. >> chairman: welcome. the meeting will come to order. this september 10th regularly scheduled meeting of the youth, young adults, and families committee. i am chair member supervisor melgar and clerk, do you have any announcements? >> clerk: yes, madam chair. the board recognizes that

public access to city services is essential and invite public participation in the following ways. public comment will be available on each item of this agenda and sfgov.org are streaming the public call-in number across the screen. each speaker will be allowed two minutes to speak. comments or opportunities to speak will be available by calling (415) 655-0001. the meeting i.d. is 24831119790. again, that's 24831119790, then pound and pound again. when connected, you will hear the meeting discussions and be in listening mode only. please dial star 3 to be added

to the speaker line. best practices are to call from a quiet line and turn down your listening device. e-mail myself, brentjulipa@brentjulipa@sfgov. org. finally, items acted on today are expected to appear on the board of supervisor its agenda. that includes my announcement, madam chair. >> chairman: thank you so much and can you please read item number one. >> clerk: yes, madam chair. item number one is administrative code consultation regarding the

filing of juvenile drink wednesdayy cases on california child wellware under code section 651 and provide the davment the opportunity to commence proceedings in the juvenile drink wednesdayy court in the san francisco superior court. members of the public should call (415) 655-0001 and the meeting id is 24831119790. press pound and pound again. >> chairman: i am happy to state that all parties came

together and we have come to an agreement. and so i will be offering the following amendments that we all agree is the right system to developing san francisco and i'll just briefly read it. the police department that present to the san francisco district attorney all juvenile delinquency cases which occurred in san francisco where sfpd is the sole agency. commencing proceedings in juvenile placency court. the designee shall wave the protection of the public. the importance address victims and the interest of the minor. if the d.a. or d.a.'s designee

declines to file in san francisco superior court, sfpd may present the case in another jurisdiction consistent with welfare institution code section 651. i really want to thank everyone who's been involved in this effort and in coming to this very specific language to make extremely clear what primarily we already do in san francisco particularly i want to thank police chief william scott, his policy director, anna olivera roche. i want to thank our district attorney, jacob o'dean and from my office who have worked hard on this and thens, finally juvenile probation chief katie

miller. thank you everyone for working so hard to make sure we have the best policy here in san francisco. and, with that, i want to ask my colleagues if they have any comments before we open this item up for public comment. >> supervisor ronen, if i may say? >> i'm here. i don't have any comments. >> supervisor ronen: we have our staff attorney ann pierson. >> thank you, supervisor ronen. my office had a chance to review into the record last night and we made some small tweaks to approval as to reform. she circulated a very small draft to your aid this morning. i don't think the one you read into the record is the one she sent to him.

again, the changes are very minor. >> supervisor ronen: would you mind reading the changes? do you have them in front of you? >> i do. the sfpd shall first present. all juvenile delinquency cases where, one, all the allege criminal acts occurred within the city and county of san francisco. two, the san francisco police department is the lead or sole investigative agency and, three, california welfare institutions code section 651 current commence proceedings in the juvenile delinquency court in san francisco superior court or any other county. i believe that's. >> supervisor ronen: okay. fantastic. >> i'm happy to send it out as you hear public comment, but i wanted to make sure that if it's this version that the board is taking action on that.

>> supervisor ronen: fantastic. thank you so much for that. with that, can we please open this item up for public comment? >> clerk: yes, madam chair. we have aracelly frias. please press star 3 to be added to the queue and you will hear the system prompt for those of you in line to speak. please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted. ms. frias. >> there are no callers in the queue at this time. >> supervisor ronen: thank you so much. public comment is closed. first, i'd like to make a motion to amend the item as stated by myself and city

attorney anne pierson. can we take a roll call on that vote. >> clerk: yes. on the motion as the amendments moved by supervisor ronen and stated by deputy attorney anne pierson. [roll call] we have three ayes. >> supervisor ronen: thank you. and i'd like to make a motion to send the item to committee with positive recommendation. please do a roll call vote. >> clerk: on the motion with the full board with positive recommendation as amended, [roll call] >> supervisor ronen: thank you

for being here. mr. clerk, can you please read item number two. >> clerk: yes, item number two is to the extent permitted by state law when the member is not able to attend in person due to pregnancy, child birth or a related condition and may authorize members to participate by teleconferencing to the extent permitted by state law when the member is absent to tare for the member's child after the birth of a child or after placement of a child for adoption or parental care for other boards and city commissions to participate in public meetings by teleconferencing under the same conditions. members of the public should call (415) 655-0001. the meeting id is 24831119790 and pound twice if you have not

already done so. please dial star 3 to line up to speak. the system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand. that is your queue to begin your comments. madam chair. >> chairman: thank you so much. thank you, again, supervisor melgar for bringing this forward. the floor is yours. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so much, chair ronen for hearing this item again and your cosponsorship along with supervisor chan, stefanie and safai. as a recap, this legislation will authorize the board of supervisors to set our own parental leave and it will establish a citywide parental lead policy for all city commissions and bodies. members will now be able to take formal parental leave for

16 weeks without fear of discrimination or fear of having to relinquish their seat. they will also be allowed an extension a total of 36 weeks if members are recovering from child pregnancy or another related health condition. to align with the state policy so they would be fully excused from the meetings and, if members want to attend some or all the meetings remotely, it also sets a policy for teleconferencing option. so it's a little bit ahead which is what the charter amendment allowed. however, it is still subject to the state brown act, and, as you know, we're working on that as well with our state legislators. we are taking an extraordinary opportunity to change the

culture practices in our city and our society in this legislation will push us in the right direction. and, i would be remiss if i didn't acknowledge that it has taken 14 years to pass this with former supervisor mckayla pierre having to navigate as a city legislator going through pregnancy. it was unprecedented and she had to go to the voters with the charter amendment to allow the ability in the event they had, you know, they were physically unable to do it because of pregnancy or child birth. so at that time, no border commission has ever formally adopted a parent lead policy. so i want to thank supervisor for having the courage and foresight to take that monumental step for us.

to allow for teleconferencing for members who are physically unable to attend during physical or mental leave when the brown act was written, there was none of these things that now make it easier for all of us to communicate. we remain hopeful that this update will pass next year. if the brown act is updated and our legislation is place this will allow a teleconference during the leave if they choose regardless of the state of emergency. so we are also working on a possible charter amendment next year to update the language to provide the most flexibility for people who need to take medical or parental lead and to address the need for teleconferencing in certain circumstances. as we experience in this pandemic and deste the difficulties of silver linings

to having new tools of communic so i am want to thank all the parents and care givers who've had to stay home with kids and also participate in civic life and work and i want to thank the commission on the status of women and her former staff elizabeth newman for all her support and feedback on this. also, our city attorneys ann pierson, job gibner and tom owen. and, you know, mostly the unpaid volunteers who now sit on our board commissions and do the work of the city. and, lastly, i want to thank various individuals and parent am leave experts who've reached out to our office to weigh in on this and provide really good feedback. some of it we've incorporated is and some of it we can't because of the current charter. for instance, adoption and

surrender ga sea wasn't a thing it is today particularly for gay so that after we do that, we can come back and do more to this file. i hope we can send this out with a strong, positive recommendation. thank you. >> chairman: thank you so much. gosh, this is overdue and i can't thank you enough for prioritizing this and updating our laws to modern times. thank you so much. supervisor safai, is there anything you wanted to add?

>> supervisor safai: yeah, i just want to appreciate the experience and perspective that supervisor melgar is bringing to the table. having been a former commissioner herself and former legislative aide, i think she has brought that personal experience as a mother, as a care giver, as a daughter to the table and i think it's something that we should be proud of here in san francisco. she mentioned the other supervisors that came before her that were doing this type of work and how long it's taken, but this is something that's really monumental for our city and it's important and i think over the past year that we all have dealt with covid, we saw how we were negotiating and working with the city to ensure people have the appropriate time off even for that, even in a pandemic. it was a bit of a struggle at times and ultimately, i think we were able to land in the right place to give people the appropriate time off. so this is really monumental, i

want to thank supervisor melgar for mitting the ground running on this issue and getting it down and bringing it across the finish line. so many care givers and so many people, particularly the burden that falls on women in our society. this is so important. thank you for your amazing work. >> chairman: supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: i just would be remiss. i forgot to thank one person, and that is jenn lowe on my staff who is a mother to a young child and has really championed all issues around child care and parental leave. she put in so much work in this and i just wanted to mention her because she's amazing. thank you. >> chairman: mr. clerk, can we now open up this item to public comment. >> clerk: yes, madam chair. please let us know if there are any callers that are ready. for those who already called in

and wish to speak on this ordinance, please dial star 3 to be added to the queue. you will hear the system prompt to raise your hand and confirm you are in line to speak. for those already on hold please wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and i will start your two minutes for comments. >> yes, we have one caller. i'll put them through. >> clerk: thank you. >> can you hear me now? >> chairman: yes. >> great. good morning. david pillpell. welcome back from recess and happy new year where appropriate. this does flow from a mckayla elliott o'pier charter many years ago that the board of supervisors have not implemented until now. i would ask if particularly since you just duplicated the

file if the sunshine ordinance taskforce has reviewed this and if not you could send a referral to them and they would take up some of theism indications. i'm particularly concerned about the implications for quorum and public access to meetings. i note that for noncovid teleconference meetings under the brown act that there are specific requirements for the locations where teleconference meetings can occur and what access the public has at those locations. i have no particular issue with the proposed leap policy. i think that's fine, that's entirely up to you. i am concerned about these other implications for quorum and for public access. when teleconferencing in my

view bodies, policy bodies should be required to post documents in real time such as presentations, written comments and amendments that may be circulated. the board of supervisors has legistar and the clerks are well versed in that. and the clerks are great by the way, but not all policy bodies operate in the same way and so certain boards and commissions will have presentations or discuss amendments, circulate them among the members, but the public has no access to them during the meeting. that's been a problem during covid and that would be a problem in my view with noncovid teleconference meetings authorized. >> clerk: that's your time. >> under this ordinance. >> clerk: thank you, mr. pillpell.

>> chairman: further public comments? >> there are no more public commentors in the queue. >> chairman: did you want to make a motion, supervisor melgar? >> supervisor melgar: i did want to make a motion, i also wanted to address if i could mr. pillpell's comment because nothing in this legislation creates new impediments to sharing information with the public. i think the difference is there was a time when the teleconferencing meant a land line and we didn't have the ability to share the power

point presentations online i would request that they also update the way we community today also to equitably provide access of representation and participation for women and care givers. and, also, we have expectations of communication and documents being shared. that has nothing to do with it. so i ask that we do that as well. so, thank you, and i'd like to make a motion that we, you know, send with the positive committee recommendation. >> chairman: great. and, then, for the duplicated file, did you want to continue that file to the call of the chair? >> supervisor melgar: yes, ma'am. thank you. >> chairman: i don't know, mr. clerk, if we can take a vote. if we need to take separately the votes. >> clerk: let's see.

the duplicated file i don't think needs a vote. let's see, the member does have the privilege to request for it to be duplicated and it will stay in committee. so just a motion to forward. >> chairman: great. >> clerk: on the motion by member melgar, [roll call] >> clerk: we have three ayes. >> chairman: thank you, mr. clerk. please read item number three. >> clerk: yes, item number three is the hearing preliminary recommendations of the sf rise working group to youth and families adversely

affected by covid-19 school closures and distancing plan programs. how members of the public who wish to pry public comment should call (415) 655-0001 i.d. number 24831119790. the system prompt will indicate you have raised your hand and the system will indicate you have been unmuted and you may begin your comments. madam chair. >> chairman: it's great to be here and started the day around such great news in helping safety in our schools in san francisco. pretty much all across the city, public, private, we're doing so safely according to

the data and now the question is how are we going to address learning loss that occurred last year and do everything we can to increase enrollment in our public schools and supervisor melgar and i created rides and the rides working group, sf rise working group in order to put a plan together and to do just that to make our public schools even better to provide any necessary wrap around services before or after school services, tutoring, really whatever our students and their families need in order to be successful in our public schools. and, today, after incredibly

hard work by the sf rise working group with the support of dcyf and i want to call out specifically [inaudible] who has been facilitating that group. it is a group made up of experts across the field in education, pediatric health, in community schools models. we have representatives from the teacher's union, educator's union. representatives from the school board. we have representatives from the district. we have parents represented and i have attended not to participate, but to learn and to watch many of the working group meetings and they are fascinating and interesting and i want to thank from the bottom of my heart all of the participants for giving so much of their time and energy to

this process and i want to thank all of the departments from city to school districts. the school board, the educator's union and the nonprofits who are there participating in this effort and i'm very excited to hear the preliminary recommendations today. and, before we turn this over to our presenters, i just wanted to give my co-conspirator in this effort,co-author in this work supervisor melgar to say anything she'd like. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so much, chair. i just want to second all the people you just thanked and also the kids for putting up with all of this, you know, with patience and, you know, humor in many ways. but, also, you know, i just wanted to acknowledge how tough it's been for them and that we

are doing what we can to collaborate with each other across bodies that don't plan jointly and i'm so grad this is happening and i'm incredibly grateful to the sf rise working group and their hard work and thoughtfulness of putting this together. i also wanted to remind us in 2014, we passed the charter amendment that was called, our children, our families counsel for all of the different departments to work together to support kids across our city and, you know, i just wanted to sort of remind us of that that we're supposed to doing this to begin with and it's taken an extraordinary event to get us to that level. thank you so much for your leadership, chair ronen because you have been steady in calling out the needs of kids and families and what we can do

despite this awful virus to support kids and actually get to a better place. so i'm looking forward to, you know, hearing from folks about their recommendations and doing the hard work to implement them. thank you. >> chairman: thank you so much. and, my staff, i wanted to turn it over to the director of the department of children, youth, and their families. >> thank you, chair ronen, supervisor melgar, supervisor safai. good afternoon. and, actually, i think supervisor ronen took all of my talking points around sf rise. i will say that it does take amazing leaders such as you all to take just swift action, recognize where we needed to come together and, you know, a

nudge and when the nudging didn't happen, forced it to happen. and, it does take that level of recognition. so thank you so much for creating the students and families recovery with inclusive and successful enrichment work group which once again that work group was established to come up with solutions to support our students and families as they go through this recovery process. and, what we want to make sure happen when they come through this, they're going to come out stronger and better and we as a community will be stronger and better. before we go into the areas of the preliminary report, i do want to ask to set the context for the report. and, with that, i'm going to invite our partners at d.p.h. to come and share with us the amazing data that they released

yesterday to show once again how resilient our communities are and how amazing our children and families are and finally, how amazing our teachers and schools are. so when we come together and work together, it's a win-win situation and that's what we have. and so i'm going to hand the mic over to the amazing [inaudible] who will drive the deck for this part and then we're also bring on dr. davino nova from d.p.h. >> i'll get the slides ready. dr. baba, the floor is yours. >> thank you so much for allowing us to present a little bit about covid and children in san francisco and i also really

want to commend dr. sue for her commitment to children and families over the last year and a half. we definitely would not be here today without dcyf's support. next slide, please, anna. all right. so i first wanted to explain this in terms of delta variant and what the city's experiencing. so you can see from the graph here that we did peak with our rate and this is overall. we have decreased as well as, you know, you can see that the winter peak was actually higher for us which is good news we're seeing a decline. some of the things that i just wanted to highlight about delta because what we're seeing locally is obviously we had our peak and our surge that there's a different national story happening and so i just wanted to make some distinctions.

delta is now accounting for over 90% of the sequencing that's happening through covid and so, it is the dominant strain here in the west. it is twice as transmiss able and that's why it has a competitive advantage compared to other strains. and the transmissbility has caused the concern we're seeing. the other thing you should know about delta is that vaccines do work. they work around preventing serious disease including hospitalizations, and deaths. and so that's really good that our vaccinations are able to hold up against them. there is also a decrease in cases in those that are vaccinated. so, people who are vaccinated can still get delta, but they are less likely to.

additionally, we've gotten data from other parts of the world and it does appear that because delta is so transmissible, what you're seeing is a lot more in-house transmission. so if delta gets into the house, it transmits very quickly to the rest of the household and that's relative to previous strains. i think we'll talk more about some of the difference we're seeing in the bay area compared to the rest of the world. so if we can go to the next slide. so, now i want to focus a little bit about more on children because this has made national headlines. just this week, the american academy of pediatrics put out the fact that children are making up almost a quarter of the cases nationwide and that's been much bigger than any previous time. what we're seeing in sf is it's slightly different. currently, those under 18, make

about 11.5% of cases and at no point in time have we had more than 20% of cases and that occurred during a relatively lower level of cases within san francisco. so, in general, delta and kids in san francisco is a slightly different story and i think there's a couple reasons for this. one of the reasons you're seeing surges in kids, where that's happening is vaccination rates are very low and mask mandates are not in place. and so you get a lot more transmission and kids are not immune to this transmission. where we do see mask mandates in place and where there's a high rate vaccination, that does have a protective effect. even though the majority of cases are in adults and you ask other parts of the country are seeing surges in children as

well. most children have mild to no symptoms and then most of the pediatric cases come from unvaccinated adults in the household who then spread it to the rest of the household. so this is our local data, and the orange part represents all cases above 18 and then the light include is 0 to 11 and the darker blue is 12 to 17. and, you can see just in general, the 0-11 and 12-17 have remained really low. so it's not the whole pandemic, but from the middle of the winter surge until now. and, there have been, you know, mild increases and decreases, but in general, a steady rate and one of the most important things to note on this is when school re-opened because there is always a concern if school re-opened and there was a lot more mixing, would we see

increased case rate. based on the guidelines and the science, there shouldn't be and school can be a low-risk environment. you can see this sfusd re-opened on the 15th and we have not seen a decrease in cases and children as a percentage. and, this is just another graphical representation. by far, adults are the ones affected by covid representing anywhere from 75% to 93% of cases. on the bottom graphs are both 0-11 and 12-17. we break those out because obviously the 12-17 are ehlingable for vaccines where as the 0-11-year-olds are not. you can see that most of the cases are in the adults and, you know, it's been pretty stable in terms of the children and their case rates. there are some blips here and there, but most of it has been fairly stable.

next slide. so, hospital aegises remain rare. this is in contrast to the national stories. but in san francisco, since march, there's only been 13 pediatric hospitalizations. currently, there are no san francisco children hospitalized for covid-19 and, in general, we can't really publicized hospitalization data to do that, you need a number greater than 5 and at any given time there's never more than five people in the hospital. i think again, this is the layered strategy we have in place and the city has really led to this. next slide. and then, i finally wanted to talk about vaccines. so one of the things that we know can prevent the spread of delta is vaccination. i specifically want to call out

the fact that our 12-17-year-olds, i mean, it's incredible, they are 90% fully vaccinated and i think that's one of the highest rates probably in the nation and, for those who just got at least one dose it's over 95%. someone recently asked me are you going to mandate for that age group and i said we don't need a mandate, they're already doing amazingly and i'm just so proud of that cohort for really taking vaccinations seriously, wanting to protect themselves and their families, their peers, and their community. it's really a bright spot. and i think this is also why we're seeing such a low rate of hospitalizations and that's from covid in that age group, as well as they're protecting their younger peers. adults being vaccinated from covid, protect unvaccinated children. this is why it's critical that all of the adults that come into contact with children are vaccinated because they really

do transmission. and then there's hope on the horizon. we concur that pfizer is planning to submit its data for the 5-11-year-olds at the end of this month and we'll have to see what the fda thinks about the data and what they decide to do in terms of authorizing the vaccine for that age group. so i think that's my end. go ahead. turn it over to anna now. >> so i'm here to talk about the school's guidance and how that applies for this next school year. so as we know, all the schools have re-opened and we know that schools are a safe place for our children and our staff to learn, play, and make friends. as the data has shown and much of the research nationwide and internationally says that the risk of transmission is very low in schools, as long as we have layered measures in place and they're all used as much as possible by the school.

it's important to note that when the community case rates are high, we actually do expect to see cases in all settings and that includes schools. it includes all other settings, the purpose of the guidance is designed to stop the spread of covid at the school between individuals at the school site. and, we know that there are much more benefits of going back to school than staying home as we've all experienced in the past year including learning, mental health, physical health, and the social emotional development of our children. as dr. baba has highlighted, vaccines are our most powerful tool against covid and it is one of the most effective ways to decrease the risk of covid. there is more and more research that shows even with delta that it decreases the risk of hospitalization and death and

that i don't think we can say this enough. vaccinated adults and teenagers help provide a protected layer that protects the children that are not eligible to be vaccinated yet. and that it helps to prevent the severity of infections as well, so research has shown that vaccinated people are ten times less likely to be hospitalized. good news, in san francisco, we now have 81% of our entire population is fully vaccinated. the teenagers are doing better than the general population and then if anyone is interested in is still considering getting vaccinated, this is a way to contact us. either this phone number (628) 652-2700 and visit our website and we have many sites set up to get people quickly

vaccinated as possible. this is throughout the state. face coverings are required indoors. they are not required outdoors. it is required for all adults and students, they must wear their face masks indoors at school regardless if they are vaccinated or not and we know that wearing face masks indoors prevents the spread of the virus. it is not required outdoors because of the abundant natural ventilation. the state does require that persons who are exempt from wearing face coverings must wear a nonrestrictive alternative such as a face shield with a drape. this would apply to limited populations such as those students with some medical concerns where a face mask is not possible for them, but we want to see some kind of protective covering.

and, that schools are responsible for developing and implementing protocols to ensure that everyone is wearing their face mask. and, i think in san francisco, we happen to be fortunate where we have a population that is generally in compliant with wearing face masks indoors as opposed to other areas in the state or even in the nation. just to address ventilation because i know this has been a top concern especially with the headlines around wildfires in our state. we do ask schools to use outdoor spaces as much as possible and then when they are indoors, the schools can take one of three measures or all of the three measures where they can open their windows, they can improve the hvac systems and they can use portable air cleaners. and i'm not sure the general public understands, in the process of the school application review, sfdph has

reviewed all of the ventilation systems at all school buildings. we hired an independent consultant and all the schools are required to submit what the ventilation was at their school site and how they approved it and we reviewed that and approved that before we gave approval to re-open. this includes all of the buildings at the school districts and all of the other schools in our city. we have personally reviewed all the ventilation systems. again, we are seeing headlines about wildfire and poor air quality and we recognize that that is also another public health issue. schools should prioritize trying to keep healthy air indoors as much as possible. but, we are confident saying that schools can stay open. they do not need to close. they can temporarily close their windows, but in order to prevent the spread of covid, they should maximize other safety measures.

that includes having portable air cleaners, doubling down on wearing your face mask, increase hand washing, please stay home when you're sick, etc., but it is not necessary to close schools in the event of a wildfire. there are areas that we know that we can now go back to pre-covid protocols. we have learned a lot in the past year and a half about this particular virus and we know that this virus is spread from person to person. it is not spread through objects or services. so for the purposes of cleaning and disinfection, the routine janitorial cleaning once a day at a school site is sufficient because we know that covid is not spread through services and disinfection is only required in any area where there was a confirmed covid-19 case. and so it's important to note that vaccines are not widely available last school year.

we only had it widely available towards the tail end of the spring. so with the wide availability of vaccines now, with the indoor masking mandate, the state and also the health department in san francisco, we believe that physical distancing is no longer required as well as cohorting and that we can resume normal spacing in classrooms and normal academic calendars, especially for middle and high school where we have such a large vaccinated teenage population. some recommendations for meals and snacks recognizing that, of course, one cannot eat or drink with a mask on. so, again, we recommend that schools eat outdoors when the space and the weather allow. and, at this point in time, that's one of the areas that we suggest that you take

unvaccinated students out as much as possible when they are eating. cafeteria and food service may resume. this is where schools should frequently touch surfaces when it's related to meals and snacks and any surfaces that come in contact with food to be washed, recognized, and sanitized. meals do no longer have to be plated or bagged. and this is true before covid. we're asking everybody to wash their hands before and after they eat or drink and also considering wearing their masks which minimize the amounts of exposure that one would have in the event that they're, if you cover your mouth while you're eating, it's just less exposure time. this is another area where we are going to promote pre-covid protocols. we have always encouraged everyone to wash hands or use

hand sanitizer. it's not just for covid-19, but it's for all infectious diseases. so we really want everyone to be washing their hands as much as possible, especially before and after eating and after using the restroom and asking schools and our parents and care givers to reinforce that message with our young people about washing hands, covering their coughs and sneezes and not touching their eyes, nose, and mouth. we are strongly encouraging everyone to stay home when sick. point in time this is actually one of the most important measures that we can take. if students and staff have any of the following symptoms, please do not come to school and i want to highlight that article of the case in marin where there was a teacher who was unvaccinate and unmasked for a brief period of time, this made national headlines. but one of the things was that that teacher was symptomatic

and came to school for a couple of days. if you are feeling sick, please stay home because thus then does not introduce the virus into the school community. excuse me. in the event that somebody does develop symptoms at school which can happen, for the staff, they should notify their supervisor and we work as much as possible. schools should sent sick students home as quickly as possible and they should all have a designated isolation area for students to wait so they are not with other students and staff and this was part of the approval process for schools to re-open and then contact your doctor and get tested as soon as possible. so just a word about testing. we now have greater access to testing through home health kits and health care providers and d.p.h. has strong recommendations for testing. of course, we want to focus on those individuals that have

symptoms and who are considered close contacts. even if you are vaccinated and you are having symptoms, we want you to get tested and if you're considered a close contact and vaccinated, we are actually asking everyone to get tested. we are not asking anyone who has had covid-19 in the last three months to get tested because there is viral shedding and there will still be remnants of the virus in your nose and mouth and it will create a false result from the test. the state and our local health department requires that there be screening, testing for all unvaccinated teachers and staff at school. and this is just for unvaccinated staff. they either need to get tested once weekly, p.c.r. or twice weekly antogen. in general, we do not recommend testing students that do not have symptoms or known exposures or anyone that has

had covid in the last three months. if you're waiting for your test results to also please stay home. we have had a number of cases where people have sent -- where they either have gone to school or sent their child to school while waiting for a test result and get a test result in that day and inadvertently expose a group of students and then they have to go unnecessarily into quarantine. this is highlighting the data that we released yesterday related to schools. we are in i believe our fourth week of school. so we now can talk a little bit about what has been happening so we can see that the measures that we have in place seem to be working. we have schools all remain a low risk environment. since the school district opened on august 16th, they have reported 246 cases to us out of 200,000 individuals when

you add up the students and the staff. for all the other schools, there was 61 cases out of nearly 27,500 students and staff. we have a team that worked on these cases and they have determined through exposure investigation, enhanced contact tracing and enhanced case investigation that the vast majority of these cases were contracted outside of the school but did not necessarily spread at a school site. there are no countried covid-19 school outbreaks and the suspected in-school transmission numbers are solo that we cannot talk about them because of our privacy concerns. and, this holds the same pattern since the beginning of the pandemic. last year, we did not see any verified outbreaks at the school district and we did not see any verified outbreaks at

any of the camps or the learning hubs that were established this summer even during the rise or the peak of the delta surge. and last year, throughout all of the individuals that were attending in person, there were only seven cases of in-school transmission among 48,000. so we take this as evidence that the measures that we have in place are working at schools. and, just lastly, we want to say d.p.h. remains involved. we are continuously monitoring the pandemic and as the general public has seen, we will react when things either get better or get worse. so we will make modifications if the data and science indicate a need to do so. we are working actively with the school district to set up vaccine sites at school districts, at select number of school district schools to launch in the fall especially to be prepared for the event that pediatric vaccines will

become available for ages 5-7 years old. we have dedicated trained staff to respond to all of the cases and exposures at schools. also doing case investigation and contact tracing. we rely on the schools to get us the names of the close contacts that are occurring on a school site because that is something that we cannot do, but once we get the names, contact information of all those people, we do a thorough case investigation and contact tracing at school sites. and, of course, we maintain our school guidance and make updates as necessary. that concludes our school presentation and we're very happy to answer any questions. >> chairman: thank you so much to both of you. i want to ask my colleagues if they have any questions before we move on to the preliminary

recommendation of the sf rise working group. nope. okay. i think that was very thorough and certainly very good news. so i really appreciate you all coming and giving us that update as background for the report from rise. the so thank you so much. appreciate it. now, if i can turn it back to director su. >> thank you. i do want to emphasize that d.p.h. and sfusd meet on a regular basis every single week to have these very focused health and wellness conversations. so just to know in the spirit of sf rise and in the spirit of us working together, we do spend a lot of time in

conversations and trying to bring problem solve and work towards, you know, making sure that all of our children and families are safe. with that, i'm going to hand this next part of the presentation over to jasmine dawson, our deputy director of city and community partnerships at dcyf. jasmine. >> great. thank you. thank you to supervisor ronen, supervisor melgar, supervisor safai for allowing us to present on the sf rise preliminary plan to youth, young adults, and families committee. we are excited to share highlights from the preliminary report and to share what we have planned for the next several months. i want to thank and acknowledge our hardworking and deeply committed work group members who began this journey with us and may be here today. leslie hue, rafael picasso,

dr. joyce durado, emily gar vie, marcus wong, maria su, commission bogess. i also want to acknowledge the attendees that came pretty regularly. jenny lamb, supervisor ronen and the other people who attended these meetings. thank you to our staff and other teams. and lastly, our amazing consultants. clarity social research group, penny wang, and heather imoden. the work was processed, recommendations, longer term considerations and next steps. and, during our first meeting, these dedicated work group members identified areas they hope to solve participation in the work group. there were a lot of things. all-important.

this included fairness and equity. super centering the work. racial l transformation. honoring strength and resilience, racial justice and thinking about what we want for all of our children. centering youth voices and families and harnessing the group's energy focusing on families and supporting families with seamless access to services. i want to give big props to the work group. they were committed and did the homework. we completed this preliminary plan in record time. and next, i would like for us to have heather help share the screen so that we can show the presentation. >> i will be sharing the screen. this is maria.

there you go. >> wonderful, thank you. this is an overview of the ordinance. the purpose of the working group is to advise the board of supervisors. i think we advanced too soon. advise the board of supervisors and the mayor and the san francisco unified school district on the coordination and expansion of academic supports and services. to enrich san francisco youth whose academic achievement and personal development have been negatively impacted by school closures and distanced learning. the primary goals of the work group were to increase student proficciency and create and expand full scale in school enrichment programs consistent with community schools models. next slide, please.

and this is our process. it's very robust. we had regular virtual meetings. the first and third thursdays of each month. the sub committees. they were the community school sub committee and they were set to gain a better understanding of gaps and then we are a community engagement of committee who focused on planning who and how to engage. the community engagement work that we did over the summer and just recently, we had ten focus groups with 100+ middle schoolers and high schoolers. parents and care givers in summer together participants. and participation action research survey of 60 youth and gained insights from small group discussions. the summer together survey of 1,100 parents and care givers as well. we also had guest speakers come in and those were charice,

dorothy smith from dcyf. we had medically lousman. the chief of student, family and community support division. research, planning, and assessment supervisor of analytics and city liaison. and also heather who is sharp and rachel estrella. and then we had a warrior. and we had the development of the delivery of this report here today. and we had an open invitation throughout our process. next slide, please. and, index, i will pass it over to heather to talk about our immediate recommendations. >> thank you so much, jasmine.

i appreciate that. thank you, supervisors. it's wonderful to be here to present to you and share the recommendations of the working group who have been working so hard and bringing these ideas to you. our report was broken into two major pieces. one was immediate recommendations largely based on the community engagement from this summer talking to young people and to parents and care givers when we asked them about their needs for going back to school. that is what informed these immediate recommendations and then the second part that i'll also be talking to you about is the longer term challenges and recommendations for how we might dig deeper into the work so that our final report to you in the spring has longer term recommendations. so first i want to speak to you about this immediate near term

recommendations. and, again, these are based really on what we heard directly from young people and parents and aligned really closely with things that the working group has been speaking about over the months that we've been meeting. and the major buckets are enhancing social emotional supports. and we'd love to recommend that d.p.h. lift that information up about the health of young people in san francisco and the measures that have been taken in the school district because i think that will alleviate a lot of the concerns that young people have had about going back to school and the delta variant in particular. young people also asked for ongoing access to support including counseling, coaching,

and wellness checks including informal check-ins from teachers and staff and a lot of empathy and patience from their adults as they get used to being back in the school environment. acknowledging that, you know, things like formal counseling can be really helpful, but even just acknowledging the challenges that young people may be facing and doing those check-ins or wellness checks can go a long way to helping them feel supported. enhancing their out-of-school academic support. the young people have this anxiety about their preparedness and shared that they were concerned about what they did not learn last year and were looking forward to being back in person so that they could have more access to one on one support, group support, you know, study groups and help outside of school which could be enhanced by providing some professional

development for student tutors or for out of school time staff providing coaching so that they can rebuild their study habits. so not just the sort of subject specific tutoring, but also, just let's get back to our routines of what it means to be a strong student and supporting them in that and supporting for varied learning styles and temperaments. the students really had different requests depending on how they learn best. so if we can find a way to support their out of school time academic supports and give them options, that would be best for them. other things that we heard especially from parents, but also from the young people was ensuring that they had access to a diversity of out-of-school activities like arts, like technology, like sports. the young people are so eager to be back in these activities

with their peers, so making sure that these are accessible for them and are low or no cost for their families was really important. we also asked them specifically about transportation and transit to and from school. and, they said they wanted more information about their transportation options and an understanding of how their transit options would be restored as people start going back to school this year because some services have been cut back during the pandemic in that students were worried that that would affect their access to school and their commutes. and, then, lastly, making sure that before school programming is available for young people. with the new staggered bell schedule for the school year some families were concerned about getting different members

of their family to school at different times. so if you've got a parent who's dropping off students to multiple schools and multiple grades, they may want to do one school run, but that means that someone is going to get to school early so that others can get to school on time. so they wanted to make sure their students would be welcomed and there would be space and support for them. so these are the immediate recommendations that they share. and then there were also, thank you. we can switch to the next slide. there were also slonger term considerations that the working group is going to be looking at as we move forward and these were identified as the working group was talking about the issues around providing support and particularly around the community schools model. these are the sort of big topics that came up for the working group in conjunction with the various experts who presented to us.

so there are challenges at the systems level. how do we strengthen a shared vision, understanding and commitment to community schools. how do we strengthen the partnerships between the district, the city departments, and the c.b.o.s the community based organizations that are supporting schools and how do we make sure that we're coming together in support of the district who are doing such strong work to make sure that community schools model is something that really works for them. ensuring alignment and coordination across the district. and then focusing on those structural solutions. like i said, the immediate recommendation's really focused on some immediate needs that we can implement quickly, and there are also structural issues that we need to look at more broadly. so that's our longer term focus. school site level challenges

also include alignment between school day and out of school time programming. and, understanding data sharing to inform the programming and i know that that's something that ocost has done and built upon. and student and family and engagement. identifying the barriers to engagement. we know there are specific populations. what are the barriers, how do we alleviate those barriers so that families can be engaged across the board. that includes addressing cultural linguistic needs and safety when necessary. so based on those systems level challenges, those structural things that we're seeing, we are going to be doing some things in the fall that will be informing the final report that

you'll see in the spring. so one thing we would like to do and plan to do is doing some case studies in partnership with san francisco unified, in partnership with social policy research partners who are doing some evaluations of the current community schools, the deacons, and working with the working group to understand and document some of the models that are working on the ground and some of the bright spots that we can highlight and learn from and scale. so that we're not reinventing the wheel, but are building on the model that is are working and really helping to build that out more for students and strengthen what we can from what we learn. we also -- so for the case studies we are hoping to look at not just the current

beacons, but how the school model to understand how that's working in nonbeacon schools. we are hoping to develop a dash board and work with the district on the dash board so we have some standard metrics across all schools. leveraging the data that exists and our case studies that we're developing so we can figure out what we want to track as far as what does it mean. what are the elements really working for families and how can we identify where we are or strengthen where they aren't in other schools. so we'll be working with research partners to determine how we measure that and the goal is to provide sfusd with a tool for their ongoing monitoring program attic officers and their impact. and then the last piece is to be leveraging and partnering with ocost, sf families project where they have an online

service director piloting that that functionalities. so we want to leverage this tool by the community based organizations that are working the schools and use that to identify resources that can fill gaps. and throughout all of this, we'll be continuing our community engagement. i want to appreciate automotive of the young people and their parents and care givers who've shared with us this summer. we learned so much from hearing directly from them. we will continue to do that this fall. we're doing focus groups and intercepts and surveys in collaboration with the community needs assessment that dcyf is doing. the youth participatory action group is continuing their work and they'll be working with high school students and middle school students this fall. and we hope to partner closely

with them so that the question, the research questions that they're studying can really help inform what we're learning and what we recommend. and, we just want to really keep listening because we heard in the summer about what the needs are expected to be, but now the students are back in school. the parents have their students back in school and they're experiencing what it's really like and they're going to find out, oh, that thing i was worried about, that's actually taken care of or here's a new worry that i didn't know to have, how can we fill this gap for families. we'll be continuing the engagement work throughout because those student and parent voices and care giver voices are so important to our work. and then the last thing i want to share with you, the next slide, it's just a quick time line or where we were and where we're going. so the working group started meeting in may of this year. we did our meeting every two

weeks at least since then. we did our engagement and a bunch of research over the summer and the preliminary report was completed last month in august. and that's the material that we're presenting to you now. this fall, we'll be continuing our research to dig into those larger questions that we identified. we'll be synthesizing in the spring and also coming up with some costing so that we'll have an understanding of what it really will take to implement some of these measures and we expect to have a final report to all of you in march of 2022. and that's all i have. thank you so much for your attention for bringing this this working group together. and, i also want to thank my colleague penny flan who was not able to join us today, but she has been a major driving

force for our team in facile facilitating our group and bringing this together. >> thank you so much, heather. and now we'll take questions. >> chairman: thank you so much. first of all, thank you for this work. as you said, jasmine, this is record time and what was important to supervisor melgar and myself was that we had -- we didn't wait until the spring to have any recommendations that we could start on this work immediately when school got back into session and i know that was a very heavy lift. so i want to thank all of you for really meeting extra often to make that happen and, you

know, i'm very excited by this preliminary report and preliminary recommendation. my main question because i love where you're going, i see where you're going, i see why you're going in the direction you're going and it all makes a ton of sense to me is do we have and this really is a question for you, jasmine, for heather, and sfusd. i believe she's still here is how are we going to work together and what is the plan to work together between now and the spring to implement some of these preliminary recommendations? >> yes. i'll definitely kick us off and diva is still free to happen if you want to here. we want to go deep. phase two for us looks like working closely with the

district. we are already strategize one of the things that we acknowledged early on is that we wanted to be very closely aligned in partnership with the district and so we're all committed to doing that and meeting regularly. we were talking almost daily and so i definitely want to just say that our plan is to continue working closely together especially as we go into phase two and especially as we break down each of the activities that we've outlined. >> chairman: does anyone else want to add?

i get that, but there were some very particular preliminary recommendations that [inaudible] i was wondering you know both from planning, from this board's supervisors from dcyf, from the district in order to not wait until the spring to implement those additions, but to start improving on all of this because i know all of the recommendations, i know some of it's already happening. i know from my personal experience with my daughter at elementary school. but i'm just wondering what we can be doing between now and spring to, you know, further enhance those preliminary recommendations while we're doing that. >> i'm going to jump in really quickly and viva, you can close. two of the main things that came out of the immediate next

steps are the immediate recommendations from this plan. one was expansion of mental health services and in partnership with sfusd, we actually are working very collectively to expand middle school wellness centers, expand high school wellness centers into middle schools and it's really leveraging the capacity of our beacon centers and the school districts established coordinated care team. so the school district during the pandemic created once again in a really record breaking time line the coordinated care teams that took on the role of those wellness checks and wellness calls for children. now they have a little more resources to be able to bring on social workers to provide the one on one support and maybe the group supports for some of our middle school students. that's one result and the other one is ensuring that we have

more before and after school slots for our children and families and this is something that we're working very closely with but also with our c.b.o.s so trying to figure out with our c.b.o.s how can we help them hire more staff. honestly right now, the biggest issue is that we don't have enough staff. you know, staffing is unfortunately a citywide issue right now and we're working with our c.b.o.s to try to figure out how to bring along more people so we can then open up more slots. we're also working with our c.b.o.s to look at other potential sites and facilities that they could use to host before school care and after school care. so those are two ready immediate things that we're working with our school district partners on and, you

know, the other stuff around just ensuring that the environment is welcoming and that young people feel safe in school sites. you know, i give it to sfusd, i know they've been working hard on making sure that all young people feel safe in school and we are working with sfusd and m.t.a. to try to figure out how to make sure that young people feel safe going to and from school and so we're having those deep conversations with m.t.a. to make sure that that is happening, but those are, you know, preliminary conversations. we don't have a set, concrete thing. viva, do you want to share anything else? >> yeah. i think it's been -- i think those are all the right points, you know, we as a district have been getting school going and having school starting and welcoming students back, we really do appreciate the cities kind of taking on part of the

after school and before care. before and after school programming and then also the transit component. i think that's been a huge topic and that those are real needs from students that are coming when we take surveys. just more availability with public transit and now that it is free, we do want students to be taking that and using that as their option of transit because we don't have the general funds to really be able to provide the yellow school buses for all of our students. those are real key things that we want to be working on and as we move forward asthmaryia said in long term by having common language and we have been spending a lot of time, establishing can common language with the city and the district it's going to be absolutely critical because i think we all have a vision how we approach. i think the long-term goal of having every student feel safe

and welcomed and important is the same, but i think we've always had a different approach from the city and the district. i do appreciate maria spending a lot of time with us, with our leadership as well what does partnership look like and what are shared values, those are all things we've been working on and i think that's our long-term goal. i will just point out that the mental health services, its expansion are absolutely critical and we want to remind the public that every school in the morning, they do spend time on kind of wellness and more of social emotional support whether it's journalling, whether it's meditating, we're dedicating time for our students that may not need large interventions, but just figuring out to be in school and in community again, it's highly anxiety driven and so i think that those kind of methods at our school sites are implementing day-to-day have been impactful for our students that it's not just academics,

we are spending a good chunk of the morning dedicated to support that need. i just want to share that piece that's coming from our school sites to know we do need large interventions and we also need day-to-day consistency with our students as well. >> chairman: great. you know, i'll turn it over to my colleague, supervisor melgar, but i do want to say that i'm definitely interested in taking all these preliminary recommendations and really sort of simultaneous and parallel, you know, direction as the deeper dive and as viva said, the development of shared understanding and shared language and you know, sort of what we mean by community schools and how that works

which i'm excited about, but i want to be moved forward on these recommendations in a way. so, you know, perhaps we can use this forum as a way to take some of these things and really dive deeply on separate recommendations. so have m.t.a. come here and really do an inventory for every single school, you know. what are the best routes for the student population. how many buses does it take to get there. are students arriving on the bus. do they feel safe? etc. so we can take each of those components, but before and dig deep on not only, you know, currently but what do we need to make it better and how can city and supervisor melgar and i be partnering with dcyf and with the district to, you

know, whatever it is from raising funds to, you know, improving systems that we need to do to enact those preliminary recommendations because no matter what the long-term analysis and costings will be, those preliminary recommendations will be part of it, i'm sure and why wait until the spring to do that, let's get started now. supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: thank you so muches, chance of a shower ronen. so i want to start out by saying thank you for your leadership and thank you, jasmine, maria, and viva for all your hard work and for your thoughtfulness in the spirit of collaboration that has gotten us to this point. it's super exciting. i had the opportunity over the weekend to speak to commission

bogess and we had a long conversation about how great it is to have all of this collaboration to get us to where we need to be. thank you for the report. like chair ronen said, it is amazing, i do want to make some requests to the report specifically for like where we go next and the thing that i am am hoping we drill down on, you know, for more specificity is that i think all of us because we care about kids and, we are in this, you know, we tend to talk about programs because, you know, that's what, you know, moves our hearts. i think we have an expert team of folks on the sf rise

committee. and we will look at what has worked. do thanks, look at those things thoughtfully as we expand. what we don't often talk about and i think it's really crucial in the operationalizing is money. and so what we have for, you know, sort of the pass in reviewing is a business plan that is specific to tier three schools and as we expand to tier two and one schools, like i want to know what that looks like in terms of money for the c.b.o.s and for the schools, for the parents, and the p.t.a.s. so i would like us to, you know, cost out what it's going to take to do an expansion of hiring staff at the living wage which is, you know, what we should be paying back and we

need is to be able to recruit and what i saw this school year in getting up and running what was a disparity between east side and west side schools when it came to being able to staff up precisely because, you know, the department of children, youth, and families and the school district during the pandemic very rightly pivoted right away to address the sort of business plan of the c.b.o.s who provide the service as schools so that they could keep paying their staff and shift to online programming and wellness checks and all that. a lot of the c.b.o.s were able to keep their staff whereas on the west side, c.b.o.s didn't have contracts that, you know, could keep their staff on, laid off all their staff. some of the c.b.o.s even went under, those organizations and

so we were faced with having to rebuild programs from scratch and some of those schools. i hope that never happens again. i hope we never have a pandemic again, but it's a lesson for us about sort of the business side of, you know, this world and i want us to be thoughtful and so my ask to you is, you know, as we think about an expansion, can we please look at like sort of the business plan of what this requires at the role of fees and fundraising and, you know, private philanthropy and what level of subsidy and all of those things because i think it's really important in operationalizing it and it will give a frame work to our c.b.o.s, our principals and our p.t.a. communities and going forward with sort of this dream of community schools for all

everywhere. >> yes. that's great. and that came up quite often in our conversations with the work groups and we were closely focused on getting the preliminary plan done, but we need that we needed to come back to cost and that will also be integrated into phase two as well and thank you for calling that out. >> supervisor melgar: thank you. and it's a little bit more than just cost. right. because we kind of have what cost is. it's cash flow, it's, you know, like the capacity to take cash payments or fundraising capacity. not everyone, you know, has that on their staff. development. like it's all of those different things. so i'm hoping that we can tackle it and i also want to say, you know, in terms of the recruitment how important the collaboration with the sfusd is. i know when i worked at at c.b.o., we used the educator pathways program as an actual

recruitment tool because we knew a lot of the students of san francisco that were looking at careers in education wanted to be in a position where they could advance their professional development goals and that did it and we worked closely with jenny steiner and making sure that the work plans of our individual staff neared what we needed to get into the pathway program. you know, all of those things are really important in terms of the collaboration, but, you know, again, the money is really important. i want to be talking about it now so that, by the time we are time lined that's to those markers we're ready and able to do it. >> chairman: here here. i couldn't agree more. if there is no more comments or questions, i would love to open this item up for public comment and i'm kind of hoping some of

the work group members are here to give their perspectives on this work and their involvement with it. with that, mr. clerk, can we please open this item to public comment. >> clerk: yes, madam chair, we are checking to see if there are any public commentors in the queue. for those who have called in and wish to speak in this hearing please press star 3 to be added to the queue. you will hear the system prompt indicate you have raised your hand to confirm you are in line to speak. for those on hold, wait until the system indicates you have been unmuted and that's your signal to begin your comments on this hearing. ms. rios. >> we have two callers on the line. i'll put the first one through. >> hi, this is meredith gatson

from the san francisco parent coalition. thank you so much, supervisors and thank you d.p.h. for sharing the data and information today. i'm so glad that we can take a deep breath of relief that things are going well with our schools fully re-opened and our kids and educators are being kept safe. so thank you to everyone. and, i also want to thank the sf rise work group for this preliminary report. i think it sounds smart and sensible. thank you for listening to families and our youth and then also, i just wanted to suggest two things. one is that i think it's my understanding that we need to collect better updated data on sfusd and where kids are at currently coming back to school. so assessments through the district, finding out where kids are at academically and what kind of mental health supports they need immediately and i know this is just very urgent time sensitive critical to be happening now. it appears it's happening at

some schools and not others. so it would be great to figure out a systematic way to make this happen for our students. and then, for the final report, just a recommendation to make sure that we have substantive tactical recommendations for change, like what are we going to do differently? what are we trying to change and also based in the reality of where our district's at with regard to the budget outlook. you know, how are we going to do more with less over time unfortunately and just thinking about the reality of our budget situation in the district. that's all. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you, ms. dotson for your comments. do we have any further speakers? >> we have two more callers. >> hi. my name is honda kelly. i am a parent. i have a child who has an

i.e.p. as well as in general education. he has been struggling over this past year and a half and i'd like to second what meredith said. it's very important that as you're meeting and collaborating with district leaders, you're also collaborating with all school sites because they are doing different things. i can say that with certainty as well as parents are not quite clear on where their child is right now. i am getting a little bit of information as to where my son is. how he's struggling, but it's not enough for me as a parent to fully hold his hand as to what the next steps are. i am concerned. i'm concerned that my son is not getting clear information as they are doing their best,

but it's not quite what my son needs and what other marginalized students as well as other students that are just behind in my son's school currently needs as well as the information that parents are receiving from the district in particular with covid recovery and learning loss. at best, i've heard they are working on it and i believe that, but i have not heard beyond that. social emotional is very important, mental health is very important, but we need some data. parents need data. we need to know where our students stand, where all students stand right now so we can plan to move forward. i also want to add i second supervisor ronen. based on the little i know, i do know feel my son can wait until spring for this to move forward. he needs action now and i need support in that.

so, separate from that. i just want to thank you for doing this. this means the world to me. thank you. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. ms. rios, next speaker please. >> hi, my name is rafael picasso. i'm a school district chapter president and working with sf rise working group, it's been amazing getting to know all these really good professional people who really care about our students and our schools and to work together as a team and coming up with these great recommendations to build our students and, you know, programs and getting the help where they need it especially after the year and a half of the pandemic. i just want to thank everybody that's on the group for the continued hard work that we are

going to continue to do to make sure we come up with a great plan for the san francisco unified school district and our students and helping parents take care of themselves and taking care of our communities. so i want to thank you you board of supervisors, hillary, and maria. thank you for everybody. >> clerk: thank you for your comments. ms. rios, can you verify that that was the last caller. >> i will verify that that was the last caller. >> clerk: thank you much. madam chair. >> chairman: thank you so hutch. public comment is now closed and i want to thank all of the callers. we are -- i can speak for myself and i know this is true for supervisor melgar as well because i talk to her almost every day about it, but we are completely committed to working nonstop because we know that

our kids and our educators have had perhaps the hardest year ever in san francisco unified history. it's possible certainly in recent history. and, we know that it takes a village to rebuild and make sure that our students and our educators get the help and the assistance they need in a chronic alley underfunded educational system. and i think it's impossible to talk about this work without calling out a bigger problem in our state and in our city about the fact that we do not properly fund our public school system in california and so we are asking our school district and our educators to not only and we've learned this throughout covid to not only do

their core job of educating our students, but to really make up for everything else that's missing in our society from the mental health needs of off students to the food security needs of our students to the housing security needs of our students. it really is child care needs. our schools operate already as a center and we didn't realize we never got a better look at this than we did during covid when schools were in distanced learning both how important this institution is to our children and our families and our society at large and so while we are hell bent at bringing back our in-person learning in the state that's strongest and best ways that we

possibly can for our students and educators and our families, we are not ignoring the broader picture in california and in san francisco of our chronically underfunded schools and that's why supervisor melgar is and not just supervisor melgar but dcyf is so laser focused on what does it really cost to get our public schools, you know, at the best place that they could possibly be and, you know, to expand this community school. it's not just a title three school but as a system wide reality where both inside the classroom and out we are supporting our students and families with whatever they need to succeed fully and at school. and so we're working on it and

it's just been a pleasure. we need to constantly reinforce and we need to make sure we're pulling out the best that the city departments that we really are collaborating to the best and fullest of our cable to educate our we have all the urgency in the world to not wait to do this work but to continue to do it now. i do feel positive and optimistic and i feel urgency

to get proper funding to our school districts. with that, i wanted to see if supervisor safai and other parents in the sfusd school district have anything to add or share before we continue this hearing. >> supervisor safai: no. i just wanted to thank you both for all your hard work. at the end of the day, like you said, supervisor ronen, so much of what is necessary, but also so much of what is possible became magnified under covid and things that we might not have ever believed could be possible are on the table and so like you, like i was for transit day, i think we've had a year and a half of negativity. i think we can always focus on the negativity and part of the time, that's our job, right.

i mean, we've all had to do that in our position is to kind of laser in on areas that need for improvement. but i think this is an area that we can focus in on the positives and really highlight, you know, things that need to be improved upon, encouraged and supported, but really using statistics and analysis and all the people doing this on a daily basis and really listen and i think us as legislators, you know, a lot of time our job is about listening to the people that are on the ground doing the work on a daily basis. that might be the families. that might be the children themselves. that might be the providers. that might be the educators. that might be the administrators. all of those collectively and i think you have those represented in your working group and then we all have our own personal experiences, the hustle and bustle of being a

parent in this city. so very excited about the great work that you guys are both doing. i'm happy to support in any way that i can and ultimately believe that the model that is we're looking at in support and kind of extending the classroom into the community, into the summer, into the after school environment, into the before school environment is crucial and so i'm here to support in every way i can. thank you both for your hard work on this and we are going to continue to come up with more wonderful work and support for our san francisco. thanks. >> chairman: thanks again. so if it's okay with my colleagues, i think i will make a motion to continue this item to the call of the chair just in case we want to go deeper on any recommendation. we can just let all the parties know and bring it back. and so, with that, i will make

that motion and just really want to thank everyone who came and presented today on this item. you're all amazing and we appreciate you very much. mr. clerk, can you please take a roll call vote. >> clerk: yes. on the motion by chair ronen to continue this hearing to the call of the chair, [roll call] we do have three ayes. >> chairman: thank you so much. and, mr. clerk, do we have any other items on the agenda today. >> clerk: no further items but just a little bit of clean up. i did check procedurally what should be done with that duplicated file. while the duplication itself required no vote. we should act on it appropriately. so a motion to continue to the call of the chair would be appropriate. >> chairman: okay. i will make that motion or supervisor melgar. >> supervisor melgar: that's

it. you've made it already. it's fine. >> chairman: can we have a roll call vote. >> clerk: yes. on the motion offered by chair ronen to continue the duplicated file on item two to the call of the chair, [roll call] we do have three ayes. >> chairman: thanks so much. and, with that, mr. clerk, i think i can say that the meeting is adjourned, correct? >> clerk: yes. we can. thank you much. >> chairman: have a good weekend everyone. bye.

>> look at that beautiful jellyfish. the way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they

care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ >> i was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. my dad was the rabbi in the community there. what i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. and learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your words.

when i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. and then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. by the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. but as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. i only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. i found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. i went, volunteered and my life changed. suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. i eventually moved up to san francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of

assembly through los angeles county and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest. one of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, i'm teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. it was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. the san francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. we realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. the city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of the city feel and i love the

symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power to transform our world for the better. we have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether it's lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and we've had great feedback. we have helped public and private schools in san francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. >> great job. >> i've been with the department for 15 years and an

environmental educator for more than 23 years and i'm grateful for the work that i get to do, especially on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. i try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. you can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. trust if you want to do good in this world, that

>> shop and dine in the 49 promotes local businesses, and challenges residents to do their shopping within the 49 square miles of san francisco. by supporting local services in our neighborhood, we help san francisco remain unique, successful, and vibrant. so where will you shop and dine in the 49? >> i am the owner of this restaurant. we have been here in north beach over 100 years. [speaking foreign language] [♪♪♪] [speaking foreign language]

[♪♪♪] [speaking foreign language] [speaking foreign language]

[♪♪♪] [♪♪♪]

good morning everyone. who loves transit in san francisco? oh, my gosh, everybody loves transit. who had a great ride? who had a problematic ride? that's actually a pretty good. that's okay. that's good. hi, ktvu.

so i am rafael mandalmen. i got to take the j church in with a group of activists who are very committed to getting the j back in the tunnel. my experience on the j was a mix of the good and the bad. so i will say that two years ago, the last time that we did this, i was not actually able to participate on that day but i think my staff waited 45 minutes. there was like a three to five minute wait but that was fantastic. i was riding with a woman who recently had hip surgery and now there was a transfer at church and market that there was not pre-pandemic and we had to, you know, i think the experience that a lot of folks with accessibility challenges had where we got off and we have to get across this street

that is a very hard street to traverse and then it turns out that the elevator that's supposed to make it possible to get down and make the transfers broken. so then we waited for the s-line which is not as frequent and actually involves a fairly rikdy contraption crossing to get into it if you are having accessibility challenges in getting in. so anyway, it was interesting to see the extra burdens that our system poses for people who may be in a wheelchair or using a walker or a cane and i think that needs to be foremost in our minds as we think about how to make our system work for everybody. thank you to the transit rider's union for getting us here after two years. thank you. it's been a rough couple of years, but i do want to just express my heart felt gratitude to the staff of m.t.a., the

staff of the transportation authority, the operators, all the workers who have gone so far above and beyond over this last year and a half for operators getting on those buses and those trains at a time when it was not entirely clear what kinds of risks that might pose to your health when people were dying and like chicago dying in and getting sick in terrible numbers. it was a very scary time and yet people showed up to work, kept our transportation system moving and we were able to radically in a matter of days transform a system that we had, you know, come to rely on into an emergency system that got our essential workers back and forth to prioritize equity and i'm proud of that. i think our m.t.a. has been recognized nationally for the changes it made in those early days and putting equity first and i think that's something

that they can be proud of. as we approach what we hope will be the end of the pandemic, it is clear that we are not out of the woods. many of us, all of us i think are very concerned about the notion that we might be aiming at 85% of the service that we had prior to the pandemic. i think all of us agree that the service we had prior to the pandemic was actually not adequate to the needs of san franciscans, much less the needs of the additional san franciscans that will be coming to address our affordability crisis. so 85% is not enough and, for me, and i think for all of my colleagues, a very high priority for the next year is going to be figuring out how to get the revenue that the m.t.a. needs to make sure that we are not aiming at worse service

than we had before, but are aiming at better service than we had before. and that has been imperative for all the reasons we all know. it is the right thing to do for equity. everyone should be able to get around this city without a car, but it is also an environmental imperative as smoke is filling our airs -- is filling our air and as we face a global climate crisis, we have to get people out of their cars. so, this is a -- an exciting thing to be back. i love this. i love this event. i love that we're doing a month this year rather than just a week, and, with that, i want to introduce someone as a friend who i worked with and thank you so much, cat carter. >> thank you, supervisor and chair mandelman. what a beautiful day for a muni

ride. we keep having these beautiful days for our ride arounds in transit month. thank you all so much for being here. thank you all who did the ride along and leaving a good example. i want to quickly introduce our colleague, who worked tirelessly to pull this all together and coordinate everything. he's been doing amazing work and he'll be up here a little later. we talk a lot ant our transit first policy and i think we all continue to fall short of that ideal. it's really past time to take our transit first policy seriously. we need to make transit the first choice for people to get around meaning more and better service that's fast, reliable, clean, easy to use and safe. we need to put riders first. we have no more time to waste as supervisor mandelman was just saying, the climate emergency is here. mount shasta has no snow for

the first time. fires are causing massive damage across our country. before the pandemic, muni served over 700,000 daily trips while contributing less than 1% of the city's green house gases. back in the '80s, muni served over 900,000 daily trips. we need to figure out how to get that many people back on muni and more. we know some people face dyer services in the coming days and months, but we need to start building the future. we need -- we know street priority is necessary to do that and we know sfmta has done a pretty good job of that. we've seen them move very quickly to bring faster, more reliable service by putting transit 1 on the streets. but too many riders are still left behind. we have too much service that hasn't come back yet and we

need sfmta to work quickly to improve its network. but to really put riders first, we need to grow sfts. we need to invest in it. this is going to take all of us working together. we need to build a vision of a network of fast, frequent, reliable service that connects every neighborhood that provides real accessibility. we need service that's easy and safe for all. this is the idea behind our 30 by 30 vision to have those fast, frequent routes that travel end to end and that connect all neighborhoods. we need all our city leaders to champion the major funding muni will need. we invite you to keep setting an example. keep logging your rides at ridecontest.org all month long and tweeting your experience. and, our city leaders need all of us as riders and as voters to keep speaking up and showing up to build the future of muni

that we need. thank you again for showing up and speaking up today and every day for the future of transit in san francisco. and now, zack will introduce our next speaker. >> thank you so much, cat. we're going to hear from some of our courageous supervisors who road transit today starting with supervisor mar. >> supervisor mar: good morning, transit riders. it's so great to be here with all of and my colleagues. i'm showing our collective love for transit this morning and happy transit month. i rode in this morning on the n-juda and the ride seemed a little bit smoother with fewer delays and quicker than before. so that was great to see and i believe director tumlin and m.t.a. actually have some data

to back that up. so, that's been really great. as you all know, we're in a critical moment for public transit in san francisco. we can't afford to debate measures. we can't afford to be divided and we can't afford to drop the ball on delivering the service or go back and forth on the world class transit system that's needed and deserved. we need to put our money where our mouth is. that means we need new revenue. we need to make sure every san francisco voter knows what's at stake. we can't go backwards for our climate, for vision 0, for a more livable city and planet and we have to go forward. we need more service not less. more revenue not less. more lines not less. and let's give three car trains on the njuda. let's bring bar to the west

side. and, sure, let's tax the rich to fund the bus. and, we need to have the vision to ultimately create fair, free public transit in san francisco because we know every dollar invested and spent on transit pays dividends for our economic recovery, for economic mobility, for our public health and the quality of air we breathe and for combatting climate change and cutting our city's single largest source of green house gas. mobility is a human right and public good in reliable, fast, fully funded and ultimately free transit is a north star we all should be working for. let's get the basics right, let's dream big and let's deliver. thank you again, transit riders. thanks to m.t.a. and t.t.a. and just all of the passionate transit advocates in our city and my colleagues and i were with you and we're going to keep pushing forward to create

the transit system san franciscans need and deserve. >> thank you, supervisor mar. now i'm thrilled to introduce san francisco's very own mayor. mayor london breed. >> thank you. well, good morning everybody. i am so excited to be here with all of you to really kick off transit month in san francisco and, first, i want to take this opportunity to thank all of the transit drivers, all of our operators, the sfmta staff and many of the folks who during this pandemic were essential workers because we knew that during the pandemic, so many people would rely on public transportation and there was a lot of concern about whether or not it would be safe and i've really got to send a shout out to jeff tumlin and the work he did to make sure we were cleaning the buses on a more regular basis and, yes, they

have been cleaned on a more regular basis that we were supporting our drivers and the transit riders union, i want to thank you for raising money for masks and ppe for many of our drivers especially because we saw really high rates of covid with a number of our drivers and you stepped in, you supported them and that's what this city is all about. we know how important public transportation is. we don't want to go back to the days when i used to catch the bus in high school and junior high. we would always just look this way, look that way, is it coming? we've got to start walking? are we going to be late to school? well, we are new and improved. we have a lot of work to do and part of what the sfmta is trying to do as we speak is to make the system more reliable. make it more efficient. we know what we need, we know it's been very challenging to deliver to san franciscans the

service that this city deserves because we're saying take public transit, but we also have to make sure that it's reliable, that it's safe, that it's clean and it's exactly what it needs to be in order to serve what is a world class city especially as we recover. i want to thank each and every one of you today and i'll see some of you on muni. i've been on muni in this pandemic in disguise because i didn't want folks to bother me when i'm trying to get from point a to point b. every time. i end up missing my stop. so hopefully i'll see you out there on muni this month. thank you all so much for being here. >> hello, good morning everyone.

i'll just be the bearer of all good news. like every year, i rode the 49 to city hall. it was fantastic the ride. it was quick and efficient. we got here within 15 minutes or so. it was incredible. and, that's how lucky we are to have a world class transit system. we're just simply not going to be able to maintain and make it better. that is definitely a priority for me and for all of my colleagues on the board of supervisors and i am sorry that i have to leave early, but i have a very good reason that fits into transit month. i am a representative on m.t.c., the metropolitan commission. so congratulations.

please get back on muni. it is safe. it is reliable. it is clean. can't wait to see you on the bus. take care. >> thank you, supervisor ronen. so, we have a couple more supervisors coming up. i'm thrilled to introduce supervisor chan from district 1. >> supervisor chan: good morning, transit riders. it's good to be here today. i came to san francisco's chinatown when i was 13 years old. i went to galleio high school and the 30 stop was my jam. that was great. i went to u.c. davis, but still used public transit. greyhound and m-track and then when i came back to work to the city, it was getting a little harder. but my first gig in city hall as an aide, i was still living in chinatown and i had the best

ride to work. it was on cable car and it was awesome. i love public transit, but at the same time, you know, as my work got more demanding, life was a little bit more demanding, you know, riding around, bus hopping was not easy and for any of you who've done bus hopping in san francisco, you know it takes some time. if you miss that transfer, you know what, you can just get a lot of anxiety going on in you waiting for that next bus. so i know that means we need to do better with our public transit. you know, today as a supervisor representing district 1, prepandemic in the richmond, we have one of the highest ridership with 38. 60,000 riders, one direction every day. let's bring back to that level and that's what we need to do and because we know that public

transit is public good and we ought to fund it like it is. you know what, i want to also give a shout out to carina chan here from china town trip. she reminded me if any of you have known that her interview with ktvu recently, she reminded me that transit equity is social, economic, and racial equity. let's remember that. happy transit month. >> supervisor stefani: good morning everybody. i am catherine stefani supervisor for district 2. i want to thank everyone for all their work on transportation and to the transit riders. thank you for continuing to call attention to this extremely important issue.

i see my neighbor steven chun who now works for the sfmta and it's so great. i have a family of four. i have two kids. we took it right to the giants game. it was safe. it was reliable. it was frequent. we want it to be reliable. we want it to be frequent and we are very lucky we had that experience the other day. this morning, i rode the 49 in. and, again, it was an easy thing to do. but, i do want to mention something about families and transit because you cannot ignore the fact that it is very difficult for families who have kids to get around the city especially when you have two different school, two different droppoff times, sports, there's so much that families face when it comes to making sure transit can work into their lives. so let's not forget the families in san francisco. i know my former boss used to

say transit first does not mean transit last. i want to thank everybody for your continued focus on transit. we are a first class city. we need a first class transit. so thank you for continuing to be here and thank you for your focus on that. happy transit month. >> hello transit riders. i am dean preston, district five supervisor. i want to thank transit riders for putting this event on. thank everyone else for m.t.a. and all of the workers making our transit system roll even during a pandemic. this month marks my 28th anniversary as an everyday muni rider and i've just got to say, i just love public transportation, love riding the bus, and, like they say in the

movie, you've got to love it to hate it. here we are. but, you know, i took my daughter today to school on muni as i always do, and i thought about the fact that it takes me an hour round trip door to door to do that. and, it would take me 20 minutes if i were to drive. and, in too many ways, we are a car first city masquerading as a transit first city. we have to do everything possible with urgency to flip that script. and, so when i think about transit month and thank you for extending transit week to transit month so we have a whole month to celebrate transit, but, you know, i think about all the neighborhoods that i represent that continue to not have their muni lines a

year and a half later. i think about district 5 families. i think about neighbors who live up on a hill who are seniors. i think of folks who have seen their muni lines suspended indefinitely with promises for the first year that their line would definitely come back and now a process in place through which their line may be permanently and forever gone. i think about how advocates and community leaders in the tenderloin and in the filmore had to fight so hard with everything else going on in the pandemic, had to fight so hard to get the 31 balboa back and thank you for fighting that fight on behalf of everyone in san francisco. when i think about transit month, i think about the operators that continue to drive throughout the pandemic as essential workers themselves and transporting essential workers. i think of the transit operators not just here, but in new york city who continue to

operate buses and subways in the middle of catastrophic flooding. i think about all the operators from muni, sam trans, and other agencies that went to help in san jose after the tragic p.t.a. shooting. when i think about transit month, i think about the riders, all of you who choose to or who must use muni and how we as a city have not done enough for you all during this pandemic or ever in san francisco. a transit system should be based on the principles that more service leads to more rides and more riders and less service leads to fewer riders and fewer rides. that is why cutting service and cutting lines for financial savings is a death spiral for transit. we must win back transit ridership as we recover from this pandemic. and unfortunately and it

saddens me to say it, right now, riders are being given nothing to fight for. and, are instead too often being asked to just accept osterity. we must have a more robust vision that inspires people to ride muni and to support the bold funding measures that we need to take to the ballot. we need a vision that includes fair relief on a path to free muni. investment in our workers and more reliable service and not strategies that pit riders from one part of town against riders from another part of town. we need a vision of a world class public transit system for our city for generations to come. and, as supervisor mar put it

so well, let's tax the wealthy to make this happen. thank you so much. next up is supervisor haney. >> supervisor haney: all right. thank you, dean. i'm going to ask the easiest question that i know the answer to. who rode transit here this morning? all right. how many of you ride transit most days? all right. well, apparently, they're going to be tracking. i already looked. there's somebody who already in september has ridden transit over 60 times, so whoever that person is, if they're here, i think their name is anthony, very impressive. you probably know this person. we are going to commit not only this month to ride transit, but to support transit and i want to thank the transit riders union. i want to thank all of my colleagues. jeff tumlin, the mayor, the m.t.a. staff. we always rode over here this morning with a guy named jason

from the m.t.a. who works so hard every day 90 this system, to improve it and it has been especially challenging over the lars year and a half and i want to recognize all of them. many of the folks here are involved in supporting this system and improving it and i want to thank all of you, the m.t.a. board as well. one of the things that has been so important this past year as there have been advocates and i see a lot of the folks standing up here who have fought for our public transportation system every single day over the last year and a half and it was under tremendous strain. other folks have said this, you know, people were scared to go on because they were worried that they might be sick, that it wasn't clean, that it was too crowded. as people stopped riding the bus and the train, lines were cut. all of that was a huge attack on what we know as one of the

most essential parts of our city and people stood up and fought is to make sure it was maintained. and i especially want to recognize the folks who fought for the 31. this was a line and give it up for the return of the 31. people in the tenderloin. people who live in s.r.o.s. families, seniors. we rode the 31 today from district 5. i went over to district 5 with dean preston and a number of folks and we rode it in and it is such a critical east west connecter for the district that i represent and i want to thank you all for fighting so hard for it. the last thing i want to say is i'm the budget chair and my colleagues told me i've been authorized to put this up and to say we are committed to funding muni, funding sfmta. happy transit month.

>> supervisor melgar: thank you for being here. i'm the supervisor for district 7. we actually share a longer border with district 5 in san mateo county than with district 5 in san mateo county. i will talk about the great things we're doing. we're doing really well in terms of transit. i love muni. muni is now free for all youth thank you to my colleagues and to mayor breed for making that happen and, you know, we're committed to training and supporting a new generation of transit riders so that we can have the highest possible ridership and get people out of their cars and into public transit. that's how we solve the climate crisis is to make sure we reduce those carbon offsets and take the bus. that's what we need to do.

i am an immigrant to san francisco. i came when its 12 years it cost a nickel back then and muni gave me freedom. it was a freedom that as a kid from el salvador like very few in my generation had in my country, but here, muni alloweded us to just have the entire the world class city that is san francisco at our feet. if you haven't seen the newest marvel movie, go see it because muni is a prominent character. it's so much part of our identity. i want to thank all of you for your advocacy. t.w.u. and local transit workers who have put their lives and their families and health on the line for the rest of us. we need to keep supporting them and advancing this wonderful public good that is transit. in my district, we have city college, san francisco state,

and u.c.s.f. as part of the zoo all of the organizations that rely on public transit to be healthy and expand. we want to make sure that san francisco comes back from this pandemic and public transit is the way. let's fund it. let's fund it adequately. let's pave the way for our future and our childrens' future by having a muni system that's fair, that's affordable and that is open to all. thank you so much. sorry. i was supposed to introduce my great friend supervisor ahsha safai. >> supervisor safai: good morning everyone. supervisor safai here. in the past, i have to say and truthfully, i've been a big critic of the sfmta and a lot of that has been justified, but today i want to focus on the positive.

i think within the last year, even in the midst of this pandemic, there's been a lot of improvement. there's still a lot of room to grow. there's still a lot of improvements to be made. despite all of the challenges and a virus that's spreading rapidly via air internally, our operators showed up to work. many of those operators live in my district in the excelsior, omy and outer mission and they don't complain. i mean, they do complain, julie, i know you know that, but justifiably, they show up. and, if they have complaints, they make it known, but they still show up and do their job every single day. so i had an awesome driver today on the 14r. her name was "dee." we got from geneva and mission all the way to the inner mission and 14th. my daughter rode with me, got her to school in less than 20

minutes. it was a wonderful ride. the red lanes worked. no one was blocking us. the driver drove professionally and, you know, what, the bus was packed, but it felt safe. every single person was wearing a mask. i forgot my wallet at home. she still waited for me. i had to come back but we made it on time and i think there has been a lot of good work done and a lot of that improvement has been the result of the advocacy of the transit riders and those that know the system intimately ride it day in and day out. so i'm very happy to say that the part of town that i represent, the essential workers have been getting up every single day to get to work, they're riding those buses. every single one of the buses was packed today. the 14r, the 14, 43, every single one of them. and thanks so supervisor melgar and her advocacy, we have the

m-line coming back. that's also serving our district now. that's a really big deal. you know, the 52 excelsior's back. we are making improvements and, yes, my daughter rode for free. thank you, supervisor melgar for your advocacy and mayor breed and the rest of the board and supervisor preston for really making access for those children and youth a high priority. so we're going to continue to celebrate it this month. we're going to continue to promote muni in any way and ridership as we can and we will invest in the right way. it also means pedestrian safety and traffic calming. so, anyway, proud to be part of this day today, proud to support this effort and i'll stand with all of you in continuing to make muni a

priority. thank you. >> good morning. my name is jeffery tumlin and i'm here to say that public transit is fundamental. 47% of san francisco's green house gas emissions comes from the transport sector and public transit is the primary way we're going to make a difference with climate change. public transit is opportunity and our way to correct for past inequity. public transit is essential for efforts to improve health and safety of our population and public transit is essential for san francisco's economic recovery after this brutal 18 months. i'm particularly grateful to all of our front line and operations crews particularly our operators who showed up to work every single day through a pandemic to make sure that essential workers could continue to get to work. i'm grateful for the incredible creativity and risk taking that all of our transit planning staff did in reinventing the

muni system practically every month for nearly 18 months and i'm really proud of the achievements that they've been able to do with all of that work that they did. we're getting phenomenal speed and reliability improments on all of our core systems. yesterday, we released preliminary data that was showing 20% in speed on the freeway. benefits that i did not think were possible and involved a tremendous amount of risk taking and creativity among our crews. i'm grateful to our traffic engineering team who has invested in designing 20 miles the in order to hold on to all the speed and reliability improvements we've gotten during covid. and i'm grateful to the operatoring crews who on our frequent lines shifted to headway management which has meant that our buses are more reliable than they've been in

all of the decades than we have data to support that. i'm so grateful to our riders union who've put up with all of the changes that we've made. the stumbles that we've made, the corrections that we've made in order to try to deliver the best possible transit system despite the challenges we are facing. i'm also here to ask for your help. i think has been made clear to all of you, muni is facing the worst financial crisis in history. we're so thankful to the government for getting us through last year and this year. what's clear from all of the data from the counselor and the controller's office is we're expecting at least another four years of huge covid related financial losses. particularly to two of our three biggest sources of revenue, parking fees and transit fares. we're going to need a lot of help to find ways to fill those gaps. we, all of us on muni staff believe that we were delivering

far inadequate service back before covid. we need dramatic expansion and improment in the frequency, the number of lines, the speed, the reliability. we need a world class transit system for san francisco and we're going to need help from all of you. i'm also so grateful to all the board of supervisors and have offered their help to find ways to fill this gap to fund mu nshgd eeushgd and to finally deliver the transit system that san francisco deserve its and need. and, with that, i'd like to introduce our sfmt academic board chair. >> thank you so much for that, jeff. i'm so grateful for our staff, the leadership of jeff tumlin in helping to reconfigure

transit. our operators were essential workers and it was a really tough time for many of them as they struggled with things in their family. they showed up;, they persevered and they served this city. what was also so illuminating at that time was our riders were essential workers. in those areas where we had a lot of essential workers. i really want to thank the transit riders, you guys have made such a large difrnts. because so many of our riders are essential workers and can't come up and show up at a hearing and testify and support the need for transit, the voice that you provide is super powerful and i'm so grateful bringing this up, celebrating for a month. we need to tell all san franciscans, public transportation is essential ask we need them to support our ultimate ballot measure which will come in the future for our funding needs. i want to thank the leadership of our board of supervisor, also our transportation authority for all committing here to support our funding in the future.

it is really critical. the biggest challenge public transit has is it's not as sexy as so many other areas and it's very costly. especially to maintain the reliability and the service. we want to bring back as much service and all the lines that we can but it's crucial because covid really battered our revenue sources and we really increasingly depend on the general funds. we don't have the advantage of generating most of our revenue but that means it's more critical that we need your support. we need all of our elected leadership, everyone in the public. the transit riders and everyone to champion us for a future that we can provide the visionary network that everyone wants and deserves and, without it, our city will struggle. i invite all of these people who've been off of transit to

come back. we need you to come back to survive and thrive. i need you all to evangelize it taking muni is safe. tell them about our faster service. i live on the 14r, 49 line. i take those buses almost every single day and i have to say i've been so impressed whether it's 1:00 in the morning or 5:00 in the morning. thank you for your advocacy and let's fight together for public transit. >> thank you, director boarden. director tumlin, director chang. all the supervisors and mayor who made it out here today to celebrate transit month. and all of you who are standing in the sun for the past hour showing your commitment to a better transit future. thank you, everyone. public transit is at the core of san francisco's economic

recovery. muni kept us going during the pandemic thanks to the work of the transit operators, our safety ambassadors and all our front line workers who risked their health to keep our city going. roger moranko is unable to be here today. thank you muni operators and members who kept us going during this pandemic and keep us going today. now, more than ever, we know that muni is more than just a line on the map and more than just a yellow sign post at an intersection. it's a sense of belonging and freedom of movement it's access to education, to jobs, to all the opportunities san francisco has to offer.

from the bay view to the richmond. just because i owned a fast pass. but supervisor melgar, it was $0.35 when i was a kid. it's a little bit more today we're gathered here today to celebrate transit but we also know how much further we need to go. many lines remain suspended with their futures uncertain and sfmta doesn't have the funds it needs to invest in 21st century transit needs. i have hope to reinvest and fund a world class transit system here in san francisco. hope that when we raise our collective voices together, anything is possible. we're the people who make this city hum. the people who never stop riding during the pandemic.

who know what's at stake should we fail to invest. but we're also the ones to make this change happen. in fact, we're the only ones who can. so, thank you all for gathering here today. thank you for your energy, for your spirit and for celebrating transit not this month, but every month to come for a world class transit system here in san francisco. thank you. so that is the end of our rally and press conference. if you have not yet go to ride contest.org to sign up and track your rides this month. we're giving out prizes for winners. we have a ton of events coming up at transitmonth.org and we hope you'll join us throughout the month and going forward in the future. so if everybody can come up here for one last picture, that'd be great. thank you.

>> you're watching quick bite, the show that has san francisco. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> we're here at one of the many food centric districts of san francisco, the 18th street corridor which locals have affectionately dubbed the castro.

a cross between castro and gastronomic. the bakery, pizza, and dolores park cafe, there is no end in sight for the mouth watering food options here. adding to the culinary delights is the family of business he which includes skylight creamery, skylight and the 18 raisin. >> skylight market has been here since 1940. it's been in the family since 1964. his father and uncle bought the market and ran it through sam taking it over in 1998. at that point sam revamped the market. he installed a kitchen in the center of the market and really made it a place where chefs look forward to come. he created community through food. so, we designed our community as having three parts we like

to draw as a triangle where it's comprised of our producers that make the food, our staff, those who sell it, and our guests who come and buy and eat the food. and we really feel that we wouldn't exist if it weren't for all three of those components who really support each other. and that's kind of what we work towards every day. >> valley creamery was opened in 2006. the two pastry chefs who started it, chris hoover and walker who is sam's wife, supplied all the pastries and bakeries for the market. they found a space on the block to do that and the ice cream kind of came as an afterthought. they realized the desire for ice cream and we now have lines around the corner. so, that's been a huge success. in 2008, sam started 18 reasons, which is our community and event space where we do

five events a week all around the idea of bringling people closer to where the food comes from and closer to each other in that process. >> 18 reasons was started almost four years ago as an educational arm of their work. and we would have dinners and a few classes and we understood there what momentum that people wanted this type of engagement and education in a way that allowed for a more in-depth conversation. we grew and now we offer -- i think we had nine, we have a series where adults learned home cooking and we did a teacher training workshop where san francisco unified public school teachers came and learned to use cooking for the core standards. we range all over the place. we really want everyone to feel like they can be included in the conversation. a lot of organizations i think which say we're going to teach cooking or we're going to teach gardening, or we're going to get in the policy side of the food from conversation.

we say all of that is connected and we want to provide a place that feels really community oriented where you can be interested in multiple of those things or one of those things and have an entree point to meet people. we want to build community and we're using food as a means to that end. >> we have a wonderful organization to be involved with obviously coming from buy right where really everyone is treated very much like family. coming into 18 reasons which even more community focused is such a treat. we have these events in the evening and we really try and bring people together. people come in in groups, meet friends that they didn't even know they had before. our whole set up is focused on communal table. you can sit across from someone and start a conversation. we're excited about that. >> i never worked in catering or food service before. it's been really fun learning about where things are coming from, where things are served from. >> it is getting really popular. she's a wonderful teacher and i think it is a perfect match for

us. it is not about home cooking. it's really about how to facilitate your ease in the kitchen so you can just cook. >> i have always loved eating food. for me, i love that it brings me into contact with so many wonderful people. ultimately all of my work that i do intersects at the place where food and community is. classes or cooking dinner for someone or writing about food. it always come down to empowering people and giving them a wonderful experience. empower their want to be around people and all the values and reasons the commitment, community and places, we're offering a whole spectrum of offerings and other really wide range of places to show that good food is not only for wealthy people and they are super committed to accessibility and to giving people a glimpse of the beauty

that really is available to all of us that sometimes we forget in our day to day running around. >> we have such a philosophical mission around bringing people together around food. it's so natural for me to come here. >> we want them to walk away feeling like they have the tools to make change in their lives. whether that change is voting on an issue in a way that they will really confident about, or that change is how to understand why it is important to support our small farmers. each class has a different purpose, but what we hope is that when people leave here they understand how to achieve that goal and feel that they have the resources necessary to do that. >> are you inspired? maybe you want to learn how to have a patch in your backyard or cook better with fresh ingredients . or grab a quick

bite with organic goodies. find out more about 18 reasons by going to 18 reasons.org and learn about buy right market and creamery by going to buy right market.com. and don't forget to check out our blog for more info on many of our episodes at sf quick bites.com. until next time, may the fork be with you. ♪♪ ♪♪ >> so chocolaty. mm. ♪♪ >> oh, this is awesome. oh, sorry. i thought we were done rolling.

adjourned. >> shop & dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shop & dine in the 49 with within the 49 square miles of

san francisco by supporting local services within the neighborhood we help san francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so where will you shop & dine in the 49 my name is jim woods i'm the founder of woods beer company and the proprietor of woods copy k open 2 henry adams what makes us unique is that we're reintegrated brooeg the beer and serving that cross the table people are sitting next to the xurpz drinking alongside we're having a lot of ingredient that get there's a lot to do the district of retail shop having that really close connection with the consumer allows us to do exciting things we decided to come to treasure island because we saw it as an amazing opportunity can't be beat the views and real estate

that great county starting to develop on treasure island like minded business owners with last week products and want to get on the ground floor a no-brainer for us when you you, you buying local goods made locally our supporting small business those are not created an, an sprinkle scale with all the machines and one person procreating them people are making them by hand as a result more interesting and can't get that of minor or anywhere else and san francisco a hot bed for local manufacturing in support that is what keeps your city vibrant we'll make a compelling place to live and visit i think that local business is the lifeblood of san francisco and a vibrant community