A special message to our community
Three years ago in March 2021, we were celebrating together the win of finally get schools back open in San Francisco. After the longest pandemic school closures of any major urban city, parents, teachers, community members showed up day after day for a year–whether via Zoom or in-person rallies and demonstrations–and finally achieved this victory for kids.
The former superintendent called us “heroes for our city’s children.”
It was a year and a half before SF Parents would launch another full-scale campaign, Literacy For All, in the fall of 2022.
Two dozen parent and teacher advocates built our campaign after organizing research meetings, dissecting data, and working to understand what kept so many of our SFUSD students from achieving grade-level milestones in reading. We connected with SFUSD’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction via open meetings to our parent community, we brought in nationally renowned literacy researchers, and we studied what other districts around the nation were doing to improve student reading scores.
We finally settled on three main culprits at SFUSD that were holding our students back:
-
a decentralized system with “a thousand flowers blooming” (some SFUSD kids were getting excellent instruction and materials access, but not others),
-
an outdated, ineffective literacy curriculum (Lucy Calkins), and
-
an assessment tool (“F&P”) that was supposed to tell teachers how their students were progressing, but in fact, left too many in the dark.
Following a long and intentional research period, SF Parent Coalition spent these last two years advocating for changes to all three of these culprits. And this week, we see the fruits of your advocacy efforts: All three will finally be addressed.
Last night at the Board of Education meeting, SFUSD announced (and the BOE approved) the new literacy curricula coming to our schools and classrooms this fall: PK & TK: Creative Curriculum; Grades K – 5: Into Reading; Grades 6 – 8: EL Education.
SFUSD shared how these programs will be better for kids and will close the gap in reading outcomes. They described the professional development and training for teachers to make this transition smooth and supportive. They adopted an Each and Every By Name initiative to double the percentage of Black and Pacific Islander kindergarteners meeting grade-level milestones. They presented data-driven strategies that will be implemented centrally and in partnership with schools. Kudos, SFUSD.
Dr. Priestly and Commissioner Alexander even referenced and appreciated SF Parent Coalition for parents’ hard work, research, and recommendations. This is well-deserved public recognition of the hard work you’ve been putting into this advocacy for years now, SF Parents community.
Pausing for a moment of celebration here… To every parent and teacher who showed up over the last three years, spoke about their concerns, attended a meeting or literacy event to learn more, or activated on this issue: CONGRATULATIONS on the impact you’ve now had for SFUSD’s current and future students. Literacy is fundamentally a social justice issue, one that shapes kids futures right from the very start. SFUSD must do better, and now, thanks to your efforts, it will.
Let us also be real: this is a monumental shift for SFUSD. For any district taking on curriculum adoption, this undertaking would require all hands on deck even during a “normal” time. For SFUSD, it is coming at a time when we are also making huge changes to middle school math, evaluating an overhaul to early math, streamlining high school offerings, replacing a faulty payroll system, improving HR practices, and moving towards potential school closures.
We’re recognizing how much change the district is trying to do to make things better for SF’s kids. And, when you’re trying to turn a cargo ship that’s been heading in the wrong direction, you can expect change to be hard. Our 50,000 public school kids are relying on all of us to get this right, to be patient with the changes as they unfold, and for all of us to keep rowing in the same direction.
Though we are celebrating today, and you should too, it doesn’t stop here. Our community will continue holding SFUSD accountable. We are still looking for:
-
A clear roadmap and plan (beyond a 3-page overview) that demonstrates SFUSD is prioritizing this massive literacy undertaking and understands what it will take (including the price tag and ongoing progress monitoring) of doing it well.
-
Assurances that SFUSD will identify each and every child *not* meeting grade-level reading milestones in reading, will support them with research-backed high-dosage tutoring and interventions, and will centrally align with any outside service providers to schools.
-
Assurances that teachers and school leaders are receiving regular, effective communication and information that articulates the details of the rollout, and that teachers are receiving appropriate support, including compensated PD time.
Parents continue to be the greatest untapped resource to keep SFUSD on track. We will continue to hold SFUSD accountable to following through on its promises. To those of you who regularly come out for SF Parents events and happenings, thank you for continuing to show up. And to those of you who quietly follow along, we have enormous appreciation for you, too. An informed community is one that will act, spread the word, (and vote!) on behalf of kids.
Finally, a special appreciation to our funders, both grassroots and institutional: this is all possible because of you. Thank you for seeing the value in our work, and for making our collective vision for public school kids become reality.
We welcome everyone reading this to get more involved, join us at our next event, and learn about ways you can contribute to the ongoing positive impact that parents, teachers, and community are having for SF’s public school kids.
In community,
Meredith Dodson
Executive Director, SF Parent Coalition
