School Board Notes 9.12.06
By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent
The board unanimously passed a resolution to expand Mandarin and other language-immersion programs. The resolution called for developing a strategic plan to strengthen and expand Mandarin and other immersion programs and to investigate the possibility of new Russian, Samoan and other ones. The plan, which will be developed with the Bilingual Community Council and parent and community groups, is to be presented to the board in March. The resolution called for exploring demand for Japanese and Arabic programs as well.
The measure seeks ways to address a key weakness of the existing immersion programs — that there are far fewer programs in advanced grades than at the elementary level. Currently, many students are unable to pursue bilingual education beyond the fifth grade, according to parents and board members.
Mayor Gavin Newsom's office submitted a letter supporting the measure and plhedging $105,000 in city funds to support development of immersion programs.
A key issue to be determined is where new immersion programs would be located. The district currently has one Mandarin program located at Starr King Elementary in Potrero Hill, a program a number of community members praised. There has been great demand on the west side of the city for a local Mandarin program. However, several board members expressed the view that immersion programs were a way to draw resources to underserved neighborhoods and should be used as magnets to draw people to schools they might not otherwise attend.
The district is now exploring locating a Mandarin program at Jose Ortega in the OMI neighborhood, according to Commissioner Jill Wynns. The resolution struck wording from an earlier version that called for placing the next Mandarin program at Diane Feinstein after members of the school community expressed frustration that they had not been consulted.
Student Assignment Changes Include Extreme Poverty Factor
The board adopted modifications to the current student-assignment system that includes extreme poverty as a factor in the diversity index and gives some enrollment priorities to teachers' children.
The district will eliminate mother's education level as a factor in its diversity index — the measure designed to assign a diverse socioeconomic and ethnic mix of students to schools — and instead use a factor meant to give weight to extreme poverty. The measure of extreme poverty will be whether or not the family lives in public housing.
"We were looking for a value we could easily capture and quantify," said Orla O'Keefe, chief administrative officer. Mother's education level is unverifiable and there have been suspicions of people lying on the application to gain an advantage in the assignment lottery.
Another modification gives "priority in the student appeals process to permanent site-based certificated staff who live in San Francisco and wish to have their child attend the school where they currently work and have worked full time for the last three years."
The change gives teachers' kids the same priority for Round 1, but higher priority in the next round if they fail to get any of their Round 1 choices. Of the three-year requirement, Wynns said: "We did not want to provide incentive for people to transfer to popular, overenrolled schools."
Commissioner Dan Kelly introduced an amendment, which failed to pass, that would have added ethnicity as a factor in schools where any single ethnic group accounted for 50 percent or more of the population. "Ethnicity-blind enrollment has caused resegregation," Kelly said, citing reports that SFUSD schools have steadily resegregated since race was eliminated as a factor in 1999. Several board members expressed support for the concept, but not the timing of the amendment.
Supreme Court cases involving Louisville and Seattle school districts and their use of race in student assignment are set to be heard later this year, and board members have said it would be imprudent to reintroduce race until the results of those cases are known.
The measure also calls for outreach efforts to engage greater participation of underserved populations in the Round 1 enrollment process. According to O'Keefe, only 50 percent of African American students participated in the lottery, compared to more than 90 percent of Chinese students and 80 percent of white students. O'Keefe could not recall the numbers for Latino students but said they too were well below the participation levels for Chinese and white families. Board members noted that efforts to improve diversity at sought-after schools could only succeed if underserved students participated in the process.
Struggle Over Fate of JROTC
Dozens of students protested outside the district before the meeting to try to save the Junior ROTC program. A proposal is being discussed among board committees that would replace the program with one unaffiliated with the U.S. military. The move was launched out of objection to the military's policy of discriminating against gays, which goes directly against the district's own policy that prohibits organizations that are discriminatory. Many parents and community members who support the decision to eliminate JROTC oppose having a military program that targets youngsters.
The JROTC students and supporters who protested Tuesday, however, say that the program itself does not discriminate and, in fact, includes several openly gay students. The students say the program provides valuable esteem-building and life skills and is being unfairly targeted.
The proposal to replace JROTC was recently heard by the Curriculum and Program Committee, which voted two to one to forward it to the board with a positive recommendation. The full board will vote on the proposal at a future date.
Please email comments to sfschoolnotes@greatschools.net
GreatSchools.net Correspondent
- District To Expand Immersion Programs
- Student Assignment Changes Include Extreme Poverty Factor
- Struggle Over Fate of JROTC
The board unanimously passed a resolution to expand Mandarin and other language-immersion programs. The resolution called for developing a strategic plan to strengthen and expand Mandarin and other immersion programs and to investigate the possibility of new Russian, Samoan and other ones. The plan, which will be developed with the Bilingual Community Council and parent and community groups, is to be presented to the board in March. The resolution called for exploring demand for Japanese and Arabic programs as well.
The measure seeks ways to address a key weakness of the existing immersion programs — that there are far fewer programs in advanced grades than at the elementary level. Currently, many students are unable to pursue bilingual education beyond the fifth grade, according to parents and board members.
Mayor Gavin Newsom's office submitted a letter supporting the measure and plhedging $105,000 in city funds to support development of immersion programs.
A key issue to be determined is where new immersion programs would be located. The district currently has one Mandarin program located at Starr King Elementary in Potrero Hill, a program a number of community members praised. There has been great demand on the west side of the city for a local Mandarin program. However, several board members expressed the view that immersion programs were a way to draw resources to underserved neighborhoods and should be used as magnets to draw people to schools they might not otherwise attend.
The district is now exploring locating a Mandarin program at Jose Ortega in the OMI neighborhood, according to Commissioner Jill Wynns. The resolution struck wording from an earlier version that called for placing the next Mandarin program at Diane Feinstein after members of the school community expressed frustration that they had not been consulted.
Student Assignment Changes Include Extreme Poverty Factor
The board adopted modifications to the current student-assignment system that includes extreme poverty as a factor in the diversity index and gives some enrollment priorities to teachers' children.
The district will eliminate mother's education level as a factor in its diversity index — the measure designed to assign a diverse socioeconomic and ethnic mix of students to schools — and instead use a factor meant to give weight to extreme poverty. The measure of extreme poverty will be whether or not the family lives in public housing.
"We were looking for a value we could easily capture and quantify," said Orla O'Keefe, chief administrative officer. Mother's education level is unverifiable and there have been suspicions of people lying on the application to gain an advantage in the assignment lottery.
Another modification gives "priority in the student appeals process to permanent site-based certificated staff who live in San Francisco and wish to have their child attend the school where they currently work and have worked full time for the last three years."
The change gives teachers' kids the same priority for Round 1, but higher priority in the next round if they fail to get any of their Round 1 choices. Of the three-year requirement, Wynns said: "We did not want to provide incentive for people to transfer to popular, overenrolled schools."
Commissioner Dan Kelly introduced an amendment, which failed to pass, that would have added ethnicity as a factor in schools where any single ethnic group accounted for 50 percent or more of the population. "Ethnicity-blind enrollment has caused resegregation," Kelly said, citing reports that SFUSD schools have steadily resegregated since race was eliminated as a factor in 1999. Several board members expressed support for the concept, but not the timing of the amendment.
Supreme Court cases involving Louisville and Seattle school districts and their use of race in student assignment are set to be heard later this year, and board members have said it would be imprudent to reintroduce race until the results of those cases are known.
The measure also calls for outreach efforts to engage greater participation of underserved populations in the Round 1 enrollment process. According to O'Keefe, only 50 percent of African American students participated in the lottery, compared to more than 90 percent of Chinese students and 80 percent of white students. O'Keefe could not recall the numbers for Latino students but said they too were well below the participation levels for Chinese and white families. Board members noted that efforts to improve diversity at sought-after schools could only succeed if underserved students participated in the process.
Struggle Over Fate of JROTC
Dozens of students protested outside the district before the meeting to try to save the Junior ROTC program. A proposal is being discussed among board committees that would replace the program with one unaffiliated with the U.S. military. The move was launched out of objection to the military's policy of discriminating against gays, which goes directly against the district's own policy that prohibits organizations that are discriminatory. Many parents and community members who support the decision to eliminate JROTC oppose having a military program that targets youngsters.
The JROTC students and supporters who protested Tuesday, however, say that the program itself does not discriminate and, in fact, includes several openly gay students. The students say the program provides valuable esteem-building and life skills and is being unfairly targeted.
The proposal to replace JROTC was recently heard by the Curriculum and Program Committee, which voted two to one to forward it to the board with a positive recommendation. The full board will vote on the proposal at a future date.
Please email comments to sfschoolnotes@greatschools.net
Labels: GreatSchools.net, School Board Notes, SFUSD Politics
2 Comments:
Nicole left out one other important issue - the board unanimously support a new Project Labor Agreement for the district that balanced the insterests of the Building Trades Council with those of smaller local and 'minority' contractors.
I am attaching also the language of the Reso to strengthen language immersion programs in sfusd. i couldn't have won unanimous support for the resolution if it wasn't for many parent and community groups' support.
eric mar
http://edjustice.blogspot.com
--
Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A3
In Support of Expanding and Strengthening Mandarin and Other 2-Way Language Immersion Programs in San Francisco Schools
- Commissioners Eric Mar and Eddie Chin
WHEREAS: San Francisco Unified School District has a proud history of pioneering, promoting and defending bilingual education, including language immersion programs; and
WHEREAS: SF Parent, teacher and education organizations like TACT, LATA, SFABE, ACE, PIE, PPS, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, CAA, CPA, CARECEN, PPS Immersion Task Force, Californians Together and many others have long supported strengthening these programs in San Francisco; and
WHEREAS: The Board of Education in its 1999 Language Immersion Program Resolution [#911-9A7] explicitly called for the development and implementation of a comprehensive, strategic plan to strengthen and expand language immersion programs at all levels (pre-K through 12) throughout the District; and
WHEREAS: The District’s Bilingual and Language Acquisition Task Force in 2002 and Bilingual Community Council each year thereafter has recommended that the District “provide and promote opportunit[ies] for all students to develop competence in two or more languages …and a positive self-image and attitudes toward other cultures” and that the District achieve “racial, linguistic and ethnic integration throughout the District schools and classrooms”; and
WHEREAS: The District’s Multilingual Program has identified 2 of its major program goals as “enhancing multicultural sensitivity and understanding” and providing parents and students the “opportunity to choose Bilingual programs in the major languages of the school district;” and
WHEREAS: San Francisco children and families will benefit from an expansion of Mandarin and other language immersion programs because children who learn two (2) languages achieve a higher level of academic achievement in school; and
WHEREAS: Many City Government and education leaders have acknowledged that increasing our City’s bilingual population, especially in languages like Mandarin, will help improve the quality of community life, foster better economic opportunities for our families in the global economy, and enrich the multiethnic social fabric of our City; and
WHEREAS: Two-way Immersion programs are innovative early-learning models which are designed for a diverse population of English proficient students as well as for English language learners; they provide children the opportunity to become fully bilingual and biliterate and knowledge of more than one language and culture allows students to more fully participate in a culturally diverse society and an increasingly global economy;
Adopted, in Substitute Form and as Amended, by the Board of Education at its Regular Meeting of September 12, 2006
Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A3
In Support of Expanding and Strengthening Mandarin and Other 2-Way Language Immersion Programs in San Francisco Schools - Commissioners Eric Mar and Eddie Chin
Page 2
WHEREAS: The District currently offers immersion programs in 7 elementary [5 Spanish and 1 Cantonese and 1 Mandarin], 2 K-8 [Cantonese/Mandarin and Korean] and 4 middle schools [2 Cantonese and 2 Spanish] and has expanded also to the high school level in Cantonese and Spanish [2006]; and
WHEREAS: The District’s Mandarin Curriculum Task Force, working with parent and community members, is continuing its recruitment efforts and curriculum development for the new Mandarin 2-Way Immersion program beginning at Starr King Elementary School in the Potrero Hill neighborhood in the East Side of the City in the Fall of 2006; and
WHEREAS: Spanish Immersion programs are also increasing throughout the District; and
WHEREAS: Spanish was the first European language of California, and Latin Americans continue to represent the largest and most rapidly growing ethnic group in California; and
WHEREAS: There is a growing demand for language instruction in Japanese, Arabic, and many European languages; and
WHEREAS: Mandarin is the most commonly spoken language in the world today; it is the official language of the People’s Republic of China and spoken by 1.3 billion people throughout the world; and
WHEREAS: The Mandarin speaking population in San Francisco has grown tremendously and some surveys and reports estimate that the number of native Mandarin speakers is now roughly equal to that of Cantonese speakers and even non-Mandarin speakers in the Chinese and non-Chinese communities in SF are acknowledging the growing international importance of Mandarin and other global languages like Russian and Arabic; and
WHEREAS: A recent demographic review of the Mandarin speaking student population in the District shows that they are spread throughout the City but concentrated not only in the Chinatown/North Beach area, but also in the Western Richmond and Sunset Districts and several Southern neighborhoods as well.
WHEREAS: National organizations like the Asia Society and some urban school districts like Chicago, Portland, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg [NC] are now promoting Mandarin and other language education programs a critical component in preparing their students with a 21st century Education curriculum; and
Adopted, in Substitute Form and as Amended, by the Board of Education at its Regular Meeting of September 12, 2006
Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A3
In Support of Expanding and Strengthening Mandarin and Other 2-Way Language Immersion Programs in San Francisco School - Commissioners Eric Mar and Eddie Chin
Page 3
WHEREAS: Our government from the federal to local levels generally lacks the resources in Mandarin, Russian and other languages to meet its diplomatic, security, economic, and social goals; and
WHEREAS: Mandarin speaking students and other English Learners who speak a language other than English at home - their “heritage language” - often suffer academically because their schools do not provide the adequate support they need to learn academic content through English, their second language; and research shows that these students could benefit from continued development of their native language which would help them develop high levels of proficiency in their native language while also mastering English; and
WHEREAS: A new parent and education group - Advocates for Chinese Education (ACE) - has delivered over 800 signed petitions to the Superintendent and Board and is seeking a demand driven “expandable” approach to improving the District ‘s Mandarin Immersion program and calling for the placement of the next Mandarin Immersion program in a neighborhood with a strong demand for it and strategic and community-oriented process to determine future program placements; and
WHEREAS: A successful Mandarin language program in our District and City will further our position as a national leader in Chinese language education and increase our ability to acquire federal and private sector funding for language development education; and
WHEREAS: San Francisco should continue its leadership role in developing a multilingual student body and workforce for the 21st century.
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED: That the Board of Education of the San Francisco Unified School District is fully committed to expanding and strengthening Mandarin and other language immersion programs and other language programs in our District and supporting the language needs of underserved immigrant communities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the District will continue to support the education and welfare of families with children in existing elementary level immersion programs by providing adequate expansion of these programs into the upper grades, specifically for students graduating from K-5 schools; and
Adopted, in Substitute Form and as Amended, by the Board of Education at its Regular Meeting of September 12, 2006
Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A3
In Support of Expanding and Strengthening Mandarin and Other 2-Way Language Immersion Programs in San Francisco School - Commissioners Eric Mar and Eddie Chin
Page 4
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the District staff will develop a more thorough analysis of the Mandarin-speaking population and other language groups in our District [including Japanese, Russian and Arabic] devoting resources to exploring existing data as well as collecting more necessary information and involvinge community and parent groups meaningfully in District decision-making like program development and program placement; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the District will continue to partner with organizations like TACT, ACE, PPS Immersion Task Force, CABE, and the Confucius Institute at San Francisco State University to provide professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators and recruit highly qualified staff for our programs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the District will investigate outside funding sources for the further development of our language development programs; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the Superintendent and staff will work with the Bilingual Community Council and parent and community groups to develop a comprehensive and strategic plan to strengthen and expand Mandarin and existing language immersion programs in the District and to investigate the possibility of new Russian, Samoan and other language programs, and that this plan be presented to the Board by the last meeting in March 2007; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That any plan should include a financial analysis of cost and available revenue for language programs.
Amended Substitute Resolution
9/12/06
Question -- will this increase the availability of Mandarin as a non-immersion course of study? Thanks for any answers you could give.
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