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enhance existing employment skills. See Boser v. Commissioner,
supra.
We believe that petitioner's participation in the U.C.
Extension courses improved her teaching skills in a direct and
proximate manner. Petitioner is able to provide specific
examples of how her teaching skills were enhanced by both
courses.
Petitioner's duties as an English teacher and as chair of
the English department entailed more than simply providing
instruction in English reading and writing skills. The mission
of the San Francisco Unified School District (school district) is
in part "to provide each student with an equal opportunity to
succeed by promoting intellectual growth, creativity, self
discipline, [and] cultural and linguistic sensitivity". In
promoting this mission, petitioner's duties and responsibilities
as a teacher required her to be competent in her subject field,
to be involved in the development and implementation of
curriculum, and to demonstrate a repertoire of teaching
strategies and techniques. A 1998 resolution of the school
district provides in part that the English/language arts
curriculum of the school district must "reflect the diversity of
culture, race, and class of the students of the San Francisco
Unified School District", and the required reading in high
schools shall include those works of literature which are
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