School Beat: Meeting the Letter and the Spirit of Proposition H

Identified on the ballot as Proposition H, the amendment requires financial support from the City in equal parts to three different educational areas: 1) universal access to preschools, administered by the First Five Commission; 2) supplemental funding for sports, libraries, art and music education (a program grouping now referred to as SLAM) as taught through the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD); and a catch-all “third-third” that goes to unspecified educational purposes for the SFUSD in cash and/or in-kind services. (The complete text of the amendment can be found in Sections 16.123-1 to 16.123-10 of the Charter at http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=14130&sid=5 ).

Each year the Prop. H funding level increases until it reaches $60 million. This year that amount is at $30 million, with $10 million for each third. Given the consistent budget challenges schools have been facing since the 1970s brought us Proposition 13, Prop H. monies are more than welcome, especially at the K-12 level where educational programs once thought of as staples—anyone want a school library?—now have to be supported as auxiliary components.

Prop. H sounds great and is great, but implementing it has been a bit tricky. To date those rough edges have mostly been associated with determining how to distribute funding across different K-12 educational levels and programs, as has been discussed in previous School Beat columns ( http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=598 ).

Such complications are not surprising given that each year a Community Advisory Committee works to develop a proposal for that year’s spending allocation, which is negotiated with both SFUSD administration, the Board of Education (BOE) and finally the Board of Supervisors (BOS). This year is no different in that regard, as was described last week in BeyondChron ( http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4116 ).

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