Newsletter Aug 19, 2024: Kicking off the 2024-25 School Year!

Back-to-School Welcome!

Dear SFUSD Families, Teachers, and Public School Champions,

With a new school year starting, we at SF Parent Coalition want to extend a warm welcome to new SFUSD families and teachers and a warm welcome back to those returning to our schools. We’re excited to kick off the 2024-25 with you—we hope today was a bright day for you and your little (or big!) learners.

To the newbie families: if you feel a little lost as you start this new journey, remember there’s a whole community here of 7,000+ parents and supporters rooting you on. Don’t miss our New-to-SFUSD parent guide, a helpful resource developed by our amazing parent volunteers. These next couple of weeks, teachers and schools are creating welcoming spaces for our kids and laying the foundation for a successful year together—getting to know their students, creating a sense of belonging and setting expectations and norms. 

As we enter our organization’s fifth (!) year, we have much work to do together. We continue to listen to parents and caregivers about the issues that matter most to you, provide opportunities for you to learn more about important issues in SFUSD, offer updates about the Board of Education and relevant elections (mostly through our sister arm SF Parent Action), and we host both informational and fun community events.

➡️ Speaking of, don’t miss our first official parent meeting of the new school year via Zoom on September 5th at 12 pm. RSVP here 📅

Despite the huge budget challenges facing SFUSD, we are optimistic about the school year ahead. Each year parents drop off their kids on that first day, to warm, welcoming teachers, school communities, and classrooms. We all know how much wonder and excitement the new school year holds for our learners.

We are following along closely this year as the district makes a huge shift in its early literacy program. In 2022, SFUSD set a goal of increasing third grade reading proficiency for all students and making faster progress towards eradicating the racial predictability of the achievement gap. Want to learn more about the literacy changes underway? Read our 3-minute explainer here.

We wish you a positive start to the new school year and look forward to seeing you many of you soon!

In community,

Meredith & the Board of Directors, SF Parent Coalition

School News

School Plans for Student Achievement: Just last week, every SFUSD elementary, middle, and high ‘School Plan for Student Achievement‘ (or “SPSA”) was approved by the Board of Education. If you haven’t checked out your school’s plan yet-–go ahead and do that now! Want to understand more about what it means? Ask us in our Facebook Forum.

PK-8 Teachers: Are you a teacher in a PK-8 classroom? Tell us how the new early literacy program implementation is going and how we can be stronger advocates for the supports that you need from SFUSD Central Office. Email us at [email protected] or fill out this 5-min feedback form to tell us what’s going well and how SFUSD can do better to support teachers and families alike.

Budget: SFUSD is making big cuts to its budget and moving closer to announcing school closures this fall. SF Parent Coalition has been advocating for stronger fiscal management of our district to avoid this kind of painful situation we’re now facing, but it hasn’t been enough to get SFUSD back on track. We’re finally launching a more formal budget campaign to ensure that SFUSD does not get fully taken over by the state and that it does everything in its power to fully resource our schools and support our students. Email [email protected] to get involved.

9th Graders – Opportunity to select a new class: On Friday, SFUSD sent an email to all new 9th grade families: “Preparing for your student’s freshman year in SFUSD.” It includes information about your student’s schedule, including an offer for your student to take an alternative course instead of the 1-year Ethnic Studies that is currently on all 9th graders schedules. There is a parent post in our Facebook forum on this topic, which also references an Ethnic Studies FAQ doc created by some SFUSD parents. We are still unclear what kind of graduation requirement this cohort of students will have for Ethnic Studies, and are awaiting clarification from SFUSD.

Public Education Takes Center Stage in Mayoral Race! We’re bringing the five candidates–London Breed, Mark Farrell, Daniel Lurie, Aaron Peskin, Ahsha Safai–to you to talk all things public education. They’ll be interviewed by Alexis Madrigal of KQED on their vision and positions on the status and future of our S.F. public schools. Location just added! Event will be at Washington High School. Can you join us? RSVP here.

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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.

Our sister organization, SF Parent Action, advocates for policies and elected officials who put the needs of San Francisco’s public school students first. Don’t miss out on important updates on that work and what you need to know!

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