S.F. school board member apologizes for racist response
A San Francisco school board member apologized Tuesday after she made a racist statement, saying one of the biggest challenges in educating Black and brown students was their “unstable family environments” and “lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning.”
Ann Hsu, who was appointed by Mayor London Breed to fill a vacancy after the February recall of three board members, made the comments in a candidate questionnaire for a parent group endorsement process for the November election.
The backlash to the comments was swift, with
parents and community members saying her comments were harmful and racist and repeated false ideas that Black and brown parents are not as involved in their kids’ educations as white and Asian families.
Others on social media called on her to resign and questioned whether Breed adequately vetted her appointees.
It is the latest controversy for the city’s beleaguered school board, despite recent efforts to bring calm and focus to the district after three year of lawsuits, divisive policies and a contentious recall. It comes in the wake of data released last week that shows huge racial disparities in academic performance in the district and the board’s vow to tackle the performance gaps.
In March 2021, former board member Alison Collins faced a similar reproach — for a social media post about Asian Americans — with dozens of public officials and community groups calling for her resignation at the time. A year later, she was recalled in a landslide vote.
Hsu revised her response after the backlash and apologized on Tuesday.
“I was trying to understand and address a serious problem and seek solutions, and in so doing I said things that perpetuated biases already in the system,” she said on Twitter. She said she understood how “problems like generational poverty, food insecurity & housing insecurity — which disproportionaly affect our BIPOC families, due to systemic racism & inequality — make it harder for children to learn, harder for families to function, harder for teachers to teach.
“My statements reflected my
own limited experiences and inherent biases. I made a mistake, and I am deeply sorry,” she added, calling her comments “inherently biased.”
Recalled school board member Gabriela López said Hsu’s original comments were “ignorant” and added that “anyone reading this and accepting it as normal behavior by a school board member should be ashamed.”
Hsu, Lainie Motamedi and Lisa Weissman-Ward were appointed in March to serve the remainder of the recalled board members’ terms. They would need to be among the top three vote-getters in November to remain on the board. Five people, including the three appointed, are vying for the seats so far.
Each of the five responded last week to a series of questions posed by the San Francisco Parent Action group, which advocates for policies and elected leaders that prioritize students.
One of the questions asked the candidates how the district can improve outcomes for marginalized students as well as challenge and increase opportunities for higher achieving students.
“From my very limited exposure in the past four months to the challenges of educating marginalized students especially in the black and brown community, I see one of the biggest challenges as being the lack of family support for those students. Unstable family environments caused by housing and food insecurity along with lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning cause children to not be able to focus on or value learning,” Hsu responded in part to the question. “That makes teachers’ work harder because they have to take care of emotional and behavioral issues of students before they can teach them. That is not fair to the teachers.”
Chronicle editors determined that the comment met the publication’s definition of racist, because the remark employed stereotypes of racial or ethnic groups.
Hsu’s responses, along with those of the other candidates, were posted on the organization’s website. The five were also given an opportunity to amend the responses, which Hsu later did, deleting the comments.
Her revised comments blame “historical inequities” rather than parents, saying that “students in marginalized communities face extra challenges that create obstacles to their learning. We must recognize the inequities and work to mitigate the harms that stem from them.”
Both versions remain on the parent group’s website, sfparentaction.org.
Board President Jenny Lam, Mayor London Breed and the district’s teachers union did not respond to requests for comment.
SF Parent Action received the questionnaires early last
risk.
Heggie noted that 2022’s numbers are actually more typical of what a fire season used to look like in the state 20 or 30 years ago — before the recent cycle of fire became exacerbated by climate change.
2022 is starting to become “what would resemble a normal summer,” Heggie said.
Because firefighters have been able to keep fires smaller, they’ve been able to take time off and rest ahead of what could become another busy late summer and fall.
“The fire season is a marathon, not a sprint,” Heggie said. “The last few years have been a sprint — all fire season.”
Come fall, everything could change.
“At that point, all we need is a spark, and we’ll be off to the races,” Garcia said.