Newsletter 7/31/24: Budget Campaign Launch

Weekly updates from SF Parents

We hope you’re enjoying your summer and that the juggling act of summer camp scheduling hasn’t been too overwhelming. We’ve been busy planning for the upcoming school year, and we wanted to touch base with you about the district’s budget status and how our parent advocacy and your leadership can help.


For over two years, the SF Parent Coalition has been advocating for SFUSD to fix its budget and fully resource our schools, ensuring excellent public education for every student. Fortunately, we have many well-resourced schools and classrooms at SFUSD. Unfortunately, resources are inequitably distributed across our district and SFUSD is still far from achieving the ultimate goal: balancing the budget and tying each dollar to student success.

 

Even drastic measures like school closures will not eliminate the deficit. The CA Department of Education warned that “no stone can be left unturned” as this process unfolds, but is the district doing enough to communicate transparently or to support kids and families as it is making these cuts? We don’t think so.


That’s why we’re stepping it up and launching an official parent-led budget campaign.

 

Our parent-led budget work since 2021 has already had significant impacts:

  • We’ve developed and elevated parent leaders to become budget experts and hold SFUSD accountable to fixing the budget. (Did you know that School Board President, Lainie Motamedi, used to serve as our Budget Committee Co-Chair before being appointed to the school board?!) 
  • We’ve sent your parent input on the budget directly to the superintendent and the school board. Our fall 2023 Budget Survey had nearly 800 participants from a majority of schools across SFUSD.
  • We’ve researched and disseminated clear and accessible information to help families understand the budget challenges. Parent leaders like you help us gather and disseminate crucial information to our broader network.

As we formalize this parent-led campaign to fix SFUSD’s budget and support our students, we will be learning, gathering ideas, and proposing parent-led solutions, like the Opportunity Ticket, a solution we’ve been brainstorming for a year now together with many of you.

 

The Opportunity Ticket

 

If SFUSD is going to close schools, they must follow best practices that will minimize negative impacts to our most vulnerable students. We know that over 50% of our students are economically disadvantaged. The Opportunity Ticket* gives low-income families at closing schools first choices at any school in the district. This solution minimizes negative impacts to our most vulnerable students within SFUSD, by ensuring that their families can enroll in a new school that will support them to meet their full educational potential. In 2019, Oakland passed a policy that San Francisco should look to as an example. The OUSD policy allows their Enrollment Center to prioritize school assignment to families who have children attending closing or merging schools or who live in the attendance area of closing or merging schools and would’ve sent their children to those schools. (*The Oakland REACH advocated for the Opportunity Ticket before it was passed in 2019. Learn more here.)


Based on parent-led research and community conversations this past year, we know families want to see the Opportunity Ticket enacted at SFUSD


As we formalize our budget campaign, WHAT ELSE do you want to see from SFUSD?

  • What should our parent-led budget campaign set out to achieve? 
  • What does success look like to families in how the district closes its budget gap this year? 
  • What would success look like for our campaign by the end of 2024-25?

Note: If you do not use Facebook, you can give us input on the campaign via email.

 

Thank you for taking a moment to provide your input!

Your voice matters: We can have a greater impact ensuring excellent, equitable San Francisco public schools because of you!

That’s all for now, but before you go… SAVE THE DATE!

We’re populating our calendar for the fall semester ahead, and we’ve already got a lot of exciting things planned. Please mark your calendar and save-the-dates. More details coming:

  • Back-to-School Parent Zoom, with updates on all things budget, literacy adoption, and more. (Thursday, September 5th, 12-1 PM BYOLunch Zoom)
  • Mayoral Candidate Forum on Education. Learn from Mayor London Breed (incumbent) and candidates Daniel Lurie, Aaron Peskin, Ahsha Safai, and Mark Farrell about their education platforms and priorities for San Francisco public schools. (Monday, September 16th, 6:30-8:30 PM, in-person with livestream or recorded option available)
  • Meet SF Parents! Are you new to SFUSD and/or our amazing parent network? Mark your calendar to learn more about our organization and how/why to get more involved. (Thursday, September 26th, 12 PM and 7:30 PM – two time options via Zoom)

 

That’s all, for now. We’re around, as always, and you know how to reach us. We’re looking forward to welcoming back students, families, and teachers in just a few weeks to the new school year, and, we are excited to launch our 2024-25 parent advocacy, schedule of events, and fun family/parent socials!

 

– Meredith & the Team

 

Did you find this helpful? Before you go, would you be willing to:

Forward me to a friend or two? 📫 They can subscribe here.
Donate to support our work?💰Thank you for making our work possible! 

 

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!

Volunteer with or sign up for our SF Parent Action newsletter here

 

Update your newsletter language preference here.

在此處更新您的首選語言,開始及時接收中文或西班牙文訊息

Actualice su preferencia de idioma aquí.