Board hears Safe and Supportive Schools update as suspensions fall but disparities remain

San Francisco — The Board of Education on Tuesday received a wide-ranging progress report on the district's Safe and Supportive Schools initiative, which officials said has expanded behavior-action triage (BAT) teams, rolled out a new intervention-tracking system and provided thousands of hours of training aimed at reducing suspensions.

"The BAT teams were our strategy to provide more personalized attention to school and supporting students' learning," Chief of Student Family Community Support Kevin Truitt told the board, outlining that the number of BAT teams grew from three to four this year and that the district is using a new BASIS data module to track interventions.

District staff described the work as a curriculum of supports and data systems: BAT coaches assigned to schools, a BAT tracker logging contacts, and an Eduvant-designed behavioral-academic-social-emotional tracking system to record interventions and connect them to absenteeism and truancy. Executive director Kim Coates said the district has trained site 504 coordinators and expanded supports for students with access plans.

The presentation included several headline figures: staff said the number of students with Section 504 plans rose substantially over recent years (a 68% increase in one year and 34% in the following year, as presented by staff), and reported an 81% increase in African American students receiving supports through Section 504. Presenters also shared training totals for the summer and pre-service: among other items, 517 teachers and staff attended restorative-practices training and large numbers were trained in evidence-based behavioral interventions.

Thomas Graven, who presented suspension and arrest trends, said suspension rates fell significantly over three years and are now flattening; he attributed a modest uptick in the most recent data in part to more rigorous reporting. Graven noted data-quality issues on one slide and said staff will correct and follow up with schools where anomalies appear.

Community advocates urged the board to translate progress into a detailed implementation timeline and share disaggregated school-level data. Kevin Bogus of Coleman Advocates said the district needs "a clear, complete, detailed implementation plan" and asked for more transparent data on who is suspended or arrested and where.

Board members pressed staff on follow-up and fidelity. Commissioner Wins asked whether a $75,000 AFT grant to train 58 UESF members is sufficient, and staff said the grant plus district contributions is a start and that the BAT teams will continue on-site capacity-building. Commissioners also requested repeat-suspension figures, race-by-race breakdowns of BASIS interventions, and correlations between interventions and academic outcomes (attendance, GPA, graduation), and staff committed to provide more detailed reports and data queries.

Superintendent Carranza framed the work as part of a broader accountability shift: "climate, culture and social emotional learning is a full 40% of our accountability system," he said, and emphasized that district leaders view the data as a tool for capacity-building rather than punishment.

Next steps: staff will correct identified slide errors, provide the board with requested disaggregated data and a clearer timeline for three-year implementation activities, and continue school-level follow-up where data indicate potential policy violations or anomalies.