Posts Tagged ‘sfusd’

Now that Halloween is just a memory and a bunch of crackly candy wrappers in a bucket, you can really have some fun.

Mission Indie-Mart

Say no to sweatshop labor and corporate sameness at this fleamarket, where over 40 local designers, retailers, and crafters offer quirky wares for kids and adults. There’s hot barbecue for sale too.

When: Sun., 11/8; noon-6pm; All Ages; Free.

Where: Thee Parkside, 1600 17th Street (at Wisconsin Street), San Francisco; indie-mart.com.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Four children step into an antique wardrobe and fall into an adventure in a magical fairyland in this adaptation with young actors.

When: Ongoing through 9/15; Sat. 1pm; Sun. 1:30 & 3:30pm; Age 4+; $10 adults, $7 children under 13.

Where: Young Performers Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Building C, Marina Boulevard (at Buchanan Street); 415-346-5550; ypt.org.

Animal Secrets

Learn how bats find their way through dark caves and if chipmunks really sleep in a tree like Chip and Dale at this exhibition that pokes into the private lives of familiar animals.

When: Ongoing through 5/9/10; Age 0-8; Free with paid admission (Free-$18).

Where: Bay Area Discovery Museum, 557 McReynolds Road (at Fort Baker), Sausalito, 415-339-3900, baykidsmuseum.org.

SFUSD Public School Enrollment Fair

The biggie, with representatives from every San Francisco public school and all the forms parents need for the 2010 application process.

When: Sat., 11/7, 9am-2:30pm; Age 2+; Free.

Where: Concourse Exhibition Center, 620 Seventh Street (at Brannan Street), San Francisco; portal.sfsu.edu.

Fantastic Fridays
Crissy Field Center naturalists take little ones on an exploration of the outdoors using the senses. This week: cuddle up to trees with a hike and leaf rubbings.

When: Ongoing each Friday including 11/6; Age 18 months-4 years; $12-15

Where: Crissy Field Center, 603 Mason Street (at Halleck Street), San Francisco; 415-561-7752; crissyfield.org.

Healthy-food-oriented parents whose kids attend a SFUSD school will want to be at Mission High School on Thursday night, at a special meeting organized by parents who hope to change SFUSD’s food policies. Here’s what the flyer says:

Are you interested in learning more about the food in SFUSD schools, and how to improve it? Do you want to see more fresh fruits and vegetables served with school meals? Perhaps you have heard about the food in Berkeley schools and wonder why San Francisco is different? Are you dreaming about locally-grown foods in our cafeterias?”

Why, yes! Yes, I am! I’ll see you there. This is just an evening of brainstorming; petitioning the SFUSD will come later. The meeting is at Thursday, May 21 at 7pm at Mission High School, 3750 18th Street (at Dolores) in San Francisco. Email lenabrook@yahoo.com or visit groups.yahoo.com/group/sffoodsystems/.

For more inspiration, see our earlier post on Ann Cooper, Director of Nutrition for the exemplary Berkeley Unified School District.

First-round assignments for incoming San Francisco Unified School District kindergarteners have just gone out, and at least 948 local families are currently writhing in agony, having received none of the seven schools they signed up for in the torturous SFUSD lottery system. Still other families are evaluating what they got with varying degrees of unhappiness, asking themselves questions like Can I really get to 40th and Cabrillo by 7:15 a.m.? and Is it worth putting up with getting our seventh-choice school to avoid the hell that is the second-round lottery?

With all the pain there is to go around, conversation is heating up again at the SF K Files, the definitive blog on the SFUSD assignment process.  Forget the SFUSD’s official bulletins; this is the blog with the real down-and-dirty, including the controversy over sibling assignments artificially swelling the percentage of parents the SFUSD claims got a first-round assignment, and the lightning-fast opening of new elementary school De Avila.

Though the blog mistress, a San Fran mom who started the blog when seeking an assignment for one of her two children, posts frequently on various topics, the real action is on the comments board, with useful insider gossip and advice, as well as snarky commentary from cranky parents.

Local tongues are wagging over a school-assignment fiasco that has left 23 families without a kindergarten with school due to start in just over a month. It seems that the Spanish immersion programs in Alvarado and Flynn schools were overbooked with English speakers — the San Francisco Unified School District prefers to have a 50/50 balance in immersion programs between native Spanish and English speakers. It’s supposed to be a two-way thing; each learning the other’s language. But due to a slip-up in the way siblings of already-enrolled students were encoded in the SFUSD’s system, more English speakers slipped in. And so the SFUSD decided to pull the assignments for 23 families.

The jilted English-speaking families aren’t left totally high and dry — they’ve all been offered spaces in a new Spanish immersion program at Daniel Webster, and if they’re not thrilled with that option, they’ll be moved to the top of the waitlist of other schools on their request list. As a commenter on popular SF schools blog the SF K Files put it, “so those of you with Rooftop, Clarendon, Lilienthal or West Portal aspirations, this could maybe make that happen!”

Maybe…but that doesn’t go far to soothe the parents who thought they could relax this summer because their assignment was all set. Furthermore, the Daniel Webster immersion program wasn’t set to begin until 2009. If the kicked-out families want to choose this option, the school will basically have to hammer together a program in four weeks rather than a year — and rumor has it that the SFUSD’s Educational Placement Center first heard of problems with the English/Spanish balance last March. How much easier things would have gone if the problem had been fixed then.

After a rancorous public meeting on Tuesday, the SFUSD has been trying to smooth down ruffled feathers with promises to accommodate all the dis-enrolled families. That hasn’t gone far to mollify local parents already alienated from the SFUSD thanks to the confusing, stressful school selection process. The SFUSD has its work cut out for it.

Hi parents of kids aged 3-4! I know that you just yesterday got your kid into preschool, but it’s already time to start thinking about kindergarten. You may have heard your friends with older kids having anxious conversations about the San Francisco Unified School District’s lottery school-assignment system. It all starts with info-gluts like tonight’s Kindergarten Information night, a festive evening of chatting with administrators and teachers from more than 60 kindergartens around the city. Get ready for handouts, because Good Parent Regulation 602.31 requires your attendance.

When: Wed., 5/7, 6-8pm, Adults only; Free.

Where: Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. (at Presidio), San Francisco, 415-292-1283, jccsf.org.