http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061115/ap_on_re_us/junior_rotc
San Francisco to boot JROTC programs Wed Nov 15, 2:44 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO - High schools across the city soon will no longer have Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs after officials decided to eliminate them because of the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gay service members.
The Board of Education voted 4-2 late Tuesday to phase out the JROTC from schools over the next two years, despite protest from hundreds of students who rallied outside the meeting.
The resolution passed says the military's ban on openly gay soldiers violates the school district's equal rights policy for gays.
The school district and the military currently share the $1.6 million annual cost of the program. About 1,600 San Francisco students participate in JROTC at seven high schools across the district.
Cadets and instructors who spoke at the meeting and rallied outside argued that the program teaches leadership, organizational skills, personal responsibility and other important values.
"This is where the kids feel safe, the one place they feel safe," said Robert Powell, a JROTC instructor. "You're going to take that away from them?"
Mayor Gavin Newsom called severing ties with the JROTC "a bad idea" that penalized students without having any practical effect on the Pentagon's policy on gays in the military.
"If people want to participate in it and their families want them to participate, I think they have a right to participate without putting them in the political peril of being in this ideological debate," he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, has said he didn't know of any other school district having barred JROTC from its campuses.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/15/BAG2HMD46B1.DTL
SAN FRANCISCO
School board votes to dump JROTC program
Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
More...
Printable Version
Email This Article
POLITICS
National
First skirmishes in battle for House majority leader
Editorial: Pelosi's choice
Feinstein bids to keep names from ball club
White House sued for not doing report on warming
English-language Al-Jazeera bets Americans will tune in for news
State
Low voter turnout expected in future
Lockyer won't oppose review of same-sex marriage case
Bay Area
Supervisors ban plastic to-go boxes, ease pot enforcement
Oakland hopes to gain from A's move
School board votes to dump JROTC program
M&R: Several supervisors say police chief not measuring up
Election Page
More Stories
After 90 years in San Francisco high schools, the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps must go, the San Francisco school board decided Tuesday night.
The Board of Education voted 4-2 to eliminate the popular program, phasing it out over two years.
Dozens of JROTC cadets at the board meeting burst into tears or covered their faces after the votes were cast.
"We're really shocked,'' said fourth-year Cadet Eric Chu, a senior at Lowell High School, his eyes filling with tears. "It provided me with a place to go."
The proposal approved by the board also creates a task force to develop alternatives to the program that will be tried out next year at various high schools.
The board's decision was loudly applauded by opponents of the program.
Their position was summed up by a former teacher, Nancy Mancias, who said, "We need to teach a curriculum of peace."
The board's move to dismantle the popular program was led by board members Dan Kelly and Mark Sanchez with support from Sarah Lipson and Eric Mar. Casting votes against it were Jill Wynns and Norman Yee. Board member Eddie Chin was absent.
"I think people should not despair too much," Sanchez said. "I think now the work begins -- to work within the community to develop new programs that will fulfill the needs of our students."
About 1,600 San Francisco students participate in JROTC at seven high schools across the district.
Opponents said the armed forces should have no place in public schools, and the military's discriminatory stance on gays makes the presence of JROTC unacceptable.
"We don't want the military ruining our civilian institutions," said Sandra Schwartz of the American Friends Service Committee, an organization actively opposing JROTC nationwide. "In a healthy democracy ... you contain the military. You must contain the military."
Students, parents and school staff from each of the seven high schools converged outside the school board meeting carrying signs and waving at cars, some of which honked in support.
At least 100 cadets edged into Franklin Street waving their signs before being pushed back to the sidewalk by their ROTC instructors.
Yet, in the end, the effort -- one of several rallies in the last several weeks -- fell on deaf ears.
"This is where the kids feel safe, the one place they feel safe," Robert Powell, a JROTC instructor at Lincoln High School and a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said earlier in the evening. "You're going to take that away from them?"
Opponents acknowledged the program is popular and even helps some students stay in school and out of trouble.
Yet they also said the program exists to lure students to sign up for the armed forces.
"It's basically a branding program, or a recruiting program for the military," Kelly said before the meeting.
The school district and the military share the $1.6 million annual cost of the program, with the military paying $586,000, or half the salaries of 15 instructors -- all of whom are retired military personnel. The district pays the other half of salaries and $394,000 in benefits.
Earlier, Mayor Gavin Newsom weighed in on the debate, chastising the board for the effort to eliminate JROTC.
"The move sends the wrong message," he said. "It's important for the city not to be identified with disrespecting the sacrifice of men and women in uniform."
Students in the program receive physical education or elective credits required for graduation.
A budget analysis found that the district could hire nine teachers with the money the district now spends on JROTC -- enough to cover the gym and elective courses for the 1,600 students should the program be eliminated.
But there wouldn't be money to create an alternative program serving that many students, Wynns said.
"I think the people who want to get rid of it have a responsibility to look at how we're going to pay for that and what we're going to do to replace it," she added.
Newsom also said he believed the vote would push more city residents away from the public schools.
"You think this is going to help keep families in San Francisco?" the mayor added. "No. It's going to hurt."
On other matters, the board introduced a resolution that makes race a factor in deciding what school a child will attend starting with the 2008-09 school year. No action was taken.
