lowell and achieving and excelling. only us, we're the only ones that are smart enough to do it and i know that probably makes them feel good at night. and later in life when some things don't go as well. we know, those of us who haven't been asleep all of our lives know it's not the case. we know the issue is always with opportunity. so we certainly support the district and staff of recommendations to change what happens at lowell and who gets in. i do want to just give a couple of dis jointed comments that will just make me feel better. one is, i didn't have a privilege of going in school. i'm a giant's fan. since 1951. i'm in pain because the dodgers may get in the world series. let me just say to you, and if it's them and boston, i'll really die. san francisco, like boston, lives with this myth that we are diverse and we are inclusive. that is just not the case. and if people of color who live here and honest others who live here know it's to be the case. we are just not as diverse as we'd like to believe. we are not as encouraging, for example, for students of color. we don't have safety nets and the kind of things that we need. one of the things that blew my mind -- >> i'm sorry, reverend -- >> am i through? >> i'm sorry. >> comments from members? commission norton. >> so i just wanted to say a couple things. i'm in support of this policy. coming into this meeting tonight, i thought well this is a small piece of the larger problem that we really do have to address. looking at all of lowell admissions. after hearing some of the comments made i thought, you know, we absolutely have to do this. this is about black students. let's just be very clear about that. this is about black students which are not going to lowell in numbers. that gets anywhere near their numbers in the district. willie brown is the middle school with the largest percentage of black students by far in this school district. if we want to advantage black students, which this board is clear that we do, then a policy like this makes sense. i want to point out this policy says the students that would receive qualificatio qualificatl has to meet criteria. this is not giving students not prepared a leg up. if they meet the band 3 criteria, they would be prepared at any school in this district. some of these objections are not well taken to me. all that said, i'm happy to be in support of this policy and i'm looking forward to working with the board on looking at the lowell admissions policy in a bigger way. >> thank you to everyone who came out. so i'm fully supportive of this policy. there's a couple reasons why. you know, the first thing is that if we in a position where saying at any of our schools that some of our kids can't be successful, then we have a problem. the problem is not with the kids who want to be there, who want to do well there, who are qualified to be there. the problem is with us. we have to be able to ensure that all of our students can be successful and we should never be saying that these kids can't make it there. that they're not prepared to be there. this is a public school system. the fact that we would be saying that is very problematic. the other thing to remember is that band 2 and band 3 is not a lower standard. these are high standards. in fact, if you look at the university of california system is doing, if you look at what colleges are doing all over the country, this is the direction that they're going in. more holistic admissions, looking at more factors than just test scores and g.p.a. we know that. not only that, but the university of california actually has a local admission policy where fur in the top 9% of your high school, that you are guaranteed to get into a u.c. and so, these types of policies where you actually ensure more accessibility, where you ensure more diversity, you ensure more opportunities is becoming the standard in the college level. so the fact that we would somehow be saying we're lowering standards when they look at a greater set of factors and you are focusing on diversity. i actually think someone mentioned that maybe we should have a larger band 2 and band 3. maybe we should look at that. i think that might be a way to think about diversity in addition to ensuring access for willie brown. let's think about moving further in the direction of access for our schools across the district. the two last things is i still don't understand why private schools are a part of band 3. and if someone can explain that it seems to me that the specific purpose of band 3 was to ensure access for under represented schools in sfusd yet we continue to include private schools in that. i think that the one thing that we. there was a line we want to make sure there are stronger supports at lowell. that we address some of the challenges with the culture there. that we have a stronger commitment to retention and support for under-served students. i hope that that is an area that we can agree on. it shouldn't stop at looking at the admissions policy and it should continue to what happens at lowell but it is essential that we practice what we preach, which is that we believe in our kids. we believe that students, african american students, can excel at the highest levels in this district. for this small change to make these 11 students, who want to go to lowell have access to it, for that to be controversial, i think it requires us to do soul searching on our part. [applause] mr. sanchez. >> thank you, president cook. i want to thank everybody who came out to speak tonight. i know it's a issue that a lot of folks have passion for. i want to double back on a couple things that commission haney and commission norton said. one is we need more of a discussion on private school entrance through the band 3 criteria. that has not been flushed out in my mind, at least this last year or two in the student assignment at committee. so we need to go back and look at that. that's when i talk about how we talk about kids and commissioner norton took the rare opportunity to admonish public speakers for saying these kids, when you say these kids and those kids, that sends a real message to our community. which is they're the other and there is no room for that in our district and our society. it's racist. so if not these kids and those kids it's our kids. all of the students in this district are our students and our kids. last year's entering class of 500 students at lowell included one african american male student. it's been an issue for many years about african american, latino attendance at lowell. there's a bigger issue that we don't tend to talk a lot about but was in the media recently which is whether we're following the law in actually how we enter a kids into lowell. that's the discussion that we really should be having with our public and with ourselves because if we have a school that has -- uses a criteria, any type of academic criteria, testing or otherwise through academics, that is questionable and we need to really have a honest discussion with ourselves if that's appropriate in san francisco. >> commission walden. >> i want to start out by saying i didn't listen to the people that said i wouldn't be successful or i wouldn't make it in life. i'm just so glad that our black and brown students are more beautiful, intelligent and resilient than a lot of people view them. and i just hope that, you know, as they're listening tonight and as they're out here in the audience that they understand that every adult does not view them that way and that we have adults that care about all of our students. this is what i heard tonight -- simply put, this is why i'm 100% in support of this board policy resolution and the fact that we know and understand why it's so needed. but this is what i heard tonight from adults in our city. i try not to take things personal and say things personal to families. i sure hope that -- if you do have kids or if you are raising kids or some of the people who say the things they do, i am going to pray for you. i heard these kids. black and brown kids didn't know how to study. it wouldn't be pleasant for these kids. black and brown kids can't make it at lowell and we shouldn't subject them to the rigger. these are statements that came out of the mouth of people. you can go back and look at the tape. i didn't make this up. this is not something that i came up with on my own. in fact, i thought that i was coming in here today just to vote on the policy because i thought i was done with all the racist rhetoric from all the hundreds of e-mails that i got. this is just unacceptable from a community that supposed to be diverse and care about kids. just the last thing i'm going to say, you know, i got elected on the board of education. i know my colleagues agree, we can work for the students and the families that are in the district and make sure that we provide the best education, best public education possible. working with resources that are strapped, working with a lot of dynamics that are against us as we continue to work hard. but i just got to say, the rhetoric tonight and things like that, are very imperative, very imperative that we all understand why we have policies like this in place. i respect people who graduate from our schools. we have some great schools. alumni associations are good for certain things. i'm not up here to make decisions based on what alumni associations feel or how they feel about the policy. to say things like why weren't we consulted? we consult parents and families and people that have children that go to our schools. that's who we consult when we make policy. i'm kind of shocked. entitlement never shocks me and i'm learning more and more, even in my 43 years and all work i've done in the public policy and public realm. i just get shocked by the audacity of people. our children are beautiful, black, brown, chinese, latino, white, all of our children are amazing. i'm not going to sit here and just stand for anybody saying anything about our kids without calling them on t it' on it. i hope people change and learn how to talk about children, at least particularly in public. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, president cook. in the interest of full disclosure, i'm a proud member of the lowell class of '83 and also past member of the lowell alum any association board of directors. and what i need to say is, racial equity is hard work. it is really hard, messy, almost always controversial. and that is what we as a board have committed ourselves to doing through this policy. i want to thank ms. fisher for reminding us only 1 point 9% of the study body is african american where there are at least 6% in the general population. when we look at statistics like that, we have to question why and racial equity demands that we disrupt patterns of systemic institutional racism and i do want to say 200 people who contacted me by e-mail. i am really heartbroken, really heartbroken by the message that they were sending to me that somehow this policy change is going to destroy lowell. if lowell is going to be destroyed by this one policy then it wasn't strong to begin with. really, this policy is to make is it stronger, diverse and inclusive. we know from research that cohorts lead to success. that admitting one minority student here and there is not going to help them succeed. we have cohorts of students being challenging environments that give them the resilience they need and to be honest, places like pre sid yo middle school is a theater to lowell. i want willie brown to be a theater to lowell. we need to think differently and make our decisions differently in order to expand the theater to lowell. as much acid a fantastic experience at lowell and lowell alumni have a lot of pride, it's really not just about lowell. in the statistics, i saw gala laio, balboa, washington lincoln have more applicants than to lowell. the good news in the district is we have really strong choices and i think we can't jump to the conclusions that 80% of willie brown want to go to lowell. we have a choice system. we have really fantastic alternative choices. it's not just about one school. the bright side, some of the messages had really positive, concrete suggestions on how to support students at the middle school level, at elementary level to help them be successful at any high school. in particular, mark offered proposal for reinstituting a summer bridge program several years ago. we did a step up program from elementary to middle school. so tonight is really about an enrollment policy. we still need to have a more robust discussion about supports for students in the middle grades, in elementary school for student success. given the policy change what additional resource might be necessary. i appreciate the concrete feedback from folks in terms of what they would recommend in terms of those concrete supports. i just also wanted to mention, long-time teacher at lowell, when i mentioned this policy, she said i want attitude or kis from willie brown. we heard the same sentiment from mrs. marshall tonight. i really do hope both understand that we are trying to make the lowell community stronger by being more inclusive and more diverse. i will be supporting the policy. thank you. >> dr. matthews. >> i just wanted to take a moment to address -- i want to assume positive intent and i'm going to assume that those of you who came here tonight to say just slow down and slow the policy down and send the policy back, that you are attempting to come from a positive place. i just want to take a moment to read the words of martin luther king from 55 years ago from his letter from a birmingham jail. we know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressors. it must be demanded by the oppressed. frankly, i have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was well timed. in the view of those who have not suffered unduely, from the disease of segregation. for years now, i have heard the word wait. it rings in the ear of every negro. this wait has almost always meant never. we must come to see, with one of our distinguishes jurists that justice too long delayed is justin denied. >> i appreciate everything that came out to speak in public comment. it was a issue that many people are passionate about. i wanted to follow-up on one of the things that commissioner haney mentioned about universities moving towards a policy is actually done in texas. the university of texas at austin admits the top 6% across the state. and imagine texas being progressive. if you are looking for research based on the decisions like this, if you do a simple google search you will find plenty. i want to belabor the comments. i think that my colleague spoke well for me tonight. so if there's no other questions, roll call vote, please. [ roll call ] >> we're voting on both policies. student assignment and 5120.1. >> correct. >> thank you. [ roll call ] >> six ayes. [applause] section f public comment on general matters. general matters. please note that public comment is an opportunity for the board to hear from the community on matters within the board's jurisdiction. we ask you refrain from using employee and student names. if you have a complaint about a district employee submit it to the employee supervisor in accordance with district policies. as a reminder, board rules in in california law do not allow us to spend to comments or attempt to answer questions during public comment time. if appropriate, the superintendent will ask staff will follow-up with speakers. if would like to leave, this is a good time to leave. otherwise, we will commence with public comment. >> so i have ricardo lopez. when i announce your name, make your way to the podium. daniel howard. tim sinford and anita fleischer. fisher. >> good evening, everybody. my name is ricardo lopez. just going to talk for a minute. i got nervous when i talk in front of everybody. >> my name is ricardo lopez and i'm here to let you know i applied for my son to go to high school here in san francisco. >> my son is in special ed. he is autistic. two years ago we moved to daily city. he had always was able to go to school here in san francisco. >> me and my wife work here in san francisco. we have a younger son who has received until now a chance to go to school here in san francisco. if we take our son to daly city, he wouldn't be able to afford to pay for our daughter's school who is going to berkley because one of us will have to quit our jobs. >> so i wanted you to consider to give my son that transfer again. i know he is not going to be a doctor. i really don't know what is going to happen to him after high school. if he can go to high school here in san francisco, at least he could get that to graduate from a high school from san francisco that would mean something to us. >> thank you. >> please let him know. we will have someone from e. e.. >> daniel howard. tim sinfort. >> my card is for accountability. >> i have you here for f, public comment. >> do you? >> are any other speakers here. if not we'll move on. >> go ahead. >> good evening. my name is tim. i am here to just address a particular comment. my wife and i have two children in sfusd. we've done everything from beyond the pta board to running auction chairs to fundraising, volunteering in two very good but very under funded schools. new traditions and roosevelt. recently, a program was introduced that is called pitch. we commend the fact that you are working like we all are to care for the kids and to give kids additional resources and struggling kids. where our particular issue with the pitch, and i have a letter i can pass out to you, is that it's been so far communicated and addressed as if all african american students are struggling. which they clearly or not. some are. our kids are actually buy by ra. my wife is black and i'm told i'm white. in this america that we live in, they're considered as black students, interestingly enough. so we think that it's time to maybe get beyond this obsession with racial categorization that we have in this country. and here in san francisco, we have japanese jews, asian african americans, right. i'm bringing up this as a minor issue. i think an important one. i feel firmly that if you bring up a problem, you bring up a solution. for the pitch, we ask that you communicate that and implement that a little more clearly and a little more succinctly. and secondly, if possible, let's broden this program and really help all our struggling students in san francisco usd. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> hi, again. so, my comment is related to the district data summary. the accountability metrics that we're going to talk about later. i just have a couple highlights that i'm sure we'll get to. one of the things that stuck out to me was special education. our population is increased from 11.5 to 12-point 9%. i know our money from the state isn't. i commend the district for doing amazing things to support our students who learn differently with limited resources and nowhere near enough funds from the state or federal. so thank you all for the hard work and the hard decisions that are made on behalf of our students everyday. but of course, we have a lot more work to do. with our data, we see that 50% of sfusd students are pro fish enter in math. 55% of ela. sfusd students pr pro efficient. our graduation rates two out of every three students who are we look forward to working with the districts to improve these outcomes. i know many people we work with are in the room. thank you all for your hard work and tough decisions. thank you. thank you. >> section g special order of business. approval of appointments to the childcare planning and advisory council. superintendent matthews, you have a recommendation for the record. >> yes. we will have the chief of early ed department. >> good evening, commissioners and dr. matthews. i'm the chief of the early education department. i'm going to read the recommended action that the board of education of the san francisco unified school district appoints the following applicants to the childcare planning and advisory council cpac. owen valez and michelle henley. they're our two new a pointies. >> thank you, any comments from the board? >> mr. graham dobson is here if you'd like to hear from him. >> i see him in the audience. >> [laughter] >> did you want to hear from me? [laughter] >> i'll tell you, the two candidates are both here in the audience tonight. we have owen valez who represents consumer seat, parent representative. owen is active with parent voices. the consumer seat is one of the hardest seats to fill on our advisory council. it would be replacing the previous parent representative and consumer representative that was appointed by the board of education. we have rachel henley from rec and parts who is our public agency representative. again, replacing a previous public agency seat, which was held by public-health. that person retired and the seat was available. it doesn't have to go to the public-health department again. it can be any public agency. we think it's really important to have the rec and park voice on the childcare planning council because there are lots of 0-5-year-olds that are served as a rec and parks sites and we want to partner with them a lot more. i work at the office of early care and education. we currently without a coordinator. i've been filling in that role. hopefully you can just a point these two. they're both here in person. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> any other comments? [ roll call ] >> six ayes. >> number two. public hearing on an approval of resolution regarding the sufficiency of textbooks and structural materials by section 60119. may i hear a motion to second this resolution? >> so moved. >> can i get a second. >> so moved. >> who was the seconded by. >> sanchez. superintendent math use you read the recommendations to the record. >> yes, we have our chief of curriculum and instruction, mr. brent stevens. i didn't see you there. >> good evening, commissioners -- >> hold on one second. i call a public hearing of sufficiency of textbooks and struckal materials. he have a motion to second. >> i'm here to read the resolution into the record, the recommended action. to hold the public hearing on and approve a resolution regarding the sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials as required by education code 60119. >> we have no public speakers signed up for this item. any comments from board members? seeing none. roll call, please. [ roll call ] >> we return to our regular meeting. >> tonight we will receive a summary on the district data from the 2017-2018 school year. this will be presented by our chief of research planning and assessment ms. ritukhana. good evening, commissioners. members of the public. this is our annual presentation on summarizing all the local -- >> you need to pull that closer to make sure it's on. >> can you hear me now? can you hear me now? >> this is is our annual presentation on summarizing all the local accountability metrics for 2017-2018. this is data that schools and central office have already reviewed and are acting on the it's a privilege that i can present both with my central office colleagues, who will be presenting this data with me and the privilege of having my principals here that week honor for all the good data. so we want to begin with first saying that all the data that we're going to present tonight is over three years. with that in mind, i would like to show you the three year demo graphic trend at san francisco unified school district. approximately, all three years we have had 53,000 students enrolled in the district. and when you look at the demographics through ethnicity and program lense, we find the decline to state has started to increase more than 2%. the other decreases or increases were less than 2% but that has been a significant increase of more than 2%. we're 9.2% of san francisco students are with the decline to state ethnic backgrounds. an interesting fact is that we have more than 3500 students in san francisco enrolled in charter schools and our pre-k enrollment has increased up to 1,548 students this last year. i'm going to turn it to dr. stevens to present the ela and math data. >> commissioners, what we're looking at is a representation of the scores on s back for a variety of eth nice tease across the district. furthest to the left, the district aggregates has risen to 55% points. you will see for some demographic catagories there's been a small but stayed' increase over the last three years. and then more significantly, some ethnic groups you see the performance has remained steady or declined so this represents the widening of the gap by a few percentage points but it's still a widening of that gap. you will notice over to the left in the orange bar, that we've seen a different rates of improvements by level. we've experienced almost a 3% increase for elementary-skids students taking the sbac, relatively modest growth at the middle school level and a five and a half percent dip at the high school level. this represents only our 11th grade test takers. they're the only group required to take the sbac each year. for african american students we've seen the gain at the elementary level. we've seen losses, small losses but still losses in middle school and high school level. this corresponding set of results for mathematics. you will see at the district level, we've achieved 50% origin this was equal to the performance two years ago. this still has a 10% points higher than our largest urban counterpart in san francisco. you can see there the demographic and as well we're seeing the achievement gaps persisting in this year's results. over on the right-hand side, another interesting fact about this year's performance cohorts of students moving from the sixth to seventh grade made the single largest set of increases on the sb ac. these increase are also out pacing the course ponding increases at the state level. so to the extend that we're seeing, entering into middle school and all the supports we've been putting into middle school makes a difference, here is where it's showing up. >> looking at bright spots within the district, there are many. i could almost name each and every school. talking about some big bright spots. this is the fourth year that we have seen the sbac being administered. if you look at the four year consecutive upward trend in 14, 15, through 17 and 18. we see 10 schools in english language and 12 schools in math that have shown an upward trend for all four years. another interesting fact is if you look at the california school dash boards criteria for performance, they would rank 40% of our schools or 40 schools as high to very high status in performance. in both content areas, e. l.a. and math. so again, these are schools are. there are nine schools that have a pro fish tee rat proficiency . which means 75% of the students are meeting or exceeding grade level standards. how do we compare to other districts across california? these are large urban districts across california. by large, i mean having more than 50,000 students enrolled. you can see that we're the only one that has maintained the above 50% proficiency rates in both math and english language arts over the last three years. however, when we take the same districts and we troy to look at them for african american students, we are the second lowest in performance. sfusd redesignation rate has been moving slightly upwards. however, the state rate is 2% still higher than our rates. and the gap in the redesignation rates between asian and latino students is increasing. there are also, as you can see, some bright spots in schools where the districts were very designation rate was 25% or more across the e.l. students redesignation. and eight of those students are listed above, along with in parenthesis, the redesignation rates. i'm going to turn it over now to talk about the high school indicators. >> good evening, commissioners. thank you. it's a pleasure to present with you. when we start talking about high school measures, we want to first look at high school readiness as an opener. and if you remember high school readiness is something that we developed with other core districts. the indicators of high school readiness, which are on the right side of the slide, if a student comes out of eighth grade and they have a g.p.a. that's greater than 2.5 or above, they have no ds or fs in english language arts or math, they have a daily attendance rate of 96% and they were not suspended during the school year. the good news that we see with this that is in 2015-16 we saw 1,813 students come oust eighth grade that met these high school readiness criteria. you also remember that simultaneously, we have developed on track and off track measures for our students. and of that 1,813 students that met the criteria in '15-'16 we see that 83% of those students are on track to graduate this year. another measure that we look at is the cohort graduation rate. and the state has released the most recent cohort graduation rate for 2016-17. it should be noted that this year the state adjusted the cohort graduation rate calculation, which resulted in not only our district but other districts and the state and throughout the state a drop from about 1% to 3%. it was a slight adjustment in the calculation. so any increases that we would note this year, that factor should be considered. sfusd the 16-17 cohort graduation rate was 84.4%. the really good news we should celebrate as a district, that our african american graduate rate continued on the upward trajectory even with the adjustment with the one to three percent adjustment and the african american graduation rate was 77%. which is continuing to narrow the gap. >> thank you, so much. kevin is not here today. he has already presented this previously. this is the chronic absenteeism and suspension rates which you can see going up. there is a policy that sfusd and sfcsd have a number of initiatives in process. those are list to the right of your slide. moving right along, i'm going to have our chief-of-staff give the next slide. >> as you know, the core districts administer a cultural climate survey. which is administered to parents, staff, at all our of schools and students in grades 4-12. as you can see here, the school culture climate ratings are steady for all participants across the stakeholder groups. do want to point out that one area that our bay view elementary schools were focusing on last year was sense of belonging. so while those rates remain stable district wide, you can see in that orange band on the left-hand side that our four elementary bayview schools saw say significant gain for staff and students sense of belonging measure. the other survey that is administered to students is the socially motionasocial emotionag survey. it's questions across four areas, growths mind set, self advocacy and self management and awareness. it related to a study increase in growth mind set with mixed trends across the other three constructs. for those interested, there are links in that orange band on the right-hand side to sample survey questions. these will be hyper linked and so the version that is available online will give people access to those questions. >> thank you, so much. moving to communication and use of data. all the data produced in aggregate trends across the various groups always keeping equity in the minds to talk about growth. it's shared with our schools as well as the families. so we have structures and routines that we practice to communicate and help with the reflection on the data. so we do give it to principal at the institute where we share the newsletter which has a summary of all the accountability metrics we're also sharing with you today, in the forms of a newsletter. it shared with them and their colleagues they get a chance to reflect on it. in addition to that, there is also one-on-one confidences data conferences that are held with the schools. they result in enormous learning on the district's part. so lead and r.p.a. facilitate these data conferences and we've met one-on-one with over 50 schools. so that is with regards to the schools and coming to the community and families. we have updated in preparation for the enrollment fair, a one page on each school's academic behavior and culture climate data. so it's available on our website. on the district's website. under each school, there's a one-page summarizing the same results that were mentioned within the presentation. in addition, there's also a data forum for parents. i welcome to you to this year's data forum which is december 5th, 2018, making sense of district data and telling the stories behind the numbers. last but not least, there's also a data link page which connects us to all the c.d.e. or the california department of education reports. and now i'm coming to the best part of the presentation, which is highlighting the bright spots. recognizing all the good work that is done in schools. so having met with more than 50 schools, and looked at all the good qualitative data we have from them in terms of strategies and what has worked in these schools, you have five teams. these five teams happen to run across many schools. very prominent in some of the schools tha that are mentioned. we spoke about the actions that were the direct quote from the principal as well as some of the results that we saw within these schools. so the very first one is schoolwide structures and a culture of learning. so, it was very reflective within that school's presentation that they actually have a culture of building professional capacity and a schoolwide commitment to shed understanding around instruction. you can read the quote from the principal as well as data that showed that john more than doubled its proficiency rates over the last three years. the second one is teacher-led com ab are tive inquir -- collae using data. there was structural improvement through reflections. facilitated by their structural leader and you can see staff reading on the climate of support for academic learning was 95%. along with their upward trend in academics. systematic differration of instruction. this was again at roosevelt. what was highlighted was the intentional deliberate efforts to know their students and optimized learning for each. so again, the fact the principal is aware of all three schools. last but not least, is cul actually responsive pedagogy. very evident in how each students' interests are kept in mind when delivering the curriculum and the rigorous standards. moving on to student-centered learning climate, we so often at sfusd say students first. this was one school that actually did operationalize that phrase into students first and put students at the center and centered all their resources around that student professional development towards what was the need in the classroom. there again, the principal is here and i want to honor her. let's give them all a -- [applause] at this point, i welcome any ofe principals who want to say more than what i have said. >> questions or comments from commissioners? >> good evening. thank you for the recognition. we just -- our site took what dr. matthews presented about this 30-year trend. we've been talking about equity, inquiry for 16 years i've been in sfusd and we've been turning out the same results, we had to ask ourselves what we were going to do that is new and different. that was for us reorganizing our structural day to have 90 minute release times -- >> i'm sorry, your name and the school district. >> ben clause, principal at jose ortega. >> to dive in with the improvemented lays out for us and use it as a framework for us to bring discipline to the inquiry circle so we can name what is working well and what we need to work on. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, so much. >> my name is michael. i'm the principal at roosevelt middle school. i want to echo ben's comments. the data that has been helpful at roosevelt in identifying the need and how we can strategize and use our resources to best serve our students. i also want to go on record and let it be known i have an incredible staff at roosevelt. the teachers and the team there work really hard to support our kids. that's evident in the data that we see and so i think it should be noted, although the prance palprincipals are here it's the staff that should be recognized for the growth of our students. >> i'm anne and i'm the principal at sanchez elementary school. that was a perfect segway about the work we've been doing around our students and our learning climate -- [ please stand by ] our schools well, and they are improving and increasing and addressing the gaps. what opportunity for learning community have we allowed for other schools to learn from the best practices that are happening at these schools that are successful? because i know every year we have some schools that are improving. but what platform have we made available for our schooling that are struggling from these great schools? not to put for work on your plate, but i know we can learn from schools that are excelling. >> that's one of the areas that we have -- as you know, we have lead in place where we have cohorts, and they have cohort meetings monthly, at least monthly, and what happens inside of those cohort meetings are opportunities for people to -- our principals to present what they're doing, what they're doing well, what their struggles are, have those conversations. with that said, it's opportunity for them to learn from each other. when we see best practices or schools that are operating at higher levels, other schools have the opportunity to learn from them. the other thing, and then i'll let brad add onto anything. but we have instructional rounds where groups of principals are actually walking through schools, where we have practices that are actually improving school achievement. so we have opportunity to talk about what's happening at this school, what's happening at their own school, and opportunities for development, so they have opportunity to learn from each other. >> thank you, superintendent matthews. the other thing i would add, particularly with regard to african american students learning initiative, we're in the process right now of working with the schools to identify their particular focus and the strategies they're going to be implementing that are research based regarding the success of african american students, and then, they will also be networked to each other according to those focus areas. so we'll be studying and learning from this effort as a district over the course of the year. we're also doing some additional work with curriculum and instruction around -- going all the way down to the level of the classroom where teachers have shown particular success with student achievement to do some video graphy and also interviews of those teachers to get an understanding of how they are so successful year and year with students who are historically underserved by the larger system, so that's also something we're putting in place this year. >> and i'm glad to hear that, can you just give me a brief update how ali

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