SF schools to top charts with help from tech
Original Article from the San Francisco Examiner
By: Razor Suleman
San Francisco ranks No. 1 out of every major metropolitan city for clean tech. That achievement was celebrated last month all over the Web. We grabbed the No. 3 spot as one of the best American cities for foodies, losing out to only Napa and New York. San Francisco is the second-most walkable city in the country. And according to renowned statistician Nate Silver, the City by the Bay is home to the single best burrito in the entire country. But when it comes to supporting our public education system in San Francisco, I think it’s fair to say that we could be doing better.
This month, more than 55,000 San Francisco Unified School District students will be introduced to a new initiative called Circle the Schools. Developed by the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation (sf.citi) and the San Francisco Education Fund with the SFUSD earlier this year. Circle the Schools aims to improve student success in our city’s public-school system by engaging our tech community.
Circle the Schools accomplishes this overarching goal by taking a one-city approach, connecting a San Francisco public school with local tech workers. Throughout the school year, companies will organize activities specifically for their partner school. This includes everything from book drives launched this summer to helping teachers set up classrooms for the school year that begins today, to providing healthy snacks for students on standardized test days.
A thriving public-school system in San Francisco is a top priority for us here at Achievers. Just as we believe that a company’s greatest asset are their employees, we know that SFUSD students, given the right tools and resources, can make The City an even better place to live.
Giving back to our community is extremely important to us, and Circle the Schools is a great way for Achievers, or any other tech company for that matter, to make a difference in the city we call home. After seeing some of the great work that other companies had already started doing, our employees couldn’t wait to get involved.
The growing tech industry has attracted some of the brightest developers, entrepreneurs and tech whizzes from all over the world to San Francisco. And after arriving, they create revolutionary products that change industries and solve complex problems. Through Circle the Schools, we as a community can bring that talent together to achieve the common goal of making a difference in the lives of San Francisco students.
If you work for a tech company based here in San Francisco, I’m asking you to join us and the other companies that have already signed on to this exciting new initiative. The ultimate goal of Circle the Schools is to have every single public school in San Francisco connected with one of the hundreds of tech companies here in The City. Not only will you be helping students reach their full potential, but it is also a great opportunity for those in the tech industry to better understand and engage the larger San Francisco community.
So while it’s pretty cool that we can boast about San Francisco being the No. 1 trick-or-treating city in America, I would much rather be able to say that San Francisco is home to the best public schools in the country. If we all work together, this is something that we can achieve.
