School Beat returns

Summer weather has finally arrived in San Francisco. Must be back to school time! And so it is for Lisa Schiff's School Beat column at BeyondChron which starts the new school year with a nice overview of the state of the district:

School Beat: Welcome Back to School

The challenges facing our district this year are once again familiar and large—the achievement gap between African-American and Latino students on the one hand and Caucasian and Asian-American students on the other, insufficient funding, and declining enrollment, to name some of the top contenders. But what’s different now is the climate, which in contrast to the daunting issues before us has an optimistic and energized feel to it. Some of that is no doubt attributable to the presence of a new top administrator. But fortunately there is more to it than that, both in terms of Garcia himself and in terms of where the entire community of public school supporters is positioned.

She's right about the changed atmosphere. The new board and the new administration appear to be poised to work closely with each other. This weekend they will retreat to their offsite meeting to hash out the priorities. Then the real work will begin. Let's hope the optimism , good will and collegiality continue once everyone rolls up their sleeves and start the hard work ahead.