We hope you are enjoying the summer and getting some R&R after another active school year. It was a big year for SFUSD, our children, our teachers, and for SF Parents. We’re taking a moment to reflect on important advocacy wins. In 2022-23, as a result of your relentless advocacy to push forward the parent priorities platform, we saw SFUSD trending in the right direction to become a more student-centered district:
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An overhaul of the outdated literacy program: Remember all those Literacy For All postcards you sent to the Superintendent and Board of Education last fall, the parent petition you signed, and the Right To Read documentary screening and panel we co-hosted at the SF Public Library? The Literacy For All campaign WORKED, and thanks to your efforts, this year we saw SFUSD commit to overhauling its outdated literacy program to replace it with evidence-based curricula, materials, and instruction. We’re proud of all of the parents, educators, and community members who pushed for this overdue change at SFUSD, a change which has the potential to transform reading outcomes for kids. The work isn’t over, and we’re still keeping tabs on SFUSD that they see through the curriculum overhaul with fidelity, offer sufficient supports to our amazing teachers, and provide extra 1:1 tutoring and interventions for kids who need it.
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Budget balancing and budget transparency: Parents reminded SFUSD that we don’t want the state to take over our schools; and that reminder worked. Not only did the Board of Education pass a balanced budget this year without fanfare, but SFUSD also did a much better job of involving parents in the planning process through the LCAP (LCAP = Local Control Accountability Plan a.k.a. the big plan that describes SFUSD’s goals for students and actions/expenditures SFUSD will take to achieve those goals). If you haven’t seen our SF Parents summary of this year’s LCAP, check it out here. Also this year, we saw SFUSD become more transparent with communications about the budget deficit, including a really honest public discussion in June about the hard decisions required to fix the budget and save our schools. We hope to see SFUSD continue to address these challenges with full transparency, and involve parents every step of the way.
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An increase of parent voice input opportunities: Parents should always be viewed as partners in their kids’ education; there is very clear research that when parents are engaged, kids do better in school. This past school year we were thrilled to see a new commitment by SFUSD to invite more parent input through town halls and community meetings, informing three key district plans:
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1) Vision Values, Goals and Guardrails
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2) High School Task Force Recommendations
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3) The Annual LCAP development
Props to Superintendent Dr. Wayne for seeing through his commitment to incorporating input from parents. An appreciation is due to Commissioner Motamedi for her efforts to reform the SFUSD Parent Advisory Council (PAC), which has been wildly political and dysfunctional for years now, though it should be an important body for parent voice at SFUSD. We were disappointed to see President Boggess be the lone vote against the important changes Commissioner Motamedi brought forward this school year.
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Board of Education (BOE) reform and improved governance: This year, the BOE participated in a series of effective governance workshops (thanks Commissioner Lam!), modified their meeting style from too-many-committees to every-other-week focused workshops, and began spending 50% of meeting time discussing students outcomes as of March 2023. And, when two commissioners made a power grab to kick out President Lam–a public school mom and the only AAPI representative on the BOE–from her unfinished term, SF Parents’ advocates were in the room expressing disapproval of this move, and we successfully advocated for at least one current public school mom (VP Weissman-Ward) to have an officer role on the BOE. In 2023-24, we hope to see the Board continue to lay the politics aside and keep a laser focus on kids.
These are four concrete examples of how YOUR parent voice influenced positive changes at SFUSD. Parent voice matters. That’s why we’re so proud of the work we’ve done collectively with you this year, to further our mission and achieve our vision: A future where San Francisco is one of the best places for children and youth of all races, socioeconomic backgrounds and abilities to grow up and get an excellent public education.
This past year we were also thrilled to get so many of you active in your school communities joining SSCs and PTAs, at the district level commenting with us at Board of Education meetings, and some of you joined important city and district bodies like the SFUSD High School and LCAP Task Forces. Through our sister org, SF Parent Action, nine public school parent leaders completed our pilot Board of Ed Bootcamp Fellowship; the first go at this program blew away our expectations! We were also proud to be able to activate our Education Equity Fund this year, with a grant to Carver Elementary School in the Bayview, supporting the school’s efforts to increase family engagement around literacy outcomes improvements for its students.
For all the great news and successes of 2022-23, we also know it’s a long road ahead to achieve the world-class public schools that San Francisco kids deserve. Your feedback through our Annual Parent Survey this spring illustrated that many parents are still not aware of what SFUSD is doing to improve math and literacy outcomes, or what the priorities of the Board of Education really are. On Monday, we sent this letter to Superintendent Dr. Wayne and the Board of Education yesterday, summarizing what we learned from 444 of you through our spring survey:
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Parents and caregivers, thank you for providing your input during our Annual Spring Survey; it’s so important for us to hear from you so we can lift up your concerns and do better at advocating for what our city’s students need to thrive.
Relatedly, it’s time for a brief update on our SF Kids Can’t Wait campaign….
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Back in May, we launched the parent-led campaign SF Kids Can’t Wait. While San Francisco Unified students have much higher test scores than the rest of the state, and it is one of the best-performing urban districts in California (outperforming places like Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Beach, and San Jose), it’s unacceptable that we are serving our Black and Latino/x students so poorly when compared to other districts. It’s especially bad when looking at math and reading scores of our low-income Black and Latino/x students compared to their peers across the rest of the state. Among the 200 largest districts in California, SF Unified’s scores for these students are among the lowest in the state, ranking 186th in reading for low-income Black students and 188th for low-income Latino/x students.
Seeing the numbers of how San Francisco’s equity gap in math and literacy only widened during the pandemic, we said NO to the district’s 3-year timeframes for beginning to identify ways to improve math and literacy outcomes for students. Successful districts take bold action and act with urgency for kids. There are evidence-based solutions that would enable SFUSD to improve outcomes for kids much sooner. Through the campaign, we’ve begun briefings with commissioners and city supervisors, and have also met with key decision makers at SFUSD. We’ve also been taking time to celebrate the incredible “bright spot” schools, meeting with schools that are beating the odds for kids and hearing their stories.
In June, a group of our parent advocates met with SFUSD’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction and lifted up many of your concerns and questions. We are thrilled that there’s some good news here! SFUSD shared some positive developments that they are:
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Expediting changes to the early literacy assessments to begin this fall (these are important tools to help teachers understand if kids are on track or need extra help)
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Offering expanded professional development (PD) opportunities for our amazing teachers beginning this summer, focused on incorporating more systematic, explicit instruction (a.k.a. phonics)
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Seeing good progress with the literacy pilots, and starting the second pilot this fall
We repeated our disapproval of the 3-year timeline for K-8 math program evaluation and encouraged them to expedite, given that additional tutoring and expanded PD support could begin immediately, and evidence-based program models could be adopted and replicated here sooner than 2026-27. San Francisco’s kids can’t wait.
All students can thrive and achieve excellence. Parents, teachers, and students themselves know this is true.
Get involved with the SF Kids Can’t Wait
campaign TODAY:
Join us today in asking SFUSD to prioritize greater urgency and to take bold measures to enhance reading and math proficiency for all students. We encourage every SFUSD parent, educator and supporter to take these three actions along with us:
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Or, help kids directly by volunteering as a tutor!
The San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) is looking for volunteers to help support 1st-4th grade students across San Francisco. Volunteers can begin as early as 15 years old; the FOG Readers program provides all of the training, curriculum, and support to get started. The next FOG Tutor Training is scheduled for August 8, 9, and 10, from 3:30 – 6:00 pm on Zoom. Sign up today!
Do you have a kid who is struggling with reading and needs extra support?
For families who are interested in their child benefitting from SFPL’s FOG Readers program, attend an upcoming Parent/Guardian Orientation Session to learn about the program, its purpose, and the next steps to get your kid on track with reading. The sessions are online via Zoom; sign up here.
Looking Ahead
Thanks to your ongoing parent input and our annual spring survey, we’re feeling more confident than ever that we’re lifting up parent voice on the topics most important to you as we head into the 2023-24 school year.
Please stay tuned as our plans–informed and co-created by you!– finalize for the school year ahead. Keep an eye out for updates in our next newsletter in August.
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Before you go: Please save-the-date!
Mark your calendar for our Back-to-School Parents Night Out, on Wednesday, August 30th at 6:30pm. Details coming soon!🎉
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SF Parent Coalition centers the needs of children and youth in San Francisco public schools by bringing together a diverse network of parents and caregivers to advocate for a thriving, equitable school system.
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