School Board Notes 10.24.06

By Nicole Achs Freeling
GreatSchools.net Correspondent

• District to Implement Family Diversity Curriculum
• District Financials Presented
• Recommendations for Improving Bilingual Education

District to Implement Family Diversity Curriculum

The board unanimously passed a resolution to incorporate discussion of family diversity and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) tolerance into health education for K-8. While the district currently has a policy to include discussion of these issues, a lot of schools have not been consistently teaching them, according to reports from educators in the district.

The resolution adopted Tuesday seeks to:

• Ensure approved materials are available at every school, and for every student.
• Integrate the family diversity curriculum into the overall program, so that it is taught throughout the school year and reinforced, rather than just discussed once.
• Establish a task force to recommend teaching materials to support this curriculum. The task force will make a report to the board in May 2007.
• Establish a system for each school to document that it is teaching the lessons as intended.

SFUSD includes many children from alternative families; the resolution was designed to ensure these students feel safe and welcome, according to its authors, Commissioners Dan Kelly, Mark Sanchez and Sarah Lipson.

District Financials Presented

For the first time in many years, the district was able to submit its unaudited financial statements for 2005-06 to the state ahead of the statutory deadline. Getting the documents in on time lends credibility to the district’s finances, avoids a $10,000 fine and allows the district more time to begin addressing problem areas, said Chief Financial Officer Joseph Grazioli

Grazioli went over information he presented to the board’s Budget Committee last week. He outlined some areas for concern, specifically:

• Costs of the so-called “Fund Five,” which governs special education funds. It will be very important, he said, for the district to try to control costs in this area and keep down encroachments (money from the general fund that must be used to cover shortfalls).
• Child development's $3.7 million encroachment, rather than the $700,000 budgeted.
• Student nutrition's $800,000 encroachment, rather than the $0 estimated.
• The district's unfunded liability in workers compensation of $26 million (Commissioner Jill Wynns noted it would take long-term planning by the board to address this problem.).

Recommendations for Improving Bilingual Education

Reporting from the Committee as a Whole meeting in which the Bilingual Community Council addressed board members, Lipson outlined several areas of need in bilingual education and teaching English language learners.

These included:

• A need to meet regularly with the BCC (Before last month, it had been two years since the BCC addressed the board.).
• A need for an articulated process to measure whether programs were being implemented and if they are succeeding.
• A focus on credentialing and recruitment of qualified bilingual teachers
• An overall master plan for bilingual education.