Budget cuts mean summer season school will probably be all but nonexistent in San Francisco this year, but rather than youths hanging out for the streets, Mayor Gavin Newsom says he features a plan: summer camp, and a lot of it.
Newsom announced Tuesday that the cash-strapped town is pretty much tripling the amount of summer-camp spots and newbie swim classes provided by means of the Recreation and Park Department, whilst waiving participation fees for the estimated 2,100 kids living in public housing.
“That’s a major deal,” Newsom said outside the newly refurbished Hamilton Recreation Center inside Western Addition. “This is … instead extraordinary contemplating the limitation of resources.”
With the city trying to bridge a $483 million budget deficit for that fiscal 12 months starting July 1, Phil Ginsburg, head of the Recreation and Park Department, mentioned he had to have creative to expand the department’s summer season programs from 9,800 openings to 28,000 slots in 57 various camps.
To pay for the likes of “Art inside Park” at Golden Gate Park and “Tenderloin Track & Field Day Camp,” the department has stepped up philanthropy efforts to cover costs for low-income youth, asked its employees to work more and turned to participants to foot the bill, Ginsburg stated.
There are costs for all of the programs, from $20 for a 10-day learn-to-swim class to $859 for a month-long, five-day-a-week camp that runs from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The department is holding back on potential layoffs until after the summer season and asking instructors to handle more kids, Ginsburg said.
“We’ve just asked our staff to operate more camps,” Ginsburg explained. “People are doing more, and people are paying for it. … It’s working.”
The city’s efforts also include summer reading programs at neighborhood libraries, pretty much $2.4 million in summer season programs that the Department of Youngsters, Youth and Their Families extracted from service providers who receive department funding, and a summer season jobs program for approximately 250 low-income youth run by the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. That office also recently received a $500,000 state grant to implement a summer jobs program for youths 16 to 18 who are considered academically at-risk, city officials said.
Hydra Mendoza, a San Francisco school board member, welcomed the developments, saying a $113 million budget shortfall over the next two years is forcing the district to cut all summer season school offerings except those for special education students and seniors who need the credits to graduate.
“We want to make sure the kids feel safe and secure and know that they have a place to go,” Mendoza stated.
Summer months have often seen an increase in violence, but Newsom explained the programs are not specifically designed to counter that or a recent string of high-profile incidents involving youths attacking Chinese Americans along Muni lines in traditionally African American neighborhoods inside the southeast corner with the city.
Newsom blamed the violence on a small group of criminals and explained suggesting that a summer camp program would prevent violence “kind of shortchanges our youth.”
Newsom stated he would welcome that as a side benefit, but stated the programs are designed to keep kids learning and developing during a break from school although enabling parents to continue working.
Posted on Wednesday, 12 May 2010
