Respond for travel and readers im really pleased and welcome maxine our moderator for this evening. [applause] thank you allison. And welcome to the candidates for San Francisco board of education. And welcome to all of you who have come out this evening, either via electronic or here in person to hear what they have to say. The candidates will have a chance to present their views on issues affecting the city and to answer questions about those issues that were submitted in advance for tonights forum. First, i would like to remind you of our ground rules. Response to see questions should be on the issues and policies related. Candidates are expected to be respectful of other candidates and ask to not make personal attacks on other individuals. Here are the procedures for the forum. The candidates will have the opportunity to make 90second opening and closing statement. Opening statements will be in alphabetical order by first name. Closing statements will be in reversal fa bet cal order by first name. Each candidate will have 75 seconds to answer questions. The order of answering each question, will be rotated among the candidates. Each candidate will have the opportunity to answer the same number of questions. Any rebuttal may be included in the candidates closing statements which will be 90 seconds. A countdown timer will be displayed with a visual indication of remaining time for response. Theyll be right there in the front. Every aspect of the forum will be equally fair to all candidates. Thank you to our attendees tonight, for those attending online, youre in listen, those who are online, you are in listen only mode. The q and a and the chat features are not attribute i have. Justactive just so you know. This forum will be recorded and made available on our website, our Youtube Channel and sfgov tv cable channels. You have many important decision to see make november 8th. Tonights forum will give you an opportunity to learn before you vote. The questions for tonights forum were submitted by San Francisco residents and organizations. Now lets begin. As i mentioned, we will start off with 70second Opening Statement in alphabetical order and therefore we welcome our candidates and thank you for participation in this forum. Please introduce yourself, tell us which neighborhood you live in and why youre running for San Francisco board of education. And well start with aleta fisher. Thank you, is this on . Yes. Hi, my name is aleta fisher i live in the lmi neighborhood district 11 and im running for the district because of my children. I have im a foster parent, now adoptive parent. All of former mechanical engineer turned school advocate. I served on all of pt a, pts a, i served on district level Advisory Committees for ten years and its my experience going to not only my childrens iep meetings but Meetings School after school where we have the same conversation over and over again. We need more services. We need more parent educators. We need more School Social workers, psychologist, more nurses more everything. And what we found when we provide more services in our schools, everyone benefits from it. And so im running to make sure that we bring more support and services into our schools and that we make sure that when were talking about our billion dollars budget, we are prioritizing our student first and for most over Central Office over anything else. And that our budget is aligned with our values of inclusion, equity, diversity and love for all of our students. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Anne shu, did i get your name right . Fantastic. Good evening, im anne shu, i am the only immigrant and business person on the Current School board right now. And im running for election this november. I have been a professional working in the hightech industry for 25 years, running my own company for 18 of those years. And i only got involved with the school board and School District during the pandemic when i saw that my twin sons who are now 16, in two Different Schools, were not engaged with school at all. And i looked at the school board then and found them renaming schools, murals doing a lot of politics and not focusing on our students. So i and thousands of other parents worked together to recall three School Members and i was appointed as a replacement by maryland on in march of this year. And im running for election because i want us to focus not on politics, but on Student Outcome. So my First Priority is student achievement and academic excellence. Second is safe schools, both physically and emotionally for our students. And last but not least physical discipline and operational discipline. Im here to reform sf u. S. D to get the politics out and to focus on educating our students. Thank you. Thank you very much. Gabriela lopez. Good evening, im Gabriela Lopez im running for the board of education tone sure that there is the educateive perspective. My background is rooted and dates back over 13 years. I started off as a parent educators which helped build an affective bilingual educators in Public Schools. I then went on to, i learned the importance of union work and became the union rep at my school. I was an arts coordinator for our site and also participated in the district wide mentoring for success program. I was formerly he electricked becoming the youngest women every elected. And once i was on the board, educators and families. During the pandemic, i made sure that our School District protected teachers, students and families. I was on the ground every single day. Providing tech support for families and Getting School supplies in students hands. Im working at the university of San Francisco with future educators in sf schools. Thank you. Thank you, very much. Karen . Good evening, thank you so much maxine, allison and league of women voters for all of your leadership and putting this forum together. Im proud to be a league member. Im karen, i use she her her pronouns. And im running for sf for the board of education to unify San Francisco for San Francisco unified. Im a sfu parent of two students who have been here since kindergarten. And daughter of retired educators and graduate of schools. The early part of my ska reer was in the immigrant movement. I shift today Youth Development and have 20 years of experience preparing young adults for success in college and careers that i will bring to this position. I currently work as a diversity, inclusion educator, shifting work place to be safe and positive for everyone. My priorities are to invest in students and educators social, emotional and well being and academic to promote collaborative Decision Making and provide transparency and accountability with the specific emphasis on appropriating our graduates to graduate from with the career of their dreams. With help from 9th grade to 12th grade. Homidi. Hi oim im homidy, im wholely focused on fulfilling our obligation, because San Francisco deserves to have an excellent Education System and essential part of a thriving and vibrant city. Im a parent with over a decade of engagement, ptas, School Site Council and volunteers in classrooms, tutoring, yard duty extra. My parents are Public School educators and i know how hard they worked. And when i joined the district, i knew i was going to pitch in how i could. I start today serve a fouryear term on a committee that oversees about 80 Million Dollars. And it was there that i discovered the real disconnect between leadership, essential office Decision Making and what our schools and students and educators need. In that role, i advocated for accountability, transparency and really aligning funding with our students priorities. I have over 20 years of professional experience in state government, clean energy education, business and nonprofit for us here in San Francisco. Its a pleasure to be here and i really, my focus is again Student Success fiscal, responsibility and resulting trust. Thank you very much. And lisa . Thank you, good evening. Thank you to the league of women voters for having this and for us to be here and thank you for those participating online. Im lisa wisemonday ward. Im the product of Public Education all the way from elementary, through high school and college and law school. Im a daughter of educate acre. I myself am an educator. I teach; in that space i wear two hats, one as a immigration attorney, trying to keep our families together. The second hat is as an educator, i teach, and i supervise law students and spend my days to understand the systems were working within and trying to fight and dismantle and also the importance of building and negotiation and meeting each other where we are. But most relevant is because im a mother of two, usf children. And i have come about larning how many amazing the district has but also how many things were missing. My focus is threefold, close opportunity gaps, we need to restore our trust and create transparent systems and ensure fiscal accountability. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, lisa. And now the fun part. Were going to start the questions that you submitted before they vent began. Were going to try to get in as many as possible to think about the issues that we brought up. Dont forget to stop. Question 1, were going to start with anne. If i may, i may call you all by your first name. Okay. What experience if any, you do have in education and what qualifications do you bring to the table to make critical decisions impacting childrens education . Thank you. As i introduced earlier, im not an education professional, so my experience with education is my personal experience which is in all Public Schools in the united states, i emigrated when i was age 11. So middle school, high school and graduate school all in public institutions. And my twin sons who also have just been to public intuition all of their life. And my qualifications is that i have run companies. I do know what it takes to run a business, including fiscal responsibility and Operational Excellence but most importantly setting goals so that the company and all the employees of the company can move in the same direction. And i think thats something that is lacking for the past many years is no clear goals and priorities. That is something that the board is working on right now. And im supportive and once we get everything going in the same direction, i think that we can turn this serviceship around. Thank you very much. Gabriela. I appreciate this question because i can elaborate more often my education. As i mentioned my work and heart is rooted in education. I have bachelors in liberal students to become a elementary teacher. I received in masters in education from ucla where i gained a teaching credential in california where i can teach in spanish in sf schools or Public Schools. I take all of that experience and bring that at the Decision Making level because its level because its lacking and well see in boards of education, you dont have thed on the ground experience from the people that are doing the work. One of my, what i believe my qualifications is the stability to to connect that expertise and the experience with the community and the people who are impacted by our decision. Now i work with future educators and instealing these believes and understanding in what theyre bringing into the classroom for the students. And the last thing is im currently getting a ph. D at stanford. Thank you. My first job was out of college as an english as a second language and i was fortunate to work for a organization that taught us how to be teachers. My career in Youth Development and College Access and i worked for some of the leading organizations in the space for europe, for sco scholars. Through my Work Experience, i became a mentor to many young adults and i maintained those relationships even though im no longer working for the organizations. So ive literally seen them buy houses, get married and have kids and all of that. And because ive been an affective mentor to them, they refer additional people to me. So i have a lot of mentees. And it was them that inspired me. Were being bombarded by racism, non stop and thats when i decided to shift focus when preparing young place. So im constantly facilitating Adult Learning experiences. Unified School Teacher and my dad is a professor and i grew up where i was able to prepare classrooms for kids. So when i joined, i ended up doing similar kinds of work with teachers. In the classroom and helping kids learn to read and understanding the curriculum and introduction that was instructed to them. And third grade intervention and 5th grade intervention. So really understanding what the curriculum is and how it is being delivered and the resources that are teachers are being given or not being given. And as part of the Budget Advisory committee that i was part of, we reviewed programs and program ethicacy here in the district. And as i was talking about the disconnect before, i, i realize what the district was saying was happening, wasnt happening. So what i bring is that, asking the question and being able to draw the connect the dots between the design and the statement of what the program is and what is actually happening in the classroom or not happening in the classroom. Thank you very much. Lisa . Yes, so ive been an educator. Ive been an immigration attorney for over 16 years and educator for the last nearly 10. And one of the things that ive learned in myspace as an educator is the value of curriculum and the value of implementing the curriculum. You cannot have one without the other. If you have a great curriculum but dont know how to implement it, our folks are not going to learn. If you have a lousy curriculum, you cant implement it. We need to have both. After each session, i think how can i do better . Something else that ive been focused on is understanding the value of patience and that each of my stud epts come to me with an individual skills and understanding how to approach my work with the strength and space mind set, really leaning into meeting folks where they are. Using cultural humidity lens and really making sure that all of the work and all the education is transparent and accessible so that students can harp and do learning with one another. Thank you very much, arleta . Thank you for this question. So ive been as a mentioned, 17 years as a parent in the district. I served on various district level committees. Im the daughter and granddaughter of teachers and spend summers in classrooms. I used to come after school and play school with my stuffed animals. I loved school. But it was really my experience with my experience that made me realize schools were not set up for everyone. Thats why i became an special education advocate and now im the director of nonprofit in the city. And in the world of special education, the way an vijd eyesed program works, for each child you do assessment, you get all the information you need to figure out what the childs strength and weakness is. And then you, take that and you provide support and services to meet that childs needs. Thats what we do meeting after meeting which is a micro cause um in the district right now. So i bring that and want to take it toll education level. Thank you very much. Now for the second questions, great answers. How do you plan to reduce food insecurities in our Public Schools. Gabriela you get to go first. I ive been thinking about this given the work that ive done on the board, given my own experience as a child in Public Schools. To ensure that kids had food when schools were closed. In sf u. S. D, we have implemented so many innovative way to see get healthy food that kids want to eat as a teacher. I see food that theyre not interested in eating and hearing from, from our student population to make sure that they have access to something that they enjoy eating and that they build a healthy relationship with food. At the kitchen and how we can implement it district wide. I would say as a parent, i was excited when we went with revolution foods, but my kids dont like it. There is a lot of food that is going to waste. I live next to a school and it a tracks, vermin, that there is so much food that is being composted. We need to study how can we make the food so that the student want to eat it. That healthy food that is available all the time with fresh food and vegetables. I would like to see Something Like that. There is a lot of nut allergy focus but there is a lot of soy allergies. Making sure that were providing it is going to be a tough priority. Thank you very much. Liny. Ive been in a lot of lunch rooms and ive seen the waste. This year were doing free lunch last year, we did free lunch. Thats great but one of the benefits of it, there used to be aline that kids had to get into if you were getting the school lunch that was really really slow and kids didnt have access to the time to eat. They were being singled out and waiting to eat just because they were Getting School lunch. My daughters. School has been a recipient and it was a switch list. We need to continue the partnership