The San Francisco Board of Education started their regular meeting 20 minutes late. Commissioner Wynns participated via phone for half of the meeting. Wynns was at a seminar in New York. Commissioner Jane Kim was absent.

1. The Board of Education heard an item to create a new high school called “San Francisco International High School” which would be a “Small School by Design.” Staff noted that the item was informational only and since the guidelines and procedures to create small schools by design had not yet been established by the Board of Education, the BOE could not proceed with any action on the item. The high school’s target audience would be recent immigrants. Commissioner Yee and Mar asked how the school would impact Newcomer and other programs aimed at recent immigrants. Commissioner Sanchez reminded them that the item was informational only. The item was sent to the Curriculum Committee which will meet on June 9 and staff was asked to contact representatives of Newcomer High School and other programs for recent immigrants.

2. The BOE commemorated the Friends of Potrero Hill for getting over 100 people to clean and paint Daniel Webster on a Saturday in April. The resolution was sponsored by Commissioner Kim-shree Maufas. Former Mayor Art Agnos thanked the Board of Education for their support.

3. The Board recognized the Parent Advisory Committee. The PAC was the first of its kind and its founding was spearheaded by Coleman Advocates. Approximately 20 people received certificates from the Superintendent for their current and past involvment as a member on the PAC. One former PAC member was Commissioner Kim-shree Maufas.

4. The Board also recognized Teacher Appreciation Month. Commissioner Hydra Mendoza noted that the San Francisco Education Fund has coordinated a poster/postcard campaign for the last three years. All of the Commissioners thanked teachers for all of their hard work.

5. The Board passed the District’s Strategic Plan which was renamed “Beyond the Talk: Taking Action to Educate Every Child Now.” Superintendent Garcia thanked members of the public and nonprofit organizations for attending the Committee of the Whole Meeting that was focused on the strategic plan. He said that he heard parents stating that “we can’t do it the same way.” A key purpose of the strategic plan was to ensure that African-American and Latino students get a top quality education. The author of the plan, Deputy Superintendent Tony Smith stated that it had been a learning process for him in getting to find out the community process in San Francisco. Smith stated that the plan would re-create SFUSD as “more socially-just school district.” Smith also quoted Linda Darling-Hammond, stating that the plan would allow SFUSD to create “a culture of reevision and redemption.”

6. Approximately 30 parents and children testified at public comment on their concerns about the ICE raids in San Francisco. They urged the Superintendent and SFUSD to take a stronger stand against the raids. The parents noted that their children were scared to go to school and were also frightened at the thought of their parents and older siblings be swept up in raids while they were on the street going to work or school.

Superintendent Garcia pointed out that he had been part of the press conference that Mayor Newsom had called to protest the raids. But Garcia did not note any other actions in regards to the raids.

7. The Board of Education approved a request to the California Dept. of Education to change the County-District-School (CDS) Code for three schools in order to note that their changed status from schools with an attendance area to an alternative school or a program of choice (aka one without an attendance area). Those schools are:

a. June Jordan School for Equity
b. San Francisco Community School (a K-8 elemenary school in the Excelsior)
c. Bayview Essential School (a high school that will open in the fall of 2008)

The Board of Education also voted to close the CDS Code for Excelsior Middle School which will “merged” with International Studies Academy in August 2008.

8. The Board of Education approved an action plan for the implementation of the Lau Action Plan. Francesca Sanchez, director of SFUSD’s multilingual office, noted that the plan include specific actions that the District will take in order . to ensure that all parents can participate in their children’s education. This include translation of parent materials to ensure that all parents can help their children succeed academically.

9. The Board of Education had public hearings for the initial proposal from Local 853-Teamsters, Local 1176-Auto, Marine and Speciality Painters Union, and Local 6-IBEW. No one testified during the hearings.

10. The Board of Education were presented with the adoption of a Project Labor Agreement with the San Francisco Building and Trades Council for 2006 Proposition A projects. A speaker noted that the PLA would cover 96% of the projects. Michael Therrault, executive director, thanked the Board of Education for their support and noted that all of the craft and building trades were eager to work hard in order to ensure that the construction projects meet their budgets and timelines.

Representatives of the Association of Chinese Contractors and the Chinese American Democratic Club spoke against the PLA. They noted that many of the minority-owned and women-owned small contractors would not be able to compete for the Proposition A projects, if the PLA was passed.

At that point, Commissioner Wynns was not participating in the meeting via telephone. So only four Commissioners (Sanchez, Mar, Yee and Maufas) were in attendance. According to President Sanchez, five members need to be present at the meeting in order to pass the item on first reading. Superintendent Garcia protested, stating that it was the Board’s own rules and not state law which defined the number of members needed for the vote. But the new General Counsel gently noted that the bylaws were important in defending the decisions of any decision. The item was tabled for the next meeting.

11. The Board heard the resolution sponsored by Commissioners Norman Yee and Mark Sanchez, to oppose the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture’s Aerial Pesticide Spraying for the Light Borwn Apple Moth. The item will be fully heard at the next Curriculum meeting.

12. The item to support “Soda Free Summer” was also impacted by the lack of a quorum. The item was not discussed by the Board of Education members.

13. President Sanchez read the notes from the Closed Board session. It was revealed that all of the Assistant Superintendents were confirmed. But the contracts for two principals and three assistant principals were not renewed.