Right thing. [applause. ] if you could all line up. I came here earlier. I thought it was an naacp meeting. This is the first time i have been in a School Board Meeting in more than 30 years. I took my daughter out of San Francisco Public Schools more than 30 years ago for the same problem that exists today. She is fine because i took her out. I am sure she wouldnt have been if i left her in it. I think that the problems are seriously systematic, and i was really surprised you took it upon yourself to come to a school where the africanamerican girls and we could not manage to have a conversation with the principal, we could not manage to get a meeting space for these young women to meet, they feel isolated. They didnt have africanamerican History Month at marina junior high school. This is just last year. If shamann hadnt intervened we wouldnt have the programs. I get to see what is going on. On a real micro level, last week we got a boy who is a senior with straight i asked to see his transscript. Fresh f freshman, soft more and junior and senior year. No one has intervened. He got a notice he wasnt going to graduate last week. But nothing happened. The africanamericans. I know little bits and pieces because i just get to see the kids an the a at the Booker T Washington center. It makes me cry to see these young people have no future. They have no future in San Francisco Public Schools. We have to deal with that. The superintendent is great. You need to go to the schools and talk to the kids there. Talk to the africanamerican kids there. You will see what is going on. I have a lot more to say and i will leave my Business Card and i am happen he to it is on a committee to deal with this. This is critical to the young people. We are less than 3 of the population and we have nothing to show for it. We have lots and lots of young people in the San Francisco Public Schools. The fact they cant get an education is a crime. I want to congratulate you with getting the new center built. That is not easy. Thank you so much. Daisy ozene. , doctor walker. Thank you. I am here because they asked me to be here. Not because i truly believe that if you were going to consider anything that falls out of my mouth. As a teacher i am someone with a lot of community organizing. As a teacher you would be teaching black students. I speak to them more in the audience and ask them to consider how we are pending our time. They are rooted in the white supremacist ideologies. We have a steers committee and our kids are not serve. Then we asked people to come and structure our kids. Does that make sense . I am not disrespectful. What is this . This is madness. Then the initiative. I try to talk to them how do we get the curriculum that sociologists created . Through the schools it is nothing. At this point i will bring up someone i believe in, marcus garvey. The kids dont know what to do. We need to com come to a consen. The time we are waiting for them to get to our item we could have figured how to do what we want to do and then move along. Secondly, this is madness. I want to talk about basically working in the different schools. The main issue is we have administrators who are steep in their own lack of care. They dont know what to do with our kids. People of color we know we want to help the children. We cannot see when it are needed done. What i want to say to folks in the audience, i am not addressing the board. My people in the audience you have to make a decision on how toic spend time moving forward. The way they are chopping budgets he will not be here. Thank you. Doctor walker. Good evening i am tiana coleman. I am coming to speak as a past graduate of the School District. I have heard the negative comments spoken about the students and statistics. I would like to say i believe there is something the school board can do to integrate and collaborate with the opportunities presented today. There was a closed door. When i hear people speak about opportunities. It sounds like you have made your minds up when you came in the door. You are arent listening and negotiating. I hear you have a nonprofit in the bay view. What opportunities do you have that you can bring to the community through your direct program . If you are providing resources through the School District and you have this opportunity in the community and you are knot using that to benefit the children of the community currently. What opportunity will you provide as you move up in your ventures and your caree car. Get out of these offices, drawn down third street and see the young black boys on the corner when they should be in school. There is know oversight. They are ending up lock up for many years when they had an opportunity for this platform to provide opportunity and resources so they can provide for their families and not result to being on the street corners selling drugs that are now legal and that that he will be prosecuted. Please take the time for the bigger picture. These are the children not performing, they are failing at every level. Lets discuss what opportunities and what other integrated programs can you get involved within the state. There are other resources you can use other than yourself. Thank you. [applause. ] superintendent, i am pastor walker, True Hope Church of god in christ. I want to commend you for the total programming that you laid out tonight. I want to commend you for that, sir. I havent had an opportunity to meet you personally. I look forward to calling your office. I have to prepare a statement. First, i have been in the cities 65 years. 49 years i have gone to doctor brown and several more of us africanamerican leaders have gone to the meetings, the last one i can think about was the outer migration of the rating. We talked about that. I think education and jobs and affordable housing. Four different hints that we raised. What we do and i hope this dont happen we get the information laid hoyt and nothing happened. We hope you help us with what you got to move forward. Staying the beacon of light for 50 years. Improving the community and housing jobs health, wellness and quality education. They have assisted several over the years. God in the name of jesus, we need your help in San Francisco. We need somebodys help. If you can help us because we are not helping ourselves. The crisis in the education the San Francisco must rise to meet the challenge. San francisco have failed too long. We must leave here tonight with an asterisk for the problem of the educational crisis. The direction he gave us if we keep the people behind that and the city behind those responsible. This is black History Month that sicked off a celebration about the National Prices throughout the country. San francisco must rise to meet the challenge, ladies and gentlemen here tonight. Doctor karl stood up well associated with the denial. The crisis righted from racial barriers to seek cal education. Education began in the days of slavery. It was unlawful for the lives to learn to read and write. Free blacks were forced to walk Long Distance past white school on the way to school. Thank you, doctor walker. We have a lot of people to speak tonight. Thank you. Thank you. I am donavon birch and proud number of the naacp. I am here to underscore the state of emergency for black and latino students in San Francisco. They have been under served for years and subject to a culture of low expectation. They can exceed rigorous academics, support services and competent teachers and administrators. That is why i underscore the naacp for competent psychiatric services, assessment of all programs to figure out which are serving blank students and increased funding and monitoring for the department in charge of achieving the gap. We have shared with all of you an increase in 10 points for black and latino in english and math in 2018 to 2019 school year. The naa knows that fsufd has not supported students of color. Nothing has changed for the state of San Francisco schools, which the superintendent your data you shared mirrors for that. San francisco was one of the worst places for the student of collar to receive it. Enough is enough. We must address the crisis. It is not the parents fault and students fault. If the system is fault it has proud naacp member. We are watching and will hold you accountable to the students and their future. Thank you. Hi, i am the parent leader to the Public Schools. I want you to understand i am the parent first. I have four children i raised, three in the system, the School System and one in the charter system. I see both sides of the conversation. Listen with your hearts and not your politics. I made a choice for my last child upon the struggles i had that recognize my daughter are needed a choice. Now, i am standing with hundreds of other parents tired of the achievement gab. As the parent we send the children to school owning they will be emotionally safe and read and do math. When you hear the reports about our childrens behavior it seems like it is not happening. I plead you to take immediate actions to choose the closing gaps. One of the district wide state of emergency. It is crazy. I stand with kipp to move for highquality schools. School districts have neglected. I support kipp. I have gone through traditional and Public Schools and Charter Schools. Kipp truly prepared my daughter to college. Commit to meeting three and 300 parents in San Francisco to solve this crisis for our students. This is not all day. It iit is omission street. We have only heard from two board members. We ask you to please respond by the end of the week. Veronica martinez. I see some of these folks in the room. Speaking spanish. My children were part of the School District. I am a mother within noticevate Public Schools and leader. Fighting for equity, Educational Equity for all students. When i see the statistics about how latino students speaking spanish. [please stand by] sfusd [ speaking native language ] [ through the interpreter ] okay. So thats thats why in the bay view Public Schools, along with naacp, we make a calling for all Public Servants of this School District and the city to make a commitment with the goal of increasing in a 10 point percentile the level of competency of the students of the African American students and latinos for 2018 and 19, and another pinpoint for the year 2019 and 20. [ speaking native language ] [ through the interpreter ] senator scott has signed th scott weiner has signed that ordinance, and we hope you will, as well. [ speaking native language ] president walton and we have four minutes after this statements. [ speaking throu through the interpreter ] please, when you see the parents, when you see concerned parents, get us involved instead of avoiding us. President walton thank you so much. Geraldine anderson, sean biven, shawn richards, reverend townsend. Hello. My name is geraldine anderson. My son is kingtston he is in the tshirts grain th our students rights arum violated, so i, too, am pleading with you to take some immediate action to close this achievement gap. I, too, stand with pastor amos brown pastor of the naacp in calling for a districtwide state of emergency. As you know the achievement gap in this city is outrageous. I also read what you wrote in the Huffington Post and have to say im shocked at your response. Here you have people reporting of the reality of the inequality of our School System, and you somehow manage to turn it around to accuse those people in hurting our students. They are looking out for our students and our parents. They are standing up for them. They are calling you out for not doing enough. It might seem clever for you to turn it around on them, but i i dont have time for that type of clever. We dont have time for that, our kids dont have time for that. So again we want to remind you for your invitation december 4th at 6 00 p. M. At 5051 mission street. We will be hosting 300 other concerned parents here in San Francisco to discuss how we can solve this achievement crisis for our students. Commissioners, please reconsider the invitation and get back to us as soon as possible. Thank you. Sean biven, reverend townsend. Good evening, everyone, and superintendent. This is my daughter. Shes a senior at Philip Burton high school. Shes a 3. 25 gpa student. You all can applaud to that. Shes been especially to john c. Smith university, and many other universities that shes applied to. I just have to say this, she was a product of the School District, i was a product of the School District, and standup in the back, that was her First Teacher who taught her how to sit down and listen and Pay Attention and do the right thing, so i say to all the commissioners and everybody on this panel, we have to do better. We cannot just always react when its a tragedy or when its somethings going wrong in our School Districts. We have to step up and teach our kids. Our African American kids are failing, and we have people of color thats in the School District that you guys either put in position that can help our students and our kids learn and grow. You have to. Go ahead. You can clap. That needs to be said, because we play too much with this, and our kids wind up getting out there on these streets and wind up either going to jail for longterms or getting killed, and we have to stop that. We putting too much money into everything thats not working. We need to put money into things that do work. Pay more teachers better salaries to educate our kids and keep them afloat. We have to do better. Right now, were playing with this, and our kids are failing. My daughter, let me just say this as a parent, as a single father, all three of my daughters and ive got three of them let me take that back, ive got five of them, all five of them graduated from high school, because i stayed on top of what was going with their education. The village is here to stay on top of you guys to make sure you guys stay on top of what you supposed to be doing. We cant be paying you all this mob money and im keeping it real. We cant pay you all this money and you guys cant do what youre doing. So with that said, thank you. I want you guys to support the School District of these young African American kids thats not excelling to make them get to a higher standard level that all of them can go to college, all of them. Thank you. Thank you, mr. President , commissioners, commissioners, reverend around townsend. Look, theres not a lot to be said, except to say that its really insulting, and i feel humiliated being here because what i feel like im doing is here convincing you all that our children are human beings and deserve what every other child deserves. Now i know you would tell me that you already recognize their humanity, but the results do not reflect that because what the results reflector what the results are guaranteeing our children are lives of mediocrity, and for our boys, what theyre earning with their education is a tour of the California State Prison system. Thats the reality. Now, dont get me wrong. As reverend brown said, theres enough blame to go around. Im going to accept some. The churches can accept some, parents, community, teachers, and the board has to accept it, as well. And we dont need to point fingers, but weve got to come together and solve this, and we will only solve it if it becomes a not a priority, the priority. You cannot i dont care if youve got a group of students who are excelling in an amazing way and lifting everybodys score so when the statewide results come out, we look good. When you are consigning a whole entire group of students to a lifetime of failure, as the superintendent said, that thats not great, but superintendent, that aint even good. It is it is deplorable, and if we want to look at a basket of deplorable, its what were doing to our African American and latino children in our School Districts. Whoever doesnt like it, weve got to change. Thats everybody, and i may have left out the union, youve got to come into this, too. Its all of us. Theres enough blame to go around for all of us, and weve got to shake it and go to work like never before. I came in talking about this when reverend brown was talking about this 40 years. As a young man, talking about the same stuff. Senior citizen. Ive got a card, i eat free some days president walton thank you, reverend townsend. But youve got to understand the severity of this. Thank you. President walton walter turner, susan fong, randall sargucci, star child. Randy. And please feel free to lineup if i called your name. Good evening, commissioners, good evening, superintendent. My name is randy sargucci, and im the executive director of urb urbanite academy. We serve boys of color in the third, fourth, and fifth grade in the stem curriculum with a saturday school. Im here to support our African American leadership and focusing on supporting our African American students. While it has been a problem, its never a wrong time to say the right thipng, and we need o keep that focus up. As i mentioned, this is a very old problem, so i think we all understand the angst of the community and the folks who have been here decade after decade seeing this thing. Its older than me, old enough maybe to have a full pension in a couple of years, but i think one agreement that everybody has in this room is that every child can learn. I dont think anybody in here would say otherwise. The data shows that we havent been getting to that, but we stand as a partner to help do that. We cant afford to move inclemently on it, and i support the transformation of this rhetoric and the strategy. Transformation in our ways, our tools, and ways of delivering education. While weve been small, wed love to find out how we align with the Bold Movement that you have moving forward at least over the next couple of years so here are those tenets. First off, we want more time with our students. Weve been doing that on saturdays. I can tell you as someone whos been to these schools, our students, namely our boys are missing seat time, a lot of seat time, and you cant learn when youre not in that seat. In that regard, we also would like more focus. We believe in the individualized learning plans that have been pioneered at lake shore and summit and shared with all students. We would love to see that in that regard. We would love to see the talent there. Its been studied that African American men in front of African American boys make gains. Lastly, we want standing, and our to do that, our organization is transforming a liquor store in bay view into a leashing cent leashing a learning center, but we thank you very much for your continued commitment and look forward to being here with you. President walton thank you. I dont see anyone else star child, star child. Good evening, commissioners, members of the public. Im star child, past candidate for school chair, Vice President of the local chapter of the libertiaryan party. I call our schools government schools for a reason, because any school that serves the public, any school thats there or any learning institution or collection of home schooling parents who are there, opening their doors to people who want to come and gueet an education is a Public School. Governments been allowed to monopolize the Public Schools, and people here private schools, and they think rich and elitist. Thats why you had hundreds of people who wanted to give you your approval to open a new school that was a Charter School so it had a little bit Less Government control and a little bit more responsiveness to parents and students. And i understand you voted unanimously against that request. Shame on you for that. There is an alternative, and im hoping maybe people in the community will start to think about this when they realize like that black woman who said earlier who spoke and had taken her kids out of the government schools, the solution is not to be found in this room as long as the power in this room are only willing to have the government schools be the only options in front of you. How many of you in this room would like to be able to take the tax money that you paid and thats going now to the government schools, to take that and put it into educating your kids the way you want to see them educated without government control, raise your hands. Nobody . Well, maybe thats why you keep getting what youve got. President walton thank you so much, star child. Id like the same amount of time that reverend brown had, if i may. I dont think im up to five minutes yet, am i. President walton it wasnt five minutes. Okay. What am i at . President walton youre over two. Okay. A lot of other people had way more than two minutes. Are you giving me more than two . President walton no. Okay. Well, let the record show the discrimination then. Thanks. President walton thank you. Comments from colleagues . Student delegate min . We wousaw many of our recommendations affected in the par point, so we really thank you for hearing us. We are currently working with dr. Matthews on the student questionnaire that addresses these issues to not only help dr. Matthews focus on what to improve and how to improve from the point of students but as well as what the sec can do, so wed like to thank dr. Matthews for his presentation. On the topic of the superintendent report gebhard, id like to thank you again for the sec, and weve been aware of the achievement gap and the discrepancies in terms of race in our Education System now, and i plan to bring that up to the sac at their next meeting and really pinpoint their thoughts on that specifically and to bring their ideas back to the board on that, so thank you for sharing with us sha. President walton colleagues . Commissioner cook . Commissioner cook im really excited about the like, dr. Matthews leadership, and i think the plannings before it. During our very long and difficult selection, our process to hire a superintendent at the top of my mind was putting somebody in place that can completely transform the narrative that weve seen around African American students. I believe its someone that went to mac ateer high school, one of the schools that was shutdown by this board, to come back and lead the district, that we would have the right leadership and be honest about the situation that were in. The pronoun of we is very appropriate. I appreciate all of the impassioned Public Comment. There are people in this room that didnt speak that are going to go back into schools tomorrow, knowing and feeling like theyre doing the hard work every day, and, like, the comments today were reflective of the passion and the drive and how much theyve been working hard to push against what we know to be the case in our schools. School principals that are on this list, the principal at mlk, prince at carver, excellent leaders that are as dissatisfied as we are here to see the results as they exist, so you know, weve been about the work, weve been about the action, that action, and thats why i mean, thats why i ran for this board when i was running in 2014, not to i do want to give actually a bit of history, because naacp was actually responsible for the foundation of Thurgood Marshall High School High school, and it was at one time a Public School in our city, sending more latino and African American students to college than any other high school in the city of San Francisco, so to believe that these Public Schools havent done it or cant do it, it is a lie. I also want to acknowledge the Public Comment earlier pointing out some of the funding behind these institutions that are pushing this privatized narrative in our district. I think thats just important to point out to be transparent about. Follow the money, so when theyre reading the report, but they are pushing an agenda that is counterproductive to what we believe is the actual work that needs to follow the results, just follow the money. I just want to point that out to everybody. This is not a political fight. When we wrote that article, i just came up for air for a second, because what im focused on is the work. I refuse to believe the students in our district cant achieve, and it highlights a point that i just wanted to mention as it related to malcolm x. He used to speak, had an impassioned speech about who taught you to hate yourself, and when you look at these numbers, and people perpetuate this narrative around failure, it teaches our kids to see themselves a certain way. Those results are reflected every day as we try to work with them, and in order to change that future, we have to change our narrative, so i refuse to use words like worst, failure. We have to be honest about the results, and we hired a superintendent thats going to be honest. Youve seen that tonight, and i want to affirm the greatness and the beauty and the possibility of our children, so when i get up in the morning when i get up in the morning, thats what ill be doing, so if you want to come with us, partner with us, andrew, brett hart, like these other educators have been doing for years, we welcome you. Thank you. President Walton Commissioner norton . Commissioner norton youre hard to follow, commissioner cook, but im not going to try, really. I actually want to ask the superintendent a couple questions about your report and your recommendations. I really found very interesting, and i agree with the recommendation that the board has not looked at consistent data over the years, that we dont it kind of moves around, and i really appreciated what you said about the looking at the average performance is what obscures the depth of the gap, and i think thats thiss absolutely right. I think that we actually should not use anymore that were the highest scoring urban district because you know, it almost it just i think people kind of tend to now laugh at us for using that term because it does obscure the gap that you showed so clearly in your data that we saw a couple last month in the report to the board, so i appreciate you calling that out. What i also thought was very interesting is when you talk about the high equity gap schools versus the historically under served schools, and we talk about the achievement gap, we talk a lot about the historically under served schools, as we should, but we dont always call out the fact that there are just as many African American students who are not performing in some of our highest performing schools, and so the high equity gap schools are as urgent a problem as as the historically under served schools. But i do i want to ask you, so are you actually proposing in the schools that youve named tonight in your report, are you proposing that those would be your focus schools as you move forward with some of your recommendations . Yes. Commissioner norton okay. So both of those two cadres of schools, and both of those, it had certain characteristics or certain strategies that would go into the under served schools, all five of those strategies, and then, the others, it was the middle three, but both of those c cadres of schools, once we begin to have success in those schools, and we will have success in those schools, then well begin to move out. Are those schools chosen from a ranked list . Basically, you looked at your rite real esta estate criteria, and you picked the top and bottom of the list. So the high equity schools were the they all had gaps over 50 points in both english, language arts, and math. Commissioner norton but are there other schools in that category . Theres ten, and then, the others are the criteria that i selected. Commissioner norton so there was a cut score for both, for both sets of schools . Yes. Commissioner norton okay. That was interesting. I just want to close in echoing commissioner cook by mentioning our educators that are working in our schools. I see so many great educators who are working so hard, and i appreciate you. I know why you didnt wade into the fray, but when you talk about the work that youre doing with our students, i know how hard youre working and what great things youre accomplishing, so thank you. President Walton Commission commissioner marase. Commissioner merase ist at Britain High School when you met with the community, and what struck me was i was at a table with long time educators there, and i think its so important that we recognize the wisdom or the tenacity of our faculty who have not taken the easy road with their assignments, and so its easy to get discouraged after seeing some tough data, but i would like us to endeavor towards a strength based approach, and i got some feedback recently that maybe we should be doing interviews with faculty members who stay in some of the schools that were listed, the ones who are really dedicated, and to showcase those successful students, despite the power of demographics, rather than just go directly to the kids that are under performing, lets figure out what was the secret to students who could overcome some of the barriers. And then, just finally, i support the direction that youre recommending. Looking forward to working with you closely on Student Assignment issues, our curriculum issues, as we move forward in this work. President walton thank you, commissioner haney . Commissioner haney yeah, superintendent, i want to thank you for your work and i want to also thank you for starting with listening. I think sometimes thats either the part thats skipped or the part that doesnt happen at all, or it happens after the fact, after youve already come up with your idea, so the way you explicitly said, im not going to come in with my already prepared solutions and ideas, but im actually going to sit down and hear what people have to say across the district, i think showed a great amount of h humility and i think youll get a lot more trust from the community because you went out and listened to them. I also want to thank all the educators that are here and let you know how much we appreciate your work and how hard, you know, are actually moving the ball in many ways, and i also saw that there are folks from the African American Leadership Initiative that are here, and i want to thank you as well for the way that you move things forward. You know, over the last few years, this board and the district has really looked at this challenge around African American student opportunity as the top priority; that we do have a significant huge responsibility for, both in terms of whats happened and needs to happen, and i think, you know, that continues, and that urgency could not be any more real, even as weve seen some actual higher prioritization. I also want to say thank you to president walton and commissioner cook for your leadership. I think that the article that was referenced in Huffington Post and it was in the examiner, i dont want to speak for the whole board, but im just really proud to have the two of you here leading and speaking on behalf of the board on our commitment, and representing for our district. The last thing i want to say and nobody addressed this specifically, but some folks came, and reverend brown and others came and talked about declaring a state of emergency around African American students in our city, and children. Thats something that i think that we should do, because its not just something that our our School District has to be a part of, but its something that the especially tire community and the entire city has to be a part of. So when we were to declare that, we say were going to do our part, and do more, but other people have to step up, too. Its absolutely shameful we go on in the city with business as usual, when we have a part of our community thats being completely shut out and left behind, and we know what the consequences of that are. So i dont know if theyre asking for that, but i endorse, i support that, and i thank you for bringing it forward. And the last thing with that is just a basic, basic aspect of this is is that our schools that are serving after mrican american schools need to be given the resources to be successful. We can talk about a lot of different approaches and plans and everything, but if the schools that are serving these children are facing every year facing cuts and scrambling to pull the resources together to be successful, then every single plan, rethinking and all of that is not going to get us very far, so i say give the resources, give the money, give the support, give the staffing to the people on the front lines, and dont dont ask any questions well, work with them and partner with them to make sure that they never feel like theyre alone, and if we did that, i think maybe we would be in a very different place than we are now. So i i support this plan, i believe in this plan. I think its the right plan, but it needs to be resourced, and it needs to mean that the people that are doing the work in the classroom who are leading the schools have the support they need first and foremost, so thank you. President walton Vice President mendozamcdonnell, and then, commissioner sanchez commissioner sanchez. Commissioner sanchez i echo the sentiments of my colleagues on the board, and i think we need to declare a statement of emergency. I said so at one of the past meeting when the reverend brown spoke. We need to declare if with the mayor, with all of our partners in city government. We have obviously failed, failed mizerablely as a district, over decades, really, for repairing African American students. One of the best resources we can offer students is highly qualified teachers over time, who want to be and have the abilities, the competencies to work with all of our students, but in this case, particularly African American students, and that they stay, that they wont rotate out of the classroom and leave. That was rhenneference earlier by some comments by the public. We need to make sure we support those teachers and paraeducators in the schools that were talking about, and that support needs to come out in many different ways. I love that you called out the tenure of the teachers in our district. It averages less than ten years. We pay teachers by a fulltime equivalency, so i think its at 98,000 or 97,000 a year, so a School Getting funding, and they spend their funding for teachers at 98,000 peryear. In essence, those schools are subsidizing other schools that have a building tenure. You can actually calculate that price, because weve done it before, but you cant put a prize that teachers that are dedicated over a longterm to stay, and thats what were doing. Were under funding the schools by not paying the teachers what theyre worth. We need to figure it out, and we need to figure it out with uesf and others, because this is not okay. We cannot have this high of a turnover with the number one asset that we have in our schools, which is the qualified teacher, we have to dale with this, and we have to do it together. We also have to provide more Mental Health services. That was mentioned over and over again by the public, and weve done a woeful job with that. And we need to provide, like, commissioner haney said, the actual resources to do this, and weve got not to be shy about it. I just want to advocate and i also want to recognize our principals out there and educators in the audience. I also want to look at adding maybe one more school to the list, cobb, elementary, which is over 50 African American. I dont know if were talking about the cut line, if we can maybe take another look at that school because it has a high population of African American students, and superintendent matthews, you at the top of my list. Im so happy we hired you, and i love your report here, so thank you. President walton Vice President mendozamcdonnell . Thank you, president walton. So this was great, and i know we got a little sneak preview of the work that youve been doing, and i know that you were really diligent about going around and doing your listening tour, and i think one of the best things that you were able to do is to ask the three consistent questions across the city, and, i mean, part of what i also noticed was the communities that we that need the most support, that we need to do the hardest work were also the communities where we had the lowest turn out, and i think thats on us, so as community members, we need to show up. If our expectation is that we collectively need to do the Work Together to get our kids to where we need to be, so i want to appreciate your willingness to also not start from scratch and build on what we are already doing, because i do believe that there is strength in many of the areas, and we also have some areas where were weak. And you called a lot of that out, and i want to continue to work from an asset based model and acknowledging when we were actually in the areas that we are doing well, because we it always feels like we are doing nothing, and i want to understand what we will be doing differently, and what youll need from us to be successful. Because the areas many of the priorities that youve identified are priorities that weve all identified in the past. Theyre you know, your professional capacity, instructional guidance, you know, transforming mindsets, i think thats actually a new one that is is really great to see, the collaborative culture, we need to build a lot more of that, and im glad youre calling that out, high quality staff, so there are many things that we know we need, and i want to and im glad youre youre identifying the two ways in which we need to approach this, because there is a lot that we need to to recognize, but i want to know i just want to understand what well be doing differently and what youll need for us to succeed. So i think for example, in both cadres of schools, there are certain parts of those the strategies that are happening, so for example, there may be a professional development around mindsets in two of the schools, but not in all of the schools, so a big part of this will be working with the the communities in both cadres of schools, but to establish all of this in a strategic way in both of these cadres of schools, so in the cadre of high gap schools, the three components that you saw will be in all of those schools. So its really putting them in in a strategic way, but also making suret
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