Santa Rosa City Schools opted out of the state’s Race to the Top program, citing concerns about potential strings attached to the federal dollars and the prospect that districts with weaker schools would be targeted for the money.  But more than half the school districts in the state have applied, including most of the districts in Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties, according to a list posted at caracetothetop.org.

John Fensterwald, who blogs at educatedguess.org reports that teachers unions signed on in at least 115 districts statewide, despite the opposition of the California Teachers Association.  CTA doesn’t like the federal requirement that teacher evaluations be tied to objective measures, such as student test scores.

— Jim Sweeney

Here’s the list of school districts from the region:

Anderson Valley Unified

Bellevue Union School District

Bennett Valley Union School District

Berryessa Union School District

California Virtual Academy at Sonoma

Calistoga Joint Unified School District

Cloverdale Unified School District

Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District

Dunham School District

Forestville Union School District

Fort Bragg Unified

Gravenstein Union School District

Guerneville School District of Sonoma County

Healdsburg Unified School District

Horicon Elementary

Kelseyville Unified School District

Kenwood School District

Lake County Office of Education

Laytonville Unified

Leggett Valley Unified

Liberty Elementary SD

Lucerne Elementary School District

Mark West Union School District

Mendocino County Office of Education

Middletown Unified School District

Monte Rio Union School District

Napa County Office of Education

Napa Valley Unified School district

Novato Unified School District

Oak Grove Union School District

Old Adobe Union School District

Petaluma City (Elementary) School District

Petaluma Joint Union High School District

Piner-Olivet Union School District

Potter Valley Community School District

Rincon Valley Union School District

Roseland Charter School

Roseland School District

San Rafael Elementary School District

San Rafael High School District

Santa Rosa Charter Academy

Santa Rosa Charter School

Sausalito-Marin City School District

Sebastopol Union Elementary

Sonoma County Office of Education

Sonoma Valley Unified School District

Ukiah Unified School District

Upper lake Union Elementary School District

Upper Lake Union High School District

Waugh School District

Westside Union School District

Willits Unified School District

Windsor Unified School District