Prop V Poll

Introducing SfSchool's first experiment with polling! Fingers crossed...

SfSchools word cloud

While I've been away from blogging, too busy with work to spend any time here or on the list, this is what the list has been up to:

Speaks for itself, doesn't it?

image generated by Wordle

Jill Wynns on SFUSD student assignment

Jill Wynns, incumbent Board of Ed candidate for re-election, has called for overhauling the student assignment process and making it more family-friendly. A chart in today's Chronicle about the candidates' positions on specific issues didn't make that clear. Here's Jill's position, from her campaign website:

Student assignment process

• The process for assigning students to schools is not working; parents don't understand the system and it has not resulted in more racially diverse schools.
• We need a new system which is simpler and more transparent for parents, and which does not leave some students without a school assignment until August or beyond.
• The Educational Placement Center (EPC) must strive to complete student assignments more quickly; the time between placement rounds should be shortened.
• The discussion about "neighborhood" schools and school choice has raged for years in San Francisco with no possible resolution that will please all sides; we need to start a new conversation.
• Community commitment to diversity and de-segregation must not be allowed to be pitted against the best interests of children and families.
• Rather than focusing on the old rigid assignment areas, we should be looking at giving weight to proximity, allowing those who live closest to schools to have priority, while still preserving choice for those coming from farther away.
• The EPC must improve its customer service, responding to parent questions more promptly and ensuring that all of the information it gives out is accurate and consistent.
• SFUSD should be working towards ensuring that comprehensive childcare on a sliding scale is available at every school.

Too many families feel that the current lottery system doesn't give them enough of a chance for a school which feels right for their child and their family. The student assignment process of spring 2008 was riddled with both human and computer errors, further eroding parent confidence in the assignment system. Some parents who followed all of the conventional wisdom about visiting many schools, seeking out less popular programs, and applying to a broad range of schools, still ended up getting none of their choices. The process must improve before the next round of student assignments in spring 2009, to rebuild the community's confidence in our schools.

Ironically, more students than ever applied for Kindergarten in spring 2008, reversing a trend of falling enrollment. Some schools which had struggled with low enrollment for years were overwhelmed with requests. A static assignment system which is not nimble enough to adjust for these kinds of changes does not serve our parents or our schools.

"Just make all the schools great schools" is often touted as the solution, but schools are only as strong as their leaders. Hiring qualified teachers for every school, recruiting and training the best Principals, and providing extra resources for schools serving low income students help level the playing field, but nothing is more appealing to parents touring schools than seeing an active parent body engaged in working for the benefit of their school and its students. We must make every effort to ensure that every school has something to entice parents in the door, whether it is a special program like language immersion or Montessori, or extended childcare, or additional arts and enrichment, or partnerships with local museums and cultural institutions. Different models for language immersion should be added to existing models to expand the availability of these popular programs to the large number of English-only applicants.

No family should feel that they must move out of San Francisco in order to be assured of a good public education for heir children. Strengthening public schools in San Francisco is a key requirement to the future of our community.

One family's unhappy encounter with SFUSD

Kortney Malkin, the mother of a kindergartner at a Mission District private school, gives us a detailed account of her entanglement with the SFUSD student assignment process.

I didn't play the game right. I didn't throw down the way I should have. But I did do my homework — more than any district should expect the average family to do. In fact, I was in a position of "privilege" in that I had just closed my business and was unemployed. So I threw myself into the kinder research process, and volunteered to be the "go to" person at my preschool.

But I still managed to f*** up my child's school lottery. And now when I get the dozens of emails from preschool parents asking me, the self-proclaimed lottery expert, for advice, i shrink back and shrug my shoulders. Why ask me? I worked this system to the best of my ability and became a whiny mess on a blog. To this day, we are not enrolled in a public school.

Here is what happened:

I toured about 15 schools. The day the tours started I was on the phone scheduling appointments. I quickly understood how much of a time commitment this touring was going to be so I added schools to my list that I was not initially interested in, so that I could report back to the parents in our preschool who were unable to take the time off work to tour.

I learned after the first few tours that

1. The parents touring ask the same questions over and over again throughout the touring process, i.e.: "if you have a bright kid, how do you challenge them?" Because everyone thinks their kid is bright, but no one researches to find out that every school in our district does the same thing: They evaluate students periodically for being both under-challenged and over-challenged, etc. The repetitive questions not only wasted time on the tours and make them go longer than scheduled, but they become b-o-r-i-n-g.
2. There is a CA state-mandated curriculum that is the same in every school, but extracurricular activities vary depending on how much money is raised, and what it's spent on. The main question of interest or me became "how much do you raise, and what do you spend it on?"
3. There are different school times. 7:50-1:50, 8:30-2:30 (i found a few schools 8:20, and 8:40), and 9:30-3:30.

Early start does NOT work for us. I repeat: Does not. So we eliminated all early starts from our list. On our side of town (Bernal/Excelsior/Noe/Mission/Potrero) that limited our choices a lot. Our elimination included Rooftop, Miraloma, and many of the popular schools. We debated this over and over, but agreed that the limited choices were worth a sane school schedule. Now that we are in school, our decision regarding start time has been fully validated. But I digress...

I toured Buena Vista (Spanish Immersion, or SI) Flynn (both SI and general education, or GE), Fairmount (SI) Monroe (SI, Mandorin Immersion, GE), Moscone, SF Community. All seemed nice enough. Kids seemed engaged, happy. Principals had their strong points. Communities seemed strong. They all clearly lacked enough resources, complained about space, bungalows, budget issues, but it was public school after all. Since we live 2 blocks from Flynn, were considering Spanish Immersion, and had a community of people there, we were set on Flynn...until...

I toured Clarendon.
Yikes.

The tour itself was impossible. There were so many people there that I couldn't see or hear 1/2 of what was being shown/said. But something struck me so hard that I had a headache for 3 days ... this school had everything that ALL OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD HAVE. A librarian to die for, who kept in touch with students long after graduation, to name one charm about Clarendon. I don't know exactly why it was so appealing to me personally, but wow. At this school it seemed if one kid has an issue, there was support for that kid. The campus wasn't any better or worse than most of the public schools I have toured, albeit smallish and foggy. but the program inside the mediocre facilities were heavenly (to me.) They took all the extracurricular activities and put a cherry on the top.

Now this school wasn't trying to sell itself. The principal basically told us all to go on more tours, cast a bigger net around the city, and find an other school to drool over (were we drooling?). Still, it was obvious that Clarendon was able to make up for the economic distress that all the other schools I toured complained about — they raise $400K through their parent group annually. WHAT?? $400K? That sounds like PTA boot camp.

For the rest of the week I was seething. It isn't fair. The state obviously needs to fund our schools better so that there isn't this kind of discrepancy. If CA gave each school an additional $200K annually, think of the potential...

That said, we fell in love with Clarendon and our whole world turned upside down. OK, dramatic I know ... but you haven't heard the rest of it.

At this point it is important to note that our family situation changed a bit. My husband's career shifted, and we realized that we could not give a 5-year commitment to San Francisco going forward. It was likely that we would move in the next 2 years. Therefore, language immersion was out.

I started to look at later start schools on my side of town with GE programs that were popular. I toured West Portal on a sunny day. Unfortunately my tour guide was awful (the Principal was on parental leave.) But i loved the campus, the programs, and heard enough from friends that I liked it. So we now favored two highly prized schools. Ick.

Early start was crossed off. Language immersion was crossed off. Our choices got smaller.

I threw a wider net out there and decided to tour a little-known school (to my Mission friends) called Lakeshore. Lakeshore was huge, had terrific programs, a wonderful library, and this amazing garden-centered curriculum. It was perfectly diverse, and the PTA raised a moderate amount of money. The Principal seemed overwhelmed by its size, but that (and its location) was the only negative. It was the best of both worlds. I really liked it. Still, the drive ... the drive ... So I toured Commodore Sloat hoping to love it because it was slightly closer. I had to tour this school twice because the first time all I saw were kindergartners sitting quietly at their desk doing worksheets. I didn't like how the tour guide represented the free-lunch takers, either. I wanted to like the school so much, I went back.

Oh, well. I know that this was probably a harmless mistake, but my second tour guide/parent volunteer actually referred to kids as either "smart" or "stupid."

I believe in omens. This school did not make the cut.

Parents for Public Schools came to the rescue when they visited our preschool for a parent info night. They explained the whole confusing lottery process in refreshing detail. If you put 7 schools down, you were in better shape than if you put less than 7 schools on the lottery app. The thing I got out of it was important: Vicki said, and I quote "I believe you will find 7 schools that you like ... but if you do not want your kid to go to a school — do NOT put it on your lottery application." Some of the parents tried to find a way to work the system. There was lots of buzz about putting down your favorite school, then the 6 hardest to get into schools. That way if you didn't get any, you would be in the first cohort in the waitpool. PPS assured us that it doesn't work that way — you can't beat the lottery system.

My husband and I went over our information and found that we could not accept seven schools. So, we decided to fill out our applications as honestly as we could. We put down Clarendon, West Portal and Lakeshore (not in that order) because those were the late-start schools that we loved. At the last minute we put Fairmount, too, in case SI was our destiny. I don't know. We just put it down as #4 to see what would happen.

We also toured only two private backups. One, Synergy, we liked a lot. Our preschool assured us (with the best intentions) that they had a great relationship with Synergy and our daughter would have an above-average chance of getting in. Money aside, Synergy was the best fit for our daughter and our family BY FAR. So, we happily applied to Synergy.

With all applications in, we sat back and waited. This is what happened:

The mail came with our SFUSD letter re: the first round. We got none of our choices, but were assigned to Flynn GE. Synergy: A week after SFUSD's letter came, the Synergy rejection arrived. We were invited to wait.

I don't have to tell you how emotional the results were for everyone — just read that part of the SFK_Files blog! We were disappointed, to say the least. By now, we were sure that Immersion was out for us, but because it was on our radar when we toured Flynn, the GE program didn't appeal to us AT ALL. So for our second round we decided that we didn't want Flynn GE. It felt fair to give up that Flynn GE spot and not register. After all, somebody wanted it and we didn't. We believed that things would shake up in the second lottery. So, we put down 7 schools this time: Clarendon GE, Lakeshore, Jefferson, Lawton, W.Portal, Harvey Milk & Sunnyside (two schools I toured after round 1.)

Result: nothing. We waitlisted Lakeshore with about 30 other people, but since we didn't put 7 schools on our 1st application, we were in the second cohort (priority) behind about 18 people. And we were not assigned to or registered at any school.

Private school was still a bust. Apparently so many families were applying to kinder this year every school was a mess. (how hard was it to check birth rates in SF??)

Somewhere between round I and round II lottery runs, I started visiting EPC (the SFUSD Educational Placement Center) and met my counselor, Shem. He was personable, thoughtful, polite. He appeared to be helpful, albeit very casual and laid back about the whole thing. I was determined to make sure he knew who I was and tried to connect with him. I got his work email address. When I checked in with him about our waitpool school, he signed his response "at your service." (note: that is his personal signature. It had nothing to do with me. However, I was fooled into thinking he was at my service.)

By this time I was obsessed with TheSFKFiles blog, too. The best thing about the blog was that people were offering up answers to questions that the EPC did not (and the PPS did not). It was a place that not only offered up instant answers, but also gave me questions I didn't know I had ... AND a place to rant and rave about my frustration with not having a school. The worst thing about the blog was the mud-slinging anonymous posters who made ignorant assumptions about other posters. It was maddening!!! And I couldn't get enough. I was becoming an obsessive-compulsive addict. My husband was so frustrated by my frustration that he forbid me to read "The Blog" — which I of course still did. I was quick to switch screens when he walked into the room....

With no school assignment, and the waitpool not moving at all, waitpool run after waitpool fun, i attended Open Enrollment. I got to the district office at 555 Franklin at 5 a.m. — and was 12th in line. They actually opened the door early so we could wait inside. At 8 a.m., after yelling at us for creating a fire hazard (we didn't form a neat enough line — public school policy) they handed out numbers. I new the list of schools with openings. It was bleak, but somehow I thought that maybe — just maybe — when my number came up, 20 spaces at Lakeshore would open up. I took Junipero Serra and went home defeated. Then I discussed JSerra with parents on the blog, and set up a group tour with the school. And you know what? It was an OK school. It had the same basic core curriculum everyone else had cause it's mandated. But still, the school focused where it should — on its community — which was heavily ESL Latino/Hispanic children. I liked that it was still a neighborhood school, but it wasn't the right fit for our daughter. If I was going to settle for a school, at least I was going to be able to walk there. And JSerra was not close enough to our home to do that. So, we didn't register there, either.

Since I used my name on the blog, I was vulnerable to attack. If I hinted that I didn't want JSerra, i was called an elitist, racist, etc. But I didn't care — I needed to get as much information about SFUSD as possible, so I kept participating. Someone was bound to offer information that would give me an edge (I know, ridiculous thought process. but I was a desperate addict, remember?)

Anyway ... weeks pass. With each waitpool run we are more disappointed. I continue to obsess with friends over the strategy of which waitpool list to be on. I would run over in my head — over and over again — what is the smartest move? However, by this time I don't trust my instincts, nor do I trust EPC. I'm missing some details as to why i started to mistrust EPC. For one, their answers seemed vague to me. But I also know about some people who were approved for special circumstances for bogus reasons (because the Board who approves these things doesn't bother to confirm the family's claim.) To protect people's privacy, I can't go into detail, but a friend of mine was actually told that she did not qualify for special circumstances because her needs are not unique!? Ugh! I could scream. Needless to say the system isn't completely random, or obviously fair. I'd argue it isn't sane....

On one visit to the EPC, Shem helped me work through an "am i waitlisted at the right school" question, and hinted that Lakeshore would never happen for us. Not this year. Nothing was moving and I was in the 2nd cohort. Flynn GE was my best chance. Start time worked and we could walk. So we changed our waitpool school to Flynn GE.

The irony. That was our original assigned school.

Two days after I changed our waitpool school to Flynn GE ... just two days ... some of the registered SI families were disenrolled by the district!! Months earlier the district had overenrolled English-speaking kids to the SI program, but did
nothing until 3 weeks before the first day of school. Now, they decided to just kick families out of Flynn SI (and Alvarado SI). The Flynnerado 23 episode. Naturally, these families were given priority (over me) for Flynn GE. Well, I was furious at the district, for sure. But I also couldn't believe that my Shem would steer me to a school that would end up in such a mess! He had to know this was about to happen. I sent him an angry email and didn't hear back from him. I was screwed. Now my chances of getting in were impossible! We had no school, and school was starting in less than 3 weeks.

OK.

Thankfully a person who participated in the blog reached out to me and told me that a spot was open in the Kinder program at a private school near us. KMS. It fit our criteria (9 a.m. start time, walking distance, art-heavy curriculum with play-based philosophy, blah blah blah.) My criteria was shifting — and I was becoming bitter towards SFUSD. A private school i knew little about was more appealing than "giving in" to SFUSD at this point. I never promised this would make good sense.

I toured, filled out an application and signed up in 1 day. Safely enrolled in a school, I marched back to the EPC and changed our waitpool school. CLARENDON. Why not? At this point it is the only school that could lure me away from our cozy private school. The only problem is, she won't continue to 1st grade with KMS.

So we will have to try again for 1st grade. This time I'll put down 7 schools. The one I want, and 6 of the hardest-to-get-into schools in the district. I will work every angle I can and not take anything for granted. I will wear a padded push up bra and bring picnic lunches to my counselor at the EPC. I will probably start reading the blog again, too. But to be sure, we will line up more than just 1 private school this year. Just because you prefer a private school, or prefer public school, doesn't mean you get one.

We are thinking of leaving SF for a variety of reasons. If we do, I bet our new neighborhood school will welcome us, without a waitlist.

A personal note: My SF school board picks

A note about the San Francisco Board of Education election From Caroline Grannan, 13-year SFUSD parent, volunteer and advocate

Friends, neighbors and associates often ask my opinions at election time about San Francisco school board candidates, knowing that I’m very involved in school district issues. So I’m sharing my views on this year’s candidates, for those who are interested. I don’t expect even my dearest friends to agree with my every opinion, but I hope this is helpful, whether or not you have children in our school district. Please feel free to forward it to anyone you like, and to ask me questions.

For those who don’t know me that well, my children are in 9th and 12th grades at San Francisco School of the Arts (SOTA, a public high school), and have attended SFUSD schools since kindergarten – Lakeshore Elementary and Aptos Middle School.

Four of the seven Board of Education seats are open. Here are my recommendations:

JILL WYNNS
I’m giving most of my space to Jill because I think it’s so important that she be re-elected. Jill is a four-term veteran of the Board of Ed (BOE). I’ve known her personally since 2000 after watching her on the board for three years before that. I have many good things to say about her (honest, smart, principled, courageous, committed, no-nonsense – you get the idea). But the thing about Jill that most impacts you, me, our children, our schools and everyone in our community is this: She is the only current board member and the only candidate who truly understands school financing and the district budget.

School financing is so incredibly complex — the phrase “don’t try this at home!” comes to mind — that it takes years to begin to understand. And school budgets are ripe for mismanagement, as many California districts have found. During the period that the Oakland, West Contra Costa (in Richmond) and Emeryville school districts (among others) have imploded financially and been taken over by the state, SFUSD has stayed afloat even in dire budgeting times – and Jill gets a lot of the credit for that. She has made it her calling to learn everything she can about this byzantine, incredibly important (and yet mind-numbing!) area. When I first met Jill, I asked if she had a professional background in finance, since I was impressed by her obvious expertise. Actually, her background is as a professional theatrical costumer (she’s also the only BOE member who has been a working artist) — she simply found school financing a critical area to learn.

The state is apparently on the verge of revisiting, once again, how to fund education. It is absolutely imperative that we have school board members who understand how school financing works so we know what to advocate for — and how — with our state representatives.

Back in the 1990s, SFUSD had a cowboy superintendent, Waldemar “Bill” Rojas – Jill established her reputation standing up to his reckless and dubious schemes, under heavy fire from Rojas and his loyalists. Rojas’ top lieutenant in SFUSD was a finance guy named Bill Coleman. The two of them left SFUSD together for top jobs with the Dallas school district. Eventually Rojas left the superintendent biz after his house of cards collapsed, and Coleman took a job with the Detroit school district. Recently Coleman was found guilty in Detroit of fraud and corruption, and I believe he’s in jail. The current top finance guy in SFUSD is Myong Leigh, a capable and honest professional who is widely admired and respected by City government and private industry, and is heavily recruited by the private sector. There’s no guarantee that Myong will stay here forever or that his replacement will have his integrity and competence.

The Bill Coleman story demonstrates why we need people on the BOE who have more than just the credential that they are a parent, or work with community-based organizations, or are “a nice person.” We need people who understand what staff is talking about when the topic is school financing and the budget. We need people who have been through the sometimes acrimonious process of union negotiations. We need people who know what they are doing and can provide the expertise while newer board members are still learning the ropes.

The three current BOE members not up for reelection this year were elected less than two years ago. At least two more newbies are guaranteed this year. That will mean at least five board members with no more than two years’ board experience. No matter how the election goes, there will be plenty of “fresh blood” and “new voices” on the BOE. We need Jill’s experience and her understanding of the financial matters more than we need a sixth inexperienced newcomer.

A personal issue to me and to fellow parents at SOTA and Lowell is that Jill supports both schools and their specialized selective admissions processes, which some current board members and a faction of our community have called for eliminating.

As a volunteer for Jill’s campaign, I wrote the homepage copy for her website, and I meant what I wrote. I’m reproducing it here: “In 16 years on the San Francisco Board of Education, Jill has earned a reputation for independence, integrity, thorough understanding of complex issues, and relentlessness in asking tough questions. She is an expert in the complex areas of school budgeting and finance and has done extensive research and observation on best practices in education nationwide. In San Francisco, Jill has played key roles in developing and passing five school bonds, a facilities parcel tax, a unique local school sales tax, the groundbreaking city funding commitment for schools and preschools, and a parcel tax to support teachers and other school employees. Jill has served on the board during a time when the school district has been hailed for rooting out corruption and incompetence, and student achievement has steadily risen. She understands that there is far more work to be done, and has the knowhow and commitment to continue overcoming those challenges.”

By the way, Jill was an SFUSD parent for 22 years and has lived in Bernal Heights for 36 years. Her husband is a union ironworker, and Jill is currently employed as a professional fundraiser for the Jewish National Fund.

To learn more about Jill and her campaign, please visit: http://www.jillwynns.com/issues.html

RACHEL NORTON
Rachel is an SFUSD parent and volunteer with a particular knowledge of and involvement in special-education issues. She’s savvy, thoughtful, capable and committed. (My colleagues in what's left of the news business will be interested to know that Rachel is a former New York Times reporter.) Please visit her website at: http://rachelnorton.com/

EMILY MURASE
Emily is an SFUSD parent with an impressive background in community service and two children in elementary school. Please visit her website at: http://www.emilymurase.com/

MARIGRACE COHEN
Marigrace Cohen is a longtime SFUSD employee; her 44-year career includes experience as a teacher, administrator, and central office supervisor. Please visit her website at: http://www.mcohenforbdofed.com/index.html

A note to some contacts: Those of you who know both me and my friend/fellow parent volunteer activist Dana Woldow are aware that we’ve worked together on many school and district issues. We don’t agree on every candidate every year — although we have both campaigned for Jill in two previous elections — but this year it happens that we do, and collaborated on parts of this letter, so that explains the similarities.

Again, please feel free to ask me if you have any questions about my views. Thanks for taking the time to make thoughtful choices in this election!

— All the best — Caroline

Kim's Hip-Hop Convention trip: on SFUSD's dime?

Tuesday's board agenda shows a request for reimbursement for Jane Kim for a trip to the Hip-Hop Convention in Las Vegas last August. It violates board policy, so what's it doing on the agenda? Read more here.

Updates on the BOE campaign

I posted a string of tidbits and observations about the school board campaign on examiner.com.