Audit Sees 'Chaos' in Sausalito Schools - LA Times Sept 26,1997

Audit Sees 'Chaos' in Sausalito Schools
Education: Report finds disruptive students and a lack of communication among adults in district, which gets below-average results despite above-average spending.
[Home Edition]



Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles, Calif.
Author: MARIA L. La GANGA
Date: Sep 26, 1997
Start Page: 3
Section: PART-A; Metro Desk
Text Word Count: 1058

Document Text

(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1997 all Rights reserved)

A crucial audit of this town's wealthy but racially polarized school district found a "system in crisis," plagued with high turnover in the administration, a curriculum that verges on "chaos" and teachers who fail in the classroom.

"The sense of helplessness among Sausalito Elementary School District teachers is so pervasive and dominant that teachers literally cannot establish curriculum as a priority," said the scathing report, conducted by a national team of educators and consultants and delivered to the school board Wednesday night.

"The teachers have lost their sense of professional efficacy; they do not believe that they, or their curriculum, can make a difference," said the report.

The audit also criticized what amounts to a toxic relationship between school administrators and the community and suggested if education is to improve, those who run the schools and those it serves must start talking.

The tiny district is a conundrum of race and class whose troubles have gained national attention, as a group of residents pushed unsuccessfully all summer for a complete recall of the five-member school board.

"The report is so unbelievable, it's almost numbing," said George Stratigos, Sausalito's vice mayor and a longtime school board critic.

Nestled in California's wealthiest county, the two-school district has an enviable average class size of 16 and spends more than $12,000 per pupil--more than twice the statewide average. Overall, however, performance lags way behind state standards.

The nearly 300-page audit--commissioned in March by the district and composed of separate studies of financial health and curriculum--does not solve one mystery of education so perplexing here: Why don't money and tiny class size necessarily help?

What the audit does do is point out serious impediments to learning. Chief among them are hostility and the lack of communication.

"The learning environment is held hostage by the inability of the adults to communicate," said the report, which is believed to be the first combined fiscal and curriculum audit ever done in a California school system.

In an interview Thursday, Supt. Bill Redman said that when the school board voted to commission the audit, "we were very clear that this was a commitment to hearing the very worst and that there would be no punches pulled."

While he promises to begin implementing a long and detailed list of recommendations, Redman took exception to some of the harsher criticisms. A new principal hired to lead the district's largest school, he said, has improved classroom behavior so that teachers can now focus on teaching.

And he disagrees with the audit's assessment that teachers are "frustrated, distressed and exhausted" and that they "describe their primary job as maintaining a safe and controlled environment among many disruptive and disrespectful young people."

But Mary Cannie, the lead auditor on the curriculum study, said Thursday that behavior problems among the students have hogtied teachers to the extent that curriculum--the basics of what is taught in the classroom--is not a priority.

While interviewing teachers during the audit, Cannie said, "as we talked about curriculum, people always came back to what they perceived to be the social issues."

The social issues are hard to ignore here. The school district serves both largely white Sausalito, where the median family income is $107,000 and unemployment is 3.8%, and largely African American Marin City, where adult unemployment is 38% and more than two-thirds of the residents live in public housing.

As nearby military bases have closed and parents who could afford it have pulled their children out of public schools, the district has come to serve the neediest children in the area.

In an effort to solve the students' social and learning problems through the years, the district has thrown a mishmash of programs at them. While some segments of the curriculum are strong, there is very little coordination and consistency.

"With such an overwhelming amount of required resources and no priorities other than personal choice, chaos prevails," the audit said. In addition, "more than one administrator admitted little or no knowledge of whether or not a particular program was 'working.' "

This is one area where having lots of money doesn't help a school district. In fact, some education experts point to such a knee-jerk approach to dealing with poor and urban children as one of the biggest problems facing education today.

"What we've found is that {excessive} programs become like barnacles on a ship. They weigh it down. Then we wonder: We've spent all this money. Why doesn't performance go up?" said Phyllis Hart, executive director of the Achievement Council in Los Angeles, who has studied the achievement of minority children.

The audit recommended that the school district hire one person whose sole duties would be coordinating and monitoring curriculum throughout the district and focusing on staff development for teachers.

Another major recommendation is for the district to develop policies that will improve communication with the people of Sausalito and Marin City--which could be difficult in the face of local political turmoil.

Earlier this year, a group of residents calling themselves Project Homecoming launched a petition drive to unseat the entire school board and replace the superintendent. Although that effort failed, the group filed two weeks ago to launch another similar petition drive.

In response, school supporters launched an effort to unseat Stratigos, the vice mayor and a major proponent of the school board recall effort. As the school board prepares for a community forum Saturday to discuss the audits and begin implementing recommendations for change, both recall drives are ongoing.

Stratigos calls the audit results a vindication of his group's concerns and promises to push for a new board.

"This board is not in touch with the community's pulse," he said. "They're dealing with self-esteem issues in the schools, not standards and excellence."

While Cannie, a New York school superintendent, believes that all parties want to improve the schools, she warns that "the change is not going to be overnight {and} it's not so much related to a person or a group of people.

"It's a need for looking at the system and fixing the system and having some plans and ground rules and policies that are well written and implemented," Cannie said.

PHOTO: George Stratigos, vice mayor of Sausalito, has targeted school board members for recall. He is also facing a recall effort.; PHOTOGRAPHER: MATT BLACK / For The Times

Credit: TIMES STAFF WRITER

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

Marin City Mall Still Developing - San Francisco Chronicle - Sept 5, 1997

Marin City Mall Still Developing
Gateway center disappoints on jobs, shoppers
Carol Emert, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, September 5, 1997

(09-05) 04:00 PDT MARIN CITY -- After more than seven years of planning and two years under construction, the Gateway Retail Center in Marin City is still struggling to attract shoppers and create sorely needed jobs.

The center, a joint project between private developers and nonprofit community groups, was envisioned as a development engine for economically depressed Marin City -- a community surrounded by affluence, but where unemployment is high and about one-third of the residents live in public housing.

Planners say the center's performance is slowly improving after a year of construction foul-ups and other problems that caused each of its four anchor tenants -- FoodsCo, Longs Drug Stores, PetsMart and Ross Stores -- to open at different times.

A grand opening celebration scheduled for last October had to be scrapped, and the center suffered from a messy, under-construction look until May, when the last anchor, Longs, finally opened.

Gateway is also fighting a stigma associated with Marin City, which has a large ethnic population and more poverty than most of Marin County, said people involved in the project.

Today the center, which lies along busy Highway 101 outside of Sausalito, employs just 250 people in retail jobs. That is far short of the 400 to 600 jobs predicted when ground was broken on the former site of a popular flea market in 1995.

Attrition and layoffs have pushed the number of jobs held by Marin City residents down to 44 percent of the center's retail payroll from more than half several months ago, said Al Flemming, executive director of the nonprofit Marin City Community Development Corp., a Gateway partner. The center's goal is to have 50 percent of the workforce made up of Marin City residents.

While some stores, such as Ross and Longs, reportedly are doing well, others are having difficulty. Many smaller tenants, which rely on the anchors to attract highway traffic and shoppers from other parts of Southern Marin, have been hurt by the center's weak start.

FoodsCo, a supermarket specializing in bulk foods, has cut its payroll to 25 from more than 40 when it opened last August. It scaled back its initial round- the-clock opening time due to lack of demand, and reportedly is considering de-emphasizing economy-sized goods.

``At the moment we are not getting the market share that our studies showed we would, though we will continue to try and hit that,'' said FoodsCo Vice President George Tucker.

Gateway's boosters say the center simply needs more time.

``Long term, Gateway is a fantastic asset, but it will take a couple of years for people to get used to shopping in a new place,'' said Dan McNevin, project manager for Martin Group, a co-developer. ``Over time, it will develop its own following because of where it is.''

Indeed, despite its rocky first year, the center's leased rate has risen to a healthy 94 percent. That does not include two spaces that are not yet built, but the center is close to a deal with a restaurant for one of those spaces, said Jim Kessler, an executive vice president with Burnham Pacific Properties, the center's lead developer.

The unfilled properties will bring the center to 186,000 square feet. Its other tenants include General Nutrition Center, Radio Shack, Casual Male Big & Tall, Post 'N Plus, Fabrix, Taco Bell, and independent restaurants and dry cleaners.

Despite its initial stumbles, Kessler said he is enthusiastic about Gateway's prospects, in part because of the success of a similar Burnham Pacific shopping mall across the bay in Richmond.

The downtown Richmond center has been virtually fully leased since its 1993 opening and is generating a robust $225 in sales per square foot, Kessler said.

He projected sales at Gateway will hit $200 per square foot within two years. While still healthy, that rate is lower than the Richmond complex because Gateway has more competition and larger anchor stores, which drive down sales relative to size.

The outlook at Longs, which has experienced above-plan sales, is also positive.

``I would expect this store to be equal to, if not better than, the average Marin store, which is better than our average store,'' said Jim Famini, vice president and district manager for Longs.

Russ Pratt, president of the nonprofit Community Marketplace Development Institute in Washington, D.C., said that optimism is not misplaced.

``You need to measure performance starting when the last anchor opened,'' said Pratt, a former Marin retail developer whose organization matches developers with troubled communities.

``I give my centers three to five years; it takes that long before they mature,'' said Pratt, who is not involved in the Gateway project.

While some of Gateway's stores may be suffering, the poor sales have not affected the center's partners. Their income is generated by lease payments, which must be paid regardless of how well the stores are doing, and whether or not they open their doors on time.

Flemming said he expects profits from the center this fiscal year, which ends in September, of between $400,000 and $450,000. Earnings will be split evenly between the community and the developers.

Pratt said shopping centers in down- and-out areas tend to succeed when retail is supported with other ``community-building'' efforts.

At Gateway, for example, the nonprofit Marin City Project offers training and job-placement services. The center includes a child care facility and a new library that is so popular school children have petitioned to extend its opening hours. Apartments and townhouses, 40 percent of them subsidized, have been built nearby.

Perhaps Gateway's biggest challenge at this point is to keep Marin City residents on the job.

The number of Marin City employees at Ross, for example, has dropped to a little over half from more than 90 percent when it opened, according to Flemming. A Ross spokeswoman declined comment.

While a high turnover rate is normal at new projects, as some employees realize that a career in retailing is not for them, Gateway's planners have at times made the mistake of placing workers too quickly, said Darro Jefferson, the employment and training coordinator for the Marin City Project.

``We'd get a call saying we need seven individuals, and we would send them to work without enough training,'' Jefferson admitted. ``Those have come back to haunt us.''

On the other hand, several Marin City residents have parlayed their experience into better-paying jobs outside of the center, said Jefferson.

For those who failed to keep their jobs the first time around, ``We need to train them and retrain them and retrain them,'' he said.


Page B - 1