School Board Member Sarah Lipson was the featured speaker of this month’s Arts and Politics seminar hosted at the Bazaar Cafe (21st Avenue and California) by Matt Gonzalez.

Sarah was her usual warm-hearted self as she answered questions both from Matt Gonzalez and the audience. Matt asked her about the San Francisco magazine article where Newsom claimed that he personally lifted test scores. While they and the audience chuckled over it, Lipson noted that Newsom’s spokesperson, Peter Ragone had stated that the answer was taken out of context.

Matt then asked about test scores. Matt went into an explanation stating that the requirements for No Child Left Behind were very low for the students to pass. He also pointed out that the test scores don’t show the struggling students who have dropped out of school-and the whole emphasis of test scores means that districts may wish to push out students in order to keep scores up.

Sarah pointed out that the scores for the students at the Community Schools was actually published in a separate category under “San Francisco County School District.” So SFUSD’s test scores don’t show the tests of the students at the county schools. County schools provide education to the students who have been expelled or have dropped out of a traditional high school.

Sarah then discussed school closures. She pointed out that there has been a decrease in enrollment since 1984 of approximately 800-1000 students per year. Since school districts are funded primarily by the state per pupil in attendance, this has meant a decrease in school funding. Sarah also told the audience that Governor Gray Davis did not fund the schools to the level of Proposition 98, which the voters passed. Proposition 98 guaranteed that education would get 40% of the state’s budget.

Sarah reminded the audience that when Schwarzenegger
ran for Governor, he promised to honor Proposition 98 and restore funding for education. Once the Governor got into office, Arnie reneged on that promise. Sarah pointed out that the District should have gotten an additional $67 million from the state. Since the District had a $22 million deficit last year, the additional funds would ensure that the District could have run in the black.

So Sarah pointed out that the District will be deciding on whether to close 19 schools next week. She explained that it was an extremely difficult task-but it would have been more fiscally prudent if the Board had systematically closed a few schools at a time as they saw SFUSD’s enrollment decreasing over the last 20 years.

Sarah was asked about the search for a new superintendent. Sarah stated that with school closures, a budget deficit and UESF’s contract coming up, the Board felt that there needed to be an interim superintendent for a period of time to stabilize the situation. So the Board appointed Ackerman’s deputy superintendent, Gwen Chan. Sarah noted that Chan spent her entire career as an educator in SFUSD-as a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal and an administrator. Sarah also noted that the atmosphere at the Board meetings have also calmed down and have become more cogenial at the meetings when Chan is acting as the superintendent.

Gonzalez began the next question by stating that the director of MTA had recently gotten a golden parachute and Tony Hall had been promised a parachute. But Matt felt that Ackerman’s parachute was the first time that a public agency had given a parachute to someone who got to choose when she left.

Sarah agreed and recounted that she voted (as well as Mar and Sanchez) against the contract that included the golden parachute. Sarah also recounted that the package was voted on 10 days after Heather Hiles was defeated-but before Hiles’ term had ended in January 2005. Someone from the audience volunteered that the date of that special meeting was Friday, Nov. 12, 2004.

Matt was confused to which union has just recently negotiated their contract with SFUSD (Local 790-the classified service workers) as well as what they wanted in the contract (the same coverage for dependent health care as SFUSD gave their trade unions as well a pay raise after three years without even a COLA). Responding to a question from the audience, Sarah recounted the actions that the Board did the night prior to Local 790’s called-for strike.

The District’s administration staff proposed to the Board to use the two remaining professional service days that were in the teachers’ contract (and scheduled for the spring) to buy some more time. Sarah pointed out that as an entity dedicated to education, the use of professional development days to just make time to settle a contract was counter to the mission of the district for the three educators on the board (Lipson, Mar and Sanchez).

Sarah had made a resolution to reject the staff’s proposal to use the district’s two remaining professional days to create essentially a “lock-out.” But they didn’t have the fourth vote. So Sarah made the resolution to postpone the decision until 6 a.m. the next morning. After a great deal of discussion, that resolution passed. During the night, the Mayor along with President Mar and others were able to strike a deal with Local 790 and avert the strike.

Someone from the audience asked Matt about his law firm’s suit against the superintendent taking her severance package. He stated that they were still mounting an appeal.

Another member of the audience asked about how the community can helped the school district in finding more funds for education. Sarah reiterated that most of the funding comes from the state and how the relationship between San Francisco and our current Republican governor does not create a successful bridge to talk about additional funding. Someone in the audience asked about parcel tax. Sarah stated that it was an option that the community should get on the ballot and support with their votes.

A member of the audience asked about the possible merger of Daniel Webster Elementary School into Starr King ES. Sarah was complimentary of both schools and stated that it was always a difficult decision to make. Sarah revealed to the audience that she had recently visited most of the schools on the closure list.

A followup question was asked about the District’s noticing the community meetings of closures a day before school ended for two weeks for meetings that began the day after school is back in session.

Sarah recounted that the Board had repeatedly asked District’s staff to hold community meetings at all of the fall BOE meetings. She also pointed out that the District’s staff had also scheduled the school closure meetings to include a large number of schools and last only a hour. Sarah promised to continue to request more community input into the school closure process.

Disclosure: I ran Sarah’s election campaign when she ran for the School Board in 2002. I also worked on Matt Gonzalez’s campaign for Mayor in 2003 from the day that he announced on Aug. 8 to the day after the runoff election.