SF actions: Open Letter to SFUSD Board, Supervisors, Mayor

Winslow Warrrn, a parent at New Traditions ES, has prepared a wealth of thought provoking analysese of the proposed school closures and published them on a website titled SF actions. Here is his Open Letter to SFUSD Board, Supervisors, Mayor

From : Winslow Warren
To : AAckerman@muse.sfusd.com, gchan1@muse.sfusd.edu, dkelly@muse.sfusd.edu, echin@muse.sfusd.edu, yeen@muse.sfusd.edu, jwynns@muse.sfusd.edu, sarahlipson@muse.sfusd.edu, msanchez@muse.sfusd.edu, ookeeffe@muse.sfusd.edu, lmyong@muse.sfusd.edu, nwaymark@muse.sfusd.edu, hydra.mendoza@sfgov.org, letters@sfbg.com, letters@examiner.com, letters@sfchronicle.com, gavin.newsom@sfgov.org, board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org, Ross.Mirkarimi@sfgov.org

Date : 1/8/2006
Ttitle : Preserve Schools: Oppose SFUSD Consolidations/Closures

Dear School Board, Board of Supervisors and Mayor Newsom,

As we are faced with significant school closures for the second year in a row, I urge you to consider the following before making the final closure decisions.

San Francisco — the least family friendly city in America

The drastic reconfiguration of our elementary schools will have a significant impact upon one of the key challenges facing the City, the exodus of families from San Francisco.

We must look forward to how we want our City to dictate the direction of our public policy. If we want to create an environment where families can survive, we cannot deprive these families of an essential tool for survival, affordable child education. It is most important to focus our battle upon K-5 schools because, frankly if we lose small children, we will have even fewer older children. From 1990 to 2000, our City lost families. But since 2000, birth rates have increased, creating more families. Will we keep these families?

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Concerning District 5, the SFUSD has already compensated for the loss of 446 District 5 families in the period between 1990 and 2000, with the closure of 3 schools in 2005. The current elimination of nearly all District 5 schools will make it nearly impossible for the remaining low, median income families to survive there.

These school closures and mergers just don’t make sense!

A leaner, healthier district is an imperative. But, does this mean that the City should eliminate most of the schools in a few districts.

Isn’t this the equivalent of cutting off one’s left arm to lose weight?

Sure, one might use the right hand more than the left, and a significant weight loss would be guaranteed, immediately.

Yes, the weight loss target may be achieved but at great sacrifice; severe blood loss, excruciating pain, physical impairment. Most importantly, the rest of the body would still be overweight.

Why not grow the top line revenue

Any smart business plan in the face of fiscal pressures, addresses both the bottom line (costs) and the top line (revenue). Why haven’t we discussed the revenue side at all? Why has there been no attempt to increase enrollment? Why hasn’t the impact of lowering costs on future revenue been discussed? Cutting costs through closures is short sighted and amounts to an incomplete solution.

The public’s "objective" response

Board member Jill Wynns stated in an Examiner article that final decisions concerning closures should be based upon data, not emotions. She says, "It’s important to have as much objectivity as possible".

Well, I have some questions for Ms. Wynns, the District and the City about the factual basis for these closures and the objectivity of the closure process:

• Is it objective to disproportionately impact African American students with closures (35% affected, 14% of the school population)?
• Is it the result of objective reasoning to close 5 out of 6 District 5 schools?
• Does not closing most of the schools in a particular district impact families’ decisions to live in that district? Will families locate in a neighborhood without schools? Won’t families be more likely to leave a district where schools have closed?
• Should the School Board be making the long term decision as to whether families should live in a particular district?
• Can objective decisions be made based upon faulty data, such as the understatement the actual enrollment capacity of several schools?
• Is it objective to assume that only small schools should be considered for closure?
• Is it fair or balanced to expect only certain districts to shoulder most of the burden of the budget cuts?
• If the criteria for closures produce results which disproportionately impact one ethnic group, or a few districts; isn’t that proof that the criteria are flawed and shouldn’t be used. Why are we continuing an unfair selection process?
• Does it really make sense to say that since we have smaller enrollment than in 1986 and the same number of schools, that schools should be closed?
• What about the fact that class size limits have been changed?
• What about the fact that there are more special education classes, which require smaller class size?
• What about the fact that we have more students than in 1980, but the same number of schools? Should we then be opening more schools?
• What about the fact that the percentage of students enrolled in public schools has declined from 1986? Wouldn’t it be rational to attempt to increase this percentage rather than harm the system?
• When the board says that your quality school is to be closed, isn’t it reasonable to expect an emotional response?
• Does it make sense to take a posture which is critical to the public’s natural emotional response to school closures, when such antagonism only further discourages public school enrollment?
• Can objective decisions be made when there has not been a forum within which the "facts" that the district produces cannot be debated? Shouldn’t the district and the board have to directly answer the facts presented by the public?

I have attached a presentation entitled, "Preserve Schools: Oppose SFUSD Consolidations/Closures" [found here] to rebut the SFUSD closures proposal upon factual grounds. I beg you to review the case it presents. This document is the result of the New Traditions community’s feedback. The facts contained therein have been obtained from:

• CA Department of Education
• CA Department of Finance
• SF Unified School District
• Ed-Data Education Data Partnership
• NCES — National Center for Educational Statistics
  

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Winslow Warren
New Traditions Parent