Marin City mourns Death - Marin IJ - 10/28/2006 - By Nancy Isles Nation

Marin City mourns death
Marin IJ
By Nancy Isles Nation
Article Launched:10/28/2006 12:48:25 AM PDT

Friday was a night for healing in Marin City as residents gathered at the scene of the death of a 35-year-old Richmond man, who was shot to death a week ago.

The evening started with a candlelight prayer march beginning at the Manzanita Center and ending with a vigil at the parking lot at 30 Cole Drive. There, about 50 men, women and children mourned the death Darryl Harris, who died shortly after 2 a.m. in a slaying that authorities say may have been a drug turf war.

"We did a healing tonight," said the Rev. Johnathan Logan of the Cornerstone Community Church of God in Christ in Marin City.

He was answered with "Amen, amen," by the small circle of mourners.

As a microphone was passed from hand to hand, speakers called for the end
Mourners gather in Marin City on Friday. (IJ photo)
of senseless killings.

"We as a community are going to rise," Logan said. "We have to help one another be accountable ... this calls for more integrity."

Adam Muhammad said the killing was totally unacceptable.

"To us, when you take a life, you take a soul," Muhammad said. "Malcolm X said, 'I don't see anything more terrible than black men killing each other.'"

Muhammad said he has never bad the "homeboy-itis" that would cause him to fight over turf.

"Drug dealing isn't right, but it's still no reason to take another black man out," Muhammad said.

No arrests have been made in Harris's death, but Marin sheriff's detectives say they are working on leads.

In the past, detectives have encountered difficulty in getting witnesses to cooperate with investigations into violent drug-related crimes in Marin City.

Although he lived in Richmond, Harris was well known in Marin City and stayed at various addresses in the area from time to time.

Melvin Atkins offered his condolences to Harris's family and said his death was not typical of Marin City.

"For Marin City, this represents the loss of another stage of innocence for us," Atkins said, noting that parents still let their children play outdoors at night in the community.

In a prayer, the Rev. Kamal Hassan of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church said the group had gathered in an area where many people fear to tread.

"We must not quietly allow our brothers to kill each other," Hassan said. "When a life is taken ... somebody ought to say something."

Contact Nancy Isles Nation via e-mail at civicenter@neteze.ocm

School board candidates tout parents as the key to success - Marin IJ - October 22, 2006 - Reporter Don Speich

School board candidates tout parents as the key to success
Marin IJ
Don Speich
Article Launched:10/22/2006 05:16:08 AM PDT

Incumbents seeking re-election to the Sausalito Marin City School District board, as well as their challengers, say parental involvement is fundamental to making district schools - long the worst in the county - successful.

The incumbents - George Stratigos, Shirley Thornton, Whitney Hoyt and Robert Fisher - say they believe significant progress has been made in getting parents involved with their children's education. They point to improving test scores.

The challengers - Elizabeth Todd-Gallardo and Mark Trotter - say, to one degree or another, that progress has been minimal at most.

The candidates offered their views on a variety of topics at a recent debate in Marin City before a standing-room-only crowd of about 50.

Stratigos, Thornton and Hoyt are seeking re-election to four-year terms. They are being challenged by Trotter, a real estate agent and contractor and former board member who lost to Hoyt in 2004, and Peter Romanowsky, a waterfront resident who has run for numerous offices without success. Romanowsky was not at the debate.

The fourth incumbent, Fisher, who was appointed to the board in 2005, is running to serve out the final two years of the term. He is being challenged by Todd-Gallardo, a real estate
agent, who, like Trotter, is a member of the Willow Creek Academy, the district's charter school in Sausalito.

Looking out into the room in the Marin City Senior Center, Hoyt said, "I think this is a spectacular turnout, and it shows that the community does care about good schools.

"I think the district is making some good progress. We still have a lot to do; we really have to change the education outcomes for the kids so they will be successful at high school. We have to create a successful college-bound culture."

As to increasing parental involvement, she said, "I know we have parents who feel dismissed by schools in general." And, she said, involvement does not only mean helping students with their studies. "Maybe you are not the homework dad, but you could help at the bus stop."

Todd-Gallardo stressed that involvement could take many forms. She said single parents could reach out to grandparents to baby-sit "so a parent can be involved."

"Everyone has special gifts," she said. "We should find out what the parents' strengths are and get them to help."

Trotter was sharply critical of the board and the district, saying officials only reach out to the community "after the fact" - after policy decisions have been made.

He pointed to the board's approval in November of the use of dogs to sniff out drugs at the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school, a policy that did not come to light until January, when the dogs were scheduled to visit the school. Civil rights groups, members of the community and others vehemently protested, and the program was dropped.

"I'm tired of hearing everything after the fact," Trotter said.

Fisher said he personally has "spent a lot of time tutoring and meeting with parents."
Fisher, who faces trial in a child-support case, said he frequently asks parents what their concerns are and bringing these to the board.

Thornton said the PTA, which has struggled with attracting parents in the past, "is doing a great job."

"This is not only about parenting but training parents to help their children in school," she added.

The incumbents pointed to a recent meeting of parents of children from the district's three schools as an indicator of how much things have changed. For many years, many parents have not appeared at school events, and the district has been blamed for not taking extra steps to inform them.

District officials say they are making concerted efforts to notify parents this year, and say the proof of this is that about 80 parents showed up for a school event a few weeks ago.

"Getting parents involved is about high expectations," said Stratigos, who is president of the board.

If you let parents know the schools are expecting academic excellence from their children, parents will become involved, he said. New teachers and new administrators this year are evidence of the board's commitment to quality education, he said.

Read more Sausalito/Marin City stories at the IJ's Sausalito/Marin City page.
Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com

Challenger is best choice in Marin City - Editorial Marin IJ Oct 9, 2006

Challenger is best choice in Marin City
Article Launched:10/09/2006 04:45:31 AM PDT

THE SAUSALITO Marin City School board needs committed members who are focused on improving the district's schools. What it doesn't need are more distractions.

Trustee Robert Fisher, who was appointed two years ago, has not made a good case for why voters should keep him on the board.

He is running for the two-year seat on the board. The IJ endorses his opponent, Elizabeth Todd-Gallardo, a 42-year-old Realtor who lives in Sausalito.

Fisher's legal troubles are not the example one would expect from a school board member.
Fisher, 59, is standing trial in Marin Superior Court on 36 counts of contempt for failing to pay child support for a four-year period. He told the commissioner hearing his case that he could not make the payments because of health problems following a hernia operation in 2000. Fisher has refused to provide his medical records, citing privacy concerns. His trial was continued until Nov. 7, in part to give his lawyer time to prove his client is too disabled to work.

A Marin judge recently dismissed a domestic violence case against Fisher after prosecutors said they were unable to serve the alleged victim with legal papers.

It is time to give someone else a chance to serve on the district board, which is trying to get the struggling district back on track.

Todd-Gallardo's son attends Willow Creek Academy, the district's charter school. She is on the school's board.

She says she was inspired to run after attending a district budget hearing. She was involved in the search for the district's new superintendent. Her priorities are making the budget process more open and transparent and improving the quality of education in the district's schools. She also readily admits that she doesn't have all the answers to problems decades in the making.
Todd-Gallardo lacks political experience, but appears committed to working to improve all three district schools. It is encouraging that she wants to make sure that the district's money is used prudently.

This two-year term would give her the opportunity to prove she can make a difference. The IJ recommends Elizabeth Todd-Gallardo for Sausalito Marin City School District board on Nov. 7.

Student laptops just the first step - Oct 17, 2006 - Marin Voice By Merril Boyce

Merrill Boyce: Student laptops just the first step
Marin IJ - Marin Voice
Staff Report
Article Launched:10/17/2006 01:20:00 AM PDT

Merrill Boyce
A YEAR AGO, the Reed Union School District introduced a laptop computer program at its middle school, giving each sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grader a laptop for use throughout the school year
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We didn't do this willy-nilly; we had been building infrastructure and expertise and experience for 10 years.

We didn't do it without concern that the vaunted academic scores, the yardstick of public school achievement, might suffer - they didn't; they improved.

We didn't do it without purpose and planning; we intended to render teaching and learning what they were meant to be, individual experiences contingent on open access to tools and information and dependent on a student's ability and a teacher's engagement.

In a survey taken at the end of the first year - 93 percent of students and 100 percent of teachers participated - we learned a few things.

Our teachers, who have had their own laptop program for six years, are power users. Their highest use of the laptops is to communicate with students, their families and other teachers in the school and beyond.
Eighty percent of our teachers use them to create materials for class and do online research to augment lesson plans. This has significant advantage for keeping a curriculum current and fresh, especially in social studies and science where textbooks cannot keep up with events.

The teachers see their students using laptops to support individualized learning - the holy grail of teaching - to create digital presentations and to delve deeply into online source material.
Not surprisingly, 100 percent of teachers using laptops say "my teaching has benefited from laptop use."

The students find their greatest benefits are in writing, note-taking, online research and developing presentations. They find it easier to keep up with an electronic student planner and they appreciate having immediate access to class materials at home as well as at school. Nearly half use databases and spreadsheets.

More than three-quarters of our students responded positively to the statement "schoolwork has gotten more interesting since we got laptops." Eighty percent are convinced they are better organized, while a similar number say the laptop program has created higher student expectations. A full 89 percent say their "overall skill at using a computer" has improved. Only 26 percent use their laptop to read; books are not yet a thing of the past.

There are practical reasons for a school district to undertake a laptop program. Before the laptops, our classrooms groaned with a "high maintenance" assortment of computers and cables and paraphernalia, and entire schoolrooms were consumed as "computer lab" space. When we were working with classroom computers and computer labs, we couldn't schedule enough time for students to complete their essays and presentations during school hours.

A laptop program is an equalizer that lets each student work at a personally comfortable pace with no waiting in line and no time or place constraints. Each student has the same access to tools, online resources and information which leaves success fully in the hands of the student and teacher rather than to the whim of random access to pens, paper, material and information. We have more engaged and better-organized students, improved writers and more involved teachers. It all leads to better education.

Our challenge is not simply to maintain a laptop program. It is to provide common opportunity and uniform tools for every student. It is to enhance individualized, differentiated learning. It is to step up to the global challenge posed by an increasing number of well-educated students everywhere who, in our flattened world, are using technology to move to the front of the line.
Merrill Boyce is president of the Reed Union School District board.

Sausalito Marin City School Hopefuls Face Key Question - Marin IJ - 10/6/2006 - Reporter Don Speich

Sausalito Marin City school hopefuls face key question
Marin IJ
10/6/2006
Don Speich

The four incumbents seeking re-election to the Sausalito Marin City School District board say they want to continue the job of trying to move district schools from the worst in Marin to the best.

Two of the three challengers said the job of propelling the predominantly minority district of 283 students out of a 40-year history of failure should be much further along than it now is, and that what is needed is new leadership.

The election, in short, is turning on whether board members, most of whom were elected on platforms dedicated to education reform in the district, have done what they promised to do.
George Stratigos, Shirley Thornton and Whitney Hoyt are incumbents seeking re-election to four-year terms. They are being challenged by Mark Trotter, a real estate agent and contractor and a former board member who lost to Hoyt in 2004, and Peter Romanowsky, a waterfront resident who has run for numerous offices without success.

The fourth incumbent, Robert Fisher, who was appointed to the board in 2005, is running to serve out the final two years of the term. He is being challenged by Elizabeth Todd-Gallardo, a realty agent, who like Trotter is a board member of the Willow Creek Academy, the district's charter school in Sausalito.

Hoyt, 45, the political director of the National Abortion Rights League and the former principal of the Mill Valley Middle School, said, "I love being on the board. It is the most important work that I do.

"It is challenging and there are thousands of balls in the air at any one time. I absolutely adore the work, and I think I am good at it. I feel we are in the middle of lots of things."Speaking of Debra Bradley, the new superintendent, as well as Cherisse Baatin, new principal for the Bayside Elementary and the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy schools, she said: "We finally have the leadership in place that is focusing 100 percent on teaching and learning. I feel responsible for bringing them in, and I want to keep working with them."They are going to move mountains in the district."

Trotter, 53, said he believes Willow Creek, the district's kindergarten through eighth-grade charter school, is "being short-changed" by getting less money from the district than the other two schools

"There is a serious disparity in one out of three schools that needs to be corrected, and the board is not going to do anything about it."Willow Creek spends about $6,700 per student annually, putting it far behind the average of $22,232 spent on each pupil in the district's traditional public schools. Willow Creek Principal Carol Cooper said the disparity is largely attributed to the district's higher administrative payroll and special education costs.

Trotter's chief complaint is that though enrollment has grown at Willow Creek, the district has failed to provide the school with adequate classroom space.

When asked about this, board president Stratigos said the charter school did not cap enrollment when it should have a couple of years ago, and is faced with larger classes in kindergarten and the first grade. Stratigos said the district had provided a portable classroom and that others would be available by the beginning of the 2007 school year.

Trotter is also upset about the construction of a new MLK middle school, which he said is costing too much money. Voters approved a $15.9 million bond measure in 2004 for the construction as well as the renovation of Bayside. Earlier this year, the board was told an additional $1.3 million was needed to construct MLK, which the board secured through adjusting lease agreements with the city of Sausalito.

Trotter said the board is building a monument to itself backed by projected growths in enrollment that are more fanciful than real.

The incumbents say the new middle school is needed to provide a setting that is both attractive and functional, a combination they say they believe will facilitate the pursuit of academic excellence. The current MLK is a group of portable modules.

Stratigos, 45, a former member of the Sausalito City Council, was, along with trustee Thornton, a key player in a 1998 recall of several board members who they accused of failing to turn around the district's failing ways.

Pointing to test scores that have risen in all three schools last year and at Bayside for the past few years, Stratigos said the district is well on its way to achieving Vision 900, the board's slogan denoting the achievement of a 900 Academic Performance Index score - which would be a jump of more than 200 points from the current ranking.

He stresses the appointment of Bradley and Bayside and MLK principal Baatin, as major steps in bringing "standards-based" education to the district, meaning the installation of a curriculum and instruction that emphasizes basic academic skills.

As to the board's accomplishments, Stratigos outlined several, including "developing a plan for the district, implementing that plan, bringing in a new administration and a high level of new teachers, bringing to fruition Vision 900."

He said his only regrets are "not being able to do things faster."

He said he did not regret the board's decision to have drug-sniffing dogs inspect the MLK campus once a month - a decision it reversed after being harshly criticized by civil rights groups, residents and students - because it led to greater involvement by the public in the affairs of the schools.

Thornton, a veteran educator, retired Army colonel and an adjunct professor of education at Sacramento State University, was asked why she was running for what she said would be her last term.

"We haven't finished the job. We promised with the recall that we would have schools that are on a par with the other (districts) in Marin County, and that will be done in my last term."

Thornton, 67, stressed the need for improved education at MLK in order to end the high failure rate of MLK graduates at Marin high schools. She said the board had "worked closely" with Tamalpais High School by bringing in a Tam instructor to teach math, and hiring Bradley and Baatin, who brought a positive "change in attitude" to Bayside and MLK.

Todd-Gallardo, 42, said she had never dreamed of running for the board until she became active at Willow Creek and saw what she believes is a need for new leadership to assure academic achievement.

"They are bright kids and they deserve the best. If that means talking to other school districts" about what should be done, then officials should do so, she said. She said it is unacceptable the district has no full-time librarian.

"I want to find out where all the money is going," she said, referring to the district's per-pupil expenditure of $22,232 - compared with the county average of $10,895.

Perhaps, she said, "the district should have a forensic audit" by an outside firm to nail down expenditures, which she indicated are difficult to track because they are not outlined in "in plain English."

She said that Vision 900 is "great but that there are many ways to measure ability. I don't know if the stress should be on Vision 900. I don't know if it is my vision. It is George Stratigos's.

"If they can get there, fabulous, more power to us. But honestly, teaching kids about everything, about how to address people on the playground, social skills, being responsible" is important. "And we've got to get the parents to take an active role."

She said she thought the board's decision to bring drug dogs on campus "was just plain stupid. We're talking about 36 kids (at MLK)."

Incumbent Robert Fisher, 59, who is retired, declined to talk about his education. Earlier this year, the Independent Journal reported that his claim to have a degree in engineering from San Jose State University was false. Fisher is on trial for failing to make child-support payments. The trial began Tuesday, but was postponed until Election Day, Nov. 7.

Fisher said "that from my standpoint, there is no one on the board with a better connection with parents" in Sausalito and Marin City.

Like Thornton and Hoyt, Fisher is a resident of Marin City and said he deals with Marin City kids "on a day-to-day basis, making sure they are protected.

"My son attends Willow Creek. I am the only person on the board with children in the school district."He said he is committed to the notion that every child "be given an opportunity to get a quality education. That child has to be at the 900 level on the state test.

"Since I have been there I like to think that my insistence on keeping the focus on education has made sure that has happened. Since I have been there I have spent a lot of time working with children in the (Manzanita) learning center tutoring in regards to the STAR test to make sure students were able to perform well.

"All the other stuff, the (drug) dogs, they need to keep in mind that I was the one É to present a motion ceasing the dogs."

Trustee Hoyt was prepared to make a motion to end the proposed drug dog program, but she deferred to Fisher.

Noting he, along with the board's four other members, voted for the drug dogs last November, he said, "I took a lot of heat for that. I just feel that there is a need to follow the law and focus on giving the children the opportunity for an education."

Candidate Peter Romanowsky of Sausalito, who over the years has run for numerous offices in Marin, did not respond to interview requests by the Independent Journal.

Read more Election stories at the IJ's Election page.
Contact Don Speich via e-mail at dspeich@marinij.com

Sausalito Marin City School District board candidate profiles - Marin IJ - Oct 6, 2006

Sausalito Marin City School District board candidate profiles
Staff Report


George Stratigos

Age: 45
Address: Sausalito
Occupation: Fundraising consultant

Background: 1979 graduate of Terra Linda High School. Received a bachelor's in business administration from San Francisco State University. He is a former member of the Sausalito City Council.

Key issue: Maintaining steady, balanced and deliberate growth in academic rigor for all students while creating a public education institution that is standards-based.

Quote: "From a history of crisis, our community can now be proud that we are all part of the process and creation of the finest public educational institution in Marin."

Shirley Thornton

Age: 67
Address: Marin City
Occupation: Adjunct professor, Sacramento State University

Background: Associate of Arts degree from City College of San Francisco; bachelor's in biology, San Francisco State University; master's in counseling, San Francisco State; administrative credential, San Francisco State, and EdD in curriculum and instruction from the University of San Francisco

Key issue: Keeping Vision 900 alive to assure all students in the Sausalito and Marin City are living life educated.

Quote: "I'll strive to identify and resolve any and all barriers standing in the way of
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students achieving academic excellence."

Mark Trotter

Age: 53
Address: Sausalito
Occupation: Realtor and contractor

Background: Bachelor's in chemistry from the University of Illinois, former trustee of the Sausalito Marin City School District, member of Willow Creek Academy charter school board.

Key issue: The budget is managed carelessly and the distribution of funds between the three schools is inequitable.

Quote: "Last place isn't good enough."

Whitney Hoyt

Age: 45
Address: Marin City
Occupation: Political director

Background: Bachelor's in history, San Francisco State University, master's in counseling, California State University at Sacramento; former principal of the Mill Valley Middle School; political director of the National Abortion Rights League.

Key issue: Helping to build in young people hope and self-assurance so they can be successful in school and beyond.

Quote: "As someone who has dedicated 16 years to the public schools, I know what it takes to make schools places where all students can learn."

Elizabeth Todd-Gallardo

Age: 42
Address: Sausalito
Occupation: Realtor

Background: Marin Catholic High School, received a high school equivalency diploma, attended College of Marin and the Chamberlain Real Estate School. She works as a realty agent. She served on a parents advisory committee that interviewed candidates for superintendent as the mother of two boys, one of whom attends Willow Creek Academy charter school.

Key issue: Conducting an open and transparent budget process so decisions can be made with community input.

Quote: "As a parent of two young children, one who attends Willow Creek Academy, I am deeply concerned about the performance of our district schools and that all three district schools are severely under-performing, as measured by their STAR scores. That must change."

Robert Fisher

Age: 59
Address: Marin City
Occupation: Retired.

Background: Appointed to the school board in August 2005. Longtime Marin City resident resigned from the Marin City Community Services District Board shortly after he was elected to it in November 2005. He is currently on trial for 36 counts of contempt of court for failing to pay child support. A domestic violence case was dismissed last month when prosecutors were unable to serve the victim.

Key issue: "My key issue is the quality, equality education of all children" in Sausalito and Marin City.

Quote: "I will insist upon the quality, equality education of all children within the district so that those children will achieve at a level that will allow them to continue to live in our school district. This goes for any child in the hills of Sausalito, the hills of Marin City, public housing and the houseboats in Sausalito."

Peter Romanowsky

Age: 56
Address: Sausalito
Occupation: Entertainer

Background: Romanowsky has lived in Marin for 38 years, 19 as an anchor-out. He has three children. He is a retired pastor of a fundamentalist church. He ran unsuccessfully for the the College of Marin Board in 1999 and the Marin Healthcare Board in 1998 and 2000. He also has run for the state Assembly, the Sausalito City Council, Sausalito Sanitary District board and in 1998, the Sausalito Marin City School District board.

Key issue: Could not be reached for comment.

Article Launched:10/06/2006 08:31:30 AM PDT

Incumbents Best Choice For Schools - Endorsement - Editorial Marin IJ 10/5/2006

Incumbents best choice for schools
Editorial
Marin IJ
10/5/2006


INCUMBENTS OFTEN ask for more time to finish what they have started. Sometimes, they are right.

George Stratigos, Shirley Thornton and Whitney Hoyt, the three members of the Sausalito Marin City School board who want four more years, are making progress and deserve more time.

They have embarked on a long-term restructuring of the troubled school district that appears to be producing results. Test scores, shockingly low for decades, are on the rise. A new administration, including a superintendent, is in place. In 2004, district voters approved a $15.9 million bond measure to build new facilities.

The school district has a long way to go. Test scores still trail much of Marin, despite average per-student spending of $22,000, by far the highest in the county. Enrollment has eroded to 283 students, with half of those attending a charter school, Willow Creek Academy. Young families often move out of Sausalito when their children approach school age because of the district's reputation and past.

There is much work to do.

The three incumbents face two challengers: Mark Trotter and Peter Romanowski.

- Stratigos, 45, is a Sausalito resident. He joined the board after a 1998 recall.

- Thornton, 67, is a Marin City resident and college professor. She also joined the board after being a leader of the recall movement.

- Hoyt, 45, is a Marin City resident. The former Mill Valley Middle School principal was elected to the board two years ago.

- Trotter, 53, is a Sausalito resident. He is a member of the Willow Creek Academy school board and a former member of the Sausalito Marin City School board; he was appointed by the board to fill a vacancy and lost to Hoyt.

- Romanowski, 56, is a Sausalito resident. The frequent candidate has run unsuccessfully for the Assembly, College of Marin board and this school board.

Trotter's primary issue is that the Willow Creek charter school is not getting a fair share of district resources, especially considering half the district's students attend the school. He says the school gets about 17 percent of the district's budget of $5.2 million.

The incumbents disagree. They say the board wants the charter school to succeed and has provided far more funding to the charter school than is required.

Trotter says he wants a fair and open budget process. He says he would bring 25 years of experience in business analysis to the board. He says he is the only candidate in this race with children in district schools. He has a child in kindergarten at Willow Creek.

Trotter makes some good points, especially about the need to devote more resources to the charter school, given its size and growth, and the need to keep parents from moving or sending their children to schools out of the district.

His focus on the charter school, and his animosity for the district's other two schools, especially MLK Academy, the middle school, makes this an easy choice.

Thornton, Stratigos and Hoyt say they are working hard to put the district on solid academic footing, which includes making sure middle school students are prepared when they move onto Tamalpais High. The district is working with the Tam High district to make sure students are prepared, both academically (especially in math and science) and socially for the transition. The goal is to prevent so many district kids from dropping out of Tam High.

"This should have happened 50 years ago," Thornton said.

Stratigos, who grew up in Sausalito but attended schools outside the district, says "success must be institutionalized" to reverse the failure that has plagued the district for decades.

All the candidates agree that what's most important is providing all children in the district with a quality education.

Shirley Thornton, George Stratigos and Whitney Hoyt have demonstrated they are making progress in the Sausalito Marin City School District. That is why the IJ recommends they be re-elected on Nov. 7.

Formula for success: New superintendent has plan to turn district around - Marin IJ - Oct. 3, 2006 - By Reporter Don Speich

Formula for success: New superintendent has plan to turn district around
Don Speich
10/03/2006 09:38:23 PM PDT

Marin City's Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school has a fresh coat of paint, and in the small quad there are new green tables with awnings for students and staff. There is new grass and a new banner draped on the outside of one building that congratulates students for recent scores on the STAR test.

Inside the school - where half the graduates have failed to make it through high school in recent years - much is new as well. There are new instructors skilled in teaching the basic skills crucial to academic success, a new principal with a track record of success and a new, more rigorous curriculum.

Responsible for all these changes in the 283-student, three-school Sausalito Marin City School District is new Superintendent Debra Bradley, who by all accounts is tough, single-minded and determined to succeed.

"She rocks," said Trustee Whitney Hoyt, a former principal of Mill Valley Middle School. "She focuses resources and teaching on back-to-basics programs. She is giving children strategies of how to learn."

Hired in April, Bradley is a longtime educator who specializes in raising test scores through improvements in curriculum and teaching methods. She is considered by the board as the key player in its plan to take hold of the schools and turn around the education programs. She replaces Rose Marie Roberson, who was ousted by the trustees.

Bradley, who resides in San Francisco, is a former superintendent of both the Lompoc Unified School District in Santa Barbara County and the Fontana Unified School District in San Bernardino County.

She recommended the hiring of Cherisse Baatin, a Contra Costa County school administrator, as the new principal of Bayside Elementary School and Martin Luther King Jr. Academy. She filled a vacancy left when longtime principal Ruby Wilson, a beloved figure in Marin City, retired in June.

The district has continued to improve its test scores, as gauged by the state's Academic Performance Index. The district's API is not where officials want it to be but, as they are eager to say, they're on the move.

The district's motto is "Vision 900," which means the district will achieve an API of 900. California's goal for public schools is an API score of 800 or higher, which is based on a scale of 200 to 1000. The state's best schools, including many in Marin, consistently score in the 900-plus range.

Bradley noted the district's API was 739 for 2006, up 47 points from 2005.

School officials maintain everything is moving upward, turning the corner after more than 40 years of failure.

Everything being tried - new teachers, administrators, curriculum, facilities - is aimed at one thing: improving test scores. Whether the changes will push scores higher on a sustainable upward climb will not be known for several years.

Baatin says moving students toward success, toward "Vision 900," is a challenge.

"I know that a lot of the children are coming from a successful elementary (school) experience," she said. Therefore, she added, "I think one of the surprises is how deep (MLK) students believe they are not capable."

Because of this, she said, "there is a resistance to attempting more challenging work. We are working to build confidence."

Some of the problem, she said, stems simply from the difficulties confronted when entering adolescence, that "it's not cool to be smart, to stand out in a crowd." She says it is important to tell students not to be afraid of success. "I tell them school is serious business, and I tell them their job is to come and to do well."

Bradley talks of outlines for success she has implemented with a thin smile that suggests they are almost too obvious to mention.

"It's a three-legged stool," she said of her strategy for success. "The three Rs: respect, responsibility, results."

Respect, she said, means "treating one another with dignity and respect, respecting the time in the classroom, respecting our children, respecting the rules."

Responsibility, she said, is "teaching all students at grade level every day with appropriate intervention É so (a student) can be successful. Our responsibility is to maximize instruction time, teaching from bell to bell even if the bell doesn't ring.

"Responsibility to work with parents and our community to further engage them in the instructional process."

Increasing parental participation has been an uphill struggle over the years and has, according to experts, played into the district's struggle to improve education. The involvement of parents in the classroom and after school at home with such things as homework is considered key to a student's academic growth and success.

Bradley said attendance and interest at a couple of school events for parents this year was good, thanks to a concerted effort to make sure parents, through e-mails and phone calls, are kept informed of school events.

As to results, the final leg of the stool, Bradley said, "We are a standards-driven district, and we are a data-driven district."

Every day, she said, it is necessary to make sure students are being taught at the appropriate grade level - meaning that a seventh-grade student is doing seventh-grade-level work - "and we've got to do assessments along the way to be able to (measure) student performance, and that will allow us to refine our lessons to fill in learning gaps.

"We had three days of in-service training (for teachers) before the beginning of the school year, designing lessons to make sure students understand the material being taught by teachers."

That was new this year, as was a Bradley policy that all students in kindergarten will read at the third-grade level when they are in the third grade. "That was never assessed before," she said.

Additionally, she said, students who transfer into the district during the year will be given a placement test to determine their academic level. This, she stressed, does not mean students who transfer from the fourth grade at other schools will be placed in the third grade if that is the level of their ability, but that special instruction will be given to bring them up to grade level.

She said it is important that the curriculum - which at MLK includes algebra, algebra readiness, language arts and social science - be taught "with fidelity."

To this end, she hired an entirely new group of teachers for MLK this year, possible in part because a number of veterans retired. Hired were a new science teacher and math teacher and technology instructor as well as a new social studies and English teacher.

A former math teacher was reassigned to teach physical education. Previously, each teacher was responsible for P.E. instruction in his or her class. Now, with a full-time instructor, teachers can use the time to help students who are struggling academically.

"I'm in heaven," said Amanda Cohen, a veteran educator from the South San Francisco School District and the new seventh-grade mathematics and seventh- and eighth-grade social studies teacher.

"The support is phenomenal. If you want something, you get it. I can't wait for the payoff."