Parents and teachers urge SFUSD board not to colocate Gateway Middle School on Creative Arts campus
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Summary
Dozens of parents, teachers and students from Creative Arts Charter School told the San Francisco Unified School District board that a proposal to colocate Gateway Middle School at the Golden Gate/CACS campus would overcrowd the site, threaten safety and may not meet Prop 39 facility-equivalency requirements.
Dozens of speakers from Creative Arts Charter School pressed the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education on Jan. 8 to halt a staff proposal to colocate Gateway Middle School at the Golden Gate campus shared with Creative Arts. Fernando Aguilar, interim director of Creative Arts, said the campus already serves about 332 K–5 students and that placing another school with “over 300 students” there would create significant negative impacts. “Is this really the best that staff can do?” Aguilar asked the board.
The speakers, including CACS board president Lisonbee Folk, teachers, parents and several students, described a history of strained facilities at the site. They cited an earlier fire that destroyed the school cafeteria and library, ongoing ADA construction-related disruption and a lack of usable space for expansion. Lisonbee Folk told the board staff omitted some of Gateway’s Prop 39 space requests in a district summary, creating the impression that Creative Arts was asking for disproportionate space; she urged the district to convene negotiations to find a durable solution.
Teachers and parents said adding a middle school would change the campus dynamics and program delivery at a project-based K–8 school, diminish safe play and lunch space, and erode the small-school sense of community that staff and parents value. A sixth-grade student, Diana Green, said younger children would feel “towered over” and teachers worried about noise, scheduling and performance-space losses. A resident who lives across Golden Gate Avenue raised traffic and parking safety concerns tied to adding hundreds of students to the neighborhood.
Several speakers asked the board to revisit alternatives, request a fuller Prop 39 analysis and hold a dedicated meeting with affected parties. Attorney Rebecca Archer raised a legal concern, saying she did not believe the district had demonstrated that the colocation would satisfy the Prop 39 requirement to provide reasonably equivalent facilities to affected public school students. She asked the administration to re-check its numbers and consider alternatives to using the annex for a large middle school.
Board members listened and acknowledged the need for dialogue. The public-record exchange on Jan. 8 did not produce a vote or final decision on the colocation proposal; speakers requested further meetings and negotiations. The board did not adopt or reject the colocation during this session.
