Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20171220

Classification are increasing in numbers and percentage for graduation. And significant increases for the english learner population. Linking the data we see and provide to the court to actual practice that happens in the classrooms and in the schools, these are some site based promising practices for Spanish Speaking els really with a focus. And its really based on the rpa conference data conferences they have with School Leaders, and some of the notes that they have captured in looking and reviewing the data with their Respective School teams. And they also reflect some of the next steps that as a whole district we need to be able to replicate at every school site that does have a significant population of Spanish English learners. The first one is really immediately identifying els who need the interventions and providing specifically additional Small Group Instruction with a focus on reading strategies. Reading and writing are the two domains that are often holding especially our long term els back. The next one is pretty suring clear expectations. Throughout the day despite any teacher transitions, often times that is one of the key components of why one year theres really strong eld and another year there isnt. Because there isnt that ongoing continued expectedation that eld must be provided for all of our English Learners. Weekly twohour block of grade Level Planning time for teachers to collaborate on addressing the needs of els based on the data. A lot of the teachers feel like they do need more planning time. That has to be part of their schedule and they find a lot of value in having grade Level Planning time. And sometimes that is one of the key reasons why it is holding them back to really identifying what the key issues and how to change the practice as a grade level team. The last one is School Leaders and side base coaches working with grade level teams to increase rigor and instruction by closely studying the state standards. And using focal student performance through out the school year. So, we do know that, you know, not studying the state centers and really understanding what the levelled expectations are for each grade level does hold back some of our English Learners because they are not being able to really receive instruction at a very high level. And, you know, we dont want them to have watereddown instruction. We want them to be able to have action to the complex text and instruction that we are offering are our students but in a but in a differentuated and scaffolding manner. There are some systems in place that we have periodically throughout the school year where school teams are looking at data. But we need to be able to create a system that prompts that more often and having those meaningful conversations so that its not just once a semester or even once a year that its actually ongoing and part of the conversation throughout the year. Wanted to let you know that this year is very exceptional. We have five english learner audit this year with a focus on English Development and parent communication and engagement. This year, we have two audits from the u. S. Department of justice. We just finished one last week. And theyre coming back in march and the reason is because this may potentially may be our last year and they are Digging Deeper to really make sure that were ready to be released from the consent decree. The bilingual council, which is the Council Members of the boards appoint, ther also going to be conducting an on site visit. They are very interested in really looking at eld and also the language pathway implementati implementation. We are required to have our own internal Oversight Committee audit and to do our own spotchecking to make sure we are following all the protocols necessary to support els. And then in april, were having this California Department of education federal Program Monitoring and i believe over about a dozen of our schools are receiving the audit for English Learners. So, lots happening. Thats all i have for you tonight in terms of the audit. Were open im open for responding to any questions that you may have. President walton thank you so much ms. Wong. Any questions . Commissioner maurase and commissioner sanchez. Thank you very much for the comprehensive report. I have two questions. One is in your data that you presented tonight, i noticed there were a couple of groups that were not reflected. For example native japanese speakers or native russian speakers. Are there students in those categories . There are. But the numbers are not significant. So we definitely have that data and we can provide the full data set to the Board Members. Thank you. And my second question is to what degree are recommendations or the findings shared with the bcc . So, the by lingual council received a similar presentation. We have been in discussion with them about our english Language Development. Next monday they are going to be receiving Additional Information around the status of the professional development that is being offered regarding english Language Development. And so, its an ongoing conversation that we have with the bilingual council. I would suggest we are seeing declining numbers. That our parents and our families may have Important Information that contributes to explaining why those trends are occurring. President walton commissioner sanchez. Commissioner sanchez thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions. So, the largest sub groups that are els are Spanish Speaking students and cantonese students and the results in terms of if you look at site seven for reclassification is much higher classification rate for cantonese speaking students as opposed to Spanish Speaking students. Assuming that all teachers across are similarly trained and committed to students, what would explain the difference between the results . There are many factors, but one thing that we have noticed is that the cantonese speaking staff in these pathways, there isnt as much turnover as the Spanish Speaking pathways. And were noticing that because there are more and more new teachers that we are working with each year to sort of bring them up to speed on how to provide english Language Development and also pathway language instruction. So, thats something that weve tried to provide. Through new teacher or yen take and during the orientation and during the pathway pd that has provided, the new program that we have within our school district. And the pathways priority is also really recruiting Spanish Speaking teachers as well. So, i think thats something that, you know, were very mindful of, of the turnover and that seems to be one of the significant factors. Commissioner sanchez so, under your recommendations, i dont see stabilization of staff for those students. So, the list of those are not necessarily just our recommendations. Those are actually conference data notes from a principal as theyre reflecting on steps their taking. I wanted to reflect data to the practice that is happening at the school sites. Commissioner sanchez but your recommendation would be definitely. Commissioner sanchez serving primary Spanish Speaking students in the pathway models. Could another explanation be and this is a sensitive topic but it is something i think people should be aware of and discuss is that in many of our chinese language pathway models, students in kindergarten are not touth thought 8090 in that language and that doesnt follow the districts recommendation for biliteral si pathways. If you are being taught mostly in english, would that affect your reclassification rate . The reclassification rate, a lot of it is happening at the upper grades. So, were seeing more reclassification happening at the middle school for the Spanish Speaking els. So, i think thats where in terms of the spanish instruction happening earlier and then increasing in english as each year goes by. Commissioner sanchez if you are following the model you would expect the students wouldnt be reclassified by fourth or fifth grade. Right. And some will actually be until sixth grade. So, there is a difference in terms of the implementation of the models between spanish and cantonese. Commissioner sanchez and then in terms of students that are el Spanish Speaking that are not in the models are outperforming the data shows that students har in the language pathway receiving instruction over time outperforms the Spanish Speaking commissioner sanchez but not in the elementary right. We are seeing a lot of reclassification that happens and the higher performance in sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Commissioner sanchez this is important to understand because the Elementary School teachers have pressure on them to reclassify by fifth grade, which is neither here nor there. But if the explanation is they are going to be reclassified in the middle school years because they have been in the bye bi biliteracy model, then they should be made aware of that. Compared to other districts, with latino students in particular, how do we compare in reclassification . The latino students. For latino students. I can find that out morement i broke it down by there is data that is around district by district or district compared to the state. But i dont know if i could try to find the comparison to Spanish Speaking els in other districts as well. Commissioner sanchez i think that would help us with the state average as well in terms of targets. Thank you. Yeah. Commissioner norton in the past it seems we have gotten data from long term. I wonder if i could share any data on the status of our long term English Learners because that has been an item of concern in the past. There are numbers of long term els over time have dropped significantly because we are trying to really zero in on these students that are stuck and providing them with the instruction. We still do have those numbers, but we are really making sure that they are on the road to reclassification and that theyre not continuing to be stuck at level three or four. Commissioner norton so, not tonight necessarily, but could you share information with the board on that that progress . I would like to make sure im monitoring that. Okay. Commissioner norton thank you. Commissioner haney thank you for this presentation. So, one thing here looks like over the course of just about two years weve almost doubled our at least increased by about 35 points that Graduation Rate of English Learners . Thats pretty extraordinary jump over two years. It went from just above 40 to just under 80. Is there anything that you attribute that to maybe that were doing differently at the High School Level . I mean, thats extraordinary. Well, one thing that we did talk about last year when we presented similar data and began to see the trend was that the California High School exit exam is no longer a factor. So, theres that part. And then also our college and Career Office Readiness Office really has expanded their extended learning opportunities. Especially our new students in els. So, theres not only extended learning after school, but then theres also summer programming as well. And i think that has played a really significant it is an opportunity for students, especially during the summer, to have Credit Recovery opportunities and develop their english language at the same time. Commissioner haney thank you. And kind of have some more stronger picture on how we did that because it just seems like a huge jump there. Some of the promising practices and i guess somewhat related to commissioner sanchezs point, is there a commitment on how to roll out some of these in a more extensive way and what does that look like in terms of a plan and funding . Is there something that, you know, were seeing promising practices district wide or were seeing them in some schools and as a result we want to make sure that we are budgeting to be able to expand some of these practices. I think the next step after the lau report and also looking at some of our other reports, the committee that meets monthly will be discussing a lot of these promising practices. And the two Priority Areas they have had this year and making sure thats actually happening and turning to our language pathways and how to make sure that the models are effective for all of our English Learners, but particularly Spanish Speaking els given the data. I think out of that, there may be some requests or some shifting of priorities at least in terms of addressing the needs of our English Learners. Commissioner haney and commissioner maurase raised this as well on the other languages. But is there a reason we dont fill out like vietnamese or how we look at this data on how theyre doing . Well, the way the data we could do this next time. I could provide by languages as opposed to language pathways. So, right now the data is sort of set up that way because in the past it was a strong interest to see how our els were performing in each of the pathways. So, thats why it is set up in that manner. Commissioner haney i think it would be interesting to see because obviously for stream these and arabic there arent the pathways. But to sort of see in more detail by language. It is right now broken up by language and then by pathway. That would be great to see as well. Thank you. President walton commissioner cook. Commissioner cook just on the point about other languages. Specifically with vietnamese and arabic. Can you speak generally to whats happening with students that are learning those languages . They have over the last four or five years actually performed quite well. Reclassifying at a higher rate than our other subgroups. So, that so far has been the trend. Commissioner cook thank you. President walton thank you so much ms. Wong. One thing i know commissioner sanchez actually made my point and asked the question just about with attributing to the achievement and with our cantonese speaking English Learners versus our spanish. So, thank you for insight on that and i just echo his sentiments in terms of how we move forward. And then secondly, when you get a chance, can you just give us a breakdown of what grades student reclassify as you have in the past . Sure. President walton thank you. Anieer questions or comments from colleagues . Thank you so much. Thank you. President walton next item, california dashboard local educators report. Good evening commissioners, superintendent. John burke from the Research Planning assessment office. Im here tonight in my nominal role as the california dashboard coordinator for sfusd and one of the things that as part of so, the california dashboard is the new accountability system for california. A new version was just released on december 1st and one aspect of it is that schools are asked to School Districts are asked to acknowledge that they have whether they have met or not met a number of local priorities. And the six local priorities actually four for the district and two additional ones for the county are listed on the page. If you notice they are all direct from the lcfs. They are part of the budget book and the lcap report and really the actions related to them are very well detailed in the budget. And so, any actions and data reported to them are there. As part of the accountability system, the state has asked us to perform use some selfevaluation tools and determine whether weve met or not met our progress towards these. So, im happy to report tonight that based on all my based on our use of these selfevaluation tools and thanks to all the different departments, budget department, curriculum instruction, sfusd, weve determined that weve met all of these and the selfevaluation tools though do show where we may have room for improvements and further actions related to any specific measure. President walton thank you. Any comments from colleagues or student delegates . Commissioner maurase. I noticed in the reflection tool that history and social science is an area that requires some attention. Can you talk a little bit about what plans are too address that . I may have to defer to brent, if hes here. Dr. Stevens. Good evening. Plan related to social studies include right now an engagement of teacher leaders around the district at all grade levels to begin reviewing the framework. It is a lengthy thousandpage document that articulates a new set of learning experiences for students. These teacher leaders are engaged in identifying inquiry concepts which will be a new approach to the study of history. They are also engaged in writing a scope for each of the grade levels and will begin to look for instructional materials both free and available digital resources in addition to printed or published materials. We are also exploring a new relationship with the California Historical society and introduce california history not only in fourth grade but across all the grade levels as they learn about the world. Thank you very much. Look forward to updates in the curriculum. [captioner switch]. Second. Thank you so much. This has been moved and seconded. Roll call vote on suspension of the rules, please. Clerk thank you. Commissioner, that was on 171212 a a. [ roll call. ] clerk six yes. And now we need a motion and second for formal introduction of the resolution. Motion. Second. Thank you so much. So commissioner haney is going to start off with reading of the resolution, but one, i do want to thank our partners with desf as well as the public for working on this resolution with us. This is important as it really just reaffirms our commitment to making sure that we hold our state accountable to increasing spending for education and trying to get to a higher rate of funding for our our schools to get us to the point within the next five years where we are number one in per pupil spending in this country, and that is something that were committed to working with all of you and our leaders at the state to make happen. Commissioner haney . Urging more per people spending for education in the state of california, whereas in the state of california and in sfusd, we are required to provide a free appropriate Public Education for all of our students in the district and this Education Needs to be equitiable of the highest quality and needs to handle the diversity challenges of the students in the district in california, and whereas in its january 2017 brief, california support for k12 education is still improving but still lags the nation. The california budget and policy center ranked california 41st for 201516 using the comparable wage index. The states 1 is 0,2 1 was less than the national average. Although about 2,000 higher than it was in 201213. And whereas educators across the nation are underpaid, theres a shortage of teachers and education across the nation is entirely unacceptable, and the only way to increase educator compensation and ensure adequate resources for our schools in our district is to properly fund our education system. And whereas according to the International Monetary fund, the u. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the state department of finance, 20125, california ranks as the worlds 6th largest economy, which means it is an atrocity to be at the bottom in terms of our nations spending. Provide more professional development for educators and school personnel, fund inequities, provide exciting relevant programming throughout the district. Whereas the future of our Public Education is constantly under siege and in the state of california we have a wonderful opportunity to be first in per pupil spending and to demonstrate that we put the education of our students first and continue to set trends in education for the nation and the world. Therefore, be it resolved that the San Francisco Unified School District is requesting our states fully community the kindergarten through Community College in the nation by 2020 and as the state, maintain a baseline in the true spirit of prop 98 of perpupil spending that keeps california at the highest level by the year 2020. And be it further resolved that the board of education, labor partners, student, and district advocates will work hard to push for this proposed funding through resolution through advocacy, lobbying days at the state capital with legislators and other officials. We will work with other major education benefactors to organize resources to reach our baseline goals of being the highest percap at that of public pupil spending. Do we have any statements from the commission or the board, commissioner haney, commissioner merase . Thank you for bringing this to the board. Nothing could be more important, and id ask that all names be included in moving it forward. Thank you. Thank you. Miss casco, remember to add all the names to the resolution. Perfect. With that said [ inaudible ] and we will do a roll call vote, please, miss casco. Clerk thank you. [ roll call. ] clerk six ayes. Thank you all. Section l, Board Members reports, standing committees. Do we have any updates . Commissioner sanchez and commissioner merase, then commissioner cooks. Rules and policy committee will be meeting january 8th at 6 00 p. M. Commissioner merase. Commissioner walton, id ask your indwulgs. We had a very rich meeting on ad hoc student assignment, and because we do not meet monthly, i wanted to alert my colleagues to some very important policy questions that the committee will be considering. We will be meeting next on february 8th, and then, on may 3rd, and hoping to recommend some changes on june 12th and 26th at the full board meeting. We have some excellent results in terms of concentration of a single ethnicity. Those schools with 60 or more went from 22 to 17, so we are lessening the racial isolation was the data that was presented. And i just wanted to let you know that students have advanced ideas that will be discussed in committee. One is a tie breaker for graduates from the louie brown middle school, so as you know students at Willie Brown Middle School have a preference tiebreaker preference for any high School Preference with the exception of roll and lucero, but we were considering if we could include those two. Secondly, to consider a middle School Preference for Elementary Schools in the bayview. There was less enthusiasm for this proposal, but we will be discussing it further. Thirdly, a teacher preference is doing an assignment to help recruit and retain teachers, and then, in committee, we discussed the range of that. Is it to any school in the district in order to really create a strong incentive to join our team and to the faculty. The fourth idea is to eliminate the transfer mechanism, the swapping that happens. Its very difficult to explain, and families get very upset when some of the swapping happens and theyre not aware of the mechanism. And then, finally, we discussed ctech one changes, taking a deep dive into how we might adjust this census track integration preference. There was an idea of introducing income testing to determining those cchip tracks, so i invite my colleagues to engage in this important discussion. Our next meeting is on february 8th, and may 3rd, and our goal is to develop well recognized policy regulations. We had a very rich discussion at the Ad Hoc Committee on student assignments. Thank you very much. Thank you dr. Merase for that detailed update. Commissioner cook . Yes. We had a ad hoc Personnel Matters and Labor Relations affordablity meeting on november 30th. The next meet be will be january 25th, and we went over four very important items. Were going to upgrade our online hiring system. Its called the Human Capital system transformation, and everyones really excited about it. I am, too. Its a lot of great changes in terms of improving the process. Weve got to update on the teacher pathway for next year. An update on our paraeducator staffing, and the changes that were making to the civil service, and classify these examinations. I just also want to highlight that staff highlighted through a conversation with a conversation with Vice President men toes amcconnell with the city, those conversations have been accelerated since theyve been stalled, so thank you for her leadership on that. Thank you so much. Anymore updates . I just wanted to announce that the next meeting of the curriculum and program commitly will be on january 17th. Normally, it would be scheduled for the 15th of january , but since that is Martin Luther king, jr. , holiday birthday, we will have it that next wednesday at 6 00 p. M. Thank you. A just wanted to report that we had very successful presentations at the csba annual Education Conference attended by the superintendent, president walton, and commissioner norton. We i presented moderated two panels, one on trauma informed approaches, and the second one on new kummer schools. I encouraged my colleagues to look at the professional Development Trainings that are coming up. Theres a two day training in San Francisco over the summer, so really happy with the panels that we were able to present and bring greetings from superintendent Janet Schultz who used to work in our school district. Her district in the east bay won their first golden bella ward. Bell award. And we want to thank dr. Merase who sat on the committee and helped plan the conference. Thank you so much for your dead indication to that wo dedication. Thank you. Section m, other informational items. Staff reported the staff reported donations for october and november are posted in the agenda. Section m, and before i do a memorial adjournment, i just want to let you know right after memorial adjournment, we will have Public Comment for our closed session item, so well do that immediately following our memorial adjournment. As we stated earlier, we did lose the mayor of this great city, mayor ed lee, so as we adjourn in honor of mayor edwin lee, lets please have a moment of silence. Mayor edwin m. Lee passed away on tuesday, december 12th at 1 11 a. M. At San Francisco General Hospital. His family, friends and colleagues were at his side. Mayor lee suffered a cardiac arrest while he was out shopping late monday at his neighborhood safeway. Susan erlich, ceo of Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center said the mayor arrived after 10 00 p. M. In Critical Condition by ambulance and doctors tried to revive him for several hours. Dr. Lee was born in seattle, one of six children from chinese immigrants. I we he went onto work for the chinese american asian law caucus. He began working for the city and county of San Francisco in 1989, holding various positions before being appointed as city administrator in 2005 by thenmayor gavin newsom. His rise from city bureau kratter bureaucrat to mayor came in 2011 after gavin newsom was elected Lieutenant Governor. Mayor lee, known for his signature mustache and sunny disposition was elected twice by the voters of San Francisco. What mattered most to him always was helping his fellow San Franciscoans in occasionally delivering an almost perfectly timed corny joke said london breed earlier today. He pushed through the legislation to raise the minimum wage and more affordable housing. On the national stage, mayor l lee San Francisco has lost a selfless leader, a dedicated servant to the public, and a tireless bearer of equalitys torch, says Lieutenant Governor gavin newsom. His contagious love for San Francisco elevated the city, and he will be missed and loved by all of us. Thank you. Now, we will entertain Public Comment before closed session item by mr. Alan yiaung. Please to the podium, and well allow three minutes. Hello. Good evening again. Im not sure what to say, but as i said mentioned before, im really sorry about what happened this school year, but please consider what happened throughout my whole 16 years of teaching at washington high school. And the students that came in earlier, theyre not i didnt ask them to come. I mean, i just posted a couple of things to a couple of parents, and then they were the ones that said, you should show up, you should show up, and i really appreciate the students for coming today. But and i know theres enough emails that were sent, and ive got copies of them. Please read them, because theyre the only ones that i think that can speak mostly about who i am and that you can consider. And i know that as ive said earlier, words do hurt, but i never had the chance to, like, actually apologize to anyone, so i would like to really as we always proclaim, you know, theres a triggering sort of justice of some sort. I would like to apologize to them, and hopefully, my words that do come out will heal what happened at the beginning of this year, so i really do apologize for that. And sometimes i know that my creative mind might not be the appropriate, apparently, and i do apologize for that, but as i mentioned before, no one has told me that sometimes there are things thatbecause as a teacher, you try to come up with different ideas every year and different ways to teach, and ive always been told i was an extraordinary teacher, and ive never had a bad review ever in my life, so please consider what happened before that and let the parents, especially and others who were speaking for me speak for me, as well. Thank you. Thank you. The board will now go into closed session. Thus, i call a recess all right. We now resume the regular board meeting. I will start with closed actions. So the actions from tonights closed session. First, we have to vote on three items, so one, i move to approve the Employment Contract between the district and the deputy superintendent of instruction as grade m28 step 9. Second. Thank you so much. Roll call vote, please, mr. Spiel. Clerk [ roll call. ] six ayes. Next item, i move to approve the contract between the district and the chief of special education at grade m23, step 7. Move. Second. Roll call, please. Clerk [ roll call. ] six ayes. Thank you. I move to approve the Employment Contract between the district and the interim chief of Fund Development at grade m23 step 1. Thank you. Roll call vote, please, mr. Spiel. Clerk [ roll call. ] six ayes. And now, i will do the readout of tonights closed session action items taken in closed session in the matter of hz versus sfusd, the board, by a vote of six ayes, one absent, mendoza mcdonald, stipulated to give a payout, and the board, by a vote of six ayes, the board votes to approve suspension without pay and notice of intent to dismiss one teacher. This meeting is adjourned. I love teaching. It is such an exhilarating experience when people began to feel their own creativity. This really is a place where all people can come and take a class and fill part of the community. This is very enriching as an artist. A lot of folks take these classes and take their digital imagery and turn it into negatives. There are not many black and white darkrooms available anymore. That is a really big draw. This is a signature piece. This is the bill largest darkroom in the u. S. There are a lot of people that want to get into that dark room. I think it is the heart of this place. You feel it when you come in. The people who just started taking pictures, so this is really an intersection for many generations of photographers and this is a great place to learn because if you need people from different areas and also everyone who works here is working in photography. We get to build the community here. This is different. First of all, this is a great location. It is in a lesspopulated area. Of lot of people come here just so that they can participate in this program. It is a great opportunity for people who have a little bit of photographic experience. The people have a lot, they can really come together and share a love and a passion. We offer everything from traditional black and white darkrooms to learning how to process your first roll of film. We offer classes and workshops in digital camera, digital printing. We offer classes basically in the shooting, ton the town at night, treasure island. There is a way for the programs exploring everyone who would like to spend the day on this program. Hello, my name is jennifer. My name is simone. We are going on a field trip to take pictures up the hill. Cmon, cmon, cmon. Actually, i have been here a lot. I have never looked closely enough to see everything. Now, i get to take pictures. We want to try to get them to be more creative with it. We let them to be free with them but at the same time, we give them a little bit of direction. You can focus in here. That was cool. If you see that . Behind the city, behind the houses, behind those hills. The see any more hills . These kids are wonderful. They get to explore, they get to see different things. We let them explore a little bit. They get their best. If their parents ever ask, we can learn they can say that they learned about the depth of field or the rule of thirds or that the shadows can give a good contrast. Some of the things they come up with are fantastic. That is what were trying to encourage. These kids can bring up the creativity and also the love for photography. A lot of people come into my classes and they dont feel like they really are creative and through the process of working and showing them and giving them some tips and ideas. This is kind of the best kept secret. You should come on and take a class. We have orientations on most saturdays. This is a really wonderful location and is the real jewel to the community. Ready to develop your photography skills . The Harvey Milk Photo Center focuses on adult classes. And saturday workshops expose youth and adults to photography classes. Im rebecca and im a violinist and violin teacher. I was born here in San Francisco to a family of cellists, professional cellists, so i grew up surrounded by a bunch of musical rehearsals an lessons. All types of activities happened in my house. I began playing piano when i was 4. I really enjoyed musical activities in general. So when i was 10, i began studying violin in San Francisco. And from there, i pretty much never stopped and went on to study in college as well. Thats the only thing ive ever known is to have music playing all the time, whether it is someone actually playing next to you or someone listening to a recording. I think that i actually originally wanted to play flute and we didnt have a flute. Its always been a way of life. I didnt know that it could be any other way. Could you give me an e over here. Great. When you teach and youre seeing a student who has a problem, you have to think on your feet to solve that problem. And that same kind of of thinking that you do to fix it applies to your own practice as well. So if im teaching a student and they are having a hard time getting a certain note, they cant find the right note. And i have to think of a digestible way to explain it to them. Ee, d, d, e. Yes. Then, when i go on to do my own practice for a performance, those words are echoing back in my head. Okay. Why am i missing this . I just told somebody that they needed to do this. Maybe i should try the same thing. I feel a lot of pressure when im teaching young kids. You might think that there is less pressure if they are going on to study music or in college that it is more relaxing. I actually find that the opposite is true. If i know im sending a High School Student to some great music program, theyre going to get so much more instruction. What i have told them is only the beginning. If i am teaching a student who i know is going to completely change gears when they go to college and they never will pick up a violin again there is so much that i need to tell them. In plain violin, it is so difficult. There is so much more information to give. Every day i think, oh, my gosh. I havent gotten to this technique or we havent studies they meese and they have so much more to do. We only have 45 minutes a week. I have taught a few students in some capacity who has gone on to study music. That feels anaysing. It is incredible to watch how they grow. Somebody can make amazing project from you know, age 15 to 17 if they put their mind to it. I think i have 18 students now. These more than ive had in the past. Im hoping to build up more of a studio. There will be a pee ono, lots of bookshelves and lots of great music. The students will come to my house and take their lessons there. My schedule changes a lot on a daytoday basis and that kind of keeps it exciting. Think that music is just my favorite thing that there is, whether its listening to it or playing it or teaching it. All that really matters to me is that im surrounded by the sounds, so im going top keep doing what im doing to keep my life in that direction. Ok, lets get started. Welcome to our special, special, special budget and finance Committee Meeting for monday, december 11th, 2017. I am norman yee and i will chair this committee as soon as everyone is