Posted on 01/20/2006 9:16:50 AM PST by george76
In front of a crowd of angry parents, teachers and students...
San Francisco's Board of Education Thursday night voted to close, merge and relocate more than a dozen public schools...due to declining enrollment.
The board did its work during a five-hour meeting before hundreds of angry parents, students and teachers who filled the Everett Middle School auditorium and occasionally shouted -- or wept aloud -- as the panel voted on a case-by-case basis.
The first vote hardly caused a stir in the crowd: the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program will be merged into Rosa Parks Elementary School...
But when the board voted to close John Swett Elementary and merge it into John Muir Elementary, Dawayne Baker, a volunteer basketball coach at John Swett, burst out of the auditorium.
In the end, the board decided to close four schools, spare six from closure and relocate or merge many others -- all to save $2.4 million, about half of the $5 million goal.
"These were modest changes,'' said board member Dan Kelly after it was all done. Kelly had supported more changes but did not have a majority vote of the board.
"We should have closed more..."
San Francisco Unified School District officials say they have lost 800 to 1,000 students every year for the past five years, a trend expected to continue for the next five years.
The board and district staff agree they cannot continue to operate the same number of schools with such a severe drop in the student population.
The $5 million represents the amount of money lost this year in per-pupil funding from the state.
The 26 schools were chosen by district staff because they have fewer than 250 students and use less than 75 percent of their building capacity.
Empty desks
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
D) All of the above
No mention of where these students have gone?
Part of the answer is less baby making and more baby killing.
I wonder if keeping these "closing" school afloat is what voters had been led/or surmised the "funds" were for (when they voted FOR it) -- to keep them open and operational.
Now, my big question is.. who is planning on buying the properties those schools were on.
I doubt SF leadership would make these school-closure decisions based on lack-of-enrollment figures, alone. Assuredly, the shake-and-deals have already been made. SOP, for SF.
Gone
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I know. I really hope to live in NYC for the rest of my life (flame away freepers!). Nevertheless, I know that if my future wife decides to drop one, I'll be moving to some strip mall hell.
You have quite the data. I didn't know most of that and there I was, living no more than 50 miles away. Caveat: I refused to even enter the City unless the occasion strictly demanded it and even then would only do exactly what was required and immediately left.
I lived in SF for three or four years and still have family there, so once upon a time, I used to pay attention. However, that attention has been repaid with bestiality and inhumanity fron SFers with nary a care. I don't need two slaps in the face to know not to look.
I wish I had data I could fill in for you with on what the Supervisors have in mind, but from what I saw done elsewhere in the state (my old high school, for instance), the likelihood is that the facility will be turned into a general education center, perhaps partly staffed with non-profits like the Red Cross or Second Harvest.
Of course, if families with children really are net leaving the City, and that trend does not turn around, then the population will most likely stabilize at some lower level made up of unmarried or casually-coupled professionals. They'll look smart and be urbane, but they'll be less than human, IMHO, because it will most distinctly be always all about them.
Just like you see on TV.
Yes. It does appear that the Robert Reich "one stop" plan concerning pub ed schools is in the works by the CA Democrats. Off the top of my head -- he proposed that pub ed schools be turned into "government centers" -- welfare checks, medical, criminal probationary check in points (meaning... released criminals walking onto the school campus to do their "check-ins"), etc.
I think that it's just that there are less children in SF.
It's a major shell game.
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