Public school exodus - Marin IJ - June 12, 2006-Jennifer Gollan and Don Speich

Public school exodusJennifer Gollan and Don Speich


Poor academic achievement in the Sausalito Marin City School District has rendered the concept of public neighborhood schools largely meaningless as dozens of children in the district, both black and white, flock to private schools.
Even the district's relative wealth - it spends $22,232 per pupil annually, more than three times the state average - is not enough to coax students into the district.

"They are really being deprived of an education," said Marin City resident Catherine Shine, whose youngest daughter, Olivia, 6, attends private St. Patrick School in Larkspur, and oldest, Ashley, 13, briefly attended the district's Willow Creek charter school before attending Mill Valley Middle School.

"These kids are getting a (poor) education and nobody seems to care. I can't figure out where the money goes."

George Stratigos, president of the Sausalito Marin City School District Board, said Shine's complaint sounds familiar.

"Those were my words from 10 years ago," he said.

Nearly a decade ago, Stratigos led "Project Homecoming," a successful recall campaign of the school board that culminated in his ascent to the position of board president. In an interview at the time, he vowed to change "the long-standing culture of failure of the Sausalito Schools District to a culture for excellence."

In effect, Stratigos said, his goal was to attract would-be private school students to the public schools.

Today, Stratigos and another recall proponent-turned-trustee, Shirley Thornton, invoke nearly identical language to describe the district's condition.

"Our progress is in creating schools of excellence," Stratigos said. "We are not concentrating on returning people back. We are creating schools that kids want to return

PRIVATE MOMENT: Jade Zeeman, 8, and her mother, Matt, read together in their Sausalito home. Jade's parents enrolled her in private school instead of sending her to a Sausalito public school. (IJ photo/Alan Dep) to."

Stratigos said once the district achieves its plan of "Vision 900" - a score of 900 out of 1,000 on the state's Academic Performance Index - he would like to see the district enrollment double to 600 in the next three to five years.

"The next goal will be the return of the community to the schools," he said.

The district has a long way to go, many parents say.

"I don't want my son to be a petri dish," Sausalito resident Cindi Osborn said of her son, Luke, 3. "I don't want to take a chance that it will get better. É It is frustrating that we have such poor public schools that the parents are forced to either move or pay thousands of dollars a year per child for private school, and they continue to pay taxes into a school system that doesn't serve them."

Most disturbing, Osborn said, is the exodus of parents from Sausalito when their children turn 2 or 3 years old.

No official figures are available on the number of children in Sausalito and Marin City attending private schools. But residents say many families move away to avoid the schools.

Stratigos, a former city councilman who grew up in Sausalito, said that based on anecdotal evidence, he estimates 50 families a year leave Sausalito and Marin City in search of better schools. That has been happening for at least 10 years, he said.

"It is driving home prices down," said Greg Carrasco, a longshoreman in Sausalito, whose 9-year-old son attends St. Patrick School. "Young families know that you don't move to Sausalito if you have kids. They will pay an extra $10,000 per year for the rest of their lives (for their kids) to go to private schools."

In 1990, the school district was evenly split between blacks and whites. Now, just 15 percent

After commuting from Marin City, Catherine Shine walks her daughter Olivia, 6, toward St. Patrick Elementary, a private Catholic school in Larkspur. (IJ photo/Erin Lubin)

of the 283 students is white.

When Matt and Mark Zeeman moved to Sausalito from South Africa seven years ago, the couple chose to send their 8-year-old daughter, Jade, to St. Patrick School for the rigorous academic program, and because their daughter, who is white, would have been a minority in the Sausalito public schools.

"I wouldn't want to send my child there," Matt Zeeman said. "There are not enough white kids there. There wasn't enough diversity, like equal portions of everyone."

Kathryn Strietmann, a Sausalito illustrator, said things have changed since she briefly attended Sausalito schools as a child.

She sends her two children to private schools, which she says offer individual attention and strong academic programs. Her son, Albert, is in fourth grade at Laurel School in San Francisco, and her daughter, Frances, is in the first grade at Marin Montessori School in Corte Madera.

"You have that fantasy about public schools: It would be nice if they were more diverse," Strietmann said, adding that it is difficult to get wealthy people in Sausalito to send their children to low-achieving schools.

Strietmann said she struggled with the decision, and knew that if she sent her children to the Sausalito public schools, it would improve racial integration in the schools and would "make the world a better place."