Lowell Alumni Association action plan
in response to threat to Lowell's academic status
In response to the report in
yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle
that at least one member of the Board of Education believes that Lowell's traditional status as an academic high school conflicts with state law, we are taking multiple steps to ensure that Lowell continues to provide nationally recognized, quality educational offerings to students from every San Francisco neighborhood.
The Lowell Alumni Association (LAA) held an emergency board meeting on Saturday and has begun the process to engage legal, communications and other experts and advice to uphold our standards. As graduates who entered Lowell from all over San Francisco, we have an interest in the quality of education for all San Francisco students. We have called upon the Board of Education to begin a process to better prepare all middle school students, with a particular focus on students from backgrounds that are less present at Lowell.
Our immediate focus is on a proposal at tomorrow night's Board of Education meeting that would significantly reduce the academic requirements to enter Lowell for students from one middle school. The District acknowledges that its goal is to increase that middle school's enrollment. We are not aware of any analysis of how those students would fare at Lowell or any attempt to increase their preparation in middle school. We are asking the Board of Education to delay consideration of the proposal until the Lowell community is adequately consulted and a wider discussion can take place on how to improve education for middle school and younger students. The LAA has suggested a tutoring and mentoring program for students of promise and potential at the Grade 5 level so they will have stronger academic support and readiness before applying to high school. (You can read LAA President
John Trasviña's recent op-ed piece on this issue here
.)
What can you do
BEFORE
Tuesday night's Board of Education meeting?
We ask that you join other Lowell alums to ask the Board to delay consideration of any changes to Lowell's admissions policy. You can reach SFUSD Superintendent of Schools Vincent Matthews at (415) 241-6121 or [email protected].
And SF Board of Education members can be reached via e-mail:
Thanks very much for your support! We will keep you posted on the larger Lowell admissions issues and how you can participate. To stay abreast of all important developments on these issues, please be sure to visit our website (
www.lowellalumni.org
) or our
official Facebook page
.
And please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us at [email protected], but we hope you'll understand that we may not be able to reply immediately.
Yours,
Tras
John Trasviña '76
President
Lowell Alumni AssociationTra
