A revolution in SFUSD school food

Posted on December 18, 2012 by | 6 Comments

If you live in San Francisco, a revolution is coming to a school cafeteria near you  . . .  Revolution Foods, that is.   Tonight, the Board voted unanimously (6-0, with Commissioner Mendoza absent) to award Oakland-based Revolution Foods with an 18-month contract worth $13.5 million  to provide pre-cooked, pre-plated fresh meals (mostly breakfasts and lunches) to students in SFUSD.

This is big news for so many reasons:

  • The contract represents a shift in attitude towards student nutrition. It calls for fresh, not frozen entrees, and specifies that meals must be served to students within 24 hours of being prepared.  If you accept (which I do) that fresh food = higher quality, then this requirement should bring about a huge improvement in the appeal of meals served to students. In many districts, improving the quality of meals has led to modest improvements in participation. What I hope is that this step will begin a “virtuous cycle” of  increasing participation leading to better financial stability for the food program leading to better quality leading to even higher participation.
  •  The contract also represents an increased financial commitment to school meals in San Francisco. District officials told the Board that the school district is paying its current vendor $1.79 per lunch for elementary school students (up from the $1.59 per elementary lunch the district paid in 2011-12). Revolution’s bid for the new contract came to $1.95 per elementary lunch. Revolution was also the lowest bidder. The current vendor, Preferred Meal Systems of Illinois, bid $2.26 per elementary lunch for the same terms. Still,  the bottom line is that the district will now be paying more per meal than it has in the past. In my reasoning (and one of the reasons I supported the new contract), we also will get more for our money.
  • Finally, the contract also represents a huge increase in Revolution’s daily meal production in Northern California — according to co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer Kirsten Tobey, the company is currently producing 33,000 lunches a day in its Oakland kitchens; with the addition of the San Francisco Unified account, it will have to produce at least 22,000 more lunches each day.  Even for one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies, this will be a big lift for Revolution, but Ms. Tobey assured the Board the company can handle it. She said Revolution has already begun increasing refrigeration capacity and is alerting suppliers that their orders will be increasing as well.

Revolution’s foods will start appearing in SFUSD cafeterias on Monday, Jan. 7, the first day of school following the Winter break (and it’s a good thing, too, as sources tell me there was no backup plan if the Board had turned down the contract).  Talk about working without a (hair)net.  Once they’ve had a week or so to settle in, let me know what you think!

→ 6 Comments

Posted in Great things going on, nutrition, Uncategorized

Tagged ,

Dec 11 meeting recap: Has it really been a month?

Posted on December 12, 2012 by | 1 Comment

UPDATE: The Board will take up the Revolution Foods meal service contract at a Special Meeting on Monday evening, Dec. 17. The Special Meeting will start directly following the previously-agendized Buildings & Grounds Committee, scheduled for 6 p.m.  that evening. 

As I noted in last month’s meeting recap, SFUSD routinely cancels the second Board meeting in November and the second Board meeting in December. So we haven’t had a meeting in a month, and it’ll be another month before we meet again. So you’d think there would be a lot of business on the agenda, right? Not really, as it turned out. It was Norman’s last regular meeting before he is  sworn in as Supervisor for District 7 — Commissioners expressed appreciation for his work on the Board and all of us feel sure we will be seeing lots of Norman after he moves to City Hall.  At the end of the meeting, staff, Commissioners and one Commissioner-elect posed for a family photo:

Normans last meeting cropped

Unfortunately, all the news that was going to happen at last night’s meeting got canceled, so while I have every expectation that the proposed school meal contract with Revolution Foods will pass the Board, we’ll have to wait a bit longer (looks like Dec. 17, but not sure yet). In the meantime, here’s the Invitation for Bid from the school district (wonk alert) which tells you the terms the successful bidder had to meet. Good stuff (for super wonks there is even more info here — scroll down to “Student Nutrition Meal Services”).

And if you are really motivated, here are some more things to study up on for next month:

  • Commissioner Fewer and outgoing Commissioner (Supervisor-elect) Yee introduced a local hire resolution that has many worthy provisions but is sure to ignite some sparks with our Building Trades unions — stay tuned for that to come up for a Board vote and lots of debate in January. 
  • Charter school annual space requests have been submitted and the district’s response is due in early February. Prop 39 requires school districts to offer charters “reasonably equivalent” space to similarly situated district-managed schools.
  • The state budget is still very much at issue for 2013-14 even though Prop 30 passed. The district expects to start its own budget process early next year and we expect to have to cut.  Even though the state will eventually have more money, it will be slow to materialize and make a difference for local school districts.
  • City support for credit recovery and additional support for the Classes of 2014 and 2015 will remain a hot topic. In recent weeks, this issue has been very much in the news because the school district has acknowledged that many students in the current sophomore and junior classes are behind on the credits and/or course requirements they need to graduate under the new A-G graduation policy. Last Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors passed, by a vote of 7-4, a supplemental $2.2 million budget allocation requested by Supervisor Kim to support the district’s action plan for addressing the problem of large students who are short on credits. However, there are a few more hoops this request has to go through (with a possibility that Mayor Lee will veto it) so stay tuned for future developments.

I’m also excited to announce that the Board members elected in November will be sworn in at a ceremony on January 4, 2013 at Tenderloin Community Elementary School (627 Turk St. at Van Ness) at 6 p.m. The public is invited — please come to see me, Sandra Lee Fewer, Jill Wynns and Matt Haney sworn in on that date. The first meeting of the new Board and our annual leadership elections will occur on Tuesday, January 8 at 6 p.m. in the Board Room at 555 Franklin Street. 

In the meantime, have a very happy and healthy holiday season. The blog will be on hiatus until January 3.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in BOE, nutrition, politics

Tagged , , ,

Meeting recap: November 13, 2012

Posted on November 14, 2012 by | 6 Comments

In November, the Board routinely cancels the second meeting of the month due to the Thanksgiving holiday; agendas tend to be short this time of year anyway.  Tonight’s meeting was over by 7:30 p.m., with a few items of note:

– A proposal from the Superintendent, introduced for first reading, which would allow the district to exempt students under certain circumstances from physical education if they do not pass the required four semesters by the end of 10th grade.  This is one of a number of components of the district’s action plan to address the fact that large numbers of the class of 2014-15 are not on track to graduate with the required A-G course sequence. Exempting students from P.E. after the 10th grade would free up space in their schedules and allow them to re-take other core courses required for graduation. The proposal will be discussed at the Rules committee on November 14 and then return to the full Board for a vote on Dec. 10.

–The Superintendent’s Thoughts for the Evening, which stressed the district’s commitment to providing every child with a well-rounded education. This commitment has been a topic of discussion recently, after claims in the press that some schools in the district–at least one in the Superintendent’s Zone– were teaching only English and math — “no science, no social studies, no art, no music.”   Based on my discussions with the Superintendent, I have no doubt of his personal commitment to providing every child in SFUSD with a rich, broad curriculum featuring art, social studies, science and music as well as math and English.  But I’ve also reached out to teachers, and to their union, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), which has a more skeptical view.  And over the weekend, after I was quoted in the Chronicle article asking for evidence of the narrowing curriculum, I met with two longtime educators in our district. While they didn’t completely agree with the characterization that no science was being taught in our classrooms, they did stress–strongly–that teachers are not receiving enough support for teaching science and that many are scared to veer too far from literacy instruction to teach truly hands-on science lessons.  UESF officials, who also met with me this week, underscore this point. But UESF has refused to identify specific schools named in the reports  they have received from members, citing fears of retaliation (I know of one school, but I have not yet revealed the name to anyone because I am also concerned about maintaining the anonymity of the people who spoke with me).  UESF plans to conduct a survey of its members to determine how widespread the problem is but declined my suggestion that they work with district staff to come up with specific questions.

–Also tonight, Board members accepted the annual required Williams Settlement report certifying that students at the 28 lowest-performing schools were enrolled in classrooms with adequate staffing and instructional materials and housed in facilities that meet basic standards of cleanliness, maintenance, heating and cooling.

Finally, there were several commendations recognizing the 25th anniversary of the  Omega Boys’ Club, an amazing organization that mentors students and encourages them to dream big for their futures;  the Indian Education Program on the occasion of Native American Heritage Month; and the Lowell HS JROTC cadets who competed (and won) a national academic competition for an unprecedented fourth year in a row.

→ 6 Comments

Posted in BOE

Tagged ,

Good news all around!

Posted on November 7, 2012 by | 1 Comment

There are still lots of votes to count, but it looks very much as if the three incumbents (Fewer, Norton and Wynns) were re-elected along with newcomer Matt Haney (you can learn more about Matt here — he will be a great advocate for our students and a great addition to the Board!). Congratulations to the winners and my sincere thanks and admiration to all of the candidates who worked so hard and contributed to the substantive dialogue in this year’s Board election.

In addition, Prop. 30 appears to have passed! If confirmed, its passage will prevent mid-year cuts and a loss of additional instructional days. This afternoon, the Superintendent sent out the following message:

Dear SFUSD Colleagues:

While the voters of California narrowly approved Prop 30, the voters of San Francisco approved it by an overwhelming majority. I am incredibly grateful to my fellow San Franciscans for committing to our public schools.

Some of you may be wondering what Prop 30 passing means for our schools.  This proposition temporarily collects new taxes to maintain state contributions to K-12 education at the same level as 2011-12. The real outcome of Prop 30 is to stop further cuts to schools. The good news is that as a result of Prop 30 passing we do not anticipate any mid-year cuts.

Our collective challenge remains that, even with Prop 30, the baseline K-12 resources from our state remain underfunded by 22% or about $1,500 per student based on the Prop 98 guarantee and cost of living adjustments the state has failed to provide for years.  We still have to maintain cuts in the current year’s budget, including furloughs for employees for up to two days and the school year will still be shortened by one half-day for our students (the last day of school).

The take-away: We need to keep advocating for more adequate funding for our schools AND today’s election results are a small, but significant step in the right direction.

I am thrilled that we have a bit of breathing room on the budget, and honored to have another four years to serve on this Board. There is a lot more work to do!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Campaign

Tagged ,

Closing argument: Why I should be re-elected

Posted on November 4, 2012 by | 1 Comment

Why should you choose me as one of your four votes for S.F. school board this year? Here are some reasons why I should be re-elected:

  • Despite years of cuts, the district is in good shape and achievement is rising.  There are three incumbents running for re-election, and as one of them I believe we should all get credit for keeping the district running well despite four straight years of terrible cuts to K-12 education in California. The district recently reported an Academic Performance Index of 807, above the state’s required benchmark for schools; student achievement is rising for all ethnic groups and we recently had a very smooth leadership transition — avoiding an expensive Superintendent search and affirming the district’s current direction by promoting Richard Carranza. And though I’ve been supportive of the district’s general direction, I have pushed back on administration and/or other Board members when necessary.
  • I have led the work to transform special education services in SFUSD. Four years ago, I ran on a platform that special education services in SFUSD were dysfunctional, outdated, and not delivering much benefit to students. That view was affirmed by an external review we commissioned in 2010, and since that time there have been huge changes both in department staffing and philosophy. The work is not done — my own recent experiences as a middle school inclusion parent have underscored this — but we have acknowledged the problem and have articulated a vision about where we need to be in the coming years. More teachers have been trained in inclusive practices, and every school in SFUSD is now an inclusive school — this was not the case when I ran in 2008. We have made progress and I am very proud of my role in leading this change.
  • I have been a responsive and visible member of the Board of Education, providing an unusual degree of transparency through this blog and other channels.  I often meet parents, teachers and other constituents across San Francisco who tell me how much they appreciate the information I provide through this blog. I stay up (too) late after every board meeting to recap what happened, and I respond to questions and comments from readers.
  • I’ve kept my promises.  Here’s the post I wrote four years ago, several days before the election. Judge for yourself whether I’ve delivered on what I promised.

For these reasons, I respectfully ask for your vote for another term. If you need  more information, check out my endorsements, my background, and my stands on the issues.  Thanks for your time and attention. 

→ 1 Comment

Posted in BOE, Campaign

Tagged

Scarier than Halloween . . .

Posted on October 31, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Tonight the Superintendent sent a memo to the Board listing the effects if Prop. 30 and/or Prop. 38 don’t pass. It’s not good, and includes $10 million in additional forced closure (furlough) days this school year — school would end with a half day on Thursday, May 23 instead of a half-day on Friday, May 27–as well as $6.5 million in additional mid-year cuts. And then there’s 2013-14.

Though many school advocates feel Prop. 38 is better for schools in the long run (here is a more detailed comparison of the two measures as well as a fact sheet), the measure has never polled above 50 percent. Prop. 30 had polled above 50 percent until recently, but because of negative advertising the measure is now supported by less than a majority according to polls.  Though I have long advocated a “yes/yes” position on the two measures, with the reasoning that asking voters to choose between the two dooms both to failure, I think now during the stretch it is imperative that education advocates impress on voters who care about our schools that Prop. 30 must pass.   In other words, do whatever you want with Prop. 38 (I’m voting yes) but please, whatever you do, vote YES on 30. 

→ 3 Comments

Posted in BOE, budget, Campaign, Not so great things going on

Tagged , ,

Meeting recap: October 23, 2012

Posted on October 24, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Yet another very brief meeting tonight. Aside from mostly routine items on the agenda, the Board heard an update on general education transportation cuts/planning for 2013-14 and also changes to the staffing of the Parents Advisory Council (PAC).

I’ve noted in the past that the Board has directed staff to cut general education transportation, and also align what transportation resources remain to help meet our student assignment and parent engagement goals. Since 2010-11, the number of general education buses serving schools has decreased from 44 to 30; in 2013-14 that number will fall to 25. Those cuts have been motivated by budgetary concerns  because we have not been able to justify keeping a high-cost transportation program (roughly $100,000 per bus in service per year, excluding special education buses ) while cutting back classroom services –especially because the state has continually cut back home-to-school transportation funding. Continuing to fund a robust transportation program in the face of these cuts means taking money away from the general fund, which pays for general education teachers, textbooks and classroom supplies.

After absorbing the cuts, the district must continue working on realigning the remaining transportation resources to serve other goals — closing the achievement gap, for example, and providing equitable access to citywide programs. Right now,  transportation planning is in phase one — cuts. Phase two — and this work hasn’t really begun — is the community engagement and planning work  that must be part of realigning our admittedly insufficient transportation resources to make sure those resources are supporting our district priorities.

In the meantime, here are the transportation cuts announced for 2013-14:

  • All general education transportation services to ER Taylor ES, Gordon J Lau ES and New Traditions ES will be eliminated, affecting 44, 24 and 22 morning riders, and 48, 20 and 17 afternoon riders, respectively;
  • Service to Aptos MS from the Mission (affecting 57 morning riders and 56 afternoon riders) will be eliminated (service from Carver ES and Starr King ES was added for 2012-13);
  • Service to Hoover MS from the Bayview (affecting 20 morning riders and 27 afternoon riders) will be eliminated (service to Hoover from Moscone ES and Serra ES was added for 2012-13.

The other major announcement at the meeting was the departure of Ruth Grabowski, who has served for more than eight years as the staff coordinator of the district’s Parent Advisory Council. Board members expressed sincere gratitude for Ruth’s contributions to the PAC’s work over the years — the PAC has been exemplary in its commitment to diversity, parent engagement and respectful but pointed critiques of district actions and initiatives and Ruth has played a major role in these efforts. 

Happily, Ruth is not going far — she will now be working for the school district and helping to lead our efforts in parent and community engagement; Georgia Bratt-Williams, a current PAC member, will take over her position as PAC staff coordinator.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in BOE

Tagged , ,