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"JBBP West to Merge With Rosa Parks Elementary"
Published in the Nichi Bei Times, January 26, 2006.
The San Francisco Board of Education's Jan. 19 vote to merge the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Program (JBBP) West with Rosa Parks Elementary, which Commissioner Eric Mar called "one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made," has left community members in disagreement and the future of the program uncertain.
"It really makes me sad that the JBBP community is so clearly divided and apparently tearing itself apart," said Mar in a Jan. 22 e-mail addressed to the JBBP West community.
The JBBP West is not new to controversy. The program split from Clarendon Alternative Elementary School in 2000 over differences in teaching philosophies.
The question now remains, if and how the merger, which begins with the 2006-07 school year, will affect JBBP West's enrollment. The deadline for families to inform the district about which schools they would like their children to attend is Jan. 27, with school placements assigned in mid-March.
Last week, the Board voted on the fate of 26 public schools, eliminating the possibility of the JBBP West either merging with Cabrillo Elementary or remaining a stand-alone site.
Instead, the Board voted 8 to 1, with Vice President Sarah Lipson dissenting, to merge JBBP West with Rosa Parks, located near Japantown in San Francisco's Western Addition District.
"Raphael Weill Elementary School, now Rosa Parks, where my wife taught for many years, and her uncle and many J-Town oldtimers went to school is an important Japanese American institution that must be acknowledged," said Mar in his e-mail.
He also stated that he "wanted to correct some misinformation being spread" about the vote, saying that "there was no deal on anything made prior to the Board of Education meeting…I was still weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the various scenarios up until the final vote."
A possible merger with Cabrillo was quickly removed from the list through a consensus.
According to the San Francisco Unified School District's 2005-06 school profiles, Cabrillo and Rosa Parks each have an enrollment of about 230 students, but Cabrillo has 23,400 square feet of building space, compared to Rosa Parks' 66,900 square feet.
Commissioner Dan Kelly noted that Rosa Parks, currently at 46 percent capacity, can accommodate both programs.
At the special BOE meeting at Everett Middle School, both Lipson and Mar raised the issue of JBBP remaining a stand-alone site.
After Commissioner Jill Wynns clarified that a vote for the JBBP West/Rosa Parks merger would take Rosa Parks off the closure list and JBBP West off any other placement, Mar said, "I really did believe that staying in their current location would be the best thing for the program to thrive in."
Lipson suggested leaving JBBP West as a stand-alone site, possibly at Cabrillo.
"We don't have a program in place to successfully integrate programs in schools," said Lipson. "And I think until we do have that, until we have something created and successful that we can model after, it's not a wise move to make."
JBBP West Parent Teacher Community Council co-chair Ina Dang Brownson said integrating the programs will require "a huge commitment" from the school district to work with the families as well as the staff.
"Everything needs to change," Dang Brownson said, "including something as basic as how JBBP West currently fundraises."
The evening before the vote, Dang Brownson and about 50 JBBP West community members met with San Francisco Supervisor Fiona Ma at the South Sunset Recreation Center, several blocks away from the JBBP West's current 42nd Avenue and Santiago location.
Attendees expressed concern about their children traveling long distances to school and the effects of a merger on their current school community.
"What time do I have to put my kid on the bus to get to school?" asked Danielle Marone, mother of a JBBP West first grader, who lives only four blocks from the school's current location.
"Six-thirty," replied the crowd in unison.
"I have three young children and I don't want to schlep them all over the city," Marone continued.
She later said that her husband does not want to their children to attend Rosa Parks.
"It's far, it's a really big school," she said. "(It) is not a race issue. It's more of an issue of they're really two different communities and we don't think it's a good fit."
Al Fenton said that if JBBP West were merged with Rosa Parks, his son, a kindergartener at JBBP West, would be sent to the private Catholic school that his two other children attend.
"(My daughter) went to speech (at Rosa Parks) and it wasn't a place that she felt comfortable," he said, adding that "the fifth graders were picking up on my wife there. It's not a place that I would want my kids to be."
Fenton stressed the importance of the JBBP West's close-knit community.
"My son (attended) Robert Louis Stevenson last year. I think it was too big of a school for him," said Fenton. "You'd ask him when he came home from school, "How was your day?' He'd say, "I don't want to talk about it.' You ask him this year and he's just non-stop…he enjoys going to school now."
JBBP West is "family," Fenton said, "but it's not like that at normal public schools."
Others say that the Rosa Parks merger is a positive move.
JBBP West founder and current Advisory Council member Will Tsukamoto says that "this is the right way to go."
Tsukamoto, whose grandson would enter elementary school in 2008 and is in the Rosa Parks district, said he would be "completely comfortable" with his grandson attending the school.
"I feel quite comfortable working with the black community," said Tsukamoto. "I think it would be good for the entire community, because they're right next to us, and I think it's a very good idea to be friends with your neighbors."
JBBP West Advisory Board member Richard Wada is the son of Yori Wada, a former director of the Buchanan YMCA, who was instrumental in creating bridges between Japanese American and African American communities who lived in the Western Addition.
"This particular merger will make it difficult for us to retain as many families as possible," said Dang Brownson. "But, we know that it is totally in line with the advisory board's vision of JBBP West…Ultimately, the program will continue to grow and shine."