As Black History Month comes to a close, SF Parent Coalition is recognizing the advocacy efforts and commitment of a handful of the Black leaders in our SF Parents network and the SFUSD community. At SF Parents, one of our top priorities is advocating for district policies that will eliminate the racially predictable opportunity gap, a gap that preceded–but also widened during–the pandemic. At our core we are committed to not only listening to but being led by the families most impacted by these gaps that persist across our schools. Since our founding we have been honored to have the leadership of inspiring parents, students, and educators who are deeply committed to holding SFUSD accounting to supporting our Black students and ensuring they have everything they need to thrive and excel.
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Chanel Blackwell discovered SF Parent Coalition during the pandemic and joined our grassroots advocacy to help her two sons get the support they needed during prolonged school closures. She’s been a strong advocate at both of her sons’ schools as well as at the district level, fighting for the return of algebra, the overhaul of outdated literacy programs, and more. She most recently served on the district’s Math Policy Committee and also serves on SF Parents’ Leadership Council.
Chanel told us about her recent experiences with local education advocacy: “I’ve learned that it takes time to get results, and sometimes it won’t go your way like you want it to, but I keep being persistent until there’s a better outcome. Because our kids can’t vote they become vulnerable to what is given to them by the school district so it’s our job as adults to change our behaviors and focus on kids’ outcomes.”
We asked Chanel what she’s most proud about in her advocacy for her own children: “I am most proud advocating for our high school senior son making sure he gets services post graduations such as wellness center, college, and career courses. As well as my three years of advocacy to bring back 8th-grade algebra for my second born. I don’t want my beautiful African American boys to become marginalized and not have the tools to thrive in school.”
Finally, we asked Chanel if she has any advice for other parents who may not yet understand the ropes of how to get heard: “My advice is to keep advocating no matter if you don’t have the experience. You know your child. Keep persistence until you get heard. Go to Board of Education meetings and town halls. Take what you like from SF Parents resources and use what works for you. When that time comes to be heard, express it. Because it is all about our kids.”
One of the many positive effects of Chanel’s advocacy is that it has even rubbed off on her high school son, Liam, who’s become an advocate in his own right, and told us why: “It’s important as a black youth to advocate for our education, because it helps us prepare for the future.”
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Encountering SF Parents in the summer of 2021, Rex Ridgeway shared his years of advocacy experience with our organization, firing up many more parents on the issue of how our school district was still using an outdated, ineffective reading program (Lucy Calkins/F&P), one which was having disproportionate negative impacts on Black and Latino students at SFUSD. Rex also became one of the city’s leading advocates for improvements to math at SFUSD, after his granddaughter was impacted by the lack of an 8th grade algebra offering. She had to double up in 9th grade to stay on track with accelerated math, and Rex saw firsthand how unfair and inequitable this outdated math policy was.
We asked Rex what he’d like to share with our community as we close out Black History Month:
“The space missions, beginning with the Mercury space flights around the moon could not have happened, had it not been for Katherine Johnson, an African American mathematician whose calculations of Orbital Mechanics, as an employee of NASA, were crucial to the success of the first and subsequent US manned space flights. The space station and satellites orbiting today are the result of a Black female mathematician. Quit dumbing it down, SFUSD. High expectations and focused attention, starting today.🤺” – Rex Ridgeway
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Bianca Rowden Quince was one of the first parents, even pre-“DtD” days, who we connected with during the summer of 2020 when parents were becoming increasingly concerned about how the pandemic would impact kids’ education in so many inequitable ways. She co-led the “Equitable Pods” zoom discussion; our very first community meeting in July 2020 where we brought in parent leaders from Rooftop Elementary to share about this creative solution.
Bianca has always been a fierce advocate for her kids’ education, Black students at her kids’ school, and all of our students at SFUSD who are impacted by inequitable systems, programs, and policies. This April, Bianca will be representing SF Parents at the US Capitol and the White House, as we join peer parent groups across the country organized by National Parents Union to fight against conservative policies that continue to suppress educational opportunities for kids from low-income and historically marginalized backgrounds across the country.
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One of the cofounders of SF Parent Coalition, Yvette Edwards was one of the most prominent voices speaking up for many Black students and their families during the pandemic, who were struggling under distance learning with social, emotional and academic concerns, including her own two boys. Though the Board of Education at that time was promoting a different narrative, Edwards would call into public meetings and remind those with power that they weren’t speaking for her family or for many she was hearing from.
Yvette is a powerful advocate not just for her own children, but all students across SFUSD and our great city. Starting an advocacy nonprofit wasn’t necessarily in her life bingo card, but it’s been quite a ride, one that’s taken her from local school advocacy all the way out to D.C. in 2023 where she advocated at the Department of Education and on Capitol Hill to stop the conservative “parents rights” bill that, among other things, would have banned important history books from our children’s schools. Among other leadership roles, Yvette also served on Mayor Breed’s 2022 Task Force on Children and Family Recovery to develop a roadmap of strategies to support San Francisco’s children, youth, and families as they recover from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Dr. Nicole Priestly, SFUSD’s Head of Curriculum and Instruction, is the fierce leader who is making sure that kids get the research-backed curriculum and materials they need to thrive in math and reading, especially with a focus on our Black students and other student subgroups who have been historically underserved.
We’ve witnessed Dr. Priestly’s strong leadership over the last few years, advocating from within for the changes that SFUSD’s kids need. She makes it clear that this is both an issue of ensuring excellence and opportunities for every student to thrive, as much as it is an issue of racial and social justice. We see how Dr. Priestly embraces the challenging work and pushes through even though her team has been under-staffed and budget woes put at risk the successful curriculum adoption and implementation.
We are grateful to have a strong leader like Dr. Priestly in an important time for our students like this, when the district is facing complete overhauls of instructional systems that weren’t working for too many of our students. Her job is anything but easy, and we’re lucky to have her fighting for an excellent, equitable education for SFUSD’s students, each and every day.
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SFUSD has implemented important programs focused on our district’s African American student population, like Black Star Rising, which contributes to increased high school preparedness for the students who participate. The program provides academically rigorous and culturally relevant math and science coursework during the spring and summer to help high school students prepare and gain confidence for the upcoming school year. Students who participate in the Black Star Rising and the Mastering Cultural Identity program see a reduction in chronic absenteeism. In 2022-23 only 27% of students in this program were chronically absent, compared to 60% in the prior year. We applaud SFUSD and the African American Achievement Leadership Initiative for investing in important programs like these that contribute to the academic success and overall well-being of our Black students at SFUSD.
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Celebrating diversity at SFUSD 365 days a year
SF Parent Coalition is grateful for every parent, teacher, student, staff and district leader that is dedicated to fighting to ensure excellence and equity in our schools. As we close out Black History Month with special events and activities across our schools and communities, we are reminded to celebrate the beautiful diversity of our student population 365 days a year, by working towards an education system that supports the needs of all of our students–especially those who have been historically underserved.
In community,
Meredith & the Team at SF Parents
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Before you go, don’t miss our General Announcements:
Get your I 💙 My SF Public School sticker or window sign, here: www.sfparents.org/love/ We’ve exceeded 300 out in the community already… let’s get to 500, with your help!
Next Tuesday, March 5th is Election Day! Don’t forget to vote especially on things like (Prop G – Algebra) and the “D.C.C.C.;” both of which have tremendous impacts on our schools.
Sign the petition for school safety measures at SFUSD. Read more about what’s been going on, and don’t forget to sign and share the petition to get basic safety measures at each and every SFUSD school.
Missed our monthly meeting on Feb 22nd? Catch the recording here.
Continue to spread the 💙 for our schools with the next phase of our enrollment push through a Bay to Breakers campaign, led by two amazing SF Parents volunteers and public school parents, Adam Borelli and Jaime-Alexis Fowler! Sign up here to run with your school or be a school lead for the campaign! Additional questions? Email us.
SFUSD is accepting applications for the new Latinx Family Advisory Committee. This is a great opportunity for Latino/x parents and caregivers to get your voices heard at the district level.
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