SFUSD announces free Muni passes for low‑income students, new student portal and recognizes Blue Ribbon schools

Superintendent Richard Carranza told the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education on Dec. 11 that the city and district have secured free Muni passes for students 17 and under from low‑income families, and that applications — available at school sites in six languages — should be completed early to avoid extra documentation requirements.

Carranza also announced the district will launch Synergy, a web‑based student information portal, for the 2013–14 school year to give school communities “access to reports and data related to student achievement,” and said staff training will ramp up in spring. He described the district’s new Getting to the Core report, funded by the San Francisco Foundation, the Herbst Foundation and the Masonic Foundation, as a public update on progress toward the district’s strategic goals.

The board recognized two National Blue Ribbon Schools for 2012. Carranza invited Lowell High School principal Andy Ishibashi and lead author Dakota Sweat to accept a certificate; Alice Fong Yu Elementary was also named a Blue Ribbon School but was not present due to a basketball game. Carranza praised staff and community partners for work that he said is moving the district forward on student outcomes.

Outgoing board president Norman Yee used his last general session to reflect on eight years of service, citing work on pre‑K–12 continuity, parent engagement and efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism; he told the board the district had “captured 50,000 more school days for kids coming to school.” Yee also announced the new board will be sworn in Jan. 4 at Tenderloin School and thanked colleagues and community partners.