Education

By Dwayne Jusino

I shall endeavor to secure a strong and stable funding base for our public schools. As well, I will explore ways to minimize bureaucratic waste in administration, ensure more efficient and equitable use of resources, and hold the SFUSD (bond spending) accountable to the taxpayers for their performance.

Compound that with rising college costs, while federal grants and loans don't keep pace, and you have a formula for our children faltering in life even before they have a chance to start.

As a parent of three daughters myself, I know all too well that there is no greater duty for a parent than to ensure that our children receive a quality education, readying them to meet the challenges of a modern world. To that end, I shall endeavor to secure a strong and stable funding base for our public schools. As well, I will explore ways to minimize bureaucratic waste in administration, ensure more efficient and equitable use of resources, and hold the SFUSD (bond spending) accountable to the taxpayers for their performance.

QUALITY NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

I have observed that our district's school assignment process, designed under a federally mandated "Consent Decree", has failed to achieve even its own de-segregation goals, while also unnecessarily burdening our own Southeast side children with hours long bus commutes to attend cross-town schools. As such, I actively opposed this failed process because it operates under a faulty reverse logic that seeks, in vane, to take some of our children to facilities with resources, rather than bring adequate school resources to our children here.

The result of this failed process has been to cause heated competitions among parents + who naturally want the best for their children + for the limited number of seats at the more desirable west side schools.

The core problem is that an inequitable portion of SFUSD (school district) funding resources have been historically, but unfairly, directed to west side City schools, creating top caliber facilities there, while leaving our southeast schools wanting. Therefore, I will continue my fight for the equitable reallocation of SFUSD resources, to ensure that the presently under-performing Southeast schools get the necessary support to become choice "Neighborhood Schools". I will not rest until our own Southeast side schools become quality facilities, stocked with adequate learning materials, having strong academic programs and enriching extracurricular activities.

IMPROVING SCHOOL SAFETY

Our southeast schools + particularly the Burton and Marshall high schools + have, all too frequently, been the scenes of some extremely disturbing episodes of violence. We've been confronted with occurrences of gang-related assaults, shootings and a mass student melee that resulted in multiple arrests. All this has served to undermine the proper learning environment required for our children to succeed in school. Students' fear of violence within their schools has contributed to chronic absenteeism (or truancy), which is a major cause for poor student performance + also costing an estimated $10 million yearly in lost attendance based State funding to the SFUSD.

I support implementing truancy prevention programs (such as the San Francisco Stay in School Coalition), school safety / anti-violence programs (such as the San Francisco Gang-Free Initiative), as well as, the expansion of after-school student enrichment and youth mentoring programs as a comprehensive approach to remedying this situation. Additionally, I support strategies that employ a combined approach of incentives and sanctions for truants, and their parents when appropriate, including mandatory summer school for low achieving students.

I support also the SFPD's community policing programs + the federally funded SRO (School Resource Officer) Program and the Car 29 (Patrol Response) Program + that have proved very successful intervening in student altercations early on, before they escalate into violence. These community policing programs deter disruptive, or even criminal, behavior by "at risk" youths, so that the safety of others is not jeopardized and the learning environment is not marred.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

I support expanding early childhood development programs (such as those at Bay View's Burnett Child Development Center), and the implementation of quality academic enrichment programs (such as the AIM High and College Bound programs) in the Southeast, including the establishment of a Southeast Children's Center, modeled upon the Yerba Buena Gardens Children's Center.

Additionally, I support programs that draw in crucial parental involvement, such as Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA's) and the San Francisco School Volunteers. In fact as Co-Founder of my neighborhood's improvement group CAPS (Community Alliance of Portola & Silver Terrace), I pointedly incorporated the position of an Education Affairs Liaison, so that we could effectively serve as a conduit between our community and the SFUSD.