In SFUSD Board Election, Candidates Sing a Responsible Tune, With Little Choice

With student levels the lowest in decades and more upheaval coming with school closures and budget cuts, the San Francisco public schools also happen to be holding an election. 

The district’s Board of Education, which has played no small part in a series of controversies, is facing its second election cycle since the 2022 recall that ousted three of its members. Up to four of the seven seats could turn over. Compared to board elections in previous years, the tenor has dramatically changed. 

Out are the days of commissioners promising new initiatives or running in droves for higher office, like Matt Haney (now in the state assembly), or supervisors Shamann Walton, Jane Kim, and Sandra Lee Fewer. Instead, candidates are making pledges of fiscal responsibility, good behavior and collaboration, and sticking to the job at hand instead of political striving. 

The board now operates as a pared-down oversight body focused on student outcomes and the fiscal crisis, and by and large the 11 candidates are reflecting those priorities. 

It’s not clear they have much choice. After years of deficit spending, the San Francisco Unified School District is the closest it ever has been to a state takeover. State-appointed advisors have frozen the hiring of some positions to ensure the district can pay its bills throughout the year. It cut $103 million this year to get to a $1.3 billion budget, and it must cut another $113 million for the 2025-26 school year. 

“What’s different now is we’ve all come to this place where everyone acknowledges that the district needs to make some serious financial changes, and there isn’t any money coming from anywhere,” said Rachel Norton, who served on the board from 2008 to 2020. “The city doesn’t have any money, the state doesn’t have any money, and the district doesn’t have any money.” 

New and collegial 

Some board actions now seen as overreach or derailed by lawsuits, such as renaming schools or covering controversial school murals, began before the pandemic. But in 2020, as parents fumed about shuttered schools, the board carried on with the renaming. 

It also temporarily changed Lowell High’s admissions policy and fought an $85 million lawsuit from one of its own members. In 2021, earlier in the financial crisis, they also butted heads with state fiscal watchdogs. 

“We have more of a way to operate that’s collegial and allows people to have a voice [without] being able to take over the meeting,” the longest-serving member, Mark Sanchez, told The Frisc in May. “As a governance team, we’re doing better than we ever have.”

SF School Board Skips Summer Vacation to Hash Out a New Way of Doing Business

For much of the recent past, only the board president could communicate with the press.

While the board has made good on better behavior and governance – “not blowing things up,” as Norton puts it — it hasn’t solved some huge problems. After revelations that the new payroll system was going haywire, the administration spent roughly two years and an extra $15 million before scrapping it. The board also hasn’t met its own goal to spend at least half its time focusing on student issues. 

At a recent board meeting, the district’s head of human resources Amy Baer noted she had been on the job for a year and was struck by “how dysfunctional many of the district’s processes and systems are.”

But no candidate so far has argued against the board reforms themselves. At a Sept. 5 forum hosted by the League of Women Voters, many candidates praised Commissioner Jenny Lam, who as board president in 2022 led the reform push. 

Given the low pay ($500 a month) and high stress, perhaps it’s no surprise Lam and two others with expiring terms aren’t running again. Of the 11 candidates, only one, Matt Alexander, is an incumbent. More than half the seven-member board could turn over. 

Of the other 10 candidates, only Ann Hsu has board experience. Mayor London Breed appointed her after the recall, but she lost her election bid nine months later after making statements blaming Black and brown parents for poor student performance. 

Several of the new people now running have or had children in SFUSD and a range of professional backgrounds: affordable housing executive, attorney, tech executive, educator, contractor. One is a recent SFUSD high school graduate. 

[Note: For more personal information and points of view, The Frisc has sent questionnaires to all candidates. Their answers will be published next week in a separate post.] 

Endorsement twists

With a huge crowd of candidates in most election cycles, it was always a battle to stand out. Now, with so much at stake, trust will play a heavy role for voters, said Meredith Dodson, executive director of advocacy group SF Parents:  “Which candidates parents feel are the most trustworthy, the most genuine and authentic and are not politically in it for their careers. You have skin in the game but you’re not necessarily doing this for your kids.” 

The teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, whose endorsement has traditionally carried a lot of weight, used a public education pledge as a measuring stick. They sought candidates committed to prioritizing resources for classrooms, support for community schools, fighting privatization attempts like charter school expansions, and other issues. 

San Francisco’s School Board Shakeup Adds To Turnover In a Critical Year

The common-cause feel to this year’s race even extended to endorsements, to some extent. UESF was vehemently against the 2022 recall, on the opposite side of parent advocacy groups SF Parents and SF Guardians – the latter spearheaded the effort. But this summer UESF endorsed three candidates that got nods from the parent groups, with one addition (Matt Alexander). There was reported backroom dealmaking between the four that raised eyebrows. 

SF Guardians rescinded two endorsements because of no love lost for Alexander. SFParents decided to hold steady. UESF President Cassondra Curiel stood by the union’s endorsement process. 

“We don’t find value in pigeonholing [someone’s] title or location on the political spectrum,” Curiel told The Frisc. “We knew [the candidates] were committed to the same vision and that they’re pro-union and active in their communities.”

The board hasn’t been free of drama. Last month, board president Lainie Motamedi abruptly resigned, citing health reasons, and Mayor London Breed appointed a charter school veteran to take her place, which didn’t sit well with the teachers union and others.

And after the election, the new board will also have the unenviable task of navigating the fallout from school closures. The final decision is scheduled for December, weeks before new members are sworn in. Next year and beyond, it will matter how the new board members work with each other as they work with district officials on decisions that don’t make many – if any – people happy. 

“We’re just not in a place where any one person can make something happen at the school district or any public institution,” Norton said. “There is an opportunity to rebuild that and be better, but it’s going to take a lot of discussions and tough decisions and communicating why a decision has to be made.”

Despite its limitations, the board still has the right to hire and fire the superintendent. Public meetings usually feature a couple angry commenters calling for Wayne’s dismissal, but there’s no indication the board would take that up. Looming over it is the knowledge that the district’s next boss could be the state of California.