Parents currently enduring the unpredictable and nerve-wracking process that determines where their children attend public schools in San Francisco are offering mixed reviews about a new assignment system that is supposed to make everyone’s life easier next fall.
Families of students entering kindergarten, middle school or high school were notified via mail by the San Francisco Unified School District in recent days of the school their children may be attending.
Read More
The struggle for high school students to arrive at The City’s public schools on time has prompted some Board of Education members to propose changing the school day to begin one hour later.
Currently, most public high schools ring the first bell around 8 a.m. and end around 3 p.m.
But Commissioner Sandra Lee Fewer is pushing the idea of starting high school classes an hour later at 9 a.m. and also ending them an hour later to accommodate sleepy-headed teenagers.
Read More
San Francisco’s Sanchez Elementary School will officially open some cool green amenities Wednesday: A new “green lab” and “vertical garden.”
The green lab contains a weather station, solar panels and other tools for scientific research, the San Francisco Unified School District said.
The vertical garden uses an 8-foot chain-link fence to grow vegetables, it said. The garden uses aquaponic technology and is powered by renewable energy.
Read More
Six more schools are about to receive funding and guidance toward helping them cut back on their energy use, water consumption and waste generation, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.Last year, seven schools received funding as part of the Green Team program, partly using the money on projects that would divert less of their waste to clogged-up landfills.
Read More
The long-shuttered, three-screen theater on Geary Boulevard and 18th Avenue has become a haven for homeless and has contributed to so much blight along the bustling Richmond district strip that neighbors and businesses are pleading for something to be done.
“There are a lot of homeless people sleeping there,” said Yevgeniya Lapa, an employee of the Europa Plus market across the street. “They use it like a restroom. It’s dirty.”
Read More
San Francisco State University ranks 21st in the nation for the number of students that have served in the Peace Corps program, the university said, citing recent Peace Corps data.
In all, 1,267 alumni have volunteered in the Peace Corps since it was founded in 1961, the university said.
UC Berkeley tops the most volunteers list with 3,371, the University of Wisconsin is second (2,848); the University of Washington third (2,560), the University of Michigan fourth (2,276) and the University of Colorado fifth (2,157), according to the Peace Corps.
Read More
The San Francisco resident who ran 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days is set to embark today on another seemingly impossible adventure: He will ride an outdoor elliptical bicycle from Chestnut Street in The City to Los Angeles, then run through L.A. for 24 hours straight to promote the new Los Angeles Marathon. Karnazes will cap the trip by completing the marathon.
Read More
It’s hard to imagine there are benefits to a high unemployment rate, but San Franciscans’ thirst for jobs has been a boon for the 2010 census.
“We have former executives and CEOs, Ph.Ds, senior managers, people with management skills [applying for jobs],” said Sonny Le, a regional U.S. Census Bureau spokesman. “We have the best candidates ever.”
And there are lots of them, he said.
With a tight job market in The City, applications for employment through San Francisco’s two census offices have been streaming in, Le said.
Read More
The 900-plus layoff notices that the San Francisco Unified School District had approved sending to teachers and other employees by the state’s Monday deadline would save the district about $48 million in one year and $97 million during the next two years, union leaders said.
The district is trying to close a projected budget gap of $113 million during the next two years.
Read More
School officials have agreed to disband the long-criticized lottery assigning children to public schools in The City, though questions remain whether a new system scheduled to begin in fall 2011 can offer adequate education and racially diverse classrooms at schools citywide.
Read More
San Francisco school officials are lambasting a controversial list released Monday by the state that labeled 12 schools in The City among the lowest-performing in California.
Read More
Ritalin – the study aid drug some say is a bit too popular among under-the-gun college students – not only helps improve young people’s ability to focus on tasks, but enhances speed of learning, according to a study penned by UC-San Francisco professors.
“The research demonstrated that one type of dopamine receptor aids the ability to focus, and another type improves the learning itself,” the university said in a statement released Monday.
Read More
A proposal to overhaul the way children are assigned to public schools in San Francisco has gained support from parents as it heads to the Board of Education for a critical vote Tuesday.
The proposed system would replace a complex, oft-criticized lottery that considers a variety of socio-economic factors when assigning students to schools with a simplified method that largely emphasizes proximity to home and uses test scores to achieve academic diversity citywide, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.
Read More
Students at Marshall Elementary School will receive a late Christmas present this year: 1,000 free books.
The national nonprofit First Book, which partnered with employees of the Taj Campton Place Hotel, is donating the books to the school, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.
Read More
Schoolchildren in The City are getting their own form of a debit card to purchase cafeteria food, and the new system will allow parents to track what their kids are eating and should help the cash-strapped school district gain more funding from the federal government for its food needs.
The technology being implemented in all public schools this year and next allows students to swipe a card or enter a five-digit PIN when purchasing meals instead of paying with cash, according to the San Francisco Unified School District.
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/people/mike-aldax?page=156&%3Bamp=&%3Bquicktabs_1=0&%3Bquicktabs_6=0&quicktabs_6=1
