Tag Archives: Lowell

Recap; Lowell admissions update

Posted on October 26, 2016 by | 1 comment

There’s just not enough time tonight to fully recap tonight’s meeting, though I do want to spend some time writing about the reports from the African American Parent Advisory Council (AAPAC) and also the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative (AAALI), as well as the City College MOU we adopted tonight. I’ll try to find some time this weekend — these are really important initiatives that I want people to know about and understand.

In the meantime, the district has issued an  update on testing for Lowell admissions that I’ve reproduced below. Parents who were concerned about the idea of using SBAC should be relieved (this statement will also be widely disseminated at this weekend’s enrollment fair and through other outlets):

Notice to Lowell High School Applicants Regarding Admissions’ Tests

As all public school districts in the State of California, including SFUSD, transitioned from STAR testing to the Smarter Balanced Assessments Consortium’s (SBAC) standardized assessments, all 9th grade applicants to Lowell were temporarily required to take the Lowell Admissions Test in the interim years 2015-16 and 2016-17.

As results from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s (SBAC) standardized tests SFUSD became available, SFUSD planned to use scores from the 7th grade SBAC for SFUSD Lowell applicants for the 2017-18 school year.

However, the District has received feedback from parents that there was not sufficient notice regarding the use of SBAC tests for Lowell admissions.  Therefore, the District has determined that all applicants for Lowell for the 2017-18 school year will again be required to take the Lowell Admissions Test in January.  For SFUSD students who have 7th grade SBAC scores, the District will use the highest score from either SBAC or the Lowell Admissions Test in English Language Arts and Math for its admissions’ calculations.

In 2017, the test will be administered on January 4, 5, 6 and 9 and students will be assigned by last name.  More details are included on the Lowell application.

This will be the final year current SFUSD students applying to Lowell will be required to take the Lowell Admissions Test.  For the 2018-19 and all subsequent years, SFUSD will use 7th grade SBAC scores for SFUSD student applicants to Lowell.

Applicants for Lowell must submit both a Lowell application and an enrollment application by Friday, December 16, 2016 to either their present SFUSD middle school or to the Educational Placement Center, which is temporarily located at 655 DeHaro Street.

 

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Recap: Vote 16, Lowell BSU, Condom policy

Posted on February 27, 2016 by | 5 comments

Tuesday evening was very emotional, with lots of highs and lows. Among the highs: the amazing testimony from students on the Vote 16 resolution I  co-sponsored with President Haney and Commissioner Fewer. Parents and other adults are often skeptical about lowering the voting age, but after listening to the testimony of the young people who came to talk to us, I challenge anyone to say they aren’t ready to weigh in on the important issues of the day.

Commissioner Fewer and I are also sponsoring a related resolution that would, regardless of whether Vote16 passes or not, educate students about their right to pre-register to vote ahead of turning 18.  Voting is a habit, and studies show that the earlier one gets into the habit, the more likely one is to become a lifelong voter. I’ve even heard that it takes new voters four consecutive election cycles to actually get in the habit. In SFUSD, every senior takes American Democracy and that is a perfect training ground for new or prospective voters. While we need to be careful that undocumented or otherwise ineligible students don’t register or pre-register in violation of state and Federal laws, it’s still worthwhile to use the state’s existing Elections code to encourage every eligible student to pre-register, or otherwise exercise their voting rights.

Students, parents and alumni from Lowell HS came to talk to us in the wake of a horribly racist and upsetting incident at the school. (And may I just say that I am in AWE of these amazing young women leaders).  The video below is over 30 minutes, but I think anyone who cares about social justice and wants to be careful and respectful around issues of race and privilege should watch it and reflect. There’s a history here, one that is painful and ugly and not discussed enough. I don’t have a lot of answers at this point but I think it’s crucial to hear:

Oh and then there is the condom policy. I’m going to post the Superintendent’s remarks on the policy, and then my own, because (if I do say so myself) I think we covered the issues. I get that on its face, in the way the proposed policy has been framed by the media, it sounds alarming. My children aren’t in middle school anymore, but if they were I would not be worried at all by our current policy. I talk to my kids about keeping safe if they are contemplating sexual activity, and most parents I know do as well. The kids we are hoping to reach are those who don’t have parents to talk to, and I trust and thank school nurses and social workers for the care they are providing to our most vulnerable students already. This limited policy change will give these educators an additional tool to help students who really need assistance and adult guidance. I’ve received some email from religious activists claiming that our policy will  hurt young women who are in exploitative relationships, but I don’t agree at all. The whole point of the policy is to encourage vulnerable children to have an honest conversation in a safe space with a trusted adult.

Superintendent Carranza’s comments:

My comments:

Finally, we also got an update on the third year of implementation of the Safe and Supportive Schools resolution which has sought to transform the district’s discipline policies while decreasing the amount of time students spend out of the classroom for behavior issues (referrals, suspensions and expulsions are all part of this issue). The update can be summed up by the two charts below: on the one hand, we are making real progress in reducing suspensions:

suspensions

 

 

 

But on the other hand, suspensions are still disproportionately of African-American students:

disproportionality

 

There’s more data in the powerpoint posted above.

Important parent engagement event next week – please make sure this flyer (page one is in English and page 2 is in Chinese) is distributed at your school sites, particularly to monolingual Chinese-speaking families – the district is hosting a special parent engagement event in Cantonese (with English interpretation) at Jean Parker Elementary School next Saturday, March 5. The event represents what I hope is a first step in real efforts to engage and inform Chinese-speaking families about curriculum and other initiatives in the district. I think we have to do a lot more in parent engagement across all communities but recent events and conversations have convinced me we have a particularly urgent problem in the Chinese community.

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Looong night

Posted on February 23, 2016 by | 24 comments

Note: I’ve now turned comments off on this post. Lots of people have had their say. Feel free to take the discussion elsewhere or email me at comments@rachelnorton.com if you have more to say.

It’s about 10:30 p.m. and we are about halfway through tonight’s board agenda. We also have a closed session conversation to get through before the night is done. There is so much to say about tonight’s meeting — amazing testimony from students on lowering the voting age to 16; harrowing testimony from African-American students, parents and alumni of Lowell HS about a long tradition of racism and microaggression at the school; the decision to go forward with a policy that will allow at-risk middle schoolers to access condoms — but blogging isn’t going to happen tonight.

I’ll post a longer update hopefully tomorrow or Thursday, and I urge anyone who cares about any of these issues to watch the SFGovTV video once it’s posted. Tonight’s meeting has been incredibly difficult but a lot of people got to speak their truth; that’s always powerful.

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Recap: Board meeting Feb 10 2015

Posted on February 12, 2015 by | 21 comments

Here are the key issues discussed at this week’s Board meeting:

Memorandum of Understanding with SFPD: In January of 2014, the District entered into a landmark agreement with the SF Police Department (SFPD) that clarified the rights and responsibilities of students and families in situations where police are called to schools. At tonight’s meeting the Board received an update on the progress of the MOU and the ongoing relationship with the SFPD. The report was quite positive, and Lt. Colleen Fatooh (the supervisor for officers assigned to SFPD schools) was on hand to answer questions and engage with the Board. It’s not required for our district (or any district) to have such an MOU in place with the local police department, but in our case it has greatly helped the relationship between our two institutions and served our students and families better.

KALW Annual Report: Many people don’t know that the school district owns the license for KALW (FM 91.7), the public radio station that airs our meetings twice a month and offers lots of other great programming. KALW is a wonderful community resource, and it’s unusual for a school district to have such an asset — radio licenses aren’t exactly a dime a dozen. As the license holder, we operate no editorial control over the stations and are not involved in programming decisions – so long as the station complies with FCC regulations and finds an audience, it can broadcast what it wants. Financially, it’s almost completely independent of the district, mostly supported by individual donations and institutional grants (though it does occupy district-owned space at Burton HS). A few years ago, during the Great Recession, we extended a line of credit to help the station maintain cash flow, but they have paid it back in full and are in better shape now. There are plans to re-launch a companion philanthropic “Friends of KALW” organization and interest in programming continues to be strong (Note to self: check out the popular home-grown “99% Invisible” design podcast, available on  iTunes).

Superintendent and Board agree on three-year contract: Board members were all smiles and full of compliments in the run-up to voting on a new three-year contract for our rock star Superintendent, beginning July 1 of this year. Richard will receive $310,000 in annual salary, up from the $282,500 he is currently receiving.  The Board and Superintendent have a great relationship — we trust him and we (based on everyone’s comments at the Board meeting, I think it’s safe to use a “we” rather than an “I”) think he’s doing a great job. Is everything perfect?  No –not even Richard would say that. But the important things are: Richard shares the Board’s values and works with us constructively and collaboratively, the district is running smoothly and moving in the right direction, and he’s a great public face for us.  We’re lucky to have him and other districts know it — he was courted extensively over the past year by major urban districts all over the country.

(For a flashback of the day we voted on Richard’s first Superintendent contract, read this post — it tells you a lot more about the man who is leading the work).  In addition, the Board approved agreements with five more labor unions, including United Administrators of San Francisco. Negotiation season is drawing to a close, which is good news for everybody.

We heard almost two hours of public comment, on two main topics:

Ida B. Wells/John O’Connell HS co-location:  Ida B. Wells is one of the district’s continuation high schools, for students who are behind on credits or otherwise at risk of not graduating. The school’s longtime home, on Hayes Street across from Alamo Square, is undergoing construction so the community was co-located with John O’Connell High School for a year starting last month. The adjustment, let’s just say, hasn’t been smooth. Though both high schools have generally been peaceful places, there have been some safety issues now that the communities are occupying the same space and parents and teachers are alarmed. They came to talk to the Board about the issues and plead for more support (some John O’Connell parents argued strongly for Ida B. Wells to be relocated elsewhere, but that’s not really an option).

Finally, a number of teachers and students from Lowell came to discuss the new Common Core Math Sequence and its effect on Lowell students (more about the math sequence in this post and on the district’s excellent math curriculum site, sfusdmath.org).  The issue, as I understand it, is that incoming 9th graders from SFUSD schools will not have taken Algebra I under the new course sequence. However, students coming from private schools may have taken Algebra 1 in 8th grade, raising the question of whether the new course sequence will create a community of private school “haves” who are eligible earlier for advanced math courses, and public school “have-nots” who will not have the opportunity to take an advanced math course until a “compressed” Algebra 2/Precalculus course in 11th grade.  (Why Lowell in particular? The contention is that Lowell HS receives a high percentage of students who attended private schools K-8 and I’m willing to stipulate that is probably true, though I’ve asked for the data to see if other high schools should be concerned about this issue as well).  Lowell teachers testified that the compressed course will not work because it will not give students enough time with Precalculus concepts to prepare them for Calculus in 12th grade. Other math teachers from other high schools testified in favor of the current course sequence. I just have to be honest and say I don’t know who is right — it feels a bit like he says/she says at the moment. I’ve talked to the Superintendent and our math content specialists at length about this topic and they are convincing on the idea that the new course sequence/Common Core offers a stronger foundation that will serve students better in the long run (and it’s true that we weren’t exactly hitting it out of the park on math instruction prior to implementing the Common Core standards). At the same time, no one wants to disadvantage our students coming from public schools who have the aptitude to handle advanced mathematics early.   I’m told there are productive discussions going on about the idea of giving everyone a math placement test on entering the 9th grade, whether or not they took Algebra in 8th (Oakland USD does this).  Stay tuned.

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