Inconsistent Testimony to San Jose City Council
In the video below, Ms. Garcia-Kohl provides inconsistent testimony to the City Council at the June 18th meeting regarding Rocketship Brilliant Minds. Here, Ms. Garcia-Kohl is answering questions from Council Member Don Rocha (who has met with and listened to Washington Community members) along with Rocketship lobbyist Erik Schoennauer.
Ms. Garcia-Kohl claims that Rocketship sticks to a 30:1 teacher:student ratio, however, Rocketship’s own board material set the goal at 41:1
From: http://www.rsed.org/documents/ExhA-RSEDBusinessCommittee-23July2013Final.pdf
Also, Ms. Garcia-Kohl conveniently failed to state that Rocketship had increased their maximum attendance to 700 students just 1 month prior to this meeting. This was approved by the Santa Clara County Office of Education on 5-15-13, by a vote of 5-1-1. It’s hard to imagine cramming 700 students into these 0.6-0.7 acre sites with 50:1 student to teacher ratios, but that’s exactly what they have been authorized to do!
California Department of Education Dataquest report on Student to Teacher ratio. Click on the school name to see the report on the CDE’s website.
School | Enrollment | FTE Teachers | Percent English Proficient | Pupil Teacher Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rocketship Discovery Prep | 638 | 16 | 43.3% | 39.9:1 |
| Rocketship Los Suenos Academy | 626 | 15 | 44.6% | 41.7:1 |
| Rocketship Mateo Sheedy Elementary | 589 | 16 | 56.5% | 36.8:1 |
| Rocketship Si Se Puede Academy | 658 | 16.2 | 51.2% | 40.6:1 |
| Rocketship Mosaic Elementary | 635 | 16 | 57.4% | 39.7:1 |
| Morgan Hill Unified | 4696 | 188.5 | 58% | 25:1 |