Last night during a five-hour meeting at Everett Middle School, San Francisco’s Board of Education voted to close, merge and relocate more than a dozen public schools.

In a unanimous vote, all 7 commissioners voted against the merger of Daniel Webster and Starr King elementary schools.

It’s time to celebrate!

Read More
• Many S.F. schools closed or merged [Chronicle]

Photo by Kurt Rogers / Chronicle

The San Francisco Chronicle published a front page article about our neighborhood’s efforts to save Daniel Webster Elementary School. The article is well-timed as tonight is when the Board of Education is expected to make their decision about Webster’s future.

Potrero Hill mothers Jennifer Betti and Dena Fischer (with the guidance of Art Agnos) have been spearheading the campaign to save Webster, and their message resonates strongly throughout the Chronicle piece.

• Middle-class moms and dads and Potrero Hill merchants fight to save Daniel Webster [ Chronicle ]

Photo of Jennifer, Dena and Roman by Frederic Larson / Chronicle

On the eve of the Board of Education’s vote to merge, close and relocate schools we’re providing links to opinions from the Guardian and Lorraine Woodruff-Long.

• Bail out the schools – once [Guardian]
• S.F. schools valued, but need help [The Examiner]

The Board of Education was scheduled to vote on school closures and mergers on Thursday evening. After 6 hours of public comments, the board voted to take a recess and continue the discussion on Thu, Jan 19. In the interim, the S.F. education board will wait to see if the Board of Supervisors approves a measure to provide the district with funds to keep the schools open.

• Parents, teachers fight for schools [ The Chronicle ]
• School Board Notes 1.12.06

ABC 7 news aired a piece about the school closures on Thursday evening in which they mentioned our efforts and interviewed Dena and Jennifer:

“San Francisco’s Potrero hill neighborhood is thriving with new families. In 2-4 years these toddlers will start kindergarten at their neighborhood school. That’s if the school district keeps Daniel Webster elementary open.”

Dena Fischer - Potrero Hill Parent

I think we’ve gotten the attention of the school board because we’re unique. Across the city we’re the only group of prospective parents that have come out in force like this to support a local public school.

Jennifer Betti - Potrero Hill Parent

If we don’t have access to those schools every single one of us is going to be wondering if we should move to the east bay, up to marin or over on the west side. We have to have access to good public schools.

• View the ABC 7 broadcast

As part of our data gathering for the Board of Education, Stacey Bartlett conducted 2 online surveys about the San Francisco public school systems. Click on the links below to read the results:
• For Potrero Hill Parents (66 participants)
• For people who left San Francisco (120 participants)

Left in SF has a great summary of what happened at our regional meeting on Fri Jan 6.

Key decision makers were present (Mar, Sanchez, Lipson and Yee), in addition to Sophie Maxwell (our District 10 Supervisor), Willie Brown, Art Agnos and a representative from Assemblyman Mark Leno’s office.

Principal Rosenberg from Starr King spoke positively about the data he heard just Friday a.m. from our group supporting the need for two schools on the Hill, as well as how impressed he was by our group. Three other representatives of Starr King spoke out against the merger as well, citing the same reasons we mentioned in our meeting with Commissioner Lipson - both schools will suffer if the merger goes through. Daniel Webster had more than the allotted 10 speakers on its behalf (four of us from our PHPA DW Committee).

We had the opportunity to share with Commisioners Mar, Sanchez and Yee many of the same points we had spoken to Commissioner Lipson about earlier in the day.

Let’s hope our message is being heard and considered in the ultimate decision making.

Board of Education Commissioner Sarah Lipson attended a meeting with prospective and current parents of Daniel Webster at the Potrero library today. We presented to her our reasons for why Daniel Webster should stay open.

We’d like to thank the 60+ Potrero Hill parents and neighbors for attending this standing room only event.

Your presence was a HUGE asset in our campaign and we feel that we met our goal of making a big impact on Commissioner Lipson. As you could tell, she was impressed by our numbers and our commitment - not just our passion but our ability to deliver facts and figures and hard data to back up our goal to keep Daniel Webster AND Starr King open.

We gave her enough copies of our report for the other Board members and she promised to deliver them. Feel free to use the data in your letters, and please send a hard copy via snail mail.

• Download our presentation: ‘Why Daniel Webster Should Stay Open‘

The San Francisco Unified School District’s Meeting on School Closures, Mergers and Relocations happens tomorrow for our region.

Please wear a white or ‘Save Daniel Webster’ t-shirt to display our support of the school as a group.

Community Meeting to discuss closures
Friday, Jan 6, 2006, 7 - 8:30 pm
Thurgood Marshall High School
45 Conkling Street (off of Silver Ave)

Today the SF Examiner published an article on communities rallying to save schools, in which our efforts to save Daniel Webster are mentioned:

With only one week to go before the board makes decisions, communities that have organized in recent weeks to campaign for their schools are working overtime to pack meetings, send in letters and petitions and contact board members and other city leaders.

Even parents who don’t yet have kids in the public schools are defending their neighborhood school. Potrero Hill parent Jennifer Betti said she and her husband bought a house within walking distance of Daniel Webster Elementary School several years ago specifically with their now-preschool-aged daughter son in mind.

“The board has not paid attention to the changing demographics of Potrero Hill,” Betti said. “We’ve got all these young families here now.”