The more you spend, the fewer students show up. This is just another sleight of hand payoff to radicals—this was never about absenteeism—it is about giving tax dollars to supports of hate, sexual grooming and National Socialism.
“In June of 2022, the San Francisco Board of Education actioned Superintendent Matt Wayne to spend $500,000 on a High School Task Force with the admirable goal to make recommendations on how the District could help improve student outcomes. After months of surveys, listening sessions, and meetings, the consultant will soon release a report. Unfortunately, this report should be tossed as the whole process has been an expensive model of how not to get community feedback.”
This was just a pretend operation to scam money from taxpayers. They should be ashamed of themselves.
SFUSD’S HIGH SCHOOL TASK FORCE A $500,000 MODEL OF CHRONIC ABSENTEEISM
by Laurance Lem Lee, Beyond Chron, 9/18/23 https://beyondchron.org/school-districts-high-school-task-force-a-500000-model-of-chronic-absenteeism/
In June of 2022, the San Francisco Board of Education actioned Superintendent Matt Wayne to spend $500,000 on a High School Task Force with the admirable goal to make recommendations on how the District could help improve student outcomes. After months of surveys, listening sessions, and meetings, the consultant will soon release a report. Unfortunately, this report should be tossed as the whole process has been an expensive model of how not to get community feedback.
Task Force members, arbitrarily chosen, have been chronically absent at the listening sessions. One Task Force member attended two of fourteen meetings. How can these Task Force members weigh in on the consultant’s upcoming report?
The consultant leading the Task Force, Matthew Kelemen, is a former San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) Special Assistant to the Superintendent and former School Site Council member of Ruth Asawa School of the Arts High School. His firm, Kelefors Education Partners won the competitive bid for the $500,000 consultant contract.
Curiously before he got the task force contract, Kelemen tweeted, “Great idea to focus on HS redesign/reform. But stop governing by task force.”
Surely, Kelemen has demonstrated experience running a task force, right? No experience was listed on his professional website nor his linkedin profile.
Surely, Kelemen will put in processes and other means to minimize any personal biases as a current high school parent or other agenda, right?
Let’s get back to that question later.
The SFUSD has a fine history of grand aspirations of fixing all high schools and looking for ways to improve Lowell High School’s admissions policy and school culture. The SFUSD also has a short history in doing such things poorly.
The “Equity Audit and Action” Committee disbanded in disgrace in 2021 after meetings went off the rails in finger-pointing. Those Committee members were chosen by recalled former School Board President Gabriela Lopez by a brazenly biased method she called a “rubric.”
One of the concerns of the Equity Audit and Action Committee members were accusations of racism and other personal attacks. For this current High School Task Force, one community member did a similar tack. At the mid-March task force meeting, Latoya Pitcher wrote in the meeting chat, “Selena Chu and Diane Yap has (sic) bullied black parents and students from engaging in any process to remedy the harm that I described in my comments. So Joy, for me, looks like removing ppl that bully students and families.”
The Kelefors High School Task Force contract has two pages of its Scope of Work or Services. The contractor will “Create selection criteria and a fair selection process” for Task Force Member selection. The contractor will “Establish and enforce shared meeting and discussion agreements that foster inclusivity, collaboration, and effectiveness.” The contract clearly lays out that the work will mostly be done by the Task Force, not the contractor.
Of the original twenty-six Task Force members chosen in secret, two members stepped down in March of 2023, and three members stopped attending any meetings in February 2023. One task force member, an SFUSD staff member, wrote, “I’ve observed many flaws in the execution and mission of the Task Force… The meetings were a big waste of time.”
At a recent Task Force meeting, consultant Kellemen shared his draft recommendations, a draft not written or reviewed by Task Force members. For one potential change in the application policy of the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (RASOTA), he wrote, “To pursue modest changes in the diversity of the student population, the district could focus on making highly visible work that is currently underway at RASOTA to encourage and assist students from target populations to apply.”
In other words, one RASOTA parent is making recommendations on RASOTA future admissions. The fox is inside the henhouse.
There was no clarity on how all the survey results and other community feedback was organized or used at all in preparation of this draft recommendation. In the meantime, only six Task Force members had suggestions for the final report.
There are two tragedies in this whole situation. Many heartfelt, and solutions-oriented comments and contributions are not being heard by the chronically absent Task Force members. Many community members dedicated many hours to contribute in good faith.
The other big tragedy is how the students again are losing in all this expensive, poorly done effort.
Any product of this terribly run process will be looked at with doubt for its lack of a good process. Superintendent Wayne has not been following the shoddy work and/or does not want to stop the flawed report from its promised (and delayed) delivery date. Board of Education Commissioners can pay heed to the flaws revealed by parents, staff, and community members.
