A group of exhausted City College students ended a nightlong sit-in this morning after being assured that the beleaguered school’s chancellor would meet with them Monday and hold a series of town hall forums about the looming loss of accreditation threatening the school with closure.
A crowd of about 100, many of whom are members of the Save CCSF Coalition, marched into the school’s administration building Thursday intending to deliver four demands to interim Chancellor Thelma Scott-Skillman. Instead, the group was met by several police officers on the stairs to the chancellor’s office and told that Scott-Skillman was not there.
“It’s really disappointing because I think there was an opportunity for her to really engage with students and show some good faith that we can work together,” Ocean Campus Associated Students President and City College student Shanell Williams said Thursday. “Students have solutions too.”
City College’s accreditation crisis became public in July, when the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges put the school on “show cause” status – the worst position a school can be in short of losing accreditation. The commission identified 14 areas of deficiency in City College’s management, and administrators are scrambling to address all the recommendations before a looming March 15 deadline. If they fail to convince the commission that the school has adjusted its mission and operations to reduced funding, City College will lose its accreditation and could close.
In addition to the town hall forums, Williams and other students want to halt class cuts and ensure that San Francisco Proposition A and California Proposition 30 funds are used to save classes instead of meeting the ACCJC requirements.