Pledge to Fix High School Overcrowding

By Carol Dimmick

Superintendent Arlene Ackerman responded to a barrage of criticism from parents and teachers at two popular west side high schools threatened with overcrowding by pledging additional resources and pointing to her five-year academic plan for answers.

Ackerman called the enrollment crisis at George Washington High School in the Richmond District and Abraham Lincoln High School in the Sunset District "temporary."

She said the way to relieve overcrowding at the two popular schools is by offering better instructional support at lower achieving schools and implementing her five-year "Excellence for All" academic plan. The plan calls for redesigning the school system to create new types of secondary schools, including new small high schools.

"My new proposal will be attractive to parents," Ackerman predicted.

The school district recently announced that it has $300,000 in planning funds available to develop proposals for the plan.

Ackerman said she expects the process to move forward once a comprehensive report on the state of the district's facilities is completed this summer.

"I am waiting for Tony Irons to complete a Master Facilities Plan which should be ready in August. This will tell us where we can put new small schools to relieve some of the crowding," she said.

The controversy began several months ago when enrollment for the fall term at the two popular west side high schools took a quantum leap. Critics say the culprit is the "diversity index," the school district's new admission policy.

The goal of the new policy - to achieve a balance between the different classes and educational levels in the schools - is the district's answer to ending decades of segregation that has plagued the city's public schools. For hundreds of west side Asian students, however, it meant they were denied admission to their neighborhood schools and assigned to lower-achieving schools in another part of the City.

Tempers reached the boiling point this spring when angry west side parents pressured school board members to open up more slots at Lincoln and Washington. Critics blame Ackerman for caving-in to political pressure when she increased their enrollment by 250 students.

The problem was compounded when the schools were asked to absorb an additional 100 transfer students the next school year from the now-defunct Eugene McAteer High School.

While overcrowded top-performing high schools are taking on more students, the incoming freshman classes at a number of the City's underachieving high schools have seen their numbers take a nosedive.

According to figures supplied by the San Francisco Unified School District, in the fall Balboa High School will see its freshman class decline by 44 students, Mission High School will lose 109 students and the freshman class at Galileo High School will decline by 148 students.

Patricia Gray, the principal at Balboa High School, indicated that she could lose as many as another 100 students which she says "just don't show up on the first day."

While Gray acknowledged that the declining enrollment is part of Ackerman's plan to provide a better educational environment at lower achieving schools by reducing classroom size, she points out that fewer students also means less funding.

"Smaller classes make for more individual instruction, which is the idea behind raising achievement levels, but it also means less money," Gray said.

While principals like Gray find their student population declining, Andrew Ishibashi, the principal at George Washington High School, faces overcrowding at his school.

At Washington, one of the school district's top performing high schools, the stress level of the staff went through the roof when more than 2,000 freshman signed up to attend in the fall and district officials told the staff to get ready to accept 994 new students - almost 350 more than attended last year.

"The stress level was very high. I negotiated with the school district and out of the sensitivity of the superintendent and the assistant superintendent the numbers were capped," Ishibashi said.

Ishibashi says the school is capable of absorbing 300 additional students in the fall and that Ackerman has promised him the teachers, counselors and classrooms he needs.

Sandy Fewer, outgoing P.T.A. president at Washington, says the current enrollment number of 803 incoming freshman is workable, but believes the situation could have been avoided if Ackerman had consulted with teachers, parents and school administrators.

"We told her (Ackerman) to come to us before, so this doesn't happen again and I think that will happen next year," Fewer said.

Even Ackerman acknowledged that the situation is potentially worse at Lincoln, where administrators were initially told to expect 400 more students next year.

According to Assistant Principal Gilbert Chung, the stress level declined somewhat after 83 students failed to return acceptance letters on time. Chung says that Ackerman's decision to eliminate these students helped to release some of the pressure that was building at the school.

The softening in the enrollment numbers has failed to deter a vocal group of teachers at Lincoln who say they are no longer willing to sit back quietly while working conditions continue to deteriorate at the school.

Some teachers contend that the lack of available classrooms at Lincoln has already made teaching at the school a "challenge."

"There are 17 roving teachers that move from room-to-room at Lincoln right now. It's a special problem with sciences," said Bill Milestone, who teaches biology at the school.

Milestone says many science teachers already pull equipment around on carts. He says that even now he holds classes in local parks to "take the place of a laboratory."

Hundred of additional students in the school's hallways raise fire and safety concerns among Lincoln parents like Marie Crabtree.

"It was already difficult getting students out of the building last year during a fire drill. Can you imagine what could happen next year?" she said.

Assistant Principal Chung says safety issues will be addressed before school starts next year. "It's just a matter of changing the evacuation route to make it easier for students to move away from the building," he said.

Parents and teachers at both schools appear more skeptical than administrators who say they are looking forward to meeting the challenge next year. And Ackerman, for her part, says she will give them the tools they need.

"I think they are willing to work with the school district this year. I've tried to support their requests," she said.

As for 2003-2004, Ackerman confirmed she is forming a special task force to study the situation at the two schools, but says the real answer is to offer more resources at lower achieving schools and redesigning the entire system to offer more attractive choices for parents and students.