By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent
- Board Approves Partnership with Mayor
- Community Speaks Out About Student Enrollment
- Violence Prevention Programs Gear Up
Board Approves Partnership with Mayor
Embarking on what the BOE and Mayor Gavin Newsom say will be a historic partnership, board members unanimously approved a plan Tuesday night that creates a formal alliance between the district and the city while respecting the line of governance between the two. Dubbed the Partnership for Achievement, the agreement lays the groundwork for the district and city to partner in several key areas. Among them:
- Developing incentives, such as low-cost home loans and programs to retire student loans, to recruit and retain teachers
- Building a marketing campaign to promote the schools
- Increasing investment in early education, after-school programming and violence-prevention programs
- Developing strategies to ensure students are technologically proficient and prepared for the modern workforce
- Expanding schools into community that provide services and make neighborhood's safer
BOE members again praised the plan, which they herald as a model for cooperation at a time when mayors are taking over school districts in many cities, including New York, Boston and Chicago. Board members expressed hope that the partnership, among other things, will secure greater funding for school programs.
Community Speaks Out About Student Enrollment
A four-month effort to gain community input about how to address student assignment and declining enrollment has garnered input from close to 1,000 parents and will be presented to the board and public next week.
Since October, the Parent Advisory Council, working with the San Francisco Education Fund and Parents for Public Schools, has been holding small group meetings at neighborhoods throughout the city, interviewing parents of children at public, private and charter schools, as well as youth and community members. Participants were asked such questions as "What do you want for your kids?"and "Why did you chose the schools you did?"
The PAC will present a report of its findings, along with recommendations, to the Committee of the Whole next Tuesday, March 20, at 7:00 p.m.
"One thing we found is that for African-American families, there really wasn't a choice, said PAC secretary Emily Murase. "For them, it was all about location. It didn't matter if there's a great technology school across town. The issue was, could their kids get safely to school?" On the other hand, she said, parents who had switched from private to public schools praised the application and enrollment process, preferring it over spending months lobbying to get a spot in a private school.
Violence Prevention Programs Gear Up
A report on violence prevention programs by School Health Programs Supervisor Trish Bascom district delivered both good news and bad news. The good news is that the district — largely through voter approved funds through Proposition H — are at last reaching the necessary level of violence-prevention support staff and services. The bad news is that reported incidence of problems over the last five years has risen sharply; assaults, for example, rose from 400 to more than 800; "disruptions" rose from 300 to 700.
Bascom could not say why incidents has risen but was upbeat about the district's progress in its violence-prevention efforts. Through Prop. H allocations, elementary schools all now have part-time counselors or nurses on staff. Middle schools will have them starting next year. High schools will get an infusion of counseling staff as part of a statewide initiative. The high schools were also granted significant funds for violence prevention and peer resources through Prop. H allocations. Bascom said the Safe Schools Task Force is currently drawing up criteria for how those funds can be allocated and awarded.
The district has also established a comprehensive database for tracking violence and prevention programs, Bascom said. "We have data like we never have before in these measures and quantities." One such measure is a truancy module that tracks chronically absent kids; another is a database of incident reports that tracks where problems are occurring, what those problems are and takes note of increases.
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