School Trustees to Face Voters 3 seats in Sausalito and Marin City will be decided in recall - May 30 1998- San Francisco Chronicle- by Peter Fimrite

School Trustees to Face Voters
3 seats in Sausalito and Marin City will be decided in recall
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, May 30, 1998

(05-30) 04:00 PDT MARIN CITY -- The future of education for hundreds of children in Marin City and Sausalito is on the line Tuesday when voters decide whether to recall three Sausalito School District trustees.

The ugly battle for control of the troubled district has been raging for more than a year as angry parents struggled to gather enough signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot.

The fates of Gracie Grove and Delores Talley are in the hands of the voters, but their challengers can already claim a partial victory. Dennis Elsasser, who was a lightning rod for criticism, has already resigned to take a position on the Planning Commission.

``This recall is very important because we need to put board members in place that demand excellence and encourage people to succeed,'' said George Stratigos, the city councilman who spearheaded the campaign through a citizen's group called Project Homecoming. ``We're proving that it is possible to talk about education in Sausalito and look forward to having a school that meets the needs of everyone.''

The campaign is an attempt to change a district plagued by abysmal test scores, discipline problems and plummeting enrollment. It has stirred an intense political debate over the use of money for education, race relations in the schools and the integration of two very diverse Marin County communities, one rich and the other poor.

Eight candidates, all affiliated with Project Homecoming, are on the ballot as replacements if the recall is successful. The most controversial figure is former San Francisco Housing Authority Director Shirley Thornton, who is the only candidate for Talley's seat if she is recalled.

Thornton, ousted from the housing authority when Mayor Willie Brown took office, was offered as a replacement last year when Project Homecoming demanded that the school board fire Superintendent Bill Redman. The recall attempt began shortly after the board renewed Redman's contract.

Judith Hamilton Johnson, Clay Prescott, Jane Colton and Marie Simmons are vying for Grove's seat. Cathomas Starbird and Bill Hudson are on the ballot for Elsasser's seat.

The 266 students in the district's two schools, Bayside/Martin Luther Elementary School and Northbay Alternative School, have the lowest test scores in the county despite the fact that the district spends $12,276 per student, nearly three times the Marin County average.

An estimated 200 Sausalito parents send their children to private schools, so most of the district's students are from Marin City, an unincorporated area of low-income housing.

Nearly 70 percent of the district's students are African American, leading some to conclude that the poor quality of education is a product of discrimination.

The targeted trustees, however, blasted Project Homecoming for going forward with the recall, even though enrollment is finally going up and the schools have fewer discipline problems. They also say that classroom performance has improved, although there is no recent test score evidence one way or the other.

``This whole thing is totally and absolutely dysfunctional,'' Grove said. ``My seat and Delores' seat are both up for re-election in November, so what's happening is children's money is being used for an election that wasn't needed.''

Grove, Talley and Elsasser say they are scapegoats for the real culprits: poverty, unemployment, substance abuse and lack of parental supervision.