Graduation rates are up for San Francisco’s high schools, according to new data from the California Department of Education.
The San Francisco Unified School District’s four-year graduation rate for the class of 2011 was more than 82.2 percent, nearly five points higher than in 2010. The state average was just 76.3 percent
Hispanic students showed the greatest gain, from 59.4 percent to 67.8 percent. Black students gained seven points, to 64 percent.
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Money earmarked for programs in San Francisco schools — including physical education, art and music — will be diverted to the district’s general fund to allow the district to maintain financial reserves required by law.
The school board voted Tuesday night to divert $16 million out of $62 million in state funds earmarked for specific education programs. The vote was a required step before the board can approve a 2012-13 school-year budget.
The board voted 5-2 to divert the money, with board members Sandra Fewer and Kim-Shree Maufas dissenting.
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San Francisco is home to 35,000 children under 5, and many of their parents rely on a patchwork of public programs for day care and preschool. The school district, three city agencies and a bevy of nonprofit groups offer options for all kinds of families — but navigating the system can be confusing.
So last month, as part of his budget proposal, Mayor Ed Lee announced his intention to combine all city services for young children and their families into a single office, which would be created if the Board of Supervisors approves the mayor’s budget.
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Nearly three-quarters of San Francisco public schools maintained or improved their state rankings, but the rest lost ground, according to data released by the California Department of Education on Thursday.
Statewide rankings are determined by comparing and sorting schools into 10 groups according to their Academic Performance Index, which is based largely on test scores from the previous year. Each group represents 10 percent of schools. The schools are compared with all schools statewide as well as with schools that are demographically similar.
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San Francisco Unified School District officials will unveil a $361.5 million budget for the 2012-13 school year at the Board of Education meeting tonight.
The budget includes $29 million more in expenditures compared to 2011-12, while revenue increased just $364,000.
The district’s budget office attributed much of the cost increase in the budget to step increases in faculty salaries along with health care costs for employees and retirees, which the budget office anticipates will increase by about 10 percent in 2012-13.
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Vianey Espinoza can still remember what a school official told her class when she began her freshman year at the Sunset district’s Abraham Lincoln High School.
Asking the assembled 14-year-olds to look around at their peers, he predicted that half of them would leave school without a diploma. And most of those dropouts would be black or Hispanic.
“You guys set yourself up for failure,” she recalls him saying.
In eighth grade, Espinoza had been a star student. But at Lincoln, she began to feel students like her were unwelcome.
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The San Francisco Unified School District will receive nearly $6 million from The City’s rainy-day fund if the Board of Supervisors approves Mayor Ed Lee’s budget for fiscal year 2012-13.
Like other districts across California, the SFUSD has seen its state funding shrink dramatically in recent years. The rainy-day fund was created by a charter amendment in 2003, and since 2005 the district has relied on annual cash infusions to help shore up its budget and prevent layoffs.
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Nearly half of the layoffs approved by the San Francisco Unified School District earlier this month have been rescinded, a move district officials hope will show good faith as they continue biennial contract negotiations with teachers under the oversight of a state mediator.
Spokeswoman Gentle Blythe said the district rescinded the layoffs of 89 elementary school classroom teachers, one Japanese language teacher and seven Spanish teachers. The board voted May 8 to send layoff notices to 218 faculty and staff.
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Each May, some 4,000 teens graduate from San Francisco public schools. But while the annual pomp and circumstance of high school commencement might feel routine, for some students, graduation is an achievement they had to fight for.
Makda Beyene, 18, graduated from Mission High School on Wednesday. Less than three years ago, when the recent immigrant from Eritrea was sleeping in church basements with her mother and three younger siblings, that goal seemed impossibly far away.
Jenn Bowman taught Beyene history in 10th grade, the year she arrived in America.
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Teachers, parents and staff at Martin Luther King Academic Middle School are unhappy with the school district’s refusal to give the troubled campus new administrators, even though the district says recent changes meet its expectations.
A complaint filed Monday with the state Public Employment Relations Board alleges violations of rules requiring safe and healthy work environments, said the United Educators of San Francisco union.
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