Promoting Physical Education: San Bruno Park School District

Note: the following recommendation was approved by the Board of Supervisors on June 27, 2017. Read the official report.

PROJECT SUMMARY

DISTRICT 1 (Supervisor Dave Pine)

FY 2016-17 Measure K Request

One-Time Grant $67,500 to San Bruno Park School District

For Grade K-3 Physical Education for Two Title I Schools

This is a request to authorize a grant to the San Bruno Park School District, and resulting grant agreement, in an amount not to exceed $67,500 to provide physical education services to students in grades K-3 at two of the District’s Title I elementary schools.

Background

San Bruno Park School District (SBPSD), a pre-school through eighth grade district, includes seven public elementary and middle schools and serves a diverse ethnic and socioeconomic population of students, with nearly 80% of families identifying as non-white. Three schools are eligible to receive federal Title I funds, meaning that more than 40% of their students qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch program.

Like many school districts in California, San Bruno’s public school district struggles with reductions in funding due to the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula established with California’s new Budget Act in 2013-14, while simultaneously trying to address the needs of increasing populations of students with special needs, English Language Learners, and children from low-income families. At the end of 2016, the District’s fiscal reserves fell well below the three percent level required by the state to be maintained by the District. In response, and based upon recommendations from the San Mateo County Office of Education and a budget advisory committee comprised of school and community stakeholders, the District adopted a plan to reduce its budget by $1.2 million. The District is also examining options to increase revenue, including a possible parcel tax. In addition, the District has secured over one million dollars in grants from a variety of organizations and businesses.

Purpose of the Proposed Grant

California mandates that all children receive 200 minutes of physical education (PE) every 10 days. Although the San Bruno Park School District funds PE classes for 4^th and 5^th grades from its general budget, it has relied on Local Control Accountability Plan money to fund PE for the K-3 grades.

Due to the budget constraints described above, those funds will not be available for K-3 classes this next year. Parent clubs have offered to fund PE for grades K-3 at all but two of the District’s sites. Allen and Belle Air elementary schools do not have such parent club funding available. These two school sites are Title I schools, which means a large percentage of their students qualify for the federal free and reduced lunch program and is an indication of a lower socio-economic profile of their families. The fact that some parent communities can “afford” to fund PE, but that the parent communities at these two schools cannot, renders the provision of PE an equity issue that the district would like to mitigate.

Further, the students at and from Allen and Belle Air tend to perform poorly in the state-mandated physical fitness assessments conducted in 5th and 7th grades, during which students are weighed, measured and tested. Only 31.1% of Belle Air students and 54.3% of Allen students meet the criteria for acceptable body fat composition, as determined by the state.

For these reasons, the District is seeking funding for the K-3 PE programs at Allen and Belle Air elementary schools. Collectively, these schools are expected to enroll nearly 400 students in grades K-3 (195 at Allen and 204 at Belle Air).

The District currently contracts with the organization Rhythm and Moves to provide quality physical education to its K-5 classes. The cost of providing all students in grades K-3 at both schools with two 40-minute PE session per week for the 2017-18 school year would be a total $65,700.

The District also offers a weekly “Run to College” program with the superintendent, which provides the equivalent of 60 minutes of PE per month (30 minutes every two weeks). With the addition of two days of Rhythm and Moves each week, the teachers would be responsible for providing the remaining 90 minutes every two weeks (or ten days) to fulfill the state requirement.

For the period of time that students are in PE class with Rhythm and Moves instructors, the classroom teachers will gain collaboration and preparation time. The Rhythm and Moves curriculum is designed to help students gain confidence, while promoting fitness and exercise.

Performance Measures

At the conclusion of the grant, the grantee will submit a report to the County on the number of students who received a physical education curriculum. The grantee will also develop a metric to track progress and fitness of the participating students.

Total One-Time Measure K Request: Not to Exceed $67,500

The funds are to be disbursed to the following organization for the purposes described above:

San Bruno Park School District, 500 Acacia Avenue, San Bruno, CA 94066. Website: http://sbpsd.k12.ca.us/

The release of funds will be contingent on the execution of a grant agreement providing for the County’s confirmation of the expenditure of funds for the purposes stated herein.