150th Anniversary :: San Diego City Schools

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Celebrating 150 Years
The Eighties

San Diego City Schools (SDCS) focused on improving the quality of instruction and student achievement during this decade. Emphasis was put on providing greater site autonomy and control over budgets, encouraging diversity and enforcing appropriate accountability standards for students. SDCS became nationally recognized as a leader in rethinking instruction and assessment.

In the eighties, the district aimed to educate all students to become responsible, literate, thinking and contributing members of a multicultural society through excellence in teaching and learning.

Programs such as the Achievement Goals Program (AGP) and the Voluntary Ethnic Enrollment Program (VEEP) were implemented to facilitate integration in order to achieve school site student populations that more closely reflected the composition of the district as a whole.

1982	The SDCS bilingual curriculum, English for Limited English Proficient Students (ELEPS), is distributed worldwide through the Santillana Publishing Company.
	The district's Partnerships in Education Program is created, helping schools form collaborative arrangements with organizations including businesses, government agencies and military commands, as well as service, educational and cultural community organizations.
1984	Student boom and teacher shortage sweeps across SDCS.
	School Police are authorized to place undercover officers in high schools to address increase in drug use/sales, leading to several drug busts and a reduction of student usage/sale.
1985	After 38 years at SDCS, Eugene Brucker, teacher, principal, Secretary to the Board, Assistant Superintendent of the Student Services Division, and Special Assistant to Superintendent Tom Payzant, retires. The Education Center is named after him in 2000, following his death.
1986	Over 40% of SDCS students are eligible for the federal Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program.
	Proposition 63 passes. Despite opposition from the district's Board of Education, English is stated as the official language of California, thus allowing any resident to have standing to request enforcement and sue for non-compliance.
	The Board of Education approves the reversal of a policy which barred students with AIDS from SDCS classrooms, thus allowing them to attend school.
1987	Students are required to have a C-average (GPA of 2.0) to participate in school sports, as approved by the Board of Education.
	The Torres Amendment to Prop. 63 passes, requiring written consent from parents to place their students in bilingual education. It also expands Special Education and Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs.
	Which Way to the Future? San Diego and its Schools at a Crossroads is published by the Schools of the Future Commission, providing a visionary glimpse of SDCS in 1987: where things stood, where they were headed and recommendations for accommodating change through innovative curriculum and strategic planning. Restructuring and the expansion of site-based decision-making at all schools follows.
	Multi-track year-round schedule introduced.
1988	Proposition Y is passed by San Diego voters, which approves increases in property taxes to fund the construction and renovation of school facilities, especially in the areas of science and technology. This is the first successful measure of its kind in more than 20 years.
1989	End of the Cold War between the United States and the U.S.S.R. The Berlin Wall in Germany is also torn down.