Charter School Urged For Sausalito District - Marin City leaders want fall opening for K-4 , San Francisco Chronicle - Feb 4, 2000 - by Peter Fimrite

Charter School Urged For Sausalito District
Marin City leaders want fall opening for K-4
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, February 4, 2000

(02-04) 04:00 PDT SAUSALITO -- Community leaders from Marin City marched into the Sausalito School District board meeting last night to push for a charter school in what they say is a last-ditch effort to save public education for their children.

The push comes as the troubled district, already saddled with the worst test scores in Marin County, struggles with the loss of three school trustees and seven new teachers as well as a disgruntled workforce.

``It is criminal what is happening to our children, and we can no longer afford to sit back and not speak up,'' said Terrie Harris-Green, the education chairwoman for the Marin City Charter Committee. ``This is a unified effort in the community, and it's exciting because charter schools can bring that missing ingredient of parental involvement.''

Several dozen people held a vigil last night before walking over to the meeting. The board has agreed to consider specific proposals in the near future.

The community leaders want to establish a charter school -- which would set its own rules and hire its own employees -- next fall for about 100 kindergarten through fourth- grade students. The school would require parents to sign a contract, agreeing to volunteer at least five hours a month at the school.

Like regular public schools, there would be no tuition. But the charter school could open early in the morning and stay open until late at night, serving as a community hub for children and parents.

Almost 90 percent of the district's 250 or so students are minorities -- and about 80 percent of them are African Americans from Marin City, a low-income housing area next to Sausalito.

Politicians and community leaders have been trying for years to improve the district's schools -- Bayside/Martin Luther King Elementary and Northbay Alternative -- but the situation has, if anything, only gotten worse.

There seemed to be hope three years ago, when concerned parents in Marin City and Sausalito formed a group called Project Homecoming and initiated a successful campaign to recall the entire board.

But the multicultural alliance has since disintegrated. The first cracks showed up last year, when Trustee Cathomas Starbird refused to resign after she was charged with assault during a widely publicized sexual threesome.

Her refusal came despite public demands by three Project Homecoming allies -- trustees Judith Johnson, Bill Hudson and Jane Colton -- that she step down.

Things went downhill from there. Seven of the 10 new teachers hired last summer have resigned. Then, last month, Hudson resigned and the Sausalito District Teachers Association declared ``no confidence'' in Bayside/MLK Principal Christina Windsor and district Superintendent Rose Marie Roberson, both appointed by the school board within the past year.

Last Friday, Johnson and Colton resigned in disgust.

``The situation seemed impossible,'' Colton said. ``It just seemed to be a morass of different points of view and self-interest and poor administration, and I felt I could do no more to help turn it around.''

The resignations left only Starbird and Shirley Thornton on the board and forced the county board of education to appoint three interim replacements.

``We have had 10 new principals, four superintendents and a couple of different boards within the past half-dozen years,'' said Dave Barni, a teacher for 23 years and the co-president of the teachers association. ``Every time the board turns over, there's a new superintendent, and every time there's a new superintendent, there's a new principal, and every time there's a new principal, they release some teachers who are on temporary status. It's crazy.''

Thornton defended the board and administration, saying it takes time to change a situation that has existed for decades.

``If you're going to run a marathon, you don't stop when you hit a hill,'' Thornton said. ``Change is hard, and you have to be willing to stay in and fight it out. If the community wants to put its time and effort into a charter school process to improve education, then I don't have any problem with that, as long as we end up with something that is good for the children.