SFUSD Faces Backlash Over Proposed Closures as Community Rallies Before Town Halls

San Francisco Unified School District officials plan to hold the first of three town hall meetings on Thursday night to discuss the newly released list of schools proposed for closure or merger.

Since Tuesday’s announcement, parent and teacher groups have raised several concerns about the school closure list.

Parents point out that most of the selected schools are located on the city’s east side, several have Cantonese biliteracy programs and some could merge with schools with different schedules and after-school programs, making it harder for communities to transition together.

Some school communities have vowed to fight the closures. 

On Wednesday, parents, students and teachers at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy rallied against their school’s inclusion on the list.

Many hope to get answers during Thursday night’s town hall, but some are disappointed with the virtual-only format. Led by Superintendent Matt Wayne, the meeting requires questions to be submitted in advance via a Google form on the district’s website. 

“If I am expressing concerns about something with my child’s school, I want an active human being that I can interact with,” said Vanessa Marrero, executive director for Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco. “I don’t want a screen that can’t talk back to me or questions that are cherry-picked that may not be my questions.”

Marrero added that she’s concerned that the question form wasn’t made available in other languages for non-English speaking families and may be difficult to access for parents who are visually impaired.

“I do think that that is a huge indicator of how culturally unresponsive, as the view has been to the immigrant communities in San Francisco,” Marrero said.

The meeting will also include updates regarding the district’s ongoing budget deficit crisis, which the closures are meant to help address.

Frank Lara, executive vice president for United Educators of San Francisco, said he’s interested in hearing more about how the district is rectifying the budget while minimizing the negative impacts on students and teachers.

“The central office has been bloated and is obviously not capable of carrying out its objectives,” Lara said. “So why all of a sudden is the focus on targeting school sites for budget cuts? What happened to the central office cuts?”

Mayor London Breed has also stepped into the fray, saying in a statement that she has “heard from families that are confused and frustrated, and there is a lot of fear in the community.”

Last month, Breed announced a new School Stabilization Team to assist district officials. That came not long after the district announced it was delaying the release of the school closure list despite the fact that parents and educators had already been waiting for months.

Breed said that the team has been encouraging district leadership to deeply engage with families on this matter.

“Unfortunately, the way the Superintendent and the School District rolled out their plan earlier this week was antithetical to these goals,” Breed said in a statement.

The remaining two town halls will be held on Oct. 26 and Nov. 6, and the proposal will appear before the San Francisco Board of Education on Nov. 12. Over the next few weeks, district officials will also conduct visits to impacted schools.

Those interested in viewing Thursday’s meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m., can do so at this link. Questions for the superintendent can be submitted to this link.