School Closures and Beyond

First, schools support and are supported by strong communities in all neighborhoods in San Francisco. In some cases, this support coincides with easy-to-use, in-vogue measures of quality such as standardized test scores. In other cases, it is co-occurs with more elusive qualities, such as a sense of belonging, affirmation and educational advancements that don't register in the same way on the cookie cutter performance charts we must measure up against these days.

These differences make it harder to compare one school with another, especially when issues of inequity are thrown into the mix. But, the strong sense of community surrounding such a great number of our schools should be seen as a success in its own right. A school without a solid sense of community will not be able to serve its students well. Schools with that background of support have a stronger framework within which to work for academic improvement.

An example of this type of powerful support can be found around John Swett Elementary School, which the Board of Education (BOE) voted 4 to 3 to merge with John Muir Elementary School. Of the two primary criteria that were used together to initially put schools on the list —enrollment and capacity usage—Swett was somewhat under the enrollment threshold of 250 students and over the capacity usage of 75%, making its presence on the merger list questionable. In addition, the lingering suspicion that an alternative use for the facility (for administrative space) drove the merger makes the decision all the more rankling.

The parents, students, teachers, and local supporters of John Swett are fighting to keep their school open, seeking support for a resolution that would put public pressure on the school board to reverse that decision. This week they made an impressive display of their commitment by staging a strike that kept 200 of its almost 230 students home in a protest against the merger.

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