San Diego schools' big pink slip conundrum

05-09-2011

By Emily Alpert/Voice of San Diego

You can spot the kids in the Academy of Finance at San Diego High School of Business on Tuesdays, crisp in sports coats and suits. They tough out economics classes together and pledge to keep their grades up. They polish their resumes, practice interviews and intern at businesses. They go camping and scope out colleges. But to Miguel Gonzalez, a once-shy senior who dreams of becoming an economist, being part of the academy, a shared set of classes and opportunities that students have to apply to get into, is more than the suits and the internships. It's even more than the promise of advanced classes and business savvy at a school where test scores are meager and 90 percent of kids are poor. "It's a big family," he said. And if that family had a mom, it would be Kelly Granfield. She sets up internships and job shadows, ferrets out grants — one helps pay for her time — recruits students and coordinates college trips. When kids clash in suits and white tube socks, she hands out dress socks from a stash in her office. The academy has blossomed on her watch, growing larger and more lauded. It's even won national recognition. Granfield plans to go to the ceremony in San Francisco in July. But she might lose her job just a few weeks beforehand. In March Granfield got a pink slip, a warning that she might be out of a job when the school year ends. (more...)

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San Diego schools' big pink slip conundrum

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