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DESCRIPTION:Come to the Save CCSF Coalition General Assembly\n\nFebruary 3, 
 2016\n\nOcean Campus\nMUB 160    5:30-7:30pm\n\nUpdates on Victories / 
 Continuing Issues\n\n·     NACIQI (DOE) recommendation that gave ACCJC 
 only 6 months to\ncome into compliance\n\n·     Draconian payment policy 
 suspended – thanks to our amazing\nstudent organizers\n\n·     A special 
 update on the Alex Nieto case\n\n·     Speaker from the Justice for Mario 
 Woods Coalition\n\n·     Update on reservoir development / PAEC\n\n·     
 Faculty contract fight\n\n·     …  and MORE\n\n\nPlug in to the 
 organizing\n\nOur struggle is far from over. We need to rebuild our City 
 College to\nthe open, affordable, accessible and diverse college our 
 students\ndeserve.\n\nMark your calendars for future GAs\n\n·     General 
 Assembly:  March 16, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 160\n\n·     General Assembly:  
   April 27, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 270\n\n\nThe Colossal 
 Deception\n\n\n\nThe colossal deception that has been unfolding since 2012 
 is\nunraveling. This deception has its origins in the 2012 decision by 
 the\nAccrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges 
 in\nCalifornia, the ACCJC, to place City College of San Francisco on 
 “Show\nCause,” the most severe sanction that can be imposed on an 
 institution\nshort of revoking its accreditation. This decision, and the 
 one that\nfollowed a year later, to revoke CCSF’s accreditation a year 
 out in\n2014, led to a state takeover of the school, and the imposition of 
 a\nSpecial Trustee With Extra Ordinary Powers, or STWEP. In plain\nEnglish, 
 the STWEP is a lone trustee with dictatorial powers, imposed\non CCSF by 
 the State Chancellor and the unelected Board of Governors\nof the 
 California Community Colleges. The elected City College Board\nof Trustees 
 was suspended and the STWEP was imposed, ostensibly, to\nsave CCSF from 
 loss of accreditation.\n\nTo watch this grand deception unravel should 
 bring satisfaction to no\none, given the destruction left in its wake. No 
 part of CCSF has been\nleft unscathed in this spectacle; no part of it has 
 emerged\nuntarnished. The various corrupt components of the state takeover, 
 and\nits ineptitude, are now clear and beyond dispute. Over 
 23,000\nstudents, more than 25 percent of the\n\n2011-12 enrollment, have 
 fallen away, including even higher\npercentages of the most at-risk 
 students. Several departments,\nespecially the Diversity and Social Justice 
 departments, face a\ncontinuing and increasing threat to their 
 existence.\n\nSome hailed this takeover as a positive step in “fixing” 
 CCSF. This\nincluded Mayor Lee, who accepted, without question, the 
 ACCJC’s claim\nthat CCSF was a “failed institution.” The SF Chronicle 
 was also a\ncheerleader for the now discredited ACCJC and its decision. We 
 were\ntold that, among other positive things, this was an opportunity 
 to\nbring about changes that would improve the school, and the success 
 of\nits students, in particular the most marginalized students, 
 notably\nstudents of color, working class students, single parents, etc. 
 The\nadherents of this viewpoint argued that those who were placed 
 in\ncontrol of the school would replace endemic poor management with 
 good\nmanagement, and would eliminate haphazard and politically 
 motivated\ndecision making with a process based on integrity and sound 
 judgment.\nUnder the watch of the new regime, we were supposed to see a 
 rational,\nprudent use of the financial resources of the school in place 
 of\nalleged financial mismanagement and reckless spending. We 
 were\npromised an end to wasteful and irresponsible use of finances on 
 such\nunacceptable things as the alleged unjustifiably high salaries 
 of\nfaculty and classified employees. Thus, the first act in 
 this\n“responsible” financial policy was to unilaterally cut faculty 
 and\nclassified wages by nearly 12%, while going on to 
 clandestinely\nincrease the salaries of selected administrators to as high 
 as 19%.\nThe second act was to institute an unnecessarily aggressive 
 and\ndraconian payment policy that dropped 9124 students from all 
 their\nclasses over only four semesters, primarily those who are the 
 most\nvulnerable. (After sustained protest by students and others, 
 this\npayment policy has been suspended.)\n\nAll of this took place under 
 the autocratic rule of the Special\nTrustee, shortly promoted to STWEP, and 
 two interim chancellors, the\nfirst, incredibly destructive, the second, 
 incredibly inept. The first\ninterim Chancellor, Pamila Fisher, who 
 frequently consulted by phone\nwith Barbara Beno, proposed and pushed 
 through a shell-shocked Board\nof Trustees, a college “reorganization 
 plan” that included the firing\nof all of the deans, requiring those that 
 wanted to retain their\npositions to formally reapply for them. It also 
 involved a\n“departmental restructuring” that would have effectively 
 destroyed the\ndepartmental structure as a whole. Fisher proposed 
 eliminating all but\nseven of the 62 department chairs. This tremendously 
 disruptive and\ndestructive “reorganization plan” was announced at a 
 time when CCSF\nhad less than eight months to correct 14 “deficiencies” 
 outlined by\nthe ACCJC in their “Show Cause” report. This plan was 
 certain to\ninsure CCSF’s failure in its attempts to retain its 
 accreditation, at\nleast under the conditions set up by the ACCJC. But that 
 didn’t stop\nthe second interim chancellor, Thelma Scott-Skillman, from 
 embracing\nthis “reorganization plan,” and attempting to push it 
 forward. As\ncould be expected, the ACCJC claimed that we had not met 
 the\nconditions to retain accreditation and that our accreditation would 
 be\nrevoked at the end of July 2014. The State Chancellor then 
 decided\nthat the suspension of the Board of Trustees was necessary to 
 retain\nCCSF’s accreditation. This suspension was justified on the 
 grounds\nthat the Board was "dysfunctional."\n\nThe results of this 
 disastrous takeover now scream loudly and\ntragically for all to see, 
 except, perhaps, those who remain\nsteadfastly determined not to. Viewing 
 all of this through the lens of\npolitical history, the whole thing is best 
 understood as a grand coup,\ntypical in its justifications and its 
 promises, and complete with its\ndramatic, but predictable, failure. 
 Neither the reign of an ordinary\nSpecial Trustee, nor that of a Special 
 Trustee with Extraordinary\nPowers, was able to secure CCSF’s continued 
 accreditation. Both\nutterly failed. More than this, they wrought havoc on 
 our school. The\nmisuse of district funds that took place under their watch 
 has now\ncome to light .\n\nEven more damning is the fact that the STWEP 
 was responsible for\nhiring the now departed chancellor whose use of 
 district funds is in\nquestion; that chancellor in turn hired the now 
 departed college\npresident who is implicated along with him in this 
 financial mischief.\nNor was this the only administrator hired by the STWEP 
 whose\nperformance turned out to be far less than stellar.\n\nWe now have 
 our Board of Trustees (presumably) back in power, and a\nSpecial Trustee 
 who lingers, but whose only role is that of advisor\n(for which he receives 
 an exorbitant salary). We have much work to do,\nhowever, to rebuild a CCSF 
 that continues to remain open, affordable,\naccessible, and diverse. Our 
 struggle for such a school is far from\nover. Please join in accomplishing 
 this task.\n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/31/18782469.php
SUMMARY:Save CCSF Coalition General Assembly
LOCATION:CCSF Ocean Campus (near Ocean and Phelan Ave.) MUB room 160
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/01/31/18782469.php
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