Transcripts For SFGTV 20130302

Okay, so we will be calling item 2 first. Madam clerk, can you please call item 2. Thank you, file number 130159, the hearing on shared scho scho schoolyards project. By member farrell. Thank you, i want to call up supervisor farrell and to make comments first. Thank you, chair kim, much appreciated. And its great to be here with all the school board members. Colleagues, today we will do a hearing and update on a shared schoolyards project. I have worked on this closely over the last two years with hydra mendoza and a number of people as well as rec and park and denny. And other folks from rec park as well. I want to thank all of those involved over the last two years. To give you background, i have talked about this a lot publicly. For me the impetus came up when first in office. And my children were learning to ride there, with the training wheels off of their bikes, and we lived close to roosevelt and thought that would be a great place to learn. We went over there on a saturday morning, and very frustrated by the fact that the schoolyard was closed and locked up. Huge black top, although asphalt great place for families on the weekends. And came back to city hall and talked to the head of Public Schools, and rec and park and hydra. And i said, if we could open up the schoolyards on the weekend, and it was closed because of the budget cuts. I know that growing up here in San Francisco, i grew up playing ball in the neighborhood in the local schoolyard. And if kids and families are not given that opportunity. I think its a real shame. We have embarked on a project and have had fundraisers over the last years, that have been very successful. And thank you to the sponsors that helped participate. And wouldnt have happened without all of those involved. And i am glad to say that we have 24 schoolyards opened up and more we hope to come online. And we have a powerpoint deck, and we have michael and christine carr. And got to honor michael for african History Month and for those who have played large in this effort. And we need to give them a huge amount of gratitude. Could sfgovtv put on the slide deck. If we turn to the next page, gavin newsom and hydra mendoza had a program to open up our schoolyards. And when we came in office in 20 2011, i think six or 10 schoolyards are opened up and a need for impetus behind that. This is a partnership between my office and lees office and hydra in particular and rec park, and dpw that cleans all the playgrounds and our Rec Park Department and 311. The goal is to open up San Francisco park on the weekends. For me and what is involved in this project is to allow our children places to play and build community in our neighborhoods. Its gone well so far and we have a lot of work. Our mission as we have laid it out is to create more safe places for our children and families to gather throughout San Francisco. This will coordinate through all districts. And the San Francisco unified district and ptas and sponsors and ngos and ceo. We envision a safe place for every children to play in this district. And let me thank a number of ptas involved in many schools. And i have been out speaking and hydra and phil, and to have buyin is viable in this project. We want the ptas and as well the principals that the school will be in the same condition than when they left it on friday afternoon. If we could flip the page. A few things to highlight benefits for school sites. Every pta is given 1,000 to use at their discretion to support physical education. They have used in tha variety of ways, to help Community Gardens through the city, and to buy athletic supplies and so forth. Its up to the ptas discretion. And thats a valuable asset that they not only enjoyed but have been thankful for. Dpw is committed for every school site that participates to do a deep cleaning twice a year. And in an effort to talk to the principals and parents letting them know that we their school site and playgrounds, we want it in a better condition than it is today. And to have a deep cleaning twice a year, is something that we are excited about doing. And so are the schools and parents. As well we have a large pool of capital available to Different School sites throughout the year. Basically to draw on, and we have created a Grant Program for ptas to apply for the funds to open on the weekend. Its one thing to open up the playground or to have a league come in or whatever it may be. And its really been fun to talk to the different ptas involved so far. Different ptas have different ideas. Some want skateboarding parks or festivities. Some want Community Gardens. Some want the traditional coaching activities. Some want ymca to come in or Heart Association to come in and do jumpathons. Its fun to see the ptas organize activities that they see fit for their schoolyards. This is a list of participating schools for this fiscal year to date. Again its very important to mention that our goal is to be very geographically dispersed throughout San Francisco. I dont want to measure by supervisor districts. But we want to be sure that every area of San Francisco and every neighborhood is touched by this and affected by this in a positive way. We have endeavored to do that with our our first tranche. And we want to be sure that principals allow their school sites to be used on the weekends, we want to roll out in a geographically dispersed manner. We want to ask michael and christine. Most of you know michael as we had a chance to talk about him earlier this week. But christine, his amazing wife, is here who has an incredible background. One of my favorite people in my district, and more important today for folks that have spent a great deal of time here spearheading these efforts, and turn it over to them. And thank you for your involvement. We have the mic it might be the other mic. Thank you, mark farrell and supervisor kim, and mark you had great slides. Out of the 24 up there, there are nine that have applied for the grant. And we have a 1,000 check waiting to go. Christine and i will go to the school and find out their needs for the program. Hydra and mark have done a great job in putting the San Francisco Unified School District together along with the city of San Francisco to be sure this really works. When christine and i first came on board. We were amazed at the amount of cooperation and the efficiency of the organization. Recreation parks will open and close all the schools for these projects. Schools slated to open at 9 a. M. In the morninging and to close at 4 in the afternoon. They have done a dry run and it takes 90 minutes to open up all the schools. And close somewhere close to 4 oclock. And upon closing the schools, park rec will inspect the sight and be sure that its how it was when opened up. And if not, they will call 311 to record any discrepancies to be sure its recorded. The next deck. The public works responsibility, dpw as mark said, these guys are the ones that will come in and do the heavy lifting. And the cleaning. And if anything is damaged, they will put it back in like or better condition. They will receive the calls from 311 and correct any discrepanci discrepancies. And dpw will come in their equipment and do a spic and Span Cleaning of the site. Next deck. San francisco Unified School Districts responsibilities, basically to provide access to the playgrounds, and make sure they are open. The other requirements they will have is to provide assessibility to the trash or recycle receptles. And under this project we will not ask them to open up the restroom facilities. Thats something that we think it cause a lot of problems. Thats all we need from San Francisco Unified School District. And then what we have done, and what hydra and mark have done. They made sure in each area where the schools are open for the weekend. That the police stations are well aware of what is going on. And have extra patrols going through. The San Francisco Police Department will be aware as well. We have all bases covered from that standpoint from a city responsibility. And 311 responsibilities. I call them the great communication hub or in the Airline Business the control tower. If something goes wrong at one of the sites, you dial 311. They have set up a list and know who to call. If there is an incident they will make sure that the San Francisco police and sfpd are involved in the process. They are our eyes and ears of this whole project as it works. And you know again there has been a super executive team that has been put together. The executive team will monitor and evaluate and review all the projects. And will meet on an asneeded basis. Christine and i have started to look for other areas of funding. To be sure we have a website and developed a logo. We are working with the San Francisco Park Alliance with a 51 c3, we are able to get funding from different sources. And christine will speak to that. The last deck, this is a sign that dpw will put on the site. This is in english currently but we will have a site in spanish. If you bring your family and kids, we ask that you abide by these rule. Rules. I will ask christine to speak about the funding and to be sure this will run smoothly. Thank you. There has been an excellent fundraising effort led by mark farrell that has funded the project to date. An Important Role for this program is to build on the foundation to continuously pursue resources to fund this project to be Sustainable Well into the future. Some additional sources of revenue for this program are the Charles Schwab foundation, this is a pga tour hosted in San Francisco. And they are offering a fundraising activity that is called tickets for the charity. And this will distribute this money to the local schools for this donation. Michael is working with the Schwab Foundation for this tournament. And we are researching grants. One that we had a conversation with today is kaboom organization. We went on their website and pursued the application and had some questions. They got right back to tus to us, one problem they had an upcoming deadline for the grant. And they said thats a mistake, its an ongoing grant. Most grants for 1530,000. Based on the size of the program. And they said due to the scope of the program and the size of San Francisco, they are excited to extend that more, up to 35,000 for that. Thats exciting news. And we are going to need a lot of letters and support from school officials, parents and many supporting this grant and other grants that will pursue. You will likely hear from us as we pursue this process. And we are investigating the role of ngos sponsored programs for our weekend activity days. That will be at little or no cost to the shared schoolyards program. This is a vital opportunity for our city and neighborhoods that it serves. Continuing this program through fundraising events and funding will keep this viable Program Sustainable into the future. Please let michael or i know if you have Creative Ideas of funding sources. We will excitedly spursue these suggestions. One other item, we have two principals to speak and talk about how the program worked at their schools. I would like to ask them to come up and give a reallife experience of your schools. If the principals can come up. Good afternoon, commissioner and supervisors, thank you for inviting us here. I am eve chung, principal at an elementary school. And i want to thank supervisor farrell to be at our school at holing hill. Thats an activity that we sponsor to get the community in the school. This shared schoolyard project has been wonderful for us to bring families in the neighborhood into our school. Its wonderful. When i work on the weekends, i see kids learning how to ride their bikes on training wheels. We have a lacrosse player banging his ball against our wall. And we have those practicing baseball, skateboarding. All kinds of things happening. Its been really wonderful. And i have to say that our neighbors have been very, very respectful of the school property. We have never had any issues. And its just been a wonderful opportunity for us to kind of include the community at our school. I think you will have to use the same mic. Good afternoon, i am david wong, principal of francis key, i have been there for 13 years. When i was principal there the first year, we didnt open the playground. And actually every year i dealt with a lot of vandalism and graffi graffiti. And amazingly ever since we opened our playground, all of that diminished. I feel thats when the schools opened their mind and heart to the community. They respond back and give you the same respect. And i am more than delighted to actually see the fact that not only that ever since we have opened this playground. I dont know how many years, i think that Francis Scott key opened a year before on a trial end. And it was very successful and why we jumped on right away when we heard of the project. I live nearby the school, i can see how many people usually enjoy the playground. It was just wonderful. And especially now the fact that we have a bond program with a brandnew play structure and new surface and all that. Its nice to see that a beautiful playground like that is not wasted on the weekend. And lastly i would say, when it comes to graffiti and vandalism. I would not say its totally not there. It happened two years ago when the gate was closed at night time. It had nothing to do with the fact that the gates were open. When the gates were open and more families are in the yard playing, it sent a strong message to the neighborhood, especially the teenagers. Hey, this is a Community Playground and lets respect the property. And in fact they have. And cannot be any happier to see that. The facility is being used to the fullest. Lastly, i wanted to say you know i am hoping that more principals can be convinced. Because i know i would like to see that they can open the gates and open the minds to this concept. Because i have been trying hard myself. Hey, open the playground, you see less graffiti and vandalism. Thank you for being here, i have a couple of questions. And if Committee Members have questions, press the request to speak. Several years ago when i saw this on the other side, board of education. There was a lot of resistance of principals and concerns of how this would impact the monday mornings and find the schoolyard in disarray. And its nice to hear its had the opposite impact. And in terms of maintenance and cleanup, i am concerned how this is going. And with inaudible you open the school on . Generally we leave it open, we have a huge afterschool, and kids play after, afterschool and on the weekend. There has never been an issue. And i want to say, never heard of teenagers to jump over the fence. And the fact that we open it makes it less interesting for them to have to jump over. So i feel that it is one of the best things we have done for the school community. And i think the principals who have not tried opening it, have no idea what it will be like if they start opening up the playground. Thank you, i appreciate that. We have a number of commissioners that want to speak. And i want to recognize we have other members of family, we have denny from rec and park and the school district. So if you have questions from other departments, they are here. Commissioner norton. Thank you supervisor kim. And thank you supervisor farrell, for sort of providing the support and the impetus to make this happen. You was curious commissioner mendoza or supervisor farrell, how we open the schools. You said you were looking for geographic parity. And some are treperdaciou. Chris can probably add some color as well. First of all attend principal meetings, sfusd, let them know about the program and say, who wants to sign up in the beginning. The goal was to get a big pool and choose a geographic first group to start with. Thats how we attacked it from the beginning. And how its played out so far. We are pretty much in the mode of seeking more principal growth and buyin. Thats why having a hearing like this and having good stories from our principals. I want to thank eve and david for coming today. And good stories from the ptas, and that positive impact on the school and grow that. Thank you, would you like to respond to the question . Commissioner mendoza. Thank you. There we go, thank you. I want to thank chris for the survey he did at the end of the year after supervisor farrells generous fundraising efforts. We had 11 schools on line and had one in every district, and we did that intentionally. Actually david was the only one not on at that time. That was a really positive experience, i think, and denny you correct me on this, we had two incidences. One was a broken Umbrella Stand and sand toys were taken. We had this pilot out there for a while. But with no funding. And every City Department actually carried the budget within their own budget. So and the principals that had participated had a really good experience with it. So it was easier for us to go out and say, now we have funding behind it. And what i said to mark initially, we have to have incenti incentive. The principals most reluctant were worried about what would happen to their site. How they make it so they dont have to worry coming monday. We worked hard to eliminate all of those worries. And i think that the incentive piece was helpful. The principals felt like they were getting monetary value to this. We were going on take care of all the cleaning and checking of the sites. Opening and closing. I think that eve is the only one that keeps or site open. We dont open her site. But Everything Else was really about trying to make it arizona make it easy as possible. And you know me, its about wanting to have people invest in the Public School and to be a part of the larger community. And it was great to have when supervisor farrell came on board, thats how he felt looking at the Public School sites. It worked out well. And with dave and eve talking about their experience. I think we need to have that conversation more fruitfully. I think that the board can be more, be supportive of this as well. And talk about it differently. Its different because there is some money behind it. Before it was quieter because there was no incentive for our principals to do this with us. Thank you. I want to say, one of the schools argon, in particular where we children were, was nervous and pushed back and didnt want to do this. Even though its where inaudible ginsburgs children were, but you came to the pta. And that made a big difference, once you were there and reassured people. And i want to say thank you, and that was a good move. We encountered that from other ptas and you can do a lot to alleviate any worries. Thank you, and my goal and