Education
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Parents, teachers withhold signatures on SF school budgets

04.15.2010
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Amid a jarring education funding shortfall, committees of parents and teachers at two San Francisco schools are refusing to endorse the budgets for next school year, saying that signing off on them would excuse unacceptable cutbacks. The shrunken budgets that the San Francisco Unified School District is requiring would make class sizes larger. School site councils, introduced in the 1970s throughout California as a way to broaden involvement in school administration, have faced disagreement about whether they have any real say in spending choices.

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Education
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Education protests — images from the street

03.04.2010
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Thousands of people, including college, high school and elementary school students, plus parents, teachers and other activists, converged in streams on downtown San Francisco to protest cuts in public education Thursday afternoon. Organizers said that more than 4,000 people marched down Mission and Valencia streets to Market, and then to the Civic Center Plaza.

Education
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Lesson in SF grade schools: protest education cuts

03.04.2010
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On Thursday, San Francisco public school students as young as 5 will get a real-life learning experience about civic engagement — through protest. Students from kindergarten through college plan to convene at Market and Powell streets in the late afternoon to protest cuts to public education during a coordinated political action called the Rally for California’s Future. Several schools were planning to have students create picket signs in school. On Wednesday, students sat in the parent room at Sheridan Elementary School making signs and banners. But the school district, citing safety, put a stop to a plans for teachers to take students as a field trip.

City Hall
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Besides taxes, few solutions at town hall on education

02.26.2010
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The organizers of what was billed as a town hall-style meeting on education funding in the Marina Thursday said their intention was to have a conversation with the community about solutions to money woes for the coming school year. But the evening’s talk, moderated by Michael Krasny, host of KQED-FM’s “Forum,” fell short of those expectations for some parents, educators and others in attendance — as evidenced by booing and hissing that punctuated the meeting.

Community
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Pricey recreation center plan splits San Francisco State students

10.23.2009
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The student paper headline read, “Debate Already Closed.” But elsewhere on the San Francisco State University campus, the debate was just beginning, about a proposed $93 million recreation center whose bottom line seems to loom over the conversation about deep curriculum cutbacks this fall.

Students gathered Thursday in the Cesar Chavez student center for a teach-in organized by the Coalition Against the Rec Center, a group of students opposing the construction of a Recreation and Wellness Center. But the proposal has divided opinion on campus, with the president of the largest student group, which strongly backs the plan, declaring, “The project will never die.”