School Board Notes 3.28.06

School Board Notes
3.28.06
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• Board Adopts Recruitment Guidelines
• District Cheers API Increases
• Presidio CDC Shares Fundraising Success
• Student Assignment for Teachers' Kids Discussed

Board Adopts Recruitment Guidelines

The board approved guidelines for allowing military and college recruiters on school campuses aimed at reigning in military efforts while still complying with federal laws.

The board has, for years, opposing allowing military recruiters on campuses, but passage of No Child Left Behind requires that districts allow equal access to military recruiters as they do other organizations or risk losing federal funds. Since the recruiters have been visiting campuses, however, there have been numerous complaints that they target children in minority and low-income communities and use more aggressive tactics than other recruiters, such as approaching students in the lunchroom rather than speaking to them from a booth at a career fair.

A survey of recruiting visits presented to the Board Tuesday showed that, while most colleges visited schools once or twice a year, military recruiters visited some schools, which were in low-income neighborhoods, as many as eight times in a year. By comparison, they did not visit the academic magnet school Lowell once.

The new guidelines limit visits by any recruiting organization to two visits a year per school. While that will limit the presence of military recruiters, it could also cut the number of visits from colleges, especially those in the University of California system. Representatives from some of these schools visit under-served neighborhoods on a regular basis to shepherd students through the college application process and advise them on financial aid.

The board approved the guidelines, asking for a report on the potential negative impact of the twice-a-year limit so that it may amend the policy if necessary. The only dissenting vote was Eric Mar, who voted no to underscore his opposition for military recruitment of poor and minority students.

District Cheers API Increases

Schools in the district showed marked improvement this year on the Academic Performance Index, California's system for measuring school performance and improvement. A third of district schools scoring in the top third in the state, according to Interim Superintendent Gwen Chan, and more than three-quarters of the schools maintained or improved their schools. Several schools made dramatic gains. The first number reflects the school's ranking on a 1 to 10 scale compared to other schools in the state. The second shows its ranking compared to "similar schools," those with comparable socioeconomic populations.

School	2004	2005
Cesar Chavez Elementary	3:8	4:10
Cleveland Elementary	1:1	4:8
Harvey Milk Elementary	3:2	6:10
Sheridan Elementary	5:6	7:10
Starr King Elementary	3:9	4:10
Sunnyside Elementary	5:3	8:10
Sunset Elementary	6:3	8:10
Daniel Webster	2:2	4:7
Visitacion Valley Middle School	3:3	4:6
Galileo High School	6:8	8:9
ISA	1:2	2:7
John O'Connel High School	2:4	3:7

Four schools scored 10:10. They were:

• Robert L. Stephenson Elementary
• West Portal Elementary
• Alice Fong Yu Alternative (K-8)
• Lowell High School

Presidio CDC Shares Fundraising Success

Proud parents and youngsters from the Presidio Child Development Center, which narrowly avoided closure last year, demonstrated the results of a dedicated cost-cutting and fundraising campaign at the school, which saved the district $132,000 this year. Illustrating the results of a drive to find corporate sponsorships, five preschoolers held aloft an enormous copy of a check to the district for $10,000 from Wells Fargo Bank.

"I stood before you almost a year ago arguing and promising that we at the Presidio CDC could save a significant amount of money for the district," said Thomas Lefort, a parent of two children at the center. "Today I would like to (show) how we followed up on our commitment."

• Parents helped press the Presidio Trust to abate the rent, which was reduced from $60,000 a year to zero.
• The center's opening hours were reduced from 12 to 10.5, which saved the district $56,000
• An application fee for new tuition based applicants raised more than $1,000.
• The CDC received greater factor money coming for infants, toddlers and children with limited English proficiency. The increase amounted to more than $87,000
• Finally, the center engaged in a major fundraising effort, raising $15,000. More than 60 percent of the families at the school contributed, and boosters are hoping to raise that to 100 percent next year.

Student Assignment for Teachers' Kids Discussed

The district began an informal discussion of how to handle student assignment for the children of teachers and principals that might enable them to attend the school where their parents teach. Until now, staff's children have participated in the student assignment lottery along with everyone else, per the terms of the court order under which the lottery was administered. That court ordered expired at the end of last year.

There appeared to be guarded support for the idea, but board members requested further data to ascertain how many families the benefit might extend to. UESF representative Linda Plack said that in a recent union survey 80 elementary teachers said they would want their child to be assigned to their school. The issue will be taken up further at an upcoming Committee of the Whole Meeting

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