EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
SF School Board Votes to Restore JROTC Program
SAN FRANCISCO - A three-year battle over whether Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps belongs in San Francisco schools ended Tuesday night with a 4-3 vote by the school board to restore the military leadership program weeks before its scheduled expiration.
JROTC students' uniforms hang in a classroom at Balboa High School, which has had a JROTC program for many years. (Brant Ward / The Chronicle) More than 200 supporters and opponents of the program crowded into the school district headquarters to make their final pleas to the board. And their arguments were as emotionally charged as they were when the fight began in 2006.
"To some of you, this is a political issue," Balboa High School sophomore Malik Douglas told the board. "But to me it's a personal issue. Represent our opinions instead of yours."
Board members Rachel Norton, Hydra Mendoza, Norman Yee and Jill Wynns voted to keep the program. Jane Kim, Kim-Shree Maufas and Sandra Fewer voted against the program.
The board's vote reverses a controversial 2006 vote to get rid of JROTC in the city high schools. The armed forces, the board then argued, should not be in public schools, and the military's discriminatory stance on gays made it unacceptable.
The 90-year-old program was scheduled to phase out in less than a month.
Students cheered and hugged each other following the vote, many clutching cell phones as they called family and friends with the news.
While the program will continue to be offered in city high schools, it was unclear whether JROTC courses will qualify for physical education credit next year. The board will likely address that issue at some point during the summer.
"We can make this program work if we want this program to work," Norton said.
Douglas and other JROTC cadets told the board the program offers them motivation and direction during what can often be tumultuous adolescent years.
But Michael Wong, a member of Veterans for Peace, said JROTC offers "classic military leadership intended for war."
The meeting grew so tense that at one point board President Maufas cleared the room to restore order during public comment after the Rev. Amos Brown refused to adhere to a one-minute time limit.
The decision to get rid of JROTC made San Francisco's the nation's first and only school district to dump the program for political reasons. The controversy put the city in the national spotlight, with its peacenik image once again mocked and debated by political pundits. What followed was an only-in-San Francisco political soap opera. Local NAACP leaders joined ranks with Republicans and the city's left-leaning voters to urge the district to save the military leadership program, passing Proposition V in November.
On Tuesday night, students who fought for the program waited for more than five hours to see their three-year lesson in real-life civics end in victory.
The students filled the board chambers to capacity as they crowded into seats, on the floor and along walls, some doing homework while they waited for the vote. Others spilled out into the lobby, where a television broadcast the meeting.
Prior to Tuesday's meeting, four board members said they were prepared to reinstate the program. The four who voted to get rid of JROTC three years ago are no longer in office.
U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein expressed her support for the program through a representative and urged the board to reinstate JROTC.
Three years ago, about 1,600 high school students were enrolled in the JROTC leadership courses at seven district high schools. Students could earn either physical education or elective credits for the courses, and the district split the $1.7 million cost with the federal government.
Enrollment dropped to about 500 students this year after the school board voted last year to eliminate gym credit, saying that it was unclear whether the courses met state requirements for physical education and that the district was vulnerable to a lawsuit.
State education officials confirmed this week that local school districts have the authority to offer PE credit for JROTC courses.
The JROTC program was initially scheduled to phase out in 2008, but the board extended that for a year after the district failed to come up with an adequate alternative. A pilot ethnic-studies course was a last-minute replacement in the fall, but it attracted few students and was never meant or designed to take the place of JROTC.
Recent anti-military efforts in California
November 2008: Arcata and Eureka voters pass measures blocking military recruiting within city limits.
January 2008: Berkeley City Council passes resolution calling Marine recruiters "unwelcome intruders," which council members rescinded within weeks.
December 2006: U.S. Navy moves warship commissioning ceremony to San Diego, saying San Francisco is perceived as anti-military.
November 2006: San Francisco school board votes to phase out JROTC from city schools.
July 2005: San Francisco supervisors reject efforts to house the battleship Iowa as a waterfront museum, saying the peace-loving city is no place for a warship.
May 2005: Anti-military students storm military recruiting tables at a San Francisco State University career fair.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
18 Comments so far
Show AllWent to Bal. in the 50's had JROTC folks there but never paid attention to them just another school program.Is it any different today?IT just seemed that the kids liked the structure.Tony
parents- you need to take away your kids video games . the military has gotten into bed with
the designers of these games and make your children think this is all acceptable. also
what level of responsibility have these parents taken not teaching about war. and
last but not least what of a school board that lets children be trained for it!
mustbefree your so right its ''happydays'' except they weren,t so happy.
Most of the kids that were in rotc wnnt on to collage,was there an inducement there from the school or the program?Happy times?Naw,got kicked out went into the AF to get a job because I had no skills and made it to 73 with a lot of hard growth in between.20 yrs military,13 civilian military job.Regrets?People died;no combat but my hands fixed bomb loaders among other things for airplanes.War takes in everybody not just the shooters.Tony
In January of 1977 I entered the Army and was enduring basic training while my friends were sitting in class back in San Francisco. While my high school offered JROTC I never signed up. There is no doubt that JROTC is a recruiting tool and gives people a taste of what a military life can be like. I don't care for it because it offers a skewed view of history and the realities of war and while all other classes in California schools have a state reviewed process for curriculum, JROTC gets it's course material from the Pentagon and the instructros are usually retired military personnel with no teaching credentials as is normally required for all teaching. What do you expect to learn in JROTC? How to march, shoot a rifle, salute, follow orders? But put that all aside. As noted in this article, enrollment dropped when it was no longer counted toward the PE requirement which clearly means that many students were taking this class because it was easier than a PE class, not because they were truly interested in the military. In a country where 60% of adults (yes, those graduating from high school) are over weight, we need to have real PE. And real PE would require a credentialed PE instructor and involve that period of class to be involved in physical activity. It's clear that JROTC does not fill the PE requirement and it's only a ploy by proponents to keep it in the schools. If JROTC were like basic combat training (BCT) then we could except it as filling the PE requirment (for those unfamiliar with BCT, think of running around all day long with a heavy back pack and rifle, and you are ALWAYS late). Let the students select JROTC as an elective if they wish, but don't try and pretend that spending 10 minutes marching is a substitute for any of the PE classes I took while in high school which included, tennis, weight training, gymnastics, wrestling, and track.
It's ironic that we are debating the issue of keeping JROTC, a course that really offers little, yet at my middle and high school, classes like wood shop, metal shop, mechanical drawing, electronics, auto shop, and print shop disappeared long ago. My son, who is now a sophomore in the same high school I attended has no access to any of those classes. I still have and use the hand shovel I made in junior high school.
Shame! Shame! Shame! When will joining a murdering force stop being looked upon as a good thing for young people? America is committing war crimes as we speak and that is some how ethical! Torture is find (Oops! I forgot America doesn't torture, sure!) In San Francisco an alternative to JROTC was created focusing on leadership skills but that enraged some folks, so now JROTC is back. Should JROTC teach enhanced interrogation techniques too? This again proves the lie that San Francisco is a liberal progressive town, nope we are as bad as the rest of the country.
JROTC = Just Remember Our Totalitarian Capitalism. For you will soon find yourself at the front, shedding your blood for it. The pay's not too good, not when you consider the risk.
My ears perked up on the line in this report saying that half of the 1.7 million cost of the JROTC will picked up by the federal government. Is this a harbinger of much more to come in a country whose new Secretary of Education made a name for himself as head of Chicago schools in two respects; (1) by closing the "poor" ones and doing "turn around" re-openings under more sharply regimented conditions (shown couple of weeks ago on NOW); (2) a militarizing of schools, especially in the "poor" sections, by reviving JROTC or by redesigning them as military academies. With cash-strapped schools and Arne Duncan having a big pile of "stimulus" money to distribute as he sees fit, is such militarization to be a juicy carrot dangled before school boards from SF to Boston? Somebody needs to be tracking this; otherwise it will mostly be only "local stories" until it becomes a national trend.
I remember sitting in with my brother on a JROTC information session at his new high school back in 1993. If I remember correctly, the assistant principal, who promoted it, said that it was a way to utilize public funding for more peaceful measures. At the time, I thought it sounded ideal, but then I wondered if that were the case, then why the need for military uniforms?
My brother wasn't interested, but some of his new classmates were. I think they were attracted more to the crisp uniforms than to actual military service. One of my cousins joined when she enrolled in high school, but I believe it was more for something to put on her CV than for a future military career because she didn't follow through by joining the army after graduation.
I don't think this is about patriotism, the need for "structure" or anything else more complicated than desperate school boards looking for $upport anywhere they can get it. The acolytres of Mars (say "Amen" Siouxrose!)are willing to pay for the privilige to prosylte among our youth.
The CA electorate is too mule-headed stupid to dump their Android Gov and his neocon legislators and advisors and go after the corporations and commercial real estate badly in need of increased taxation in order to help to properly fund essential services like education.
It's a Grover Norquist neocon wet-dream erotic fantasy come true: use the state treasury as an inexhautable ATM to fund the take-over of government functions by for-profit businesses with no-bid contracts and no accountability to the people they are robbing. Disgusting!
Poet
Poet, very poetic. In the same vein, but in my inferior purple prose, see my post 6 minutes before yours, in which I think I may see the Evil Hand of A. Duncan in Chicago yesterday, California today and who knows where tomorrow.
The 2 high schools I attended in the 1960s did not have JROTC, not that I would have joined anyway.
But seeing other schools having these programs in areas where I was stationed after entering the Navy(via the draft) creeped me out back then. 40 years on, I still don't like the idea of the militarilizing of our schools
Remember, back in the 1930s & 40s, Imperial Japan had military officers assigned to schools and students were required to participate in their JROTC.
This is NOT a road we want to go down.
It seems that the vote has decided to let JROTC in the schools. Does this violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child(any-one under 18)? The Peace Activists, students,teachers and parents must demand equal privilege for Conflict Resolution Technique including conscientious objection, credit courses with half the cost paid by the federal government.
Sounds like more chickenhawk ideas
JROTC is another avenue of indoctrination to get another generation marching in lockstep with government mandate. There are much better forms of instilling self-discipline, and engaging the youth in the concept of service to country already in place. Most communities can use help in maintenance. Nursing homes can use visitors(what better way to pass along REAL history?). Hospitals can use volunteers. The schools, in general can always use sprucing up. Clubs after school need to be expanded to ways to desent, political and social activism; so much more pertinant than another sporting event. The military doesn't need any more exposure. There are already plenty of video games, gangster activity, and other violent activities (as seen on tv) to occupy the young minds of our children. They need to have something positive and relevant as a counter balance.
JROTC. Jay Rot See is how its often pronounced.
Jay Rot See. You know. Rimes with little NAZIS in training.
Jay Rot See, Little Nazis,
Learning to love war, you see,
Kill and kill and kill for the land of liberty
Jay Jay Jay, Jay Rot See.
We try to teach children to solve their problems without violence,something children need to learn and evidently many adults need to grow up and learn. Peace takes more intelligence, wisdom and courage.
Get a clue "progressives". Some students need discipline and a sense of belonging in their lives. Would you rather have them join a violent street gang to get it like the minorities do?
Why don't you guys do a comparison with ROTC students and almost any liberal led public high school students and compare crime rates or graduation rates.
Many other extracurricular activities also instill discipline and give young people a sense of belonging, but the cutting of their budgets or their total elimination usually don't merit a story in the news.