A Study in Size

"There's a strong and successful small schools movement in San Francisco; the dilemma is that it's the charter school movement," says Gregory Peters, executive director of the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools, a group representing both charter and district small schools. "The charter schools have been the proxy for a movement in a district not ready to embrace small schools."

When Acting Superintendent Gwen Chan came to power in early February, small schools weren't high on her agenda. In addition to making peace with a board that had forced her predecessor, Arlene Ackerman, to resign, Chan faced school closings, budget cuts, and a pending teacher strike (recently averted).

In late March, Chan and several high-level aides held a closed-door session with parents, teachers, and small schools advocates regarding the initiative. They discussed the creation of a long-overdue policy on how such schools within the district would operate, and how the district would furnish them with resources. Chan established a working group — which includes school board member Mark Sanchez, school administrators, and parents — to study the feasibility of a policy. Many who attended the meeting were encouraged by Chan's interest, although she made no commitments and offered no timeline for an approved policy, much less an expansion of the program.

"The superintendent is very committed to supporting the small schools and reengaging in a process with them," says district spokesperson Lorna Ho. "But ... clearly, in a very challenging fiscal situation, we need to proceed carefully and thoughtfully."

Since the meeting, parents have been leading delegations to meet with board members, and will convene with SFUSD liaisons Myong Leigh and Mary Richards (who has taken over Janet Schulze's SSRI responsibilities) next week. It's likely that a policy will be introduced by board members before the end of this school year, though some of the messy issues — details of the budget allocation process, who would sit on a new small schools approval committee — will probably be left unresolved for now. The meeting with Leigh and Richards is only the first attempt at hashing out these details.

Small schools aren't a panacea for the district's ills. Even the best teaching, individual attention, and a new curriculum can't always turn a kid like Travis Fenech into a straight-A student. It's a triumph, though, for him to come to school every day.

"He's gotten a lot out of this school, and he enjoys it," Charles Fenech says. "I've seen a change in there: He cares about something. He keeps talking about becoming a math teacher in a middle school. For a kid that didn't even go to school before, that'd be pretty good."