Featured - page 99

By Bill Shilstone

Protesting the proposed closing of schools, nearly 200 parents, children and their supporters waited for an hour outside Redwood City School District headquarters Tuesday morning to urge Supt. John Baker to find another way.

Chanting “Si se puede” (“Yes, we can”), the Latino civil rights rallying cry, and with Hawes parent Juan Servin banging on a big circus drum, the protesters walked from the downtown library to the Bradford Street headquarters about eight blocks away.

They made their points with a variety of signs, mostly in Spanish:

“Do not uproot our school.”

“Please don’t separate our students and families.”

“Keep Fair Oaks open.”

“Save Hawes.”

“Caminata por la Equidad, Justicia y Respeto.” (“Walk for Equity, Justice and Respect.”)

“Our message is that the (reorganization) plans put the heaviest burden on the Latino community,” said Laura Garcia, a walk organizer from Selby Lane, where more than 400 students would be displaced under the proposals.

The protesters demanded that Baker, who was in a meeting, come out and address them. While children filed in and out of the building for bathroom breaks, Adelante parent and Selby Lane teacher Ivanna Zelaya-Clark used an electronic loud speaker to call Baker to “come out and talk to us. It’s your job. The community is more important than anything.” The crowd picked up a chant, “We want Baker.”

At 10:45, Baker emerged and addressed the crowd in Spanish.

“Let us work with you to get over this hump,” he said.

He urged the protesters to attend Wednesday’s board meeting at which trustees are to act on his proposals to begin a reorganization designed to close a $10 million budget shortfall created mainly by declining enrollment.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Sequoia High School’s Carrington Hall.

The plan as it stands is to close the Fair Oaks, Hawes, Orion and Adelante campuses, with the Orion parent-participation and Adelante Spanish Immersion programs moving intact to John Gill and Selby Lane, respectively. Fair Oaks  students are to go to Taft, and Hawes students to Roosevelt, Henry Ford or John Gill. About 1,900 students would have to change schools.

Some speakers suggested alternatives, such as closing Roosevelt instead of Hawes, and moving the Spanish Immersion program to the Kennedy Middle School campus, which would keep Selby Lane intact.

Members of the Adelante and Orion communities, though their programs are saved, attended the walk to support the schools most affected.

“I understand that the district has to make cuts, but we should ALL make cuts,” said Adelante parent Kate Loftus. “Distribute the pain so all are contributing. What’s the message in leaving white schools untouched?”

Baker listened to statements by Selby Lane eighth-grader Carlos Medina, Norma Gomez of Selby Lane and four others, and asked for their written notes to add to his large collection of community feedback.

His farewell words: “Mañana — a las siete.” “Tomorrow – at seven.”

Photo of Supt. Baker addressing the crowd by Bill Shilstone

By Bill Shilstone

Here is how Redwood City School District Supt. John Baker’s final proposals to the board of trustees would affect each of the district’s 16 schools. Board action is scheduled for Wednesday Nov. 28 at Sequoia High School’s Carrington Hall. The meeting begins at 7 p.m.

Fair Oaks: School closes and students move to nearby Taft or have priority in transfer to any other school in the district.

Taft: Absorbs students from Fair Oaks. The district will go ahead with  the scheduled two-year Measure T modernization on the Taft campus, at the same time working with the community to develop an “innovative, academically rigorous program serving a culturally and socioeconomically diverse population.”

Orion: The parent-participation program, one of the Schools of Choice magnets that draw students from throughout the district, moves to John Gill, sharing the site with the Mandarin Immersion program. The Allerton Street campus closes. Orion families who choose not to move with the parent-participation program have the option to attend their neighborhood school.

John Gill: Ceases to become a neighborhood school. Current students have first priority to stay as part of the Orion parent-participation program or to move to another school.

Adelante: Campus on Granger Way closes, and its Spanish Immersion program, another of the district magnets, moves to Selby Lane in Atherton to join 250 Spanish Immersion program students there. Adelante families who choose not to move have the option to attend their neighborhood school.

Selby Lane: 460 students not in the immersion program have priority in moving to other schools. The preschool and transitional kindergarten programs at Selby Lane become Spanish Immersion.

Hawes: School closes and students move to nearby Roosevelt, Henry Ford or Orion (John Gill) or have priority to other schools.

Roosevelt, Garfield, Hoover, Kennedy, Clifford, Roy Cloud, McKinley Institute of Technology, North Star Academy and Henry Ford: Not affected except to absorb displaced students from Fair Oaks, Hawes, John Gill and Selby Lane, who will have priority to choose and attend any school in the district.

No determination has been made on what will happen to the closed-school properties.

The district office will close and move to a vacated school sometime in 2020, Baker said, bringing in a potential revenue of $1.6 million a year. Other projects for the near future are a review of the K-8 vs. K-5/6-8 configuration and a study of the role of North Star Academy, the district’s accelerated-learning choice.

The proposals are designed in part to take advantage of the most popular choice programs, including Roosevelt’s project-based learning, by giving them room to expand and possibly attract more students.

All of the proposals, Baker said in his memorandum to the board for Wednesday’s meeting, “should promote racially and socioeconomically balanced schools and not further segregate our students.” The district has a marked east side-west side imbalance, and most of the district’s enrollment decline is happening on the east side.

REDWOOD CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT DEMOGRAPHICS

SCHOOL          CAPACITY*   ENROLLMENT *   NON-WHITE PERCENTAGE**

Kennedy (6-8)        1,680                706                             82

Hoover (K-8)           1,470               681                             98

Selby Lane (K-8)     1,290               740                            95

Clifford (K-8)           1,110               558                            55

Roosevelt (K-8)       1,110                581                            80

Taft (K-5)                  1,080               331                            98

Garfield (K-8)          1,020               570                            98

Roy Cloud (K-8)         990               718                            37

Fair Oaks (K-5)           960               221                            97

Henry Ford (K-5)        780               377                           70

McKinley IT (6-8)        720               408                           96

John Gill (K-5)              660               288                           90

North Star (3-8)           630               536                           51

Hawes (K-5)                  570               301                           98

Adelante (K-5)              550               464                           76

Orion (K-5)                    270                211                          53

Total                          14,890            7,691                          80

*Redwood City School District figures from early fall 2018

**State Dept. of Education figures for 2017-18

By Bill Shilstone

More than 1,900 Redwood City Elementary School District students would move to new schools next year under final reorganization proposals to be considered for final action by district trustees Wednesday Nov. 28 at Sequoia High School’s Carrington Hall. The meeting begins at 7 p.m.

Supt. John Baker’s final recommendations follow a board directive given at a five-hour public hearing Nov. 14 that Fair Oaks and Taft, neighboring schools in the low-income North Fair Oaks community, not both be closed. Fair Oaks students would move to Taft under Baker’s proposals.

The final plan calls for the closing of four campuses: Fair Oaks (current enrollment 221), Hawes (301), Orion (270) and Adelante (464). Orion’s parent participation program would move to the John Gill campus and Adelante’s Spanish Immersion program would move to Selby Lane. Selby Lane’s Spanish Immersion program would merge with Adelante’s; the other 460 Selby Lane students would move. At John Gill, 200 students would have a choice of enrolling in the Orion program or moving to another school.

The district faces a $10 million budget shortfall in the next three years because of steeply declining enrollment caused by families moving away or choosing charter or private schools. Funding is pegged in part on student count, which in Redwood City is 7,600, about half the combined capacity of the 16 schools. Baker’s proposals are designed to deal with the cost inefficiency of near-empty campuses and to cut just over $4 million for the 2018-19 school year.

In order to make that cut without the closing of Taft, Baker added two new proposals: staffing reductions of $700,000 instead of the $430,000 originally proposed, and to seek outside funding for the summer school program ($674,000).

Baker acknowledges in his memorandum accompanying his recommendations to the board that the displacement of students causes difficulties and disappointment, and outlines measures designed to soften the blow.

Displaced students from Fair Oaks, Hawes, John Gill and Selby Lane will be given first priority in the district’s Schools of Choice lottery and be able to attend any school where there is space and staffing available. The district will provide counseling and emotional support to students and teachers who are moving. The district will work with community partners to provide transportation to the affected students.

Whether those measures will be effective may be tested Tuesday morning by a group of parents and community members from the affected schools who have organized a walk from the downtown library to district headquarters on Bradford Street to demonstrate their feeling that the burden of the reorganization is falling more heavily on the low-income community.

At the Nov. 14 public hearing, Adelante parent Vanja Douglas summed up the argument: “… schools with the largest percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price meals and the largest percentage of English language learners are being asked to bear the burden of the upcoming changes … while the schools with the most resources are left small, unchanged, and comfortable.”

The public gets a final chance for input before the final vote on Wednesday.