Save CCSF Coalition General Assembly

Come to the Save CCSF Coalition General Assembly

February 3, 2016

Ocean Campus
MUB 160 5:30-7:30pm

Updates on Victories / Continuing Issues

· NACIQI (DOE) recommendation that gave ACCJC only 6 months to
come into compliance

· Draconian payment policy suspended – thanks to our amazing
student organizers

· A special update on the Alex Nieto case

· Speaker from the Justice for Mario Woods Coalition

· Update on reservoir development / PAEC

· Faculty contract fight

· … and MORE


Plug in to the organizing

Our struggle is far from over. We need to rebuild our City College to
the open, affordable, accessible and diverse college our students
deserve.

Mark your calendars for future GAs

· General Assembly: March 16, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 160

· General Assembly: April 27, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, MUB 270


The Colossal Deception



The colossal deception that has been unfolding since 2012 is
unraveling. This deception has its origins in the 2012 decision by the
Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges in
California, the ACCJC, to place City College of San Francisco on “Show
Cause,” the most severe sanction that can be imposed on an institution
short of revoking its accreditation. This decision, and the one that
followed a year later, to revoke CCSF’s accreditation a year out in
2014, led to a state takeover of the school, and the imposition of a
Special Trustee With Extra Ordinary Powers, or STWEP. In plain
English, the STWEP is a lone trustee with dictatorial powers, imposed
on CCSF by the State Chancellor and the unelected Board of Governors
of the California Community Colleges. The elected City College Board
of Trustees was suspended and the STWEP was imposed, ostensibly, to
save CCSF from loss of accreditation.

To watch this grand deception unravel should bring satisfaction to no
one, given the destruction left in its wake. No part of CCSF has been
left unscathed in this spectacle; no part of it has emerged
untarnished. The various corrupt components of the state takeover, and
its ineptitude, are now clear and beyond dispute. Over 23,000
students, more than 25 percent of the

2011-12 enrollment, have fallen away, including even higher
percentages of the most at-risk students. Several departments,
especially the Diversity and Social Justice departments, face a
continuing and increasing threat to their existence.

Some hailed this takeover as a positive step in “fixing” CCSF. This
included Mayor Lee, who accepted, without question, the ACCJC’s claim
that CCSF was a “failed institution.” The SF Chronicle was also a
cheerleader for the now discredited ACCJC and its decision. We were
told that, among other positive things, this was an opportunity to
bring about changes that would improve the school, and the success of
its students, in particular the most marginalized students, notably
students of color, working class students, single parents, etc. The
adherents of this viewpoint argued that those who were placed in
control of the school would replace endemic poor management with good
management, and would eliminate haphazard and politically motivated
decision making with a process based on integrity and sound judgment.
Under the watch of the new regime, we were supposed to see a rational,
prudent use of the financial resources of the school in place of
alleged financial mismanagement and reckless spending. We were
promised an end to wasteful and irresponsible use of finances on such
unacceptable things as the alleged unjustifiably high salaries of
faculty and classified employees. Thus, the first act in this
“responsible” financial policy was to unilaterally cut faculty and
classified wages by nearly 12%, while going on to clandestinely
increase the salaries of selected administrators to as high as 19%.
The second act was to institute an unnecessarily aggressive and
draconian payment policy that dropped 9124 students from all their
classes over only four semesters, primarily those who are the most
vulnerable. (After sustained protest by students and others, this
payment policy has been suspended.)

All of this took place under the autocratic rule of the Special
Trustee, shortly promoted to STWEP, and two interim chancellors, the
first, incredibly destructive, the second, incredibly inept. The first
interim Chancellor, Pamila Fisher, who frequently consulted by phone
with Barbara Beno, proposed and pushed through a shell-shocked Board
of Trustees, a college “reorganization plan” that included the firing
of all of the deans, requiring those that wanted to retain their
positions to formally reapply for them. It also involved a
“departmental restructuring” that would have effectively destroyed the
departmental structure as a whole. Fisher proposed eliminating all but
seven of the 62 department chairs. This tremendously disruptive and
destructive “reorganization plan” was announced at a time when CCSF
had less than eight months to correct 14 “deficiencies” outlined by
the ACCJC in their “Show Cause” report. This plan was certain to
insure CCSF’s failure in its attempts to retain its accreditation, at
least under the conditions set up by the ACCJC. But that didn’t stop
the second interim chancellor, Thelma Scott-Skillman, from embracing
this “reorganization plan,” and attempting to push it forward. As
could be expected, the ACCJC claimed that we had not met the
conditions to retain accreditation and that our accreditation would be
revoked at the end of July 2014. The State Chancellor then decided
that the suspension of the Board of Trustees was necessary to retain
CCSF’s accreditation. This suspension was justified on the grounds
that the Board was "dysfunctional."

The results of this disastrous takeover now scream loudly and
tragically for all to see, except, perhaps, those who remain
steadfastly determined not to. Viewing all of this through the lens of
political history, the whole thing is best understood as a grand coup,
typical in its justifications and its promises, and complete with its
dramatic, but predictable, failure. Neither the reign of an ordinary
Special Trustee, nor that of a Special Trustee with Extraordinary
Powers, was able to secure CCSF’s continued accreditation. Both
utterly failed. More than this, they wrought havoc on our school. The
misuse of district funds that took place under their watch has now
come to light .

Even more damning is the fact that the STWEP was responsible for
hiring the now departed chancellor whose use of district funds is in
question; that chancellor in turn hired the now departed college
president who is implicated along with him in this financial mischief.
Nor was this the only administrator hired by the STWEP whose
performance turned out to be far less than stellar.

We now have our Board of Trustees (presumably) back in power, and a
Special Trustee who lingers, but whose only role is that of advisor
(for which he receives an exorbitant salary). We have much work to do,
however, to rebuild a CCSF that continues to remain open, affordable,
accessible, and diverse. Our struggle for such a school is far from
over. Please join in accomplishing this task.