“Remember that no one wants to strike…

It is up to you to make sure that the history we make in this school
district is a history that we can all be proud of.”

Linda Plack, the talented VP of UESF

Deputy Superintendent Chan stood in for the absent Superintendent Arlene Ackerman on the regulary scheduled meeting of the Board of Education that has held on Thursday, Oct. 27.

Deputy Superintendent Chan also removed an item for $375,000 of unrestricted general funds for information technology consulting as well as the item asking to deny the charter for Thomas J. Edison Academy effective immediately. No reason was given by Dr. Chan.

Myong Leigh, Director of the District’s Policy and Planning Office and
Deborah Sims, Assistant Superintendent of School Operations, did a
presentation on school closures. This year, the San Francisco Unified
School District has 1000 students. The Board of Education announced that there will be a Board Meeting of the Whole on Monday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. to discuss school closures. Communityi meetings are scheduled for November through December. The Board is scheduled to recommend the schools that “will be consolidated or merged.” This will allow parents to know if their K-12 school will be closed before applications are due for new school assignments on Feb. 23. In March-April, the Board will decide if any of the child development centers are closing.

The BOE approved the adding of “Parkside” to the name of Dianne Feinstein Elementary School. President Eric Mar also noted that he had received a letter from several neighborhood groups that were complaining that the neighborhood’s original idea for the elementary school was for visual arts-and yet the District has not responded to the neighborhood group’s letters asking for input into the vision of the school.

Commissioner Sanchez noted that the position of the second delegate was still open-that position is elected by the high school students of the
District. There are currently four members running for the position. In
the past, it has been a student from one of the larger high schools that
keeps winning-Lincoln, Washington and Lowell. Sanchez suggested that the Student Activities Commission look into requesting that the delegate chosen by the entire high student body continue as a delegate until his/her replacement is selected. Student Delegate Jason Wong agreed to bring that idea to the Student Advisory Council.

The District also brought a resolution requesting authorization to conduct a medicare division election, so employees who wish to begin contribute pre-tax dollars to a Medicare health plan for their retirement could do so-and those dollars would be equally matched by the District. UESF VP
Linda Plack brought up that an election had already occured-and the
District had explained that 1.45% of the payroll for those employees who elected to contribute towards Medicare for their retirement, would need to be paid before the end of the calendar year. But the District has still not deducted that amount from the 400 employees who had elected to participate in this program. So the deduction would be done in a lump sum in the last paycheck that the employees will be getting before the holidays. Tom Ruiz, the director of labor relations for the District,
suggested that the District look into covering that deduction for this
year-and then collecting those funds back in 2006. The COO stated that he would look into the matter. But the item was passed by the School Board.

At public comment, Tami Bryant, parent, stated that she was concerned to hear reports that the District was planning to hire a 1000 to 1,200 people to replace Local 790 members in the event of a strike. As a mother, Tami reported that she was very concerned that the safety of her daughter would be compromised because it is unsure whether the district could do an adequate background check of all of these 1,200 people in a matter of a few days to replace trusted employees in Local 790. UESF President Dennis Kelly echoed the idea and reminded the Board that employer/employee relations with the District would be forever damaged if the District brings in replacements to cover the jobs of Local 790 members.

President Mar asked General Counsel David Campos whether the vote to hire replacements in the event of a strike would be done in a closed session or an open session. Campos reported that since the Board is responsible for all policy decisions and that since the hiring of replacements would be a policy decision, that the vote on whether to hire replacement workers should be done in an open meeting. Applause from the public followed his comments.

The Board of Education also honored the American Friends Commitee for their “Remember the Draft? Honoring Resistance from Viet Nam to Iraq.” Several Board members are congratulated Dr. Dan Kelly who was one of the honorees at a reception that the American Friends Committee had for former conscientous objectors.

The District also approved a grant for $177,000 to help 59 SFUSD
paraprofessionals get their teaching credentials in order to teach in high
need areas of Special Education, Mathematics, Science and Bilingual
Education.

The BOE also look at the District’s recommendation to reduce 1.75 FTE
paraprofessionals. Further questioning showed that the savings would be $75,000 and the positions were found at E.R. Taylor Elementary School and Marina Middle School. Bradley Reeves, paraprofessional and VP for UESF spoke against the resolution, stating for the last four years, the District has laid off paraprofessionals. Dennis Kelly, president of UESF, pointed out that in the meeting’s agenda, they were about to approve $500,000 in
expenditures of unrestricted funds with the consent calendar-and yet the livelihoods of three individuals and their families were about to change. With such an impressive arguements, the Board (Mar, Sanchez, Lipson and Chin) voted against the resolution to lay off 1.75 FTE paraprofessionals. The crowd broke into applause.

The most eloquent speech of the night was made by UESF VP, Linda Plack who said, “The events that took place in this room last Tuesday are historic. We saw members of our nions and our community, who have joined the traditions of Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and thousands of others, who, by community acts of disobedience, focused attention on situations that must be addressed….Remember no one wants a strike…It is up to you to make sure that the history we make in this school district is a history that we can all be proud of.”