Julie Johnson

Originally published on North Gate News Online

SAN FRANCISCO — When Gail Baugh founded the John Muir Elementary School PTA last year, it had no parents.

Baugh and her husband Jim Warshell moved to Hayes Valley in 2003 as empty-nesters after their son left for college, expecting to start their post-child-rearing years.

But it wasn’t long before Baugh, an active member of Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association, found herself fighting district plans to close the neighborhood school. A veteran PTA member from her own son’s years in school, she rounded up neighbors to show that the John Muir Elementary School’s community had muscle.

“Having a PTA presence in a school tells the school district and the school board that the community cares about their students’ education,” said Baugh, 60. “The minute you say PTA they say, ‘Oh someone cares.’”

It was the first time John Muir, where 75 percent of students qualify for free lunch, had a PTA in at least 15 years. And it was the first time John Muir Principal Alene Wheaton ever remembers a PTA without parents.

“It’s very interesting to have a community-based PTA,” said Wheaton, who has been with San Francisco schools for 30 years. “We’ve always had a community that’s been a part of the PTA, but never one that wasn’t started by parents.”

In 2006, John Muir and four other elementary schools in the neighborhood – John Swett Alternative, William R. De Avila, Rosa Parks and New Traditions elementary schools — were among a list of 19 schools the district was considering closing or merging.

So Baugh spoke up along with outraged parents and teachers at school board meetings. She wrote a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. She complained to school board members. But it didn’t seem to have an affect.

“During the process of school closures, it was pretty clear that there was no parent group to speak for families at the school,” she said.

That summer the school board voted to merge John Swett students into John Muir.

“John Muir was going to be over capacity,” Baugh said. “It had no after-school program, no playground. They were given only $40,000 to deal with the merge.”

The parents needed an organization to stand up for their kids, Baugh said. And she needed a way to signal that she was more than just an outspoken member of the neighborhood association.

She recruited the 40 signatures required for a charter, pulling volunteers from neighborhood associations and even neighborhood beat cops.

Since then, the group has raised nearly $10,000, including a $5,000 grant from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Among other project, the community PTA organized a safe-walk-to-school event on the first day of school. They passed out backpacks and healthy snacks. They bought supplies for classrooms and lobbied successfully for the school to hire a security guard.

Through a PTA member’s connections, they also got top city officials, including Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief Heather Fong, to attend a first day of school event.

And it wasn’t long before a few parents joined.

Member Maria Patiño, who has two children at John Muir, said the PTA has brought more resources to the school, which attracted more parents to send their kids to the school.

“I’m not very involved, but I try to go to the meetings and say what I think,” she said.

Patiño has asked the group to raise money for a physical education teacher, and the group is now working to get one.

“They’ve already made a lot of progress of bringing needs of the school to the public eye,” said Rina Vilt, who has taught first grade at John Muir for seven years.

But despite the successes, the predominantly white group of neighborhood activists is not representative of the school. Students at the school, which has a Spanish-English bilingual track, are 42 percent Latino and 35 percent African American.

“I don’t speak Spanish and I’m the president,” Baugh said.

The group, now in its second year, has set a goal to get more parents, many of whom don’t have time to volunteer or are hampered from getting involved because of language barriers.

They’re trying to recruit through school events, including a PTA meeting last week and a family movie night on Oct. 19.

“The idea is to get people to come to school and remember that the school is a community space as well as where your children are educated,” Baugh said. “It’s a fun place, not just a place to educate.”