How dare SFUSD reject City funds to keep our schools open!

Understand that the public school system in San Francisco is losing about 800-1,000 students a year at a little over $7,000 per student (http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fb/yr05edubudget.asp). That equals the $5.6 million to $7 million budget shortfall that we have all been hearing about.

How the school district has been able to survive with this 40-year trend, I don’t know. We simply cannot operate schools – paying for lights, teachers, books, janitors, copiers, heaters, cooks and all of the other things you expect to see when you drop your kids off at school – without that money.

And please stop believing that the lottery is going to bail us out. Lottery funds amount to only about 1 percent of all state spending on schools: $124 per student a year (although the California Lottery website (http://www.calottery.com/Support/LotteryFunds/default.htm) says its 2 percent – whatever!

So we – meaning us, because this is our problem – aren’t getting the money. Now what do we do? Possible solutions on how to get some money are:

1) We wait for the governor to spit some money our way – possibly 1 percent of the $1.7 billion proposed for the entire state – in July 2006. I don’t think anyone could hold out until the summer to be told whether their kid’s school is closing. Plus we know this is only happening because Arnold blew it big time and doesn’t want to leave the governor’s mansion just yet.

2) We ask locally for our city to provide financial support to our schools in the form of one of these options (some good, some bad):

a) Work out a loan from the city with terms that would allow the district to pay it back in five years (that’s okay),

b) Work out a loan from the city with really harsh repayment terms like paying back within two years with interest (ouch!),

c) Hope for a grant or gift, like helping a good friend in their time of need again (that just ain’t gonna happen),

d) See if the district can access the “rainy day” funds to pay back the city – like a wage garnishment on an owed debt (not very pretty, but it could work),

e) Get another advance on Prop H money to cover stuff that we voters didn’t expect, or

f) Figure out some way to craft an MOU with DCYF so that the district could access the $33 million of the Children’s Fund money (now that’s really outside the box, and I’m not gonna take credit for Ms. B’s idea, although I love it).

Then there are the ugly solutions:

a) Close (8), merge (14) and/or relocate (6) all 28 schools on the list so that the district saves the same amount of money that we can’t possibly find under a rock (but no one likes that scenario except capitalists and racists),

b) Close an equal number of schools on the east and west sides of town so that everyone feels the pain (gesture to draw a political butt kicking reaction), or

c) Get the state to take over running the district, as someone suggested on http://www.sfschools.org (which will cause private school enrollment to increase dramatically and would signal the end of public control of our schools and ultimately the end of public education in San Francisco).

All that’s to say there are a few meetings coming up that should be important enough for us to attend and participate within the city and school government process.

The first meeting is of the Board of Education on Thursday, Jan. 19, 7 p.m., at 555 Franklin. We should advise and guide School Board members about our desire for them to take the money that Norman Yee turned down (see yesterday’s article in the SF Examiner http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2006/01/17/news/20060117_ne03_schools.txt) and express your concern for all San Francisco’s public schools.

The second and third meetings are the Board of Supervisor’s Budget Committee meetings today Wednesday, Jan. 18 (although school funding is not on the agenda, public comment can be very persuasive) and Monday, Jan. 23, is the Budget Committee’s discussion about the potential Prop H advance.

Public comment on this item will be key.

After that there will be the Board of Education meeting on Thursday, Feb. 2, at 7 p.m., where the Board will vote to accept whatever money is offered by the city to help out. And this is the big one, because some board members have been acting like we don’t need the money from the city that could help keep schools open (how dare those members, who speak on my behalf as a parent, say they don’t want to take the money).

If that wasn’t bad enough, some board members don’t even pay attention during the public commentary and knit instead. Now I don’t remember any candidates on the ballot telling voters that they could represent parents and community while knitting. Listen, if I’m at a meeting, I want to make certain that I have the attention of all of the board members during public comment (unless anyone thinks that we need more of those Martha Stewart ponchos).

And call your friends and family to help out here. We need a phone tree like no one has ever seen before. Supervisors Mirkarimi, District 5, and Maxwell, District 10, and School Commissioners Mar and Sanchez should not have to lead the charge alone.

Friends and family – who have a stake in your child’s education – should call their Supervisors too, because the school district will soon begin looking at schools outside Districts 5 and 10. Remember, money has no boundaries, and, without it, everyone is vulnerable.

Kim-Shree Maufas, the parent of a senior in high school, is a youth track and field coach and a committed education advocate for BVHP. Email her at francsmom [at] yahoo.com.

http://sfbayview.com/011806/howdaresfusd011806.shtml