Drug dogs gone but not forgotten -Marin IJ - Editorial - May 25, 2006

Drug dogs gone but not forgotten
Marin IJ - Editorial - May 25, 2006


TRUSTEES DID the right thing in pulling the plug on the use of drug-sniffing dogs at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school in Marin City.

Many parents and civil rights groups were rightly outraged by the controversial program. Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for Advancement of Colored People called on the school board to end the contract.

After initially digging in their heels, Sausalito Marin City School District trustees finally got the message.

They should have conducted an exhaustive public information process before bringing in the dogs.

Few would argue against a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to illegal drugs on any campus. Trustees continue to insist that there is no drug problem at the district's small middle school. But they apparently thought that bringing in drug-sniffing dogs to perform monthly inspections would publicly underscore that anti-drug message.

They also should have been aware that such drug-dog programs raise all sorts of emotional reactions, including fear, guilt and resentment, that must be weighed against any benefits.

Use of drug-sniffing dogs should be a last resort.

Trustees should have stuck to something they should know about - education.

Public awareness, education, responsive teachers and positive connections with local police are among the primary tools the district should use to help make sure its middle school campus is free of drugs.

Trustees suspended the contract in March after dogs were brought to the campus for an introduction to students and controversy erupted. Many parents felt they were not adequately informed about the plan before it was approved. Last week, trustees voted to formally cancel the program.

Trustees are working hard to build community support and confidence in district schools. This painful episode should have educated trustees about the importance of public involvement in government.

We hope that Sausalito Marin City trustees learned a valuable lesson in political science, one about the importance of connecting with the people they serve. They did the right thing by ending the contract.

District dumps drug dogs - Mairn IJ - May, 20, 2006 By Don Speich

District dumps drug dogs
Don Speich
In an about-face, Sausalito Marin City School District trustees killed a drug-sniffing dog program that critics had assailed as ill-conceived, clumsily implemented and an assault on students' rights. District trustees ended the controversial proposal Thursday night in the same fashion they approved it last November: by a unanimous vote.
"You are never to have these dogs come back for any reason," mathematics teacher David Wetzel admonished the board. Wetzel teaches at Tamalpais High School and at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school in Marin City, where the dogs were slated for monthly visits.
His remarks were tinged with emotion, as were those of other speakers, many of whom since early this year have demanded the board reverse its decision that would have had Interquest Detection Canines of Houston perform monthly inspections at a cost of $2,500.
District spokesman Martin Brown said the money, under terms of the contract, already has been paid to the Houston firm.
Wetzel said the board would have been better served had the district employed community members "who could use the money" to inspect the campus for signs of drug use, such as a syringe Trustee Tom Clark said he found on the outskirts of the six-acre campus.
"If a child had fallen on the syringe," said Clark prior to Wetzel's remarks, "(the child) could have died of AIDS."
Because of this, Clark's motion to end the dog program was coupled with another to encourage local law enforcement agencies to more aggressively enforce state laws and prosecute anyone caught using drugs within 1,000 feet of a school.
Trustee Whitney Hoyt summed up the sentiment of many, saying she agreed with comments during the meeting that "sniffing doesn't educate."
The program was suspended in March after only one visit to the campus in January by the dogs to introduce the animals to the students. No inspection was performed.
Trustees directed staffers to study the use of dogs along with other possible ways to prevent drug use at a campus where all trustees agreed there was no evidence of drug use.
Trustees maintained the dogs were simply a "tool" to prove they were right and to mollify any concerns in the community that there was anything afoot in the school - such as drug use - that could prevent students from succeeding.
Mary Buttler, who until recently was the interim superintendent of the district, headed the study and formed several focus groups representing parents, community members, students and staff. Each, meeting separately, came back with the same No. 1 recommendation: "no drug dogs."
Parents and community leaders protested the program after officials announced in January that dogs would be visiting the middle school just a couple of days before the actual visit - they said that was the first they had heard of the program. The controversy grew after the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People demanded the program be ended.
ACLU leaders said the program violated students' constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, based largely on the trustees' contention that there was no evidence of drug use at MLK.
Some trustees said Thursday the program was not without its merits. It prompted parents and community members to become involved with the district, something they claim has not been the norm. "If anything came out of this dog issue it was to stimulate more parental and community involvement," said Trustee Robert Fisher. "It has helped to bring the community to us."
Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com

Bikes for Kids program gives out 76 free bicycles - Marin IJ May 13, 2006 Staff Report

Article Launched: 05/13/2006 04:43:28 AM PDT

Bikes for Kids program gives out 76 free bicycles
Staff Report



Seventy-six children from Sausalito and Marin City schools were awarded new bicycles Thursday for completing special learning programs at the district.
The Bikes for Kids program was among the events the city of Sausalito and the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce launched in conjunction with February's eight-day Amgen Tour of California, featuring 128 professional cyclists from around the world, which started in Sausalito.

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition provided safety instruction and skills training for the bicycle winners Thursday.

The coalition, Dynacraft Bikes and A Bicycle Odyssey of Sausalito were instrumental in the Bikes for Kids program.

Her Legacy is Teaching - Marin IJ- May 8, 2006 By Bill Rogers

Her legacy is teaching
Rob Rogers
Marin Independent Journal
May 8 2006


Retiring: Sausalito Marin City School principal and teacher Ruby Sullivan Wilson is escorted past the Balboa High ROTC Color Guard by her husband, Henry, on Sunday at a celebration at the Manzanita Rec Center in Marin City. Wilson is retiring after 34 years as an educator. (IJ photo/Alan Dep)

Ruby Sullivan Wilson begins the morning of every school day making sure that students at Bayside Elementary get breakfast and a poem.
Both, she believes, are crucial for her students' future health and well-being.

"It's something that I say a lot, but I want my students to remember this," said Wilson, the principal of both Bayside Elementary in Sausalito and Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Marin City. "They need to know as much as they can so that they can take care of themselves. Because only then will they be able to take care of others, to make a contribution to the community and the world."

Wilson has kept up her tradition of morning poetry for the last 34 years - first as a classroom teacher, and, since 2000, as principal of both schools. It's an idea she borrowed from one of her own teachers, Nathaniel Hartman, and it's one of the reasons she enjoys coming to work every day.

Next month, Wilson and her students will read their last poem together. The principal and community leader plans to retire at the end of the school year.

On Sunday, teachers, former students and admirers from Marin City, Sausalito and across the county gathered at the Manzanita Recreation Center to honor a woman many call an inspiring leader.

"For young women like us, she's a great inspiration," said Ericka Erickson, program director for the Marin Grassroots Leadership Network. "She's always working to benefit the kids."

During Wilson's first year as principal, Bayside Elementary saw its Academic Performance Index scores rise by 106 points, making it the second-most improved school in the Bay Area for 2001. Scores at Bayside have jumped by a total of 138 points during Wilson's tenure, while those at Martin Luther King Jr. Academy have climbed by 68 points.

"Mrs. Wilson more than doubled our scores upon becoming principal, and placed us on a trajectory toward Vision 900," said George Stratigos, a trustee for the Sausalito-Marin City school board. "She really cares about her schools, and she has an absolutely unshakable belief in the children. She's an institution in this community."

Vision 900 refers to the district's hoped-for 900 API score on a scale of 200 to 1,000. The district earned an API of 692 this year. While the score is the lowest of Marin's traditional school districts, it is significantly higher than three years ago, when Sausalito Marin City's scores were in the 300 range.

To Wilson, her students'API scores are more than a measure of their academic skills. They're a record of their growth as human beings.

"When the scores stay the same from one year to the next, it means the students have grown by a year," she said. "When those scores go up, it means those students have grown a lot more than was expected of them. I don't
think a lot of people appreciate that."

Although she came from a family of educators, Wilson never expected to become a teacher. Growing up near Greenville, S.C., Wilson avoided any mention of teaching until she was a sophomore at Howard University.

"That's when a friend of mine said, 'You need to take some education courses,' " Wilson laughed. "I did, and I enjoyed it so much that I've been doing it ever since."

Wilson was a middle school science teacher in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia before coming to Marin County in 1972. She was new to the area and she didn't think she would be around long.

"We were going through a reduction in staff, and as the last hired, I thought I'd be first to go," she said.

Instead, the mother of three became an award-winning educator, recognized with the Marin County Office of Education's Golden Bell Award, the Alpha Delta Kappa Society's Outstanding Teacher Award, Marin City Community's Educator-Mother of the Year Award, and a Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Award from the Grassroots Leadership Network.

Sunday's event included presentations by county Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke, the Balboa High School ROTC Color Guard, Girls' Drill Team and Drum Corps and many of Wilson's former students - including several from her elementary school class of 1972.

"I've known her since before my son was in her kindergarten class, and now he'll be 13," said Felecia Gaston, who helped organize the event. "And she's always been the same. She's a sweet, powerful woman who instills academic skills in all kids. She has a presence at school that I'm really going to miss."

Wilson's admirers credit her with creating an atmosphere at both her schools that was peaceful, disciplined, safe, yet challenging. Those words describe Wilson herself, LaTanya Wiggins said.

"What I really admire about her is that she doesn't get freaked out. She always kept a cool head," says Wiggins, whose children attend Wilson's schools.

That's hardly surprising, given that Wilson's favorite poem is Rudyard Kipling's "If." As Wilson's students know, the poet's advice on how to live a successful life begins, "If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."


Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at rrogers@marinij.com

BIKE RACE PROCEEDS PROVIDE PEDAL POWER FOR LOCAL KIDS - Press Release - By Adam Politzer

NEWS ADVISORY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 1, 2006

CONTACT: Adam Politzer 415.289.4126
Cheryl Popp 415.331.4331

BIKE RACE PROCEEDS PROVIDE PEDAL POWER FOR LOCAL KIDS
Sausalito Amgen Tour of California Committee Presents New Bikes to Students
Please join us for a
Special Awards Ceremony
Thursday, May 4th
3:15 pm
Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy
Multipurpose Room
610 Drake Avenue
Marin City

Sausalito, CA – Two months ago, on President’s Day weekend in February, Sausalito hosted the first stage of an historic international cycling event – the Amgen Tour of California (ATOC). 128 professional cyclists from around the world competed in a spectacular 8-day road race from northern to southern California that has been heralded as the next “Tour de France”. The event was viewed by an estimated 1.3 million spectators and was a major milestone for the sport of cycling in America; it was just as defining for a small group of Sausalito school children.

In conjunction with this bike race, which promoted health and fitness education as well as cycling, the local organizing committee, the City of Sausalito and the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce, launched a campaign in the local Sausalito schools that enabled each student to earn a new bike by participating in a learning program. The “Bikes for Kids” program as it was called was one of six ancillary events that Sausalito and its community established during the 2006 Amgen Tour of California. Seventy-six (76) children from the three Sausalito/Marin City schools (Martin Luther King, Jr. Academy, Willow Creek Academy and Bayside Elementary) completed the challenge and will be presented with new bicycles, helmets and locks on Friday, May 4th at 3:15 pm in the multipurpose room at Martin Luther King, Jr. school in Sausalito.

“The look in these kid’s eyes when they see their shiny new bikes will make all the long hours and hard work we did well worth the effort,” said Sausalito director of Parks and Recreation Adam Politzer. Politzer was one of three co-chairs of the local event, with Greg Christie and Jeff Scharosch.

These same kids received a certificate of completion at an all-school assembly on the Thursday before the cyclists started their race in Sausalito. They were joined that day by male and female professional cyclists as well as representatives from the Marin County Bicycle Coalition (MCBC) who provided first hand information on cycling skills, bike safety, training tips and fitness health.


The Marin County Bicycle Coalition will stage a Bike Safety Rodeo at the awards event to provide safety instruction and skills training for the new cyclists, so that each student leaves with their new bike and the instruction necessary to be a safe and successful bicycle rider.

The program will recognize the MCBC’s many contributions as well as the generous support of Dynacraft Bikes and A Bicycle Odyssey. Tony Tom, owner of A Bicycle Odyssey in Sausalito, was instrumental in the Bikes for Kids effort, assembling all the bikes and ensuring their operational safety.

Due to the remarkable success of this first-time event and Sausalito’s stellar performance as a host city, there is every indication that the City will be asked to participate in next year’s event as well. AEG – the Anschutz Entertainment Group – is the major sponsor of the event and has committed $35 million for the next three years to ensure its ongoing success.

“Kudos to the local organizing committee, but also to all the kids who worked to earn their new bikes,” said School Board President George Stratigos. “These are the sorts of community based programs that will help distinguish our public school system in Sausalito.”

So remember your helmets kids, stop at the stop signs just like the cars, and go for the yellow jersey. You’re fully equipped now. You can do it.