It is September 25th, and the deadline for a school closures list (due 9/18) has come and gone, causing more uncertainty among many families and teachers. On top of that, a series of chaotic events unfolded this past week, and we are taking a moment to catch you up:
- Delay in school closure announcement: On Sunday 9/15, we all received this message from SFUSD that there would be a delay in the school closures timeline, from the original September announcement date to sometime in October. In response, SF Parent Coalition sent this message to Dr. Wayne, rounding up a number of your questions reflecting the collective confusion about the last minute change in plans and your anxiety around not knowing what would come next.
- Meeting with Superintendent Dr. Wayne: On Thursday 9/19, twenty parent leaders, primarily from our SF Parents Board and Leadership Council, met with Dr. Wayne and Dr. Aguilera-Fort (Sr. Assoc. Supt. of Educational Services) to obtain answers to your questions. We learned that the delay was due to the lack of a strong plan for closing schools, including insufficient support from the Board of Education. There were too many unanswered questions about how SFUSD would support school communities after the closures.
- Meeting with State Fiscal Advisor Elliot Duchon: On Friday 9/20, nearly a hundred parents joined our community Zoom over the lunch hour, to hear updates from us, and participate in a Q&A with state fiscal advisor to SFUSD, Elliot Duchon. Elliot addressed many parent questions about the state of our district’s budget crisis, and what to expect next. Read the community meeting summary notes here.
- The chaos and finger-pointing: Also on Friday 9/20, a surprising article appeared in the SF Chronicle, where former and current school board presidents blasted the superintendent for being an ineffective leader for our schools during this fiscal crisis. SF Parent Coalition immediately got on the phones to understand what was happening. Through many calls we learned that some board commissioners, including the president, were moving forward a rapid plan to fire Dr. Wayne. We also learned there was even more chaos behind the scenes than there was publicly, with no actual plan identified for who to put in place as interim if they did oust the superintendent.
- How the weekend unfolded: Despite lacking a plan, the Board of Education still moved forward and called an emergency meeting on Sunday morning at 9 AM to consider firing Dr. Wayne. We heard from many of you how worried you were about this finger pointing and knee-jerk reaction. We sent this letter to the school board to encourage them to slow down and handle this carefully; many of you sent similar letters, or attended the emergency BOE meeting to make public comment. Ultimately the BOE decided to keep him in his role, for now, but only after creating much confusion and disorder.
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- Should he stay or should he go? The truth is, there was no clearly articulated plan from Dr. Wayne on how closing schools would address the urgent $100+ million deficit that puts our schools at risk of state takeover, and too many holes in the plan for how to support school communities if school closures do happen in San Francisco. It is also true that losing Dr. Wayne at this moment could cause much further instability and chaos, at a time when we need all boats rowing in the same direction for the kids. It seems that more time to think this through is not a bad thing for the state of our schools.
- The City steps in: Following Sunday’s Board of Education decision to keep Dr. Wayne in place, Mayor London Breed announced a School Stabilization Team that will be dedicated to getting SFUSD through this budget crisis and back on track. The task force will be led by city leaders Maria Su (DCYF) and Phil Ginsberg (Rec & Parks). Also joining the team of advisors is Dr. Carl Cohn, former superintendent of Long Beach Unified School District– regularly hailed as an excellent district with similar student population size and demographics, that SFUSD should try to emulate. Mayor Breed has also promised $8M in monetary resources while the plan is developed and executed.
WOW, THAT WAS A LOT. Where does all this leave us? We’re relieved that the Board of Education landed on more intentionality, and optimistic that these city resources from Mayor Breed should help SFUSD dramatically. This also comes with the continued responsibility and role for SF Parents to hold Dr. Wayne, the Board, and now the new School Stabilization Team accountable to making decisions that are in the best interests of our students and our schools.
We will continue to ask until we get the answer: Where is the thoughtful plan for cutting ~10% of SFUSD’s budget, that we know will be voted on by the BOE in December? How will the plan minimize negative impacts to students?
There is so much at stake for our kids. We are advocating for:
- Transparency and rationale for every decision, in plain language
- Less chaos, more care and intention
- If closures are to happen, we want to see the plan to:
- Keep kids and communities together
- Minimize negative impacts to students from historically marginalized backgrounds
- Fix the budget and stop the state take-over of our schools!
This continues to be an uncertain time for our SFUSD community, and we’re here to get your questions answered and to keep you informed. Check back for ways that you can get more involved, and we hope you can join our parent meet-up (in-person!) on October 16th (location TBD).
Thank you for your advocacy and leadership on behalf our district’s 50,000 students; if there’s anything we’ve learned in our four short years of existence, it’s the very real meaning behind the saying “It takes a village.”
In community,
Meredith Dodson
SF Parent Coalition
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P.S. Our Parent Support Team is temporarily on hold: You may recall the Parent Support Team that we launched in response to the anticipated SFUSD school closures. We paused the trainings for this team until we find out more from SFUSD on what is happening. We are proud to have already over 20 parents and community members on the team (it’s not too late to sign up); we’ll pivot to other forms of support if SFUSD’s plans change.
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Non-Citizen Voting: Did you know ALL parents in San Francisco can vote for the S.F. Board of Education this November? This puts the decision of who is on our school board in all of your hands. With all of the turmoil happening this school year, it is more important than ever that our non-citizen families have their voices lifted, including through their votes. Please check this link for more information, and you can catch SF Parent Coalition handing out flyers and information outside of schools leading up to the election. Want us to come to your school? Email [email protected] to make the request!
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Missed our September 16th event, Mayoral Candidates Speak Up on Public Education? All five frontrunners attended this important event at Washington High School that elevated the topic of public education in this year’s mayoral race. You can watch the whole thing on our YouTube channel, 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.
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