there will be layoffs and said there will be school closures. They still have to identify the schools, but but if thats not enough, what else do you have to play with . Well, unfortunately, what this report uncovers is some lack of trust in the numbers that are already out there. So the so the state report says gives the School District credit for making cuts already, of eliminating vacant positions, taking other actions. But they also say because of the inability of the district to get its hands around the numbers, literally saying that in the in the budget office, there are 1 or 2 people who can produce the correct kind of financial reports, whereas in other districts it should be an entire department who can do that, or the School District not availing itself of help from other School Districts, because San Francisco thinks its special or unique when it is not. So there. There is the initial hurdle to overcome is to making sure we know what were spending and how were spending it. Once that happens, then then the School District does have a plan, a potential, that the state says its a potential, but it has to be done of eliminating additional positions, closing, closing the gap. But we also must do things of increasing the revenue. That is, we also have to have a vision that ensures that parents who send their kids to school are going to get a quality education, because once you have more kids coming in, whether its restoring algebra or whether or whether its other other things that will drive people back in. So were not just cutting, cutting, cutting. Were bringing in additional revenue. So, john, i understand what youre saying. The equivalent in business would be you got to spend money to make money. That is, you have to invest in the product, make it really good, and then people will buy it. And then you recoup your cost and more. But in this case, how does that happen with San Franciscos schools . How does it invest and make it better and offer all these things that will bring kids back, attract families back if they have to cut hundreds of millions . Its a challenge. Its a definite challenge. But but senator cory booker and congressman, Joaquin Castro have said 100,000 kids nationwide. Black and latino kids are denied opportunities in stem careers because of a lack of eighth grade algebra. I may bring that back in as a School District is now doing will keep people from leaving the district and also try to bring and it will also help get people back in. So that is the way of increasing revenue through through some through some programs, its definitely a challenge. We have to get behind the schools. Theres no theres no alternative, theres no possibility of just letting the, Public Schools go by the wayside in San Francisco or or in any city with these painful decisions coming up, the superintendent in district will need support, but theyre going to have to close schools. And that always divides rather than unites. What considerations do you think need to be made or happen as they consider which schools to close . It is a very painful process, and part of what needs to be addressed is after those decisions are made, whatever those decisions are, will the students who remain have a quality education . Maybe theyll have to go farther away than they they currently do. Although right now we dont have really neighborhood schools. People can go all over the city based on a based on a lottery system. But are we coordinated with muni to make sure that a school may be farther away, but it is accessible by muni . Are there other things that can be done to make sure that the students have the best possible experience . Once they, once they go to school, in, in the year following the fall, in this fall, there will the schools will not be closed. Itll be the following year. And what can what can be done . These are all the challenges, for the School District, both the administrators plus the school board members, were going to have a School Board Election in in november. Some of the incumbents may not return. Its going to be front and center for san franciscans as to what kind of schools we want and what kind of support were going to have. The School District today announced having a bond measure on the ballot in november. That money, 790 million, will go to school construction, rehabilitation, school safety, School Cafeteria is the type of things that when people say, this is the opportunity, this is the environment that we want our children to go to school in. But of course, you know, if you want people to say yes to that and take more money out of their pockets, they have to believe that the money will be well managed. And so this report , you know, doesnt give a whole lot of confidence, but maybe things will change. Meeting tuesday and the public is, of course, invited. John trasvina, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, kristen. Speaking of smart money management, College Athletes, these days can make a lot before they turn pro, but most have no idea how to manage their fortune and some end up broke. Well, that wont be the case for athletes at uc berkeley, thanks to a venture capitalist turned lecturer at the university. Hell join us with tips on how we can some uc berkeley athletes are busy studying Financial Literacy. Detroit lions quarterback and former cal bear jared goff is just one of many star athletes who have taken this unique course offered by a venture capitalist who became a lecturer at uc berkeley. The course personal finance and Brand Management in professional sports, and it just might have useful takeaways for all of us mere mortals. Joining us live now is steven eder, Founding Partner at greylock capital group, trustee of the Uc Berkeley Foundation and lecturer at the haas school of business. Steven thanks for joining us. Hi. Good afternoon. Its a Beautiful Day in the bay area. It certainly is. Im so happy to have you because youve won a prestigious Teaching Award three times. But more importantly, you have a high rating on rate my professors. Did you know that . Uhhuh. No i dont get out to the website to read it, but thank you. Okay no, thats, online. You know, where kids rate their professors passionate about his work. Best course ive ever taken in my entire study. And heres my favorite. Scary. But good. Okay, you should take that. But, steven, how long have you been teaching this course to help athletes manage their money . I started teaching at 25 years ago when nnamdi asomugha, first round draft choice of the raiders was my student and asked, could i help guide him on understanding the nfl contract dynamics, budgeting, and investing his money . Can i ask you, why did you i guess okay, before we get further, i want to name drop just a little bit more. Okay besides the aforementioned player and goff, youve taught Seattle Seahawks running back marshawn lynch, olympic swimmer Missy Franklin during their time at berkeley, and many more. Who else who are some memorable students . Uh ryan murphy, a six time medalist in the olympics. Collin morikawa, who youre probably familiar with with his recent success on the pga. And ive taught all of our one players who uh are in the league thats now getting the notoriety and the eyeballs that it deserves. Thats amazing. And i know, of course, you had a personal connection to cal. I think your son, right, was on the football team. And i want to ask you, what was your goal . What did you want to impart on these Young Athletes . Well first of all, i came to cal and having the access to quality education at a reasonable price allowed me to achieve what i achieved. So my goal here was to pick up a missing gap when i when you looked at the nfl and the nba and major league baseball, theres a considerable amount of athletes that go bankrupt or in financial distress after their playing career. And i wanted to help solve that problem and narrow that that gap, right. I mean, in fact, history is full of pro athletes who lost all their money, right . Mike tyson, allen iverson, Lenny Dykstra and commoners like me. We go. We just dont understand how that could happen. But then even now, recently, you saw dodger star Shohei Ohtanis interpreters stole millions from him to fund the gambling. Does that suggest to you that athletes arent always hands on tracking their money . Uh. You know, i dont know much about the ohtani incident, but many athletes uh dont look over the shoulders of their advisors. I focus on i use an analogy of teaching the fishermen to fish. And so while my students dont have to be expert investment analysts or budgeters, they do have to watch after and look over the shoulder of their advisors. And so i try in my semester to teach them enough information so that things like that dont happen. Thats great. And this is where i asked you to kind of break that down for all of us. You know, and i read that article in the haas school of business magazine, which i thought was so great, you kind of boiled it down to its how much you keep uh keeping your future self in mind and ask the right questions, give us examples of what that means. Well, one of the examples that one of my players was heading to practice at the vikings facility and his agent, assist and called and said, please sign your, representation contract and docusign pull over and sign it. He said, no, no, i cant sign it. I need to print it out and look at it and she said, no, no, all the athletes just sign it. Sure enough, he printed it out and the, the commission for, for, representation wasnt changed from the boilerplate 25 to the 15 he had negotiated. I try to teach very simple techniques for the athlete to understand what theyre signing and what theyre looking at. Number two, when you look at budgeting, none of us budget very well. All of us in the world struggle to make a budget. And through the program, ive got a unique approach where i have the students look at what have you spent for the last three months . Because with todays technology, you can look at your cash account, your charge card and said, how many ubers did you have . How many doordashs did you have . Lets look, were spending 650 on food through doordash. What should we be spending on food and how do we convert the historical spending to a budget . Lastly, an example is asset diversification. Understanding if youre promised a high return, youre taking on high risk. See, thats something that we can all keep in mind. Totally great advice and i wonder if you know this knowledge and savvy is more important than ever now. Because, you know, with the changes the last few years that now allow College Athletes to start making money while still in school, i mean, its even more complicated. And theyre even younger, right . Without the world knowledge and all that, right . Yes its not unusual for freshmen and sophomores who are performing at the highest level in basketball and football to have a seven digit nil contract and, understanding as a freshman and sophomore, how to manage that, that windfall, so to speak. The income is difficult. So the class is more important than ever. I just received a grant recently, as you saw in the article from robinhood, that allows me to teach every student athlete at cal these, the this knowledge, versus a dozen or two. That is fantastic. I did see that, as a cal grad myself, im hoping that one day youll expand it to everybody. Okay all the students at cal, because we can all use that, that thats a dream is to find a sponsor that would allow me to put together the class for all 55,000 students on campus. And why dont we take it across the United States to every campus . So i would love that would be a great dream. Hopefully over the next, 5 to 10 years, we can make it happen at cal and make it happen across the United States. And hopefully its open to alumni because im right there. All right. Stephen fedr, thank you so much for joining us. Enjoyed our chat very much. Thank you. Have a great afternoon. Thank you very much for having me. Yep. Go bears. Go bears. All right. Coming up, before we get to our next segment, i just want to show you we have some breaking news. Just finding out about it. Sky seven is over the east bay. Look at this. Were seeing a chp, a slow chase, if you will, following a car on i80 eastbound in pinole. This pursuit started in santa rosa. Weve been watching this for a few minutes and have seen officers trying to pull this driver over. Its no longer slow and try to stop the car with spike strips several times, but so far the driver has evaded them. As you can see, theyre still going uh be cautious if youre in that area or know someone whos driving around there. Well take a short break and be so dont just play. Stay at northern californias premier casino resort. Book your getaway now. At cachecreek. Com. The museum is holding its d youngsters day out. Get it d youngsters with activities for children and families. Its free for bay area families to attend. Joining us live now is emily jennings, director of school and family programs for fine arts museums in San Francisco. Emily, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. All right. This is a lot of fun. What kind of activities can we expect this year, we have an array of activities, in the center of the museum will be celebrating the work of timothy bee, whos a contemporary muralist who works out of oakland. And hes created two activations for us that are really taking an afro futurist perspective and asking kids to think about how they want to see the future. And then our team of teaching artists who work here at the museum all year round have created four different activities that you can find sprinkled through the galleries. And then were very fortunate to be, partnering with zeeny, who is offering ice screenings and also a photo booth. And then were also celebrating our school program, the Equity School Partnership Project, with an art installation in the kimball gallery, which is brought to us by adobe. And all those activities are also supported by kaiser. That is so great. By the way, i love zeeny myself. Ive got many pairs of sunglasses and glasses. Its just great. And theyre so community oriented. But let me just ask you, how did the youngsters day out as an idea start . You know, thats a great question and one that were really proud to tell, before the pandemic, we did a lot of our support for our family programs and School Programs through private donor events. And during the pandemic that didnt work anymore. And so we had an event where we gave away a ton of art materials, which was a fundraising event. And once we got back in a place that we could all gather again, we continued to forge forward in a more equitable framework. And thats what gave birth to the youngsters day out. In its current format. And were so proud that it is such a successful event, and one that really allows us to share with those who might not know that the deyoung is a Family Friendly space. Every single weekend of the year, every saturday we offer something fun to do. So yes, this is our biggest party, but you can always find something fun to do with us on saturdays. You know, the thinking around museums and the Museum Experience has really changed, hasnt it . Because it was thought of as something kind of, you know, like youre quiet, youre observing, youre admiring, and maybe not for kids who like to get their hands dirty, you know . Yeah, we definitely, are really, fortunate to be able to lean into the new future, and youth is very much a part of what we are as an organization, both through our School Programs. Which do youngsters day out helps support, but also through our family programs too. So wed love to hear kids observations. Wed love to see kids teaching their parents and caregivers about artwork, its something that we really celebrate, and were so fortunate to have a team of teaching artists on staff who really steward that experience. For everybody that comes to work with us on the weekends, theres a fundraising component. I know its free to families right . But theres also a fundraising component to this. Yeah so as i mentioned, we have a number of corporate underwriters. So zenni adobe and kaiser who are really grateful for. And then we have a number of individual donors who give to this event to make it a free event. And all the funding goes to underwrite our family programs. Again, as i said that we offer every saturday as well as our School Programs. And most importantly, its our Equity School Partnership Project, which is a new initiative here at the museum that really aims to provide access to kids who wouldnt otherwise be able to come to the museum. Were very aware being located in golden gate park, were not necessarily the easiest place to get to. So we are really fortunate to have the Equity School Partnership Project that allows us to reach out to schools, and this year were working with eight different classrooms, some in San Francisco and some in oakland as well. Okay, so how many people are you expecting . Were ready to welcome with smiles. About 6000 people tomorrow. Okay so with that many people, do people need tickets . I know its free, but do they need to preregister anything like that . Logistics. Yeah. There yeah there are. You can preregister. And, the word i just got is that we might be all preregistration might be sold out, but we have plenty of tickets the day of. So id encourage parents if youre interested in coming to plan to get here around 11, and we should have some tickets ready for you, do know that the, the garage does fill up, though, so you might want to leave some extra time to walk into the park. I have experienced that before, and theres a reason for that. Its so popular and wonderful. Emily jennings, thank you so much. Youre welcome. Thanks for having me. Yeah, folks, de youngsters day is, day out is tomorrow with activities running from 10 a. M. To 5 15 p. M. Again, its free for all king canyon. The chp chase of what they think is a shooting suspect who is armed. And this began in santa rosa, and now its on 80 eastbound american canyon. And you can see lots of chp vehicles in pursuit. The driver had evade them despite them putting out the spike strips. Again the driver wanted for freeway shooting. So well have the latest for you on abc seven news at four. Take david tonight, breaking news as we come on the air this friday night. Authorities just moments ago saying, get out now in a key area outside houston. Mandatory evacuations, the rescues amid horrific flooding. The extraordinary images coming in. In new york city, the biggest witness yet in Donald Trumps criminal trial, hope hicks crying on the stand. Outside new york tonight, the deadly explosion,