San Francisco’s attempt to close a handful of public schools devolved into chaos and cost the district’s top boss his job. But that’s not the final word on school closures.
In the aftermath, just days before a critical election, several Board of Education candidates say school closures are still important to consider, and, if elected, they will have a say over the district’s moves next year.
With the San Francisco Unified School District’s enrollment in a yearslong decline, school closures were first proposed in mid-2023. A list of potential schools to cut came out last month, after weeks of delay.
Two weeks later, the district pulled the plug and accepted Superintendent Matt Wayne’s resignation. No schools will be closed in the 2025-2026 school year.
Now under new superintendent Maria Su, SFUSD is focusing on budget cuts. The district must show the California Department of Education, which already has partial control over financial decisions, that the new administration can stabilize finances by cutting more than $100 million from its $1.3 billion budget. The plan is due in December.
Operating fewer schools by fall 2025 was supposed to prevent these estimated cuts from spreading resources and staffing thin, the district argued. SFUSD has lost about 4,000 students since 2017 and expects to lose more, which means less funding from the state.
But the district will likely need to revisit consolidating schools, many Board of Education candidates told The Frisc in recent days.
What the candidates say
Last month, The Frisc interviewed all 11 Board of Education candidates about their views of school closures, superintendent Wayne’s performance, SFUSD real estate, and other issues affecting the district.
Their answers were published before the school closure process was shelved and Wayne resigned. Following the tumultuous changes, we reached back out to re-evaluate where they stand.
“The reality of declining enrollment is still with us,” said school board president Matt Alexander, the only candidate running for re-election. “The Board of Education has made clear that any potential mergers or closures must include thorough planning, preparation, and transparently communicating.” That includes a state-certified fiscal analysis, an independently verified equity audit, a thought-out transition plan for students and staff affected by closures, and “meaningful” community engagement.
“While this year’s process did not meet those standards,” Alexander said, “I’m confident that district leadership and staff have the skills to manage such a process moving forward.”
Candidate Supryria Ray said closures must stay under consideration: “Until the board can explain how to balance the budget and staff our schools without any changes to our school portfolio, it would be irresponsible to take closures off the table.”
John Jersin said that ”some closures are likely necessary” to prevent “the state coming in and hacking apart our district.”
Ann Hsu said closures should have happened 10 years ago and are still necessary.
Candidate Jaime Huling said the process under Wayne was broken, but she did not specifically give her position on closures in the future.
Lefteris Eletheriou didn’t say if closures should be considered again, but he said he lacked “confidence that Maria Su (or anyone else for that matter) will be able to put an end to school closures for long.” Candidate Maddy Krantz did not respond to our question.
Candidate Laurance Lee agreed closures are necessary due to lower enrollment, and is open to closing more than the 11 previously proposed with transparency and community input. Until there’s an outside fiscal analysis, however, he is “less than comfortable with any plan to close schools as a means to balance the budget.”
“There is much to be done next year including closing schools in a transparent manner that engages our school sites while focusing on fully resourcing our students,” wrote candidate Parag Gupta. “This is also an opportunity to simultaneously address the broken finance/HR system and the widely-panned school assignment system.”
Virginia Cheung was more skeptical of closures, but left room for reconsideration down the road. “At this time, I cannot support school closures as I do not have confidence that it will be executed well and save the district money,” Cheung wrote. “[SFUSD] suffers from misuse of funds and poor planning. We must address these shortfalls first.”
Candidate Min Chang opposed closures when Wayne’s plan was still in effect, and she remains against them: “There are very viable solutions to our fiscal crisis that do not necessitate closing schools.”
‘Changing goalposts’
The new board will convene in January. If closures come back, the superintendent and staff will craft a plan and present it to the board for debate and approval. A majority of the candidates spoke positively about Su.
The new boss seems open to closures down the road. She told the SF Standard that SFUSD first must change its school assignment system – yet another contentious overhaul. “We have under-enrollment,” she said. “And we want to make sure that the infrastructure of the school district reflects the enrollment level of the district.”
The district is moving to a zone-based system to assign kindergartners to elementary schools. It’s supposed to balance keeping kids closer to home with demographic parity, predictability, and specialized offerings like language immersion.
The plan was first approved in 2020, then SFUSD pushed it back to the 2026-27 school year to let the closure process play out first. Meanwhile, this year’s enrollment process has been simplified to a one-time application, rather than multiple rounds – somewhat akin to ranked-choice voting.
It’s unclear how budget cuts and a new school assignment plan will inform closures. But there is widespread agreement that planning must play out differently.
“After the complete failure of RAI [Resource Alignment Initiative], any approach would have to first start with the district being transparent and accountable to the current state of things,” said Frank Lara, vice president at the United Educators of San Francisco. “Then they can revisit and approach long term addressing capacities at schools.”
During the long closure evaluation process, Wayne and staff touted their outreach efforts, which included surveys and town halls. Can the Su administration do better next time?
Parents for Public Schools San Francisco executive director Vanessa Marrero remains opposed to school closures but says SFUSD must better engage “stakeholders around the school, actual people who are in the building every day.” That includes students, who she says were not included in formal input.
Stephanie Falkenstein agrees. She’s a parent at Yick Wo Elementary, which was on the preliminary list of closures last month. She followed the town halls and meetings from the beginning, and said at first closures made sense.
But a series of problems, including changing goalposts and apparent lack of consideration in determining new schools for affected students and staff, made her lose confidence.
“You shouldn’t do such a dramatic shift if your foundation is not solid,” Falkenstein said. “It feels like a lot of work needs to be done before these questions can be answered.”
