There is a lot of momentum building right now on the issue of chocolate milk in schools. The SF School Food Coalition, a new parent advocacy group focused on school food reform, would like to learn more about how the broader SFUSD community feels about the practice of serving chocolate milk at SFUSD school lunch. Please take a moment to visit our website and vote in the poll. It will close in one week so please spread the word throughout your school community!
http://sfschoolfood.org/
With thanks,
Lena Brook
Parent, Grattan School
Founder, SF School Food Coalition
Find background on the chocolate milk debate:
SFGate: The chocolate milk debate
AP: Industry pushes chocolate milk in schools
LA Times: Chocolate milk in schools: A necessary evil?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Hot topic: Inclusion and kids with IEPs
This from an SF K Files reader:
I have a son with an IEP, and it has been recommended that he be in Inclusion in the general classroom. I would love to find out if anyone knows which Inclusion schools are best, and which ones may have fewer or more spots opening up next year, and how choosing to go with Inclusion affects chances of getting in. I hope you consider this a valid topic.
I have a son with an IEP, and it has been recommended that he be in Inclusion in the general classroom. I would love to find out if anyone knows which Inclusion schools are best, and which ones may have fewer or more spots opening up next year, and how choosing to go with Inclusion affects chances of getting in. I hope you consider this a valid topic.
Hot topic: If I knew then what I know now...
This from an SF K Files reader:
I just had the most random thought. it might be good to start a thread on your sfkfiles blog under the rubric of "if i knew then what i know now" -- messages directly from parents who went through the school enrollment process fairly recently -- say, the last couple years -- to the parents touring and applying for kinder now. it would be a great chance to share wisdom, offer comfort, debunk some of the myths, get parents more focused on the fact that there is life after kinder, how much kids change after they start K, challenging all your tightly held precepts about what your kid can and can't handle, etc. (starting to think school search is like birth -- the first time you focus so hard on this one event, you forget you have to raise the dang kid afterward.)
San Francisco Community School
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
Location: 125 Excelsior Ave. , 1 block east of Mission (Excelsior)
School hours: 9:15-3:30
Tel: 469-4739
Principal: Kristin Bijur, Head Teacher (SFCS is a charter school and has a completely different leadership structure than I've seen, see below).
Web site: www.my-sfcs.org
School tours: Fridays, 10 AM
Grades: K-8
Kindergarten size: 3 classes of 20, going up to 22
Total student body: 275
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Progressive values, mixed-age classes, innovative curriculum, an intimate, small-scale middle school. Not a good choice if your child needs structure or is daunted by older kids.
Class Structure / Curriculum: Mixed classes (K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 7-8), except for grade-specific math. Elementary school students have the same teacher for 2 years. Project-based learning: 2 nine-week science-based projects per year, each incorporating 2 out of 4 total themes (Human Body, Environment/Earth Science, Physical World/Design, and Community). So with each teacher, elementary students have all 4 themes over 2 years. They are repeated, but elaborated and extended for years 4-5 and 6-7 or 8. In 5th and 8th grade, students present portfolios to panels of teachers, family members, community members, and peers in order to "graduate" to the next level.
Campus/Playground: Very large brick building, with lots of light coming into the classrooms. Physical plant is, however, somewhat shabby and stark -- chipped plaster, peeling paint, not nearly enough on the walls to compensate for the large amount of wall space. 1 bungalow houses the library, another seems to be a greenhouse. Large yard divided into areas: an older-looking play structure, a sand and water-play area, and a beautiful garden big enough to walk in.
After School programs: Third Base program, was free but will cost next year, until 5:45
Additional Programs: Outdoor Education including camping trips for all grade levels every year, edible garden, extra classes in gardening, nutrition, and cooking.
PTA: no info. given on tour
Language program(s): None
Library / Computer Lab: Library has 16 Macintosh computers; each classroom has 3-4 computers. No formal computer curriculum. We did not see the inside of the library, but there is a librarian and K-5 kids have library class 1x/week. Kids must keep checked-out books in the classroom until Grade 3.
Arts: No info on tour, in brochure, or on website. Project-based learning incorporates art, though.
PE: No information on tour, in brochure, or on website.
Recess/Lunch: No information on tour, in brochure, or on website.
Tour Impressions:
This tour had only one parent at the helm. We began in a hallway, but went immediately to one of the K-1 classrooms. How do you know you are at an alternative school? Teachers are called by their first names, of course! There, the teacher spoke to the K and 1 kids about the ending sound "-ck" for a bit. Interestingly, I saw none of the dreaded behavior charts at SFCS, but these kids were wiggly and talked so much that the teacher's voice was hardly audible, and 2 kids were on "time out" chairs. One parent said immediately, "I've seen enough," and stomped out. All this left me wondering: are those behavior charts necessary for a quality learning environment after all? Or is a different focus -- SFCS's is conflict resolution and problem-solving -- going to produce less exterior evidence of "model children" while growing more socio-emotionally competent kids on the inside?
The K kids were then sent off to do worksheets, but no adults were there to supervise them, which seemed odd (SFCS has 14 credentialed teachers and 14-20 support staff members, so maybe someone was absent). In the other K-2 classroom, there were 2 adults, and kids were doing quite diverse things: some were in workgroups, others appeared to be on free play time. This second classroom had a dress-up area, a play kitchen, unit blocks, and neatly typed reading labels ("chair," "desk") on all the chairs,desks, etc. Both classrooms were large, but still seemed somewhat drab to me after Sunnyside's colorful ones. Interestingly, the 2-3 classroom we saw was equally wiggly; they were working on writing a collective letter to someone as a way of learning the parts of speech. I liked this approach, but again, was taken aback by the amount of noise and the number of kids who were clearly astrotraveling.
We ended in the cafeteria for a Q and A. The tour guide described SFCS's unique leadership structure: teachers with at least 3-4 years' experience rotate as "Head Teacher," which sounds more like a department chair, in practice, than like a principal. There is also a "Lead Team" consisting of one teacher from every grade, who meet with the Head Teacher and serve as liaisons to the other teachers. Their professional development is also internal; they do what is needed rather than attending the huge SFUSD meetings. Teachers seem to have a very high degree of autonomy here, and to collaborate a great deal. One parent asked about the effect of the mixed classes: the tour guide at first seemed to say they worked best for high-achieving kids who had older kids to work with, but then flip-flopped a bit and said that teacher attention generally went to the struggling students because, in the end, the issue was equity and closing the achievement gap, such that higher-achieving kids probably ended up achieving less than they could. Higher-achieving kids, she also said, did a lot of independent work. Remembering my own dreadfully lonely K-3 years where I was sent off to teach myself things, I wasn't wild about this news. But we did see evidence of some interesting projects, including a survey done by K-1 kids complete with raw data, methodology, and bar charts! I had to leave before the Q and A session was over, but it seemed that the Head Teacher was not going to appear, and I would have liked to hear from her about curriculum.
How does all this add up? I love the idea of the curriculum at this school, and of the possibility for teachers to collaborate and innovate: in this sense, SFCS seems like an independent school for the less well-off. In fact, SFUSD just named SFCS as one of eight "exemplary schools" that will be studied by Stanford researchers doing work on successful schools. The projects, the outdoor education, the emphasis on community "virtues" all appeal to me. And I am well aware that progressive education can look much messier in the process, but that wonderful products (both kids and what they make) emerge from it. But in the actual classroom teaching, I didn't see much going on that was different than the other public schools I've visited. And these kids seemed less attentive and eager to learn, not more. I was also more put off by the physical plant than I've been at any other school. But do facilities matter as much as pedagogy, values, etc.? So now I turn to SFCS parents with some questions:
Do the mixed-age classes work well for your kid, and why?
If you have a kid with learning difficulties, or a kid who is quite a bit above grade level, do you feel your child is achieving up to his/her potential, and how do you define that?
What is your sense of the classroom environment, and what might parents want to look at through different lenses than the usual ones they might put on for tours?
Sunnyside Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
Location: 250 Foerster St. (in Sunnyside, between Glen Park and City College)
School hours: 8:40-2:40
Tel: 469-4746
Principal: Nancy Schlenke
Web site: www.sunnysidek5.org
School tours: Weds., 9-10:30 AM
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 3 Ks of 22 each
Total student body: 300
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
A strong focus on science, an intimate feel, an active parent base, a later start time and later aftercare, and a clean, bright building and grounds.
Class Structure / Curriculum: GE program only
Campus/Playground: Beautiful, clean 1926 building with freshly painted yellow interior and large new windows, and big sunny classrooms. Library but no computer lab. 2 bungalow classrooms housing 1st grade and a split 4/5 grade (1 more bungalow likely to come, and they have the yard space). Very large asphalt yard with new-looking play structure cordoned off with a low wall decorated with student-made tiles. New mural, gardening boxes, and benches.
After School programs: YMCA 2:40-6:30 3-5 days/week ($435/mo. for full-time, ExCel 2:40-5:40 PM M-F). After-school enrichment programs 1x/week from 2:40-3:40 in Spanish (Lango method), piano, art, and American Sign Language.
Additional Programs: District-sponsored artist-in-residence program, Adventures in Music, Creative Movement, SF Ballet program. PTA and/or grant-sponrosred Art Appreciation, Art Cart, p/t classroom music teacher, school-wide musical performance, Exploratorium Mission Science SWorkships, Zoomobile, parent workshop, "Safe Rides to School," school greening project.
PTA: From 7-81 in just 2 years; $50K raised last year in grants and funding.
Language program(s): After-school Spanish class available, 1x/week.
Library / Computer Lab: Small, bright, well-organized library with automated check-out (so it's always open) even with a part-time librarian. Computer terminals in classrooms, but no computer lab yet -- a parent technology committee is working on that.
Arts: see "Additional Programs" above; also partnership with Asian Art museum for visits, programming.
PE: part-time instructor + 3 PE interns
Recess/Lunch: AM and lunch recess, 20 mins. each. Play first, then eat. Kindergarteners have their own recess.
Tour Impressions:
First, Sunnyside gets the award for most comprehensive and informative brochure! If you're even remotely interested, snag one of these, for it tells you everything you'd ever want to know, including a kindergartener's daily schedule. I actually visited based on the strength of the brochure and friends' urging, because it's not exactly on my way to anywhere.
We began in the library, which was meticulously organized and featured a book fair by SF's own Barefoot Books, with proceeds benefiting the library. There were 4-5 parents there, all seemingly very informed and able to answer questions well or defer them to the later chat with the principal if they didn't know. Unfortunately, the classroom part of the tour was disappointing, as all the K students were on field trips, and as we merely meandered about the upper-grade hallways, not really entering classrooms for any length of time. However, this did give us substantial time in the empty K classrooms, which are huge, sunny, and architecturally interesting, with built-in shelving and alcoves to separate off some of the play space (note to the district: are those radiators peeling lead paint, or do you test for that?!). The classrooms were beautifully equipped with toys, math manipulatives, and so on, on a par with most private preschool classrooms I've seen -- and the tour guide said that parents had been amazingly responsive to classroom "wish lists." There were lots of pocket charts with not only lessons outlined in them, but also things like goals: for example, one labeled "Focus Wall" for reading detailed the theme, the goals for phomenic awareness and phonics, sight words, reading strategies, composition skills, vocabulary, and listening/speaking skills. It wasn't for the kindergarteners to read, of course, but was enormously informative for a parent like me.
We finished with a meeting with Principal Nancy Schlenke, where we learned why and how Sunnyside is so science-focused. Ms. Schlenke is a former lab researcher from UCSF (she left research and taught at Alvarado for 10 years, was a Teacher-in-Residence at the Exploratorum, and served as an SFUSD science resource teacher before coming to Sunnyside). She's brought in the FOSS program; science-focused field trips; Mission Science Workshops for Grade 1; SFSU science students doing hands-on experiments wiht grade 2; Science Content Specialists from WISE (Working to Improve Science) who observe teachers, then provide feedback and lesson planning help; and teacher science training at the California Science Teachers Convention. She has also hired almost all the staff at Sunnyside within the past 5 years, and was very honest about the pros and cons of a younger staff (the pros: test scores have shot up and the school is now over 800; the cons: they might get cocky and the learning curve is steep). I thought she was very impressive. This was an unusually articulate and informed parent group who asked great questions, and she answered them with aplomb (talking about standards as the "basement" for achievement, not the ceiling, describing the Balance Scorecard System, telling us about her concern that differentiated instruction led to busywork for students not being attended to). She has also brought in lots of help, using City College's "pre-teacher" program and SF State's student teachers to bring in a total of 12 other adults every semester.
Overall: Sunnyside is charming, with an impressive set of parents, lots of enrichment, and a serious intellectual in charge. The commute would be rough for us, and it's not an immersion school, but otherwise it looks great. Apparently once the sad-sack alternative to Miraloma, Sunnyside is now a real catch!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
SFGate story: "S.F. public schools are good"
Today, I wrote a rebuttal to an SFGate story by the real estate blogger that said San Francisco's public schools have a bad reputation. While not all of us opt for public school, I think most of us know that public schools are a viable option for many families in this city--and if anything the reputation of public schools in this city has improved over the years.
My SFGate post might seem to be a bit of a puff piece for SFUSD, but I decided to focus on the good aspects of public schools because so many people in our city are still living in the 80s and don't realize that parents are considering public schools. They're still stuck on all the negatives. While we're immersed in education issues in this city and know that most families considering schools these days are looking at public (in addition to other opttions), most people in this city don't have kids and aren't tuned into the school situation.
Also those of you who have been with the blog all along know that I tend to have a positive perspective on things.
Please comment on the SFGate story and not here--it's important for a larger community to be tuned into what's going on and to hear the arguments for and against public schools, as I know some won't agree with everything in my blog post. Thanks! Kate
My SFGate post might seem to be a bit of a puff piece for SFUSD, but I decided to focus on the good aspects of public schools because so many people in our city are still living in the 80s and don't realize that parents are considering public schools. They're still stuck on all the negatives. While we're immersed in education issues in this city and know that most families considering schools these days are looking at public (in addition to other opttions), most people in this city don't have kids and aren't tuned into the school situation.
Also those of you who have been with the blog all along know that I tend to have a positive perspective on things.
Please comment on the SFGate story and not here--it's important for a larger community to be tuned into what's going on and to hear the arguments for and against public schools, as I know some won't agree with everything in my blog post. Thanks! Kate
After nearly 40 years of declining enrollment, the San Francisco Unified School District saw a boost in kindergarten applications the past two years. For the 2008-09 school year, applications were up by 308; for the 2009-10, they were up by an additional (and whopping) 500 from the past year. Believe it or not: Parents are sending kids to public schools in this city.In fact, so many new kids are pouring into public schools that the district re-opened a formerly shuttered school: De Avila on Haight Street.
What's going on here? Aren't people with kids in this city moving to greener pastures in Marin?
Actually, parents in this city are increasingly interested in sending their kids to public schools--and they're touring and applying to schools that were previously considered unpopular.
Hot topic: De Avila Elementary
This from an SF K Files reader:
I am curious to see what the opinions are of the potential mom's and dad's about this school. I am a parent at the school and love it. What gives, no chatter about the newest public school?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Live Oak School
Live Oak School
Reviewed by Claire
The Facts
Web site: http://www.liveoaksf.org
School tours: by appointment – 861-8840x220 or admissions@liveoaksf.org
Location: 1555 Mariposa Street
Grades: K - 8
Total Enrollment: 254
Start time: 8:30
Kindergarten size: One class of 22 kids
Library: Small but bright with lots of art on the walls
Tuition: Grades K-5: $21,150; Grades 6-8: $21,600
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with: Small class sizes, relationships across grade levels, a strong academic foundation with a commitment to supporting different learning styles, teachers who know children across the grades and support them in developing self identity and advocacy, bus service throughout SF, and an involved parent body.
Playground: The have a small play-yard and a small gym with a climbing wall. 1st through 8th graders use Jackson park directly across the street.
After-school program: Extended Care until 6:00pm – contracted rate of $7.00 per hr or drop in at $9.00 per hr. They also offer ”Roots and Branches” a fee based program providing interest-specific classes after school.
Language: Spanish only - French is offered as part of the after school program.
Financial Aid: Tuition Assistance is awarded based on need (calculated through SSS). Families with moderate or high need are encouraged to apply. 25% of families receive aid ranging from 10 to 75%.
General Information:
The Tour:
We started in the Library – the Admissions Director welcomed us and then the Acting Head spoke for about 10 minutes to give an overarching view of Live Oaks philosophy. We were then split into small groups and parent guides took us around. I appreciated getting a context from the Head before going into the classes.
The guide took us to the Art Room – a big space, full of light and, this being just before Halloween, full of kids carving pumpkins. We then we down the exterior stair case and got a quick peek at the play/lunch space and the gym. Both the space and the gym (which has a climbing wall) are tiny. The guide explained that grades 1-8 go across the street to Jackson Park for recess and PE. We were shown the multipurpose-room which is used for meetings, assemblies, performances, etc.
Then we saw the kindergarten room. It was sweet – a little loft play area, a guinea pig, lots of colors and inviting things to do around the room. It looked cheery and organized. The teacher was sporting a giant “NO” on his forehead and the guide explained that today was “N” day – the kids had done a guided writing project making sentences with lots of words beginning with N. Kids were in small groups around the room working on different tasks. There was a parent volunteer at one table, the assistant teacher at another and the teacher was floating between two other groups. The room was busy and happy.
We peeked in at 1st grade during a transition time, the teacher explained that some kids were doing independent exploration. We were shown the individual reading boxes – the teacher helps each child choose 3 books for the box – 1 that is easy, 1 that is just right and 1 that will be a challenge to read independently.
We looked in on an empty 2nd grade class and the guide mentioned that homework starts in this grade. The room was equipped with a smart board.
We moved on to the middle floor and found looked at the 5th grade room. The 5th graders are the “leaders of the lower school” and have the privilege of the first overnight trip w/out parents (to the Marin Headlands.) Their room had a more academic feel – lots of writing, not as much art.
There are 2 learning specialists, they are divided between upper and lower school. Upper school utilizes the specialists less for individual attending and more as a way of assisting the teacher by taking small groups.
4th grade takes the first overnight trip to Ft. Ross. They participate in a historical recreation, going so far as to make costumes and being assigned roles.
3rd grader curriculum focuses on the theme of personal responsibility – the kids had done a graph of their personal strengths and weaknesses and were then encouraged to look at their classmates graph to identify peers who could help them improve or needed a hand.
We visited the music room and heard the 2nd graders singing. The lower school has music 2 times per week and they focus on vocals and percussion instruments. The Upper school has music 1 time per week and they focus on vocals and studying various genres.
We saw a middle school Science class and a middle school math class. The math class was working independently checking their answers – they teacher was asking them to look over their work and identify their “Ah ha” moment. On the wall were photos documenting an 8th grade project measuring the slope of the sidewalk outside the school.
We visited a 7th grade humanities class – the kids were listening attentively as a boy gave his opinion about the book they were all reading. I was interested in the sign on the wall which read “What does learning look like?” and radiated out with: Independent Reading; Writing; Group Projects; Journal; Class Discussion; Blog: Presentation; Drama. The guide explained that many upper school classes have a blog where students who might feel shy about speaking up in class can have a forum.
We visited a Spanish Class – Spanish is the only language offered during the school day. 4th graders take it 2x per week, 5th graders, 3x per wk and in middle school (6 to 8) kids take it 3 or 4 days depending on which section they are enrolled in. Spanish is the only class that is divided into separate classes for the advanced level.
The docent told us that the 8th graders take a trip to Washington DC and raise funds by selling pizza on Mondays. The school offers a hot lunch on Wednesday and there is an optional (and extra cost) bag lunch program available.
We returned to the Library and three 8th grade students came to answer questions. They were composed and very open when answering questions. I couldn’t help but consider my son standing up there in 9 years and it was pretty adorable.
The kids talked about what they liked best (the small classes and the interaction between kids and teachers) and what the didn’t (short lunch period -- it’s 40 minutes, with a 5 minute passing period on either side and the lack of French as a language option.)
Claire’s Impressions:
This was one of the best tours I’ve been on. The Head and guides did an excellent job describing what is important to the school philosophically. I especially liked what the head had to say about Live Oak’s emphasis on knowing the children well and intentionally giving them a safe environment in which to take risks and grow.
The children are grouped into K to 8 mixed age groups called “Groves” and they meet monthly to build social emotional relationships around various activities and community service efforts. Many of the rooms had posters about class expectations and behaviors that the students themselves wrote or contributed to. This felt like a school where the children really were encouraged to participate and feel ownership.
Hot topic: Clarendon
This from an SF K Files reader:
I don't see a review of Clarendon here, though lots of people mention it as great. I also can't find their website (they really don't have one??). So, I'm wondering: has anyone actually toured Clarendon? What are you impressions as a prospective school parent? Thanks!
Hot topic: Sheridan
This from an SF K Files reader:
I am wondering if anyone has children at Sheridan or has toured or has any information to offer at all...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Alvarado Elementary, Take 2
Reviewed by Marcia Brady.
You can find a lot of the vital stats about Alvarado on Kate's review of 2 years ago at http://thesfkfiles.blogspot.com/2007/10/alvarado-elementary-school.html, or click on the link to the right of the posts.
So I will plunge into the meaty part:
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
A time-tested immersion program, enrichment galore, a creative environment, progressive values, location in a quiet, safe neighborhood. It might not be ideal for a very shy child or one easily overwhelmed, as it's a large place with 480 students.
Class Structure / Curriculum: 2 classes each of GE and Spanish immersion; each class is 20 for a total of 40 slots. By 4th and 5th, there are only 3 classes, 1 mixed (since you can "check out" of an immersion program by moving away, but you can't "check in" midstream, there is some attrition), with a ratio of 1:27 for the main classroom. Because kids are pulled out for 8-week sessions of enrichment, they have exposure to several different teachers, which is good prep for middle school as well as a nice way for a child to have role models besides his/her classroom teacher. The GE and Spanish Immersion kids are mingled for these pull-outs, too.
Odds of Getting In: Beyond low, unless you are a native Spanish speaker or bilingual.
Campus/Playground: Big, old-style building (maybe 1910s or 20s?), well-worn, with wide halls, high ceilings, and lots of light in the classrooms. The halls are filled with kids' art as well as commissioned art: papier-mache bees hung from one hallway ceiling; another stairway has two-story stained-glass windows; yet another has a giant, beautiful mobile. Dedicated art room, music/science room, motor skills room, computer lab, library, cafeteria/auditorium. Upper and lower asphalt yards. Upper yard has huge new play structure complete with rock-climbing wall; lower yard has freshly painted game markers on the asphalt. Murals and gardening boxes abound. Parking situation is wretched, but after K you can drop off (you have to walk in to pick up).
After School programs: GLO (Growth and Learning Opportunities, more requests than slots), and Excel (by invitation only). Low-cost after-school clubs (chess, clay club, theater, yoga, etc.). Motor skills classes for K, 1, and 2.
Additional Programs: 8 week enrichment "pull-outs" for special project in art, hands-on science, music, dance, etc.
PTA: Apparently hugely involved -- raised $250K including grants last year.
Language program(s): Dual immersion Spanish
Library / Computer Lab: Library is smallish, but nicely equipped, with a part time librarian; library class is 1x/week. Computer lab has 30 Dell terminals and kids go 1x/ week.
Arts: The art room is fantastic, filled with professional-level equipment including 2 kilns. Art is 1x week for 8 weeks officially, for special projects. But the school is filled with evidence of art as an everyday pedagogical practice in the classrooms.
PE: 2x week. After school club sports available, including basketball for the little ones.
Recess/Lunch: 2 recess periods/day. Lunch for who knows how long?
Tour Impressions:
The tour seemed already well underway by the time I arrived at 8:15. Apparently it had started at 8:00 even though the website says 8:15. Oh, well. We began in the playground, then proceeded to a motor skills room equipped with mats, stepping-stones, and other gross-motor equipment for the K-2 kids' special classes. We proceeded to a 2nd-grade GE classroom, where kids were working on money exchanges with little dry-erase boards. Interestingly, this classroom had a chart listing all the neighborhoods they represented. 2 kids were from Daly City and 1 was from San Pablo. I'm sure it's all very legitimate, but my heart did sink when I thought about how few SF kids get into Alvarado.
Onward to a bright, sunny SI Kindergarten classroom, where both SI classes were working together. The kids were doing small-group work and wow-- there was an adult (a student teacher, parent, or paraprofessional) at every table, for a total of 6 adults for the 40 kids present. We got to spend more time in the empty SI Kindergarten classroom, which was large and well equipped with easels, a reading area, a block play area, and art everywhere, including flags of the world created by the kids. I was pleased to see posterboard "vote charts" where kids could vote for which storybook they wanted to hear again (and later, to hear that the principal had recently promised to drink a bottle of Tabasco sauce if 50% of each classroom read a particular number of books for the annual Read-A-Thon -- and then drank it!).
We also peeked into a 5th grade SI class, where kids were doing geography with a combination of textbooks, colored pencil drawings, and inscrutable toothpick structures (topography models, I think). The teacher asked them to tell us what they were doing in Spanish, which several did. We also saw the bright, sunny science/music room and I was happy to see a large diagram/explanation of the scientific method on the wall, because I have it on good authority that UC kids don't know what the scientific method is, let alone how to follow it.
You know my thing is behavior management, right? So Alvarado gives awards *by classroom* for homework completed, clean-up, etc. This emphasis on the collective effort charmed me. Alvarado is also a good fit for us, in that social justice issues are woven into the curriculum (for women's history month last year, every class performed a rock song written by a woman, from Janis Joplin to Diana Ross). I saw just a bit of Principal Broecker, but he is young, hip, and very straightforward.
Overall? There's nothing not to love about Alvarado except, for us, the commute and the low odds: it's artsy and progressive, academically solid, and filled with opportunities for kids to learn beyond the 3 Rs. Without having had Spanish in the home and/or an immersion preschool, though, the odds are very low for getting in. Silly me for not being able to afford that Spanish-speaking nanny so we could get an immersion preschool so.... blah blah blah. But you see what I mean. It was also interesting to see a trophy school in action, and the very real difference in enrichment opportunities and facilities that such a school can offer. Yet as I understand it, Alvarado was once in the untouchable caste of schools, for middle-class parents: a friend of mine got her kids in when it was about where Daniel Webster is now, i.e., under the care of a first generation of "take back the schools" parents. Which leads me to a burning question. The commute aside, is it better to shoot the moon for a trophy school at #1, with other more attainable choices below? Or if a more attainable but still oversubscribed school like Flynn or McKinley isn't your #1, are you doomed not to get those either? I am a bear of little brain when it comes to the lottery. And then there's the question of whether it's better to meet up with a school at the beginning of its ascent, or to get onto an already-built bandwagon (to mix a metaphor).
SFUSD Student Assisgnment System redesign town hall meetings
The San Francisco Board of Education is changing the way students are assigned to schools for 2011. Learn about the options under consideration and share your questions and ideas.
You can attend one of the meetings below or take the survey at the bottom of this post.
November 18 (Wednesday), 6pm to 8pm
Mission High School, 3750 18th Street (Castro/Mission)
December 2 (Wednesday), 6pm to 8pm
Washington High School, 600-32nd Avenue (Outer Richmond)
December 15 (Tuesday), 6pm to 8pm
Dianne Feinstein Elementary School, 2550 25th Avenue (Parkside)
January 7 (Thursday), 6pm to 8pm
Drew Elementary School, 350 Girard Street (Bayview)
January 14 (Thursday), 6pm to 8pm
Francisco Middle School, 2190 Powell Street (North Beach)
Can't make it to a meeting?
Complete an online survey:
http://www.sfusd.edu/studentassignmentredesign
You can attend one of the meetings below or take the survey at the bottom of this post.
November 18 (Wednesday), 6pm to 8pm
Mission High School, 3750 18th Street (Castro/Mission)
December 2 (Wednesday), 6pm to 8pm
Washington High School, 600-32nd Avenue (Outer Richmond)
December 15 (Tuesday), 6pm to 8pm
Dianne Feinstein Elementary School, 2550 25th Avenue (Parkside)
January 7 (Thursday), 6pm to 8pm
Drew Elementary School, 350 Girard Street (Bayview)
January 14 (Thursday), 6pm to 8pm
Francisco Middle School, 2190 Powell Street (North Beach)
Can't make it to a meeting?
Complete an online survey:
http://www.sfusd.edu/
Hot topic: SFUSD Immersion
Tonight PPS-SF hosted an event for parents interested in SFUSD's language immersion programs. Did anyone attend? What did you think? Do incoming kindergarten parents have any questions about immersion?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
San Francisco School
Reviewed by Kortney
Please note that my daughter attends The San Francisco School (SFS).
We made the difficult decision to abandon our public school
aspirations after our second disappointing year with the SFUSD
lottery, and managed, somehow, to get accepted into SFS for 1st
grade. I thought I’d share my impressions of our new school with the
SFK_Files community.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Community. Resources. Beauty. Warmth. Diversity. SFS is all that
-- mac laptops for middle school students, digital white boards,
organic home-cooked hot lunches, and impressive academics—all in a
friendly, down to earth culture. It’s the best of both worlds. An
apt mission: “Cultivating and celebrating the intellectual,
imaginative and humanitarian promise of each student in a community
that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires a
passion for learning.”
Consider SFS if you want a welcoming, spacious green, outdoor garden
and playground with a ‘summer camp’ feel, progressive values, a strong
academic program, a truly diverse student body and staff, and a world
class music program (Orff-Schulwerk method) that is fully integrated
into the academic program. Consider SFS if you want an incredibly
vibrant educational community that has a wealth of enrichment classes,
and strives to model what they hope for their students, as adults.
Consider SFS if you want a school that is preschool through 8th grade.
The Philosophy
SFS focuses on teaching its students how to learn, rather than simply
what to learn. The goal is to nurture a love of learning. In
addition, SFS dedicates fulltime staff and a room to its art program.
The art room is full of impressive supplies, but is also neatly
organized. The walls are decorated with vibrant masterpieces, but it
doesn’t stop there. All the school’s classrooms, hallways, library
and office display the children’s artwork. Creativity is nurtured
here.
From preschool on, there is an emphasis on learning through hands-on
projects (even in middle school geometry, students were using
manipulative); curriculum focused on thematic units/project-based
learning (for example kindergartners study apples for several weeks,
making apple pies, singing apple songs, reading apple stories); A
preschool program that is Montessori based goes through Kindergarten.
The elementary program (not Montessori) begins in 1st grade, and goes
through 5th grade. Middle School (6th-8th grades) split again into
two classes of 16 students. New, incoming students enrich the middle
school social life.
The Facts
Web site: www.sfschool.org
School tours: sign up online for a space. Elementary tours are
Mondays 9am, with preschool tours on Tuesday & Wednesday mornings.
Location: 300 Gaven Street near San Bruno Ave in the Portola neighborhood.
Grades: Preschool–8
Start time: Elementary 8:30 a.m. – 3pm. Middle School 8:15am, and
Preschool 9am.
Kindergarten size: Kindergarten is part of the Preschool. Each of the
two pre-school/K classes has 37 students with 4 teachers, their own
play yard (that’s two separate yards), and access to outdoor space
most of the day. The kids get to move and play, focus on projects, and
be kids! They also move out of kindergarten reading in most cases.
The two kinder classes join to become one 1st grade class, with 20-22
students, and 2 full-time teachers.
Total student body: 272
Tuition: $19,950
Financial aid: 35% of families receive some aid
Playground: two sizable, nicely landscaped play yards for preschool &
kindergarteners. One play yard for elementary and middle school kids,
along side a paved basketball court, picnic tables, and bunny hut.
There is a large “adventure playground” below, that can be accessed by
stairs or long slide. It offers space to explore, build forts, and
play. It is beautifully done, with a gazebo, organic garden, and duck
house. Golf and other extra curricular activities are practiced in
this space.
Before- and after-school program: 7:30am – 6pm. You buy “1.5 hour
blocks” of time for a little more than $10. Free playtime on the
yard, with plenty of supervision. You can also purchase affordable
classes (edible art, break-dancing, fencing, academic chess, golf,
violin, etc.)
Language: Spanish begins in preschool and continues through elementary
school. In middle school there are 3 classes, beginning, intermediate
and advanced. Students are placed depending on their Spanish level,
not by age, so classes are mixed.
Highlights: students have music and P.E. twice a week; art, music, and
drama is regularly integrated into the curriculum; large campus:
building - 22,560 sq. ft.
land - 1.3 Acres; incredible library; lots of field trips, including
overnight camping and a trip to Mexico for middle schoolers; an
organic kitchen provides daily snack with healthy home-cooked hot
lunches for preschool and elementary schools. The San Francisco School
is the most racially diverse independent school in the Bay Area.
Enrichment classes range from sports teams, to instrument classes
beginning in 1st grade, theatre and dance, hapkido, chess, cooking,
etc. SFS really shines here. New classes are offered all the time,
depending on interest. I love the after school program!
There is a school counselor on staff to offer families support. Also,
learning specialists work with teachers inside of the classroom to
support kids, without making a student “stand out.” The learning
specialists have their own resource room near the lovely library.
Kortney’s impressions
My first impression of SFS’ physical space was that it reminded me of
summer camp. The natural wood structures, the ever present green
(trees, gardens), and a sign post (hand painted by kids) that told me
which way to the office, or adventure playground, gave me an immediate
warm feeling.
We were greeted by friendly, down to earth staff who were open to
answering all our questions (on the tour.) Truly this school strives
for transparency. Perhaps because we applied after the admissions
deadline, we were able to track our chances of getting in here. Other
private schools shut us out after admissions. The SFS' honesty and
transparency was a relief!
SFS has the best of both worlds for our family. It has progressive
values, a diverse student body and staff (families of color, single
parent families, gay/lesbian parent families, economically diverse
families, etc.) right along side a strong academic program. In other
words, these kids get a high class education, without the stuffiness
of some private schools. Plus, The San Francisco School is the most
racially diverse independent school in the Bay Area, an impressive
stat.
Culture, community, and diversity are important words at SFS.
Environmentalism (compost bins are part of the recycling and trash
systems); being a good citizen (neighborhood volunteerism is
encouraged, and a walking bus gets families out of their cars on
Thursday mornings); encouraging independence, while advocating for
fellow students; and developing a strong sense of self are important
values. The graduating students get into the best High Schools, and
are often seen as very creative, grounded and organized learners.
Children learn through hands-on projects. In the classroom, I observed
fully engaged kids working collaboratively. The first grade room
splits the class in ½--one group getting the full attention of both
teachers for reading or math (for example) while the other group
attends a specialized Spanish, music, art or PE class. The
individualized attention is impressive. The classroom reads and
writes poetry, has student of the week, and conducts food experiments
in the classroom kitchen.
On the yard I observed children playing, swinging, and organizing
games with various balls and hoops. Amidst the typical joyful chaos
was true cooperation. I have yet to see a discipline issue.
As mentioned earlier, the music program is world class, bringing
visitors from around the globe to both observe and contribute. The
students perform concerts throughout the year and sometimes they play
at venues off campus.
If you’re interested in The San Francisco School, this is what they
are looking for:
They're looking for parents who want to get involved, become a part of
the close knit community, and give time to the school. SFS is looking
for families who fit with the philosophy of the school. They
encourage you to tour, and register your first impressions.
I will leave you with a quote from the SFS website:
Please note that my daughter attends The San Francisco School (SFS).
We made the difficult decision to abandon our public school
aspirations after our second disappointing year with the SFUSD
lottery, and managed, somehow, to get accepted into SFS for 1st
grade. I thought I’d share my impressions of our new school with the
SFK_Files community.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Community. Resources. Beauty. Warmth. Diversity. SFS is all that
-- mac laptops for middle school students, digital white boards,
organic home-cooked hot lunches, and impressive academics—all in a
friendly, down to earth culture. It’s the best of both worlds. An
apt mission: “Cultivating and celebrating the intellectual,
imaginative and humanitarian promise of each student in a community
that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires a
passion for learning.”
Consider SFS if you want a welcoming, spacious green, outdoor garden
and playground with a ‘summer camp’ feel, progressive values, a strong
academic program, a truly diverse student body and staff, and a world
class music program (Orff-Schulwerk method) that is fully integrated
into the academic program. Consider SFS if you want an incredibly
vibrant educational community that has a wealth of enrichment classes,
and strives to model what they hope for their students, as adults.
Consider SFS if you want a school that is preschool through 8th grade.
The Philosophy
SFS focuses on teaching its students how to learn, rather than simply
what to learn. The goal is to nurture a love of learning. In
addition, SFS dedicates fulltime staff and a room to its art program.
The art room is full of impressive supplies, but is also neatly
organized. The walls are decorated with vibrant masterpieces, but it
doesn’t stop there. All the school’s classrooms, hallways, library
and office display the children’s artwork. Creativity is nurtured
here.
From preschool on, there is an emphasis on learning through hands-on
projects (even in middle school geometry, students were using
manipulative); curriculum focused on thematic units/project-based
learning (for example kindergartners study apples for several weeks,
making apple pies, singing apple songs, reading apple stories); A
preschool program that is Montessori based goes through Kindergarten.
The elementary program (not Montessori) begins in 1st grade, and goes
through 5th grade. Middle School (6th-8th grades) split again into
two classes of 16 students. New, incoming students enrich the middle
school social life.
The Facts
Web site: www.sfschool.org
School tours: sign up online for a space. Elementary tours are
Mondays 9am, with preschool tours on Tuesday & Wednesday mornings.
Location: 300 Gaven Street near San Bruno Ave in the Portola neighborhood.
Grades: Preschool–8
Start time: Elementary 8:30 a.m. – 3pm. Middle School 8:15am, and
Preschool 9am.
Kindergarten size: Kindergarten is part of the Preschool. Each of the
two pre-school/K classes has 37 students with 4 teachers, their own
play yard (that’s two separate yards), and access to outdoor space
most of the day. The kids get to move and play, focus on projects, and
be kids! They also move out of kindergarten reading in most cases.
The two kinder classes join to become one 1st grade class, with 20-22
students, and 2 full-time teachers.
Total student body: 272
Tuition: $19,950
Financial aid: 35% of families receive some aid
Playground: two sizable, nicely landscaped play yards for preschool &
kindergarteners. One play yard for elementary and middle school kids,
along side a paved basketball court, picnic tables, and bunny hut.
There is a large “adventure playground” below, that can be accessed by
stairs or long slide. It offers space to explore, build forts, and
play. It is beautifully done, with a gazebo, organic garden, and duck
house. Golf and other extra curricular activities are practiced in
this space.
Before- and after-school program: 7:30am – 6pm. You buy “1.5 hour
blocks” of time for a little more than $10. Free playtime on the
yard, with plenty of supervision. You can also purchase affordable
classes (edible art, break-dancing, fencing, academic chess, golf,
violin, etc.)
Language: Spanish begins in preschool and continues through elementary
school. In middle school there are 3 classes, beginning, intermediate
and advanced. Students are placed depending on their Spanish level,
not by age, so classes are mixed.
Highlights: students have music and P.E. twice a week; art, music, and
drama is regularly integrated into the curriculum; large campus:
building - 22,560 sq. ft.
land - 1.3 Acres; incredible library; lots of field trips, including
overnight camping and a trip to Mexico for middle schoolers; an
organic kitchen provides daily snack with healthy home-cooked hot
lunches for preschool and elementary schools. The San Francisco School
is the most racially diverse independent school in the Bay Area.
Enrichment classes range from sports teams, to instrument classes
beginning in 1st grade, theatre and dance, hapkido, chess, cooking,
etc. SFS really shines here. New classes are offered all the time,
depending on interest. I love the after school program!
There is a school counselor on staff to offer families support. Also,
learning specialists work with teachers inside of the classroom to
support kids, without making a student “stand out.” The learning
specialists have their own resource room near the lovely library.
Kortney’s impressions
My first impression of SFS’ physical space was that it reminded me of
summer camp. The natural wood structures, the ever present green
(trees, gardens), and a sign post (hand painted by kids) that told me
which way to the office, or adventure playground, gave me an immediate
warm feeling.
We were greeted by friendly, down to earth staff who were open to
answering all our questions (on the tour.) Truly this school strives
for transparency. Perhaps because we applied after the admissions
deadline, we were able to track our chances of getting in here. Other
private schools shut us out after admissions. The SFS' honesty and
transparency was a relief!
SFS has the best of both worlds for our family. It has progressive
values, a diverse student body and staff (families of color, single
parent families, gay/lesbian parent families, economically diverse
families, etc.) right along side a strong academic program. In other
words, these kids get a high class education, without the stuffiness
of some private schools. Plus, The San Francisco School is the most
racially diverse independent school in the Bay Area, an impressive
stat.
Culture, community, and diversity are important words at SFS.
Environmentalism (compost bins are part of the recycling and trash
systems); being a good citizen (neighborhood volunteerism is
encouraged, and a walking bus gets families out of their cars on
Thursday mornings); encouraging independence, while advocating for
fellow students; and developing a strong sense of self are important
values. The graduating students get into the best High Schools, and
are often seen as very creative, grounded and organized learners.
Children learn through hands-on projects. In the classroom, I observed
fully engaged kids working collaboratively. The first grade room
splits the class in ½--one group getting the full attention of both
teachers for reading or math (for example) while the other group
attends a specialized Spanish, music, art or PE class. The
individualized attention is impressive. The classroom reads and
writes poetry, has student of the week, and conducts food experiments
in the classroom kitchen.
On the yard I observed children playing, swinging, and organizing
games with various balls and hoops. Amidst the typical joyful chaos
was true cooperation. I have yet to see a discipline issue.
As mentioned earlier, the music program is world class, bringing
visitors from around the globe to both observe and contribute. The
students perform concerts throughout the year and sometimes they play
at venues off campus.
If you’re interested in The San Francisco School, this is what they
are looking for:
They're looking for parents who want to get involved, become a part of
the close knit community, and give time to the school. SFS is looking
for families who fit with the philosophy of the school. They
encourage you to tour, and register your first impressions.
I will leave you with a quote from the SFS website:
The San Francisco School is committed to ethnic and cultural
diversity, with 55% students of color and an inclusive ethos. Family
economic diversity, also an important goal, is achieved through a
moderate tuition, the school’s location in a modest neighborhood, and
a strong indexed tuition program which supports 35% of students on
reduced tuition. Through all of this, the entire SFS community is
committed to creating a school where students and families can live
and learn with confidence and joy.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Marcia Brady's Half-Time Roundup
While there is a lull in postings here:
Well, I am halfway through my tour schedule! It has been both exhausting and illuminating. I may as well come out now as someone whose initial relationship to all of this was deep anxiety and skepticism. I'm lucky to be highly educated by a series of private institutions, and I have upper-middle-class yearnings on a middle-class income. I could have been a happy millionaire Marxist, or at least a limousine liberal. So I was pretty sure I'd go into the schools and confirm my sense that no way was this going to work, and then go quietly bonkers because I can't afford private, leave the city, or homeschool (and I didn't plan to blog about any of this in the beginning).
After 7 schools, I'm in awe of the parents with (and without) other choices who first gave SF public schools a chance, and of what they have done so far. I'm moved by the communities that have formed around particular schools, especially in cases where a neighborhood has rallied around its own school, whether or not the lottery was going to yield every involved parent that particular school. I'm amazed at teachers who do so much with so little. Like anyone, I fret about public school and the budget cuts, the space and facility issues, the possible emphasis on behavior management, the worksheets. I also worry about having to commute a long way and work full-time, so that I can't lead any PTA charge to change a school. And no one school has struck me as absolutely perfect no matter what.
But here is the thing. I have seen schools that are both academically viable and socially vibrant, where I can actually imagine my kid. That's the test for me: I close my eyes and imagine my daughter's round, hard little head among the little heads in every classroom, and I see if that image makes me happy. I honestly thought that imagining her in public school would make me want to cry. And instead, I can imagine her in several of the schools I have toured with a feeling of excitement. We will look at public, charter, and independent schools, and I really can't predict what we will choose until there is a concrete set of possibilities in front of us. But I'm here to say that the parents, teachers, and administrators who have given their hearts and wisdom to the public schools have made possibilities for the rest of us--for which I am very grateful.
Now, onward to Part II.
Well, I am halfway through my tour schedule! It has been both exhausting and illuminating. I may as well come out now as someone whose initial relationship to all of this was deep anxiety and skepticism. I'm lucky to be highly educated by a series of private institutions, and I have upper-middle-class yearnings on a middle-class income. I could have been a happy millionaire Marxist, or at least a limousine liberal. So I was pretty sure I'd go into the schools and confirm my sense that no way was this going to work, and then go quietly bonkers because I can't afford private, leave the city, or homeschool (and I didn't plan to blog about any of this in the beginning).
After 7 schools, I'm in awe of the parents with (and without) other choices who first gave SF public schools a chance, and of what they have done so far. I'm moved by the communities that have formed around particular schools, especially in cases where a neighborhood has rallied around its own school, whether or not the lottery was going to yield every involved parent that particular school. I'm amazed at teachers who do so much with so little. Like anyone, I fret about public school and the budget cuts, the space and facility issues, the possible emphasis on behavior management, the worksheets. I also worry about having to commute a long way and work full-time, so that I can't lead any PTA charge to change a school. And no one school has struck me as absolutely perfect no matter what.
But here is the thing. I have seen schools that are both academically viable and socially vibrant, where I can actually imagine my kid. That's the test for me: I close my eyes and imagine my daughter's round, hard little head among the little heads in every classroom, and I see if that image makes me happy. I honestly thought that imagining her in public school would make me want to cry. And instead, I can imagine her in several of the schools I have toured with a feeling of excitement. We will look at public, charter, and independent schools, and I really can't predict what we will choose until there is a concrete set of possibilities in front of us. But I'm here to say that the parents, teachers, and administrators who have given their hearts and wisdom to the public schools have made possibilities for the rest of us--for which I am very grateful.
Now, onward to Part II.
Monday, November 9, 2009
How many kindergarten openings at your school?
Do you know how many openings there are at your school for incoming kindergartners? Click Here to take survey
An SF K Files reader was smart to suggest we start a thread where parents can share how many open kindergarten spots are at their schools--i.e., how many non-sibling spots are available? The reader was kind enough to create a survey on Survey Monkey where parents can enter in the number of spots.
The reader wrote in:
Click Here to take survey
Click here to find the survey results
An SF K Files reader was smart to suggest we start a thread where parents can share how many open kindergarten spots are at their schools--i.e., how many non-sibling spots are available? The reader was kind enough to create a survey on Survey Monkey where parents can enter in the number of spots.
The reader wrote in:
One of the big problems with the school search (both public and private) is the limited availability of information. Your site is the closest thing to a clearinghouse I've seen; PPS-SF and SFUSD are fair, but not great, for public school, and of course there is no central point of contact for private/independent/parochial/other. The suggestion I have is a specific one: would it be feasible to ask readers to submit whatever information they've garnered about the number of K spots actually available at each school? Sometimes this information is provided in a school tour; other times, no one has the nerve to ask the question, or perhaps the tour is scheduled so early in the process that the sibling numbers aren't in yet. It could save people a lot of time and energy to surface this information relatively early. E.g., last year, I heard that there were something like 3 K spots at Live Oaks; the earlier that fact gets out, the better chance it provides for people to truly evaluate whether it's worth their time to tour a school with such low availability. Similarly, at the SF School open house last week, supposedly the number of K spots was 2. (Total.)
The public schools all seem to have no idea how many siblings might be entering, but perhaps this information is guesstimatable by current parents at those schools/involved in those PTAs? Given the high preference that SFUSD accords for sibling assignment, it seems crazy that they have sibling applications due at the same time and part of the general process as the regular application pool; if people knew in December that, for example, there were only 2 spots left in a given K class, then a lot fewer people would be angry/disappointed about not getting into that school. (Basic PR, right? But PR/managing feelings of the parent community is not something SFUSD has budget or time for.)
Click Here to take survey
Click here to find the survey results
Hot topic: High school
An SF K Files visitor asked me to start a thread on high school:
I know it irks some of the kindergarten crowd, but would you consider posting a discussion of the search for a high school as a topic of discussion? That way, only those really interested in the high school discussion will read/post and those looking for elementary schools need not bother (unless of coarse they realize it really is just around the corner - time flies!)
I know it irks some of the kindergarten crowd, but would you consider posting a discussion of the search for a high school as a topic of discussion? That way, only those really interested in the high school discussion will read/post and those looking for elementary schools need not bother (unless of coarse they realize it really is just around the corner - time flies!)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Enrollment Fair: Share your impressions
An SF K Files reader asked me to post the following:
I just got back from the Enrollment Fair and would love to hear about everyone's experiences. Can you start a topic? I think it would be helpful to the EPC staff and schools to get constructive feedback while it is fresh in people's minds.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Hot topic: Private all-girls schools
An SF K Files reader asked me to post the following:
The discussion about boys' schools was fascinating! Can we talk about girls' schools now? Hamlin, Burke's, are there any other non-religious ones?
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Paul Revere College Preparatory School
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
Location: 555 Tompkins St. (Bernal Heights)
School hours: 8:00-3:00
Tel: 695-5656 Main, 695-5974 Annex
Principal: Lance Tagomori
Web site: http://www.paulreveresf.org/
School tours: Weds. 9-10 AM
Grades: Pre-K-8
Kindergarten size: 60 (3 classes of 20 each, 2 SI and 2 GE)
Total student body: 450 [as corrected by a poster; I think I had the # for the Annex]
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Safety from budget cuts, a powerhouse principal, lots of financial resources
Class Structure / Curriculum: The two-way Spanish bilingual immersion program is replacing the current Spanish bilingual program 1 year at a time, and began with the K class of 2005, so now it is K-4. Right now, there is also a Spanish bilingual program for Spanish speakers from 3rd grade on up. There is also a K-8 GE program, and a new Spanish immersion Pre-K. The school’s two buildings separate the older (4th-8th grade) and younger (Pre-K-3rd grade) kids. The younger kids have no contact with the older kids except through a “buddy classoom system,” though they eat lunch in the main building’s cafeteria.
Math is “Everyday Math,” which I found thrilling, given all I’ve read on how pencil-and-paper, procedural math kills off math learning. Science is FOSS, a system that delivers “labs in a box” at varying grade levels.
Campus/Playground: Clean, bright, spacious early 20th c. main building (for grades 4-8) and similarly impressive Annex building (grades Pre-K-3). The hallway boards were meticulously organized to showcase student art, writing projects, curricular innovation, etc. Though each building has its own yard, we only saw the Annex yard, one upper and one lower asphalt lot, with one small-ish play structure. The principal said that next on his docket was getting a new play structure.
After School programs: After school program runs 3-5:15
Additional Programs: Enrichment is grant-funded here, and thus secure from the vagaries of state funding and PTA fluctuations. Grants secure an extra paraprofessional in each classroom [a commenter says these are focused on the lower grades]. 20 kids per class K-5 and 18 per class 6-8, at leas through 2015. Games coach, science partnerships with Mission Science Center and UCSF.
PTA: Not much funds raised, I gathered [a commenter says their goal is $50K this year], but the president was articulate and seemed very dedicated. The PTA raises a few thousand for books for the library every year, which the principal matches. Meanwhile, the grants-getting and partnering-with-industry system that the principal is committed to ensures that the lower-income parents have as much say as those with more time and resources. I found this interesting, as I’ve worried a bit about the privatization-effect of depending on middle-class PTAs to fill in gaps left by state cuts.
Language program(s): Two-way bilingual Spanish immersion replacing Spanish bilingual program.
Library / Computer Lab: Oh. My. God. I see why they save it for the very last part of the tour. In the main building, the biggest, most beautiful library ever: 12,000 volumes, all catalogued online, in a space bigger than my local branch library. Library includes rotating artifact collection, displays of ethnic cultural items, other themed displays, charming bulletin board and wall art, etc. Grants have funded comfortable furniture and ambient lighting (the principal cited studies that said too much fluorescent light overstimulates kids). Accelerated readers can get help searching the catalogue using a “high-lexile reading index” for books appropriate to their level. There are 20 brand-new Mac computer terminals in the main library, 10 more in a small room in the annex, plus 20 mobile laptop stations with wireless and printers that go from classroom to classroom. Full-time librarian and half-time IT person. Kids have library 1x/week, plus time if they finish classroom work early. They can check out 2 books/week (1 fiction, 1 non-); I wish it were more but it’s my only complaint!
Arts: Looks like the standard district-wide offering. I did see a nice lesson on symmetry in English in an SI classroom.
PE: 2x/week, games coach on site 3x/week
Recess/Lunch: 2x/day recess, 20-min. lunch. Principal is about to experiment with having recess before lunch to get kids hungrier and help them settle down to eat rather than racing off to play, which seems an obvious move that no other school I’ve seen has made. Grants and parent volunteers supply healthy snacks.
Tour Impressions: This is the only tour I have been on that met in a dedicated meeting room, which made for a nice, quiet, thoughtful beginning. We were joined by the Principal, the PTA president, and 2 parents, for a brief intro and Q and A. Principal Tagomori asked each of us our name, our child’s name, and the name of the preschool our child was currently in, if any. He briefed us on the history of the school, which 5 years ago was in such poor shape that it became a STAR school, essentially recreated from the ground up (with only 2 staff remaining from the previous incarnation). The principal’s respect for his teachers shows, though; he even calls subs “guest teachers.” He described the space challenges that had come with both growth and the commitment to keep class sizes small (get ready for 2 new bungalow classrooms), and when a parent accosted him rather unpleasantly about PR’s test scores, patiently explained that they were building the school up from the lower grades, so they were skewed low by the upper grades as well as by the fact that immersion kids aren’t tested in the immersion language.
We then got to more or less wander into K-5 classrooms in small groups. The classrooms were remarkably spacious, sunny, and well equipped. Most of them had desks organized into small-group workstations, with kids attended to by the paraprofessional and teacher in rotation. The walls showed evidence of lots and lots of work on writing – second-graders’ similes, third-graders’ lessons on how to write a formal letter. It was tougher here to get a sense of the classroom dynamics because parents weren’t told not to talk, so they did – overall, I got a sense of alert, dynamic teachers and well-behaved though not entirely stifled children. PR has uniforms, which is fine by me!
Overall? Very, very impressive. Along with Eve Cheung at Junipero Serra, Lance Tagomori is the best principal I’ve seen thus far (keeping in mind that I didn’t meet principals at several schools, so no diss on them). I wonder if these two incredible principals at Bernal Heights have ever considered teaming up and creating a neighborhood of powerhouse schools, as neither has the high-rolling PTA thing going. In any case, Paul Revere seems meticulously well organized, resource-rich due to Principal Tagomori’s dedication to securing funds that can’t be violated by Arnold and/or by PTA problems, and very deserving of its STAR “dream school” status [later correction: as per a comment below, STAR/Dream School are technical designations for low-performing schools that have been targeted for particular funds and enhancements -- I should have invoked the hackneyed phrase "hidden gem" here instead!]. I’d be very surprised if it didn’t end up on my list!
Hot topic: Private schools for boys
An SFGate reader asked me to start the following thread. Please try to keep the focus on private schools for boys.
Not to stir the pot of private/public, but since it is that time of year, I would really love to see a 2009/2010 thread started for the independent schools for boys. My sense is that parents who choose all-girls schools often do so for pedagogical reasons surrounding same-sex education, while the all-boys schools in San Francisco tend to attract parents for very different reasons (they like the traditional/formal nature of the instruction). Not sure how to frame that in the context of a thread, but I would really love to hear from some other folks as to the self-selection of different types of families into the various all-boys schools…
I’m interested in learning more about the “personality” differences (both kids and parents) among those that choose same-gender education versus co-ed. I’ve been struck by the differences between Town, Stuart Hall, and Cathedral (versus one another, and the co-ed independents, as well as in the parents) but would love to hear from others!
LGBT Welcoming and Inclusive School forum
The upcoming LGBT Welcoming and Inclusive School forum will take place at Rosa Parks Elementary School at 1501 O'Farrell St. on sat , Nov 14 from 11:30-3:30 There will also be a school fair featuring public and independent SF schools. Lunch and childcare are included (suggested $5 donation). Please register at www.ourfamily.org or call Julia at 981-1960.
This would be a great place for families interested in family diversity in SF schools, people wanting a more low key experience than the huge school fair taking place on nov. 7, or those interested in learning more about Rosa Parks itself. It is a beautiful and diverse school located within walking distance of japantown. There is also a work day that day to prepare our courtyard for our greening project - there will be families of students currently enrolled who, I'm sure, would be happy to talk to you!
This would be a great place for families interested in family diversity in SF schools, people wanting a more low key experience than the huge school fair taking place on nov. 7, or those interested in learning more about Rosa Parks itself. It is a beautiful and diverse school located within walking distance of japantown. There is also a work day that day to prepare our courtyard for our greening project - there will be families of students currently enrolled who, I'm sure, would be happy to talk to you!
SFUSD Enrollment Fair tips
SFUSD Enrollment Fair
Saturday, November 7, 2009
9am to 2:30pm
San Francisco Concourse East Hall; 620 7th Street @ Brannan
Free Shuttle bus service is available thanks to First 5 San Francisco:
Burnett CDC (1520 Oakdale Ave): Pick up 8am,8:30am,9:30am
Cesar Chaves ES (826 Shotwell St.): Pick up 8:20am, 8:50am, 9:50am
Gordon J. Lau ES (950 Clay St.): Pick up 8:45am, 9:15am, 10:15am
Concourse pickups & returns: 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2pm
For Attendees
Saturday, November 7, 2009
9am to 2:30pm
San Francisco Concourse East Hall; 620 7th Street @ Brannan
Free Shuttle bus service is available thanks to First 5 San Francisco:
Burnett CDC (1520 Oakdale Ave): Pick up 8am,8:30am,9:30am
Cesar Chaves ES (826 Shotwell St.): Pick up 8:20am, 8:50am, 9:50am
Gordon J. Lau ES (950 Clay St.): Pick up 8:45am, 9:15am, 10:15am
Concourse pickups & returns: 12:30pm, 1:30pm, 2pm
For Attendees
1. Plan to spend up to 2 hours at the Fair. (After 2 hours your brain turns to mush and you won't be able to remember any more!)
2. Use public transportation or shuttle buses (see schedule). Parking is limited and the nearby lots and garages are expensive.
3. Bring a tote bag to put all of the flyers and papers you'll pick up, including the Enrollment Guide and application.
4. Bring your calendar to schedule tours.
5. The Enrollment Fair can be noisy and crowded. Small children may feel overstimulated by the crowds. If you can arrange childcare, it would free you up to focus on your school search.
6. Childcare options:
- Free Childcare is available at the Fair for ages 3-7. Register via email at devlinn@sfusd.edu.
- Arrange for a playdate and trade with a friend - take turns going to the Fair.
7. Bring water - you'll be talking with a lot of different people.
8. Visit the PPS-SF table! We'll have Parent Ambassadors and staff that can give you even more tips on finding a school that works for you.
9. Attend a workshop at the Fair to get more information. Workshop schedules will be distributed at the fair.
10. Go to the PPS table to pick up a Getting Ready for Kindergarten Guide for info on Kindergarten Readiness, Enrollment Tips and information, and Resources.
Marin Preparatory School Open House on Wednesday, November 18, 2009
On behalf of the Marin Preparatory School Parent Group, please join us for an Open House (Adult Only) on Wednesday evening, November 18, 2009 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. We are located at 117 Diamond St. (near 18th St.) and light refreshments and food will be served. This will be a great opportunity to see the school, mingle with parents of enrolled students and talk with the faculty. Please RSVP to Head of School Ed Walters at (415) 865-0899. We look forward to meeting you!
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Hot topic: twins
An SF K Files reader asked me to post the following:
I know there was a thread on this maybe two years ago but I can't find it. In any case, I'm wondering if you'd mind posting to your readers a question about twins and public school. I'm hoping to hear from people who have gone through the lottery in the last year or so and I'd like to know what the outcome was for Round 1. I know that some twins both get in to the same school but others get one kid in and the other wait listed. Thanks.
Clarification about Fairmount Elementary tours
I somehow didn't get the memo in time, but Fairmount is doing some of its 8:30-10:15 Tuesday tours entirely in Spanish: Nov. 3 and 17, and Dec. 1 and 15. The others are in English. No appointment necessary for either the Spanish or English tours, which end Tues., Jan 5. No tours on Dec. 22 or 29.
Since there were 4 or 5 of us English-speaking parents who hadn't gotten the message either, I thought I'd post this info and ask people to check their calendars and/or spread the word. And if you know Spanish-speaking families, please encourage them to attend the Spanish tours.
I'll return to Fairmount another day and post a review when I can.
Suggestions and preferences regarding parochial schools
Several parents have written in asking for a thread that focuses on parochial schools. Here you go!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Paging Buena Vista parents
By Marcia Brady
Kate wrote a very thorough review of this school two years ago for her search. You can find it here at: http://thesfkfiles.blogspot.com/2007/10/buena-vista-alternative-elementary.html, or by clicking the name under "Schools Reviewed." You'll find the basic facts about the school there too.
The thing is, I visited too, and I think it was a not-so-good tour day. We didn't see any classrooms because the teachers were out on professional development (which I take to be good), and our tour guide was honest to a fault about the flaws. I appreciated that, but it also potentially underplayed the school's strengths. I liked *many* of the things that impressed Kate, so please see her review. Buena Vista continues, to my eye, to be a school with a first-rate Spanish immersion program, a creative and progressive feel, and a dedicated and well-organized parent community. There's a strong LGBT parent presence there, which is good for us, and the emphasis on the arts fits our family's strengths and interests. As I understand it, it's one of my area's "trophy schools."
But I also had a few concerns, and rather than assuming that my impression of the place was the sum total, I thought I would ask parents what they thought. I know it's a well-loved place and probably deservedly so. So:
1) Space. Does Buena Vista feel overcrowded to you?
2) Recess seemed loosely supervised, compared to many places with Playworks, game coaches, etc.: has this been a problem? Or is the school cohesive enough that bullying and kids getting isolated aren't issues?
3) How are those 10-minute lunch shifts working out for your kids? Do they care, or would they rather go play anyway?
4) The price of that lovely nearby park, fenced grass/garden area, and spiffy playground is an almost deafening amount of noise from the 101, 280, and Cesar Chavez. Do you worry about noise or air pollution, or are the room to run around on grass and the expanded gross motor opportunities in the park worth it?
I'm feeling hesitant because it seems that any hint of concern isn't well-taken on this board, and I know parents, staff, and administrators have poured their hearts and resources into these schools. At the same time, it feels disingenuous to post only positives and no negatives. I hope that putting my concerns in the form of questions will allow Buena Vista parents and staff to respond constructively.
McKinley Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
Location: 1025 14th St. (at Castro)
School hours: 7:50-1:50
Tel: 241-6300
Principal: Rosa Fong
Web site: www.mckinleyschool.org
School tours: W and F, 8:15
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 67 (1 class each of 22, with 1 extra this year)
Total student body: 275
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
A warm and intimate feel, racial and class diversity, and a great PTA committed to funding lots of enrichment.
Class Structure / Curriculum: GE with Spanish classes K-5 (note: not an immersion school), Special Ed. All students K-5 write daily, and each child’s writing is put on the wall on a clipboard, so they can riffle back and see how they have progressed.
Additional Programs: Adventures in Music, Harvest of the Month (native plant gardening and eating fruits and veggies), music and theater program, Environmental Science Education program at Marin Headlands (field trips for the kids, including overnights, prof’l development for the teachers). Each classroom has a planter box for gardening projects.
Campus/Playground: Modern building, exterior a bit shabby. Interior has a ski-lodge feel to it, with rough wood panels on the wall and brand-new dark red linoleum on the floors. The classrooms are arranged in a hub-and-spoke formation around a central library – the library has no walls, and is large, beautiful, and well stocked. The effect is that the library seems the center from which knowledge beams out into the classrooms. I would like to have seen more natural light coming into the interior (the windows are rice papered), but the school did feel very warm and cosy. Artwork on the walls included a ceramic mural of Victorian houses in SF, with each house done by a child. There is one bungalow for a second-grade classroom; principal says they are hoping to move that class into the main building and use bungalow for other purposes. Safely enclosed upper and lower playground protected by the hill McKinley’s on top of. Upper playground has new, beautiful Kaboom! play structure. Lower playground has one big dome-shaped jungle gym. Parents have been “greening” the facility with terraced gardens, plants, etc.
After School programs: After School Enrichment Program (ASEP), 1:50-6:00 PM for $250/month. Scholarships available, space not guaranteed but they have accommodated all this year’s K students.
PTA: Has grown from 15 to 200 strong. McKinley has just phased out of Title 1, so the PTA has taken over the funding lost. They raised $110,000 last year including playground, goal this year is $100K. PTA is split into committees for grant-writing, “passive” fundraising (e-scrip, etc.), special events, and annual outreach. Right now their priority is to maintain the enrichment programs that will be cut in all SFUSD schools next year (science, art, library, etc.)
Language program(s): Spanish language and Latino culture enrichment classes, coordinated with the rest of the curriculum.
Library / Computer Lab: See above for library. Lots of computer terminals – couldn’t get close enough to count, but I’d say at least 25. Kids have library with a librarian 1x/week, computer class 1x/week beginning in 3rd grade. Teachers and parents can come to library anytime with kids to check ou book.
Arts: Artist-in-residence program
PE: 2x/week, coach on site MWF, emphasis on teaching teachers new skills and games to do with their kids.
Recess/Lunch: 20-minute AM recess, 30-40 minute lunch/recess in PM.
Parking: New street drop-off program to replace use of a playground for drop-off. Parents and 5th graders escort dropped off kids to school. Neighborhood parking is tough.
Tour Impressions: We met in the “Cafegymnatorium,” a large multipurpose room, where we were serenaded by a parent trio of piano, clarinet, and violin playing “All of Me” and other songs. This is apparently a parent-run extra for every Weds. morning, not just to impress those of us on tour! But it gave a welcoming and festive feel to the tour. Principal Fong ran the tour, and showed us almost every classroom from K-5, so we could get a feel for the whole school.
We began with the K rooms, which were large, with individual desks clustered in work stations. (“Who are these people?” asked one child. “They’re crowding us!”). Both K rooms had a kitchen play area, Legos and other manipulatives, and a wooden dollhouse among other toys. Each K teacher spoke for a bit, which is unusual for a tour – one talked about using the writing time to allow kids to socialize a bit and to pull kids to work on special skills. In another K room the kids were doing worksheets, tracing letters and coloring art. In a third one, the principal asked the kids to tell us what they are learning (“Halloweens stuff!” “Family!” “How to Write”). Interestingly, the SFUSD kindergarten Content Standards were posted on huge poster board outside of each classroom. In the 2nd grade classroom, a teacher had cut a paragraph into sentences and mixed them up, asking students to put the paragraph back together by finding the topic sentences, transitional sentences, etc. Also, for whatever it is worth, these were the most racially diverse classrooms I have seen on a tour: about 1/3 Latino, 1/3 white, and the other third split between African American and Asian. The upper grades looked a bit less mixed, with more Latino and African American kids. Since I know some people are concerned about their kid being in a small minority, I include this info. at the risk of sounding like it's my pet issue, which it isn't. I'm more concerned about alternative family structures, which are well represented there.
Among the many things we heard about was discipline – here they use red, yellow, and green cards (blue for excellence). The teacher moves the cards out from behind each other, so a new color peeking out indicates where behavior is headed. While I am not a fan of “evaluative” discipline, I found the principal’s explanation thought-provoking: she said that this was actually less shaming than reprimanding a student in front of others, as students were keenly attentive to their own cards but tended not to notice those of others. So I guess I am learning a bit about classroom management!
There is a strong LGBTQ parent community at McKinley, not surprising given the location in the Castro, and they meet regularly and do their own outreach. We also heard about staff retention – 100%, and about student teachers who begged to stay on. This principal offered something others have not: her e-mail address for questions (principal@mckinleyschool.org, answermaven@mickinleyschool.org).
Overall: I found McKinley to be a vibrant, cohesive school with a principal who clearly has vision, and a very committed PTA. Obviously, it’s not the school for you if you are dead set on immersion, but it looks like a great GE option for those who are OK with just Spanish enrichment. McKinley appears to be very much up-and-coming, and both the parents and principal were extremely welcoming and generous.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Town School for Boys
Reviewed by Claire
The Facts
Web site: www.townschool.com
School tours: by appointment – 415-921-3747
Location: 2750 Jackson Street
Grades: K-8
Total Enrollment: Approx. 400
Start time: 8:30 a.m.
Kindergarten size: 2 classes of 24 boys
Library: Huge and lovely with over 24,000 volumes
Tuition: Grades K-5: $23,710.00 (plus laptop fee for grade 5); Grades 6-8: $24,650.00
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with: a challenging and rigorous education supplemented by a focus on fine arts, a single-sex environment, a community which emphasizes and communicates the values of responsibility and respect, a high teacher to student ratio(1:11)
Playground: Another land-locked city school but they’ve done a lot with what they have. The play space and play structure are on the roof and they have a nice indoor gym.
After-school program: Extended Day until 6:00pm also offer an “Enrichment Activities Program” providing interest-specific classes after school.
Language: Latin and Spanish
Financial Aid: Tuition Assistance is awarded based on need (calculated through SSS and adjusted for SF cost of living.) Tuition Assistance and Admission are considered separately.
General Information:
The Tour:
We began in the Head’s office. I was late and so stood outside the room and had a hard time hearing what was happening. My bad. A parent docent led the tour and several other parents were along to answer questions and shepherd us along. We visited both Kindergarten classes. The teachers wear an amplification microphone that projects their voice around the room. It was explained that these were tools to help auditory learners. The boys in Room A were sitting in a circle and taking turns saying good morning. The boys were focused and delighted as they practiced politely saying hello to their neighbor and then turning so the next boy could have his chance. Room B was transitioning from one task to the next and the boys were having a bumpy time getting from place to place. The teacher was patient and clearly not rattled by a lot of energy in the room.
We saw an empty first grade classroom. The class was spacious, bright and cheerful with lots of art and children’s work up on the walls. I noticed there were many posters here (and around the entire school) emphasizing being a good citizen, being respectful, etc.
They use the Chicago Math system and talked about the concept of “Spiral Learning” which aims to strengthen students' understanding of basic concepts by revisiting the concepts periodically with different contexts and with increasing sophistication throughout the curriculum.
We briefly met the Coach in a spacious indoor gym. The docent showed us the outside play area – there are upper and lower Astroturfed “fields” on the rooftop. It’s a great solution for a city building. There is a play structure for the younger boys. The sports program has an emphasis on character building and every boy who wants to play on a team has the opportunity. The Coach’s motto is “A team for every boy. A league for every team.” There is daily PE along with two recesses.
We visited the large, bright, lovely art studio. The artwork the boys produce is all over the school and clearly a well-deserved source of pride.
All upper school boys have their own personal laptop (a cost in addition to tuition.) Upper school has a focus on media literacy and character education. We visited an upper school science class and peeked in a few other classrooms. Again there was a lot of wonderful student art on the walls along with examples of work. The docent pointed out a math activity using sports statistics and talked about how great the teachers were at engaging boys utilizing their interests.
We met the lower school head who explained that the boys are divided into “Family” Groups which include one boy from each grade along with a teacher. Together they work to do community service types of activities. The groups stay together throughout their years at Town.
Claire’s Impressions: The facility is top-notch and there is no doubt that the education they deliver is excellent. The boys and teachers looked happy and focused as they went about their day. The docent didn’t talk much about the single-sex aspect of the school but the literature they gave me a bit more information. A letter from the head explained that their teaching is differentiated as much as possible to meet boys’ learning needs. On the tour I saw a consideration for boys’ needs for movement and engaging their high activity level. I heard talk of “competitive spirit” and quite a lot about sports. All good things but I walked away feeling that the definition of “boy” was slightly narrow and very traditional.
Glen Ridge Coop Auction
It's Auction time! Mark your calendars, book your sitters, and come to a wonderful night out. Some of the amazing items you could win include getaways to Tahoe, Sea Ranch, Mendocino and Sonoma; dining at Chez Panisse, Firefly, Lime, Zuni and Foreign Cinema; passes to Disneyland; private wine tasting at the Wine Club; tickets to the theater, Smuin Ballet and SF Symphony; jewelry; classes; merchandise and so much more! Visit www.glenridgecoop.org/auction for a complete listing of auction items.
With silent and live auctions, live music, fabulous food, and bottomless wine and beer bar, Glenridge Cooperative Nursery School parents know how to throw a party! Get a jump on your holiday shopping, connect with old and new friends, and support a great San Francisco institution.
Tickets at the door or contact Tersh Barber, Glenridge Parent (and Paul Revere Spanish Immersion Kinder Parent), via email tersh_barber@yahoo.com.
Glenridge Cooperative Nursery School Benefit Auction 2009
"Our Magical Canyon"
Saturday, November 14, 2009
6-10pm
The Janet Pomeroy Center
207 Skyline Blvd., San Francisco
$20 admits 2 people! (tickets available at the door)
www.glenridgecoop.org/auction
With silent and live auctions, live music, fabulous food, and bottomless wine and beer bar, Glenridge Cooperative Nursery School parents know how to throw a party! Get a jump on your holiday shopping, connect with old and new friends, and support a great San Francisco institution.
Tickets at the door or contact Tersh Barber, Glenridge Parent (and Paul Revere Spanish Immersion Kinder Parent), via email tersh_barber@yahoo.com.
Glenridge Cooperative Nursery School Benefit Auction 2009
"Our Magical Canyon"
Saturday, November 14, 2009
6-10pm
The Janet Pomeroy Center
207 Skyline Blvd., San Francisco
$20 admits 2 people! (tickets available at the door)
www.glenridgecoop.org/auction
Attendance area preferance
PPSSF asked me to post the following:
There has been a lot of discussion and confusion regarding the attendance area preference in the Student Assignment System and where you should rank that school on the application I just received confirmation from the EPC that the statement below is how the Student Assignment System treats attendance area schools.
In the technical description of the SAS it states that for attendance area schools, attendance area kids within the applicant pool will be selected as long as their demographic profile increases diversity. Further it states, that once attendance area kids no longer increase diversity and all kids within the applicant pool are considered, if there are multiple kids within a selected demographic profile than the kid who lives within the attendance area will be selected for assignment. It does NOT state that this attendance area preference is only considered if the attendance area school is the applicants first choice. The technical description of the SAS can be found at http://portal.sfusd.edu/data/epc/DI_Handout_Combo.pdf.
Bottom line is that attendance area preference is given regardless of the school rank on the application and it does not require the applicant to place their attendance area school first on their application.
Vicki Symonds
Parents for Public Schools-SF
vicki@ppssf.org
There has been a lot of discussion and confusion regarding the attendance area preference in the Student Assignment System and where you should rank that school on the application I just received confirmation from the EPC that the statement below is how the Student Assignment System treats attendance area schools.
In the technical description of the SAS it states that for attendance area schools, attendance area kids within the applicant pool will be selected as long as their demographic profile increases diversity. Further it states, that once attendance area kids no longer increase diversity and all kids within the applicant pool are considered, if there are multiple kids within a selected demographic profile than the kid who lives within the attendance area will be selected for assignment. It does NOT state that this attendance area preference is only considered if the attendance area school is the applicants first choice. The technical description of the SAS can be found at http://portal.sfusd.edu/data/epc/DI_Handout_Combo.pdf.
Bottom line is that attendance area preference is given regardless of the school rank on the application and it does not require the applicant to place their attendance area school first on their application.
Vicki Symonds
Parents for Public Schools-SF
vicki@ppssf.org
Hot topic: How much do school PTAs and foundations raise?
An SF K Files reader asked me to post the following:
Would it be possible to start a topic about PTAs and school foundations? I know it may be controversial to ask this but I'm wondering if anyone has a list of how much money each school's association has raised and how it breaks down per student?
Monday, October 26, 2009
Student assignment presentations are posted!
(This originally appeared on the blog of Rachel Norton, commissioner on the SF Board of Education)
I promised I would post electronic copies of the two presentations we heard at this week’s Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment, and here they are, thanks to the diligence of Orla O’Keeffe. I am quite interested in what people think of the presentation from the researchers at Stanford — but I suggest you look at it while watching the webcast of Monday’s meeting (click on the “Video” link for Oct. 19; the researchers are on about 17 minutes in) to get the most out of this information-rich document. Additionally, I’m posting the presentation Ms. O’Keeffe delivered during the meeting, which summarizes the work done to date, the proposed options for a new assignment system, and the measurements that are being proposed for evaluating those proposed options.
Enjoy! And please let me know what you think.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Creative Arts Charter School's Fall Fair
Everyone is welcome at Creative Arts Charter School's Fall Fair
Saturday, October 24, 2009
11:00 am to 4:00 pm
In the school yard : 1601 Turk St @ Pierce
Games, prizes, Cake walk, bouncy houses, dunk tank, food & drink, and... if you dare... a haunted house!
New this year: Fall Bazaar
Do your holiday shopping with our artisans, providing one-of-a kind handcrafted treasures.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
11:00 am to 4:00 pm
In the school yard : 1601 Turk St @ Pierce
Games, prizes, Cake walk, bouncy houses, dunk tank, food & drink, and... if you dare... a haunted house!
New this year: Fall Bazaar
Do your holiday shopping with our artisans, providing one-of-a kind handcrafted treasures.
Lafayette Elementary
Reviewed by June
*I am already starting to tire of school tours (mainly all the parent questions – wow!), but do find them helpful as I seem to get a definite feeling by meeting the principal and looking around the school. Mathias and I have definitely got a yes or no feeling from each school. I have revised my list somewhat, dropping a few “trophy” schools (including my old school – Sherman) that may not be convenient for us and adding more less talked about schools including New Traditions and Francis Scott Key. I hope to have all tours done before Thanksgiving so it is going to be busy as my list is 11 schools long (4 down 7 to go!!). Anyways here is all about Lafayette:
The Facts
Location: 4545 Anza Street
School hours: 7:50-1:55
Tel: (415)750-8433
Principal: Ruby G. Brown
Web site: www.lafayettedolphins.net
School tours: Principal guided – Wed 8:30, call for Apt.
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 4 classes of 22
Total student body: 513
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Large diverse school with strong principal, established and active PTA as well as many extras. Lower demand school with less than 70 first choice requests last year. Lafayette is also a magnet school for the deaf and has a full inclusion class.
Campus/Playground
Large building from 1927 with indoor hallways, large windows and high ceilings – no 1970s remodel like other Richmond dist schools. There is a beautiful auditorium with stage on first floor and separate cafeteria on the “basement” floor. The bathrooms were recently redone and the one we went into (just off cafeteria and yard) was HUGE!
On Site – Richmond District After-School Cooperative 1st-5th grades. Richmond District YMCA program.
Lafayette has a very active PTA that produces the school play, organizes volunteers and fundraisers and hosts school events. Look at the website for an idea of the many PTA organized events and programs.
Mandarin after school program.
Large library staffed by Pro H funded librarian 3 days a week. Each class gets 45 minutes – one day a week in the library. The librarian has a piano in the library as well that he sometimes plays with the students. Computer lab has been recently re-located and is currently not fully operational – the school is currently looking to hire someone to run the lab. Classes also have a computer in the classroom
Annual school play produced by the PTA and includes all students. Lafayette parents teach art to grades K-3 through a program funded by the PTA called Art in Action. There are 12 lessons for the school year that use famous masterpieces as teaching tools. Artists in residence program.
Garden located at back of school yard, watered using rain water collected in large tank.
20-30 minutes a day for Kindergarten, gradually increasing to 1 hour 15 minutes or 1 hour 30 minutes for 5th graders to prepare them for middle school.
Lafayette is currently hiring a new PE teacher (their beloved teacher just left them after a long tenure and they are currently trying to fill his very big shoes). The PE teacher works with students 35-40 minutes a week (2x a week) and the teachers work with the PE teacher to be able to supplement the other days.
I had a good feeling the minute I walked into Lafayette. It was a purely aesthetic feeling -the older building is charming and large windows and high ceilings give a light and airy feeling to the inside. Art and photos were thoughtfully displayed on large bulletin boards in the halls, with each class displaying their work on their own board. There were also boards with class and teacher information, PTA events etc. It looked exactly like one would expect a school to look like. Mathias was a bit overwhelmed by the size, commenting that it felt more like a middle school, but it did not feel machine like in its size (unlike the feeling I got from Alamo). While we waited for the tour (snacking on the snacks and coffee provided! Thanks Lafayette!) we watched students in groups of two as they brought (presumably) attendance sheets to the office, and others went in class groups down the hall. I was pleased to see that Lafayette was a very diverse school; representing the rainbow of the city we live in.
We got to see recess in action while we were there too. The lower grades go out together, and then the upper grades. It did seem a bit chaotic, but about what I remember of recess! Get the energy out there, and not in the classroom. I found the small garden tucked in the back of the yard charming, and loved the bench area next to it - no kids were there, but it was a nice quiet spot if a child wanted to sit on their own or in a small group.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
SFGate: S.F. schools' lunch money cut off; rules broken
An excerpt from a story on SFGate:
School lunches have long been the butt of bad jokes featuring mystery meat and plastic-wrapped bean burritos, but in San Francisco, feeding more than 30,000 children every day - while following strict federal rules - is no laughing matter.
Since April, the school district has had to pony up the $1.5 million monthly cost of the lunch program for low-income students after state inspectors on a surprise visit found violations they deemed so serious and recurring that they cut off the flow of federal reimbursements.
The violations had nothing to do with the quality of food being served, but stem from the school district's inability to follow bureaucratic rules governing the federally subsidized National School Lunch Program, which is administered by the state.
To ensure no child goes without a lunch, the district meanwhile has spent more than $11 million, money it will get back once city schools show they can follow the rules - something district officials have been working on since the inspection.
While the federal rules weren't written with picky, distracted and hungry children in mind, they are there to guarantee taxpayers only feed students whose families meet the program's income guidelines to qualify for the program.
A rare, harsh penalty
The decision to cut off the school lunch money was rare - it's a harsh penalty used on maybe one district statewide in any given year and only in the most severe cases, state officials said.
"When we withhold funds, it's because our findings are pretty egregious," said Phyllis Bramson-Paul, director of the California Department of Education Nutrition Services Division. "We're not taking away money; we're just not going to give it until there's integrity in their meal claims."
The district is reimbursed $2.68 in federal funding for each low-income child who receives a free lunch; $2.28 each for students who receive a reduced-rate lunch; and 25 cents each for those who buy lunch at full price. The state chips in 22 cents per lunch. The district charges $2 for lunch for students who don't need assistance and is not reimbursed at a rate that covers its costs. The district lost $2.8 million on lunch last year.
In San Francisco, state inspectors paid surprise visits to 12 schools between December and March, three years ahead of the normal inspection schedule because of rules violations found in 2006 and 2008. As in the previous visits, inspectors found "critical" problems in the way schools counted program-funded meals. Other problems were found as well.
One school broke a federal rule requiring the presence of an anti-discrimination poster in every cafeteria reading "And Justice for All." Another failed to offer milk with various levels of fat content as required; the principal had pulled the nonfat chocolate milk because of sugar content.
"They want to make sure they were doing their due diligence to protect the public funds," said Nancy Waymack, the school district's director of policy and operations for the inspections.
Read the full story: click here
Monroe Elementary School Fall Fun Festival: This Saturday
This Saturday, Oct. 24, from noon-5p, Monroe Elementary School in the
Excelsior District is holding its seventh annual Fall Fun Festival.
There's a haunted house, a cake walk, a bike rodeo, a lollipop tree and
lots of other activities and fun. Come in costume if you like! Admission
is free.
Monroe Elementary is a three-strand SFUSD school, with Spanish
Immersion, Chinese Bilingual and General Education programs. We welcome
everyone to our annual event and hope to see you there!
260 Madrid Street at Excelsior, San Francisco, 94112
Excelsior District is holding its seventh annual Fall Fun Festival.
There's a haunted house, a cake walk, a bike rodeo, a lollipop tree and
lots of other activities and fun. Come in costume if you like! Admission
is free.
Monroe Elementary is a three-strand SFUSD school, with Spanish
Immersion, Chinese Bilingual and General Education programs. We welcome
everyone to our annual event and hope to see you there!
260 Madrid Street at Excelsior, San Francisco, 94112
Starr King PTA Annual Car Wash & BBQ
Saturday, October 24, 2009
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Regular wash - $10.00
Deluxe wash - $20.00
Proceeds help fund field trips, enrichment programs, school beautification and so much more.
The fun includes:
- BBQ lunch
- DJ Tony
- Bake sale
Starr King Elementary School
1215 Carolina Street, Potrero Hill
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Regular wash - $10.00
Deluxe wash - $20.00
Proceeds help fund field trips, enrichment programs, school beautification and so much more.
The fun includes:
- BBQ lunch
- DJ Tony
- Bake sale
Starr King Elementary School
1215 Carolina Street, Potrero Hill
Junipero Serra Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
Marcia here, wondering if it's useful to be doing this if everyone just wants to flog the public-vs-private debate. But here goes:
Background: Junipero Serra hit my radar because a group of last year’s families were placed there after going 0/7, visited, and had good things to say. I’m not sure how many of them stayed, but thought (and still think!) the school deserved a look.
The Facts
Location: 625 Holly Park Circle (Bernal Heights)
School hours: 8:30-2:30
Tel: 695-5685
Principal: Eve Cheung
Web site: through SFUSD portal
School tours: Call for appointment
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 2 or 3 Ks of 20 each (alternating years)
Total student body: 272, 82% free/reduced lunch, 62% from Spanish-speaking households.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
An energetic, thoughtful, and open-minded principal, an intimate feel, a focus on science and technology, and the opportunity to help a school grow.
Class Structure / Curriculum: The principal tried split grades (say, 4-5 together if there is overflow) and said it doesn’t work, so she alternates between 2 K classes and 3 K classes every other year. So the average is 2 ½ classes adding up to 40 or 60, depending on your year. In the upper grades, they’ve tried to hold it to 25 kids per class as opposed to the state cap of 32.Curriculum is GE and Spanish bilingual for English Language Learners. Their focus is science and technology, and they have a partnership with UCSF for 4th and 5th grades for science. PE 2x/week. Homework of 20 minutes reading at home plus 10 mins of review worksheets beginning in K and increasing as grades go up.
Campus/Playground: 1950s(?), quite bland building with new interior paint on Holly Park Circle, plus the Child Development Center Annex on Appleton St. The CDC facilities also house some of the K classrooms, and is made up of trailer-style bungalows. The outside of both sites’ buildings could use refurbishing. The K class(es) in the Annex walk up Appleton St. to the bigger building 2x/week for certain events, but have their own small-scale play structure and a large asphalt yard for their recess and a cafeteria for their own lunch. The Annex also has a community room. The main building has a yard we didn’t see, and the whole school uses Holly Park regularly. The main building also has a cafeteria, and computer center, and a small library with a resource specialist.
I asked about the low-income housing units across the street from the Annex. The principal said that far from causing problems, the people in the units looked out for the school, and many had kids there. She said they’d had no trouble at all and seemed very positive about the residents. The units are small-scale and didn’t seem to have the vacant or boarded up apartments that cause problems.
After School programs: Free After School Success club during school-year until 5:30, sliding scale Child Development Center year-round.
Additional Programs: Caring School Community Program, which puts older and younger kids together in buddy pairs and has kids involved in problem-solving class meetings. Principal said that they had eliminated their anti-fighting program some time ago, after eliminating that problem. She also said that each teacher had a release teacher for 1 hour daily, but that next year’s cuts would eliminate that. There is also a gardening program.
PTA: “In development.” Principal said she relies on her active and knowledgeable parents, but it is harder to do fundraising and get leadership with a larger population lower-income and immigrant families than many schools have. She does PTA meetings with simultaneous translators, though, to prevent some populations being left out: I liked that, as it speaks to her wish to serve all populations equally. I’m guessing that funds raised are minimal thus far, but Ms. Cheung wants to do more and has plans – and the 2008 mini-review of Serra mentions teachers having raised $37K.
Language program(s): Principal said they are trying to establish Spanish classes after school to draw in more English-speaking families interested in second-language instruction.
Library / Computer Lab: The kids have library class 1x/week, and the library is open 11-2:30 daily. The computer lab was especially impressive – it had 30 or so new Mac desktops, a VCR and large-screen TV, and a white board for projections. The principal said that the lab was one of her priorities.
Arts: Standard for the district
PE: 2x/week.
Recess/Lunch: AM recess of 20 mins., 1-hour lunch/recess combo in PM.
Tour Impressions:
This school has a very impressive principal – Eve Cheung is smart, down-to-earth, not at all condescending or saccharine, enthusiastic about middle-class parental involvement but aware of and solving for potential conflicts of class and culture. And she seemed to know the name of every student she spoke to – both she and the resource specialist who was shadowing her for the day’s tour interacted with kids in the halls and classrooms, gently reminding them to walk or pick up a stray backpack.
We saw more classrooms here than I’d seen on any tours, including many from the upper grades. Most were large-ish, with the freedom to move desks into circles, small work groups, etc. The teachers actually have teachers’ desks here, too. The best example was a GE classroom of kindergartners. They were working on writing letters in small groups. Some had paper-and-pencil worksheets. Some were pasting tissue paper onto large-scale line-drawings of letters. Some were building letters with clay. Some were arranging felt bars, arcs, and so on into letter shapes. The classroom was really calm, and after a while I realized that part of this was because the teacher had instrumental music playing. The kids seemed really on-task, and the atmosphere felt warm and supportive for what they were doing. The principal said that the teachers were expanding as best they could beyond the paper-and-pencil Houghton-Mifflin language arts curriculum, accommodating other learning styles with this kind of experimentation with texture, space, and sound. She also said they do pull-out groups for “focal” students – high-achieving and low-achieving – so they can offer some differentiated instruction.
In the SB and GE upper grades we visited, there was ample evidence of high-level standards. The SB kids in 3rd grade were working on commas, and the 4th grade GE classroom had wall charts about types of angles and triangles, as well as the “process-based” writing instruction used in college writing programs. The 5th-graders had had a trip to Alemany farm canceled because of the weather and were playing “U.S. States” bingo.
Junipero Serra would be a good choice for a group of middle-class southeast parents who decided to make it their Round 1 choice and help improve it, as parents did at Miraloma so long ago. Alternately, parents who find themselves placed there would do well to visit it and, again, think about teaming up and making a commitment. It’s not where Webster is yet, but it has a solid base: it’s a calm, well-run, warm school with well-kept if not yet creatively redecorated facilities, and a wonderful principal who seems ready to seize new opportunities.
Student assignment committee, Oct. 19
(originally posted on the blog of Rachel Norton, commissioner on the SF Board of Education)
Apologies in advance for a very long post! Tonight’s meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Student Assignment was productive, but information-packed. I feel as if we got a little bit closer to a policy, but the amount of data to weigh continues to be overwhelming. We heard a very interesting presentation from a team of researchers at Stanford, Harvard, Duke and MIT, who performed simulations of several of the options presented to the Board, as well as a few new ones (Option 3 is the Zone or so-called Zebra option discussed at last month’s meeting–it was not simulated for reasons that are discussed later on):
- Option 1: Local (”neighborhood”) school assignment with city-wide schools;
- Option 2: Local assignment with wider choice (parents are guaranteed local school assignment or can submit choices for city-wide attendance area schools and schools in other attendance areas);
- Option 4: Choice with local preference (students are assigned primarily by choice with preference for those who live in a school’s assignment area) — this and the next two options are new additions since the Sept. 14 meeting;
- Option 5: Choice with academic preference (students are assigned primarily by choice with preference for students who live near/attend a school with a low Academic Performance Index (API);
- Option 6: Choice with academic and local preference (students are assigned primarily by choice with a preference for students who live near/attend a school with a low API, followed by a preference for students who live in the attendance area.
It would be impossible for me to summarize the results of these simulations, because they are so information packed, but I’ll post the results from tonight’s presentation as soon as I can get an electronic copy. Suffice it to say that I think, from the discussion, that Board members were glad to get more options to consider. I’m personally very intrigued by the idea of “academic preference,” since the whole point of our choice system was to give families without choices a way of accessing better academic options. And, perhaps not surprising to anyone, our current system performed worse by several different measurements than any of the options being considered.
There was an extended discussion about whether choice is, by its very nature, inequitable — to actually exercise your ability to “choose,” you have to be able to tour schools, investigate options, understand the process and turn in paperwork on time. I understand the argument, but I’m not sure there is a solution other than to lower the stakes of failing to participate (which I think that guaranteed assignments to local schools might accomplish), and to redouble our efforts to improve outreach to the 20 percent of families (overwhelmingly African American and Latino) who don’t turn in their applications on time.
The researchers also recommended the Board strive for “simplicity” and “non-wastefulness” in any assignment system. Simplicity means (duh) avoiding complexity, and creating systems where it is always in the best interests of parents to just rank their choices truthfully. Anyone who has ever agonized “I love School A but think I’ve got a better chance at School B, so maybe I should rank that one first,” should truly relate to this.
“Non-wastefulness” is a little less straightforward as a concept, but the researchers use it in the sense of honoring parents’ preferences. So, if two assignment systems fulfill the Board’s goals equally well, but system A gives 60 percent of parents a choice that they picked, while system B only accomplishes that for 20 percent of parents, the system A is less “wasteful” than system B.
Also contained in tonight’s presentation were a list of 10 or so proposed measurements by which the Board would evaluate systems under consideration. These measurements would include:
- Reduce the link between on-time participation and access to the range of opportunities;
- Increase diversity at focus schools (currently racially-isolated with high concentrations of underserved students);
- Decrease the number of under-enrolled schools;
- Minimize the number of schools with more than x percent of students achieving below basic/far below basic (percentage intentionally left undefined for now, in this measurement and those to follow, so that the Board can have further discussions about these benchmarks):
- Minimize the number of schools with more than y percent of a single racial/ethnic group ;
- Minimize the number of schools with more than x percent of students achieving below basic/far below basic combined with y percent of a single racial/ethnic group;
- Minimize the number of schools with more than z percent of students with a low socio-economic status;
- Minimize the number of schools with more than z percent of English Language Learners.
Board members also suggested additional measurements that could be considered, such as cost of various approaches, comparing outcomes of proposed systems with current outcomes, and evaluating the equity of various approaches (not sure how we would measure equity but Commissioner Fewer volunteered to work with staff on this concept).
Finally, we discussed Option 3 — the zone concept from last month’s meeting. The researchers and staff members did not simulate it, because up to now they have not come up with a way of doing so that would be in any way predictive or instructive (our current system is so different that it is almost impossible to juxtapose the choices parents make under the current system with choices they might make under such a radically different system). Though four Board members voiced support for this approach at the last meeting, this time around I detected far less interest in the idea of citywide zones. I did make the suggestion that perhaps we should at least see the number of parents whose choices would fall within their proposed zone — if only to evaluate whether anyone is making choices that would align with the zone concept — the researchers and staff said they would look into the feasibility of doing so.
In reading over all of this I realize that it doesn’t really provide evidence for my sense that we are moving closer to a final policy. I guess my optimism stems from the fact that the Board overwhelmingly endorsed the proposed measurements that will guide us in evaluating policy options; and also from the fact that we now have some options on the table that seem to better represent the Board’s goals and community input. Based on what I have heard so far, Options 2 and 6 are those that come closest.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Hot topic: Tips for going through the private school process
An SF K Files reader asked that I post the following:
We're touring privates. I'd love to hear from others who have gone through the process. I know that it's tough to get into these schools and I hear that every move you make matters. Though I imagine that some things matter more than others. I hope to get some advice.
What you should know about Middle School
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
6:00-8:00pm
Everett Middle School; 450 Church Street @ 16th St.
Transportation: Muni 22,33, 37, J; 16th St. Bart station; Free parking, enter on 17th Street
In English with Spanish interpretation
Everett Middle Schoolis sponsoring a Middle School Parent Panel event focusing on topics of interest for those applying to public middle schools .
* Get tips and advice on key enrollment dates, information and resources.
* Learn about how various middle schools handle:
o Electives and class scheduling;
o Safety and transportation;
o Language Immersion programs;
o GATE (Gifted and Talented Education)
* Talk with PPS Parent Ambassadors at this event about their middle schools
Co-sponsored by Parents for Public Schools-SF.
Sorry, but KidsWatch will not be available for this event. For more information, please contact PPS-SF at 861-7077 or info@ppssf.org.
Hot topic: How prepared was your child for Kindergarten?
An SF K Files reader asked me to start the following thread:
I would love to hear from parents what they thought were valuable skills that helped their child thrive in kindergarten. Were they social and emotional skills, or "academic" type of skills like pre-reading and pre math? It would be great to hear about the kinds of K programs their child attends: art-based, language immersion, basic 3 R's type of classes, etc... and how their child was prepared (or not) for such. Any surprises on the difficulty of K? I hear that kindergarten is the new First Grade! I wanted to get an idea of how best to prepare my child.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Daniel Webster Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady [additions and corrections in brackets]
The Facts
Location: 465 Missouri St. (Potrero Hill)
School hours: 8:40-2:40 (new for this year!)
Tel: 695-5787
Principal: Moraima Machado
Web site: via SFUSD portal [addition: new school website to launch shortly]
School tours: Fri 9 AM
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: Listed in 5-yr. comparison sheet as 22 GE, 44 SI
Total student body: 180 [corrected] with room to grow about another 100.
Odds of getting in: GE 53.6%, though the 5-year data says only 1 person put it as first choice for this year. SI is new, so everyone who wanted it got it. For next year, I’d say the odds are great, given that they have room to expand both in terms of enrollment and space.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Lots of parent and community momentum, Spanish immersion, a sunny and sweet neighborhood with good parking!
Class Structure / Curriculum: Looks fairly standard – the principal said that they are accountable to No Child Left Behind, and to having their test scores rise, but trying not to just teach to the test. But I saw some evidence of “inquiry-based” learning and some more free-flowing stuff. They had a poster about voting labeled “What I know,” “Questions I have,” and “What I learned,” for example, and samples of kindergartners’ pretend and real writing on the walls. The real good news is that whatever the curriculum, DW has first pick of all applicants to the district, as a “hard to staff school” due to its previous incarnation, and has a very rigorous interview process.
Campus/Playground: 1960s or 70s breezeway-style building (no hallways, just stairs and a shaded sidewalk). Two bungalows for the preschool. Kids in the main building do have to go through classrooms to get to other classrooms, which wasn’t as disruptive as I would have guessed. Fresh exterior and exterior paint, new floors throughout. There’s also new “greentop” in the playground that the preschool bungalows are on, with painted game templates (hopscotch, etc.). The courtyard has an edible garden that looked great, and other nooks and crannies in the breezeway were filled with plants – and had some shade. DW has a lot of space – there’s a dedicated parents’ resource room, a library, the biggest computer lab I have seen yet (with something like 35 stations), a cafeteria/auditorium, a dedicated room for dance and movement classes, and apparently room to add classes.
After School programs: Child Development Center.
Additional Programs: There is a private preschool on-site, Potrero Kids at Daniel Webster, and the big and little kids are brought together for assembly. Lots of emphasis on social skills here: they have a therapist, a counselor, and a behavior specialist, and issue “white tickets” for “random acts of kindness.”
PTA: Dedicated, growing. Core is people who started by saving DW from closing 4 years ago. Fundraising small ($7K last year) but they’ve been great about getting private [correction: not all private] funds in there: the Potrero Hill Residents Education fund, [a 501(c)3 nonprofit], has been instrumental.
Language program(s): Dual immersion Spanish
Library / Computer Lab: A small library, with books in the process of being unpacked after the new floors went in, so it was hard to tell anything about the collection except that it was bilingual. Librarian available only 1.5x/week but they hope to expand. Computer lab is huge (35-40 terminals?); kids go 1x/week for 35 minutes with a specialist.
Arts: They have the usual 1x/week dance, art, and music. John Calloway, I a well-known SF jazz musician, does the instrumental program.
PE: 2x/week, Playworks
Recess/Lunch: Three 20-minute recesses. They keep the principal plus paraprofessionals at each recess. 20-minute lunch, grouped by age.
Tour Impressions:
We started outside and then proceeded to several classrooms. We saw a first-grade Spanish immersion program where the teacher was miked, apparently a pilot program to see if that increases comprehension. Kids were talking about the weather in Spanish, with some unison and some Q and A. We also saw the 1st grade GE, where they were doing small-group writing work and seemed distracted (probably by us). I was pleased to see some emphasis on the traditional language arts: on the walls there were materials on complete sentences, proofreading marks, etc. We also saw a Spanish immersion Kindergarten that seemed quite dynamic – a young Teach for America teacher who was moving through counting to 38 in Spanish at a good clip, joking with the students in Spanish, etc., while gently keeping discipline in hand. Lastly, we saw a cool music/art class where kids were drawing to Peter and the Wolf and learning about bass and treble clef.
Overall? Wow, these people have done a lot in record time. I really didn’t want to drink the “hidden gem” Kool-Aid, but I have to concur that it deserves that designation. The “before” pictures the tour guides showed us showed a dilapidated set of sheds, whereas now the physical plant is cheery and green: not an architectural wonder, to be sure, but made into the best version of itself. And I think that’s true for the new Spanish immersion program. For this year, 75% of the preschool kids’ parents apparently chose DW, which says a lot, and there are more coming from the preschool, bringing parents who have been very active with that project. I’d recommend it to anyone looking for the Flynn of 2-3 years ago--the elevator has left the ground and is going up—and/or to anyone who is looking to become part of a vibrant parent community. I would not recommend it to anyone who hates uncertainty, because there will undoubtedly be changes in the next 5 years.
Other DW parents, please speak up. How is it going?
Kindergarten assignment: the sibling effect
(originally posted on the blog of Rachel Norton, commissioner on the SF Board of Education)
I keep meaning to post this data, which I asked for ages ago and never seem to have on hand when someone asks me about the issue of including siblings in the statistics showing how many families receive their first choice. In enrolling for 2009-10, for example, 80 percent of families requesting a Kindergarten seat received their one of their choices, with 64 percent receiving their first choice (see highlights of 2009-10 enrollment here).
For years, people have complained that these two statistics are inflated because they include siblings, who receive preference at an older brother or sister’s school — and there is a difference, primarily in whether families get their first choice or no choice at all — but I don’t think it’s as significant as people think it is:
* As I said above, 80 percent of all applicants to K in 2009-10 received one of their choices; and if applications submitted by younger siblings are excluded from this statistic, 74 percent receive one of their choices — a difference of six percentage points.
* In looking at the number of 2009-10 K applicants who received their first choice, there’s a drop of 11 percentage points if younger siblings are excluded (from 64 percent to 53 percent). This isn’t particularly surprising or damning, considering that sibling preference only kicks in if you list the older sibling’s school as your first choice.
* Finally, the number of families who get none of their choices increases about 6 percentage points if you exclude the applications of younger siblings from the statistic. In other words, about 20 percent of all families didn’t receive a choice in Round I last year; that figure increases to 26 percent if you exclude younger siblings.
Of the 947 families who did not receive any of their Round I choices last year, almost 800 listed one of these high demand schools as their first or second choice:
* Alamo
* Alice Fong Yu
* Alvarado
* Clarendon
* Grattan
* Lawton
* Lilienthal
* Miraloma
* Rooftop
* Sherman
* West Portal
The way I interpret this data is that people are focusing a bit too much on how the statistics are developed and not enough on the choice patterns for high demand schools — I find the list above to be stunning. If you have your heart set on one or more of these schools for Kindergarten next year, you may have to settle in for the long haul, because a lot of other people have their hearts set on them too.
—Rachel Norton
I keep meaning to post this data, which I asked for ages ago and never seem to have on hand when someone asks me about the issue of including siblings in the statistics showing how many families receive their first choice. In enrolling for 2009-10, for example, 80 percent of families requesting a Kindergarten seat received their one of their choices, with 64 percent receiving their first choice (see highlights of 2009-10 enrollment here).
For years, people have complained that these two statistics are inflated because they include siblings, who receive preference at an older brother or sister’s school — and there is a difference, primarily in whether families get their first choice or no choice at all — but I don’t think it’s as significant as people think it is:
* As I said above, 80 percent of all applicants to K in 2009-10 received one of their choices; and if applications submitted by younger siblings are excluded from this statistic, 74 percent receive one of their choices — a difference of six percentage points.
* In looking at the number of 2009-10 K applicants who received their first choice, there’s a drop of 11 percentage points if younger siblings are excluded (from 64 percent to 53 percent). This isn’t particularly surprising or damning, considering that sibling preference only kicks in if you list the older sibling’s school as your first choice.
* Finally, the number of families who get none of their choices increases about 6 percentage points if you exclude the applications of younger siblings from the statistic. In other words, about 20 percent of all families didn’t receive a choice in Round I last year; that figure increases to 26 percent if you exclude younger siblings.
Of the 947 families who did not receive any of their Round I choices last year, almost 800 listed one of these high demand schools as their first or second choice:
* Alamo
* Alice Fong Yu
* Alvarado
* Clarendon
* Grattan
* Lawton
* Lilienthal
* Miraloma
* Rooftop
* Sherman
* West Portal
The way I interpret this data is that people are focusing a bit too much on how the statistics are developed and not enough on the choice patterns for high demand schools — I find the list above to be stunning. If you have your heart set on one or more of these schools for Kindergarten next year, you may have to settle in for the long haul, because a lot of other people have their hearts set on them too.
—Rachel Norton
San Francisco Waldorf School
Reviewed by Claire
Since I’m reviewing the independent schools Kate has suggested I do my best to remain anonymous. I won’t be divulging which dates I toured and won’t be too forthcoming with some of the unique interactions.
I’ll also let you in on a little secret. . . I toured some schools last year. If I can give all you K-hunters one bit of advice it’s start early. The public schools let you tour anytime, the indys ask you to tour the year before your child is eligible to enroll. If you have a summer baby like me, you get two full years of independent school tours. Wheee.
The Facts
Web site: www.sfwaldorf.org
School tours: by appointment – 415-931-2750
Location: 2938 Washington St. (preschool to 8th Grade); 470 West Portal (High School)
Grades: Nursery–12
Start time: 8:20 a.m.
Kindergarten size: There are three classes ranging in size from 22 to 28 students. Students are a mix of first and second year students. Half of the children move on to first grade each year.
Library: Physically small with a charming and knowledgeable part-time librarian
Tuition: $16,700–$18,400
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with: an education highly guided by a philosophical approach, small classes, a tight knit community, a concern for the natural and an emphasis on esthetics
Playground: Located in the center of the school buildings (and therefore insulated from the traffic and noise of Washington Street), the young children’s play-space includes a large structure for climbing and swinging. There is also a blacktop surface with planting beds, foursquare courts and basketball hoops. The children also make use of a local park.
After-school program: K–5; runs until 5:30; $7 per hour fee; their website says: “The focus of the afternoon is rest, healthy play and good food. The intent is not to structure this time with a whirlwind of activities, but rather to provide a secure daily rhythm within which the child is free to explore options.”
Language: Spanish and German are taught from the first through the eighth grades.
Financial Aid: “Affordable Tuition” is based on need (using SSS) and given based on the financial resources available at the school. Aid must be reapplied for each year and returning families are given priority.
General Information: Waldorf education is based on the theories of Rudolf Steiner, a philosopher from the early 1900s. A key element guiding the curriculum is the belief that all children go through specific stages of development and Waldorf teaching purposefully helps to guide - not rush - children through these stages. While Waldorf doesn’t term itself as “religious education” there is a distinctly spiritual element. Waldorf education focuses on the seasons and the natural world, imparting a sense of moral purpose, and developing creativity.
Students attend Kindergarten for 2 years. When they move up to first grade they meet the primary teacher they will study with until they graduate eighth grade. We were told that sometimes circumstance change but more often than not, students and teacher stay together the whole 8 years. The school day begins with “Main Lessons” the subject matter is taught in blocks ranging from 3 to 6 weeks. After the daily main lesson, children have various subjects depending on the grade. All grades study Spanish, German, music, PE, handwork, and Eurythmy (as near as I can tell it means singing and dancing.) Older students also study woodworking.
The Tour:
We began by meeting the parent volunteers and Enrollment Director Lori Grey. Lori was warm and gracious and the mother of a Waldorf student. Our first stop was the large K class of 28 students (there are two smaller classes which we did not visit.) What a magical place! Busy little children were all about. Some made applesauce, some made bread, others wore little felt hats and capes as they pretended to be elves, and still another group played in a corner filled with toys. It was beyond charming. The room was warm and beautiful – all the toys were wooden, little nature vignettes were set up with apples, leaves, stones and sticks. The effect was stunning and inviting. I wanted to be a kid in that class!
In first grade we watched the teacher guide a lesson about a specific upper and lower case letter. The teacher told a story and used colored chalk to beautifully illustrate it on the board (incorporating the letter form.) The children followed along, using the exact technique and colors to recreate the illustration in their personal lesson books. The kids seemed attentive and engaged. The room, while not quite as lovely as the Kindergarten, was pretty and smelled of beeswax.
The fifth graders we visited were learning about Mythology. They too had lesson books. Lesson books are a big deal at Waldorf. We also saw an eighth grade class where the students were having a back and forth discussion with the teacher. They were obviously independent thinkers and had no trouble speaking their minds in front of a room full of adult strangers (I really wonder how kids are able to do that? I mean really, with all these tours is there a child in SF being educated without an audience?)
We toured the library and talked with librarian. The space itself was small but cozy and crammed floor to ceiling with books. The librarian told us that she fortunate to be able to get to know the children well enough that she learns their interests and will often pull out (or purchase) books for them to select from.
We then headed back into the meeting room to look over more beautiful lesson books and have Q & A with a long time teacher and a parent volunteer.
Claire’s Impressions: This was one of the tours Elias was able to come on so I’m going to include his impressions. He was incredibly impressed by the entire curriculum. The cross over of subject matters inspired him. One Lesson Book had a beautifully illustrated page about geometry in Middle Eastern Architecture and Elias was ready to sign up right then and there. He loved that the artistic was integrated into every subject.
If you’ve read this far you know I was bedazzled by the Kindergarten room. Wow wow Wubzy was it fabulous! And now, if you know anything about Waldorf (and Nick Jr.) you can see the rub. No TV if you go to Waldorf. Seriously. None. Ever. No plastic toys either. I can’t prove this but I’m fairly certain that LEGO factories worldwide would shut right down if we gave up plastic toys.
The parent volunteer at our Q & A - let’s call her Cindy - Cindy talked about making the hard decision to put away the TV, box up the videos and give away the non-wooden toys when her first child began at Waldorf. Cindy said it was difficult, but the best decision she ever made for her children. I totally believe her. I just don’t know if my family is ready to do that. Don’t get me wrong, Owen isn’t plunked in front of the TV for hours on end but I’m just not sure I buy the idea that 20 minutes of children’s television every few days is going to damage him permanently.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Leonard R. Flynn Elementary, 2009
Leonard R. Flynn Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
This school has been reviewed before in 2007 and I encourage you to take a look – a lot in those reviews still seem quite useful.
Location: 3125 Cesar Chavez St. @ Harrison St.
School hours: 8:35-2:45
Tel: 695-5770
Principal: Sylvia Lepe (new), Assistant Principal Claire Trepanier is also new.
Web site: www.flynnelementary.org
School tours: 9 AM Thurs., no reservation required.
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 88, with 22 in each of 4 classrooms
Total student body: 450
Odds of getting in on Round 1: 29% for GE, 11.1% for Spanish immersion. 70 1st choice requests for 44 SI slots in 2009-10 Round 1, but only 8 for the 44 GE slots.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
A GE program on a par with the immersion program, inquiry-based learning, an international baccalaureate curriculum, and an orderly atmosphere combined with progressive values. Emphasis is clearly on community-building, social justice, etc., as well as environmental issues.
Class Structure / Curriculum: For information about the international baccalaureate program, for which Flynn is a candidate and whose curriculum they are adopting, see www.ibo.org. The emphasis is on “inquiry-based” learning: no textbooks or scripts, but instead 6 very general themes around which teachers organize projects: hypotheses, testing, journals, etc. There seems to be a high degree of teacher autonomy here.
Campus/Playground: clean 1920s (?) building, spruced up but definitely an old-style building. Separate yards and play structures for upper and lower grades. Upper-grade playground has brand-new, very fancy play structure from a Kaboom! grant, as well as the usual asphalt play area. Lower-grade playground has an older, but still perfectly fine play structure, and an oval track with an Astroturf middle, where kids can ride bikes, use hula-hoops, and other gross-motor equipment stored in sheds nearby. Kids also use a nearby grassy area for supervised play, and there is a new outdoor classroom with gardening boxes, etc. Very big, full-time library (not all district libraries are open every day or open for kids to drop in, but this one is. Kids can also check out up to 6 books a week, apparently unlike other libraries). Cafeteria also used for assemblies and Child Development Center care. Dedicated parent center and occupational theory room, dedicated cafeteria/assembly room. Facilities compost and recycle. There is supervised drop-off, so no need to park in the AM. I’m not sure about the PM.
After School programs: Mission YMCA does before- and aftercare; the figure quoted for that was $435/month. There are two other options: the Child Development Center and the free ExCEL program.
Additional Programs: An outdoor classroom/garden. PTA funds things like field trips and tree frog treks.
PTA: Large and very active. Raised $60K last year, goal this year is $75.
Language program(s): Dual-language Spanish immersion.
Library / Computer Lab: Both are very big and well-equipped (see above re: library).
Arts: Dance and drumming, Carnaval, SF ballet for 3rd grade, literary theater in upper grades
PE: Playworks. I wasn’t yet experienced enough to ask how often PE is, but coach is available at recess and after school. [See RRRROSI's informative remarks about Playworks in the comments section below]
Recess/Lunch: I’m getting savvier about this, so my answers will be better. But they get 20 minutes for lunch with recess, I think. I didn’t write down how many recesses or how long. Parents?
Tour Impressions:
We began on the playground and then broke up into 4 groups. All the tour parents seemed very well prepared and knowledgeable, and we got to visit quite a few classrooms. We finished back in the yard with the principal, who spoke to us at length, though it was hard to hear due to the large numbers on tour!
We saw a Spanish immersion 1st grade with a male teacher. I thought things looked bright and cheery as well as orderly; the classrooms were extremely well organized. The classroom had a cosy loft with a ladder and a reading bookshelf, and a kitchen play area – two things I hadn’t seen in any classroom thus far. The kids were learning the days of the week in Spanish, clapping out the spelling with Spanish letters. We also saw a Gen Ed classroom (not sure what grade, K or 1) with a female teacher reading to a book about plants and seeds to the kids, pausing for questions, asking questions of her own, etc. And we saw a GE K classroom with a male teacher: there seems to be a lot of reciting in unison in SF public schools, but this teacher also incorporated a lot of body movement, hand gestures, and visuals into his teaching of the ABCs. Kids were writing in the air while reciting, for the letter T, something about a vertical and a horizontal bar, and then looking at a picture of a tiger and saying t-t-t. Talk about integrated learning! The teachers all seemed young and dynamic.
The parent tour guide said Flynn was a hidden gem, but I think it’s on the trophy radar now in this part of the city—and it’s worth a drive for others. What is a hidden gem is the GE program: it seems extremely savvy of them to work on the IB program to get GE and SI on a par. GE requests are rising sharply, said one of the parents, but there is still room to get in on the ground floor. I would recommend Flynn for parents who want both order and experimentation for their kids, and/or for themselves, a vibrant school in which they’d be welcome participants but not starting from scratch. Also, do take a look at the other SFK review.
Glen Park Elementary
Glen Park Elementary
Reviewed by Marcia Brady
The Facts
Location: 151 Lippard Avenue (Glen Park)
School hours: 8:40-2:40
Tel: 469-4713
Principal: Marion Grady
Web site: none except via SFUSD portal
School tours: 9 AM Tues., call to sign up.
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 40 in 2 classes of 20, capacity is 44. One class is for Spanish ELL, which is not immersion.
Total student body: oops, forgot to ask because I was there before I knew I was doing this. It’s small.
Odds of getting in in Round 1:
12.8% on Adams's spreadsheet, but 5-year comparison of Round 1 demand shows 14 requests for 22 spaces in 2009-10. So I am unclear on the concepts here, obviously.
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Good organization, emphasis on comportment and traditional R & R skills, intimate atmosphere, solid school with an old-fashioned feel.
Class Structure / Curriculum:
2 K classes of 20 each, desks in rows. Kids did a lot of reciting in unison in one classroom, but the teacher had also combined memorization of calendar information with pattern recognition base-10 and base-5 counting, and other exercises that went beyond memorization. There is a big, big emphasis on discipline and behavior here: all students are charted daily from “green” (good) down to “red” (note or phone call home) for behavior, and they move paper clips on their own chart up or down throughout the day. Teachers use homework folders as “in/out” boxes to communicate with parents about behavior and academics.
Curriculum includes Reading First, standard math, social studies integrated with Language Arts and Technology, science, tech literacy, library media literacy, penmanship. Also has special ed for severely impaired kids.
Extremely clean 1930s building, nicely renovated with old features like wood doors, old hardware incorporated into the renovation. Dedicated lunchroom which serves as home base for afterschool programs. Auditorium with gym floor which serves double duty for PE and Assemblies (no basketball hoops or PE equipment that I could see – kids were running obstacle courses built from refrigerator boxes and chairs). Upper and lower yard are asphalt, with a new play structure in the works.
After School programs:
Free afterschool learning club.
Additional Programs:
None beyond enrichment provided by district, that I could see.
PTA:
New and in growth mode. Parents said there were lots of opportunities. I didn’t yet know to ask about numbers or funds raised, but it’s clear both are small.
Language program(s):
Spanish bilingual for English Language Learners.
Small automated library, small media/computer center which had just been equipped with new Mac computers.
Arts:
Instrumental music, chorus, dance, visual and performing arts experiences weekly (includes dance and rhythm, circus skills, chorus, ballet for 2nd and 3rd graders).
PE: 1x/week.
2 20-minute recess sessions daily. Recess supervised by teachers and parent volunteers who organize games. Close supervision discourages bullying. Lunch in two 20-minute shifts, with kids sorted by age. Snacks in AM and aftercare are provided by school with no snacks from home allowed for reasons of equity.
Tour Impressions:
The tour was low-key with just parents and a handful of visitors, no principal. We spent a few minutes in each K classroom (one was being taught by a sub; the other by the regular teacher described above), and the majority of our time in the lunchroom. The special education kids were there eating with their paraprofessionals, and I was pleased to see that both tour parents knew the names of kids who came up to interact with us.
The parents were very earnest and very happy with the school; one was treasurer of the PTA and emphasized that all skills and contributions were gratefully received but that there was no pressure and no parent cliqueyness. The school clearly does not have the resources of some of the more established “trophy” schools, but they run a tight ship. I could see it as one of those schools that a group of parents decide to enter all at once and transform, but I wonder what would happen to the culture already there. It almost seemed like a world of its own, and I found myself wondering if, when middle-class parents move in and spearhead changes, the people who were there first are always happy. I would like to know more about the principal of this school, how she is serving the existing population there, and what she envisions for the future.
It’s a very sweet little school, and would be perfect for a kid whose home environment was challenging and/or who did well with a lot of structure, routine, and clear expectations. It would also be good for parents who have specific worries about bullying to investigate, since recess is so closely supervised and discipline monitored so tightly. I would not recommend it to parents of children who are offbeat or impulsive, or parents committed to nontraditional education.
I keep hearing people say that tours can give a lot of false impressions, so I hope that parents who are involved with Glen Park will chime in and correct any false impressions I got and have inadvertently reproduced here.
Introducing Marcia Brady of the southern part of SF
Hi everyone. I volunteered to blog about the schools I am touring, which are mostly on the southeast side of town. Kate wisely suggested that I maintain as much anonymity as possible, so I will give a few details to situate myself. My partner Jan and I have one daughter, Cindy. We are actually shooting for 2011, but there's no way I can do tours next year. I know the system will be different, but I can't see how knowing the schools can hurt. Because I have friends who are struggling to get them done this year, I volunteered to send them our tour notes, and when I saw that people wanted to see a wider range of schools reviewed on this blog, I thought, why not.
Here are some things we'd like to see in any school we choose: environmental and social justice issues, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, strength in performing, visual, and language arts, understanding of alternative family structures, and problem-solving/conflict resolution skills. We know not all school has all of these, but we'd like to see a few of them. We're not test-score people. We're a bit schlumpy and low-glamour. We're solidly middle-class, but since we both work we won't be able to take heavy-duty leadership roles at a school. We're white and college-educated at crunchy-granola schools. Hopefully those details will give you a sense of where these opinions are coming from and why they might or might not be useful for your situation. And my biggest hope is that parents will chime into the comments section if they are affiliated with the school I've reviewed. Thanks in advance for joining me on this anxiety-making odyssey, and stay tuned!
Here are some things we'd like to see in any school we choose: environmental and social justice issues, racial/ethnic and socioeconomic diversity, strength in performing, visual, and language arts, understanding of alternative family structures, and problem-solving/conflict resolution skills. We know not all school has all of these, but we'd like to see a few of them. We're not test-score people. We're a bit schlumpy and low-glamour. We're solidly middle-class, but since we both work we won't be able to take heavy-duty leadership roles at a school. We're white and college-educated at crunchy-granola schools. Hopefully those details will give you a sense of where these opinions are coming from and why they might or might not be useful for your situation. And my biggest hope is that parents will chime into the comments section if they are affiliated with the school I've reviewed. Thanks in advance for joining me on this anxiety-making odyssey, and stay tuned!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Fiduciary Responsibility of School Administrators
An excerpt from a recent story in Beyond Chron by Katy Franklin:
Jill Tucker’s recent Chronicle article regarding District employee's credit card charges only touches the surface of the problem. When it is revealed that Board of Education President Kim-Shree Maufas and other San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) administrators misuse public monies, it casts great doubt upon their capacity to oversee how SFUSD spends its funds. Ms. Maufas and others on the Board of Education (BOE) recently approved a 3.2 million dollar professional development contract of questionable value. Are these decisions good for the students of SFUSD?
Last year, the principal of Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, Sandy Leigh, and teacher Kelly Clark, walked 109 miles to Sacramento to bring attention to the fact that their school site had only 32 dollars in the budget for school supplies for the whole year. 32 dollars for all the paper, pencils, erasers, markers, and everything else the 215 children at their school would require for an entire year. So Ms. Leigh, Ms. Clark, and a few parents walked, for 5 days, with blistered feet, in 90-degree heat, to let our governor know that this situation was unacceptable.
To read the full story click here.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
West Portal Elementary Tour
Reviewed by Debbie
This was the first school tour for Mark and I (we went a couple weeks ago so I apologize for taking so long to write this up!). Since it was our first tour, we were very excited. We also didn’t know what to expect, and we didn’t have anything to compare it to. We kind of thought of it as setting the bar for all other tours. Also, if you read "My Plan", this tour is what we’re considering our one big buzz school tour so we were very curious to see what all the hub-bub was about.
Facts:
Date of tour: 10/1/09
Location: 5 Lenox Way (West Portal/Forest Hill area), 415-759-2846
School type: Public
Website: www.westportalschool.com
Tours: Thursdays, 9-10:30am, call to register. All tours are led by the principal William Lucey.
School day start/stop: 8:40am-2:40pm
Grades: K-5
Total Enrollment: 554
General Ed Kindergarten size: 66 (3 classes of 22)
Cantonese immersion Kindergarten size: 31 (1 class of 22; 11 in a combined K/1st immersion class)
Before/After school care: Offered through Growth and Learning Opportunity (GLO), 7 to 8:30 a.m., and from 2:30 to 6 p.m. The principal stated that this can fill up so if you get into this school and need before/after school care, call GLO the day you find out you got in so you can put your name on the list.
If you’d like to read more facts about this school and details about its programs, you can go to the school website: http://www.westportalschool.com/. Otherwise, this post will be mainly about the tour itself.
The Tour:
The tour started promptly at 9am and was led by the principal Will Lucey. We all came in through the main building which is a large very old-school looking (in a good way) building. There were about 50 people on the tour. He first led us to one of the outdoor areas and explained that this is the beginning of his seventh year as Principal at West Portal (he’s been in education for 18 years, and his wife is a teacher at Grattan). He said that he always leads the tours because, if he were a parent going on tours, he would want to hear the information from the leader of the school. He also said that parents were welcome to stay after the tour and wander around as long as we’d like as long as we kept our "visitor" badges on. I thought this was a nice beginning. Plus, it was a gorgeous day so the view from the school was pretty nice.
We visited all three General Ed Kindergarten classrooms (rooms 3, 4, 15) – rooms 3 &4 were in bungalows outside the main building, and room 15 was in the main building. Not sure how they decide who gets to be in the Kindergarten classroom in the main building, but it looked much nicer than the small dark bungalow classrooms. Inside the classrooms, the children were sitting and working on projects, talking quietly to one another and some to the teacher. I’m guessing the teachers told them to sit quietly during the tours because the children almost seemed too quiet. The walls were covered in children’s drawings, the alphabet, the days of the week, etc. The bungalow classrooms looked very cramped, and it looked like there was too much stuff in there for the amount of space.
The principal explained that the Kindergarten and the 1st graders each have their own area for recess and lunch, but he didn’t point out the areas, and I didn’t have time to find them afterwards so I can’t comment on them, but I did like the idea of separating the younger children from the older children for recess.
He also showed us the Chinese (Cantonese) Immersion classrooms which were in the main building (rooms 14 & 17). The main building was bright and airy and looked very much like what I envisioned an elementary school to look like – long wide hallways with lots of rooms on each side. For Kindergarten immersion there’s one class (22) and one Kindergarten/1st combination class (11 kindergartners in the combined class) for a total of 33 Kindergarten immersion seats. Almost all of the students looked asian with just a small handful of non-asian students. He said that the immersion program was a "2-way" immersion program which means the goal is to be bi-lingual and bi-literate in Cantonese and English by the 5th grade (80% taught in Cantonese in Kindergarten, 60% taught in Cantonese in 2nd/3rd, and 50/50 by 4th/5th). He said this was in contrast to Alice Fong Yu’s "Full Immersion" program which has the goal of language AND culture. He also said that Alice Fong Yu prefers English speakers to start in the Kindergarten program (versus primarily Chinese speakers – I had never heard this before so that was interesting).
He then took us to the auditorium where there was a music class going on. He said it was the K-3 music program. He also said that in 4th and 5th grade, if a child chooses, he/she may participate in the 1x/week music program (run by the city) and learn how to play an instrument. He also mentioned an arts teacher who emphasizes "Visual Thinking Strategies" and how art is incorporated into the regular classes as well.
The principal took us to another outdoor area at the end and opened it up to questions. He spent at least half the time answering questions, and many of the questions from the parents were general SFUSD questions and questions about other schools - this seemed kind of out of place, but maybe this happens on other tours too. There was also a parent from the "Parent’s Club" present to answer questions, and she said that they raise about $100,00 every year. The principal also mentioned that drop-off in the morning can be crazy - there’s no parking lot and forget about street parking so this means that you have to line up down the street, and if you drop off on Lenox, the street is narrow so traffic gets blocked. There’s no one (on a consistent basis) to walk your child from your car to the building so you have to wait until the line moves up.
The questions to the principal continued from some of the parents, but then many people just sort of starting walking away so there wasn’t any kind of wrap up or defined ending to the tour, which felt kind of strange, but again, it was our first tour so we thought maybe all tours end like this. The tour didn’t take us through the library or the cafeteria (which I would have liked), and I had to get back to work so I didn’t have time to explore those areas on my own.
Likes: Friendly and approachable principal, nice main building, Cantonese immersion, active parents group, high test scores, later start time (8:40am)
Dislikes: Bungalow classrooms
Overall impression: As I noted above, this was my first tour so I had nothing to compare it to. It seemed like a good, solid school with a nice/approachable principal and an active parents group. If my daughter were placed here, I would be happy with it because I’ve only heard good things about this school, and it’s close to our house. But for a big buzz school, I have to admit that I wasn’t blown away.
I’m not banking my whole opinion of a school on a tour. It’s just one part of evaluating a school, and I know there's much more to this school than the tour (so all you West Portal parents out there, I'd love to hear more about this school). For me, the tour is so I can just get an overall feeling for a school. It’s kind of like when you’re looking for a place to live. You could see a place that has all the bells and whistles but just doesn’t feel like home, and you could walk into another place that has few bells and whistles, but it just feels right.
I later talked with a parent that I know who has a child at West Portal (and he LOVES it), and I told him about my overall impression and how I didn’t experience anything on the tour that warranted the high-demand status of this school. He said that as I tour other schools, I’ll see a difference. I guess we’ll see.
This was the first school tour for Mark and I (we went a couple weeks ago so I apologize for taking so long to write this up!). Since it was our first tour, we were very excited. We also didn’t know what to expect, and we didn’t have anything to compare it to. We kind of thought of it as setting the bar for all other tours. Also, if you read "My Plan", this tour is what we’re considering our one big buzz school tour so we were very curious to see what all the hub-bub was about.
Facts:
Date of tour: 10/1/09
Location: 5 Lenox Way (West Portal/Forest Hill area), 415-759-2846
School type: Public
Website: www.westportalschool.com
Tours: Thursdays, 9-10:30am, call to register. All tours are led by the principal William Lucey.
School day start/stop: 8:40am-2:40pm
Grades: K-5
Total Enrollment: 554
General Ed Kindergarten size: 66 (3 classes of 22)
Cantonese immersion Kindergarten size: 31 (1 class of 22; 11 in a combined K/1st immersion class)
Before/After school care: Offered through Growth and Learning Opportunity (GLO), 7 to 8:30 a.m., and from 2:30 to 6 p.m. The principal stated that this can fill up so if you get into this school and need before/after school care, call GLO the day you find out you got in so you can put your name on the list.
If you’d like to read more facts about this school and details about its programs, you can go to the school website: http://www.westportalschool.com/. Otherwise, this post will be mainly about the tour itself.
The Tour:
The tour started promptly at 9am and was led by the principal Will Lucey. We all came in through the main building which is a large very old-school looking (in a good way) building. There were about 50 people on the tour. He first led us to one of the outdoor areas and explained that this is the beginning of his seventh year as Principal at West Portal (he’s been in education for 18 years, and his wife is a teacher at Grattan). He said that he always leads the tours because, if he were a parent going on tours, he would want to hear the information from the leader of the school. He also said that parents were welcome to stay after the tour and wander around as long as we’d like as long as we kept our "visitor" badges on. I thought this was a nice beginning. Plus, it was a gorgeous day so the view from the school was pretty nice.
We visited all three General Ed Kindergarten classrooms (rooms 3, 4, 15) – rooms 3 &4 were in bungalows outside the main building, and room 15 was in the main building. Not sure how they decide who gets to be in the Kindergarten classroom in the main building, but it looked much nicer than the small dark bungalow classrooms. Inside the classrooms, the children were sitting and working on projects, talking quietly to one another and some to the teacher. I’m guessing the teachers told them to sit quietly during the tours because the children almost seemed too quiet. The walls were covered in children’s drawings, the alphabet, the days of the week, etc. The bungalow classrooms looked very cramped, and it looked like there was too much stuff in there for the amount of space.
The principal explained that the Kindergarten and the 1st graders each have their own area for recess and lunch, but he didn’t point out the areas, and I didn’t have time to find them afterwards so I can’t comment on them, but I did like the idea of separating the younger children from the older children for recess.
He also showed us the Chinese (Cantonese) Immersion classrooms which were in the main building (rooms 14 & 17). The main building was bright and airy and looked very much like what I envisioned an elementary school to look like – long wide hallways with lots of rooms on each side. For Kindergarten immersion there’s one class (22) and one Kindergarten/1st combination class (11 kindergartners in the combined class) for a total of 33 Kindergarten immersion seats. Almost all of the students looked asian with just a small handful of non-asian students. He said that the immersion program was a "2-way" immersion program which means the goal is to be bi-lingual and bi-literate in Cantonese and English by the 5th grade (80% taught in Cantonese in Kindergarten, 60% taught in Cantonese in 2nd/3rd, and 50/50 by 4th/5th). He said this was in contrast to Alice Fong Yu’s "Full Immersion" program which has the goal of language AND culture. He also said that Alice Fong Yu prefers English speakers to start in the Kindergarten program (versus primarily Chinese speakers – I had never heard this before so that was interesting).
He then took us to the auditorium where there was a music class going on. He said it was the K-3 music program. He also said that in 4th and 5th grade, if a child chooses, he/she may participate in the 1x/week music program (run by the city) and learn how to play an instrument. He also mentioned an arts teacher who emphasizes "Visual Thinking Strategies" and how art is incorporated into the regular classes as well.
The principal took us to another outdoor area at the end and opened it up to questions. He spent at least half the time answering questions, and many of the questions from the parents were general SFUSD questions and questions about other schools - this seemed kind of out of place, but maybe this happens on other tours too. There was also a parent from the "Parent’s Club" present to answer questions, and she said that they raise about $100,00 every year. The principal also mentioned that drop-off in the morning can be crazy - there’s no parking lot and forget about street parking so this means that you have to line up down the street, and if you drop off on Lenox, the street is narrow so traffic gets blocked. There’s no one (on a consistent basis) to walk your child from your car to the building so you have to wait until the line moves up.
The questions to the principal continued from some of the parents, but then many people just sort of starting walking away so there wasn’t any kind of wrap up or defined ending to the tour, which felt kind of strange, but again, it was our first tour so we thought maybe all tours end like this. The tour didn’t take us through the library or the cafeteria (which I would have liked), and I had to get back to work so I didn’t have time to explore those areas on my own.
Likes: Friendly and approachable principal, nice main building, Cantonese immersion, active parents group, high test scores, later start time (8:40am)
Dislikes: Bungalow classrooms
Overall impression: As I noted above, this was my first tour so I had nothing to compare it to. It seemed like a good, solid school with a nice/approachable principal and an active parents group. If my daughter were placed here, I would be happy with it because I’ve only heard good things about this school, and it’s close to our house. But for a big buzz school, I have to admit that I wasn’t blown away.
I’m not banking my whole opinion of a school on a tour. It’s just one part of evaluating a school, and I know there's much more to this school than the tour (so all you West Portal parents out there, I'd love to hear more about this school). For me, the tour is so I can just get an overall feeling for a school. It’s kind of like when you’re looking for a place to live. You could see a place that has all the bells and whistles but just doesn’t feel like home, and you could walk into another place that has few bells and whistles, but it just feels right.
I later talked with a parent that I know who has a child at West Portal (and he LOVES it), and I told him about my overall impression and how I didn’t experience anything on the tour that warranted the high-demand status of this school. He said that as I tour other schools, I’ll see a difference. I guess we’ll see.
Hot topic: How are tours going?
An SF K Files reader suggested that we start a thread where readers can comment on tours they've taken thus far. Feel free to leave mini reviews of the schools you have seen thus far. Please try to keep things positive when you're discussing specific schools or make your criticism constructive.
Rally for eduction: tomorrow at noon
San Francisco State students, faculty, and staff have been working with other groups involved in public education to decry these draconian budget cuts and to secure adequate funding for ALL public education in California.
The California Faculty Association, along with other unions, student groups and community members have organized a rally on the steps of CIty Hall on Thursday, October 15th at noon. The message is to TAKE A STAND FOR ALL PUBLIC EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA.
The future of our children and the state depends on it.
Please join us if you can and spread the word.
Please join us if you can and spread the word.
Note: This info was pulled from a Yahoo group posting. If anyone has additional details, please add info in the comments.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Alamo Elementary
Reviewed by June
The Facts
Location: 250 23rd ave
School hours: 8:40-2:40
Tel: (415)750-8456
Principal: Dr Herb Packer
Web site: www.friendsofalamo.org
School tours: Principal guided – Tu 9am – Call for apt.
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 4 classes of 22
Total student body: 524
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
Excellent API scores (latest scores 913), large school with established and active PTA.
The 4 kindergarten teachers collaborate in planning their curriculum, so although they may have different teaching styles they cover the same materials at the same time. There is a very low teacher turnover and the youngest kindergarten teacher has 8 years of experience. Teachers send home letters every week about what is going on in the class as well as opportunities for volunteering. Homework is usually about 10 minutes per grade per night plus a reading component.
Large, older building with indoor hallways – no 1970s remodel like other Richmond dist schools. Alamo is slated for a $5million plus renovation slated to begin this winter break. Kindergarden will be relocated and will be in new digs next year when school starts. The complete renovation however will continue into next year.
On Site – Richmond District After-School Cooperative 1st-5th grades, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and Russian After School Programs for all grades.
Alamo has an active PTA (180 members) as well as the Friends of Alamo School Foundation that raises funds for enrichment programs. The PTA and Foundation raise normally around $150k annually.
Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin) and Russian after school programs.
Large Newly renovated library staffed by Pro H funded librarian. No computer lab, but each classroom has comuters.
Almo offers many arts based programs outside of its core curriculum including: a vocal music specialist, visual arts specialist, ceramic specialist (2 kilns on site), Shakespeare drama, California Poets in the schools, Creative Movement/SF Ballet, instrumental music for 4th & 5th grades and SF Symphony Adventures in Music.
rooftop garden
Alamo has a PE instructor 2 days a week with an additional after school program (for a fee). Last year the 5th grade had the highest PE scores in the state.
Children go to recess in two groups, k-2 and 3-5. Lunch is in 3 groups, k-1, 2-3, and 4-5.
When we did at the end get to walk into the kindergarten classes I found them slightly cluttered, with supplies and boxes stacked in corners and along walls. Perhaps the teachers were already preparing for the December move, more likely they just did not have enough space. I would hope the new classrooms allowed them some more storage, the stacks of boxes made me feel slightly closed in. The rooms did display the kids work, and despite being distracted by the parade of parents walking through the kids were engaged in the lessons.
Monday, October 12, 2009
June's Story - Gaming the system?
I was recently at a birthday party and the talk (as it always seems to these days) got around to kindergarten. Discussion initially surrounded schools we have toured, preferences for public vs private, and who knows people who got their first choice on round one vs. those who went 0/7 and ended up with (insert unthinkable school here) last year.
But then the conversation took a turn I had not expected – I was being told, by multiple parents I know and respect, how to game the system. “Just tell them you didn’t graduate high school” said one mom, “that is the running joke at XYZ school, none of the moms have graduated high school”. “No, tell them you think you qualify for free lunch” said another parent, who by no means can even think her family would qualify, “they do not check until the first day of school, and by then it does not matter - you are in”. Another parent told me to be careful filling out that Maddie was bi-lingual, since they are testing this year - that I would be better off saying she did not go to preschool. To which I responded that Maddie is bi-lingual, so other than the inconvenience, I have nothing to worry about her being tested.
The whole conversation left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Some of these parents I have known for years, I consider them good parents, their children well behaved. I have little doubt they would never encourage their child to cheat on a test, a sports match or even on “chutes and ladders”, yet that is what they were advocating here – cheating to get into the school they wanted. Is that what the current assignment system has done? Turned normally responsible, law-abiding parents into cheaters? I know this is nothing new, have seen it in comments on this blog, but I always assumed it was a small minority that advocated gaming the system. However the fact that I was outnumbered at this party gives me the feeling that I instead may be in the minority. I would not consider myself an overly moral person, pretty much in the normal spectrum, yet this really bothered me. I know for one I could not live with myself if I cheated Maddie’s way into school. How could I teach her to follow the rules when I can turn around and bend them when it suits my needs? And since I will not, and others apparently will - where does it leave our chances?
But then the conversation took a turn I had not expected – I was being told, by multiple parents I know and respect, how to game the system. “Just tell them you didn’t graduate high school” said one mom, “that is the running joke at XYZ school, none of the moms have graduated high school”. “No, tell them you think you qualify for free lunch” said another parent, who by no means can even think her family would qualify, “they do not check until the first day of school, and by then it does not matter - you are in”. Another parent told me to be careful filling out that Maddie was bi-lingual, since they are testing this year - that I would be better off saying she did not go to preschool. To which I responded that Maddie is bi-lingual, so other than the inconvenience, I have nothing to worry about her being tested.
The whole conversation left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Some of these parents I have known for years, I consider them good parents, their children well behaved. I have little doubt they would never encourage their child to cheat on a test, a sports match or even on “chutes and ladders”, yet that is what they were advocating here – cheating to get into the school they wanted. Is that what the current assignment system has done? Turned normally responsible, law-abiding parents into cheaters? I know this is nothing new, have seen it in comments on this blog, but I always assumed it was a small minority that advocated gaming the system. However the fact that I was outnumbered at this party gives me the feeling that I instead may be in the minority. I would not consider myself an overly moral person, pretty much in the normal spectrum, yet this really bothered me. I know for one I could not live with myself if I cheated Maddie’s way into school. How could I teach her to follow the rules when I can turn around and bend them when it suits my needs? And since I will not, and others apparently will - where does it leave our chances?
Friday, October 9, 2009
George Peabody Elementary
Reviewed by June
The Facts
Location: 251 6th Ave
School hours: 8:40-2:40
Tel: 415-750-8480
Principal: Willem Vroegh
Web site: www.PeabodySchool.com
School tours: Principal guided – Tuesdays and Fridays 9am, no apt needed
Grades: K-5
Kindergarten size: 2 classes of 22
Total student body: 244
You should consider this school if you're looking for a place with:
A small school (244 students total) with good API (844) scores, safe school setting, young enthusiastic principal and a very involved PTA.
Campus/Playground
Campus was rebuilt in 1970 to meet earthquake standards and like Sutro does reflect buildings of that era – boxy building built around courtyard with no halls, light coming from shuddered windows and not too much overall personality. Despite this classrooms are very lively and decorated with student work. They are installing outdoor bulletin boards to display photos and artwork and liven up outdoor areas. Brand new playground situated towards back of yard next to the green garden the children planted. A nice mural is painted on the back of the building in the yard area adding personality to that side of the building. The multipurpose room is in a portable building to the side of the yard.
After School programs
On site free afterschool program run by Richmond District After-School Collaborative from 2:40 to 6:00pm. The ASPIRE program offered off site and there is a bus to the JCCSF.
The PTA sponsors a wide range of after-school enrichment programs, from Spanish to lion dancing. Each is offered for a semester fee, though limited scholarships are available.
Very involved PTA organizes events, fundraisers, after school programs and parent volunteers. Trained parents also lead the Jr. Great Books Program for 2-5th grade and the Fun Fit Friday program for kindergartners.