On June 11, 2026, the San Jose Neighborhood Services and Education Committee (NSE) convened with Vice Chair Duan presiding (Chair Ortiz absent) and Councilmembers Casey and Couples present, forming a quorum. The committee received updates from the Youth Commission, the Children and Youth Services Master Plan, the "Cleaning Up Our Neighborhoods" focus area, and the "Reducing Unsheltered Homelessness" focus area. All reports were accepted unanimously.
Good afternoon. Welcome to NSE. Good afternoon. So before we begin, I want to remind the committee members and the members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings. This include only commenting on specific agenda item and addressing the entire body. Public speaker will not engage in a conversation with the chair, council members, or staff. All members of the committee, staff and public are expected to refrain from abusive language, failure to comply with the code of conduct, which is which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct, will result in a removal from the meeting. This meeting of the neighborhood services and education committee will now come to order. Please uh call roll. Couples present, can they lose? Here. Casey. Here. Chair Ortiz, absent. You have a quorum. Thank you very much. Look like we uh welcome the group up there, students and I'm not sure which group you guys are, but welcome to NSE. Sorry, news commission. Didn't hear that one. Well, welcome to NSD. And thank you for all your hard work, by the way. So what do we have here? Today there's nothing on the consent calendar. Um, do we have any public comments? No public comment. All right, we'll go right to the news commission report. And we have a presentation. Good afternoon, Chair, Council members, and staff. My name is Naya Pradeep Kumar, and this is my third and final year representing District 2 on the San Jose Youth Commission. I had the pleasure of serving as the vice chair this year. Today I'm proud to present our annual work plan report for the fiscal year 2025 to 2026 alongside a few of our youth commissioners. The San Jose Youth Commission serves as the official advisory group to the mayor and city council, empowering and encouraging youth to be civically engaged through local and citywide events and initiatives. Our commission includes representatives from all ten districts plus a citywide seat. Together, we represent approximately 248,000 youth in San Jose, working to ensure their voices are heard in city government decision making. I had the pleasure of serving as the outreach officer this past year. This year, the youth commission implemented a focused outreach plan with a core objective of increasing the number of youth who are aware of the youth commission and participate in our YACs. We reached youth through social media, school distribution lists, local libraries, community centers, and council member newsletters, and we showed up in person at community events and hosted youth-led programming and summits. We measured progress through social media engagement, yak participation rates, and survey response numbers. Good afternoon, Chair, Council members, and staff. My name is Anushka Deshmuk, and this is my first year representing District 1 on the San Jose Youth Commission. I had the pleasure of serving as the communications officer this past year. The Youth Commission creates and distributes an annual survey to youth throughout San Jose. This year, the survey collected 653 responses. This slide shows a multi-year comparison of how youth responded to the statement the local city of San Jose government reflects youth priorities. This year's results are largely consistent with the prior years. About a third agreed in some form, with just 6.6% strongly agreeing and 26.5% somewhat agreeing, just over half selected neutral or unsure. Notably, strong disagreement has continued to decline, dropping to 3.8% this year from 6.4% in 2023 to 2024. That sustained neutral majority is not discouraging. It is actually an opportunity. It tells us there's real space to build awareness and trust among young people in the city.