One of the best decisions San Francisco’s electorate ever made was to amend the City’s charter in 2004 to provide for annual contributions from the General Fund to our City’s preschool and K-12 educational programs. San Franciscans knew that while education is essential, funding for schools was wildly insufficient, so they once again stepped up to the plate and put their money behind their values.

Identified on the ballot as Proposition H, the amendment requires financial support from the City in equal parts to three different educational areas: 1) universal access to preschools, administered by the First Five Commission; 2) supplemental funding for sports, libraries, art and music education (a program grouping now referred to as SLAM) as taught through the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD); and a catch-all “third-third” that goes to unspecified educational purposes for the SFUSD in cash and/or in-kind services. (The complete text of the amendment can be found in Sections 16.123-1 to 16.123-10 of the Charter at http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=14130&sid=5).

Each year the Prop. H funding level increases until it reaches $60 million. This year that amount is at $30 million, with $10 million for each third. Given the consistent budget challenges schools have been facing since the 1970s brought us Proposition 13, Prop H. monies are more than welcome, especially at the K-12 level where educational programs once thought of as staples—anyone want a school library?—now have to be supported as auxiliary components.

Prop. H sounds great and is great, but implementing it has been a bit tricky. To date those rough edges have mostly been associated with determining how to distribute funding across different K-12 educational levels and programs, as has been discussed in previous School Beat columns (http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=598).

Such complications are not surprising given that each year a Community Advisory Committee works to develop a proposal for that year’s spending allocation, which is negotiated with both SFUSD administration, the Board of Education (BOE) and finally the Board of Supervisors (BOS). This year is no different in that regard, as was described last week in BeyondChron (http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=4116).

However, a new and unexpected wrinkle to the process has now appeared as the Board of Supervisors is putting pressure on the SFUSD to identify and accept more in-kind services as opposed to cash in order to meet the City’s financial obligations. This year’s proposed plan from the SFUSD includes in-kind services totaling about $250,000 (see proposals from the SFUSD http://portal.sfusd.edu/template/default.cfm?page=initiatives.prop_h). Unfortunately, the BOS was hoping for, and it seems was expecting, a much higher number.

Somewhere along the way that expectation did not get communicated. In a December 14th meeting of the BOS Budget and Finance committee, Supervisors Elsbernd and Mirkarimi expressed a high level of frustration at this gap, which they have interpreted as the district not being willing to meet its own obligations in the implementation of Proposition H. While their frustration is understandable, their reaction seemed out of proportion, getting turned into a request for a listing of in-kind services valued in the millions as opposed to the hundreds of thousands.
A viewing of the recorded meeting (http://tinyurl.com/2bqebg) shows concerted efforts by the City Controller’s office to enumerate a variety of services that the City now provides to its residents under the age of 18 that could be somehow construed as in-kind services to schools. Some of these seem quite a stretch (health services, programs provided under the auspices of the Department of Children, Youth and Families, and free admission to museums for kids are some examples) but obviously there are other services that the City could provide to the SFUSD that would be beneficial to both parties (transportation springs to mind immediately).

While our schools need and would most likely prefer money, Proposition H does in fact allow for up to a third of the proposed funding to be provided in the form of in-kind services. That’s the letter of the law, not its spirit. The intent of this charter amendment was to create, with oversight, a channel for our very wealthy City to support its cash-starved schools. That intent gets most obviously met with dollars. Enumerating the ways in which the City has already been providing services that are beneficial to its children and their schools does not move us very far along the path to expanded academic programs. Nor does substituting substantial amounts of in-kind services for cash in the absence of any necessity to do so accomplish much more than show how much muscle the City can exert.

But the problem is not really about the relative mix of in-kind versus cash payments. From the outside, the more fundamental problem appears to be the rocky relationship between the School District and the City. This state of affairs is unfortunate to say the least, because it is a relationship that is critical to the health of our schools, the welfare of our children, and the future vitality of the City as it seeks to keep families within its boundaries.

Proposition H is a way for City and District officials to join forces in creating a stronger school system in difficult times, and a strong school system is something that every city needs, not just San Francisco. Accomplishing this requires a high level of cooperation between policy makers in the City and the District, which is a good thing. Such a degree of collaboration is absolutely essential for schools that are consistently being hit hard and unfairly by state and federal officials with increased mandates and decreased budgets.

For our schools and our City to thrive, the partnership with the City must be stronger. The achievement of our educational mission demands it, and the stresses of the socio-economic inequalities within which our students, their families and our schools exist require it. For a City like San Francisco that claims to be grappling with long-standing inequality among its residents, schools are both the place where those inequalities are clearly apparent and around which we can begin to try to change the status quo.

Such efforts are complicated and take time. They also take trust and communication. Parents and school supporters need to know that our elected officials and policy makers on all sides of the table are making their best efforts to comply with agreements and that they will not let their frustrations with each other play out in ways that only end up harming kids.

Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is a member of the board of directors of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco (http://www.ppssf.org).