Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    March 2, 2013 4:30pm-5:00pm PST

4:30 pm
shared with all of the affected school communities that would have been affected. if the recommendation had been implemented. and then when the board came back from recess last august, after it's july recess. it took up this recommendation and held a committee of the whole, or maybe it was -- well, student assignment oriented meeting. and all, at least six or if not all members of the board of education participated in this. and it was very illuminating discussion. and many discussions outside of this meeting as well. but in this particular meeting many members of the daniel webster community attended and expressed their concerns about this proposal. and spoke in behalf of their proposal to create this two-campus k-8 school.
4:31 pm
the board of education collectively expressed many questions. and wanted the staff to look more carefully at some of the factors. and do more analysis and express reservations about moving forward at that time with the staff's recommendation to implement this change in the feeder patterns between isa and everett. that was recommended to take affect for next school year, 13-14. the board of education asked the staff to sort of hold off on that direction. and take the time that was necessary to analyze factors like demographic projection, academic performance, a number of different things. and to come back and make a recommendation at a later date that was informed by more due diligence. so that's the history as far as what has happened with the board
4:32 pm
of education. one last point before i turn it over to dr. stevens to talk about work ongoing and looking at the options. is that we have seen present, not to say this will continue to be the case in the future. but at present the issues about capacity are being addressed adequately given the current demand for both daniel webster elementary school, bryant elementary school and isa. considering there is a large attendance area for daniel webster. it's the largest in the district. even so there is still enough space for the time being at daniel webster to accommodate the request for that school. and also the residents of the attendance area that attend sfusd schools anywhere.
4:33 pm
right now that's the case, whether or not that continues to be the case in the future. we are doing demographic projections and engaged professional demographers to clarify if that's the case. >> i have a clarifying question based on what you said. based on the research that exists now, daniel webster has capacity to serve their entire community as pre-k through 5? >> pre-k through 5. >> my second question, do we know the make-up of the zip code is for the students that attend isa as well? >> the make-up of the population of isa? >> the zip code for isa. what zip codes do the students come from? because if we are considering
4:34 pm
moving isa, which would be extraordinary, i am curious where would though students go? >> right, right now isa carries a spread and we look at the board of the pin maps that show the residential pattern of the students that attend isa. and to summarize they do draw a city-wide attendance. so i think this true for both the middle school grade span and the high school grade span. there are students from kind of all over the city that choose to attend isa. >> supervisor cohen do you have a question for the deputy superintendent? >> thank you, supervisor kim. a couple of questions, what i didn't hear is about how willie brown school which will open in
4:35 pm
academic year 14-15, this is also going to be a middle school; correct? >> that's correct. >> how does this feather into the plan for this attendance area? >> right, right now willie brown is taken off line. right now it's not open. and it's being renovated. so it was recently demolished and it's going through a very exciting reconstruction project. and it will actually open in 2015-16 school year. and in meantime while it is not open, there are four elementary schools in the bayview-hunter's point, that are linked to other middle schools. and some of them are on the west side of the city. and those are -- the board of
4:36 pm
education will make the ultimate decision about whether to reestablish the feeder patterns between those four elementary school and willie brown. that hasn't been officially deliberated on yet. but i think it will be certainly a strongly considered option to have those four elementary schools feed into willie brown. so i don't know that it would necessarily domino to affect the attendance areas for daniel webster or bryant or any other school. but it's a consideration of looking at the overall portfolio of middle schools at that time. and the projected demand. >> and i understand that the district hired a demographer.
4:37 pm
>> correct. >> can you explain that. >> the district for the past years, every few year engaged professional demographers to do forecast and bi-grade over the period of 10-20 years. and really they take into consideration birth rates and housing development and they look at different parts of the city. it's a discipline that does need a fairly high degree of sophistication that we don't possess in-house looking at those considerations. and it's something that many school districts utilize the services of professional demographers. the last time we engaged with demographers i believe was three years ago. and we have seen that the projections that they developed at that time has been very
4:38 pm
accurate since then. but it's also as you know been a very dynamic period in terms of development and change within san francisco. so the projections we have had the benefit of the last three years, though they held up. they may be based on information that is increasingly going to become less accurate. to look at housing developments. to look at in-migration and out-migration patterns. it's good practice for the district to refresh that analysis. and had happens to come at a very important time for this discussion and the board's deliberation. >> you raised an interesting point, to inform this discussion. are you talking about the feeder patterns or the need or desire for another middle school? >> right, i think all of the
4:39 pm
above. one question what will be the demand for middle schools over time? we have from our last demographic study an expectation that in about three to four years we will start to see additional, a little bit of a bubble additional demand for sixth grade to eight grade seats. >> when you say bubble, you mean increase? >> an increase. we are seeing this in our elementary population. and not that everyone will remain static. but in general as almost like a little baby-boom of our own with our students. as that those larger cohorts move on up through middle school. we expect to see a need for additional middle school seats. and therefore reopening willie
4:40 pm
brown will be helpful and important during that time frame. >> what is the timeline associated with the study? how much time for demographics and to vote and ratify, can you layout of process? >> right, we expect the demographic analysis to be done around may or june of this year. and that will be well timed for us to have staff use that information to inform our recommendations to the board of education. >> okay, one last question and i will let someone else go. how does the school district usually communicate with parentses? >> how do we communicate with parents? >> uh-huh. >> that's a big question. >> yeah, it's a good one to end on. >> in particular on this -- can i address it by talking about some communications around this
4:41 pm
issue? or do you want more global response. >> sure. >> on this issue, we have been in conversation and communication with members of the webster elementary school community, back from the fall of 2011. as well as isa community. and to a lesser extent the bryant elementary school community. we have had our, there has been a change in the administration of the central office administrator that supervises daniel webster. that's supervised by mr. stevens, and both have been in dialogue consistently with the webster community and its leadership. i have participated in some
4:42 pm
conversations over the past i don't know six or eight months with the webster community. myself though not as consistently as the school supervisor. we have had through our other colleague, dr. schuldt that supervises isa and to a lesser and important extent we have been in conversation with the bryant elementary school and its leadership. when staff made a recommendation that is not implemented but to change the feeder pattern to everett. we made all members of those school communities aware of that recommendation. and likewise based on the board's direction, that recommendation was put on hold, to say the least. we informed all members of the
4:43 pm
school community in that development. i think that dr. stevens is in the best position to describe the current situation with the webster community. and we can do our best to talk about more detailed aspects of the communication with isa. >> thank you. >> we have a quick question from commissioner norton. >> (inaudible). sorry, it says current analysis suggest there is no tension between demand for elementary seats in webster or bryant areas, and analysis will help in future trends. what does that mean? >> what that means is that right now all of the requests for daniel webster and bryant can be accommodated within the existing
4:44 pm
capacity of those schools. and if you were to look at the number of applicants for daniel webster, i am sorry, that live in the daniel webster attendance area that apply for any school. it's pretty close 1:1. i think it's 107% ratio between the number of applicants of daniel webster attendance area that enroll in any sfusd kindergarten. even if all the residents in that attendance area chose to go to daniel webster, we would come close, not quite, but come close to being able to accommodate them. >> thank you. so we do have dr. stevens here as well. >> good afternoon, commissioners
4:45 pm
and supervisors. i am the assistance superintendent working with a group of schools known as cohort three, and daniel webster is included in that group of schools. i have been in my position about five months. and during that time have had a number of conversations with leaders in webster community and understand the back story. and understanding the proposal that webster community has put forward. i would like to talk about the options and the substantive considerations taken up by the working group that mr. lee described. this is a group of a number of administrators that meet twice a month. not only related to this issue, but to consider a whole range of options that include our sfusd facilities. three of those options and this is admittedly a very partial
4:46 pm
list is included in the hand-out we distributed. one of the options and it's an option to be taken seriously. there is a lot of thought of the work put in by the webster community. is this idea of a two campus k-8 solution. they have proposed this on a basis of a great deal of work. what might happen in these neighborhoods and projected the increase of demand of seats of this neighborhood. mr. lee described many substantive points in that proposal. and another option and this reflected in the original staff recommendation to this school board. is to make alterations to feeder pattern for the changes in the communities. and further options is to enhance the current program at isa, the 6-12 program.
4:47 pm
taking on concerns that we know is legitimate. as an example, webster is a dual language emersion school. that means that students have the opportunity to experience their education in spanish. and this is not available at isa. and that develops a disruption in the flow. we have begun conversations to introduce a spanish component to isa. that's with the intent of creating a seamless experience for those students who attend the feeder schools and pass on to isa. there are quite clearly a number of solutions that could be designed on the challenge we are looking at. what we have concluded though that the challenge has many interrelated parts. and it's essential that we look
4:48 pm
at fresh, demographic data before making any large decision. particularly one on the scale of closing a school or relocating a school. that's a brief look inside of considerations that are taking place and will be supported to take place more deeply. once the team has the benefit of this refreshed data. on the first side of the hand-out. i would like to walk you through some key milestones in the work to come. mr. lee indicated that the demographic data will be available to the team as formed for the school board later this spring. we asked for the demographer fast-track data related to this discussion. and we hope that that data come online. that would take place during the
4:49 pm
spring. and then the work will intensify for the working group as we look to design a solution from the problems presented in that data. we will continue to engage the school communities. i anticipate continuing conversations with the webster leadership, parents and school. as updates and to continue to refine the substance of the thinking in this work. we anticipate to be able to make a consideration to the school board some time in may or june. that again will depend on the availability of the data and the work of this staff team who takes on this challenge. and then finally we anticipate that the school board would set some direction in this conversation. some time through the summer. that's again anticipating that the data comes online. anticipating that we are able to come up with a solution that takes on all the interrelated parts in what is admittedly a very complex problem. >> thank you. i am seeing no further questions
4:50 pm
or comments from committee members. i will open up to public comment. thank you, dr. stevens. >> thank you. so i do have three speaker cards. john monson. daphne magnela. and stacy barton. thank you for taking the time to be here today. >> okay, thanks. thank you for allowing us time to speak, supervisors and board commission commissioners. we do appreciate it. we timed our presentation before we came, and it is close to 15 minutes. and we will get through as fast as we can. so our reason for coming to you
4:51 pm
today is to present about keeping families in the southeast san francisco, our main focus is potrero hills and dogpatch. i am stacy bartlett, parent of a second grader at daniel sweb -- webster. >> we represent the daniel webster task force. and kind for starters we think there is something very special going on at daniel webster. and probably the case that most parents feel that way about their public school. we observe and want to expand the magic at our school. the task force's history was described well by the school
4:52 pm
district. you will move on from that. and the information that they shared was extremely helpful. much of what we are asking for today is included on that piece of paper. maybe that can allow us to move through things quickly. what i would say we are looking at this situation from two levels. one is strategic level, how the school plans fit in with the san francisco growth plan and larger city goals. including keeping families in the city. and the situation that affects our school, the middle school feeder plan. so when we look around our neighborhood and see the strategies in place to grow our city. we see an effort to attract high-tech companies and the highly skilled workforce they need to survive and prostper.
4:53 pm
and keeping families in the city and improving integration on potrero hill. something that all of us have an opportunity to do. the city has been fantastically successful attracting high-tech companies into the area. the blue line is the outline of the daniel webster attendance area. this is 16 high-tech companies. all names you would see. behind us is dozens of other small companies that will be successful like these ones. their employees are the life blood of their companies. the scarce resource is highly skilled and educated workforce. there is no surprise that following behind these companies is huge boom in the area. this data is straight from the
4:54 pm
planning department. and from potrero hills and there is increase that could increase by 2020. and if you walk in the area, and you see many parents with strollers. and we have a toddler boom, we see high growth. we see school at near capacity. we are expecting we will have a capacity problem very soon. and we even had a demographer that lives in the daniel webster area, samantha lux, that did data and predict 44,000 children in that attendance area. and now we have 160 available
4:55 pm
kindergarten seats, so less than half the capacity we will need. >> so it's been about a year, since supervisor farrell wisely called the hearing on the families from san francisco. we need to get serious about when and why families are leaving. the city does a good job of keeping everything that people need in san francisco. i am sure that everyone in this room could pick up a onesie when they leave. one thing that is tough when you seek a preschool. i am director of potrero kids, we are currently in admission season. and i see the look on the faces of these parents. they are stressed to find a new pre-school. 80% of them won't have a seat in our school. if you don't get in a
4:56 pm
satisfactory pre-school, this is a good chance you will leave the area. and what is best whether private or perochial. and i have asked parents if they are interested in every seat in the district, and no, but it keeps you in the chance for a swap. whatever that means. if you don't get a good school, there is a good chance you will leave this city. the next decision point is at middle school. parents are getting savvy about their child's education path and researched middle school. and what we have seen, parents are factoring middle school into their decision. even with the middle school feed are path, this is a daunting
4:57 pm
decision for families. and once again if you don't get a good middle school, there is a greater chance you will leave the city. in this map, there are two elementary schools located. daniel webster. a k-5 and carmichael. daniel webster has two tracks of seats. you can see the demographics and our test scores as well. the other elementary school is bessie carmichael, this has three general education tracks for 66 seats and one filipino bilingual track. total of 144 seats. and due to city policy, k-8 are city wide and not dedicated to
4:58 pm
attendance area. so all of bessie carmichael seats are up for grabs. in addition the current policy is for language emergent to be city-wide. two-thirds of webster is spanish emersion. we therefore have 22 seats available that are deeded to serve the residents of this massive attendance area. and we are looking at 144 children coming of age in this area. >> i will talk about the daniel webster community. we were slated for closure in 2005. but a group of scrappy parents and they had pre-school aged children. they had little ones, babies.
4:59 pm
they banned together with leaders of the community and able to keep daniel webster open. as you look at these pictures, you will see that testimonials from parents as well pictures of our kids. and i will emphasize that people started caring about daniel webster before their children a attended. i was a reading attendant when my daughter was just one year old. and there are many families equally committed to daniel webster. when you look at the parents we profiled, you can read on your own. but i want to look