Neighborhood Schools

Parents Take On School DistrictBayard Fong

Parents to hit the streets with a petition to bring “real” neighborhood schools to our neighborhoods

A neighborhood schools policy is, by definition, a guarantee of student placement based on proximity to home. Seattle recently adopted a true neighborhood schools policy. Such a policy is based on the belief that children and the schools they attend are an integral part of every community, that children have a right be part of their community and that they will benefit from this relationship.

A group of parents organized as “Students First” and have taken action to put a measure on the November ballot. It is designed to pressure school leaders towards a true neighborhood schools student assignment system (SAS). The Board of Education in San Francisco voted to implement a new SAS starting in school year 2011-2012, but Students First believes that many neighborhood students will not be placed in their neighborhood schools under this new policy.

Students First wants the issues of neighborhood schools and the quality of those schools to be the focus of district efforts at increasing student achievement rather than the current practice of moving students from one neighborhood to another in a futile effort to chase performance. The current system of choice will still allow students to choose alternative placements as space allows.

A neighborhood-based policy must put neighborhood students first on any list of preferences. Below is a portion of the new SAS voted in by the BOE on March 9, 2010 and, as you can see, the neighborhood students are far from the top of the list.

“SFUSD conducted numerous meetings to get community input and the communities spoke loud and clear in favor of neighborhood schools. But the SFUSD has made no such policy commitment, despite encouraging the media to portray the new policy as one of neighborhood schools.”

New parameters

The proposed tweak to the school assignment system would give preference to students based upon these factors (listed in order of priority):

Elementary schools

1. Siblings already attend school

2. Students living in attendance area of school and are attending a district pre-K pro

gram in same attendance area

3. CTIP1 (test scores, demographics)

4. Students living in attendance area

5. Students living in attendance areas with insufficient capacity

6. All other students

Middle school

1. Students receive initial assignment to middle school based upon elementary school

attended

2. Siblings

3. CTIP1 (test scores, demographics)

4. Attendance area

5. Students living in attendance areas with insufficient capacity

6. All other students

High schools

1. Siblings

2. CTIP1 (test scores, demographics)

3. All other students.

Under this preference scheme elementary and middle school students are given in 4th priority. And they have no priority whatsoever at the high school level.

SFUSD conducted numerous meetings to get community input and the communities spoke loud and clear in favor of neighborhood schools. But the SFUSD has made no such policy commitment, despite encouraging the media to portray the new policy as one of neighborhood schools. That is to say, what is most telling about the new policy is not so much what is stated as what is not stated. Any policy that truly intends to serve the neighborhoods students first would frankly say so.

SFUSD’s new policy reaffirms its primary goals as that of diversity rather than student achievement at quality neighborhood schools. Ironically, given the demographic changes among neighborhoods over the years, a neighborhood school policy would increase diversity compared to the heavy handed interventions that have failed in the past and resulted in too many parents leaving the public schools altogether.

Therefore, the Students First committee filed a Declaration of Policy to qualify for the November 2010 election ballot. If you would like to help contribute your time or make donations to support our cause, please access our website at www.sfstudentsfirst.org.

Bayard Fong is President of the PTSA at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School.

June 2010