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Board amends and approves Teach For America support; consent items pass with several motions
Summary
After debate, the board amended a Teach For America resolution to remove promotional language and then approved a corrected resolution to support 14 TFA teachers in hard-to-fill areas; the consent calendar and other items (minutes, naming resolution) were also approved as recorded.
At the May 15 meeting the San Francisco Unified School District Board considered several consent items and two related resolutions concerning Teach For America (TFA) support and administrative bookkeeping.
Board staff explained the actions as a housekeeping amendment to a prior contract resolution and a request to add a small cohort of new TFA participants focused on hard-to-fill subjects such as special education and secondary math and science. Several commissioners and public speakers pressed for clearer language and additional documentation about the program's history, retention and how the cohort interacts with ongoing layoff notices elsewhere in the district.
Commissioner Wins moved an amendment to remove promotional language in the resolution's first paragraph (language referring to TFA applicants as "the nation's most promising future leaders"). The amendment to the resolution's summary passed by roll call. The board then moved the amended resolution (to fund/support 14 teachers and to correct prior bookkeeping amounts). The amended resolution passed (recorded at the meeting as a roll-call majority after discussion).
Board members asked staff to prepare a memo summarizing the district's history with TFA (number of cohorts, retention statistics, subject placements and the fiscal mechanics of the partnership) and to place the item on the Personnel Committee agenda for additional review. Commissioners also sought assurances the new hires would be placed only in listed hard-to-fill positions and would not displace certificated staff in other categories.
Other actions taken under consent included approval of the special meeting minutes, suspension of rules to adopt the Dan Ryan Art Room naming, and the unanimous commendation of the San Francisco Food Bank (described in a separate article). The board's closed-session readout recorded contract approvals for principals and settlements in identified OAH cases; the board reported the amounts and nature of those settlements in open session.
