OUR IMPACT

Our advocacy and successes are many.  We advocated for the safe reopening of our schools, when the science became clear that schools could and should reopen safely. Since then, SF Parent Coalition continues to lift up parent voices and advocate on behalf of students and families.  All of our work is rooted in the grassroots concerns of our supporters and tsunami of parent volunteer leaders.

2021-22 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

  • We received the President’s Award for 2022 by the National Parents Union (NPU), in recognition of our leadership and service to children and families in our community.
  • We developed with families and announced our Parent Priorities Platform, four priorities that guide our advocacy work.
  • We successfully advocated for extending the search timeline for a new Superintendent so applicants could know the new school board composition before they applied.
  • During the Omicron surge, we organized 200 parent volunteers to pack and distribute thousands of test kits for teachers, students, and their families.
  • During the 2021-22 teacher shortage, we signed up over 70 parents to apply as SFUSD substitute teachers.
  • We successfully advocated for SFUSD to align with the city’s public health guidance on masking policy and other health protocols during the COVID pandemic.
  • We co-hosted an Assembly District Candidate 17 Forum in partnership with 2nd District PTA, Parents for Public Schools, and TogetherSF. Candidates for state Assembly answered questions from families on where they stand on education issues.
  • We hosted hot topic forums on literacy, the budget deficit, and more.
  • We advocated at the state level calling on Assemblymember Ting to ensure that the state budget doubles funding for special education in 2022-23.
  • We advocated for Mayor Breed and the Board of Supervisors to make JFK Drive permanently car-free
  • We advocated for SFUSD to address the violation of political activity SFUSD policy by some promoting an election endorsement
  • We launched a petition to Governor Newsom and State Superintendent Thurmond to develop a statewide approach to stabilizing our schools by providing more funding per pupil, making COLA adjustments in funding allocations, providing pension and benefits relief as districts grapple with declining enrollment.
  • We were published in the media:

2020-2021 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

WE ORGANIZED FAMILIES TO MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD.

  • Our members organized more than a dozen “Zoom-in” events, attended by hundreds of families, where children attended Zoom classes outside their schools to bring attention to the fact that students were doing poorly on Zoom and missed their teachers and classmates. The events were well covered by local media and beyond.
  • We spurred families to attend and engage with Board of Education meetings, getting hundreds of parents and students to make public comments over the course of the school year and getting 1,000 to attend one of the meetings. We have also organized multiple email campaigns to our Board of Education and multiple press events.
  • In October of 2020, we organized a petition to bring more transparency and urgency to the reopening process; more than 1,500 parents signed. The same month SF Parents listened to and assisted the Mission Latino/x community to develop a letter and petition, specific to the Latinx experience and how their families were being misrepresented by our Board of Education, as they were also calling for reopening.
  • In February of 2021, we hand delivered to the school district a second petition with nearly 4,000 signatures calling for the district to open schools according to public health guidance. This was following a successful press conference we organized with Mayor London Breed and many SFUSD children holding signs about returning to school.
  • On the one-year anniversary of school closures in March of 2021, we organized a week of actions and events. Over a thousand families participated in the various events that week including hundreds at our march and rally.

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WE PUSHED AT THE CITY AND DISTRICT LEVEL.

  • We pushed for a city resolution Urging a Comprehensive Return to School Plan for SFUSD to identify and ask the city for what exactly it needed (PPE, COVID-19 testing, financial resources) in order to reopen. The resolution was passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors in December 2020.
  • We strongly advocated for universal masking requirements at schools, to help teachers feel safer, a position the district eventually supported.
  • We successfully pushed for the passage of a resolution calling for a full, five-day return to in-person learning for all students by the first day of school year 2021-2022 at the Board of Education in April 2021.
  • We published important Op Ed articles in the SF Chronicle and SF Examiner
  • We organized teachers, paraprofessionals, and school staff to write an open letter to their fellow union members calling for public health professionals--not labor unions--to decide when schools are safe to reopen.
  • We organized a Special Education letter and email campaign to the SFUSD Special Education department during our week of events in March focused on “365 Days At Home,” calling for better support and services to our children receiving special education services during school closures.
  • We advocated and coordinated with city and SFUSD leaders to request and ensure that in-person and 8th grade graduations would be a reality.
  • We researched and drafted a report and letter to the district on how school should look in the fall, resulting in individual meetings with the Superintendent and four Commissioners, focused on their policy positions and stances on how to return to a high-quality in-person classroom experience by the fall. We also produced a report, A Year of Harm and Counting: San Francisco’s Ongoing Public School Failure

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WE HAVE BEEN VOCAL AT THE STATE LEVEL.

  • We advocated strongly for teacher vaccines. In early December of 2020 we organized a press conference to urge Gov. Newsom to prioritize teachers for the vaccine and were one of the first groups to do so.
  • We submitted testimony to the California state legislature in support of AB10, and developed a template for individual parents to send to their legislators.
  • We developed and promoted a state petition calling on our governor and state legislature to commit to a FULL 5-day return for all students by Fall 2021.
  • We drafted and coordinated a letter from 11 urban parent groups across California to Tony Thurmond calling for a commitment to return to in-person learning for our students.
  • We mobilized parents and made 100 calls to state legislators from April-June 2021 to ask them to ensure that students across the state could return to full 5 days of in-person school, with before and after care available, and never again counting Zoom in a Room toward instructional minutes.
  • We mobilized the SF business community to advocate to our governor and legislatures to reinstate full before- and after-care.

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WE SUPPORTED FAMILIES BY GIVING THEM INFORMATION & HOPE, AND BY BUILDING COMMUNITY.

  • We organized town halls to share public health information about how we could safely return our students to in-person learning, with over 600 families registered, and on state policy impacting the return to in-person learning with Senator Scott Wiener and Assemblymembers David Chiu and Phil Ting
  • We held dozens of parent/community “Zoom Social” and “Zoom Action” meetings for parents, caregivers, and community organizations across San Francisco to share their ideas and concerns, and for us share upcoming actions
  • We developed and sent with information to parents that they consistently claim is clearer and more informative than anything they get from the district
  • We heard over and over from families: “You gave me hope this year.” “DtD gave parents and families a voice.” “The calls-to-action were so organized and effective, and it made me feel less hopeless.” “You generated an inclusive community across the district.”