>> good afternoon everyone and welcome to the thursday october 25th, 2012 meeting of the city and county of san francisco, city and school district select committee. my name is david campos and i'm the chair of the committee. we're joined by choice president chiu, commissioner hydra mendoza, commissioner sandra lee fewer. my understanding is that the other members of committee are en route. the clerk of the committee today is victor young and we want to thank the following members of sfgovtv staff, michael freeman and jennifer lowe for covering the meeting and we thank the members of the public and staff who are at the meeting today. with that, mr. clerk, if you could please call i. item no. 1. >> hearing on the implementation of a-g course requirements in san francisco unified school district high schools. thank you very much. and this is an item, hearing request that was actually requested initially by supervisor carmen chu. commissioner fewer, do you want to say something? >> no. >> thank you. and i will now turn it to chris of the san francisco unified school district and we will be hearing from the school district shortly. >> thank you. i am the director of development and local government relations. we have one speaker from san francisco unified school district, dr. janet schultz to present. >> i welcome dr. schultz and i have actually met dr. schultz a long time ago when i was a lawyer for the school district and we worked on the consent decree. we're happy to have you. thank you dr. schultz for being here and the floor is yours. thank you supervisors and commissioners and thank you for the opportunity to come back and present further details on the data, on the status of our current juniors and their graduation, as well as some action items we have taken since the last time we were all together. what i would like to do today is to really brief outline of the context, just to give folks an idea of our overall graduation requirements and talk about the immediate action plan we have put in place since the last time we saw you, including the review of some data that is a little more detailed than before and answer any questions. so just to sort of set the context for folks, because it gets to be very complicated when we talk about graduation requirements, because we have so many different options for students. and so as we are now -- when we made the decision to raise our graduation requirements to meet and be aligned to the uc requirements, it was also at a time we were facing severe budget cuts. so within that context most of our schools have a six-period day rather than a seven-period day. just to give you a sense, in a six -period day a typical student, a student would have four opportunitis to retake a course that he or she failed. or four opportunities to take a course that would be an elective for something that he or she choose in order to complete those requirements. students who receive special ed services ieps in in a regular six-period day would have less opportunities within that day, because this take a study skills course. many of them, as a way to help them with their classes, other classes throughout the day. so they would only have one opportunity within a four-year plan to retake a course. three if they are exempted from the world language requirement, which is a possibility. and then another large group of students that we have for the population in the school district are students who are english-language learnings and english-language learners are varying degrees newcomers to long-term. but our students in a regular 6-period day have two opportunities within a four-year schedule to rotake a course. four if we exempt them from their world language requirement. so i wanted to just give you a sense of sort of what our students are facing in terms of opportunities as they go for their four-year graduation plan, as well as some of the challenges that they face in terms of getting the courses that they want. so you can see that as we have increased our requirements, we have decreased the opportunities that students have to meet those requirements. and then students who are more at-risk of meeting those requirements have even less of an opportunity to meet those requirements within a four-year plan. also one thing that is important to note about the context of san francisco is that we are unique in the state of california in that we are a large urban district that is our own county. so our students also are in our continuation schools, and in our court and county schools as well, too. so we look across those programs and schools as well when we're thinking about our graduation rates. we also have students in a ged program as well. so looking at our current junior class, our class of 2014. these are the students who are the first students who will be held to the new graduation requirements next year when they are seniors. so what we did in making sure we were coming up with a targeted plan was the first thing we needed to do was really identify who these students are who are at-risk, so we could by name know who the students are and what it is that they needed. and so that took us time to go through, work with our complicated data system and define what means to be "on-track/off-track." and i'll go through these individually. we developed an individual plan for all of those students and then we have a plan for some targeted community outreach. we want to expand our credit earning and recovery options and of course we want to make sure we're being transparent in public and being held accountable. so the first action that we did was really determine what is on-track and what is off-track? those are terms that get thrown around and lot and we want to be consistent with what the uc system does and consistent with what other school districts do, so we had a common vocabulary to start to think about who is on-track and who is off-track. so folks from our curriculum development department, led by bill sanderson, who is here, the stanford leads program studied and wept went through went through and what it means to be on-track. there are markers that you should have made by that time that are aligned to the uc system courses in order to be considered "on-track." and so that whole group spent a lot of time and really define what is your address that means. so those are the definitions that we'll be using from now on in moving forward. it's beyond just the credits, but also the markers. excuse me. so "on-track" students have 110 credits, which is the number of credits you need to be a junior and we're defining this for the current class of 2014. so we also have a definition for 10th graders. a definition for seniors, but for the purposes of today we're looking at the class of 2014, since this is the first-class with the new graduation requirements. so you would have 110 credits, but as a student in your third year you also should have made certain a-g course markers an our own state graduation requirements of pe. a-g course markers would be core english class. so you should have had two by that time. core math classes, social studies, science. the next group of student s is our students who have the correct number of credits to be a junior, but they are missing one or more of those benchmarks. it could be for a variety of learners such as being an english-language student who have to take their core english classes later. it could be because they have failed one or two core classes. but these are students who have made the correct number of credits, but one of those benchmarks need to be made up. and then we have students who are "off-track," who should have 110 credits, but they are down to 80. we look at those students and say targeted credit recovery and credit options could graduate on time. and then we have moderately off-track and severely off-track students. so in looking at the overall data where we are now with our current junior class, the class of 2014. there is two charts. one of them shows our graduation requirements, which is the chart on the right. our graduation requirements currently are that you pass the courses within an a through a d grade. the uc-eligible, in order to get into uc, you do need to have c averages. and so the chart on the left shows the students who are in each of the categories, having achieved the categories a-c. so we have a total of 4024 students who are currently juniors. 2216 of them are on-track and they have passed the classs that we would expect them to pass, and have met, like the english, the science, the social studies, the pe, in order to be aligned to the uc requirements. we have another 1319 students who have 110 credits, but they are missing one of those benchmarks. and again, that benchmark could be that they failed one semester of pe, they failed a math course. it could be that they are an english-learner and haven't yet had the opportunity to take their core english class, because most of the beginning english learners take those classs in junior year when they have to double up. then we have 296 who are in the moderately -- ho who are in the off-track, those below in the credits who have done to 80 credits and then you see the numbers for the moderately off-track. and the severely. this next chart shows who these students are by ethnicity. and so the way to read this chart would be when you look at the chart on the far right, the bar graph on the far right that says, "on-track," how it reads is 100% of those students that are represented in that graph are on-track, meaning that they have their credits plus their a-g benchmarks. then the ethnic breakdown of that is what is represented in the bar. so that you can see that 56% of the students who are on-track to meeting their graduation requirements are chinese. you see that 4% of the students who are on-track are african-americans. and the bar chart reflects going to each of the five categories. >> dr. schultz, what is the ethnic breakdown of the district as a whole in terms of how does this compare to the make-up of the district? >> our entire district is about -- i want to say 40% chinese. about 7-10% african-american. 30% latino, but i don't have the exact breakdown with me. then in order to sort of get a sense of the data, because there is a lot. what we did was we made pie charts for each of the groups that are groups that we're either targeting or asked about for comparison reasons. so if you look at the next chart, this chart represents 100% of the african-american students who are current 11th graders in our school system and then it shows how many are in each of the five categories. so the way to read this is that we have 323 african-american students who are current juniors. 84 of them are on-track with 110 credits plus have met their a-g markers. 153 of them have the credits, but are missing the marker. 45 are off-track with the credits. they are below 30 credits or more, or 30 credits. and then you have 24 who are moderately off-track and then 17 of our current juniors who are african-americans who are severely off-track. the next chart represents our latino students, who are current 11th graders for the class of 2014. we have 821. you see the 265 or 32% of them are on-track meeting the benchmarks. another 364 or 44% of them are on-track with their credits, but missing one of their benchmarks. we have 14% or 114 who are off-track with their credits, meaning that they have down to 80 credits. and then we have 39 and 39, who are moderately or severely off-track. the next chart represents our chinese students, who are current 11th graders in the class of 2013. you will see that we have 374 in that class, 72% or 1237 of them are on-track and also making their benchmarks towards a-g, another 404 are on-track with their credits, but missing some benchmarks and then you see 60 who are still off-track and 11 and 12 who are severely off-track so of all of our students who are english language learners in the 11th grade we have 733. 224 of them or 31% are on-track and another 47% of them are off-track. the most common reason for our students who are english-language laryners to learners to be off-track they haven't had time to take the english language course. i have said that a couple of times. they took two periods of language development in high school, but om the highest level counts for the uc system. so if a student is taking their freshman year, sophomore 5 and 6, which is what the most common would be, then 5 and 6 would count for what they consider their 9th grade english, but they wouldn't have taken their 10th grade english until their junior language what students have to double up to meet their requirements on-time within a four-year plan. and then the last chart show ours students who receive special ed services and what percent of them are on-track or off. a total of 364 in our graduating class of 2014 and we see 52% are off-track, missing credits and then you can see the numbers for the rest. we wanted to make sure that we gave specific support and specific strategies for students off-track. we want to make sure whatever benchmark class that they are making that they have an opportunity to take or retake: >> dr. schultz, before you go into that, i wanted to ask you that i know that those of us on the board of supervisors and members of community, it would be helpful to know that if the data is available by school? i know i certainly would have an interesting in knowing within the schools in my district, for instance, how they are doing? just to have a better sense. it that information available? >> yes. what i do ask is when i share the data that i actually spend time to share it with you in context, because schools have unique context around them and i will give you an example. the school of the arts, the largest group of the students show that they are on-track with their credits, but haven't met a benchmark, but when you look at the data to drill down into what they are missing it's their pe, because we have exemptions for the school of the art because of the uniqueness of the arts program. that their pe credit isn't received until later. so that is just an example of why it's important not to just give it out, but that they really ask that we give it out and spend some time going over the context. if the school as a large percent of english-learners, but newcomers, that is important to understand because they are probably on a five-year plan. we have that information by school and happy to share it, but if somebody could meet with me or someone else to understand the context. >> that makes sense. thank you. commissioner fewer? >> yes, thank you. thank you, janet for this presentation, but i also, since we're requesting the data then would like to know the numbers of students that actually -- the reason that they have the units, but they are off-track -- not off-track, but missing benchmarks is simply because of the pe requirements. so that is how many students does that really affect? because i think that is something that we can do very easily around that, but the classes, the credit recovery is something that is much more difficult. and then also, i just wanted to say this before we go to the second-half of your presentation. i respectfully disagree with the school district that actually the students that have all the credits, but they are missing a benchmark -- missing one or more courses should be classified as "on-track." because i think if we continue -- what happens is that even if they have the credits, but the way the graduation requirement is written, if they do have the credits, even though they do have the credits and they are missing the benchmark, they do not graduate. so that is quite frankly, the definition of "off-track." the definition of "off-track," is that it doesn't matter how many -- if they have met the credits, but they haven't met the graduation requirements, they are not "on-track" to graduate. so all of those students in the light green are actually really, in reality, off-track for graduation at 2014. it means that every single one of those students will need an opportunity to make up those credits or take those courses or else they will not graduate. so i think that they should be classified as off-track, because then we need to know -- because they will need service. additional service, in order to actually meet the graduation requirements. so they are off-track. so i just wanted the committee to notice that the light green section means that they are missing one or more classes, but if they miss one or more classes, come 2014, they won't graduate. that is what "off-track" is because of the graduation requirement. i think we had a different graduation requirement before. we had the credits -- you had the credits, but you met the classes. this you could graduate. but this is specific course work. and so what concerns me is that if we -- i mean we should be considering them as off-track also, because half of the semester is already over and so they have a year and a half to make up one class or could be two classes. so they will need extra services and we should be budgeting for those students. that is the only reason i mention. it thank you. >> thank you, commissioner fewer. >> i think you will see is that we label them on-track credits, but missing benchmarks, but we are also including them in all of our plans in terms of credit recovery and extra services that they are going to need as well. and some of that may be a 5th year, especially if they are beginning english-language learner students as well, so they have an opportunity to take the english classes. so we definitely have those students within the scope of our work for our plan. so the next part is what we have done is -- since last time we met -- we got all of this data, and we drilled down and to make sure that the school site had the same data. and that they were doing counseling conferences with students. so all along of course these students have been receiving counseling support from their counselors, but we wanted to make sure it was done in a consistent way; that they were all getting the same information and that they were having a template to go over with them and their familis to show what they were missing and then when they would make that up. whether it would be during the school day, during their regular schedule, during an afterschool program, summer school or through city college. so we wanted to make sure all of the students have their information on their status and where they are with the credit recovery option. and so all of our school counselors received a memo of instruction that i included in your materials. a template, that i included as well, too. and then a tracking sheet. so they are reporting back to us when they are having these conferences. and so they are doing these conferences between now and november 19th. and so they are meeting with students in each of those four categories. definitely in the students that commissioner fewer talked about, who are missing a benchmark, and making a plan with them for when they are going to make up those credits. and so that is occurring now and the counselors all have that information. the counselors received the names of their students under each of those four categories. so if i am a high school counselor, what i receive from my junior class was a list of all of the students who are in -- who are missing benchmarks. along with their program status, if they received special ed services or if their limited english proficient and also showing which class they are missing from the benchmark. so it shows whether it's math, english, social studies, science or pe. so they receive that report now that we have drilled down with the data. they have received that report for each group of students and are now having those conferences with them. with the standardized format plan and also identifying when they are going to have those options. then they will be reporting that back to us, so if there is a school that is getting behind and the numbers are large, whatever, we can make sure that we target supports so those kids get that information. the next thing that we were thinking of and that we have started is that we want to make sure that we do outreach not just at the school sites, but in the communities where the stewt students live. we have had meetings to work with them to see where we could actually host some counseling sessions in the communities in november and december and invite all of these targets students and their families. so that they have an opportunity, if they can't make it to the school, or to get it in the school day, to hear this information in their community. and so the timeline for that is november and december, where we'll be doing a series of community outreach sessions. and we're hoping to reach more families and students so question not only develop awareness of the graduation requirements, but make sure that they know what the credit recovery options are and what some of our community-based organizations offer for support. so far we have identified locations at the bayview y, the mission neighborhood health center, coleman and outreaching to a few other communities to identify locations and getting the word out as well. the next sort of action item that we want to do is make sure that we're expanding our credit recovery options. because of the budget cuts that i referred to earlier, while we increased our graduation requirements, we also had to cut centralized evening school and centralized summer school. if we had not had the support of the city two years ago when these students were 9th graders and the foresight to say we're going to target in some dollars to offer summer school, those numbers that you see in the dark and light green would be vastly different. we had a thousand students who are current 11th graders take advantage of summer school when they were 9th graders and then we rolled it off and the city supported us again la

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