Board member's questions thwart vague $100,000 consultant expenditure

August 28, 8:29 PMSF Education ExaminerCaroline Grannan

Previous Next

Comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Education Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Fewer asked the right questions.

The SFUSD Board of Ed has tabled a proposal to pay nearly $100,000 to the organization San Francisco School Volunteers (SFSV) for a consultant to study parent engagement, after BOE Commissioner Sandra Fewer raised sharp questions about the agenda item at the board’s Aug. 25 meeting.

Fellow Commissioner Rachel Norton’s blog post about the meeting and the proposed expenditure touched off a flurry of indignant commentary on local school online discussion lists.
 

“SFSV is a great organization and partner to the district,” Norton posted, “but several of us were taken aback by the district paying an outside nonprofit for this service, since we have several departments already devoted to parent engagement. In the end we decided to postpone voting on this item so that we could get a fuller description of the services we are paying for and how they fit into (and complement) the district’s existing engagement efforts.”

Two primary questions are being raised about the proposed expenditure:

• Does SFUSD really need this service -- Fewer asked if it duplicates existing programs -- and is it the highest-priority use of $100,000 in a time of budget crisis and drastic cuts to school programs?
• Isn’t the San Francisco School Volunteers supposed to be an organization supporting our schools – not taking money from them? Shouldn’t SFSV be providing this study as a donation to the schools, if indeed it is necessary, since supporting the schools is SFSV’s mission?

Here’s Fewer’s comment on that issue at the Aug. 25 meeting: “I was under the impression that SFSV fundraises money and their mission is to assist us (the school district) – we don’t pay them.”

Both Deputy Superintendent Myong Leigh – an SFUSD veteran who is almost always one of the sharpest financial minds around – and Superintendent Carlos Garcia sounded somewhat sheepish about the fact that they couldn’t explain the rationale for the request (based on video of the meeting, which Norton posted on YouTube here and here).

Reportedly, SFSV (which recently merged with the San Francisco Education Fund) was not aware that the item would come up at that meeting, so no one was there to explain the proposal. BOE Commissioner Hydra Mendoza provided the only strong voice in support of the expenditure at the meeting.

A poster on the Parents for Public Schools listserve summed up the opinion of most online commentators: “I think the seriousness of the budget situation means every single budget item MUST be re-examined and as a community of parents, teachers, administrators we must be incredibly clear about priorities.”

I echo that parent’s view – every single budget item. And I’d like to re-emphasize that SFSV is supposed to provide support to SFUSD and our schools. I hope we never see another request for funds to flow from SFUSD to SFSV. That’s the wrong direction.

Follow me on Twitter @CarolineSF