More Parent-Friendly, Student-Friendly School Board

By Kimberley "Kim" Knox

Kim outlines concrete steps that she would implement to ensure that the San Francisco Board of Education is more responsive to parents, students, educators and other staff.

I am recommending that some sound best management practices should be adopted by the SF Board of Education to ensure that stakeholders can provide input to the Board's decisions and that the district's resources are put to the best possible use to serve our community.

1. Require that the final budget given to the Board and the SF school community show how much the district spent on the item in comparison to how much they are asking for in the budget year. Currently, the district only shows the previous budget for the item, so the public is not aware of how much money was actually spent on the item.

2. Require management to implement and monitor effective internal controls over the district's financial transactions. One example would be to require that all travel expenses by Board members and senior staff (those in the Superintendent's cabinet) must be approved prior to the trip at a regular San Francisco Board of Education meeting in order to be reimbursed for expenses. Currently, the Board's travel expenses are often approved after the trip has occurred and at that point, the Board can not object to the costs that have already incurred during the trip.

3. Require all agenda items that involve an expense of more than $10,000 to include a explanation showing the breakdown of the costs that is provided to the audience at the Board of Education's meetings. Currently, the Board of Education Commissioners gets supporting documentation with a breakdown of costs for each item. But that information is not shared with the audience. The audience only receives a summary sheet that only provides the lump sum of the expenditure. This does not allow the audience to fully review nor fully participate in the oversight of the expenditures of their tax dollars.

4. Work to ensure that the District will increase the number of times that it presents the District's budget in May and June to two community meetings-one on the southeast side of the City and another on the west side of the City. The community meetings will need to include an explanation and breakdown of the proposed budget for the fiscal year that will begin on July 1 of that same year. This year, the District will have a Committee of the Whole meeting to allow the community to review the proposed budget at its headquarters near the Civic Center.

5. Require that the District's radio station, KALW broadcast "gavel to gavel" coverage at the SF School Board's regular meetings. Currently, they stop broadcasting the meetings at 11 p.m. Frequently, the SF School Board meetings will end at midnight or 1 a.m.

6. Require that all handouts given to the Board members at a Committee meeting be furnished to all of the members of the audience. At a Board of Education committee meeting, the Committee may look at three to six items. Yet, the supporting documenation of these limited number of items is routinely not provided to the audience who want to testify on the item.

The Commitee meetings is the best chance for stakeholders to discuss proposed resolutions with the San Francisco School Board members. So it is important that the stakeholders know the information that is being provided to the Board members by the District's staff on the matter and to correct any misinformation that may be in the handouts.