Nearly 2,000 kids scramble to meet graduation standard
Just over half of San Francisco’s class of 2014 is on track to graduate, which means more than 1,900 high school juniors have just three more semesters to catch up on the credits or newly required college-prep coursework they need to get a diploma.
And that has district officials worried.
The class of 2014 is the first graduating group of students the district will require to pass the academic courses needed to attend state public universities and colleges.
“Our commitment is really to make sure every kid has
the opportunity to experience” a college-prep course load, said Janet Schulze, assistant superintendent of high schools. “We’re not wavering from that.”
Typically, about 82 percent of San Francisco high school students have graduated in four years, Schulze said.
But as of the spring of 2014, city teens will have to jump through more hoops than their older peers to get that diploma.
Some of this year’s juniors, for example, are missing the newly required two years of foreign language. Others, the two years of laboratory sciences, or the three years of math and history, the year of visual or performing art or the full four years of English.
Passing requirements
To graduate, students must pass those classes with a D or better. The University of California and California State University systems, however, require students to pass with a grade of C or better.
In years past, students who failed their courses could make them up in summer school or in convenient evening courses at their own high school.
But budget cuts have stripped the schools of many credit recovery options, making it harder for students to complete a needed chemistry class or retake Algebra II.
In December, eight of the district’s 17 high schools will lose funding for after-school programs, which allowed students to take an extra class at the end of the day.
In addition, each high school counselor has up to 450 students to juggle, making it difficult to offer the individualized attention needed to get each teen back on track.
Catching up
With three semesters until graduation day 2014, district officials have red-flagged every student who is behind and are requiring high school counselors this month to show in writing how each one will make up the courses or credits.
At Burton High School, Principal William Kappenhagen has every 11th-grade teacher and counselor focused on the problem.
“We make it everyone’s commitment to get as many kids across the stage as possible,” he said. “There are significant challenges.”
Kappenhagen’s school offers independent study, afterschool courses and online courses.
The principal also teaches a weeklong, catch-up English class over spring break — eight hours a day — which, combined with an independent study project, gives students a semester of required credits.
He doesn’t get any extra money to do it, but “it’s a way to get 20 to 25 kids to graduate,” he said.
Online courses
Yet it will take a lot more than a spring break class for Nina Collins, 16, to catch up.
The high school junior fell behind after she transferred to Burton from out of state. She fell behind more when her step-dad got sick and later died.
To catch up, she is taking world history through district-sponsored Cyber High online courses and English in Saturday school.
“I’m really far behind,” she said. “I’m just going to do what I have to do to graduate on time.”
District officials are leveraging all possible resources to make that happen.
This month, the school board will consider a measure that would exempt high school juniors and seniors from taking physical education, which was required if they couldn’t pass the annual state fitness test as a freshman or sophomore. The exemptions would free up time in students’ schedules to make up academic classes.
In addition, the Board of Supervisors is expected to vote on a measure Tuesday that would allocate $2.7 million in city reserves to help pay for school district course-recovery programs, but as of Monday, it was unclear whether Mayor Ed Lee supports the funding, given other needs and anticipated city budget cuts.
That money would be in addition to $550,000 the city has already earmarked to help pay for summer school this June.
In the meantime, the district is mailing notices to each of the 1,900 students off track and has scheduled five community meetings to inform parents and students of the new 2014 graduation requirements, with counselors on hand to print transcripts and advise individual students.
“We’re hoping we reach some people,” Schulze said. “It’s a huge task.”