inspiration, motivation will in learning, children have lost inspiration and mote vathevation to learn -- motivation to learn with often many different substitute teachers and finally provide safe haven for all the school children. president mendoza: thank you. superintendent garcia: we're aware of that situation and i want to you know that we are really looking into it. my understanding is for the remainder of this school year we already have a substitute that will be permanent for the remainder of the school year there. and that's situation. but in the meantime, it is a personnel item so it's really difficult for to us discuss that publicly because we do have to address. that but i will tell you that we're very aware of it and we're working on that. ok? i want to thank you all, all the community, for coming this evening. thank you very much. >> can you follow up? superintendent garcia: yes. maybe we can get the phone number so you can have -- susan here can give you the phone number of the assistant superintendent that's overseeing that issue. president mendoza: great. thank you. thank you for staying. >> hello, everyone. my name is oilivia hendrix and i'm going to be talking about the lincoln music thing. i'm a 12th grade student and have been in music since seventh grade. when i first started playing music in band i just thought it was something fun and cool. i had no idea that it could change me for the rest of my life and turn me into someone who i thought could only exist on tv and in movies. it wasn't until high school when i really began to understand what music was about and what it can provide for people. music is a community, a place where people can come and not feel left out or mistreated. everyone is important when it comes to music because we all need each other to help create that musical world. for me music was the one place i look forward to the most in middle school and until this day. music gives me a place to escape from the everyday pressure and stress of school. my neighborhood and my own personal doubts and fears. when i pull out my instrument and begin to play, all of my troubles melt away because i know that i live -- at the very moment i am part of something bigger. this is the one thing i can do right. that at the enof the day i can go -- oh, i can go home feeling like there's a subject in school that i can really connect with and understand. i have more but i don't want to get the beep again so i'm going -- [laughter] thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> hello. my name is drew. i'm a senior at george washington high school. our school is very fortunate to have like such a great music program and we want lincoln to have the same opportunity as we do. the students in our band get the opportunity to play at solo ensemble and all city. we get to learn from college professors and professional musicians. and the japanese embassy heard of our band and asked us to play music to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first ship from japan to come to the united states. we also play in small groups at the cliff house hotel lobbies and restaurants sometimes and we get donations from people and we were able to raise $20,000 for our marching band uniforms and we are able to put the marching band for the first time in over 30 years from public school. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> good evening, board. i'm the instrumental music director at george washington high school. i'm here actually on a different capacity. i'm here representing aim and in the very large shoes of dan ryan whose name i know you all know as a great arts advocate who we lost in february. and he very much wanted to see music reinstated at lincoln and told that that would be the case this upcoming school year and there's been a decision made for that not to happen so we're asking to you please look at that and reinstate music at lincoln high school so those students and my colleagues have a place to play. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> good evening, board. i'm don, the former instrumental director of lincoln high school and as you're well aware, with my consolidation from lincoln last spring, that brought about with the end of instrumental music. so i just wanted to share with you that i do find it very painful that we have a high school of 2,500 students with no music being offered. we have students coming in from very strong band and orchestra programs who don't have a music program for them. there's a large amount of instruments available. there's a large library of sheet music available and i'm here. so i would love nothing more than to return to lincoln and rebuild instrumental music. thank you. >> hi. i'm diana gomez. i'm the band teacher at pricido middle school. i spoke to the board several times about seven years ago as the president of a.i.m., association of unstrubblingters of music, which was the last time we were active in trying to save music programs. that's when all the music teachers were pink slipped. so i remember speaking with you personally at that time, being with frustrated at the decision making because we no longer have any kind of a mandate that music or the arts are going to be supplied at different schools. and in those seven years i've watched school after school after school cut, cut, cut, cut music. the sad piece of this is that this is a step in the lowering of our great united states of america culture. our children are not being raised to understand this great western music. in the city of san francisco which has a world class symphony orchestra and op remark the symphony supports our music programs by bringing in teachers, by giving free tickets to students and their families to their orchestra concerts. and the thing that's the most sad about this to me, and i have my gray hair now, i was raised in the state of california and i was brought up a musician. i play the flute professionally here in our great city and i teach kids at the middle school and the parents of my students don't even have music in their background because they are much younger than me and they have been going through school, they went through schools that didn't have good music programs or even any music programs. please, please, please consider what is happening when you take -- huge band, huge orchestra and huge choir and you take hoover's outstanding band, orchestra and choir and you put most of those schools into a high school that has zero music. thank you. >> good evening. my name is tim hurly. i'm a parent at start king elementary school and there are some other parents here. we've unfortunately lot a -- lost a few due to the length of the meeting tonight. i have two daughters. one of whom is in what we call the pioneering class and we're now seeking a middle school home as i'm sure you quite know. we consider ourselves one of the many typical kinds of san francisco families and when we were looking for an elementary school we looked at all options including private schools. we were excited to find a language program in a public school. my wife and i are both products of a public school system in california except for a minor stint in grad school where we did all of our work in the public school system in california and we were rather dedicated to it forever our children as well -- for our children as well. and we're hoping to continue to have our children participate in public schools into the middle school and high school level. i just wanted to talk a little bit about the success of the mandarin emersion program in the district. time already? well, my friends and colleagues, the school will be doing that as well. i would just wrap up by saying, without being able to get into the details, that we really desire to work with the board going forward, to ensure that the successes that hopefully will be able to tall talk about tonight can continue into middle school and high school. we think that the mandarin emersion program in particular is a great asset to the school district. this board has shown a lot of leadership and vision in implementing it. now the challenge is to keep it going as this pioneering class moves forward. and we hope that from k through 12 mandarin emersion in particular will be a magnet for the school district. thanks for your time. president mendoza: thank you. >> hi, i was a graduate of the san francisco unified school district system. not recently, though. today i'm a star king parent and i would like to comment on the middle school theater proposal. i support it completely. it will allow my child to go through a middle school with the same friends she developed relationships for over six years and going to a middle school can be a trying time for our children. and that they no longer have the same teacher throughout the school day and having friends, the same friends there really helps. it would also help that the middle school principal, because he can develop relationships with the elementary school principals, to identify certain issues, to help better prepare students entering middle school. currently a middle school can have students coming from all over the city. it can be like 30 elementary schools. it's impossible to establish any type of working relationships. at the star king parent whose child is in mandarin emersion, i support the choice of aptos middle school because both will be feeding into this middle school. as a member of the star king community, we invite the board to engage in the middle school theater program with us and the placement of the middle school mandarin program. thank you for your time. president mendoza: thank you. >> evening, commissioners. my name is pierre. i'm a parent at star king elementary school. i have a second grader and a kindergartener there. and i'm speaking on behalf of carrie who was not able to attend. i wanted to submit her comments. as one of the other parents indicated, we've had a lot of success at star king and we're very happy about the school district support for the language programs and want to continue to encourage to you support the language emersion programs at star king. this year part of the investment that you've made in star king has demonstrated by about 60 principals and teachers from as far as beijing and hong kong, visited to see the mandarin emersion program and how well we've been doing in implementing it. and we really want to encourage you to continue to support the program. as it's more difficult because you guys are making difficult choices with respect to the middle school. but we really appreciate all the work you've done in helping us so thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> my name is mike powell. i have a proxy from about six people that are willing to give up my time if i can read a letter for about three minutes, 3 1/2 minutes. may i have your permission to do so? president mendoza: who are the folks that are not speaking? >> mike powell and i'm representing the inner sunset community group this evening president mendoza: who are the folks that are not going to be speaking then? beverly. >> mario. president mendoza: ok. go ahead. >> i'm trying to make your life simple. president mendoza: i appreciate it. >> you bet ya. my name is mike powell. i'm speaking on behalf of many members of the inner sunset community group. if you are an inner sun set neighbor here and express concern over moving of the principal center, could i ask you to please stand for the next two minutes. first, i would like to say that our neighborhood does support proactive and extensive professional help for these students. we agree that the goals of the principal center, its innovative curriculum and the services, that they do provide these students to help redirect their lives and to have more positive outcomes. that said, we do not support how the unified school district has handled in announcing the formation of the new school and the principal center to laguna hunt school. this community, the inner sunset community, is disappointed and some of us are in fact incredulous that a decision has been made to move a school into a community without actually talking to and involving one of its primary stakeholders, the community itself. it asked the question of the unified school district has in fact done its homework to do this and in fact if there are better and alternate uses for the school. some questions that i'm not going to go through them all, i'll narrow it down to three and apologies to those of who you submitted many more questions but is this the safest location for the children? a short five-minute walk from golden gate's hippie hill where there are easy access to drugs and alcohol? does this school, the proposed use of this school, represent what is probably best for that building? could it be an elementary school or a middle school? and does placing 150 youth, troubled youth, or a mixture of troubled and nontroubled youth, in such an environment, have there been any studies to show what the affect of that is? is it going to be successful? there are others i will skip past those. these and other many, many questions, answers to these, have actually gone unanswered for several weeks to the community. as a community representative, i mean, yourself, the last thing you would want to actually find out, that in fact this planning and communication with the community was in fact intentional, that there was an intended lack of communication. i'm not saying that is the case but that is in fact what a portion of the community actually is believing at this time. there are several opportunities for your leadership here. and we ask that you use your moral authority and position of elected leadership to pursue the following. that the inner sunset community's questions be answered, meetingsing be scheduled and promises kept, all records of earlier planning and decision making around this be made public immediately, that the inner sunset community's needs and concerns be listened to. we are one with of the stakeholders of this school. we also have sk that other entities that might be affected, such as the merchants, the park street police station, local daycare centers and the like, also be brought into bear. we ask that a neighborhood impact assessment study be done. we ask that alternatives be brought forward and at least considered. and most importantly we ask that until some of these things are actually addressed, we ask you to hit the pause button on something that the community has been told it is on auto pilot, quote, unquote. so, in the last 20 years, there's -- 30 seconds. in the last 20 years as an inner sunset resident i haven't seen anything that has galvanized this community like. this i'm a little worried that unless there's actually information that comes forward to the community, you are actually going to alienate the community to the plan that you have. elected and appointed school officials have a duty to represent the needs of both the children and the community and we ask that you make sure that the best decision is involved for all of us. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> pam hoffman. laguna honda school lies between two with 100-year-old institutions and are you proposing to put 150 at-risk students that the school. these students are angry and frustrated and have learning disabilities often and very stressed and as you know, some of these students have a hair trigger response to any perceived slight. i've subbed, i've seen it. think about the hypersensitive teens walking to or three abreast down the narrow sidewalks of err syringe street and it brings to mind two groups who have not been represented in this discussion. the first are the tourist and museum patrons. they come to the academy of sciences, etc., to -- and sometimes they eat in the neighborhood. the recent exhibit drew large crowds into the neighborhood as did the egyptian exhibit. in general these people are, let's say, not aware of the urban situation. the second group comes from ucsf. patients come from all over northern california, oregon, nevada, south america, africa and the middle east. i'm often asked where is the emergency room. my husband's wife's son is having an emergency surgery, where can i park? when i see people who are very stressed standing in the neighborhood and i ask them, can i help you? one woman said, my child is having an eight-hour surgery, i thought i'd walk around the neighborhood. and try passing the time. she's not alone. i've heard these things many times. the relatives of patients come down into the ninth and irsyringe area to take a break from the hospital room. these people are stressed themplet really stressed -- stressed. they are really stressed. so how will your proposed student population interact with these people? how will you handle this? what is your plan? thank you. president mendoza: i'm sorry, can i ask a clarifying question. you said you subbed. did you sub at the school? >> not at the school. thank you. president mendoza: that's fine. i just wanted to check. thank you. >> my name is spencer. and i agree with everything this gentleman just presented. one of the issues i want to bring up is an issue that's been a seam of the evening here, budgetary issues. i really wonder if we can actually maintain this school as you want to do it because the budgetary. if we can't fund music programs, if we are really drastically cutting things back, whatever you promise us right now, you can promise us that next year? where's the funding from this coming from? so i just want to present this to you because this is an issue. if the budget is the main thing on our minds, can we afford to even use a private program like this? those kids were wonderful kids. i myself went through individualized education program back in new york. and i don't see why they can't receive that at other schools here in san francisco. thank you. >> good evening. my name is mary, i'm the third grade teacher of the chinese education center. i am here with the other teachers of the chinese education center to bring attention to you a serious matter at our school. here they are. i won't introduce them for time. ok, i am the most senior teacher with 40 years in the district and 40 years in my school. this is the first time in the 42 years the chinese education center that our staff must lodge a serious complaint against our current principal. since our students only stay at our school for one year, our staff must maximize students' learning opportunities so we cannot be sidetracked with ongoing issues caused by our principal. his lack of school -- his lack of our school vision, poor leadership skills, his disregard and distrust of our staff input and lack of accountability to our parents are some of the reasons we voted no confidence for his stay at our school. thank you. president mendoza: thank you. >> good evening. my name is joanna i'm the fifth grade teacher at c.c. so we have many issues with our principal and it causes to us file a grievance and has cause the supervisor to spend many hours at our school. while we're pleased to report the grievance was upheld and we've had many meetings, we still have many concerns and it was unfortunate that the situation had to come to that. because of our newcomer population, it is important for us to have a strong leader who can make immediate connections with our parents and families. our principal's infective leadership, unfair targeting of certain staff, poor role model for students and no accountability to parents is very dert mental to our school -- detrimental to our school. thank you. president mendoza: thank you very much. thank you all for coming out tonight. dd >> good evening, commissioners. i'm susan solomon, secretary of united educators of san francisco and i'm here tonight to present to you uesf's position on inclusive practices for special educat