Transcripts For SFGTV BOS Joint City School District And City College Committee 20240711

Health emergency, the board of supervisors legislative chamber and room are closed. Members will be participating in the meeting reportedly. This is taken pure pursuant to the state and local directives. Members will participate in the committee as in the same extent as physically present. Depending on your provider, cable channel 26 or 78 or 99 or sfgov. Org are streaming the call in number across the screen. Each speaker will be allowed 2 minutes to speak. You can call the number 4156550001, access code 1464148285. Press pound and pound after you enter the meeting i. D. When connected you will hear the meeting discussions and you will be muted in listening mode only. When your item of interest comes up, dial star and 3 to be added to the speaker line. Best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak clearly and slowly and turn down your television or radio. Alternatively you may submit Public Comment in either of the following ways. Email myself at erica. Major sfgov. Org if you submit Public Comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors. Written comments can be sent to cit city hall. Mr. Chair. Youre on mute. Thank you madam clerk. Will you please call the roll . Yes, supervisor haney. Present. Supervisor fewer. Present. Commissioner moliga, moliga not present. Commissioner collins. Im present. Sorry, i apologize. Moliga present. Commissioner collins. Present. Trustee randolph. Present. Trustee williams, williamses not present. Trustee selby. Selby not present. You have corium. Were also joined by supervisor lopez and supervisor ronen. Are there changes to the agenda . There are no changes to the agenda. Thank you madam clerk. Will you please call the first item. Hearing of the impacts of covid19 on San Francisco quiet fied School District and city college of San Francisco. For those wishing to provide Public Comment should call the number streaming on your screen, 4156550001, access code 1464148285. Press star 3 to line up to speak. The system prompt will indicate that you raised your hand. Wait until you have been unmuted when we get to Public Comment. Mr. Chair. Thank you madam clerk. Since today we are hearing what has been a standing item for us, for the last number of meetings, and it is an item that i think weve been able to focus on, especially at the last few meetings specifically on sfusd and how our city departments and our partners can support sfusd so they can be in a place to support our students and families during this very challenging time. We are going to continue with that conversation today and i want to just before i provide a brief opening in terms of what we are going to be discussing today, i do want to acknowledge and thank all of the hard work that has been done by our respective boards, the sfusd board of education, the city College Trustees and all of the staff who i know are working so hard during this time. Its an unprecedented moment for our city, for our schools, for our kids, and i really appreciate the way in which everyone is stepping up and of course our supervisors and city staff as well. I mean as you all know, covid19 has seen a dangerous spike all across the country and even here in San Francisco where we have in many ways led the nation in our response. We are seeing a rapid increase in cases across populations. In response, the city is taking a step back from their progress in reopening and rolling back the schedule of Indoor Dining and pausing the implementation of inperson learning at our high schools. Obviously these trends in the resurgence of the virus is disturbing and they outline the importance of having adequate safety protocols in place and open and swift communication in partnership between our schools and city government. Today were going to hear two important presentations from both the department of Public Health and the San Francisco unified School District. They will present on the Current Situation in regards to the rising number of covid cases and the current prevention and mitigation efforts planned and recommended for schools. During the last joint select committee, the board of supervisors and all of us on this Committee Really wanted to focus on how our city departments and the board of supervisors, the mayor, all of us can come together for our schools and kids at this time. The district said theyre securing on a testing contract and has worked directly with the city and received support by deploying 20dfw employees to conduct Site Assessments at their facilities. Also, the board of education introduced a resolution requesting staff to provide a clear timeline for pre k through 12 reopening and the resolution will be voted on in a special meeting next tuesday. Today the staff will be presenting on their progress on phase two of reopening and preliminary list of asks of the city and well be able to provide a more detailed list of needs in the coming weeks to align with the boards resolution. I also wanted to acknowledge that this is the first meeting we have had since the election. I want to congratulate the folks who were elected and reelected on the respective boards. We are looking forward to working with all of you and also to acknowledge that we are going to have a change in administration in washington and we hope that we get more help. We hope we get more resources, more support, more guidance. As much as we said here over and over again that the School District or city college cant do this on their own without support from the city, we as the city also cannot do this on our own together without more support from the federal and State Governments. So im sure moving forward in the future, in the new year, well have more conversations on the way which the federal and State Government are stepping up more to be key partners for us in these efforts on how to best serve our student in these challenging times. As always, we welcome our staff and our educators to participate in this conversation. I believe we have representatives today both from the united educators of San Francisco and local 21. I am going to invite them after the sfusd presentation to speak as well. So, with that, before we jump into presentations, do any of my colleagues, fellow Committee Members have any opening remarks you want to share . Seeing none, we will jump in first as i mentioned, were only going to hear from d. P. H. And sfusd. We are not going to hear a presentation from city college today and dcyf is here and available for questions and answers but are not going to be presenting. So, d. P. H. , i believe we will turn it to you all. Will you state your name and i believe you have a powerpoint. Good morning supervisors and Board Members. Im going to ask dr. Bova to speak first and then im happy to present this presentation. Good morning supervisors and members. So in terms of what supervisor haney was referencing, the city of San Francisco is seeing increased cases. This is a trend were seeing throughout the nation. We monitored this data very carefully and we saw this trend pretty clearly over the weekend and wanted to implement and work fast because we know that covid has an exponential growth rate so we wanted mitigation factors in place to prevent further increasing. Part of that included pausing on our high schools. We wanted to make it clear that were committed to keeping education open and we know specifically in Elementary Schools and in younger children, the risk of transmission is fairly low. Elementary and middle school will continue to proceed as planned. If there are other schools in those categories that warrant t continue to reopen, we will definitely support that reopening. For high schools, we know that High Schoolers can transmit like adults, so we want to be careful in terms of reopening to make sure those cases or that were not seeing cases in the high school realm. So were going to follow the high schools that are open very closely to ensure that they are opening in a safe manner. Really, if all of the prevention methods that we recommend are utilized, there should be no issues with high schools being able to stay open. Just getting the rapid resurgence of cases, we wanted to do this in a thoughtful and careful manner. Were 100 behind the educational system, reopening and doing it safely and ill turn it over to ana to talk about how were doing that as a department and city. I think youre on mute. Sorry, thank you. If the clerk would be so inclined to bring up the slide deck because i have challenges sharing on my computer. Sorry. Thank you. So were here to present the what the covid command has prepared for School Reopenings in terms of preventions and mitigations. Next slide please. Next slide please. So, in terms of prevention, we have a schools and child care hub in a covid command and im the team lead for that hub. We have three main goals for our hub, which is to support the reopening for schools on Ongoing Operations and for pre k to 12th grade. Ill get into the details of what all of that looks like in a minute. Were the group that receives all the School Reopening applications, reviewing that and monitoring complaints. We also provide Community Support. We have many meetings with all of the different stakeholders and the educational community, hearing their concerns and making sure its reflected in the directives and the guidance that we develop. We also respond often to any emails or phone calls that we receive from the community and we hold regular meetings with our educational partners. Then lastly, we are the first point of contact in covid command when there is an exposure or confirmed case. We work with schools, as well as other programs in education or that serve youths on what to do when there is a positive case or an exposure, including collecting close contacts and what the school needs to do in terms of their site. Next slide please. So, as this with all other industry sectors, covid command has developed a demand and guidance for all schools and highlighting the possible ways to reopen, including all the prevention and mitigation measures. Some of our measures are school specifics and some of them are universal to all sectors. So, for schools we require a Daily Symptom screening for all students and staff. We do not require Temperature Checks on site. We allow the schools to determine that on site just because temperatures are not the only symptom that is present in covid, but yet often etc. Specialingly for younger children they may not present a temperature in the drop off or pick up. We ask schools to set up a screening symptom check that parents and families and caregivers can do at home or very quickly on site. We also require small stable cohorting, and this is essential to containing the virus in the event of an exposure so it doesnt impact an entire grade but just a small cohort and limiting the amount of entrances and movement within the school and staff training and family education, what are the triggers for Distance Learning at a base minimum allowing Distance Learning to those with underlying medical conditions or if a cohort has to go into quarantine and then obviously School Communication plans for the staff and the Parent Caregiver community. Then we have recommendations that are universal that we have seen in other sectors as well, including cleaning, disinfection and ventilation. Of course primary for recommendations being face coverings and any other protective p. P. E. , physical distancing, heavy hygiene practices of washing your hands or Hand Sanitizer and allowing for testing of student and staff, which we explained in our last meeting in the Case Investigation and contact tracing. Next slide please. So in order to prevent covid19 and the mitigation of this, we will have to go from the picture on the left, which is the traditional picture of a high school, of which we all might remember from our days and we will have to go to the picture on the right in order to reduce the spread of covid19. Next slide please. This is an overview of the application process for School Reopening. I will walk through this very quickly so everyone understands that its a pretty robust process that we go through when were evaluating a school for the reopening, so a school will first submit a letter of interest to covid command and to our hub. Then we will kick off the process and send all the application materials to the school. Then they will complete the application and send it back to us. Then we have a colleague that will screen the application and make sure that its complete. Often it is not, so it takes a couple of days for us to work with the school to make sure we have all of the appropriate materials and once the application is complete, we kick off a three pronged review, one is the desk review of the application. We will have people review the application. We have a facilities worksheet that we have our technical experts review, which review the cleaning and disinfection protocols, including the products that are being reviewed, the exact measures on ventilation and also Water Systems and making sure that they are flushed because many of these buildings may be empty for a long period of time and we dont want any Waterborne Diseases at a school site. So once all of those three also we have our inperson Site Assessment that we do on site to make sure that the school is actually implementing the prevention measures that we have put in our directive and guidance. Once all three of those are complete, we create a composite score and decision is made. So if the School Scores under 80 , it is considered not compliant with our directive and our guidance. That means there are serious issues our team has identified and the school needs to mitigate before they are permitted to move forward with reopening. If a School Scores between 80 to 89 percent, they are considered adequately compliant. We found some concerns, but it is not enough to prevent reopening. Its usually related to signage in the schools and we allow the school to reopen, but they need to send a corrective action plan to d. P. H. To show how they addressed these concerns. If the School Scores above 90 , they are considered fully compliant. They are allowed to open and there is no action that is needed other than participating in a regular session and staying in close contact. Next slide please. This is a picture of our public facing dashboard where everyone can see the progress of all of the schools that have submitted a letter of interest to our hub. This is a bit outdated, but we are moving through these list of schools and supporting them in reopening as much as possible. Its important to stress that this is really about supporting the schools as much as possible. We have made this very clear to schools. This is not trying to find out whats wrong. We really do want to support the Education Field in making sure that it is as safe to open as possible. Next slide please. There are two categories of monitoring that our hub also conducts while its one stage prior to approval and one stage is after approval. So first we have prior to approval, if we received a complaint or identified concern in the process and the School Scores under 80 , they need to address a number of their the issues that are identified before we will permit reopening. There have been a hand full of schools that have been in this category. Im proud to say we worked with those schools to convert a lot of those issues and have permitted reopening as a result. Moving on to section number two, systemic issues, we have received numerous complaints. Theres been Health Violations in the application. There have been issues identified in the application. We do an indepth review of these schools and we do repeated Site Assessments until we see that the issues are resolved and the schools are not allowed to reopen until they reach 80 or above. Then moving on to stage three where there is no confidence in the school, but there are significant safety issues that are identified after at least three on site visits and the school is not permitted to reopen and they must wait 14 days. Im proud to say we never reached that stage to date. Next slide please. After reopening, we also continue to monitor the schools. We partnered with the City Attorneys Office and these are prompted by complaints. So if we get a complaint either to d. P. H. Or to the 13 Community Education Response Teams and the City Attorneys Office or through 311, we received that complaint. We will follow up with the school. We review and assist with education and compliance if its needed. However, if we continue to get complaints, the team will go back and this is usually conducted by the cert team to move on to stage two, where there is a notice of violation, where there are documents to comply with all of the violations that were identified and that the 13 has to identify all of that, what are the remedial actions and what time the school needs to address that. If there are continued further complaints, then we instruct the school to stop in person classes and they are temporarily banned and they must submit a written plan for improved compliance and if there are continued complaints after that or not documented compliance with that, we move into stage four, which is approval for inperson instruction and they must wait at least 14 days just to go through the application process again, which usually takes possibly two to three weeks, so that a school will be closed possibly a month before theyre allowed to reopen. I believe that is my last slide. We are open for any questions. Thank you, i see a couple of folks. Supervisor ronen. Yes, thank you, i appreciate the presentation. I am just going to make a couple of comments that arent directed at d. P. H. Or anyone in particular, but just to express an overall frustration with the situation. In france and england right now, the entire society is shut down, except for the School System because they recognize that it is the most important part of society that needs to be open. It kills me that hundreds of private schools with very privileged children in San Francisco continue to get a top quality inperson education while our Public Schools are closed. There are a million reasons for that, that are no ones particular fault, but to me, an indication of a societal break down and an indication that we have our priorities wrong in the United States and in the state of california and in the city and county of San Francisco. This is also why our schools or public School Systems are chronically underfunded and chronically under staffed its just an absolute shame to me that californians didnt realize this in past prop 15 because of the corporate money that went into tricking californians about the law. So, that again, i just had to express that out loud. Its not directed at anyone in particular, but it explains why working so hard on this issue, although im not on this committee and i joined it voluntarily, and just trying to level the Playing Field in any way i can with our public School System. Now having said that, i just have to get it off my chest. I do have a couple of questions for d. P. H. The first one is, i think for dr. Bava. As i have been studying childrens capacity or likelihood of catching covid and then transferring it to each other and adults, what i have found is that after Research Goes from, you know, 0 to 10yearolds and then it goes from 11 to 18yearolds, that there is very Little Information about that 11 to you know, that middle school year. So, when i have been working on and trying to get our Public Schools open, i have been mostly focused on Elementary Schools because thats where i know that it is much safer for the children and adults to reopen. I dont know if thats true with middle school, but the risk of transmission in middle school is low. Can you explain how you got to that that that of the situation . I havent been able to find that. The transmission is low in children, so as you said, as children age, the risk of transmission gets higher. There is not a cut off saying that at this age, youre at this risk and at this age, youre at low risk. Its this gradual path. So we have to make determinatiodeterminatio determinations based on that. So it increases as you go through middle school and when you are in high school, its like transmission that we see in adulthood. So based on that, there are definitely interventions, Public Health interventions that can prevent the transmission through all of those ranges, and thats what were focused on. So based on the literature and what we heard from the school experts, many academics in the field are here in San Francisco. They really do think that with the right Public Health intervention, you can open schools safely. Middle schools and high schools . Elementary schools and middle schools and they believe high schools but it has to be done carefully with a lot of effort and review of how its going. What we seen in high schools where there has been outbreaks, and this happened in georgia, and other parts of the country, the fact that people arent masking. People arent staying socially distant. So its all of the things we recommend as prevention methods. So thats where you get these large outbreaks. Generally throughout the world is when those things are adhered to. Schools can reopen safely. Okay, because i mean, i had a you know, i had the opportunity to meet with dr. Naomi and im thinking about her last name, from ucfs and she gave me her presentation explaining the physiological reasons why children that are under 10 dont tend to pass it to each other or adults. That made a lot of sense, but its really concerning to me that there isnt that same concrete data for middle and high school. So thats why ive been concentrating around middle and high schools. Its not that they dont need to come back to school but im wondering if that was safe. I was wondering if you can give us an update at the next joint select committee, focused on those older kids and what the Research Says because i havent yet been convinced that its safe, whether its because of the developmental stage that comply with social distancing and mask wearing because theyre teenagers or you know, other measures. I would really love if you could drill down on that population because i havent seen as much evidence of the safety there. That would be great, thank you. Then in terms of the ongoing monitoring of the school, is that only complaint driven . Is there no proactive ongoing monitoring . I can handle that question. The issue is, is that because theyre inperson and they have brought back their staff and their students. We dont want to have regular site visits. One of our recommendations is that we limit the amount of visitors, and even parents and caregivers arent allowed to be on school sites. We either meet with them regularly. We set up biweekly meetings with all of the different kinds of schools and its complaint driven and of course as we get notifications of a complaint or notification, were in Constant Contact with a lot of these schools. That is the method that were using. Okay. And then is there does d. P. H. Require certain testing, like regular testing in order to be open at school . We require that staff be tested on a regular basis. This is per the state guidance. What is that . What is the minimum requirement . The minimum requirement is that there needs to be all teachers and staff need to be universally tested before they come back to school. Ideal ideally between 7 to 14 days prior to the start of inperson instruction and then 100 of the staff needs to be tested in the course of two months and it could be at a cadence of 25 of the staff every two weeks or 50 of the staff every month. Thats the school directive. And theres no requirement of testing of the students . There is no requirement for testing of students. Okay. Thank you. Those are my questions. Supervisor fewer. Yes, thank you very much. So thanks for the presentation. S i have a couple of questions. So, with all these schools opening, are we collecting and sharing data . The schools that are open, do we require them to submit data about positive tests of any outbreaks of those types of things . Yes, the school must notify us within an hour of any positive test so we can work with them immediately. I will say that a lot of these schools are being proactive, even if they find out there is a potential exposure of a family member, they contact us immediately on what steps need to be done. Theyre also required to keep testing logs on site to monitor all of the results, whether theyre positive or negative or inconclusive and making sure that the staff is tested on a regular cadence. Got it. And then how many schools are open, citywide . Approved open or physically actually open . How many are physically actively open . When we approve a school to open, they are to contact us with their opening date. I dont have the latest numbers for that, but i can get that to you. We have approximately 90 schools approved to open at this time. 90 schools approved. Okay. Where is sfusd in this process . At this moment in time, we have not received a letter of interest from the School District. That is the first step of the process. Okay. So, i think then that my next question would be to sfusd, at another fyi, when do you plan to submit the application . It seems that from submitting the application to being approved is three to four weeks for one school. I was wondering if sfusd needs to apply as a School District or do they apply individually at school sites . It seems as if the process is on the physical site, so would sfusd need to put an application in for each individual site theyre planning to open or can they apply as a district . A School District can submit a letter of interest on behalf of all of the schools in the School District and then they must submit an application per school site. That highlights all and that is a similar parallel of what the Catholic Schools have done because they are a School District and they have submitted Site Specific applications and gone through Site Specific site visits. So when sfusd develops a plan, they will look is sequentially what schools to open first. If you look at pre k through three or two opening, you put those in the hopper first so they can get cleared so you can go to the next cohort. Would you agree with that . That would be a great way of approaching that. Also supervisor fewer, 93 schools have been approved to open and 80 of them are actually physically open. Can you tell me whether or not these are k8 schools or high schools and can you tell me the number of k5, k8, or high schools . Of the 80, the vast majority are k8 schools. There are only 10 to 11 high schools open for inperson instruction at this point in time. Got it. So, if a school has a positive test, what is the process once there is a positive test at the school . So one of the staff tests positive, what is the protocol then of what would happen and what is the process . Assuming that the staff person is a teacher, the whole cohort will have to close and quarantine for 14 days, including the staff and all of the students in that cohort. The school would need to do a cleaning and disinfection and any other mitigation efforts we identified based on the Site Specifics. If it is a staff person that is in an admin role, we would go casebycase and make recommendations based on that. So if it was a teacher in a specific class roomerooclassroo quarantine the teacher and the class for 14 days. Yes. So that was the disruption there. Okay, and then that is why we require Distance Learning and that would be a trigger to Distance Learning so we could continue education as much as we can. So when they flupg wait back and forth, considering if we get a positive test, then at least we do have something actually that we can turn to Distance Learning. Okay, so i wanted to ask what happens if its a student . Yeah, what happens if its a student that tests positive . Its the same. The whole cohort would have to go into quarantine. So are you requiring also then when because it seems as though youre doing an isolation by cohorts that for example shared spaces in a school building. So, bathrooms, cafetericafeterie types of things. What are you requiring for schools, for the public bathrooms that everybody uses . Do they just do it through one cohort at a time . How do we make sure these areas are sanitized in a proper manner because so many children are using the bathrooms on the first floor. So can you tell me about that protocol . We ask all of the schools to establish a maximum occupancy of shared spaces such as bathrooms and that based on physical distancing requirements and we ask for the School Administrators and the staff to implement a staggered process where the cohorts would be using that space, so that would limit the amount of mixing as much as possible. Are we requiring at all for parents or caregivers to sign any type of letter saying that if they were to test positive or someone in their household were to test positive, they must notify the school immediately or are we not requiring that . In our schools directive, we require all schools to ask the parents and caregivers to sign a risk acknowledgment form and all of the language that is in that directive is publicly available to all schools. This is the same with child care and summer camp and all of our out of school time, including the Community Hubs. I would need to go back but i dont know the exact language in there. In general, we do ask the schools to make it a requirement that everyone notifies the school as much as possible and the school needs to notify us as soon as possible so we can act as quickly as possible. The risk of assessment, when a parent signs that, its a risk that your child is participating in. Just to make a personal xhimth to notify the school immediately if there is a positive test within their household. I think i didnt know the requirement again, i dont have the authority to do that as the board of education and Public Health, im just thinking that in a private school setting, it is different than a Public School setting and that you are dealing with a different demographic of folks and Living Conditions and also i think the language barrier and there is a lot of miscommunication, so i think that we also dont do things well for our people who are not English Speakers or english readers. We look at social media, and we think theyre going to get it, so this is the type of thing were wondering about what type of sort of combined, with the city and county of San Francisco and sfusd messaging that needs to go out before we were open to school. Its not so much a risk assessment, but a personal responsibility for everyone to make sure their schools remain open, seeing that if there was one child that tests positive in that cohort, like the whole classroom would need to be shut down for 14 days. I mean this is really disruptive and if you can prevent it as much as possible, thats a pretty smart thing to do. And if i may, i will say that we do i mean the schools have been actually extremely proactive in contacting us. Even if someone has a symptom and there is not even a case for an exposure, all of them are very worried and we have Spanish Speaking staff on our hub, ca cant cantonese and mandarin, and we have been doing with the daycares as well, responding as quickly as we can. I do feel like the schools have been very proactive in reaching out. I think thats good news, but i also want to emphasize that when you open to Public Schools, youre opening it up for children. Youre not looking at a school with a couple hundred kids, i mean this is a system, with 53,000 children. So i think there is a different messaging that needs to go out in a different vehicle in which we actively present it to the public and i think Vice President lopez had something to say. Thats right, thank you supervisor fewer. I did want to add that in our planning, part of the messaging that will go out is this Community Pledge that we are giving to our students and our families in order to like understanding that if were opening schools, part of our work in this world will mean going to school and going home and being honest of our ways of navigating if we want to keep each other safe because were traveling to and from every single day. I know there is a Community Pledge that is being administered. Thank you for that. We actually require that in our application, that there is a Community Pledge for the School Community to reinforce all of this because it matters what a family does outside of the school as much as what they do inside the school. Yeah, because we dont want to just keep our students safe, we want to keep our teachers safe too. So to risk the amount of exposure. And i wanted to ask, so we talked about these d. S. W. S to do sort of look at school sites, right and do an assessment for school sites. So, i actually think that we should be looking at our public sites. So im going to give you an example. So jefferson Elementary School, right next door to the library. So if we can only accommodate so many students in the classroom, say ten and we need to expand our space to have students and i dont know what sfusd is planning, i dont know if its a split day that you can have 10 students here and 10 students here or the teacher moves over, but i think we need to do an assessment of all of our public spaces that could be used as in partnership with our school sites. We have many Elementary Schools in my district that are within walking distance to a rec center or library that we could be using if we need to expand our space. I saw that classroom where my kids went to Public School and i went to Public School, and i never seen a Public School like that. Its packed and who wants to be in any middle of high school during passing period . It is so crowded and thats my thing about middle schools. I understand that k5 in our district is contained and in private schools, i think k8 is a different animal than in our Public Schools. Our Public Schools have the children, the students go to six different classes. They are going through different classes with different students throughout the day, changing classrooms, using different bathrooms. So it is not like a contained classroom. Some private schools, k8, even their 68 classes are in one classroom. Our middle schools are very different so i am just wondering if there is a different protocol or has Public Health looked at other districts that have a similar sort of make up or what we model of what we do here at sfusd that has opened and opened successfully. I know other districts have opened their Public Schools. I guess my question, because i am probably not being concise enough, is that have you seen any other Public Schools that have a middle school cafetercafeteria, that has done it and what protocols they put in place [inaudible] can someone put your microphone on mute . Okay. I believe there were two main points. One is that the point of the Site Assessments. I want to highlight that our team that has been activated is sorry. Is starting to work with the School District starting monday to conduct Site Assessments with them, so we have our whole team being assigned this coming monday to do the side assessment for the School District. Okay, sorry. I just wanted to say that and im sorry to interrupt you. In the beginning i sort of asked you about should we be doing sort of a sequential if you look at sites sequentially, so if youre sending d. S. W. S out to look at sites, how do you know they will be in the application youre submitting first . Are you just doing it yourself . Are is sfusd giving you a plan saying we plan to open these schools first. So actually what youre telling me in the application process is that they must apply for every school that needs to be open. They actually need to do a site visit in a singular application to each site. So if theyre opening pre k2 for example, wouldnt it be smart to say, to ask sfusd what is your plan . What schools are you planning to open first . Youre not planning to open Lincoln High School first. Do we need to do an assessment for Caesar Chavez or Marshall Elementary School . This irritates me. So we can send d. S. W. S out to sites, but unless to be more efficient and more effective, we should see sfusds plans to open, where they plan to open first, do those Site Assessments first so we can get them in the hopper because it takes a month before you can get it approved. So why are we sending d. S. W. S my question is are we sending d. S. W. Workers out in some sort of systemic way or are we just sending them out [inaudible] so what direction are we taking . What is the plan . So when i hear this, it drives me crazy. [inaudible] submitting the application and when we can [inaudible] also, i think we should look at what kind of modifications do those sites need and if the School District need help to do those modifications to keep it safe . So we are working in partnership with the School District. They have identified a list of schools that we are going to visit next week. They are all Elementary Schools. Working with them on supporting the whole application process and identifying all of the issues that are on the facilities in partnership with the School District staff. And then i wanted to ask you, so the d. S. W. S that are doing this, is it possible what we heard last time from the testing is that they needed people, actually physical people to do the test collections at the school sites and they said we may not have the staff to do that. Will the mayor allow the d. S. W. S to work in the schools to do the test collections . Apparently there is not enough staff at sfusd to do that. Would they be willing to get the staff to go to the school sites to do that . My understanding is that the city and mayor are looking for ways to support the School District in that as well. Okay, thank you very much. Sorry for the bombarding of questions. Thank you. Just to add to that, and director sue i believe is on the call. Dcyf is on the conversation on how to support the testing collection. Okay. Commissioner collins. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I really appreciate it. I guess so i had some specific questions. As far as the site reviews, when it comes to physical distancing, are there i know that you have specific requirements about how youre defining what the physical distancing requirements are. Are those available for us to review . Because i havent specifically seen them. I know they have been changing as well, since the summer and now theres been changes. Is there a way that we can review what those physical distancing requirements are . All of the requirements that we have in our Site Assessments are literally taken from our published directive and guidance. So whatever is published in our guidance is in our Site Assessment tool. So is it 6 feet then for students, 6 foot social distancing with masks as far as classrooms . The guidance from the state is that staff work areas need to be 6 feet apart and student work areas need to be 6 feet apart when feasible. That was the language in the directive. What is feasible . What is the requirement . Like when you think of partitions and you know, im a teacher, right . Im imagining my classroom and i am just wondering a lot of teachers have group work desks, so im wondering, you know, i heard that private schools, some of them gone out and bought a whole bunch of individual desks. You know, they set it up. I know that its not something that we necessarily can do, even if we had the money. There is time to get desks, so im wondering what are the requirements . Some teachers have individual desks and they can socially distant them. Some with group desks, what is the requirement for that, in that instance . We have seen a number of the schools add additional partitions such as plexi glass barriers in order to provide an extra level of protective measure, but we do require the teachers work areas to be 6 feet apart from each other because we do know that transmission is were just trying to be as protective of the staff as the students, and the virus infects adults more than younger children. So we do require them to be 6 feet apart. So with or without partitions for staff, but for students, it may be closer than 6 feet with partitions . Yes, the more layers that a school wants to add, the better. So if it was 6 feet apart and partitions, that would be even better. That would be ideal. And then ive been following theres an epidemiologist in new york, hes been posting videos and talking about ventilation and air flow. What were seeing, the air flow is really important. What are your requirements for ventilation for classrooms . We ask all sectors to consider and comply with our ventilation guidance, which we have just reviewed and revamped significantly. It has many different sections in there, including fresh air intake, mechanical ventilation, i dont know all of them off the top of my head right now, but they need to consider that ventlation guidance, which is provided by the state. I know its not just about having a window that you can crack open. Its about air flow through that and depending on because air can sit in the room, its about refreshing the air, right . I saw a video from the World Health Organization saying they recommend that the air should be replaced in a room six times per hour. So that would be and i saw a video of this epidemiologist showing researchers in gentleja that are creating visual representations of the air flow from micro particles, when you have two windows are open, the goal is not just to open the window or door but to clear the air out at a certain rate. So im wondering if were monitoring that and how were monitoring that in individual classrooms, when were doing these classroom checks. So our in San Francisco, our basic recommendation is that there needs to be four changes per hour. So its lower than the World Health Organization then . Im not clear on the World Health Organization, but this is what we published in San Francisco. Just to clarify, is that based on state recommendations . No, this is what weve done internally, but were told that the state is considering this to be adopted for the state. Thats why i wanted to acknowledge that these things are evolving right . Were coming up with recommendations as we get more science and as were learning as more people implement it across the state. Just to restate, it sounds to me that the World Health Organization is recommending six times an hour, you are recommending potentially four times per hour, and that is in a sense that maybe youre ahead of the state in finalizing clear guidance on air refresh rates in ventilated areas. Yes, including hvac systems, outside air, portable air cleaners, passive ventilations and recirculated air. Yeah, and i heard from the department, the facility chief that in some ways, we are at a disadvantage in San Francisco because we have cooler climates so places like san diego or places that need air conditioning already have buildings with hvac systems and in some ways were at a disadvantage because we dont have those systems. So we dont tend to have air Conditioning Systems in a lot of our high schools. Thats one way we move air and others is heat. Thats how we move air through a building. So i wonder what are your recommendations for improving air flow in classrooms that dont have robust hvac systems . How do we remediate that . How do we fix that . What are some things that schools are putting in place to fix the fact that maybe they dont have air flow . Some of the measures that we require is to have the air, the filters changed and the hvac system to improve the rating. But lets say there is no air flow thats mechanical in my classroom. We have windows. A lot of our schools are like this. What are some of the ways that youre recommending that either we or other schools remediate a lack of a real hvac system that moves the air. Actually, our primary recommendation is to open windows. Thats the maximum amount of fresh air we can get. We live in a climate that is not as cold as other places in the United States. Even keeping the windows open as much as possible and including some fans in the windows would be would be our recommendation. In our ventilation guidance, we have a flowchart on ways a school site will assess what the ventilation measures they can take based on the actual site itself and whats happening. I think that depends on all of the different sites in the School District. Okay, so is there a way to measure air flow in a room that doesnt have a ventilation system . I might i will admit, i am not a ventilation expert. What i have been told by our subject Matter Experts is to bring in Carbon Monoxide detectors, which are actually on the relatively cheap side that can assess the air flow. Okay, so for me, im an educator. I want to be safe, right . If we need to buy fans and place them in a way that were creating, you know, a refresh rate and youre recommending a refresh rate of four times per hour, which i would still want to go with a for conservative estimate of what the World Health Organization is recommending, but either way, even if its four times an hour, i quantity want to be able to measure to make sure thats happening and i think that will help make parents and educators feel safe that, that is happening. It may not be your agency but how we can find out how to measure that in the classrooms that were seeing ois acceptabl. Carbon monoxide monitors would be able to measure that in a classroom. So, is that a part of us monitoring classrooms right now when were going to classrooms . Are we using them . We are not going to classrooms to measure that because that would be visitors coming inside, but we could recommend or the School District could take a recommendation to take Carbon Monoxide detectors into the classroom to measure the air flow. Okay, thank you, i appreciate that. Then i guess, as far as family communication, im assuming thats us doing that with your advice, is that correct . As far as its on the agency to figure out how we communicate with families based on your guidance. Yes, we have published guidance that includes templates for communication, for schools including a general advisory of close contacts advisory, and if you would prefer to rewind back to the topic of ventilation, we could bring our subject Matter Experts to discuss that at the next meeting, if you prefer. Okay, i would like that. I think it would really help our staff because we know thats a big concern for staff. I guess, you know, just another i think i have a lot of questions. Im one of seven, but i also know the public depending how detailed people want to get, i know the department of Public Health, its in one of your slides, you said you were available to answer questions for the public and im wondering if it would be possible for either you to come to a committee of the whole meeting for the board to specifically, for us to drill on any and every question. These are questions you may be answering with specific staff members, but you know, were not in all those individual meetings and i think parents and i think that you know, teachers, educators might want to ask these very specific questions and it would be great to be able to have all of these documents that youre referencing, like ventlation and social distancing in one place and then be able to have a meeting where people can just ask, you know, its like a questions about the Safety Measures that youre requiring and also the steps that you guys take separate to what we do. I think for the public there is confusion around as an agency, its our job to do a certain thing and you have a separate role in supporting that. So for folks to ask directly of you those questions that our staff cant answer. So is that something that you would be open to doing . Of course. Yeah. Thank you. Vice president lopez. Hi, thank you. Thank you for the presentation and its been reassuring to hear a lot of the information you shared and knowing that the School District has been working on much of the same things. So, i am excited to keep moving this forward with the understanding that there are a lot of questions, a lot of things we are putting people at risk and the reality of many families maybe not wanting to return. So i think before we continue these conversations, we really need to get a clear idea of who were working with, who wants to return, including staff. Thats part of why we are moving this resolution forward, just to get clarity around this information, being more specific with numbers. I do have questions regarding testing, in particular with students. I know that its not something that were moving forward, but should one test positive, is there a plan to support the cohort of students within that group in order to see if they are also positive and how can d. P. H. Help with that . When there is a positive case in a cohort, one of the first remittcommendations is that evee in the cohort immediately get tested. They are either not to go to the school site because we do not want there to be further exposure, they can go to their primary care provider or come to one of our testing sites for testing as quickly as possible. So well make it clear where those sites are and not assume that our families have a primary care provider and if you could share with us where these testing locations are, how frequent they are, all of that information needs to be very clear going in, in case this happens. Im excited its all publicly available and we can make that clear. Yeah, it should be because i vfrnt seen it. Im pretty active on getting information. So i would imagine that its not easier for families, even if its public. So i also had a question around the cohort size because i have been hearing different numbers. So would you can you share what were working with when were talking about inperson learning . How many students would be in one classroom with a teacher present . Per the state guidance, there is no number that is published as a maximum or minimum for the cohort size. The state allows schools to determine the cohort size as much as possible with the recommendation that they be as small as they can be. Theres no actual number. Do i know why that is . I believe that it is because there is so much variety between all the school sites in california that its allowing the schools a little bit of flexibility in determining the cohort size. Okay, but it doesnt add anymore risk if there are a larger number of students in one space . I would assume that it does. I would want to be careful. I think that what needs to be stressed is that its not just about cohort size. Its about all the prevention measures being used, all as much as possible, all at the same time. So establishing as small of a cohort size as much as possible, on top of physical distancing, on top of face masks, part of the issue is that it depends on the actual facility. So the cohort size is going to be limited by physical distancing. If you have a fairly large room and you can accommodate more than 10 children, that should be considered. I do believe that, that is why the state has gone through that. It just depends on the dwaul actual facility. Thats helpful. Okay, im wondering about the issuing of complaints. What is that process if and who gets to complain 1234 who complain . Who is issuing it . Anybody can complain. It could be staff, the general public, parents and caregivers. We receive it from our hub directly, or the call line, or 311 or the City Attorney also receives those. All right, lastly you mentioned at the beginning of your presentation that you have been meeting with Education Community members and partners, im wondering who are you meeting with . Who are in these meetings or groups . We meet with the School District once a week. That includes the division of Community Support services. Im not exactly sure on the title. We meet with provoke yall schools every week, k8, we meet with the private schools k8 every two weeks, and all of the high schools every two weeks. Okay, last question is any support for students or staff who test positive, what does the department of Public Health provide in this case . So students have to isolate for two weeks, meaning their whole family has to stay quarantined. How are they Getting Services from you all . I think that depends on the situation and the case, but we have a lot of services in covid command that we provide including food delivery, including Mental Health support, and i will actually ask dr dr. Bobba to explain on that. I know there are few things we offer to anyone that has a positive case and needs to quarantine but it depends on the specific case. Can i ask for that to be part of the next times presentation . I would like to learn more about that. And if it could be specific to School District staff and students. We have a protocol when our students or staff test positive with your support. Yeah, we can definitely cover that. As ana said, its independent whether its a member of the school, a member of the public, a member it will be the same support and it is a holistic system to determine what that individual family needs to maintain isolation and quarantine, anywhere from they need supplies to a face mask to food delivery. It will depend on each individual case. Yes, we can talk more about that. Yeah, and i do understand that, but i also want to say there have been cases where people have tested positive in the city of San Francisco and they have not received that report. Thats why i want to be clear that we have a concrete plan should this happen so families feel safe in returning. We need to make sure all these gaps are filled and that is part of it. I look forward to hearing more about that. Thank you. I see supervisor fewer, i have a couple questions that i want to ask before i turn it over to you. The first thing, i just want to especially because we have our experts here from the department of Public Health and our city has very much been viewed as being on the forefront of a lot of the response to this virus. Just make sure that we all understand as best as we know right now the science around how this virus is being able to be passed between and among children. I think im hearing a lot of different things. I just want to make sure we understand from your best medical understanding how this works. Also, the impact on children. You know, i sent a video that i saw just watching cnn the other day and there was a family that was on who had their 5yearold daughter die of covid. She was otherwise healthy. So this is obviously a very serious situation of life and death in the decisions that we make here. So if you could speak to sort of a set of questions and maybe you can answer them all together, but as you understand it, can the virus be passed from one 7yearold child to another 7yearold child . Can the virus be passed from an adult to a 7yearold child . Can the virus be passed from a 7yearold child to an adult . What can you say as clear as possible around the science of that . I understand its lower risk, but is the virus passed among those populations and what are we seeing in those places where its happening. Some School Systems that opened, i will say that there is no 100 rule here. What we see in those School Systems is that the adult to adult transmission is the highest. So one adult passing it to another adult. We see that as children age, they pass it on to adults as well. The risk of transmission is higher in those students. The risk of adults transmissioning to children is the next biggest category of where an adult is positive then transmits it to a child. You see that in the School System and home settings. Then the transmission risk between the child to adult is a lot less frequent and the child to child is a lot less frequent. Its not to say it doesnt occur, but its a lot less frequent occurrence than the adult to adult and the adult to child. Then i think what you were eluding to, in most cases, children do very well with this disease. A lot of them end up being asymptomatic. But this happened early on in new york. What can happen is healthy children have an immune response that causes a lot of problems and can lead to death. Its well documented, its rare but can occur. Of course we want to be careful that there are always going to be the potential for that outcome. Thats why we want to make sure that things are opened safely. In terms of outcomes in general, its the elderly and those with chronic diseases that have the most risk of having a bad outcome in terms of covid. And supervisor haney, can i just intersect interject here . I asked this question to dr. Naomi and i asked her to explain to me physiologically why arent kids getting it . Her explanation, i was like oh, that makes more sense. She says there are four reasons. The first reason is that childrens lungs are smaller and this disease passes through respiratory droplets and they are just letting out smaller amounts of respiratory droplets. Number two, if they get sick they dont have symptoms so theyre not coughing or projecting those droplets. Thats why the risk is lower. Number three, because theyre smaller than the adults and respiratory droplets brought down, it doesnt transfer to the adults as much. Then number four, which is the most important and what mostly made sense to me is in order to get infected by covid, there is this thing called the ac2 receptor, which dr. Bobba understands, but i dont. Its a gateway to your cells that you have to have within you for the covid to come in. Adults have a lot of them, kids dont have a lot of them. While the doctors arent sure yet when at what age kids start developing more of these ac2 receptors, their theory at this point is puberty. They think thats why as kids grow older, aside from the behavioral differences, that thats why they are passing it more. So when she said that to me, it all made so much sense and her presentation is fantastic. I highly recommend we bring her to this committee to give her whole presentation because it gave me so much more calm about this whole experience and i asked her a lot of the questions that commissioner collins asked about air flow and she had some great suggestions about that as well. So sorry to interrupt, i thought that would be helpful. Yeah, i think there will be a lot of questions that were going to need to be able to answer and in as straightforward of a way as possible for families and educators and how we prepare that information. You know, we obviously cannot say for sure, for certain that between two 7yearolds that the virus cannot pass. Its not accurate to say for sure, for certain. We have to be able to you know, i dont want to put our School Board Members and the School District in a place where we dont have that information in a straightforward way that could be shared so that families and educators can understand. Also, some of the phased reopenings that we are talking about is continuing to make this a choice for families. So, families need to be able to assess the information so they can make that choice for themselves. I think that we still there are still a lot a lack of clarity on some of these things and the clearer we have our way of looking at it with timelines and everything, but its not processed in a way that i think a family can make that choice and understand it. So i think that really needs to be prepared in partnership in a way that i havent seen it now. Also, this speaks to the question of our commissioners, making sure that if there is a potential or an actual infection, that we are treating it very seriously and we are responding with seriousness. What happened to the family that im referring to with their daughter dying tragically is that they said that the hospital didnt cheat it treat it seriously. Yes, she has covid, but it will just be like the flu and most children are fine and sent her home. There is still this sense that because most children dont have severe symptoms or severe impacts that we are not treating it, you know, with seriousness. I think its very dangerous. So just as were thinking about this, that our schools not just our schools, but our entire response system has to treat it seriously when a child tests positive. Of course, when an adult tests positive as well and get guidance on how to protect themselves and the home and all of that. I okay, i wanted to ask, i had a few quick questions. So i think we should thank you for that supervisor ronen. I think we should bring that presentation and presenter to our next meeting and think about how we what is the information that is going out to families and educators look like. The situation that weve seen here in San Francisco has changed the rate and the plans for reopening on a variety of fronts. What does this look like and how do we think about this when it comes to schools . You know, we are going on with a certain sort of timeline and thats under development, but if cases get to a certain level, more broadly and hospitalizations, et cetera, is there a way in which you already have planned as for how that would impact schools and their opening . I just saw new york for example that theyre saying that if the rate gets up above a certain level, theyre going to reclose schools. What does that look like for us and we must have that to some extent already because we have private schools that are open. I can share what the state has published and thats what we are following at this time. I would invite naveena to add any comments. At this time, depending on the assignment on the state color tier system, is what determines what to move forward with School Reopenings. So if one is in the purple tier, there is no school that can be permitted to open. If a county is in the red tier, Elementary Schools are permitted to open through a waiver process that must be approved through the state health department. If a county is in orange, then we can move forward with School Reopenings for all schools, including elementary and high school. We are currently assigned in the yellow tier on the state reassessment stat, but thats where we are right now. And lastly what the state says, once a school is permitted to reopen, it is allowed to stay open and our understanding is that in San Francisco were committed to education and that we chose to roll back other sectors in order to support moving forward with education and especially for elementary and middle school students. Naveena, do you want to add anything . I just want to echo that and supervisor ronen eluded to this early on. Schools can stay open if they are given the right Public Health guidance and they are able to follow it and give the right Public Health support. We do value education, so i want to ensure that the support is there and that families do want to return to inperson classrooms have that capacity as long as all the Public Health measures are in place for them. And just to clarify what youre saying when you say that schools are allowed to remain open, if we were to go into the red tier, does that mean that the schools that have been permitted to reopen can stay open no matter how we could go to purple and still the schools that have been reopened are allowed to stay open . Is that correct . That is correct. We just cant open anymore schools if we went to red or purple, unless with red there is a waiver or something . Yes, if we went into purple, we wouldnt be allowed to open any schools. If we went into red, we would be allowed to move forward with Elementary Schools through a waiver process that has to be approved ultimately by the state health department. Just to clarify again, thats new schools, so if its red, the schools that have already reopened dont have to close. They just that is correct. Got it, okay. So, got it. Thats helpful. So one last question i had was you know, there was a these are strange times we live in. I had to respond yesterday to a plan that the warriors have put in place about the way that theyre going to do that they want to do immediate testing. It got into this question of what is the right type of testing, even the different types of the immediate testing and whether we can be confident about it and it seems that theyre actually going to use a version that is different than the ones that a lot of folks have been using. They will also look at you know, mass testing that will basically test everyone that comes inside. Is that something that you know, we looked at or thought about or how is the you know, would that be something that we would want to do . I mean one of the things im looking at around the testing is that the testing that is required of the educators not all that regular. I mean, its certainly not every time you walk in the door. So it speaks to whether you can go inside. Were not doing anything near that. Were almost doing what feels more like a random sample. Is this something were thinking about or looking at . I understand there are costs to it. If you had something similar where every adult walking into the building is getting a random immediate test result that the warriors will do for 9,000 people in an event, why cant we do that for our schools . So ill step in here. I think youre eluding to something that we hope the u. S. Will get to, where we have these easy tests. We are not there yet. I cannot speak to the technology that the warriors have applied. The f. D. A. Approved tests have barriers to that capacity, to do regular tests on a regular basis. Right now the Gold Standard is the p. C. R. Test. We want to stick with that Gold Standard with our schools. Thats not to say as technology emerges and we get better data, that we wouldnt want to be more aggressive. Its just not there yet. So this is changing very quickly. Its a rapid p. C. R. Test and it has earned f. D. A. Approval. You can take the test there before you go in. I think the concern around the pace of testing and the amount of testing, you know, i think there is a different level of risk when you do it so rarely. I think thats something we should continue to look at and apparently with it was developed with ucfs and we should talk about them. Supervisor fewer. Thank you chair haney. I had a couple of comments and questions. I know because we had these heat waves, we looked at cooling centers in San Francisco. We had these places where you have this hvac system. I had to look at areas in my direct that we created six more cooling centers in my district. So if these cooling centers do have a good ventilation system and if these areas could be used as classroom space, so we arent able to accommodate all of the Public School children in our schools that dont have this system. Its just a question. Am i on mute . No. Does Public Health has an answer to that . We looked at these h vak systems and would we be able to partner using some of those facilities and we can configure them into classrooms. Thats one thing i wanted to bring up. Also, i wanted to say that i think we really learned a lot. I mean i have to say, that was probably the largest nursing facility in the nation with 700 patients, right for a hot bed of coronavirus and yet, pretty successful. I thought we were going to see a lot of deaths there and 100 of that population, vulnerable. So what we really learned is that when we do these protocols, like Temperature Checks, we do testing, we do, you know, not allowing anyone to be at work if a member of the family is sick, for example. We know that these protocols do work and prove to be really protective if we follow them religiously and consistently. What i think is that when i went out to the Community Learning hub, i am seeing nonprofit workers being with students everyday, working closely with students everyday and these are nonprofit workers that are actually, you know, making about 15 an hour and they are out there in our Community Hubs doing it everyday. So its all these things and keeping social distancing in there and wearing a mask. We have workers doing this work with students everyday, doing these protocols. I know a classroom is different, but we can also learn from the results. I also wanted to say there will always be people that dont feel safe to bring their children back to school. How our responsibility to keep them safe and our workers safe, that is our responsibility as the city and as the School District. Depending on how well of a job we do that and the protocols that we put into place will really determine how many students will come back. So this, i think, the department of Public Health shouldnt be there before the plan. They should be there afterwards to be able to say look, this is what were recommending put in place and this is what we complied with, the state recommends this. Were going above this and were doing this so that parents feel reassured. Im only going to say this because hey, i dont have children in the School District anymore. I get it about parents being very concerned, but the truth of the matter is that San Francisco unified School District has had a persistent inconsistent racial achievement gap. It has plagued this district for how many decades . When you see who will be at the short end of the stick of this pandemic, it will be those students. So i asked at this meeting before, is there an individual academic achievement plan for each student in those Community Learning hubs . Its one thing to be a seat warmer and another thing to access that curriculum and learning. Actually while were doing this, i think there should be an assessment plan, achievement plan for every one of these students to make sure theyre on track and not getting too far behind. So how are we for our English Learners and our children of poverty, which is a lot of children in poverty, and also for our African Americans and also our Pacific Islander students, where the gap has been persistent. We dont want that gap to widen. After the millions of dollars we invested too to close that gap, we dont want the gap to widen and not give the students the same opportunity. So how you message it, how good of a job we do to make sure that parents feel okay that their children come back and workers come back will make a difference. Also, the reality is that we cannot think of an opening schools without muni at the table. So this, i think, is really important. So do you feel safe taking a muni bus to take your kids to school this let us remember the majority of students who San Francisco unified teaches 90 of them are students of color, the majority of them are students in poverty. We are there, is muni at the table . I havent heard a discussion about muni being there. Are you going to reopen in alignment with where the schools are being opened . I think that coordination needs to take place and again the safety protocols on muni and for parents to feel safe to take the bus to take their children to school. And you actually have the mailing addresses of every single student. You actually do have the infrastructure to get the information out where via the emails, the phone messaging, or whatever. You guys actually have, i think, for private schools, theyre reaching out to their parents. For sfusd, it is sfusds responsibility to send that information out in a really lucid concise manner that is easy for parents to understand, but also gives them resources and then also is in appropriate language. So i think all those things, i have to say i am a little i guess im shocked that sfusd hasnt applied for an application yet, knowing there is this lengthy process you have to go through. Im not saying that we should open schools in red or purple, but im saying when were ready to open schools, when we get into the yellow or we get into the green, lets just be ready to go. I mean seeing how we may have to configure classroom sizes, we may have to configure space, we may have to partner with city agencies, but how do we get this going and we need a plan and when we say its not safe to open now, okay, not now. I have full faith that we will be going in the right direction and its i think that we need to be ready to open those schools on day one when we say we are ready. We are in the right direction. The environment around San Francisco is fairly safe. I we think we can do this. What Research Shows is that other School Districts are doing it, neighboring School Districts have opened their Public Schools and this is something that sfusd can do. Also, i wanted to say that i think we should get and i have said this many times. I just have to say this for the record. It is the power of the office of the mayor to convene these parties together. Muni, Public Health, our sfusd, private hospitals, lets get everyone in the room together and see how we can open schools and what is needed from whom. I think this is the power of the office of the power of the Mayors Office to bring these people together, not only just for Public School students, but for all of San Francisco. We are talking about over 50,000 Public School children whose parents havent been able to go to work because they have been home monitoring their childrens Distance Learning. I think leadership needs to come, everyone coming together, are we going to open schools . Are there going to be ways to get to schools safely . All those types of things and i wanted to say i think were behind the game. I think we should have done this a month ago, but im glad that were doing it now and with another caveat, i know i am leaving this board so if i speak with urgency, if i have been too frank or too forceful at times, i apologize. I feel a sense of urgency for this. I sat on that board for eight years. I know what that achievement gap looks like. I know what happens when we dont educate children on an equitable basis and who is losing out on this. I seen grown black men that went through a School District and cannot read and write. This is not tet detrimental to a School System, but to those communities we left behind traditionally for decades. This is my sense of urgency. So i just want to apologize as i have been so forceful on these meetings meetings. I just see how this state and country disregards Public Education for our foundation for a democracy. We dont have the resources to catch up. This is why we have to act with urgency. Its not just for the recovery of San Francisco, but for those students too. So anyway, thank you very much. Thank you supervisor fewer. Commissioner collins. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to piggyback on some follow up questions. I appreciate supervisor fewer bringing up some key follow up issues. As far as Temperature Checks, we had to go to the hospital. Ucfs ask a litany of questions and they do Temperature Checks. Im hearing that Temperature Checks are not part of the requirements for school reentry. Im wondering why. Just to clarify, Temperature Checks are not required on site. Schools can ask families to do that at home as a comprehensive screening check, which includes other systems and Santa Clara County did a time study of what it would take to do a Temperature Check on school sites and it was so it took so much time that it was not recommended in Santa Clara County. Okay, thank you. Additionally, getting to the information, making it public. So were also not necessarily aware of how were sharing information in a public facing way thats easy to digest. I dont know a lot of the details that maybe get covered in meetings between you and staff at sfusd, specific to vicinitilation or those types of things and just for the general public, thats even more opaque. I know that its on us as a district to work with you to make sure were sharing information in a way that makes families feel like they understand what they need, but i would like to continue to work and have our staff work with you and make sure that commissioners are also reviewing that because i know Vice President lopez has a lot of connections to Spanish Speaking families and we need to make sure when were communicating, that the communication is actually parent friendly and its answering questions in a way that as chair haney, you said that were not communicating in ways that are clear. We can provide tables and charts, thats the way we communicate, but we need to find a way to communicate in familyfriendly ways that help reassure them and makes them feel safe sending their kids back. So maybe we can work with you or have a town hall where we can talk about the importance of families making a commitment to be safe, answer questions, and reassuring families that may be nervous. Ill be happy to do that. Okay, great. Super fewer supervisor fewer was talking about what do we do for kids that fall through the cracks . We need a plan for reopening and we need to have timelines and urgency. Is there is also, as we know, a large group of students that arent going to be the first on the list. At the bare minimum, those are the students are maybe falling through the cracks and need support. I guess chair haney, is there a way to talk about some of the hubs are opening up . I heard college prep, they will be opening up for high schools to provide tutoring or support. It may not be everyday. Its not a child care issue, but it is middle and High School Students need support while were ramping up. There is still a need. Im wondering if we could get a report on what are the ways that the city can partner to support students to make sure that while were getting were going to be bringing in kindergartners first. So what about our juniors and seniors . Thats a concern. I would like our staff to share with you all the mechanism that we are identifying students that are falling off the map is call coordinated care. Its required by the state and every school is suppose to be tracking which kids are just not showing up. We as a district are supposed to have a tiered model of intervention to get them connected. Ultimately if were successful in our School Reopening plan and i appreciate the resolution that commissioner lopez and cook reported, we want to see it for high school as well. We see students not getting what they need in Distance Learning and those should be the first students that come back. I would like to know from the districts side and i think it would be helpful to know what our plans are for those middle and High School Students that are currently, you know, not the priority of coming back but also have needs. Im flagging that for you chair haney that there may be a way to present on our coordinated care model and in how in some cases, we may find that kids need support that we cant provide, if they have Mental Health needs, housing insecurity, and thats what is keeping them from going to school. I want to make sure were working well with city agencies to plug families in with resources and that were not dropping kids via that disconnect. Finally, muni is a good conversation because if were ramping up with large numbers of students, i saw a report that said, i think the average distance that elementary aged students travel is 1. 5 miles in our public School System. I dont know what its like for middle and high school. I know students travel further distances for middle and high schools. We need conversations with muni on how were going to have safe transit options when we open up and there are families that want to come back. A lot of them are using muni. Also in your neighborhood as well, there are is having safe walking areas. We have neighborhoods where i hear that parents are terrified to let their children out and play. Theyre isolating in the house. You know, even their neighborhoods dont necessarily feel safe or socially distant so how are we going to make sure that we as a city team up and support families in getting to and from schools in a way that is safe. Thats the transportation piece that would be an interesting one to explore in a future meeting as were ramping up as well. Again, thank you for presenting. I love presenting information and send me all those charts and lists. I look forward to working with you directly and learning how we can work with district and staff on convening family facing meetings so folks can ask the kind of questions that we get to ask in these meetings. Im sure that we have parents that have questions like these as well. Thank you. Two points that we would be lap pi happy to participate. We participated in all the town halls in july. We had a d. P. H. Representative to answer questions so we could continue to explore other communication chaps and point to m. T. A. Is that they are actively interested in supporting transportation around schools and they asked that as we approve schools, that we notify them so that they can look at the Transportation System and the impacts and particularly around muni. I think that warrants another conversation in bringing them to a future meeting. To recognize that they are involved and are thinking about this. Thank you. Thank you d. P. H. Team. I appreciate your work and your time and definitely heard those things you said, and commissioner collins as well in what we want to cover in our next meeting. With that, we will move on to sfusd, who i know are here and also have a presentation. So i am going to turn it now over to deputy superintendent and the chiefs. Hello good afternoon. Im trying to see if im sharing. Im new to microsoft teams. I believe im sharing now, is that true . Yes, we can see it. Great, thank you commissioners and supervisors for giving us the opportunity to come before you to give an update of our plan and progress towards opening schools for inperson learning. We will be providing we will be providing at the end of the presentation an initial summary of resources we feel that we need to collectively open schools for inperson learning, collectively as a city. First were going to provide a summary of our progress on our dashboard and on the operational indicators that we have been focusing on, basically since the summer. We also will talk about the Site Assessments that are happening next week as part of this presentation and actually at an information and answer many of the questions that came up to d. P. H. That were wondering what the School District is doing with the information from the department of health. So im going to get started. Just a quick reminder, we have always been working towards a phased reopening towards inperson learning. We started with our phase one, the Distance Learning and we are moving towards phase two, the hybrid and gradual return, hoping that when the pandemic gets to a place where we can have a full return of our students and our schools, which is what we all want. Just a reminder and i know things change so rapidly. We are working towards a phased opening for small groups and cohorts to return. So we have designed our whole operational indicators around what the d. P. H. Application looks like so that when we turn to phase 2b, the priority populations, we are in the place to have most of the applications done because as was discuss in the previous presentation, there will be parts that will be district wide and parts that will be specific to whichever school that were opening up. So i just wanted to be clear on that. We have this in this phase two, as you know, the first column is just about california and county indicators. As was measured in the purple, schools are not allowed to be reopened, but you can open for Group Returns for students that would be best served in person. Thats what weve been moving towards. All of these indicators, except for labor agreements in place follow what the d. P. H. Application looks like and they follow all the or answering all the questions in the d. P. H. Guidelines and the state guidelines. I just wanted to remind folks of that. We continue to iterate and try to create ways in which were communicating with folks. The dashboard is one of those. Were going to try to move you through the dashboard and where we are in our progress towards it. So, the first part of the operational indicators the identification of small cohorts for inperson learning and the school sites which they will be in. So the current context safety, social distancing restraints call for us to open learning for small cohorts for students. Well share where we are on this indicator. Im sorry, yep. So we talked about this before. In the spring and over the summer months, we engaged in a diverse set of stakeholders in working groups, town halls and surveys to get input on which groups we would prioritize as a School District for inperson learning across all of those diverse sets of stakeholders, families, teachers, labor partners, and more. The student groups named on this slide were named as a priority. Its also consistent with the research and also since were looking at the purple tier phase of small cohorts, we should be opening in small cohorts where students are likely to struggle most with Distance Learning, including students with individualized education plans. Sorry. Were looking at opening programs at the end of phase one to a little more than 10,000 students. The School Reopening in this current context is incredibly complex as we manage new forms of scheduling, staffing, and complying with the intricate health and safety requirements. To ensure we do it as safely and effectively as possible, we are bringing students back gradually in person as we have shared in previous presentations. As we think of moving students into inperson learning, represented by the light blue in the background, phase 2a, our proposal is to open schools in waves, meaning opening a set number of schools at a time so we can learn and improve as we open those and also so we can communicate directly and personally with the family so we can understand what it is that theyre being offered to return to. So this is the dashboard, if you looked on the website. Were close to identifying all the students and the site location for these groups. We drafted a plan to return the priority groups and we identified the potential sites for wave 1 and wave 2. The wave 1 schools offer pre k or have moderate to severe s. T. D. Classrooms in them. During wave two, we will add additional pre k sites and classrooms with moderate to severe s. T. C. Classrooms up to 27 sites and include pre k and grade one students. Then in wave 3, we will include the remainder of our Elementary School sites, potentially open up middle and high school sites. Of course we do this all in collaboration and coordination with d. P. H. And with the guidance they provide since we meet with them regularly and are able to work with them any time we need consultation or understand in a particular school. Schools are very different and each school sometimes has specific problem solving we need to do together. We launched collaborative meetings with our site leaders. We developed a hybrid learning Partnership Protocol. The chief of facility may discuss more about that. We are looking at how things how staff and students occupy and the flow of traffic moves throughout the building to ensure that we are following safety guidelines and identifying new routines if necessary. Were also identifying outsource sfas spaces for each cohort and strategies to support learning outside. We need to understand the interest for inperson learning and Distance Learning. We understand that the language and the ways which were thinking of things in this complex way is very confusing so we continue to work on our communication upgrades to make information as clear and as accessible to all stakeholders. Our goal is to get students back to their inperson learning at their homeschool, recognizing a need to adhere to safety and staffing and that students strive best in communities theyre familiar with and with teachers for whom they have relationships. Staffing does not align with the site indication or with the students at all times. Thats one of the things we have to look at. Throughout this, families will absolutely have the option of whether they want to return to inperson or if thaw would like to continue with Distance Learning. The next indicator, the general Safety Measures. That was a discussion that the previous presentation really walked you through many of the indicators and measures that we are putting in place. Every single one of these tasks aligns with the d. P. H. Guideline and the d. P. H. Application. So we can drop all that information directly into the application that we will need to create for our phase 2b. We are moving steadily towards this, a big thing that we succeeded is that we now have an agreement to support us in part of what we are trying to do in standing up this testing site. We have almost all of our health and safety protocols has been developed. Were turning all of those protocols into more familyfriendly and family facing documents, working on translation and all of that. Ill talk about that more on the communication side. We have test kits and analyses to support the development of return. We work on how we stand up these test sites and how we develop the Communication System as we heard in the previous presentation. Thats one of the most important parts, what do we do with the information we get, how do we turn it around quickly and how do we prevent and mitigate more exposure for other students, staff, and families. The operational list to put all these measures in place is considerable. Then were going to dig into this more during the question section. Our chief of h. R. Is here and he can also offer a more detailed information that we didnt cover in our presentation. Our goal is to have a test site at every school site as we reopen and this is going to require one to two at every site. We will work on identifying agencies to support us with the data mapping and implementation into our data system. Were working on creating a covid19 school dashboard. This will have many dashboards, some of them detailed and specific to folks that need to know so we can turn the information to d. P. H. As quickly as possible to public facing dashboards, to our families, to our employees, just to the general public. Dashboard specifically for the board of education commissioners, so they have the information they need to know in realtime. Were designing out many different communication trees, so those who need the information will have it as quickly and as as quickly as possible. We need a centralized team that manages all of these processes and full scale. If were back to phase tree, inperson learning, sfusd will probably run the largest covid testing operation in the site across 120 locations, so you can imagine the operational lift that it will taked and well be responsible for what we want to do and doing it well, teaching our students. The next is staff trained in the health and safety protocol. Were getting close on this. We identified all the staff that needs to be trained. Were partnering with key stakeholders. Were getting ready to launch the modules and adjust as necessary. As you know, as we talked, the information is constantly changing about General Health and safety protocols so we need a whole team that is looking at the health and safety protocols, changing them, and having to retrain staff as necessary. So again, as we open into these phases, we can get good at it and at a full scale operation, well have 10,000 employees that will have to have a system that were constantly training and updating their training for. I talked mostly about all of this. Were close with a lot of the content and creating the Communications Tool and the trainings are designed to be asynchronous and independent. We will be offering ongoing information sessions for focu s focuses folks that want more enperson learning for questions and working through scenarios and things like that. The next operational indicator is informing families of our health and safety protocols. We are moving, making progress in this area. Its going to start in the next few weeks. Were going to be really reaching out to the families directly, so that we can start having conversations with them and giving them the information they need and providing spaces for them to ask the questions and come to an understanding. We want all families to understand what they are being offered in inperson learning so they can make a well informed decision on whether or not to return to inperson learning and what that will look like or if they would prefer to stay in Distance Learning. We developed a Family Safety information on pretty much all the different areas, health and safety protocols, meals, transportation, symptom checking. Were working on multidimensional explanations. Some work with words, some work with pictures, we have a checklist developed of all the assets were developing. Were working on the translation of all of them. Were about to start our offer with inperson information. Are the covid19 prevention measures in place . Thats the next one. Were also moving in that direction. A lot of the conversation was about protocols in an event that a staff or student exhibits covid19 symptoms and tests positive. Thats a big area. We have the protocols in place. Were working closely to drill down really clearly on where is the hand off and if we have a student or staff exhibiting covid19 symptoms or reporting testing positive, that the families are supported the way they need to be supported. We asked d. P. H. In providing more work flows and visual information so that we can share that with families of what would happen and how we would go through that flow together and where the hand off is from our coordinated care team. Were working in the division and designing what does that look like, how do we utilize the resource link line to assist us in that effort. Sorry, im so use to having someone do this for me. I apologize. So we have a lot of things ready to start training and giving this information out. We are awaiting labor Partner Agreements to identify that the staff will be prepared for the Health Screenings. We want to set up a system where i think you heard about the Community Pledge and thats part of our registration process and were asking all students and staff to do the screening at home. Were working on how that gets documented and we will as a safety prevention measure also do some type of screening, not the Temperature Checks for the regions that ana was talking about because we dont want to create bottlenecks and have social distancing challenges, but what does it look like . How are all staff supporting the Health Screening . How do we move students into isolation if need be if they present symptoms at school and what is the follow up with families and how do we support them in the next step . So were moving towards progress in that. I am going to turn this over to our [inaudible] i can keep queuing it up for you. Just let me know when i need to go forward. Thanks. Good afternoon commissioners and supervisors. Im the chief facilities officer here at San Francisco unified School District. Im going to speak about the next two measures. Next slide please. Great. So our measure number 6 on our dashboard is our School Facility prep for social distancing. There are four sub tasks here, some of them which we made substantive progress on and some were getting off with the beginning of the work and we plan to pick up pace quickly. One that has gotten a lot of feedback is assessing school site infrastructure for hybrid learning and checking out classrooms to see the conditions of the windows and their operaability but were also looking at the Building System and the hvac and sinks and classrooms. So ive been pleased to be working with the department of Public Health, who has also given us a team of about 15 folks or so who next week are going to be in our sights and trying to get as many assessments done as possible. So we have also heard from now over 20 parent volunteers who have also suggested im sorry, not suggested but volunteered. They suggested themselves, but volunteered a long with our Board Members to go out and do these assessments and we actually spent the past few days pulling together or volunteer on boarding materials and or reentation orientation. It sounds easy but when youre in the real world, its easy to get overwhelmed by the details and distractions in the classroom so we want to provide clear guidance to folks on how to do that. We appreciate everyones patience as we build up those volunteer materials but we think it will be worthwhile and make for a better and faster product. So while were at 35 right now, again in the next week or so, we hope to make a leap there and we definitely expect that all the assessments for Elementary Schools and Early Education centers, which is our focus during phase 2a will be complete by the first week of december. That data is critical for helping us understand kind of the magnitude of both problem solving that might need to occur, both specific sites and across the district and also you know, helping us im sorry, could you go back . Im sorry. Thats okay, and helping us then strategize on how to work with site administrators. Were at 100 in getting our cleaning and disinfect tants supplies for our custodial team to support the work and again, now next slide please. Yep. Thank you. Now where were really drilling down is what were calling our hybrid learning Partnership Protocol where facilities, operational teams, our own health and safety teams work with site leaders oneonone to help them develop site plans that will ensure stable cohorts, manage circulation and social distance. So the data that were collecting goes directly to buildings and grounds to help shape our own projections on their workload and set clear priorities on repairs and it goes into this site preparedness process where we sit down and really have to help principles look at their sites and think about everything from where do you want the isolation room to how would you like the exterior of your site set up to support beginning of the school day, arrival and departure, and thinking about setting up classrooms and all of which we hope to provide templates and guidelines for but at every site, there is some customization required in terms of the space planning. So next slide please. So this is also just an important constraint that ive been sharing with folks since this summer. I think it will not come as a shock to parents or staff that custodial staffing has been on the lean side at sfusd and that the kind of routine cleaning and disinfecting protocols that d. P. H. Is requiring, which by the way i do not consider to be burdensome or intense, but just routine. Over the past years of shrinking resources that have hit the custodial team, so now were at the place where our existing custodial staffing which is 300f. T. E. Can clean so much on a 24 hour period, so just focusing on high touched surfaces. Its about the size of our Early Education stand alone sites. So we are able to be able to provide support to the phase 2a priority populations that have been identified. When you look at that Elementary School footprint and you assume 50 classroom capacity due to social distancing measures, that gives you about 15,000 daily feet. I want to say about, this is not precise. Its a magnitude number meant to give people a sense of the real, again, gap between our traditional 55,000 student body when at normal capacity and its also something that i want to emphasize. We have not only the ability to play with how we use space to serve students, but also schedule. As we think of those 15,000 daily feet, it seat, its not that same student that sits in that seat everyday. Okay, next slide please. P. P. E. Has been a topic since this summer and weve been working on this since this summer, which is why were in such great shape on this particular metric. Go to the next slide. I project right now that were at 85 and rapidly closing in on 100 . Our signages and production, and really over the next two to three weeks, this will go to 100 as partition orders arrive and our signage is both produced and were trying to create site packages so our custodial service team will dispatch these material from the warehouse and deliver, you know, an appropriate number of bundles and packages as needed, based on the number of students at site, staff, and types of programs there. So, that concludes kind of my part of the presentation. Im happy to turn this back to the chief. Thanks. So i will go over deputy superintendent makes her apology for not being able to be here. Shes in labor negotiations, so we thought it was important for her to spend her time there. Its not that youre not important, we do want to keep moving in that area. So our eighth indicator is instructional learning plan and the majority of the dashboard functions are focused on reopening schools, but this really focuses on optimal delivery of instruction, both inperson and Distance Learning. Our priority is to create a robust inperson learning plan while continuing to enhance our Distance Learning. We know we will have students participating in both throughout the year. So we developed the Community Health pledge, which is one of the sources of conversation and something thats really important because as we all know, the pandemic doesnt stop or start at the doorstep of the school. This is something we all have to be committed to in whatever we do inside and outside of school. We have begun to develop and launch the inperson modules. We are continuing to provide Distance Learning to students and we are now starting to do the big lift in thinking about what is the technology needs, what is the use of space and what are the other logistical steps we need to do. And weve been looking at researching the best practices for distance and hybrid learning and have been learning collaboratively with educators from other large urban districts. The current thinking in our inperson learning is to the extent possible pk will return for daily inperson learning. Other student groups will rotate through a mix of inperson and Virtual Learning throughout the week. Families and students will have an option to opt out of inperson learning and continue to engage in online Distance Learning. While at school, students will receive live instruction and when at home, students will continue to receive a combination of synchronous instruction and asynchronous instruction. We are engaging our site leaders in the protocol to plan for inperson learning and Distance Learning options. Were working on finalizing inperson schedules in collaboration with transportation, finalizing plans for students that dont join in person and family and staff about their interest and their capacity to participate in inperson learning. We have reconvened the teaching and learning work group and the other work groups that are meeting monthly to give us input around instructional learning plans and the many things we have to think about in returning to inperson learning. A key principle in our planning as i mentioned earlier is that its best for students to be at their homesite with their teacher and staff. So we will continue to work around that model, continue to enhance Distance Learning and we will definitely need classroom resources and materials to support safety protocols and sharing of high touched materialsful well talk about that more in the resource section. Im going to turn it over about the labor discussions. Ill keep doing the slides. Hi, im the chief h. R. Manager for the districted and i wanted to share where we are at with our labor partners. Next slide. So you can see the big buckets of work. The first one is exchanging proposals with our labor partners and thats well underway. Ill show you more on the next slide. [please stand by] we are providing breakfast, lunch, and supper for the kids. Say hi. Hi. Whats your favorite . The carrots. The pizza . Im not going to eat the pizza. You like the pizza . They will eat anything. Yeah, well, okay. Sfusds meal program right now is passing out five days worth of meals for monday through friday. The program came about when the shelter in place order came about for San Francisco. We have a lot of students that depend on School Lunches to meet their daily nutritional requirement. We have families that cant take a hit like that because they have to make three meals instead of one meal. For the lunch, we have turkey sandwiches. Right now, we have spaghetti and meat balls, we have chicken enchiladas, and then, we have cereals and fruits and crackers, and then we have the milk. We heard about the School Districts, that they didnt know if they were going to be able to provide it, so weve been successful in going to the stores and providing some things. Theyve been helpful, pointing out making sure everybody is wearing masks, making sure theyre staying distant, and everybody is doing their jobs, so thats a great thing when youre working with many kid does. The feedback has been really good. Everybody seems really appreciative. They do request a little bit more variety, which has been hard, trying to find different types of food, but for the most part, everyone seems appreciative. Growing up, i depended on them, as well, so it reminds me of myself growing up. I have kids at home. I have six kids. Im a mother first, so im just so glad to be here. Its so great to be able to help them in such a way because some families have lost their job, some families dont have access to this food, and were just really glad to be