This is a critical election for San Francisco’s public schools, which are grappling with falling enrollment, staff shortages, and a fiscal crisis that could trigger a state takeover.
Four of the seven Board of Education seats are up for grabs, with 11 candidates vying for them.
A former SFUSD bond oversight committee member and school board appointee, Ann Hsu now runs a private nonprofit school in SF. She answers our questions below.
For more background on the school district’s situation, our questionnaire methodology (such as: why do some links come with asterisks?), and an overview of all the candidates, please visit our main page. – Ida Mojadad and Alex Lash
The Frisc: If Superintendent Wayne deserves to be fired, what specifically has he done that can’t be blamed on longtime SFUSD dysfunction? If he deserves to stay, please describe why.
Ann Hsu: Whether Wayne deserves to be fired should not be the question at this time. The question should be what action is in the best interest of SFUSD students and families. The answer is that he should stay as superintendent and be given clear priorities, regular and consistent oversight, and support to affect the changes that are needed.
The “emergency board meeting” on Sept. 22 was pure political drama blindsiding the superintendent and SFUSD families and only served to help the campaigns of the incumbent BOE president and the incumbent mayor. The delay in announcing the school closure list with no defined date seems also to be part of this orchestrated political drama by the board, further exacerbating the uncertainty and anxiety of students and families.
Wayne did inherit the results of decades of mismanagement, broken internal systems, the lack of consistent internal processes and procedures, and a culture of infighting, noncooperation, and no accountability. He also inherited a board that puts politics first, and as shown in the “emergency board meeting” drama, is willing to throw the superintendent under the bus when politically expedient to do so.
To do what is expected of the superintendent without the support of the internal staff and board is a herculean feat and one which any potentially new superintendent candidate is unlikely to want to take on.
To the question of whether the superintendent deserves to stay, I say: yes, he should stay, because it would be detrimental for a void to be left at this time. But to be effective, he needs to be more decisive and communicate directly and openly to the board and the public so they have a clear vision and understanding of his plans. If the board, parents, and students then want to fire him, they should.
What issue in SFUSD doesn’t get enough attention and what do you plan to do about it?
There is a lot of attention paid to fiscal issues and academic reforms in SFUSD such as reading, math, etc. However, there hasn’t been much attention paid to the issue of school curriculum that indoctrinates versus educates students. From racial identity to gender identity, the public school curriculum is addressing subjects other than academics that parents are not apprised about, so they cannot give consent and/or feedback.
This issue is being discussed nationwide, resulting in book bans from both sides of the political spectrum. While this has not been discussed openly in progressive San Francisco, it is one of the factors motivating parents to leave public schools for private schools.
Can you specify how SFUSD curriculum is indoctrinating students? You say it’s a factor for parents leaving public schools. Can you point to sources for this claim?
California created the ethnic studies model curriculum with the objective of “preparing pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures.” I refer you to the SFUSD website on ethnic studies overview. [Editor’s note: Hsu provided this link. The SFUSD ethnic studies website is here.]
This overview resembles the “liberated ethnic studies” curriculum that is a conversation about the power, privilege, and systems of oppressions (i.e., the “I’s of Oppression and Resistance: Ideological, Institutional, Interpersonal and Internalized”).
This political indoctrination is not only being done in ethnic studies courses but also flowing over to history and social studies courses. Attached are slides used in a teacher training on “Integrated US History and Ethnic Studies Course” at SFUSD. [Editor’s note: Hsu sent screenshots of several slides.]
Many candidates bring up the importance of more early education, intervention, and meeting basic needs. What do you recommend under the current financial circumstances? Please be specific.
San Francisco has given SFUSD $35 million in the school year 2024-25 (Student Success Fund) to create community schools. These funds are in addition to the millions allocated for early education. There is no shortage of funds for various programs even under the current financial circumstances. What is required is to allocate these funds in an efficient manner, establish metrics to determine if the programs are working, and adjust the programs if they are not meeting the metrics.
Many of the community school programs are already in place at individual schools with coordinators already hired; pre-K and TK programs began at some schools in the past few years. However, the rollout of these programs has been a slow process. These programs need to be better marketed to families so that they can participate and reap the benefits. I want to see metrics for success for all of these programs and know at what intervals they are supposed to report their progress to the BOE.
What specific metrics do you want to see? Are there any from other districts that SFUSD could implement?
Transitional kindergarten (TK) helps students get familiarized with the elementary school setting, learning procedures that help them feel more comfortable in kindergarten. It provides students with a stronger foundation for continued success in math and reading in elementary school.
I am not an early childhood education expert. I would rely on those experts to come up with a set of metrics that measure pre/TK program success. In addition, SFUSD should set up a tracking system for all TK students through 3rd grade when standardized tests can give reading and math proficiency results.
This system should track whether the students are English proficient or English language learners when they enter TK because it has been shown from research that English language learners appear to benefit more from pre/TK than English proficient students. Other than math and reading proficiency, SFUSD should also track whether these students have better attendance and behavioral outcomes compared to students who did not attend TK or preschool.
There’s a chronic shortage of special education staff. Students have to go outside the district for services, which costs the district a lot of money. What do you propose to fix this?
This issue was discussed at the recent board meeting on Aug. 9. It appears that there has been insufficient coordination between the Special Education Department, Business Services department and Human Resources department that resulted in a shortage of special education staff for FY 2024-25.
SFUSD departments seem to work in silos with poor coordination and communication. This is an item I would hold the superintendent accountable for figuring out a plan to address the shortage, a plan that includes action items, metrics, and regular reporting periods.
If you’re elected, will you abide by the final decisions in December to close schools?
Yes.
How do you propose keeping families in the district after the school closure decisions and further budget cuts?
Families want academic excellence, safe schools, and the feeling of being treated like a customer, no matter what school their children attend. As long as we focus our energy and funds to achieving academic excellence, safe schools, and treating parents like customers, they will stay in the district.
Closing schools will free up facilities. What should the district do with those buildings? Do you support charter schools moving in?
We should look at the portfolio of buildings that will be vacated and develop a plan to maximize the revenue that they are capable of generating or otherwise re-engineered to serve the needs of the district, whether that be teacher housing or alternative uses. Since SFUSD charges charter schools rent for their use of facilities, this should be an option to consider.
What’s the number one thing that SFUSD can do to improve campus safety for students and staff?
I believe one of the main root causes for declining campus safety for students and staff is declining student behavior. In examining the board policies that have been implemented in the last 10+ years, you will find that they have made it more and more difficult for principals and teachers to instill discipline in student behavior, specifically the “restorative practice” policy which is good in theory but has not been implemented as envisioned.
There are no real consequences for bad behavior, leading to teachers having to focus on keeping order in the classroom rather than teaching. In middle and high school, teachers have been exposed to physical danger from students. All this leads to teachers burning out and leaving the district (and the teaching profession) and declining safety in our schools.
To improve school safety in the short term, I would work with SFPD to restore school resource officers. To achieve long term improvements, I would re-examine the Restorative Practice Resolution from 2014 and its implementation and determine whether it should be rescinded, implemented with a new plan, or institute a new policy.
Other than rescinding restorative practice, how could it be amended to work better?
There are five long-standing principles of restorative justice/restorative practice: relationship, respect, responsibility, repair, and reintegration.
If this practice was implemented properly and students were successfully integrated back into the school environment, we would not be experiencing the continuing bullying of students and teachers at schools. Victims of bullying would not be moved to other schools while the bullies remain.
The solution is that once the steps of restorative justice have been implemented, but the student continues to bully others and be disruptive, this student needs to be removed and placed in an environment where he/she cannot disrupt others and is given the wraparound services needed to address his/her behavior.
The solution needs to also include tracking and data collection of behavior incidents, including how many steps of the restorative practice were implemented, the results, and recurrence rates.
With the budget crisis, how should SFUSD pay to restore SFPD resource officers in schools?
In 2019, SFUSD’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the SFPD expired. Unlike several other large school districts in California, SFUSD did not pay for officers on school campuses. Per the MOU, SFUSD only contributed $46,000 annually, 20 percent of the police captain’s salary who supported SFPD School Resource Officers. [Editor’s note: The board did not renew the MOU in June 2020. The city allocated $45,000 to SFPD while the district paid 20 percent of the captain’s salary.]
I’m pretty confident that we could convince the mayor to continue this nominal compensation arrangement if SFUSD were to reinstate resource officers at schools.
It’s been two years since five-year academic reforms began: math, literacy, and high school curriculum. What’s gone right? What’s gone wrong? How should the board address the next three years of the plan?
New literacy focus on science of reading and algebra in 8th grade are steps in the right direction. The board should keep tracking the progress on at least a semiannual basis of these initiatives. If they are not on track, then we should hold the superintendent accountable for finding the root cause and revising the plan.
You were appointed to the board amid pledges of reform and cohesion, then you made controversial statements* about “lack of parental encouragement” affecting Black and brown students’ performance, which drew a rebuke from your colleagues. What did you learn from these experiences?
As a commissioner, I worked well with colleagues to make important progress such as reinstituting Lowell’s merit based admissions. Even after the “controversial statements” and voting for my own admonishment,* I continued to work well with my colleagues on the board, and they with me.
Reflecting on the incident, I realized that I answered directly without a filter based on data that I had received, which is how I was trained as an engineer — to find the problem and offer solutions. To be honest, if I were an African American or Latino person who didn’t know me personally, I probably would have been offended too.
That’s why I apologized immediately and voted for my own admonishment along with my board colleagues. Furthermore, I went out to the African American community and met with pastors and community members to better understand the community and how my words were taken. They in turn understood my intentions of seeking to improve the academic outcomes of our students. My lesson from that incident is to be more careful in my word choices so that they do not distract from the data and real points I’m trying to make.
You say your comments about Black and brown students on the questionnaire were based on data you received. Could you remind us where that data came from?
SFUSD Student Performance Analysis, June 2022.
Parent involvement in a child’s education is consistently found to be a major factor in a child’s academic performance. National Institutes of Health (NIH), International Journal of Academic Research, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, and more.
[Editor’s note: The June 2022 SFUSD analysis provides student outcomes across racial groups. It does not discuss the parents’ role or other potential factors. Hsu did not provide links to other specific studies. This 2010 study says, “Parent involvement is one factor that has been consistently related to a child’s increased academic performance.”]
You say African American community members understood your intentions to improve academics. Which groups and/or individuals told you this?
I initially had a meeting with the San Francisco NAACP leadership and board of directors. With the help of African American supporters, I then reached out and met with several pastors and community leaders in Bayview/Hunters Point, including leaders of the Bayview Opera House, the Bayview YMCA, APRI [A. Philip Randolph Institute], and Urban Ed Academy.
In fact, after meeting with one of the community leaders, I was invited to participate in a town hall meeting. Unfortunately, my invitation was rescinded; I was told due to pressure from the NAACP leadership.
Click to jump to other candidates:
✏️ Matt Alexander
✏️ Min Chang
✏️ Virginia Cheung
✏️ Lefteris Eleftheriou
✏️ Parag Gupta
✏️ Jaime Huling
✏️ John Jersin
✏️ Maddy Krantz
✏️ Laurance Lem Lee
✏️ Supryia Ray
Ida Mojadad covers education for The Frisc. Alex Lash is The Frisc’s editor in chief.