Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy Gathers Supplies
with Neighborhood Help
Public generosity helps cash-strapped school receive $17,000 in donations

Students at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy (from left to right) Otto Duke, Jeremy Gordon (gray shirt), Keon Thomas, Frank May, principal Sande Leigh, Unique Abrams, Alyssa Rivera, Trevor Kelly – pose for the camera. .

By Jaime San Felippo

As the legislature struggles to close a huge budget deficit, local public schools are already feeling the effects of cuts and shudder at the possibility of more. Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy (HMCRA), an elementary school on 19th Street, had a budget of only $32 for supplies at the start of the 2008-09 school year. By comparison, the supply budget was $25,000 for the 2007-08 school year.

When Sande Leigh, principal at HMCRA, received her budget for the current school year, she immediately knew the school was in trouble. With the fear of having to cut staff, she haggled with the school district, even offering to cut her own salary and hours. In the end the school’s budget did get balanced with less than forty dollars to purchase supplies.

“If I had cut staff we could have had money for supplies,” said Leigh. “But that meant kids wouldn’t have these people in their lives that are really important to them. Teachers wouldn’t have additional support; the climate of the school would go down, because these people wouldn’t be here.”

Leigh has been the principal at HMCRA since 1996, when the school’s name changed from Douglass Elementary, and she’s never seen the school hit so hard with financial woes.
Leigh held open meetings to inform parents and community members simple things like pencils, paper and tissues that the school needed. Since most students come from low-income families with limited donation capacity, Leigh turned to the Castro community for help.

The neighborhood has responded overwhelmingly giving the school thousands of dollars of gift cards to office supply stores and other practical donations.

“When I mention we need help, help is there, pretty much wherever I go,” said Leigh. “It doesn’t come in $20,000 donation sizes, but it comes in nickels and dimes and that’s beautiful.” All together, $17,000 has been raised in cash, gift cards and other donations.

HMCRA has one of the most diverse student populations in San Francisco. With 220 students, 24 percent are Latino, a third African-American and ten percent Asian. The school also has some of the highest test scores in the district, which Leigh attributes to class sizes of 20-25 students.
Such small class sizes may become a faint memory if there are more cuts in education for the 2009-10 school year.

“This is off the backs of kids,” said Leigh. “The amount of money this state would save if they would put money into K-5 education is phenomenal. You wouldn’t have to build new prisons. You wouldn’t have to take care of adults who can’t graduate or read or write.”

The school will take another hit next year during Leigh’s last year as principal. She will be moving to New Orleans in the fall to go back into teaching, something she did for 20 years before becoming a principal.

A Trail of Broken Pencils
Fifth grade teacher Kelly Clark was not surprised when she heard at a staff meeting that the school was severely lacking in supply money. She announced at that same meeting that she would walk to Sacramento to protest state budget cuts to education.

Joined by Leigh and a parent, Clark walked for 21 miles a day for five days last summer, calling the walk “A Trail of Broken Pencils.” When the trio arrived at the Governor’s mansion they left broken pencils on his doorstep. The walk brought in a couple thousand dollars and brought the community to the school in a way that has never happened before, according to Clark.

“We approach learning in a really positive way,” said Clark. “We teach civil rights and try to get underneath things in a really honest and practical way. It’s about humanity and people getting along and not just tolerating, but caring about other people, fundamentally.”

Community Answers the Call for Help
Anna Damiani was sitting at Spike’s Coffee down the street from HMCRA when she heard of the school’s budget problems. Immediately Damiani felt she had to do something.

“It was pretty shocking to hear the news,” said Damiani, who has lived in the Castro for 13 years. “But I thought if I could give a gift card, others would be able to. So instead of a fundraiser, we just asked people. It was pretty grassroots.”

Damiani, a senior field representative in Mark Leno’s district office, began to e-mail her family and friends for donations to the school. She also walked around the Castro asking merchants for donations and set up collection bins at Bank of America and Spike’s. Damiani said the response was amazing and she quickly collected many small gift cards and varying supplies.

Terry De Baca’s daughter, Camille, attends kindergarten at HMCRA, the school De Baca attended when it was Douglass Elementary. De Baca is also manager of Cliff’s Variety Store and encourages her local community to help the school anyway they can.

“Camille has been in Kindergarten for two months and she already knows about Harvey Milk, Frida Kahlo and listens to jazz everyday,” said De Baca. “They are training these kids to be good citizens of the earth.”

HMCRA holds fundraisers year round. The next will be “Beyond the Walk: Educating for Social Justice” at the Museum of the African Diaspora on Dec. 13th. To RSVP for this event and learn more about HMCRA and how you can help, visit harveymilk.com.

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