In this month’s San Francisco magazine, local writer and parent Diana Kapp has written an article profiling the popular SFKfiles blog and noting a turnaround in San Francisco public schools in recent years (if you can get a copy, the print version is more complete than the online version). My friend Caroline Grannan, a longtime public school parent, activist and education blogger, got a bit breathless at the positive coverage — entirely forgivable after what seems like decades of negative and unfair media coverage that seemed to convince many middle and upper-class families to steer away from San Francisco public schools. (I keep a file of the most egregious examples, so I share her enthusiasm over Ms. Kapp’s article — also, full disclosure: both Caroline and I were interviewed for the piece).
So is this the tipping point? Is “going public” cool and relevant again for middle class urban dwellers? I hope so, and yet we also need to remember that attracting middle-class families back to our schools is only part of what we need to do here in San Francisco. We need to remember that our African-American students, our Latino students, our low-income students, our special education students and our English Learner students are all lagging behind where they should be in academic achievement and graduation rates. My middle-class child is doing well in her public school, but other children are not. And all children in San Francisco would be better served by schools that are adequately-funded.
Remedying this situation will take a community effort - reaching out to parents, policymakers and other community members to make sure that everyone understands the goal and is working together to achieve it.
Time to start boning up on the budget, so I attended tonight’s Budget and Business Services committee meeting. When I arrived, the committee had already been called to order and was discussing a charter petition by Escuela del Pueblo, which would create a Waldorf-based Spanish immersion charter school (which was forwarded from the Curriculum and Program committee with no recommendation). The report on the petition by district staff seemed to indicate some inconsistencies or unclear aspects to the budget contained in the petition. Commissioners Yee and Maufas indicated they were inclined to vote against the petition in its current state, and recommended one more go-around between the petitioners and district staff. In the end, the petitioners and the Commissioners agreed to postpone a vote on the petition until the next Budget Committee meeting.
That settled, the committee moved on to discussion of several options for cuts in transportation services. Last year, the Board requested that staff find $1 million in reductions to busing costs. Three options were presented that would save between $900,000 and $1.3 million each year. Cuts under discussion include:
Eliminating service to all or some high schools;
Eliminating service to several middle schools;
Eliminating lightly-used service to several elementary schools (one route mentioned serves just one student);
Cutting all service beyond basic home to school trips, like high school trips to and from City College (some of these trips could ultimately be added back if they don’t conflict with home to school service);
Eliminating stops on longer trips so that no trip would be longer than 40 minutes; routes would be essentially unchanged but some students would have to travel longer distances to get to a bus stop;
Changing start times at 4 (unspecified) elementary schools. The majority of elementary schools start at 8:30 a.m.; shifting a few of these to either 7:50 a.m. or 9:30 a.m. could save as much as $200,000.
Members of the Parent Advisory Council stressed the need for keeping parents in the loop and making these decisions (which wouldn’t take effect until the 2009-10 school year) as early as possible to minimize disruptions and give families as much time as possible to make alternative transportation arrangements. Commissioners Yee and Maufas acknowledged these needs; both officials indicated that changing bell times would be a last resort. They asked staff to prepare more detailed versions of two options, including naming schools that could be affected, for the January 13 full Board meeting.
Californians who value equal rights, justice and tolerance suffered a crushing defeat with the passage of Prop. 8 last month. Like many people, once it became clear that an early lead the polls was being erased by devastating and deceptive advertising, I gave a significant amount to the No on 8 campaign through Equality California in order to make sure we got our message out. So it was particularly galling to hear how ineffective and badly managed the No on 8 campaign was.
Today in the mail I got four identical solicitations from Equality California asking me to give still more money to the effort to overturn Prop. 8 (”Every dollar you send brings us closer to equality”). I know from my own campaign just how expensive direct mail like this is. Sending me four letters indicates how badly managed the Equality California donor list must be, and it’s infuriating. I’d like nothing better than to overturn Prop. 8, but Equality California isn’t getting any more money from me.
If your mailbox is anything like mine, you’re getting a lot of appeals for money from worthy nonprofits these days. It always happens at the end of the year, but with the current tough economic climate some of these appeals are more urgent than usual.
I’m not giving to many organizations this year, but one I am going to dig deep to support is Parents for Public Schools-San Francisco, which is having a very tough time making ends meet. I can’t say enough about what PPS-SF has done for San Francisco parents, and by extension, San Francisco public schools.
A bit more stream of consciousness than usual - tonight’s meeting was long! I guess I’d better get used to it.
Gateway HS‘ charter was unanimously renewed for another five years;
There was a moving appreciation of departing Commissioners Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar and their eight years of service on the Board. Both were at times a lightning rod for criticism of the School Board, and each certainly got his share of flak. What is indisputable is that both Mark and Eric took their positions seriously, worked very hard to achieve a vision of equity for our district, and built advocacy organizations that will continue their work now that they’ve moved on. I am only just beginning to get my arms around the demands of this job, and as I see Mark and Eric depart, I admire them both for their dedication and years of service.
The Board passed resolutions establishing the goal of aligning SFUSD graduation requirements with college admission requirements; making honors classes open to all students who wish to enroll in them; and expanding opportunities for students to earn academic credit. These are all worthy goals and it is high time we set them for our students. The concern many people voiced–and it is one I share–is that we will not commit enough resources to help students and teachers work towards this goal. These are plans which must be monitored closely.
The Board passed revisions to the “P120″ policy streamlining and providing better guidance for the work of the various advisory committees. In general, this is something we needed to do and I agreed with most of the proposed policy. I spoke in opposition to two provisions, however — first, an attempt to exclude charter school parents from serving on committees that advise the Board on policies applying to district-managed schools, and second, the establishment of term limits for advisory committee members. In the end, the charter provision was deleted and the term limits will stand, but termed-out members will be able to apply to serve additional terms after being off the roster for one year.
Yesterday, the Department of Elections officially certified the results of the school board election. It’s official! In the end, I won the fourth seat with 76,904 votes, behind Norman Yee, Sandra Lee Fewer and Jill Wynns.
I will be formally sworn in on Wednesday, January 7 at Tenderloin Community School (627 Turk St. at Van Ness Ave.) at 6 p.m. - the ceremony is open to the public and everyone is welcome to attend!
A child I know has lately been obsessed with perfecting her skills on the monkey bars (she wasn’t tall enough to reach the bar until this year). Every recess for the past few months, she’s been out on the structure at her school, jumping and swinging and working on that upper body strength. One day her blistered palms gave out and started to bleed; she went crying into the office for a band aid, where the principal (kindly, but firmly) told her to lay off until her hands healed. She did - it took a week.
Over the weekend she proudly showed me how good she’s become. “I can jump to the third bar!” she proclaimed.
Today she missed, fell, and broke her left wrist. It hurt, and she was very scared, but she kept her head. After the ordeal of the emergency room was over, she reflected on the experience. “I learned a lesson,” she said. “DON’T jump to the third bar. Even though it’s so much fun!”
She has just turned nine, and I am so proud of her - first, for trying hard to meet her goals. And second, for being willing to learn from adversity. She says she’ll be back on the monkey bars after the cast comes off. We’ll have to have a talk about the third bar, but if she decides she’s ready to reach for that height again once she heals, well - I’m not sure I’ll have the heart to stop her.
The Chronicle has now published their “looking ahead to the new school board” story. (They agree with the Guardian — I won the fourth seat.) Here’s my quote:
There will be some tough decisions to make if the Legislature and the governor push through threatened cuts in state school funding, newcomer Norton said.
She anticipates discussions and perhaps even disagreements, but she doesn’t expect acrimony on the school board - something that has been a political constant in years past.
“Everybody feels like we all need to be in the same boat and rowing in the same direction,” Norton said. “Everybody knows divided we fail and together we really have a shot.”
Tonight we saw a television commercial for the newest version of Monopoly - all electronic, without that annoying paper money. At the end of the ad, the smirking child actress says: “Fast and without cash–that’s how I play. How do YOU play Monopoly?” Perhaps I’m a traditionalist, but the financial turmoil of the past year makes me think that perhaps “fast and without cash” is perhaps the wrong lesson.
