School Beat: Make 2006 the Year of the Plan

by Lisa Schiff, 2006-01-04

The New Year is here, but it feels awfully familiar. The end of 2005 left the San Francisco public school community waiting for the resolution of a horrible cliff-hanger with too many plot-lines. School closures, teacher contract negotiations, budget shortfalls, student assignment plans, and the need to find a new superintendent were the issues consuming our energies before and they didn't magically disappear during the holiday season. So, here we go again.

The closure process kicks off the first week back at school. Community meetings with groups of four to seven schools are being held January 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th at various locations (see the district flyer for details ). These short 90 minute sessions are intended to provide information to our communities about how the proposed closure and merger scenarios might look, as well as giving an opportunity for school community members to ask questions and share concerns.

The intentions are good, but the issues involved are complex and emotions are running understandably high. It is hard to imagine that any of these sessions will be sufficient to thoroughly address issues raised by the communities involved or that there will be adequate time for the Board of Education to absorb much of the information staff may bring back. The final decisions regarding closures and mergers will be made at a special meeting Thursday, January 12th at 6pm at Everett Middle School (450 Church Street).

Related to school closures is the issue of a new student assignment plan. The Consent Decree expired on the last day of 2005. This legal agreement was the driving force behind the current Diversity Index, which kicks in socio-economic factors, but not race or ethnicity, when assigning students to schools with more applicants than open seats.

The consensus is that this approach has failed, as we currently are not sufficiently reducing segregation within schools or programs, and that the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students and other students is still too great. Additionally, the tension between some residents who want stronger neighborhood preference for schools and other residents who want parents to choose a school anywhere in the City remains.

These contending goals and sometimes conflicting desires, combined with the realities of segregated housing patterns and continued economic disparities, make crafting a student assignment plan an incredible challenge. An earlier effort by the 2004 Community Advisory Committee on Student Assignment did not result in an adopted plan. However, the debates and larger set of ideas captured in the document provide a good starting point for thinking about this issue.

One of the successes of 2005 was the negotiation of a contract for school support staff, represented by SEIU Local 790 (see this flyer for details) of what 790 members voted to accept). As was the case with 790 workers, San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) teachers have been without a contract for an extended period of time, so the pressure is quite high to come to terms both sides can accept.

Teachers are represented by United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), which is putting out regularly update regarding negotiations. So far similar information is not available on the SFUSD website.

Another happy outcome we may be able to count on is the passage of an Open Government Policy (aka Sunshine Resolution) for the district. A long time in the working, such a policy will provide a much needed framework and standard for increased transparency in the district.

The biggest unknown for the upcoming year is who will be our top administrator. Gwen Chan is all but officially the Interim Superintendent and has been filling that role at the latest round of meetings regarding school closures. With so many other aspects of the District up in the air, we should take her willingness to be the Interim Superintendent as an opportunity to take our time finding a new administrator.

We can slow down and discover what various communities feel the critical issues are and what they want in a Superintendent. The Board can meet with staff to get their input and reflect on its own about what qualifications and qualities are most important.

These are all major issues, and addressing any of them effectively requires having a solid idea of what our district is trying to accomplish and an accurate assessment of the current and future conditions under which we will be operating. In the face of a governor and governmental system so expressly interested in weakening public schools, we can't afford to plow through these problems one by one, surviving crisis after crisis. As we are all painfully aware, there is no financial cushion to fall back on, and the budget is even tighter given the continued decline in enrollment projected for the next several years.

What we most need going forward is a new long-term, comprehensive plan for our district. “Excellence for All,” the plan adopted by the Board of Education in 2001 is at its end. The major restructuring currently underway calls out for a revised plan that sets out our educational goals and priorities and who our students are now and are projected to be in the future.

Such a plan could be informed by efforts to get community input in the superintendent selection process. It could be made even more robust by looking at plans for housing and community development work throughout the City, identifying synergistic points.

The upcoming year will be no less eventful than 2005, but we can attempt to face it with more structure and deliberation. Despite the real challenges we face, so many things are going right. We can't let what's working fall apart. At the same time, we must address what is broken. The Year of the Plan. That's what 2006 must be for public education in San Francisco.

Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is the president of the board of directors of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco (http://www.ppssf.org).