Transcripts For SFGTV SF Public Utilities Commission 20240712

Have lifted the restrictions on teleconference, this meeting is being held by teleconference and broadcast on sfgtv. On behalf of the commission, i would like to extend our thanks to sfgtv and sfpuc i. T. Staff for their assistance during this meeting. If you would like to make Public Comment, 4156550001, meeting i. , 1467230055, pound, pound. To enter the queue to speak, press star, three. Madam speaker, the item for closed session is Richard Denton versus city and county of San Francisco et al. The requested resolution is to pay the plaintiff and the plaintiff is to withdraw from employment and accept this as settlement for any and all claims. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Operator madam secret, there are no call secretary, there are no callers wishing to be recognized at this time. Clerk thank you. Public comment on item 5, closed session, is now closed. May i have a motion on whether to assert the attorneyclient privilege on the matter listed below with the Legal Council . So may i have a motion and a second . So moved. Second . Second. Thank you. Madam clerk madam secretary, will you call roll, please . [roll call] clerk you have four ayes. Its been moved and seconded. We the commission is back from closed session at 2 05. May i have a motion and a second on whether to disclose [indiscernible] in closed session . May i have a motion . Motion not to disclose. Second. Whether to disclose whether not to disclose discussions. So the move is seconded. Madam secretary, may we have a roll call vote, please. President maxwell . Aye. Vicepresident . Aye. Commissioner paulson . Aye. Commissioner harrington . Aye. You have four ayes. All right, thank you. Moved and seconded. Madam secretary, may we read item 8, please. Item 8, approval of the minutes of october 13, 2020. The chair is there any discussion or corrections to the minutes . May i have a motion and a second to approve the minutes of so move. Second. Madam secretary, will you open Public Comment, please . Members of the public who wish to make two minutes of Public Comment on item 8, the minutes of october 13,. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Madam secretary, theres one caller in the queue. Thank you. Caller, can you hear us . Madam secretary, the caller put their hand down just before i opened the line. Okay, thank you. Public comment on item no. 8 is closed. And you have a first and a second. Yes. Roll call vote, please. President maxwell . Aye. Vice president morin . Aye. Commissioner paulson . Aye. Commissioner harrington . Aye. You have four ayes. The chair thank you. Madam secretary, will you read the next item, please. The next order of business is no. 9, general public. Members of the public may address the commission for up to two minutes on items not on todays agenda by dialing 14156550001, meeting id1462737257. To raise your hand to speak, press star three. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Madam secretary, there are three callers in the queue. I will unmute the first caller. Thank you. Commissioners, its very interesting to see the deliberations of these virtual meetings. The very first thing you will do is go into closed session, and i think it would be a good idea in the future to tell us what the closed session is all about, more because of what is happening with [indiscernible] today. I want to talk about a project called the amcent project. I was reviewing the details of this project, and for two years a gentleman called dwayne jones and his partners were being paid for two years, and then suddenly it stopped, and i believe that [indiscernible] has been given to consultants, and it is such dubious and nefarious activities that are going under your nose you need some good leadership. That is why i propose that maybe mr. Harrington and mr. Anson malone would take charge of this sinking ship and keep it afloat. [indiscernible] and so we are left with no other alternative since our Sunshine Task force doesnt work, our Ethics Commission doesnt work, we are left with no other alternative but to cooperate with the federal bureau of investigation, and i hope you all understand we are in dire straits and our city does not deserve this. We do not deserve the [indiscernible] system Improvement Project that started with a 6 billion project and now 12 billion. Thank you, caller. Your time has expired. Next caller. Good to be back with you. As i look forward to future events sfpuc certainly start off with the idea of awareness. As sfpuc is now the default provider of electricity in San Francisco, i would like that to be something that is more made known, because sfpuc through clean power sf should not just be a seller of kilowatt hours but a developer of relationships. And so how resiliency is essential to be involved with increasing our renewables percentage and building distributive storage throughout the city and hopefully putting solar panels on the rest of the sunset reservoir, we dont have to be so dependent on getting electricity from beyond the borders of this city, especially considering fires and power shutoffs. And renewables are proving to be cheaper all the time. I would like to see us work toward a day when clean power sf will be 100 renewable and cheaper than the pg e default option, because then we will be truly showing the world how we do clean power, and clean power sf, even at this moment, is very good at doing clean power with the oversight of this board, which is why i support public power and i ask that you continue the work of building a municipal utility district so sfpuc can have control of the delivery side of the house. Thank you. Moderator thank you, caller. Next caller, your lines been opened. Good afternoon. This is peter drekmier. I just wanted to report that we are officially in salmon spawning season as of a couple days ago there were 225 salmon that came up the to spawn. That compares to 558 last year and more than 1500 in 2018 for this time. And i would, therefore, guess well see about 2,000 spawners this year, perhaps as many as 3,000. To put this in perspective, in 1944 there were 130,000 salmon spawning in the twalmy. Now 1944 was a fwood year, but keep in mind it followed decades of mining, ranching and logging that all had impacts on the river. Vats were introduced in the late 1800 and Oshaughnessy Dam and the original pedro dam had been constructed and yet we still have 130,000. What changed . Well, in the early 70s, 60s and 70s, there was the construction of New Don Pedro Dam which is seven times as big as the original and has the capacity to capture all of the water in an average water year. And so agriculture grew and urban areas grew and a lot less water was flowing down lower twalmy. It became warmer and the harbours invasive predator fish, flood plain channels not inundated as often as it was, and the water is just not in Good Condition for native fish. And thats why the bay delta plan is so important, and you have heard me say it before. I hope you will draw up your support for the voluntary agreement and embrace the control plan. Thank you. Moderator thank you, caller. Madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item 9, general Public Comment, is closed. Thank you. Madam secretary, will you read the next item, please . Madam president , your next item is item no. 10, communications. Commissioners, is there any discussion on communications . Will you open up for public im sorry, commissioner maxwell . Yes. If i might, i have a question on 10g, which is the power enterprise custom program. The question is whether our programs mimic pg es Customer Support programs or whether they are different. That may be a longer answer than we can get at the moment, but i would like to have a table or something that helps me understand what the comparison is between the programs that were offering and the programs that pg e offer. The chair thank you. I think thats a great question. We can do that. Okay. Madam president , i had a question on that same item. Great report. I would love to see something we have so many programs that sound so good. I would love to see something about number of people taking them up or energy saved or money spent, or some measure of its hard to tell which ones are big or which ones are small, so Something Like that would be nice the next time we see a report like this. The chair a bit more detail. Something about the effectiveness. All right. The chair okay. Colleagues, any further discussion . Madam clerk, will you open up for Public Comment, please. Members of the public who wish to make two minutes of Public Comment on item 10, communications, dial 1156550001, meeting id1462737257 pound pound. To raise your hand to speak, press star 3. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Moderator there are multiple callers in the queue. Your line has been opened. Good afternoon, david pillpel. Just wanted to comment on two items on communications, item 10d and 10f. On 10d i think i was the one that triggered that two weeks ago and just wanted to follow up and say i had a good conversation with assistant gm eric sandler. We were getting somewhere. We were about to solve the problem and then general manager kelly called and we had to cut it off, but we will finish that conversation shortly, and if theres anything further, i will follow up with him or marge and resolve that so that we can make payments and others that are similarly situated can make payments. We dont want to have all this debt outstanding unnecessarily. And then as to 10f, i just wanted to appreciate that rich stevens and his team that maintains the street lights, and they dont get a whole lot of appreciation around here, and they really should, i just wanted to point out over the last several months during the shelterinplace, ive actually seen a lot more street light maintenance during the day and at night, and things seem to be pretty good out there in terms of street light maintenance, but i would again you know, encourage people to call 311 if they see lights out at night or lights on during the day so that those work orders can get in the system and richs grew can get up there and fix those. Theres a little p. S. A. Thanks very much. Keep up the good work, everyone. Moderator thank you, caller. Next caller, your line is open. Thank you, president Sophie Maxwell. Lots of good things. I like what im seeing with the power enterprise update. Most of my focus is going to be on the inperson payment. Covid is a very challenging time for us, and we want to reduce our exposure because sfpuc is an absolutely necessary service, and im seeing that there are very few people who are making inperson payments and the idea of mail payments or Electronic Payments is not new. And we should be encouraging more toward the electronic payment realm, i submit to you as a person with disabilities and as a veteran that i have been receiving Electronic Payments since 1989, definitely not new. And i have been making Electronic Payments to my various utilities since 2002, autopay i think is the more recent system, and theres a lot of community options. If a person needs to pay cash, there are plenty of in their community and not necessarily having to make a trip and [indiscernible] will be issued. But even for somebody who does a payment electronically, one can get a receipt printed, copy off eemail or library printer place if they dont have a printer, i think overall were doing a pretty good thing. Lets encourage simplicity. Inperson payments at one place is a very expensive way to go, and i think we can use the efficiencies with this current model to have other programs for the greater good of the city. Thank you. Moderator thank you, caller. Madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. Thank you. That closes Public Comment on item no. 10. Youre muted, madam president. Madam secretary, will you read the next item, please. The next order of business is item 11, report of the general manager. Good afternoon, commissioners. I have three items, and the first item is an update of the december 2018 bay delta plan amendment and voluntary agreement negotiations with the state. Well have Michael Carlin, deputy general manager Michael Carlin to give you an update. Good afternoon, president maxwell, commissioners. Todays update will be kind of short since we have only had one meeting since the last time ive updated you with the state teams. The issues still remaining on the table center around dry and critical water and habitat improvements. Habitat improvements was the subject of a technical meeting that was held with the state team last week. It revolves around the fact that we had proposed in our voluntary agreement to activate 80 acres of the flood plain habitat in the spring its a lot of water, and the state team is asking for 160 acres of flood plain habitat that would be activated at a lower level of 500 to 100cff, thats cuber feet per second. We are having a discussion why the switch by the state team, what is the rationale behind it, what is it that youre trying to hope to achieve. Weve had one discussion with them and were trying to raise the second discussion with them on this technical matter, seeing if we can get some sort of breakthrough. If we can do that, i think that would be fairly significant and we can actually move forward with, you know, other discussions on this is one that trickle and dry year water is a very tough subject to broach. It is a dry year or critical year, theres not a lot of water in the state, and even though we would be rationing, we still need to look at how much water we actually have in our system because we dont want to run out. So we still have to have those discussions and were trying to move forward with that at this point in time, but its a very slow process at this stage. And i would be glad to answer any questions as i think there will be quite a few. The chair colleagues, any questions . Sorry, michael, no questions. Okay. All right, the next item is the excuse me. Im sorry, general manager, im going to call Public Comment at this point. Is that appropriate, madam president . Yes, open Public Comment, please. Members of the public who wish to make two minutes of Public Comment on item 11a dial 14156550001, meeting id 146, 2737257 pound pound. To raise your hand to speak, press star 3. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers waiting to be recognized . Quick comment on critical and dry years, they have a much bigger impact on water agencies that depend on river flow, and as you know, San Francisco is very storage dependent, and the goal is to have all the reservoirs full by july of each year. When all the reservoirs are full, theres enough water in storage to last six years, so it would take a number of consecutive critically dry years to drain that. We have a great example recently. At the height of a recent drought, San Francisco had enough water in storage to last three years, and then one year later in the summer of 2016, there was enough water to last five years. Thats because in an average year the sfpuc is entitled to three times as much water as it uses. And then we had the big water year, 2017, where your entitlements enabled 12 years worth of water. Obviously there wasnt any place to store it and it got dumped down the river. So i just never see the rationale behind the sfpuc worrying about critical and dry years. It really has very, very little impact when you have so much storage. Thank you. Moderator thank you, caller. Next caller, ive opened your line. I know youve opened my line. So whenever this topic comes, i have requested you, commissioners, to bring the first people to the table as i did myself once, brought them all the way from yosemite to San Francisco so that the elders could tell you all white folks, mostly, you have destroyed a lot of waters pristine. We have to keep it real. So [indiscernible] is suffering, and the most important element of the twalmy river are the salmon. They cant speak for themselves. So well have to speak for the salmon. And so when the elders come and the Indigenous People come and tell you all something, they dont want to listen. They want to go by some [indiscernible] some slows. Even though the reservoir with afford to let some water into the twalmy river, they know that. The Indigenous People cared for the river for 15,000 years. You all can go into your records and find out when you all arrived in this country, and anyone can arrive in this country. I have no problems about that, even though i represent the [indiscernible] i dont have a problem about that. What i have a problem is being a snob, being proud, having no empathy and compassion for the first peoples, and one of your representatives going to sacramento and pretending to represent [indiscernible]. Moderator thank you, caller. Your time has expired. Madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. Thank you. Public comment on item 11a is closed. General manager kelly . Youre on mute. The chair before general manager goes on, could you give some light on the concern about storage and us having enough water during those lean years . Could you add something to that, please . Sure. Ill try and ill ask Steve Ritchie to jump in as well. We are a storagedependent system. We do try to hold back water, and we did change our operation during that period of 20122016, and we were very close to having zero water bank which would have meant that we would have to be releasing water from hechee to the irrigation districts to fulfill their water rights obligation. I think he kind of simplifies our operation quite a bit, and you never know how long things are going to last, and if you start making mistakes and you put yourself in a situation where youre perilously out of water, you cant make it up, so i would turn to steve if he wants to add anything else on that. Assistant general manager for water. I would just add that when we talked about having three years of water left, in my world that means were one year away from and maybe already into a period where we start needing to take emergency measures just in case were wrong, because as mr. Carden pointed out, the water bank was almost empty, only 50,000 acre feet left in it at the end of that dry spell. If it had continued, we must have been on the path to a very, very serious problem. The other comment he makes is that there was a very big year later on, and thats what were trying to look at in our different water fly projects is how we can capture some of those big year waters and find some place to store it, such as in an expanded reservoir or in a groundwater basin. We are following up on that vigorously, but otherwise i think mr. Carden had it absolutely correct. The chair thank you. All right, so the next item is the Pilot Program offering on our portfolio content category three Renewable Energy credit, agm barbara hill will give you an update on that program offering. Thank you, assistant general manager for power. Thanks for the opportunity, commission, to inform you about this new Pilot Program that were offering. Were offering it to our customers. This Pilot Program will help them certify their facilityings under the leadership and energy and environment Design Program or leed program administered by the u. S. Green Building Council. So first let me give you some context, and then ill go into the particulars of this new Pilot Program. So the leed Program Recognizes and awards buildings that meet certain environmental standards, up to 100 points can be received for various environmental benefits, such as water recycling and bicycle access and use of Renewable Energy. The point system is used to qualify buildings as leed certified, silver, gold or platinum. Platinum is the certification that our own sfpuc Headquarters Building received. Building owners have the option to buy Renewable Energy certificates to qualify for these leed points in the green Energy Category that the u. S. Green Building Council has established. These Renewable Energy certificates document the renewable attributes of the generation of Renewable Energy, and in the leed program context, when building owners buy unbundled Renewable Energy certificates, they are buying the Renewable Generation attribute from one Renewable Energy source and applying it to electricity from other sources. Usually nonrenewable sources. Some people refer to this activity as greening up the other electricity source. Some of our City Department has seen customers have approached us for help with obtaining these Renewable Energy certificates so they can meet the Renewable Energy requirements of the leed standards for their buildings. Unfortunately, our customers cant simply point to our hechy power to gain the green energy leed points. The leed rules require the Renewable Energy or its attributes, some from power plants that came online within the last 15 years. As you know, you know, we were very much early adopters of green gas housefree Renewable Energy, and so we ear disadvantaged under that 15year rule. They do not receive credit for our substantial early investments in Renewable Energy under the u. S. Green Building Councils rules. Under the city admin code, we are the citys energy supplier. We should take responsibility for making these purchases on behalf of our customers. So now some of the pilot particulars. We plan to conduct the pilot where we would purchase Renewable Energy certificates for our customers seeking this leed certification. The pilot is first of all, you know, a response to something that our customers value. Its a service that our customers need. We also feel its important for us to take responsibility for making these purchases. We have the among the City Departments, we have the most experienced with operating in these Renewable Energy markets. Its also a learning opportunity for us in the pilot setting to document the level of effort and the cost and to better understand any procurement or program risk, and all of this is to inform the setting of a selfsupporting Fee Structure and a recommendation on whether to provide the Renewable Energy certificate Purchase Service as an ongoing hechy service offering. Recall that the city discourages the use of unbundled Renewable Energy certificates in our clean power sf program. This theres what i would describe as a discomfort when the underlying electric generation being greened up with the certificate might be emitting Greenhouse Gases. But the use of unbundled Renewable Energy certificates as proposed here in this new pilot is different. In this case we know the Renewable Energy attributes are being used to, if you will, green up the hech hechy generation supply which itself is already Greenhouse Gas free. In other words, use of Renewable Energy certificates, these unbundled Renewable Energy certificates in this case is greening up an already green product, right . So the practice of purchasing unbundled Renewable Energy credits in this case seems appropriate to us. It provides a product that our customers are asking us for and need, and because the underlying generation is clean hechy power, the purchases dont contradict the citys guidelines in this area. Hopefully the pilot that were proposing here will be a success, and if so, well bring the program and fee proposal to you for consideration as appropriate. So with that, im happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you. The chair why dont we open up for Public Comment. Thank you. Members of the public who wish to make two minutes of Public Comment on item 11b dial 14156550001, meeting id 1462737257 pound pound. To raise your hand to speak, press star 3. Mr. Moderator, do we have any callers . Madam secretary, there are multiple callers in the queue. Thank you. Go ahead, caller. Thank you, president Sophie Maxwell and members, for the record, she and her. This is good work. I would like to see a slide deck about this so we can view it in more detail. And Renewable Energy credits whether bundled or unbundled are indeed a legitimate way to purchase clean energy. I do that myself. I design renewable unbundled Energy Credits i think since 2009. Im sitting here with wind power in my home, in my allelectric home. Its anything that will help us to make these legal claims is worth the time and investment of money. I hope that this is a program that well be able to increase Renewable Energy credit usage across the board, not just for those who are using the hedge hedgy hydroelectric power, which is Greenhouse Gas free, but to be able to expend this to other forms of energy because Renewable Energy credit unbundled or bundled can create additionality, because the money that i am sending to a wind farm in oklahoma is helping to create wind energy. So this is a step, a beginning, i hope, that we can use to move San Francisco towards the 100 clean energy future. Thank you. Next caller. Hi, commissioners, im calling on behalf of the sierra club, and i am a San Francisco resident. We strongly oppose allowing large hydro power to be considered renewable because of the environmental damage done by dams and because large Hydro Renewables allows existing hydro resources to be used to meet clean Energy Requirements instead of building actual renewable projects. We want to applaud you for being an early adopter of ghg Renewable Energy, but this is not the end goal, and we really need to actually push for new renewables to be built out and not simply take advantage of the low hanging fruit. Thank for this opportunity to comment. Thank you for your comments. Next caller . Commissioners, what i want to speak about is having a solar farm. Youll have a lot of land that we can have a solar farm, and thats the way to go. We are talking about bundling which leads to stacks where we dont have the empirical data. You say something, theyre not going to take the words as gospel truth. You have a lot of land. Millions of acres of land. Why is it we cant have a solar farm . Much like they have in europe. Going into this bundling, trying to make some agreements, buying solar, [indiscernible] that its green when it could be purple, yellow or red, just go to the point. Build a solar farm. End of the story. Ive been in this business for 35 years, much before some of yall came on board. 40 years, really, but ill take 35. Thank you. Moderator thank you, caller. Next caller, ive opened your line. Thanks. Good afternoon, commissioners. Im hunter cuttings, a San Francisco resident and i serve as an elected member of the San Francisco sierra Club Executive committee. I also serve as an expert reviewer for the ipcc, the Intergovernmental Panel on climate change, and i serve as an expert reviewer for the landmark ipcc report on Global Warming of 1. 5. And i flagged this report because the Power Program for the sfpuc to existing hydro budgets is wholly inconsistent with the best available science on decarbonizing the California Power grid. As you know, that report calls upon all countries to reduce Carbon Pollution to zero by 2050 and further reduce global pollution 50 by 2030, and its well established that the least cost pathway for doing so involves rapidly decarbonizing the power grid over the next 15 years, and in fact, former vicepresident biden has called for zero emissions by 2035. Thats just 15 years from now, and to reach that goal, were going to immediate a ma moth increase in the production of clean energy, and to do that we need to dramatically ramp up incentives to build new clean energy capacity. And so the power project before you now goes in the opposite direction, creating a disincentive to build new capacity by retroactively grandfathering the existing hydro into our crediting framework building new capacity, and that includes San Francisco, sitting on our hands and pointing to stuff we did decades ago isnt good enough, and thats what the crediting framework is designed to accomplish. Greening up already green projects is essentially a form of green washing by double counting. If the staff wish to change the rules for crediting projects, then we have to go back and also change the framework for which the credit rules were designed, and thats clearly not going to happen. Commissioners, i really urge you to evaluate this project critically. Its taking us in the wrong direction, and it needs to moderator thank you, caller. Your time has expired. Next caller, your line is open. Hi, commissioners. This is eric brooks with californias for energy choice. Hopefully you saw the email or will see soon the email that i sent you that states some of the things youve heard already. Back in the day, a few years ago, we were one of the lead groups that worked with commissioner harrington who was then the general manager to get clean power sf off the ground. Its good to see you up there on the screen again. Glad youre back. And as the previous callers have said, this is going in the wrong direction. And ill add another reason for that. For years and years staff in the sfpuc has been saying, even in public documents, that hydroelectric is Greenhouse Gas free. The email i sent you has a key article with links to studies that shows that it is absolutely not Greenhouse Gas free. The science shows that it can be 25 upwards of 25 higher in Greenhouse Gas emissions than we previously knew that it was, and we previously knew there were Greenhouse Gas emissions from dams because of plant decay in the dams. So it is just its the 21st century. We need to build new renewables, not rely on hydro, and hydro is not Greenhouse Gas free, and we need to stop calling it that. There are no climate scientistologists that call it that. We are demanding that washington, d. C. Start following the science. Well, we need to do that now at the sfpuc. So please do not credit large hydro, which has substantial Carbon Emissions from this biological activity that happens in reservoirs, dont allow that to be called Greenhouse Gas free or credited as Greenhouse Gas free. Thank you. Thank you, caller. Madam secretary, there are no more callers in the queue. Thank you. That closes Public Comment on this item. And i dont believe the general manager has anything else to report on item 11c. Does that close your report, general manager . That concludes my report. Thank you. I have id like to ask robert hail if he could comment on some of what weve heard. Briefly. Certainly, certainly. I would emphasize that what were talking about here is not a change to the definition of renewables in the context of the renewable portfolio standard, so were not proposing to change any of the standards. We are proposing to take to provide our customers with the opportunity that the u. S. Green Building Councils rules provide them to purchase Renewable Energy credits or certificates to qualify their building for leed certification. These buildings would continue to receive hechy power, and as an organization, power enterprise will continue to invest in Renewable Resources to comply with the renewable portfolio standard. As you know, weve made longterm commitments for the construction of projects in california that will generate renewable electricity, including projects that incorporate storage. So we will continue on that path. This Pilot Program allows us to meet the needs most effectively for our customers to qualify their buildings for leed certification purposes. We will bring back to you as this is a pilot, we will bring back to you the performance of the program and whether we recommend we take it from pilot to a permanent program. I value the input weve heard from our stakeholders, and of course we will continue to listen and learn from them on the pros and cons of this pilot. So thank you. The chair thank you, and what about the large hydro plants being not not being efficient or Greenhouse Gas free . Yes, well, we can continue to look at the citations that mr. Brooks has provided us with, and we can come back to you with further thought on that, commissioner, if youd like. Certainly the state of california has under the renewable portfolio standards does allow certain large hydro to qualify as compliant. Our kirkwood generation does qualify as compliant under the renewable portfolio standards established by the state. So were working within those frameworks as we engage in the market and market our products to our customers. The chair great, thank you. Madam president . If i might . The chair yes. As i understand the concern about large hydro and, you know, whether or not it is Greenhouse Gas free, it has to do with the Greenhouse Gas impacts of building a reservoir as opposed to the generation of power on the release of water from the reservoir. And in that case, our reservoirs were built not as Power Projects really but primarily as water supply projects, and the electrical generation is something that was added on to that to help make it pay for itself. And also to assist with what at the time was considered conservation, which is if you are going to do something you take out of it all the benefit that you can. One of those benefits being power. I think the discussion to the extent we want to have it about whether or not our hydropower is Greenhouse Gas free or not, we could look at it from the standpoint of what the the Greenhouse Gas impact of operating. It was built for a different purpose, but the question is if we turn on the generators does that great Greenhouse Gases or not create Greenhouse Gases or not, and my understanding of that is it does not. That goes to the underlying question of whether our power generates Greenhouse Gas. For the other thing that i think barbara hill mentioned and just is worth repeating is we are not saying that power from hechy qualifies under the as a renewable resource where it does not, and were not seeking a change in that designation. Its saying because it does not that we will apply our credits, and that Credit Program does encourage the building of Greenhouse Gasfree generation. So i think its consistent with our values and consistent with the designation that is on whether or not our Power Generation qualifies, you know, for Greenhouse Gas credits or not. So i find this really [indiscernible] and frankly i think its a creative approach to solving, you know, the problem of our customers. The chair then item c, this is the report . Yes, that concludes my report. The chair all right. Then, madam clerk, Public Comment . Or not . Weve already called for Public Comment. We dont need Public Comment on 11c, no. The chair all right, may we read the next item, please. Your next item of business is no. 12. Good afternoon, commissioners. Im actually joint presenting with my colleague who is also here. I can jump in. So good afternoon, commissioners. Were here to provide you with an initial update on our Racial Equity work at our agency to date and give you a little progress update. Mr. Moderator, if we can jump into the first slide, please. Thank you. So as you know, there are two major components to our Racial Equity work at our agency that were beginning planning around. The first relates to the office of Racial Equity and the sfpuc is one of the departments in the city that will be providing a Racial Equity plan aligned with the Racial Equity framework that the office of Racial Equity developed for the city. So last year the city passed a law establishing an agency called office of Racial Equity under the human rights commission, and they developed the framework under which there are multiple phases to develop a citywide plan in response to Racial Equity. The first component of that framework focuses almost entirely on internal city and agency hr issues, and they have promulgated a template and a plan, an action plan that every Single Agency has to develop and submit by december 31, 2020. So we each are developing our Racial Equity action plans and would be submitting our agencywide action plan that were beginning to develop in december 31, 2020, like every other agency. Once we have submitted all of our plans, all of the enterprises and bureaus when they have those plans ready, they will be returning to you to present their plans and their priorities in early 2021. If we can go to the next component of the presentation, please. And then as you know, in july of this year, this Commission Also adopted a Commission Resolution condemning systemic racism and promoting racial justice, and well review the details around that component of the requirements for our planning at the end of our presentation. So jumping into the next slide around the office of racial equities, Racial Equity plans, the o. R. E. , office of Racial Equity, action plan mandates seven core key pillars that focus almost entirely on how we conduct business within our own agency. And every City Department has to respond to these areas. As you see, they focus on hiring, retention, promotion, discipline, diverse leadership, and with that heavy focus ill turn it over to justine to give you an overview of the internal h. R. Focus component of it. Thank you. Okay, so im just going to give you a high level if we could go to the next slide, please. A high level of each of the pillars which youll see on the slide here. And also generally what our approach is that were taking is were going to be trying to strike a balance between the things that we can do now, which would be things that our agency has control over, has resources to do, while also planning and building for foundational items, things that may take citywide coordination or may take much more of a heavier lift from a resources perspective or building out systems, things like that. So thats in general how were approaching this planning exercise. Some early highlights here from our hiring and recruitment pillar is that were really looking at our existing hiring practice, and where can we insert equity text . So already we have certain things like interview panels have to be made up of diverse panellists, but there are definitely other opportunities within our hiring process that we can make similar mandates or requirements for each and every one of our hiring processes of which we conduct many throughout the years. Well also be, again, looking to establish a stronger Data Analytics program, specifically regarding our hiring process, and thats going to be a longerterm plan. And were also looking at how do we create more robust recruitment functions, and we also want to be able to balance here again, not only find of advertisement and recruitment and outreach, but also really start to build out our more traditional message through our connections with the community and various community organizations. Next slide, please. For recruitment and promotion, some highlights here are things that i mentioned at our last on september 22, when i was here at the last meeting with you, and a lot of what were looking at here for our retention strategy is within that competency model framework. We spoke a little bit about it at that september 22 meeting. The framework shows our candidates as well as our employees, what success looks like, and how various different career paths can emerge within our organization. Not only does it highlight those career paths, but it also allows employees to focus their own personal professional development within those various paths. So this is something that we currently have under way, but its also something that were going to need to plan out more specifically, especially as it comes as it relates to resourcing this particular function so that we can more effectively use it. Next slide. Within this pillar, discipline and separation, this is really a small slice of a larger Performance Management spectrum, and again, our competency model framework is going to be really helpful here so that at the earliest point possible we are showing our employees what success looks like, being enabling our supervisors and managers to set clear expectations and Development Tools so that discipline is less likely because people know what to do in their jobs. They have a Good Relationship with their supervisor, with their peers and all of that. And one shortterm item that were developing that i mentioned at that september 22 meeting is that were developing more tools to help our employees within the probationary period, which is kind of that last phase of the Selection Process so that when people are first starting they know what they need to do to succeed in their job, and our supervisors know how to support them in order to be successful. Next slide, please. These next two slides im actually going to talk a little bit in tandem, but diverse and equitable leadership, this has a lot to do with recruitment, retention and promotion kind of all converging together as well as having very specific training programs, things that are going to address implicit bias, but also help develop a more effective leadership team, and also really harnessing our alreadyformed engagement culture here at the puc because our engagement culture allows our workforce to confidentially provide feedback back to leadership so that leadership can understand things that are going on more specifically in the workforce and address them. So really trying to harness the feedback loop in order to create a more diverse and equitable leadership within the entirety of our agency. Next slide, please. And here kind of similar to the last slide were again talking about, you know, Leadership Development, and in general at the puc were very supportive of providing development opportunities, but we want to make sure that all of those opportunities are, you know, made available to everyone, and also ensure that we have multiple ways to develop people. And i will say that, you know, in our current pandemic state, this is then made a little bit more complicated because everything has to be online, but we did recently launch within this year both our Leadership Development program for our senior leaders, which we planned to iterate throughout our agency, and also we launched a brand new modern learning Management System within [indiscernible] training but we are able to offer Online Training to all different sorts. So these are just some of the early things that were thinking about on how to harness and develop even more for those last two pillars that i just covered. And now im going to turn it back over to cover the last two. Thank you, justine. Next slide, please. And just to round out the last two components of o. R. E. s requirements, the sixth component relates to Organizational Culture of increasing and belonging. You can see the components up there. For us, we have already began by creating the Racial Equity team of Racial Equity leads for each enterprise and bureau. Weve started to begin the work on these Racial Equity plans, report to the commission and staff as we are doing right now and as is done with our own staff, conduct engagement surveys and things of that sort. If we can have the next slide, please. And then the finally component relates to the commission and making sure that the commission itself is very diverse and also is welcoming in an environment for everyone to participate and have actual experiences. So it has components around Demographic Data for commissioners, including that in our annual report, even developing a Mentorship Program between newer and more experienced commissioners. If we can go to the next slide, please. And this is a final slide, and just to give you a quick update and being mindful of time, this is related to the sfpuc adopt a resolution from july. We took the resolution and each of the actionable items from the resolution, we categorized into the categories you see on the screen, and now we have identified clear, specific actionable items and a plan in responding to each. So what is a concrete, immediate and nearterm actionable item we can take . What are some longterm deliverables . Who are the parties that can be involved and that are important to the success of that . What are some timelines related to that . And then finally what are the resources to make that successful . Do we need external support . Do we need better systems . As we see, you guys gave us a mandate around implementing not just the Racial Equity action plans, but we went into detail. Theres a component around land use and environmental justice. Water as a human right, some of what were doing around affordability, shutoffs, department of public health, traumainformed systems. What were doing around covid and our response right now as were in this, you know, unprecedented time, what were doing around outreach and engagement within our organization and externally. And also within our contracting equity, which i gave some details around some of what we have done and hopefully as infrastructure picks it up in the future, some of what they will be doing in the future. So as i said, each of these categories, we have now had committees identify from each enterprise and bureau who should work on each of these item, and there will be intraenterprise and intrabureau committees working on these issues and coming back to the commission to update us on these issues. And justine and i will be coming back to also continue to update you as we progress. We will be returning in december and were currently scheduled to come back in february to further provide you with an update, and then we will continue to provide you updates. When the enterprises and bureaus are done with their plans, as i said, theyll be coming in the beginning of next year to begin to provide you with their office of Racial Equity plans. And with that, that concludes our presentation, if you have any questions or comments. Through the chair, i have a comment, commissioner paulson, im incredibly impressed with the amount of engagement that this blueprint has put together and just the way everything is being thrown together, it sounds like its incredibly serious. I know theres not total metrics attached or dont know, you know, what piece or other pieces have gone into the field or is a manual for a supervisor or whatever, and the fact you said youre going to be coming back on december and january i think is incredibly important. You know, i probably should be you know, if the other commissioners agree with me, that being almost like a line item report during these crazy times is something that is probably going to be important. Again, all of us only sit on one commission, i think, so i dont know what the other commissions are doing, but im impressed with what were seeing, and i think you guys are doing some good work, at least by showing us this topline stuff that were looking at right now. I just want to say thanks for jumping on this, because what was it, it was only i think two months ago, wasnt it, that we passed the resolution. Or maybe it was longer than that. Lose track of time these days, but so anyway, thank you. Thank you. Madam president . Id like to echo commissioner paulsons comments about the number of programs and they seem to be taking this seriously. I am a person who likes facts and data, and so it would be great when were looking at workforce, for example, if you could do a baseline of where we are today or where you were when you started, or whatever, in terms of racial, sexual, whatever, different breakdowns, how we compare to the population of the city, whatever calculations you want, and then we can see if things are working. If we have this baseline and you come back to us in six months or one year or two years, if we see movement that people are being promoted and people are retaining, then we have faith that these programs work as opposed to just having them sound good. I would ask that you give us that kind of a baseline of real data that we can track to, that would be really handy. If i may, we did provide kind of baseline workforce equity data in july, and so i would be happy to forward that presentation on to you. That happened before you joined our commission. That would be great. Thank you. Any further comments . I would like to say i think well done. Very succinct and well done, and i think looking forward to having i think what ed mentioned, having some goals would be really great, and since we already have that data, i think this is really on our way to that. So thank you both for a great presentation. It was well done. Thank you. [please stand by] much. So if we can go ahead to the next slide. This meeting will include a quick welcome by board of education president , mark sanchez, followed by a 20minute presentation on the proposed changes to Student Assignments. Well have 15 minutes for questions and answers about the proposed policy and 15 minutes to share your hopes, ideas, and concerns about these changes. Lastly well have five minutes to close this evenings meeting and share information about next steps. Ill going to play a video by mark san december. I wants to take a minute to explain why were making changes to the Student Assignment system and why this work is so important. As you likely already know, sfusd is in the process of changing our Student Assignment policy for our Elementary Schools. December 2018, we started this process by unanimously passing a board resolution and direct to develop a recommendation for a New Elementary School Student Assignment system. Now were nearing the end of a robust, multiyear process and the board of education plans to vote on a new policy on decembe. For the past nine years, sfusd has used Student Assignment process where families may apply to any Elementary School in the district. Despite our well intentioned efforts, the process has not worked as well as intended meeting goals related to diversity, predictability and proximity. In our Current System. Families must chose from 72 different schools and arent guaranteed an assignment to any of them. The families with the most time and resources are best able to figure out the application process, research schools, go on school tours, and ultimately receive one of the top choices. Despite the complicated process, our schools are just as segregated today as they were when we implemented the system. What weve heard we know that every family wants to send their child to a highquality school and that students assignment alone cannot create highquality stools but it does have a role to play in creating diverse robust enrolled schools. And sfusd our mission is to provide each and every student with the highquality instruction required to thrive in the 21st century. Each and every day were focused on creating highquality goals in every neighborhood regardless of how out Student Assignment system works, timeline for change. The board plans to vote on a new policy in december of this year but when the policy is approved, it wont go into effect for a couple of years. During this time, there will be plenty of opportunities for Community Input as we design zones and plan for a successful roll out of the new system. What we hope to accomplish tonight, tonights session is an opportunity for us all to learn. We hope the Community Members will learn all about the policy recommendations and that sfusd staff will learn about questions, hopes and concerns. We invite you to participate via thought exchange tonight and to ask questions about the policy, understand its key features, and provide input on how we will implement the policy in the coming years. District staff eager to hear from you and your questions, homeshopes and ideas will be heo we can make this policy work for each and every family in San Francisco. Thank you again for being here. Wonderful. So as president sanchez said, its an opportunity to Learn Together and if we can click through to the next slide, please. Our hope is that Community Members will learn about the proposed changes to Student Assignments and to decide on the changes for the boards vote and we hope that sfusd staff will learn about the communitys hopes, ideas and concerns about these potential changes. Wore now going to watch another short video which explains how our current Student Assignment works and it will make sure everyone is starting with the same information about how the Current System works before we give feedback on a new Student Assignment system and if we can please play the video. Thank you. Hello, we created this video to help explain how our Student Assignment system works. To start y. Do we have the Student Assignment system. They have over 100 schools and each year students apply we rely on the Student Assignment system to make sure every student receives a school. The system is a set of rules which considers family choices and the number of open school seats. Tone sure that all students are equitably assigned to schools. This is a especially important when more students apply to a school than there are openings. Tie breakers are preferences given to applicants. These character is ticks were chosen by sfusd to do awe fie things, provide equitable access and help create diverse learning and give families opportunities to stay closer to home. Here are all the tie breakers ranked in order. One, siblings, two, pre ktk attendance area, three, test score area, ctip one. Four, attendance area. If your requests have tie breakers, for example, you are a younger sibling, live in an area of the city with the lowest average test scores or live in the attendance area of the school, you have a greater chance of getting into your requested schools. What happens if you dont get any of the schools you requested . Unfortunately, that can happen sometimes. Because, the schools you want are so popular that many students request them. When this happens, the computer looks at where you live and tries to assign you to your Attendance Area Schools if it has openings. If your Attendance Area School is full, the computer looks for the closest schools to where you live that has openings. And assigns you to that school. While we cannot promise that every student will be placed at their number one choice schools, we can promise that your students will be considered fairly and that the Student Assignment system strives to assign students nor more help, contact us by phone or email or visit sfusd at edu slash enrolled. Great, thank you. So, we just watched a video that told us how our current Student Assignment system works and the Current System isnt perfect and we clicked through to the next slide. You can see that in 2018 the board of education and passed a resolution to change our current Student Assignment and had hasnt been working as we intended. Here are some of the problems with the Current Systems that were trying to solve. And the first problem, is that schools are segregated by income and by race and ethnicity. The Current System is also complicated for families and it isnt always predictable or transparent enough. We also know that choices seen as increasing inequities because the families who have the most time and resources are best able to navigate the choice process. Lastly, traveling across the city makes it difficult to build Strong Community connections. Weve already gathered a lot of feedback from Community Members. Last spring, we hosted 12 Community Workshops and neighborhoods throughout the city. Tabled in front of pre schools and Community Centers and attended meetings for feedback. In total we talked with about 600 people but we connist enterally heard is that the most important thing is to have access to highquality schools and Student Assignments are only an issue because not all schools are perceived as being the same in quality. We heard from a lot of families that choice can be inequitable because not all families have the same time or resources to engage in the choice process and many African American and latinx families wonder why the district was redesigning Student Assignments and were distrustful of the motivations for doing so. A neighborhood based system would harm families with the least resources and most family would prefer to send their children close to home. However, families wanted to be confident in the quality of their neighborhood schools before they would send their child there. We covered a lot and went through slides and watched videos. Lets pause and take a quick 30 second break. If you would like, this is a time to write down thoughts or questions that you have and get up and do a stretch and talk about whats in the policy, what are we recommending. I hope they had a chance of thoughts and questions that they had. Were going to talk about what is in the policy. If we can click through to the next slide, please. Thank you. Weve learned a lot about how the current Student Assignment system works and what some of the problems that the Current System are and what feedback weve already gotten from the community. Now wore going to jump in and learn about the proposed changes to Student Assignments. The new policy would move away from our current district wide choice process for Elementary Schools. Instead, sfusd would develop zones and allow families to chose from Elementary Schools in the zone that they live in. Families would still have choices of case and however, instead of choosing from all 72 Elementary Schools and sfusd each family would be presented with a more manageable list of choices and families would end up being assigned to one of the schools in their zone. The policy is to help assign students so that schools reflect the rich diversity of our city. To do that they will use diversity category to assign students so each school resembles the diversity of the zone its in. One of the biggest changes from the Current System is that sfusd would create zones and so this means instead of choosing from all 72 Elementary Schools in the city, each family would chose from a smaller number of schools based on the zone they live in and creating zones will help make the assignment process much more predictable for schools and families and will create Stronger Community connections. Each family will have access to all of the different types of programs that theyre eligible for and the only difference is that families will chose from a smaller list of schools so that the choice process is simpler,s year and more predict able. No matter where a student lives, theyll still have access to all the different types of language pathways that theyre eligible for. This might include duel language emersion or flex programs which are open to all students. Or by literacy programs open to english learners, bilingual students who speak the target language. Just like general education programs, families will receive a smaller, more manageable list of choices for language programs that they might be interested in. And this will be based on the zone they live in. This might mean that sfusd has to drive different types of zones for different types of programs so that every child still has access to all the different programs that theyre he will individual able and so so every student has access to language pathways and have access to a k8 school and based on the zone that they live in and every student will have access to appropriate special education programs. To apply families just need to rank their schools in their own to the order they prefer them so i hope this will make the choice process simple and easy for families. If we go to the next slide. After families are in the schools in their zone and submit their choices to sfusd, every student will end up being assigned to one of the schools in their own so this system is much more predictable. Families noah head of time that theyre going to be assigned to one of the schools on their listed. There already schools to chose from. So now that we talked about which choices are available to each student, you might be wondering how will students be assigned to one of the schools that they chose. This will use two important features to help assigned students to schools. One student submit their requests, the assignment system will troy to match everyone with one of their top choices. And as long as theres available space, the student will be assigned. If there are more requests for schools then there are open spaces, this system will use tie breakers to give preference to some applicants. The assignment system will look at where students live and try to assign students from different parts of the zone so that each school resembled and diversity of the zone its in. Ill explain these in turn. So tie breakers are the next important feature that im going to talk about. Tie breakers are preferences used to assign students to schools when the number of requests for that school is greater than the number of spaces available. And the newest Student Assignment system would use the following three tie breakers. The first one is a sibling tiebreaker. So this would be a preference for younger siblings of students who are currently enrolled in and will be continuing on. Will be attending that same school theyre applying to. [please stand by] these might include household income, race and ethnicity or academic achievement. Diversity category use multiple criteria to count for the many ways diversity enhances the educational experience for students. Lets pretend that the graphics down at the bottom of the screen, each represent three hypothetical blocks that are each assigned to a diversity category. In this example the three blocks are assigned to the orange circle, purple stripe or Blue Triangle diversity city category. In the every student in each block will be in orange circle, purple stripe or blue training. Every student will be assigned to same category every other student on the block. All the demographic information will be generalized for that block. Which means it would all be aggregated. We wasnt to call out that individual student characteristics will not be used to assign students to schools. Everyone who live on the same block will be part of the same diversity Category Base on aggregated Demographic Data. Thats the first step. The second step, the next slide, each school will have a certain number of spaces for students from each diversity category in its zone so the School Looks Like the zone that its in. For example, if a zone has 30 orange circles, 30 purple stripes and 40 Blue Triangle, school a will assign 30 seats to orange circles 30 for purple stripes and 20 for the triangle. Our hope is that this new policy will achieve these three goals. All of the things that i just described are trying to achieve these three goals. The first goal is diversity. We want to create integrated Elementary Schools that provides students with the opportunity to experience rich diversity in San Francisco. Our next goal is predictability. We want to offer families high degree of predictability. Third goal is proximity. We want this new policy to create Strong Community connections to schools and happy felt enrollment. We dont students to have to travel too far. This is our policy development timeline. Weve been working on the system for quite a while now. Even since 2018. Were in the orange box of the dotted box thats part of the decide stage. These are the Community Information sessions. Next, the board of education will discuss the policy on december 1st at the the committee of the whole meeting. Will vote on the policy on december 8th. If the policy is approved in december, it will take at least a year and a half to implement. This includes actually drawing zones, updating district transportation routes, creating new application and enrollment process that is simple and easy for families. We expect that the earliest this policy will go into effect for students applying for Elementary School in the 20232024 school year. You can look at the timeline. If we go to the next slide, were going to take another quick 30 second break, again this is a chance to write down any thoughts or questions that you have so far, get up and stretch and when we come back, well finish up with couple of more slides and get to the interactive portion to tonights Community Information meeting. Well move on to the last portion of the presentation. Lets click through to the next slide. What comes next . The board of education decides to produce thee changes, what happens then . If the policy is approved in december, there will be lot of decisions left to make during implementation, which means lots of opportunities for community to give input. On the left hand side of the screen are things that are actually in the policy, the things that the board will be votings on in december. On the right are things that come after the policy has been approved. Some of the things, whats in the policy, this includes a series of actions, goals, guidelines for drawing the zones, the actual rules for assigning students to schools, including the tie breakers and the diversity category and on the process for monitoring policy, monitoring the impact that its having. What happens during implementation. This is actually drawing the zone. Developing the software and the assignment algorithm, updating transportation routes, developing and easy application process for families, preparing school for enrollment growth. If there are schools that have more students assigned to them, giving them the resources they need to be able to grow. Revisiting middle school feeder pattern. Making sure they are aligned with middle school feeders. Many changes will be phased in overtime. If you go to the next slide, one of the most important things that will happen during the implementation is drawing the zones. They know lot of people probably have questions about what the zones will look like ahow they will be created. The board are not voting on the actual zones december. Instead, they are voting on a policy that includes guidelines for drawing the zones. Here are the guidelines that will be use to create the zones. First, is that diversity is important to us. We want each zone to reflect the diversity of the city across many characteristics, socioeconomics, English Proficiency. Zones should limit the number of schools so that the process is simple and easy and predictable for families. Zones should cover reasonable geographic distance. We know diversity is important we have to cover a reasonable geographic distance. Zones shouldnt travel all across the city. We want to send students closer to schools closer to home. We also know that San Franciscos demographics are rapidly changing. We cant just draw the zones one time and leave them unchanged. The recommendation calls for entire policy including the zones to be monitored and evaluated every year. If we find that the citys demographics have changed, the zones are no longer meeting their goals, then theyll be revised so they meet the criteria and meet the guidelines. With that, im going to turn it over to my colleague who will walk us through the next force n of this evening. Will have a chance to share questions, ideas and hopes and concerns. Hi, thank you henry. I appreciate you handing it over. I want to say that im very excited for this. Tonight were going to be using a platform bot exchange to gather input. Step one, is the shared step where you will share your thoughts independently and anonymously. Step two is the star step where you go there through and rate the thoughts of others. Step three is the discover step where well see whats most important to the group. In a moment, you will all be able to participate. I will put the qr code up on screen. Ill have a link and code that you can use to participate in case you dont have that availability. You dont need to download an app. You dont need to sign up for anything to participate. Once youre in the exchange, make sure you choose your language if you like to participate in from the dropdown, share one to two thoughts, rate at least 15 other thoughts and based on what you agree with and what you disagree with. Five strongly you agree, one being that you strongly disagree. We encourage you to use full range of stars that reflect what your priorities are. Remember, this is confidential, so your identity will not be known or associated with any of the thoughts that you share. Im going to switch it over. I will share one more thing, this event is being recorded for we leave thought Exchange Open. If you submit your questions and hopes, ideas and concerns, they will be read and they will be considered after the event. Right now, at home, you can use this to you can scan the qr code to joining the exchange in the question were asking, what questions do you have have proposed changes. If you dont scan the qr code, you can go to that website, pejoin. Com and enter this nine digit code that will tack you to thought exchange to answer that question. Remember this is totally anonymous. Youll be able to share your thoughts independently. While everybody does that, i will play some music. Were at about 2 minutes 13 seconds. Thats about half way. Im loving the participants. We have about 100 people participating right now. 35 thoughts shared and 117 rating. Thats great. Just reminder, once you share one to two thoughts, rate about 15 other people thoughts on that scale of five you strongly agree and one you strongly disagree anywhere in that full range depending on your priorities. This confidential. We wont be able to associate your identity with any of your thoughts and feel free to share. You got about 1 minute 30 seconds left before we move on to the next part. Okay. Awesome. That was about four minute of time. Were going to move on to the next step. Which is the discover phase. As you can see, right to the left we have a visualization of all of the participants, 112 participants inside of the thought exchange now. If you like to continue to participate, we are going to leave the thought Exchange Open and you can go to tejoin. Com and use that nine digit code to go through and continue to participate in this thought exchange. Now, we will have henry and carla reflect some of these thoughts. The first thought that we have here that we have, lot of people will parents be able to ask for reassignment within the zone if unhappy with the school . Thats a great question. Im going to invite my colleague, orlo to jump in if she like for this one. Thats a great question. The policy does not include the number rounds that are from different assignment rounds. I think thats something to be decided after the policy is approved. Do you want to elaborate . Im happy to. Our goal is to create a predictable, simple Student Assignment system. The more changes there are in the process and the more complicated it is, less simple it is. Were hopeful, we havent come to the level of detail. The feedback that we receive so far makes it more stressful for families and our goal is to make it as simple as possible. Thank you. This question has risen up to the top. Based off socioeconomic, racial, English Proficiency disability, is that also reported . Thats the sub text there was that, there were questions about the validity of the data, when try to game the system and misreport. Yes, at a certain sometimes everything is selfreported whether we use student level data or census data. We have to rely on people to report either their race, ethnicity, things like that. All of the data will be aggregated. No student will have no incentive to misreport their own individual data. It will be census data or sfusd administrative data. To add on to that, it will not be part of the application process. We will not be asking for any data like that at all. We want to know where you live and what your choices are in rank order. The census data is supported. Any data that exist, selfreported data. We will be pulling on that data and will not be asking for individual student data. Well be working on data thats readily available in the city to a variety of sources including the census data and sources like that. Thank you. This question is risen to the top. How will this affect the middle school enrollment. Were anticipating that when we draw the zones and we will need to revisit the elementary to middle school feeders. We anticipate fully that infrastructure will continue and that anyone whos currently enrolled in elementary, if there need to be changes to the middle school, students will not be impacted. They will be grandfathered in their middle school feeder. Thank you. I saw another question. Neighborhoods already are segregated, how are you going to ensure that this is going to work . Thats a great question. There are two parts to my answer. The first is that the zones cant just replicate an existing neighborhood pattern. We worked really extensively over the summer with the team of researchers at stanford to simulate some hypothetical zones. What we found if the zones are too small and just reflect existing neighborhoods then they dont help to create more diversity. Zones have to connect couple of different neighborhoods in order for them to be diverse. Second piece, we need diversity categories that i talked about. If we just draw diverse zone and we let everyone choose and match everyone with their highest rank choice without considering diversity categories. We find that choice pattern pate segregated and schools become segregated through the process. Thank you. It is 7 20. Would you like to move on to the next thought exchange . Theres one or two other things in here that might be worth responding to. I saw a few questions about siblings. Student who doesnt attend zone school in that zone. The answer is yes. Thats one of the tiebreakers well continue to support preference for younger children to be enrolled in and attending the same school as their older siblings. Siblings will be very limited number of students who maybe allowed. Others being foster youth, student experiencing homelessness. Then theres a question about what if children want to send what if parents want to send their children outside the zone. This is one of the major differences in this new system. Were moving from being able to choose any school in the district to limited number of schools. Under this proposal, families will be able to choose from the schools that are listen their zone. They will be the only schools theyll be able to choose. With the exception of the sibling if you got an older sibling at another school. Excellent. I wanted to share reminder that this thought exchange will be open, we will be looking at all of the responses not just the ones that we responded to after this townhall, we can get a full breadth of the information shared with us today. This meeting will be recorded and posted to the sfusd website and along with the link to the thought exchange. Which will remain open for the next few weeks. Right now i will switch over to the next thought exchange. In this thought exchange here, we are asking what are your hopes, ideas and concerns about this policy that will work for you and your community . I want to share that this is a new thought exchange. Youll have to go through and either scan the qr code again or scan the new qr or go to tejoin. Com and use that new nine didnt code to participate. This question has a couple of survey questions at the beginning of it. Please take your time. Well give you additional time to participate. Just reminder that the thought exchange has three steps. Were sharing our thoughts independently, anonymously, star step and step well be able to see whats important to the group and respond to that. Once you get into the exchange, please select the language you like to participate in. Share one to two thoughts and rate about 15 other people thoughts based on how much you agree, whether you strongly agree, five or one for stronging disagree and once again, encourage you to use the full range of stars while participating. While people are logging in to participate, i will go back to playing some music. While people are logging in, i want to appreciate all the Great Questions that surfaced. Acknowledged that we did it have time to answer them all tonight. We fully intend to turn this into an faq which we will send out. We will make every effort to respond to all the questions that were surfaced. Were at 1 minute 32 seconds. Please feel free to share those final thoughts and rating. Well discuss a few and go over them. Please continue to share your thoughts. We appreciate this and answer those survey questions so we know how to further engage you on these subjects. I want to bring us back. We have about 81 people participating and 79 thoughts shared and almost 1000 rating. Lets dive into some of these hopes, ideas, concerns about what this policy will bring for you and your community. The thought thats been ranked the highest is i hope that all citywide language programs will remain citywide access and equity for all students to learn a world language. Henry or ola if you like to comment on these as they come up. Sure, i see a theme with couple of of them. First and third, which is around access and equity. Looks like families concerned schools in the zone will not offer same access to programs, whether its after school, language, etcetera. Theres another commenter noted that they are worried that the best schools will remain in wealthier neighborhoods and other families wont have access to healthier schools. We hear that, we know that how we draw the zones will be incredibly important. This has to be open and transparent process that involves Community Members. Should we scroll through and read out a few more . Absolutely. You covered those two big topics of equity and transparency. Lets see what else has been bubbling up. Henry, i heard you speak about this before, about providing high quality education to all students across the city. Can you speak to how this might tie into that . I can address it. I think that quality schools are far more important. Its regardless of student assigned to a system. This is a massive concern for us. While Student Assignment wont create quality schools and we do believe that it has a role to play in helping create diverse and robust enrollment. Which we think is, really important to our goals and our vision at the district. Regardless of which student system we use, this question is something that must be addressed on a daily basis. I dont know henry, if you want to add anything to that. I think thats perfect. I couldnt agree more. I see lot of the thoughts and concerns are about quality. We definitely heard that and definitely understand that quality schools are the most important thing. To be respectful of everyones time. Were couple of minutes over. Maybe we can transition back to the slides and wrap up this evenings meeting. I want to remind everyone that the thought exchange is going to be left open. You can participate after the fact, maybe if it was difficult to get it up and working right now. Were going to leave it open and were going to revisiting this and reviewing and incorporating any feedback that we hear. With that, i want to thank everyone so much for coming tonight. Folks can stay up to date if folks are interested in following this process. You can visit sfusd. Edu studentassignment. Were posting all our resources related to the development of this new policy on that web page. With that, i want to thank everyone once again and wish everyone a good evening. Thank you, there are some watch parties that are posted on the web if folks want to join and give more feedback