On a cool spring day last May, Matt Mendoza was on the athletic field of Galileo Academy of Science and Technology, where he teaches physical education. Class was in session on the turf surface, which has a clear view of San Francisco’s iconic Ghirardelli Square rooftop sign.
Suddenly, a student punched Mendoza three times without provocation, according to Mendoza and more than a dozen of his colleagues. Only after those punches did Mendoza defend himself, his coworkers told the San Francisco school board at a public meeting earlier this month.
Mendoza’s employer, the San Francisco Unified School District, put him on paid leave then transferred him to a different school, where he’s now working. Beyond Mendoza’s account, his colleagues’ descriptions, and a very short video, there’s no public information about what happened last May. The school district and the teachers union have not commented on the incident.
Mendoza and many of his colleagues called his treatment unfair and the incident unsurprising.
“I’m a microcosm of a bigger thing that’s happening,” Mendoza told The Frisc at that same board meeting on Aug. 11, where his coworkers took the issue to the public for the first time. “Obviously stuff happened to me, but it was going to happen to somebody.”
The altercation came near the end of a tumultuous school year at Galileo, which included other violent incidents and, in April, the sudden removal of principal De Trice Rodgers.
Some school staff said they’re struggling to teach in Galileo’s environment, which they said also includes deteriorating facilities and lax security. Now they’re watching how SFUSD handles Mendoza’s situation for a sign that the district has their backs.
Three seconds of video
According to Mendoza, he never had issues with any students prior to the May incident.
Other than the teachers’ accounts, the only record to emerge so far is a three-second video, which Mendoza showed The Frisc. The video, from a bystander student’s phone, captured the moment of the initial strike but not Mendoza’s response or events before the punch.
SFUSD has not responded to public records requests for video footage and incident reports. Multiple teachers said several of the school’s security cameras have been broken for years. “There was one right up there that would have caught it,” David Braund, the PE department chair, told The Frisc. “They don’t work.”
“He was struck three times before trying to defend himself,” English teacher Amanda Donahue, one of Mendoza’s colleagues, said during the Aug. 11 meeting’s public comment. “What do you suggest we do when a kid comes at us with a punch and another punch and another punch? Are we supposed to just play dead?”
Mendoza was punished, but not the student, he and his colleagues said.
After repeated questions about Mendoza and the school’s security situation, district spokesperson Katrina Kincade said, “Galileo is fully staffed for this school year” — including six security aides, whose job is to patrol school properties and prevent injuries.
Two days before this story’s publication, Kincade declined to comment further on the incident, calling it a confidential personnel matter. “In general, SFUSD honors a teacher’s due process rights and right to union representation in these matters,” she said. “Additionally, we cannot speak to specific instances involving students due to our obligation to protect student confidentiality.”
I just want my job. That’s all I’ve ever asked for.
Matt Mendoza, PE teacher at Galileo
Last year, the school had funding for 5.25 full time security aides, which matched Lowell, Mission, Washington, and Burton high schools. But teachers at “Gal,” as it’s commonly known, say it was insufficient because of the school’s size and discipline problems. Several teachers have also said that the school didn’t have its full complement of security staff by the end of the year.
In a conversation at the Aug. 11 board meeting, and in a follow-up phone call, Mendoza declined to share more details, saying he worries about Gal’s reputation, but he’s working with the teachers union to fight the transfer.
The United Educators of San Francisco did not respond to requests for comment.
A dismissal and a theory
Less than a month before Mendoza’s altercation, Galileo had a schoolwide shock. Principal De Trice Rodgers was shown the door in the first week in April.
Several teachers said the district still hasn’t told them why Rodgers was let go, but Rodgers has a theory. In June, two months after her dismissal, she told The Frisc it was partly connected to two armed robberies on school grounds. According to Rodgers, the district said the incidents were not handled in a “time-efficient manner.”
“They’re saying that I didn’t move fast enough,” says Rodgers. “That wasn’t true.” She said that she was not given enough time to investigate: “There’s only so many hours in a day.”
SFUSD did not respond to The Frisc’s questions about Rodgers.
Rodgers also told The Frisc she believed the robberies, both reportedly involving a gun on campus, were connected to gang activity. It’s something she had addressed before. After a 2024 shooting near the school that she thought to be gang-related, she banned the affiliated red and blue colors from the dress code. Rodgers, who is Black, told The Frisc that student frustration about the ban led to an escalation of threatening behavior in the school and against her.
Since that June conversation to discuss her removal and reports about the school conditions, Rodgers has not responded to follow-up calls and emails.
Police records show six incident reports were filed in the spring 2026 semester, ranging from “malicious mischief” to vandalism to hate crimes. It’s unclear if this activity is above average for a large SF high school, but Galileo staff raised alarms at the end of last semester and again on Aug. 11, which was the first board meeting of the new school year.
“The end of last year was just really chaotic,” said Donahue. “We had an armed robbery. We had two guns on campus. We had non-Galileo trespassers.”
Multiple teachers have also said Galileo’s century-old property badly needs repairs. A broken elevator has made trash collection more difficult, and it often piles up in the higher floors. Rodgers said that she asked teachers to carry their classroom’s garbage downstairs themselves to give custodians a break.
A leaky roof lets water into crawl spaces, risking mold, according to biology teacher Stephen Cadette. And broken security cameras have been a longstanding issue, multiple teachers say. Cadette worries the building is too big and old to be safe, and that the district is only addressing the issue “with Band-Aids,” not substantial change.
SFUSD has known for years that Galileo needs renovations and flagged it for modernization when campaigning for a huge facilities bond measure, which voters approved in 2024. The district has yet to disclose how it will spend much of the $790 million. So far, the only work slated for Galileo are minor electrical upgrades.
Rodgers was the school’s fourth principal in five years. The turnover has been taxing and is partly to blame for student behavior, said English teacher Donahue: “There’s a lack of boundaries for students. There’s a lack of systems in place to get them to class.”
Getting Galileo kids to class has been a problem. Chronic absenteeism, when students miss 10 percent or more of the school year, spiked districtwide during the pandemic, going from 12 percent chronically absent in 2019 to 27 percent in 2022, state data show. SFUSD lowered the rate to 22 percent in 2024-25. Data for 2025-26 are due from the state in mid-October.
Gal has gone in the opposite direction. Chronic absenteeism there climbed from 24 percent in 2022-23 to 27 percent in 2024-25, according to district data. (Note: The Frisc is using SFUSD data for Galileo because those data are missing from the state dashboard.)
Despite their frustration with the district, multiple teachers emphasized that they’re proud of their students’ work. Overall, Galileo students are performing better than the district average in language arts and college and career readiness.
More students also graduated from Gal (87 percent) than other schools districtwide (85 percent) in 2024-25. The year before, 43 Gal graduates were admitted to a competitive UC school — more than the much larger Lincoln and Washington high schools, according to the Chronicle.
Violence interrupters
While SFUSD didn’t address Rodgers’s or Mendoza’s situations, spokesperson Kincade emailed information about the School Crisis Support Initiative in June. The program connects at-risk students with adults from nonprofits who can help de-escalate and intervene when conflicts arise.
“Throughout the [2025-26] school year, Galileo students have benefited from ongoing support from School Violence Interrupters, who serve as trusted mentors and resources for young people,” said Kincade via email. “In direct response to community feedback this spring, partners increased their on-campus presence and engagement with the school.”
Rodgers said she was aware of the program. It’s unclear if it has resulted in any actions on campus.
Donahue said teachers are hopeful that Deloris Brown, the new principal this year, will help right some of the wrongs.
One of those wrongs, according to Mendoza and his supporters, is his transfer. He regrets that his situation is now in the spotlight. “I just want my job,” he said. “That’s all I’ve ever asked for.”
