Yes on Yang - Dennis Yang for San Francisco Board of Education

By Dennis Yang

What I will do to help close the achievement gap and bring students back to the SFUSD

I have been both a public school teacher and private school teacher. My main goal is to improve the overall educational system and quality of our public schools. I will take the skills and best practices that I have learned from the private schools and infuse them into our public schools, thereby making our public schools more attractive to families that have left or are considering private schools. The two main items I would implement in the San Francisco public schools are tutorial time and meditation. At the Bay School of San Francisco, where I currently teach, we have a tutorial time built into the schedule at the end of the day where students go to see their teachers for help with homework or class material. This tutorial time has significantly helped to improve the understanding and learning of students who need that extra time and assistance to comprehend the work. Instituting a tutorial time in schools would be one way to help close the achievement gap.

Another practice at the Bay School of San Francisco is meditation, which is done in the morning or at the beginning of classes. Meditation calmly anchors students and helps them focus and concentrate better in classes and throughout the day. Visitacion Valley Middle School has seen dramatic changes because of meditation. Students' grades have greatly risen while truancy has gone way down. Please read: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Meditation-transforms-roughest-San-Francisco-5136942.php. I firmly believe that tutorial time and meditation will indeed help to close the achievement gap and help all our students reach their full potential.

Besides being a San Francisco teacher my entire career, I am also a native San Franciscan. My parents were both San Francisco teachers and they instilled in me a love and passion for learning and education. I am a proud product of the San Francisco public school system, first attending Spring Valley Elementary School, then Marina Middle School, and finally Lowell High School. I went on to UC Berkeley for my BA in Chinese language and literature and San Francisco State University for my MA. Starting in 2000, the first three years of my teaching career were spent at my alma mater, Lowell High School. I then went on to teach at the Urban School of San Francisco, where I created and developed their Chinese language program. I currently teach at the Bay School of San Francisco.

My website is http://www.democracy.com/dennisyang. You can read more about me and my issues there. You can also support my campaign through my website.

San Francisco is a world-class city and our children deserve a world-class education. Please vote for me on November 4th and together we can make our public schools great again. Thank you!