April 2010Neighborhood Schools Cope with Budget CutsBy Michael CondiffWith state revenues down substantially as a result of the Great Recession, the San Francisco Unified School Board has indicated a need to cut its budget by more than $113 million over the next two years. Individual schools received their preliminary budget allocations from the District in February. Each campus’ site council – comprised of school administrators, teachers, staff, students and parents – will vote on its recommendations for meeting those budgets in early April. The District must submit its 2010-11 budget to the state by July 1. International Studies Academy (ISA) is a multi-cultural campus of 480 six to 12th grade students located on De Haro Street. According to principal Matthew Livingston, his campus’ proposed budget for 2010-11 is $2.7 million, down from $2.9 million in the current school year. Livingston said he expects the school will consolidate eight to 10 staff positions “in any combination of teachers, counselors, support staff and administrators,” forcing class sizes to increase from 20 students to 25. “Thankfully, we’re still a small school, and our class sizes will still be relatively small in comparison with some other schools in the City,” said Livingston. “Some of the campuses on the west side will have as many as 36 kids in each class. So, keeping it in perspective, it’s hard to say increasing ours to 25 is that big of a deal.” According to Livingston, staff consolidations could impact course availability. Currently, if a student falls behind in math or English classes, there’s a second class in that subject offered within the school day to help the student catch up. Consolidation of teaching positions and increased class sizes would likely make that impossible next year. “We would have to do it as an after school program or in some other tutorial type of setting; we wouldn’t have the capability to do it during the school day, as we do now,” Livingston said. Patrick Hennessey, a language arts teacher and ISA’s site council president, said consolidating courses is a reasonable response to funding short falls. “You’re really only talking about 20 percent of the courses, because the other 80 percent are mandated [as courses necessary for students to attend college],” Hennessey said. “So, we then take into consideration the school’s vision; the fact that we want to stress language skills, values, technology, social and emotional needs…Once you take all those factors into consideration, it’s not that hard to trim the list down. Now, is it hard from the standpoint of deciding who is going to lose their position or have their position consolidated? Yes. But, our hands are tied by the budget.” Located on Vermont Street, Downtown High School is a continuation campus serving roughly 275 students with a history of attendance or disciplinary problems. Principal Mark Alvarado said he expects five staff layoffs and the loss of the school’s attendance liaison. “That’s a big hit for us, because truancy is such a major problem,” Alvarado said. “It directly affects our support services and how we counsel students and parents on the importance of being in school. We’re already the last stop. Drop-out prevention is one of our most important programs and without the support services, we’re not able to continue that program as effectively.” According to Alvarado, his school’s projected budget for 2010-11 is $1.3 million, a slight increase from the current year. However, a rise in employee benefit costs and a loss of Proposition H violence prevention monies will result in a net decrease in available funds. At the 200 student Daniel Webster Elementary School on Missouri Street, principal Moriama Machado said she doesn’t foresee a loss of staff positions, but expects a significant increase in class sizes: from 20 to 24 students in kindergarten, 20 to 27 in first to third grade, and 20 to 29 in fourth and fifth grades. Machado said she’d hoped to hire an additional teacher for the second year of the school’s Spanish Immersion program, but won’t be able to do so with the proposed budget. At Starr King Elementary School, principal Christopher Rosenberg said his budget will be trimmed $110,000, from $1.6 million last year. Six teachers have received layoff notices from the district. Despite that, Rosenberg said he expects the school’s enrollment to increase from 330 students to 365, and the school still plans to expand its Mandarin immersion program to another grade. That program is completing its fourth year. “Luckily, we have a parent community that is committed to trying to raise funds so that we can have the smallest teacher to student ratio possible,” Rosenberg said, adding that increased class size affects students on various levels. “That student no longer receives as much individual attention from the teacher to support learning objectives, to support social needs….the teacher just has less time for those things.”
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