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Funds sinking alongside enrollment
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SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - Declining enrollment at San Francisco’s public high schools will leave the secondary school campuses with about $2.4 million less in per-pupil funding next year.
Districtwide, enrollment is projected to drop by 348 students in the 2008-09 school year, according to budget documents adopted by the San Francisco Board of Education this week. While most elementary schools are expected to swell with students, middle schools — and especially high schools — are expected to see fewer faces come August.
While new parents may stick close to San Francisco while their children are young, the transition to high school also may spark transition to a less-expensive place to live, said Margaret Chiu, associate superintendent in the district’s high school division.
“When children are younger, you feel more connected to the community, but when kids make that gigantic step to go to high school, a lot of parents think that’s a good time to make the move,” Chiu said.
Almost every high school is expected to have a smaller population in the fall, but some — including Galileo and Burton — may be looking at significant drops. In total, the district has enrolled 432 fewer high school students for next year. With state per pupil funding estimated at $31.16 per day for the 2008-09 school year, the loss in funding to high schools totals approximately $2.42 million.
Burton has lost nearly half of its population since 2003-04, when it enrolled 1,904 students. It’s projected to lose 173 more in the fall, according to budget documents. The enrollment drop could mean nearly $2 million less for Burton’s coffers.
“The financial impact is quite severe,” Burton Principal William Kappenhagen said. While Burton is developing five new “academies” on topics from computers to health and recruiting students across The City, doing so takes cash, he added.
At Galileo, the decline is an intentional effort to reduce overcrowding at the popular high school, according to Principal Vicki Pesek.
“In the past few years, our class sizes are terrible — like more than 40 students in a room,” Pesek said. “There’s too many people.”
While Galileo also will receive less money in the fall, the faculty is willing to make do with fewer supplies — and five fewer teachers — in order to give students more personal attention, Pesek said.
Meanwhile, San Francisco’s charter schools are slowly expanding, and the Board of Education is looking for ways to create “small schools” of 400 or fewer students, including the newly approved Internationals High School, scheduled to open in 2009. That could force the district to consider closing some other schools, board member Jill Wynns said.
Comments from Examiner Readers
2:20 PM MST on Fri., Jul. 25, 2008 re: "Lottery for school assignment comes under fire"
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1:11 PM MST on Sat., Jun. 28, 2008
re: "Funds sinking alongside enrollment"
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12:30 PM MST on Thu., Jun. 26, 2008
re: "Lottery for school assignment comes under fire"
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12:30 PM MST on Thu., Jun. 26, 2008
re: "Lottery for school assignment comes under fire"
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7:37 AM MST on Thu., Jun. 26, 2008
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11:17 AM MST on Tue., May. 20, 2008
re: "Lowell High named among nation’s best"
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miyoko said:
I just recieved a letter from SFUSD that they made an error and need to re assign my child to different school. This is only one month left before school starts. So outrageous. We already got involved with the school that we thought our daughe was going to. We met principle, teachers and all the parents and kids that involves in school. We paid non refundable tuition for afterschool program that the bus goes from there. We are sooo upset about SFUSD unproffesionalizm and poor organization skill. It is a big change for kids to attend a new school. We visited the school many times and organized play dates with new comers. We made a difficult decision picking a right afterschool program that bus goes to. Finally we are feeling comfortable for our child to start a new life at this new school. I hope that we can raise our voice.
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Examiner Reader said:
I think the writer may have missed a more interesting angle. According to the public data from the California Department of Education, San Francisco’s public high schools continue to be an entry point to the public school system rather than an exit point. To illustrate this point, here is the SFUSD’s enrollment data for the past several years, taken from the CDE website (www.cde.ca.gov): 2007-2008: 5,529 9th graders 2006-07: 6,030 9th graders and 3,982 8th graders 2005-06: 6,050 9th and 4,273 8th 2004-05: 5,438 9th and 4,196 8th Comparing any given year’s 8th grade SFUSD enrollment to the following year’s 9th grade SFUSD enrollment, it becomes clear than several hundred students ENTER the public school system for high school, presumably from private or parochial middle schools. The fact that, for each of the last three years, over 1,500 students ENTERED the SFUSD for 9th grade is a very significant and positive message about the quality of the public high schools
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Neighborhood Schools = Segregation said:
Odd that a city that prides itself on progressivism and projects itself as a paragon of diversity is so severely Balkanized. Calls emanating from some communities demanding "neighborhood schools" are thinly-veiled appeals for ethnic and class segregation. I attended hearings at the SFUSD a few years back and was shocked when some Chinese-American parents (frequently thru interpreters) insisted that they did not want their kids, described as model scholars who respected their parents and teachers and were hungry to learn, to study alongside black and Latino/Chicano children, characterized as brutal thugs with a profound aversion to discipline and education. I was shocked by their ignorance and racism, but perhaps not terribly surprised. Such scenarios once more expose San Francisco as a provincial little town rife with racialized tensions, despite its veneer of sophistication, urbanism and tolerance.
5 agree | 8 disagree
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Neighborhood Schools = Segregation said:
Odd that a city that prides itself on progressivism and projects itself as a paragon of diversity is so severely Balkanized. Calls emanating from some communities demanding "neighborhood schools" are thinly-veiled appeals for ethnic and class segregation. I attended hearings at the SFUSD a few years back and was shocked when some Chinese-American parents (frequently thru interpreters) insisted that they did not want their kids, described as model scholars who respected their parents and teachers and were hungry to learn, to study alongside black and Latino/Chicano children, characterized as brutal thugs with a profound aversion to discipline and education. I was shocked by their ignorance and racism, but perhaps not terribly surprised. Such scenarios once more expose San Francisco as a provincial little town rife with racialized tensions, despite its veneer of sophistication, urbanism and tolerance.
5 agree | 6 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The lottery system is not the answer. Maybe instead of busing children in order to integrate schools, we could reapply the $7 million saved to improve the low performing schools. ($5 million busing + $2 million staffing). Both my children were in the 37% that did not get into their first choice for school. That makes me less inclined to contribute any money to their school's requests for donations of $250 - $500/year.
4 agree | 3 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Lowell has always been the best high school the City has to offer. It's too bad the Stupid Board of Education looks at Lowell as the ugly step sister (e.g., no funding for improvements, always trying to canabalize the admission process, trying to fix things that aren't broken etc.).
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