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 City College of San Francisco student and recent graduate of Abraham Lincoln High, Maddy Krantz 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.
Maddy Krantz: [Did not answer]
What issue in SFUSD doesn’t get enough attention, and what do you plan to do about it?
Maddy Krantz: I think the biggest issue is that the school system does not communicate well between schools, and with families. The new Board of Education needs to come in with a goal of setting up more ways for San Francisco families to communicate with the schools, and for schools to communicate with each other. We need to make sure we’re hearing the best ideas, and getting the best ideas to the classrooms that need them!
Better communication is needed, but what’s the balance between getting more public input and making sure you actually get things done?
[Did not answer]
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.
We can do a better job of early screening to find kids who need early intervention, which should save costs later on. We can also prioritize applying for state and federal grants to support the district with these top priorities. We can also explore public/private partnerships and better sharing of resources across schools. It’s all about being creative and better communication within the system.
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 is kind of the same answer as the question right above. We need to be more creative about finding new solutions to these problems. Partnerships with local universities could produce programs that bring in more special ed teachers. We could also do a better (and faster) job helping current SFUSD teachers get trained to become special education teachers.
Smarter use of technology could decrease teacher workloads so they have more time for new training and working with kids. There are lots of possible solutions. We have to move faster to explore them and make good choices which ones to pursue.
Which technology specifically could help, and with which issues?
[Did not answer]
If you’re elected, will you abide by the final decisions in December to close schools?
Yes. I won’t pretend I know better than the folks who made the decisions and from what I do know about our current budget issues, closing or consolidating some schools can’t be avoided.
How do you propose keeping families in the district after the school closure decisions and further budget cuts?
Our first goal should be changing what people think about the Board of Education. We need to do some big, creative things early next year so people in San Francisco see that the new board is open to new ideas and creative thinking. We should also open up the board’s communication with the public in the most open, noticeable ways that we can.
About “big and creative”: After the recall, the board made an effort to be less creative and stick to a narrower scope of work. What type of creativity do you have in mind?
[Did not answer]
Closing schools will free up facilities. What should the district do with those buildings? Do you support charter schools moving in?
I don’t think we should be expanding charter schools while our regular system is in crisis. I am sure we can find lots of creative ways to use this extra space to create better educational experiences for our city kids. I read one idea that we could rent out empty or underused space for private events in order to bring another revenue source into the system. I’ll bet there are lots of other ideas like that.
What’s the No. 1 thing that SFUSD can do to improve campus safety for students and staff?
There is an idea called “community-based safety.” This means creating a program that lets everyone in the school community – including teachers and students but also staff, parents, families, and local police and safety officials – become important parts of an overall plan that improves communication and violence prevention. I don’t know much about how this would actually work, but it sounds like a realistic goal to explore.
It’s been two years since 5-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?
My understanding is that the results so far have not been very strong, especially among underserved groups. I do think that the early childhood learning intervention has shown good results, which is a great start. We’ll have to look more deeply at the programs for older kids to see why they aren’t delivering really good results yet.
We hear so much negativity about SFUSD. What’s the most positive thing about your experience that the public doesn’t hear enough about?
I spent four years attending Abraham Lincoln High School, and just graduated last spring. In all those years I saw almost no bullying or other really negative experiences between students. Lincoln has a great school culture that everyone seems to support and wants to be part of. We should do a better job of telling the stories of our schools that are doing great stuff like this and also helping other schools get good ideas from what is working best in other schools.
You saw little bullying in high school. However, you said at the Sept. 5 forum that you saw some hateful things in response to what’s happening in Israel and Gaza. Where did you see this? What type of protection would help Muslim and Jewish students?
[Did not answer]
Click to jump to other candidates:
✏️ Matt Alexander
✏️ Min Chang
✏️ Virginia Cheung
✏️ Lefteris Eleftheriou
✏️ Parag Gupta
✏️ Ann Hsu
✏️ Jaime Huling
✏️ John Jersin
✏️ Laurance Lem Lee
✏️ Supryia Ray
Ida Mojadad covers education for The Frisc. Alex Lash is The Frisc’s editor in chief.