Where my commitment to the investment that we have made in the bay view schools is critical. I need to stick to that commitment that we have made and the resources that we are pouring into the schools to ensure that our students and their families and the teachers that are committed to those students and families in the bay view are well supported. As difficult as this is just in terms of the support i have provided to kipp over many years, i am not able to such port new school at this time. I just think that we need to continue to provide the support that we have been giving to our students. I it is in a very unique position in terms of ensuring the city provides the support our families reserve and they get through the city services. My commitment lies there. That doesnt discount the work and efforts that you all put into building the community. I think one of the things that is difficult for me despite my support for some of the really high performing Charter Schools is that when we are building a system within our Public Schools, and i am one of the commissioners that look at the Charter Schools as Public Schools. The difference between the autonomy and the ability to make different kinds of decisions as an operating charter versus the systems that we are trying to build as a district are very different. I worry regularly that as we start chipping away at the system of traditional Public Schools that we start chipping away at those other options and opportunities that our kids are committed that were committed to providing to our young people. I am going to honor what i have committed to for the bay view and i am going to support the leadership we have put in place there with nikki and dmitriious. I believe in the leadership. The commitment in the principal and teacher this is the four Elementary Schools in the bay view are going to do it is going to have the investments reflected in their success. I wanted to share my thinking process and to thank you for coming out and that the communities that you have built have been strong but i am not prepared tonight to take away from the Elementary Schools we have commit to in the bay view that are showing progress and our staff is committed to ensuring that we are providing a quality education for young people. Commissioner school. I cook. We sat here and listened to the Public Comments be respectful of the Public Comments across the board. Thank you. I also want to acknowledge the young people from the community that spoke on behalf of this school. That has happened on behalf of the starting of this new school and to personally shout out to the pastor reese for the commitment to the Bay View Community. My first time i had to sing a solo as a child was pasttories. What is the issue . The issue is that the people of the Bay View Community and the Public Schools are the own why i it is at this table. Educated an marshall high school. I know that with the right conditions in place the Public Schools in our system can and do thrive. Is it sattis factory for all of the student this is the city . I dont think so. That is why i ran to make the Public Schools great. I have had family members pushed out of kipp. There is no makeup policy. Missed assignments are 0. If you get a 65 and you fail the class. My cousin is talking to me afraid that he is going to fail out and asking him to come back to one of our schools. There is a different way to approach education. Those concerns continue. Seeing that type of Education Practice at Elementary School is what i have reservations about. I appreciate the engagement your organizers had to go back and forth about the issues. The suspension rate at the middle and high school is problematic. Those are my hangups about what kipp has been to the city. Can you deny the test results . Absolutely not. Is it work for everyone that goes . No. The Public Schools absolutely not. My commitment is to ensure the principals like jeremy has the support of this board. We believe brett heart will be great with principals and educators like him in place. Thank you for your empassed comment. I will vote yes starting at Elementary School. Thanks. Commissioner norton. Again i want to say thank you everybody for coming out and for your passion. I want to specifically thank the kipp leadership for really engaging in what i think is genuine with me and staff to talk about this petition. To slow it down so we could explore alternatives of collaboration. I believe you will continue to approach us with the spirit of collaboration. I have supported the kipp charter in the past. I am not going to support this tonight. I do not think the school as prescribe is the right school for all students. As we rent to the board of education we want to be concern about students. I am move by the comments of commissioner brook about his family and those sentiments about wants the school to succussed and the differences and approaches to education. I work for you. I will not be supporting the petition this evening. I want to thank all of the folks who came out. Clearly kipp is a very popular program. You have very dedicated executive leadership and high working educators. You are successful students. In the Committee Discussions we talked about the concerns around discipline, practice of counseling out students, and teacher turnover as issues. I was hoping for a longer conversation about how we night partner but you know i understand the kipp folks decided to proceed with the charter request this year. I am not prepared to move forward with this petition this year. I will be supporting the staff recommendation. Commissioner sanchez. Thank you everybody for coming out here and your words for kipp. I voted for both kipp schools in 2003 and in the second one. The reservation are similar about the ones now. It is about the charter laws governing how we run the Charter Schools in the state. I have outstanding one. They are charter because they believe a selection process. Deny by definition the challenged families in the city. That is all charters, not just kipp. Charter schools the way the law stands now will not serve the most challenged families because they cannot engage in the process. They are so out of the am they better apply to nonCharter Schools. They go in a higher concentration level. It is overwhelming for the students as well. For that reason basically around Charter Schools. I cant afford a yes vote for this charter. I would like everybody to understand the laws governing the Charter Schools ham spring the districts so we are diminished because of that. Many, many lots have been approached to do it right the governor wont sign them if they dont make it through the committee. The governor and the forces out there are procharter they cant let the most minimal changes happen for charter law. That is the same. That is why i cant vote for this school. I have in the past voted for kip schools. Commissioner haney. I want to thank everyone. Educators. Communicators. Kipp has a lot of people passionate about the school. It is impresssive to see the support tonight. One of them said we are violat violating fire alarms. I shouldnt have said that on the mic. Thank you for being here. I think that the commissioners said what is the sentiment of the board. I want to ask a couple questions about the recommendation. I think it is unusual to have a recommendation for us to deny. I think that is a strong statement from the staff and i want us to fully understand that. The particular piece around School Discipline is a concern of board and i know it was discussed in the curriculum community which i dont it is on any more. If you could speak to that a little bit in terms of what the concern was there. There is also in addition to the School Discipline rates long concerns expressed by commissioner cook that some students may be not there may be lower rates ever of the reten in the school. Interview the finding from staff report under pupils suspension was that the petition did not sufficiently balance students rights to due process to explain how they will be involved in the disciplinary matters. The Charter School the petitioner did respond and provided information regards their black record on the suspension rates. It is not good. They dont suspend at low a rate as the district. They are working on that. However, the finding stands because, one, they didnt provide information that shows that they are significantly Getting Better at that. It has not been amended to reflect change in process to make that happen. On the teacher qualifications the teacher capacity for relevant and responsive. Can you speak to that and what their inadequate amendment was in so the petitioner provided Additional Information regarding teacher qualifications and professional development but stated that the information provided in the petition meets the legal requirements and did not provide an amendment. Basically their response was the petition as it stands meet esthe legal requirements and they werent forthcoming with anything to persuade the staff concerns. You felt it wasnt . Yes was there a particular reason why . Because the reviewer in this case was not me but staff reviewer felt that the petition did not provide evidence of professional development in teacher capacity. There was no response provided for that concern. Thank you. Thank you so much, colleagues. May i make a brief comment . As much as i would love to allow you to make a comment, doctor brown, i have to be fair. This is not the time for comment. You will have time to speak as you have a speaker card here. This is not the time. I respectfully have to tell you you cant speak right now. When will that time be . I want to say this. My comments are not just for the people in this room but they are for the public out there who also may not receive the same amount of information about Charter Schools. Charter school movement, what is happening in the schools. What is happening with the Charter Movement. So you dont think i am making decisions just because of ideology or how i feel, the kipp staff can lets you know i have met with the leadership on more than one occasion. I am very sponsive and always responsive on how i feel and what i see. I want to be clear about that. Outside of this room we also have conversations about kipp and Charter Schools and i am open to conversation. With that said, i obviously have a different idea of working together and what it is. Some of the folks this evening. You dont say Work Together and be part of the system. On the flip side say if you dont approve the charter we are running to the state. That is not collaborative and working together and being within the best interest of students and families. I heard from talented educators. I appreciate having you here today that is a further testament if we were working together versus working against each other we would have i novation, intelligence, people motivated about providing the education we need and the traditional and current system. What this is doing is causing division and causing something that is not sustainable. You wont be able to sustain the Charter Movement in the Traditional Public School system there is not enough resource to do that. Innovation of the talent that you have and the Charter Schools i would love for us to work coaching and bring that into our schools. I heard someone tonight say that this is actually what was said and you can look on the screen. There are no pathways to success for the kids in the bay view. You think kipp is a savior, not with comments like that. That promotes the notion that black and brown children cannot learn. I have be trying to dispel that for 42 years more recently because of propaganda out there. Promoting the methods that our children cannot learn. Statements like that are part of the problem and not going to be part of the solution. We have educators working very hard. There is change happening. Particularly at a couple of schools i just named. [please stand by] parents, they rally around those schools. All this great energy that we have in this room, just imagine what we would do with our babys schools if we rallied around them together. I will definitely be voting no on this, and with that said, roll call please, miss casco. Clerk thank you. Commissioner sanchez . Commissioner sanchez shell read the motion. Clerk on resolution 17822 sp 2, and its denial for sp Charter School. [ roll call. ] clerk thats unanimous. Thank you. President walton thank you miss casco. Renewal petition for kip San Francisco, again, we have 30 minutes for Public Comment. Im going to again read speaker cards. I encourage you to have respect for other people who speak. There were people who spoke who did not have cards last time, and again, im allowing you to Work Together to govern yourselves sorry about that mr. Daves. We do need to read the recommendation into phone. Thank you, president walton. 10101 p 2, alternative to renew or denial certification for kip San Francisco charter high school. Kip bay area schools to the San FranciscoUnified School District and whereas pursuant to california Education Code section 37605, the board of education of the district received the renew application on october 6th, 2017, and whereas the board of education shall consider the level of public support for the Charter School and shall review the petition and all information received with respect to petition, including supporting documentation and whereas the district superintendent and district staff have completed a review of the petition and issued a report and recommendation to the board of education regarding the review of the petition and whereas the superintendent and district staff review found that the review of kipsf college prop indicates that the school meets renewal criteria, therefore, be it resolved that the board of education shall grant the renewal petition subject to the requirements set forth by law. President walton thank you so much, mr. Daves. Now, again, we do have public speakers signed up for this. Im going to call out names on the list. We have 30 minutes to complete Public Comment. Again, i ask that you be mindful of everyone that does want to speak. Last Public Comment session, we did have people speak who did not have cards, so you might want to govern yourselves that so that people who didnt turn in cards have an opportunity. With that said, michael collins, dr. Brown, you are first. You might want to start making your way up to the mic. [ inaudible ] president walton so you dont want to speak now . [ inaudible ] president walton okay. Judy, jamarie, lan ddan, amali jamarie, jaden. Good evening, superintendent and commissioners. My name is ali cohens. Im a parent at fris cisco middle school, and i want to speak tonight about the area around kip and the Racial Justice issue, and it is but for many reasons people might not think. And weve been talking about kip, but i want to talk about another organization thats been in the news lately. Its called innovate. It was launched in 2008 with 750,000 from the Walton Family foundation, which is walmart, and 200,000 from the Silicon Valley foundation. Its a private Silicon Valley nonprofit. They are currently positioning themselves as a parent organizing organization, but its initial purpose was to encourage and support the development of a new new Public Schools which are specifically Charter Schools, and currently on its board are tsa, the california charter board, external a2k4rd ffairs, and charter organizations in oakland, and if you look on their team site, theres a lot of pr people and writers. But i want us to think about the fact that their purpose a charter management organizations purpose is to grow because owithout that, thy cant sustain themselves, and so for every new school that opens, we have to close a school, and i want it to be clear that those schools are tend only to be in certain neighborhoods. My children can go back to their school, im assuming it will still be there, and i can still go back to my Elementary School, but a lot of the schools that black and brown families grew up with in San Francisco now are named different things, and they have lost a history with those schools, so i just wanted to put it out there, and im very, very thankful that you all are investing in our schools. Im seeing changes as a black parent in our district, and ive been in this district a long time, and ive seeing dramatic changes. Were not there yet, but i want to make sure that we are considering their history and the heritage of families in this district in the bay view and in the western edition, and i also want to consider the students that will be left behind in schools that are under invests ed in, and i appreciate your remarks, shamann walton. Thank you very much. Hello. Im also at parent at a tenderloin public school, which is great. Its serving all the kids in the neighborhood. We dont have an admissions policy, we dont have any suspensions, were not pushing folks out, so im really heartened to see so money people come out. Its great to see so many families and teachers participating, and i hope well continue to see these faces, and im a little concerned about the comments made before that kip has a track record of pushing out students of color, particularly with students of minority and disabilities. Ive sat behind teachers who have been frustrated and left, have talked about how theyre leaving because theyre not getting the support, and thats not to say that kids in all of our Public Schools are getting everything that they need, but it is a pattern that we see in the Charter Schools, and so i want to encourage the families that are here tonight. I hope this doesnt happen to you. I hope youre not one of the students or families that get pushed out, but i want folks to know that if it does happen, youre not the first to have it happen to you. Its happening in new orleans where there are no Public Schools left, and kids who dont get seats in charters are pushed out and fall through the cracks, and its happening across the bay in oakland where theres been such an expansion of charters that were seeing major, major shortfalls in cuts in the schools, so as a farther of the San Francisco families union, i want to say that you know, we want to we will fight with all the families that are here to make sure that your rights are respected both in the Charter Schools and also in our Public Schools, and we know that that there are issues that we need to work on here in San Francisco and we will welcome you back to the Public Schools if thats where you end up, and well fight with you to make sure your students are respected more here than in Charter Schools. Thank you. Good evening. Im dr. Samina woodard. I am the current principal at kipsf college prep. Im going to be transparent with you. I had a statement prepared. I was going to read it off of my phone, but i just want to highlight a couple of points that have been brought up that are in contention. Im hearing that kip pushes kidded out. I heard that there was no makeup policy. Im hearing that there are no ds. Im hearing there are concerns about this is continuing to happen and that kip is cultivating a policy where kids are being pushed out. Im hearing that parents are creating a false narrative. Im hearing the words propaganda being used. For freshman that are in my Government Initiative class, i am concerned about that because it is creating a false picture of my school. I have students standing behind me who will tell you this week that they be able to leave our school, and i have told them now. It is not a tenet of our school to push kids out. I am not sure what narrative has been said to the board. I do not know what has happened with particular family members, but we sit down, we work, we make sure that we present options to our students. We make sure we present options to our family. We fight tooth and nail to make sure that we are creating a community. One of our core values as a school is community. If you have a problem, we fix it. So i have to say that i am incredibly concerned about the fact that it is people are thinking that kip is pushing kids out. We are doing everything that we can to make sure that we are services the bayviewHunters Point community. I want to quote James Baldwin because back in the 60s, he came to visit that area. He said that Hunters Point is the forgotten San Francisco. Everybody thinks about the golden gate bridge, and all of the wonderful things that San Francisco is. San franciscos incredibly progressive. It is incredibly wonderful, but bay view Hunters Point has been forgotten. You understand the concept of erasure. You understand if we are not presenting an option for our students to have a high quality education, that they will be forgotten. The reason why i do this work i come from oakland. The reason why i do this work is because i was so disappointed with the fact that when i went to ucla as one of the one of the 99 nonathletic scholarship African American students to matriculate in 2001, that when i went into a lecture hall of people, i was concerned, do i belong. A lot of students comment, you have your doctorate. Why do you choose to teach here . Why do you choose to be the principal here, and the reason why is because i dont want any of my kids walking into a four Year Institution and questioning if they belong there. Our school is doing that work. Our school is doing that work. For those of you concerned about us pushing kids out. I urge you, come visit our school. Mr. Daves came to our school and got a chance to see the high quality education that we are providing for our students. I ask that you not go off of hearsay, conjecture, off of something that you heard from someone else. Come and visit us. Our door is open, the gate is open, we propped it open. Come in. Come in and see what we are doing. Im concerned that the narrative is that this is an eitheror or we are in contradiction with you. We are not in contradiction with you, we are working to service the same community, we are working to make sure that we are providing a quality education for our black and brown children, but we cannot deny our parents the opportunity to choose, so i thank you for your five years of support with us. I thank you for voting yes back in june of 2012, when my dear friend Caroline Gifford stood before you and ask you to support this petition, and i ask that go do the same thing tonight, and please, if you want to talk about collaboration and community, i will leave you my card, i will make sure i make time on my calendar. If you are asking for community and for collaboration, to make sure that we are servicing the students of bay view Hunters Point, my door is not open, but please, do not close it. Hi. My name is glenn reese. I am a 12th grader at kipsf college prep. I transferred here my freshman year, and it has completely transformed me. Kip has given me the structure and support to bring my grades up. They also push us and help us to get out of our comfort zones and try new things. The teachers also want me to do better. I learn how to cope with tough circumstances and never give up. I found out that i had add my 10th grade year, and i had to make a lot of adjustments to how i do things in order to be successful. Kip has allowed me to make those adjustments very smoothly. Its been an up and down process, but my teachers are really understanding. One tacher told me he had something similar. Shout out to him. He was very understanding, and i became comfortable and be able to just be open about it. I learned that i need to ask for help with my challenges and communicate with the people around me. I cant thank him enough for that support. Im glad for the opportunity for kip, and i cant wait to graduate in june. It has changed my life for the better and has set me up for success. Hey, my name is jamarie taylor. Im an 11th grader thats been with kipp six 6th grade. Over the last six years ive maintained at least a 3. 4 gpa because its necessary for me to maintain that in a world which pretty much revolved around it. I have expensive taste, but i dont know if you know, but a lot of things in the world are expensive, so i need a masters degree in something. However, money isnt the only thing i need a high gpa. Its important to disprove the stereo type that some big black guy in the hood is homeless, rude, and jobless. Im quite the opposite. I sit at home reading comics and listening to taylor swift. I could decide to do crappy work and not do any of my homework. Trust me when i say it would make my life a hundred times easier, but then, it would make it harder because the only colle college i could get into would be city college, and thats not what i want to do. Im actually very lucky. I may be brown, but my life has never really been down. In fact, ive lived like i wear a crown in my big old town. I have both my parents who pay rent every month. Last year, on my ap test, i scored a four. Now every week a new university is asking me to tour. Kipp has opened so many doors, i dont know where to start, but i know deep down in my heart ill get over this brain farth fart and ill get a four leaf closer and get into a school of my dreams so i wont have to lean on my family, and living in a minivan. I wouldnt have a College Reading level, i wouldnt be in any ap classes or on the wrestling team, which im doing pretty well in. We actually have our first tournament on saturday, plan to throw some fools around. Kipp has done nothing but good for me, and it can do even better for even more people. Again, my name is javarie taylor, and im asking the board of education to renew the kipp sf charter. Hello. My name is rudy and im a San Francisco native. I live with my parents and my brother. I am in the process of applying to 15 colleges across california including uccsus in privates. I hope to major in business with the hopes of one day owning my own. Coming to kipp wasnt my idea, it was my moms. I didnt want to go because i heard things i didnt like. I heard that kipp gave homework every night, in addition to having rules that many schools didnt. The as a 15yearold, i didnt want that. I wanted something easy, but over the years i came to the realization that attending kipp was the best decision my mom could have ever made for me. Sorry. There, i met teachers that really cared about me and supported me. Here, the idea of college was enforced everywhere, everywhere i went and i was given reassurance that people like me could get into college. Thanks to the education i received at kipp, i will be well prepared to go to college. By renewing kipps charter and allowing kipp to open the new Elementary School, you will be allowed more children to become Successful College students. Thank you. Good evening. My name is stephanie paez, and im a little short. I am a latina sf native, and i wear that loud and proud. Im a proud latin lion, and santa clara bronco. Im licensed marriage and family therapist who is a member of the Founding Team at kippsf College Preparatory. I have been working with kids at kipp for 11 years now because i believe in the mission and vision of kipp. I would like to briefly share with you the experiences as an sf native living in the city i love. The mission wasnt full of lovely eateries that attracted out of towners, and it wasnt featured positively in the media. Because of the nature of our neighborhood, my mom thought is imperative to find alternatives for quality education for her children. I was one of the few students of color in schools outside of my neighborhood, a feat that meant we had to get up earlier, travel farther and put forth extraordinary efforts to make sure to secure better out comes for the future. I didnt easily access information about Higher Education options through my school. I was not encouraged to pursue college education. At that time, my familys strife frequently distracted from my learning, i didnt have anybody on campus to support me. The only reason i was able to attend college was because my older sister helped me, and to her, i owe a lot. Today, i level the Playing Field for students who come from similar backgrounds students who want choice, students who want to be seen, students who face ad versity but have a team of people who encourage them. At kipp, we have people that come back to work or teachers, advisors, they support our Community Action plan, and globally, we have students that are actively serving our country. We are developing young adults who would give back to the communities that raised them. For the afore mentioned reasons i implore you passionately to renew the certificate for kipp San FranciscoCollege Preparatory so we can continue to reach families who need quality accessible education. Thank you very much. Good evening. My name is maria rodriguez. I came to the United States in 2015. I didnt know how to speak english, and that was one of my biggest reasons going to school, but school is a big part of my life because i know i can change my and my familys future. Ive been in kipp in the 10th grade. At first i had a hard time with the transition, but students and teachered dedicated some of the time teaching me how to speak english without expecting Something Back from me or my family, and i ended up welcomed in my community. Thats why im here tonight. I wish that sfcp stays open, because i would not be the student i am today without all the support i received from this high school. Again, my name is maria rodriguez, and i am hoping, and i am asking the board that renew kipp San Francisco college prep because i want the support for the student who can go through the same transition as mine. Thank you. I just wanted to ask if i could ask everyones attention cause some people was on their phone, and i just i just appreciate the respect. Thank you. Yeah, ill just wait. Paragraph paragraph a lot of realtime and life stuff happens right here in this meeting. I actually respond to stuff. We actually send things to staff here. Dont make assumptions. We respect students times. Thats why were here every second and fourth tuesday, sometimes till one in the morning. We respect your time. Okay. So my name is jaden turner, and im a soldier at kippsf college prep. Ive never felt more at home than at kipp. I was raised by my mom and auntie, single parent home, and i lost my dad when i was two, and theyve been my father figures, both my mother and my father figures for the past 15 years. I transferred to kipp in my 11th grade year, and i did so because i felt my Current School was not giving me the longterm support that i needed. I was getting good grades, and i didnt have the support i needed for my future. So i talked to my friends that attended kipp, and they told me i would get the support that ki kipp. [ inaudible ] and the curriculum at kipp is more rigorous than previous schools that ive attended, and ive got a ton of support for my College Application process. I am applying to Sacramento State and san diego state, im applying to more, but those are the main two i want to go to right now, and im thankful for kipp because i feel like i am ready for life beyond high school. Ive over come so many obstacles in my life, but if it wasnt for kipp im not sure ive been able to build relationships with my coaches and teachers that my mother and auntie couldnt give me. And thank you, and please approve the renewal of the kipp sf college charter, and thank you for taking the time to listen to me, and thank you, yeah. Good evening. My name is jamarie martin, and im an African American male in the junior class of 2019 at kipp sf college prep. Ive been with kipp since i was ten years old. As a young kid, i didnt know nothing about kipp. I came in the first day, and i had to sign a contract basically saying we was making a commitment to kipp, and we had to abide by all the rules given in that contract. If youre wondering, no, i did not read a word on that contract, but since that day, ive been a part of the kipp team and family for mostly all of my life. After attending kipp middle school, i went onto attend east side college prep. I had a great experience at the school. Kipp used to always talk about these traits, selfcontrol and greed. All of my middle schoolteachers told me that these were areas where i needed the most growth in. Back then, it used to go in one ear, out the other, being so young and not realizing how important it is to have a good character. For the most part, ive always had the grades, 3. 0 or higher, and it came to the point where if i ever received a c, it was seen as an f to my mother. As time went on, and i entered into the high school world, the work started to get a lot harder, and the students werent so nice, either. Thats when i looked back and realized that i needed grit and selfcontrol, fast, before things started to go left field. Kipp has taught me not to only pursue a good education and continue onto college, but to build my character, that i will be able to engage in so many opportunities with other groups of people or organizations. Kipp placed structure and order into my life at a very early life, making sure i was pushing myself to be stroo order, rather than ordinary, has made me the very successful man that i am today. While attending east side, i ended up missing my family a lot. I came back to finish the second semester of my sophomore year, and the first place i told my mother i was attending, kipp sf college prep. You know what they say, once a kippster, always a kippster. Again, my name is jamarie martin, and i am a proud kipp student. Please renew kipp sf charter. President walton you have a little bit less than five minutes left as a group. Hi. My name is maria. Im a parent and a student of kipp, and im really sad about your decision because my my child my kid is in 9th grade, so if he starts a new step in his life, which is very important, because he ain this school has excellent grades. He has worked very hard for the teachers and at this school, so im really disappointed about your decision, but i respect it at the same time. And but please think about that because if i if i if you guys were in my place, trust me, its not going to be the same. And in my experience with my kids, especially in this in middle school, it was, oh, my gosh. Im really disappointed with the school because they totally do not care about their students. They just run, you know, like everything like, every day. They dont care if theyre going good, if theyre if theyre need something to help, nothing. Its just if you go, and you can keep going, its all right. If you stay in well, the Public Schools, i like, and im so kind of happy with with that, but so, so graceful with this school. Big, big difference. Trust me. Its a big difference, and please think about that. Thank you so much. Hi. My name is walter turner. Im a juvenile justice commissioner, plus, i work at all the schools in bay view. You know, dr. George washington carver, and what it is, like, when kids would not be able to get uniforms, we would get their uniforms for them at e. R. Tiller my granddaughter goes there. Can i see a show of hands to see who has kids in Public Schools . Thank you. And its like, the thing about it is, its a passion, you know . High schools in bay v w view, its like, the principals call me when the kids are getting ready to graduate, and they dont have no tuxedos, or gowns for the kids. Well, we get them the tuxedos, and gowns, and i drive them in my rolls royce at no charge so they can have the same experience. Let me ask you a question how many people in this room are ghetto. Can i see a show of hands . cause you know what . Gh ghetto means getting highly educated to teach others, and thats what we call need to be, getting highly educated to teach others. You know, its like charles drew no, not Charles George washington carver had teachers when i was volunteering up there that would come and do two years to get their Student Loans paid off. See, i used to be the Vice President of outreach right here in this building. I would setup ptas throughout the city, you know, so i know this building well, and what we what i would like to see is you guys you guys are doing a great job, but theres so many others out here that can do the same thing. If you cant see it, you cant be it. We need to be able to see it. Just like obama was the president , now, we know it can happen. Thank you. President walton we are past the 30 minute mark. Just like last time, i will allow one more Public Comment, and Public Comment is closed after the next speaker. Okay. Good evening. Hi. My name is leslie lopez, and im a 12th grader at kipp sf college prep, and ive been there since the 5th grade. My hope it so attend u. C. Davis, and with the help from kipp, i am achieving that dream. Going to kipp has provided me the space to create community and a place to grow as a leader, a space on my parents didnt have when they emigrated from mexico to the United States 20 years ago. Coming into kipp as a freshman, i was shy, and i wasnt involved in a School Community unlike my brother, who was always involved since his freshman year. This nomotivat me to do better. The following year, i started to get into leadership. It has also helped me have a space where i could develop as a leader and create a Better Community at my school. With the help of kipp, i currently have a paid internship at u. C. S. F. Womens center of research of public health. By working at ucsf, it has exposed me to more career options. Kipp has pushed me, even though ive had my challenges. My name is leslie lopez, and im asking you to renew the kipp charter and allow the new Elementary School. President walton thank you for your comments this evening. Comments from colleagues seeing none oh, commissioner cook . Commissioner cook again, really, really compelling, passionate testimony, and i was actually prepared to vote no, and your principal is really impressive. So i just dont want to close your door on her coming to work for the school district. If i could be open about and thats really what i believe as officials for this institution, what we have to be able to do is be up front and very focused and aggressive around getting the right people to work in our community. So i love James Baldwin, too. You can teach it to the school, to the students as some of the other schools if youre looking for an opportunity. And the