What State’s 188 Low-Performing Schools Can Expect: Challenges, $$s and Longer School Days
In what appears to be the most dramatic set of challenges in decades, five of the 10 San Francisco schools eligible for millions of dollars in new funding must close, replace half their staffs or convert to charter schools by late August, according to U.S. Department of Education guidelines.
California officials this week announced the three options and an initial list of 188 state schools eligible for the intervention grants. A fourth and less disruptive option is the so-called transformation model. It requires reforming instruction and replacing a principal that has been on the job for more than two years.
While a school’s fate will be determined at the district level, Washington’s rules prevent districts from taking the easiest route.
Districts such as San Francisco with nine or more Tier I or Tier II schools may opt for the milder transformation model in no more “than 50 percent of those schools. “ (Tier I, II and III are designations that refer to poverty, funding and performance levels. If you want tier details, click here. )
“We’re trying to respond to the new information and the new requirements in the most meaningful way,” said Dee Dee Desmond, the executive director for Reform & Accountability for the San Francisco Unified School District.
Desmond said that in the past, San Francisco has developed a reform strategy that encouraged stability. “In helping these schools to be the best that they can be” the changes needed “are not the things that are most draconian,” she said. A shift in principals, and teacher turnover already happens frequently at struggling schools and creates instability that is part of the problem, she
