San Francisco Finally Releases List of Schools to Close and Parents are

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This list has finally been released a couple weeks after the school superintendent missed a deadline to do so. There are 11 schools on the chopping block and if they are closed the district will save about $22 million per year.

The long-awaited list includes eight elementary schools, one K-8 and two high schools, as well as two other schools that were eligible for closure but instead would remain open to accept students coming from one of the shuttered sites, Superintendent Matt Wayne said. No middle schools were included.

The announcement offers the first specifics after a monthslong process to close city schools to address the 14,000 empty seats spread across the district’s 102 schools. The empty seats are due to two decades of declining enrollment, including the loss of 4,000 students in the past five years.

It seems the bottom line in the decision making was enrollment. Schools that had fewer than 260 students were marked for closure.

The 13 sites were deemed eligible for closure because they have 260 students or fewer, and in the case of elementary schools, a low “composite score.” The score was calculated using a range of factors including facility conditions, student achievement, location and the impact on disadvantaged students…

“The schools with the lowest enrollment are the most vulnerable to the impacts of those cuts,” Wayne said, but there is no choice but to make the cuts, he said.

“Without a balanced budget and a plan to consolidate our resources, we risk a state takeover of our school district,” Wayne said in a note sent to school communities Tuesday. “Should SFUSD fall into receivership, the state of California will take over the District’s governance and its financial, operational, and programmatic decisions for years to come.”

The budget is the issue driving this. San Francisco’s school budged hasn’t been taken over by the state yet, but the state did appoint two “fiscal experts” earlier this year to point out the obvious. With so many fewer students, schools needed to be closed as the district was facing a $100 million shortfall.

Even closing these 11 schools is probably just a start. SF has 10 other schools wither fewer than 260 students. Those schools are getting a pass for now because their test scores were better. But there’s no reason to think this trend is going to change. San Francisco has the lowest percentage of children of any major US city. It’s not a place where families can afford to live or where people want to raise kids.

Nevertheless, local officials impacted by the proposal vowed to fight.

Four schools on the list are within Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s district. In a statement, Peskin, who is running for mayor, blasted the district’s proposal to close the schools.

“I intend to do everything I can to have the SFUSD to reconsider this unfair, ill-advised decision that will disproportionately adversely impact schools in the northeast and particularly the Asian American community,” Peskin said in a text.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who represents the Castro District where the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy is located, expressed concern about the closure impacting the school site named after LGBTQ civil rights icon. He demanded an explanation for the decision, including its rationale and implications for nearby school communities.

The current list won’t be final until next month and then the school board will hold a vote in December. Impacted parents hope changes can be made before that vote makes this final.

“We’ve fought for this school for so long,” said Harvey Milk Elementary parent Laura McMullen who has a fifth grader. “And we are not going to stand by and watch this happen. (The district) will have another fight on their hands.”…

Derik Dulin, a PE teacher at the school and parent of a Milk fifth grader, was frustrated with the possibility of closure and a merger with Sanchez Elementary.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It’s kind of bulls—. Not kind of, it is.”

No one wants their school closed but, again, the district is going to cut $100 million from the budget because it has no choice and because it wants to avoid a complete state takeover. That means all of these schools and likely several more are going to need to close. There’s no other choice.