San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Schools seek stability after year of upheaval
S.F. district faces troubles beyond pandemic as students return — expensive lawsuits, board recall effort, declining enrollment
For the first time in 518 days, San Francisco students will be back in fully reopened schools Monday, seeing friends and teachers face to face as their daily routines and rites of passage are at least partially restored on the monkey bars or in high school hallways.
Yet along with the sense of optimism, San Francisco will carry lingering troubles into the new school year, a pandemic hangover that includes students facing emotional and academic troubles, expensive lawsuits, a recall effort to oust three board members, enrollment challenges, dire financial forecasts, and animosity among political factions.
The months ahead will be pivotal for the district, which arguably saw more upheaval than most in what was already a difficult and unprecedented time. There are signs of recovery or healing on the horizon, but also ongoing obstacles and frustrations.
It might not be easy to move on, some said.
“The scars from last year remain, and we are staring down some serious challenges,” said Supervisor Hillary Ronen, an outspoken critic of the district over last year’s slow reopening. “But we must do whatever is necessary to work together. If we don’t, I believe we will do significant and lasting damage to public education.”
Yet for San Francisco, and for all schools, the academic year is already off to a rough start, with the delta variant pushing case rates up and increasing concerns over in-person learning and the impact on children too young to be vaccinated.
San Francisco recently posted one of the highest coronavirus case rates in the Bay Area, prompting concerns that schools could see quarantine or closures in the coming days, but as of Friday, no children who live in San Francisco were hospitalized with COVID.
Health officials have repeatedly sought to assuage those fears, saying with mitigation in place, transmission of the virus in schools, even with the delta variant, is likely to be low.
Yet many San Francisco families are hesitant about in-person learning, at least for now, saying there are too many unknowns. That created an issue for SFUSD, where demand for online learning exceeded spaces available. Families who didn’t get one of 677 spots were asked to decide by Wednesday whether to send their children to in-person learning or keep them home and lose their seat at their school.
In response, angry parents demanded that the district add more spots, submitting a petition with more than 2,000 signatures, many from the Chinese American community.
Parent Mai-Sei Chan hadn’t decided what to do days before school started for her two boys, a fourth-grader and kindergartner.
“I was really hoping to keep the kids home, at least for a week or two or three,” she said. “I guess I’m just keeping an eye on it.”
On Friday, the district offered more families another option: independent study with asynchronous teaching, in which lessons are posted online and students learn at their own pace. Families are not guaranteed they can keep the spot at their current school, however, if they eventually return to inperson learning.
District officials don’t want to lose any more students.
During the pandemic, families frustrated by a slow reopening fled, leaving the district with the lowest enrollment in decades, even as state and local elected officials urged reopening. By the spring, enrollment was down to 50,955, a loss of 1,700 students from the previous year.
So far, the city’s schools have gained some students back, with an expected enrollment of 51,332 students this fall, officials said, but they don’t know how many will actually show up.
At the same time, other families are saying they have opted to leave the district because of a last-minute change in start times at schools, a decision that saves $3 million in transportation costs, but means disrupting schedules to get students to school nearly an hour earlier or later.
Parent Monina Sen Cervone, who is also a teacher at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts, is sending her daughter to private school this year because the family couldn’t juggle the new 7:50 a.m. start time.
Cervone said she doesn’t understand why the district didn’t include families in the scheduling decision or hold off a year on the changes to help students adjust to an in-person return more easily.
“As a teacher, I am putting all my planning efforts into how to build community and heal collectively from the trauma of the pandemic. My students’ mental well-being is the priority,” she said. “It’s extremely disappointing that the district will not do the same for SFUSD families.”
San Francisco is not alone in a decline of enrollment, with cities across the country reporting similar trends. But the loss of students, which would mean $13,000 less in state funding per child, could have significant financial implications in future years. The district is already facing a $112 million deficit in 2022, equal to 10% of its annual
budget.
Adding to the list of dilemmas, San Francisco Unified, like many other districts, is also dealing with a teacher shortage, with about 50 unfilled teacher vacancies as of a week before the first day of school. Most of those positions have come open just in the past two weeks as teachers submit last-minute resignations, which is not unusual, officials said. The problem this year is finding qualified candidates to fill them.
That will probably mean substitutes on the first day of school rather than permanent teachers for many students, with many openings in special education classrooms.
While San Francisco is facing the same challenges as many other districts, it is unique in fighting an $87 million lawsuit. Board member Alison Collins sued the district and five fellow members after they stripped her of her vice presidency and positions on committees over anti-Asian tweets she wrote before she was elected. The first hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for Thursday, three days into the new school year.
Also unusual: Three board members are facing an increasingly likely recall election — President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga and Collins. Organizers recently announced they have reached the minimum threshold of 51,325 signatures, but plan to collect 20,000 more before the early September deadline to compensate for any that aren’t valid.
If certified, the recall election could be held late this year or early next.
All that means the district will have its hands full this year, while searching for a new superintendent to replacing Vince Matthews, who is scheduled to leave next summer after delaying his retirement by a year.
And yet, there are promising signs that this year could be defined more by cooperation than controversy.
District officials and labor unions easily reached a deal on health and safety standards for the fall, in contrast to the drawn-out and contentious negotiations last year on reopening. The new pact requires the district to follow county health guidelines and encourages unvaccinated staff to maintain 6 feet of social distancing whenever possible. All staff will be required to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing if they aren’t.
“Educators are always full of hope, and absolutely, there is optimism for the coming year,” said Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco. “We align with the district and Board of Education on many of the most important values, which include a deep commitment to equitable and anti-racist schools and steadfast determination to provide a high-quality public school education.”
At the same time, one of the most vocal critics of the district and school board, the parentled Decreasing the Distance reopening advocacy group, is revamping itself in the coming weeks, adopting a new name — the S.F. Parent Coalition — and a cooperative stance on improving curriculum, literacy and inequities among schools.
While the focus is on “working together,” that doesn’t mean hard feelings are completely gone, said Meredith Dodson, founder of the group.
“People are trying to move on from that negativity, but after a year of so much anger and frustration and feeling really let down, those feelings are still close to the surface,” she said. “Hopefully, we can move toward the same goals of getting our district back on track.”
While the work ahead is difficult, there’s the promise with the reopening that the worst of the pandemic discord is in the past.
“As president, my leadership during the past year has been to ensure that, while we can and are learning from the past, we continue to look toward the future,” board leader López told The Chronicle, adding that the priority is to focus on the upcoming school year and stabilize the budget.
“We are excited for this new beginning,” she said. “We all deserve a fresh start.”
“People are trying to move on from that negativity, but after a year of so much anger and frustration and feeling really let down, those feelings are still close to the surface.”
Meredith Dodson, founder of the S.F. Parent Coalition