CCSF has new temporary residents on the reservoir berm. Goats have been brought in to maintain edible grass and shrubs. There is a temporary electronic fence to keep the goats in the pasture. Brings back memories of the past when this area was a farming area.
Category: City College of San Francisco
ACCJC Meeting for CCSF – Public Session June 7, 12:30 p.m.
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) is holding a public session, which includes decisions on CCSF, on June 7, 2103 at 12:30 p.m. It will be held at Marriott San Francisco Airport Hotel in Burlingame.
Click here for more information: http://www.ccsf.edu/ACC/Commission%20Meeting%20Preliminary%20Public%20Session%20Agenda.pdf
Provide your feedback on CCSF to the Accreditation Commission
The Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) will be meeting in June to determine the status of City College of San Francisco’s accreditation.
Individuals who wish to make comments on the institutions that are undergoing comprehensive review in the current semester and that are being considered by the Commission at its next meeting, should use the Third Party Comment Form and be sure to include their name, address, phone number, and email address. The comments must be received by Wednesday, May 1, 2013.
Click to download the form: ThirdPartyCommentForm_4-23-13
CCSF accreditation deadline arrives
From the SF Chronicle
(03-14) 18:44 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Hundreds of faculty, students and activists marched from the Mission District to City Hall on Thursday demanding support for troubled City College of San Francisco, even as college leaders prepared to meet Friday’s accreditation deadline that will determine whether California’s largest public school lives or dies.
March 15 is the day all 14 accreditation deficiencies identified by inspectors last summer were supposed to be fixed. Not all were. But college administrators hope their report will persuade the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges that enough progress was made to justify an upgrade to probationary status, allowing them to continue receiving state funds and escape closure.
“Everyone loves City College, and this milestone is an embodiment of the feelings they have for it- and the hope that it can continue,” said John Rizzo, president of the Board of Trustees.
Rizzo didn’t join the demonstration at City Hall, where protesters sang and chanted their opposition to new austerity measures at the college, including faculty pay cuts imposed by administrators when labor negotiations moved too slowly for the March 15 deadline.
Protesters blowing vuvuzelas and chanting “Save our school!” crowded into the marble entryway of City Hall, calling on Mayor Ed Lee and city supervisors to meet their demands: stop the accrediting commission from imposing sanctions, aid City College financially and ensure that the college spends its Proposition A parcel tax money in a manner consistent with voter expectations. Neither Lee nor the supervisors have control over the accrediting commission or the college’s finances.
“We want them to hear us until they give us the funds we need to save our school!” cried Shannel Williams, president of the student body, to cheers.
The protesters, who took their demonstration – part dance party with drums and music – across to City Hall Plaza, call themselves the Save City College Coalition. But Rizzo and other college leaders say their own efforts to force City College to live within its means is how it will be saved for the 85,000 students who depend on it.
Final touches
Success is no sure bet. But the college is trying.
As the protest swelled to about 500 people at City Hall, administrators at 50 Phelan Ave., the main campus, finalized nearly 300 pages of paperwork. Friday is the “put your pencils down” moment when they will e-mail their report to the accrediting commission in Novato, deliver a copy by Federal Express and, perhaps, pray.
That thick report will be filled with examples of big problems they’ve fixed: a Rube Goldberg-like governance structure, a duplicative and costly student services department, and a look-the-other-way approach to verifying whether instruction is effective.
But there is more to do.
“Time is not on our side,” Rizzo said.
City College has yet to figure out how much it costs to run each of its 11 locations around the city, a major factor in comprehending its own budget. Despite that large blind spot, the college nevertheless opened a fancy, new Chinatown campus last fall that it had been counting on for years.
Labor contracts
Labor contracts are also a big unknown. Administrators imposed a one-year, 9 percent pay cut on faculty this year, and plan to permanently cut their pay by 5 percent in July. The faculty union has filed charges of unfair labor practices.
Nonetheless, the accrediting commission will decide the fate of the college in June but may not announce its verdict until July.
It was last July when the commission gave City College until this Friday to repair all of its deficiencies, most of which kept the school from making sound financial decisions. The inspectors who visited the college found it had too few administrators, no way to collect data needed to prioritize spending, and an environment of bickering and mistrust.
Many of its problems were left over from the last accrediting visit six years earlier. Irritated commissioners levied the most severe penalty on City College: “show cause,” meaning the burden of proof was on the school to show why it should stay open. The proof required repairing all problems by March 15, at the risk of losing accreditation. Without accreditation, the college could not collect state funds and would have to close.
Serious threat
Would the commission really yank its accreditation?
“Yes,” said Barbara Beno, president of the accrediting commission. Beno doesn’t vote, but Commissioner Frank Gornick does.
“Just because (City College) is big, I don’t think they should get a break,” said Gornick, chancellor of the tiny West Hills Community College District in Fresno County. “There are small colleges busting their buns with budgets that are getting just as ripped apart as City College’s, and they’re doing some remarkable things.”
Today, City College is doing remarkable things, said Robert Agrella, the “special trustee” appointed by the state to oversee its transformation.
“Everyone has put in a tremendous amount of effort into this,” he said, sounding sanguine about the college’s prospects for the first time since being hired last fall. “It’s too big an issue to not feel some optimism.”
Protesters say the quality of instruction at City College is high and should be enough to keep the college accredited.
Julie Thomas, an ESL instructor with City College since 1980, said that even if the school was closed “there are a lot of us – a lot of teachers – who would keep teaching anyway. We love this place so much, we’d come back. I know I would.”
What’s next
— Accreditation inspectors will visit City College in early April to verify claims made in the college’s “Show Cause” report due March 15.
— The inspectors will report their findings to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges
— The commission will meet from June 5 to 7 at the San Francisco Airport Marriott in Burlingame. Although the public may attend a portion of the meeting, no testimony is heard and deliberations about the fate of colleges is done behind closed doors.
— The commission has 45 days to make its verdict public.
Read more: Comprehensive coverage of City College’s accreditation problems can be found at sfgate.com/citycollegegeofsfaccreditation
Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: nasimov@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/CCSF-accreditation-deadline-arrives-4356351.php#ixzz2NZiQ6G5h
State official tells CCSF to get moving
San Francisco Chronicle
1/10/2013
City College of San Francisco needs to resolve its labor issues and come up with a stable budget plan – and do it fast, a top state education official told college trustees meeting on Thursday.
Two days earlier, the state-appointed overseer of City College stunned the community college system’s Board of Governors by reporting that the college would not be able to fix all of its financial and managerial problems by the March 15 deadline set to retain accreditation, and blamed foot-dragging by labor unions and other factions at the college.
Now, Erik Skinner, an executive vice chancellor with the state community college chancellor’s office, traveled from Sacramento to urge City College trustees to redouble their efforts.
“It’s essential as you engage in this action that you do so with a sense of really what’s on the line here, which is the survival of your college,” Skinner told the trustees.
The vast college of 85,000 students learned in July that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges will yank its seal of approval and shut it down if it can’t quickly repair years of management problems that have led the college to live beyond its means.
Earlier this week, Bob Agrella, the college’s overseer, told state officials that many college employees erroneously believe the school is “too big to fail.”
March 15 is the deadline by which City College is expected to show the accrediting commission that it has repaired 14 serious deficiencies. The school must also submit a closure plan by that date, explaining what students should do if City College loses its accreditation. The accrediting commission will announce the college’s fate in June.
Agrella said Tuesday that he and interim Chancellor Thelma Scott-Skillman would seek an extension on grounds that City College has made substantial progress and just needs more time.
Skinner said he had no idea if such an extension would be granted. He told the trustees that the more work completed by the deadline, the better their chances.
“There are significant issues stuck on the collective bargaining table that are really fundamental to demonstrating the college’s sound fiscal planning, and having a strong (budget) plan,” Skinner said.
A lack of progress in those two areas would likely be “fatal flaws in terms of a push to maintain accreditation,” Skinner added. He praised the work done to date as “evidence that you can pull together.”
“I think we should all take heart in that,” Skinner said.
Trustee Rafael Mandelman found Skinner’s assessment “actually kind of hopeful.”
John Coté and Nanette Asimov are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. E-mail: jcote@sfchronicle.com, nasimov@sfchronicle.com
Sunnyside Neighborhood Association 