Schools' Town Hall Meeting a Dud with Parents

By Carol Dimmick

If the attendance at a recent Town Hall Meeting at Abraham Lincoln High School is an indication of the support Superintendent Arlene Ackerman can expect from parents for the district's bold new plan to integrate schools, she might be disappointed.

Lacking inclement weather or a Giants baseball game, it was hard to blame anything but apathy for the meager turnout that greeted Jenifer Hartman, a special assistant to Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, as she attempted to explain the ambitious plan to about 25 parents at the March 24 meeting.

The 92-page plan, "Excellence for All," is the district's answer to ending decades of segregation that has plagued the city's public schools and its effort to bring equity to a system that has failed many black and Latino students.

It is also the district's attempt to persuade a federal judge not to cut off $37 million in annual desegregation funds scheduled to end by Dec. 1, 2002.

Hartman told parents that the main goal of the plan is to integrate the public schools while raising the level of education in all schools.

After a brief presentation by Hartman, parents had an opportunity to ask questions and give their opinions.

One parent said the plan did nothing to address the gap that exists in the quality of education at the pre-school level.

"I'm looking for an excellent pre-school system for all children. How is excellence for all going to be achieved at that level?" she asked.

Some parents said the plan discourages one of the essential ingredients for raising academic performance levels - parental involvement - by encouraging children to attend schools out of their neighborhood.

"The single most important factor in a child's education is parent involvement. What I want to know is how is the district going to encourage that kind of involvement, especially if the kid's school is across town?" asked one parent.

Others felt the plan tried to do too much and suggested the district concentrate on funding programs that ensure all children attend school regularly.

"We know that attendance and achievement go lock-step. I would like this district to throw a disproportionate amount of money to get these kids in school. We need to have parents afraid if their kids do not come to school," said Marcia Cohen, a parent with two children in public schools.

Plan Moves Funding and Resources to Low Performing Schools

Without new sources of funding, the new plan relies upon reallocating existing resources and reorganizing programs to achieve its goals.

Under the plan as it stands today, the district will redistribute resources to schools based on a "Weighted Student Formula" (WSF).

This means that all schools will receive a budget denominated in dollars instead of staff positions or site-based budgeting. The ideas is to give the principal and site councils at each school the flexibility to maximize those dollars. According to the plan, the staffing allocation would be converted to dollars using a schedule of district-wide average salaries.

Under the WSF, schools will also receive an additional amount per student based on the specific needs of each student. A committee is meeting to identify student characteristics and assign relative weights that will determine funding levels for students.

Another component of the plan calls for the reorganization of targeted high schools and middle schools into smaller communities and the creation of more than a half-dozen new magnet schools.

By reorganizing schools and establishing popular magnet programs in schools with large black and Latino populations, the district hopes to strengthen academic programs at low achieving schools and attract a diverse population by drawing high performing students from other schools.

"We are attempting to achieve integration by developing a variety of programs that will draw a diverse student population to all schools," Hartman said.

According to Hartman, the school district is applying for a grant to help set up magnet arts programs at Bret Harte Elementary School and Potrero Hill Middle School, schools that are predominantly black and Latino. But Hartman admits that it is unlikely that the district will receive funding from the state.

"We have applied for magnet school funding, a $1.8 million grant over three years. It is a highly competitive grant and is hard to get," Hartman said.

The school district will also offer credentialed teachers a salary increase if they are willing to teach at a low performing school.

"We cannot mandate that teachers move, but we are working with the union to find incentives to move credentialed teachers to low performing schools," Hartman said.

In one of the more controversial aspects of the plan, as a fallback the district relies upon eight diversity characteristics to assign students to schools. Race or ethnicity is one of the characteristics, but school officials say it will be used only as a last recourse.

With all the controversy surrounding the plan, parents attending the meeting were critical of the school district for waiting until the eleventh hour to hold public meetings.

"It seems to me that only five meetings before a court-mandated deadline is deficient," said Tim Ushida, whose daughter attends Herbert Hoover Middle School.

Hartman stressed that the plan was a work in progress and urged parents to send their suggestions and comments to the school district.

The plan is scheduled to be presented to the school board on April 4 and is expected to be submitted to the court by April 11.