Despite budget cuts, Randall Museum expands kids’ summer camp program

Publicly funded services in the Bay Area, around the state, and across the nation are all being pruned back – and that certainly includes the Recreation and Parks Department for the City of San Francisco. The department was reorganized last summer, following a $12.5 million budget cut.

As part of the reorganization, Rec and Park has a new Cultural Division being managed out of the Randall Museum. And while other city services are diminishing, this museum actually has a summer expansion. KALW’s Steven Short spoke with the Randall Museum’s director to learn just how a program can grow during a time of cutbacks.

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TORSTEN HASSELMANN: What we are going to talk about today is creepy crawlies. So what do you all think of when you hear the words “creepy crawlies”?

STEVEN SHORT: Torsten Hasselmann is a science education instructor. He's in a basement classroom at the Randall Museum, in San Francisco's Corona Heights neighborhood, trying to keep the attention of 18 first-graders here on a field trip from Paul Revere Elementary School.

BOY 1: That they're creepy and they tickle you.

HASSELMANN: Anybody else? What do you think?

BOY 2: That they're really scary, and I think they bite.

HASSELMANN: Well, what we are going to learn about today is insects and spiders.

Hasselmann has already explained how insects are different from humans…

HASSELMANN: Every insect in the world has six legs – three on each side. If it does not have six legs, it's not an insect.

Everybody go grab seats at these tables, please.  

Field trips are a cherished, if endangered, part of elementary school education. The Randall Museum – or “The Randall,” as it’s often called – used to provide these experiences without charge. They even provided the buses. But Executive Director Chris Boettcher says that’s no longer possible.

CHRIS BOETTCHER: Because our staff has been cut back and we're having to pay for contract instructors to offer these field trips to the public schools. We decided to institute a fee of $30.

Aside from managing the Randall, Boetthcher also manages Rec and Park’s Cultural Division. He says the way the city’s cultural centers managed their money has changed a lot over the years.

BOETTCHER: Up until 1989, pretty much all the staff at the Randall, with one exception, the exception of the director, were program staff.

But revenue from those programs went into the department’s general fund. And what was reallocated wasn’t covering the costs. So back then, Boettcher had an idea. He proposed an experiment to The Randall Museum Friends, a non-profit support group. He asked them to sponsor some fee-based classes. 

BOETTCHER: And they were skeptical, because they thought that the tuition wouldn’t be able to pay for the salary of the instructor. But I said, “Let's try. Let's try photography.” In those days we had a darkroom and did black and white photography classes at the Randall. And so we offered the first class as a black and white photography class, with use of the black and white darkroom, and just general photography instructions. And of course it was a success. It filled up.

Now, more than 20 years later, one of the main roles of The Friends of the Randall Museum – as the group is now known – is fundraising.

BOETTCHER: Currently, they provide about a third of our operating budget.

Boettcher says public-private partnerships like that are crucial to the operation of city programs, for a very basic reason:

BOETTCHER: Because the tax base just isn't big enough to support all the things that we need.

And even though all city budgets have been cut, are being cut, and will be cut further, this year’s summer camp program at The Randall is actually expanding – with the help of the Friends of the Randall Museum.

BOETTCHER: I think the reason it's expanding is because maybe folks that used to have the fully private summer camps, that were paying $400 a week now see the Randall as a very attractive alternative since they’re getting a very high quality experience for about half the money they used to pay.

But summer camp doesn’t begin until the school year and its field trips end.

Contract instructor Torsten Hasselmann is about to reveal to those first-graders in the Randall basement classroom why crickets rub their legs together.

HASSELMANN: The crickets are rubbing their legs together because it is the boys singing love songs to girls.

BOY: What? What!

Students can certainly learn about such things from their textbooks or Internet programs. But the added element of leaving the classroom and actually seeing the real creatures is itself an element of learning – one the Recreation & Park Department will continue to provide at The Randall Museum, with the help of funding beyond what is provided by taxpayers.

In San Francisco, I’m Steven Short for Crosscurrents.

The Randall Museum’s ability to buck budget trends continues – it was recently awarded a $5.5 million grant from the California Department of Parks and Recreation for its nature education facilities program. But other programs haven’t been so fortunate – what budget cuts are your community programs facing? And are you doing anything to save them? Let us know on our Facebook page.