\n\t\t\t\t\tOverview:<\/p>\n
San Francisco school board candidates met for the first public forum of this election cycle. They agreed that ethnic studies is here to stay.<\/p>\n
San Francisco\u2019s school board president, Phil Kim, said he\u2019s received several calls this year to reduce, or remove entirely, the requirement that high schoolers take one year of ethnic studies, which has been targeted in recent years by those who say its lessons are divisive<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The course is a history class that particularly focuses on the experiences of marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the United States, and is a graduation requirement. The school district considered suspending<\/a> the class last year, before opting to keep it but switch to an alternative curriculum<\/a>. Since then, ethnic studies<\/a> has been the basis of a lawsuit<\/a> against the district by the Lowell High School alumni.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Kim said he\u2019s proud of ethnic studies, and every one of the eight candidates in the school board race echoed his sentiments at a Friday evening election forum, the first public forum of the cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m deeply proud to be a district that has paved way for this course in the country and in this state,\u201d Kim said. All the candidates indicated that ethnic studies is here to stay and said they would keep it as a two-semester requirement.<\/p>\n Laurance Lee, a candidate and organizer in the 2022 school board recalls<\/a>, took ethnic studies when he was a San Francisco Unified School District student. Reina Tello, a community organizer and one of the teachers union picks, said she fell in love with education again while taking the class at City College of San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two moderators, both from Chinese for Affirmative Action, the nonprofit hosting the forum, also mentioned that some people want to ban discussion of Palestine when asking whether the candidates would protect ethnic studies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Autumn Brown Garibay, who works for the tech firm Sprouts Social and is endorsed by GrowSF, was the only candidate who acknowledged that part of the question \u2014 she thanked the moderators for \u201cmentioning how to protect folks who are Palestinian.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a huge fan of our ethnic studies courses,\u201d added Alida Fisher, an incumbent school board member. She called San Francisco a \u201chotbed\u201d for the course, which was founded here in the 1960s. \u201cI will fight to keep that year-long requirement because I think that our students learn so much and become much better prepared citizens to live in our very diverse city of San Francisco.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The eight candidates came together at Gordon J. Lau Elementary School for a forum hosted by Chinese for Affirmative Action, a local civil rights group. It was an amicable first encounter \u2014 many of the candidates nodded along to each other\u2019s answers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The eight in attendance were:\u00a0<\/p>\n Autumn Brown Garibay, who works in client relationships at Sprouts Social, Inc. and public school parent;\u00a0<\/p>\n Virginia Cheung, who works at the law nonprofit Open Door Legal<\/a> and is a public school parent who ran unsuccessfully in June despite some $109,000 from the teachers union;<\/p>\n Alida Fisher, an incumbent school board member, executive director at the Community Alliance for Special Education, and public school parent;\u00a0<\/p>\n Ryan Hazelton, the executive director of Mariposa Kids, a nonprofit for young kids;<\/p>\n Phil Kim<\/a>, the incumbent school board president and a deputy director at the San Francisco Agency for Human Rights, who was appointed to the body in 2024 and won his first election<\/a> in June with the help of $239,000<\/a> from GrowSF and the San Francisco Parents Coalition;<\/p>\n Laurance Lee, one of the organizers in the 2022 recall of three school board members, who has run unsuccessfully for the board<\/a> in the past;\u00a0<\/p>\n Reina Tello, a grassroots organizer at PODER<\/a>, whose main focus is environmental and economic justice, and a public school parent;<\/p>\n Tim Tung, a public finance and research analyst, public school parent, and the brother of Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung, the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n Questions ran the gamut from staffing to bilingual education.<\/p>\n Would candidates support dipping into the school district\u2019s reserves? The district has $139 million in official reserves,<\/a> plus several hundred million more in leftover funds from underspending that the district says should only be used for one-time expenses.<\/p>\n Reserves were a hot topic<\/a> in this year\u2019s four-day teacher strike<\/a>. Superintendent Maria Su said at the time that using reserves or one-time funds to meet the union\u2019s pay demands was \u201cnot an option.\u201d Reserves are usually intended to pay for unexpected gaps in budgets or the future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Some said they would put money toward various programs, including supporting teachers and English learners. Cheung said she did not understand why the district had several hundred million in leftover funds \u201cwhen we have classrooms that don\u2019t have teachers, especially in the most formative years of transitional kindergarten and kindergarten.\u201d<\/p>\n But others wouldn\u2019t dip into the reserves. Kim said that SFUSD\u2019s previous financial challenges<\/a> stemmed from using reserves to pay for annual expenses. Kim pointed to spending one-time funds on developing school district land<\/a> as a later source of funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n While \u201cthe district has substantial dollar amounts in reserves,\u201d Tung said, \u201cit\u2019s also important that the district maintains savings, a healthy balance to guard against a down period when it doesn\u2019t have as much revenue.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Hazelton was the first to mention reserves: He brought the topic up when asked whether candidates would protect language classes. Hazelton said the district should invest in these programs using reserves.\u00a0<\/p>\n The question stemmed from an audience member: A parent said their child was still on the waitlist for all the Chinese immersion schools they had applied to. The family is now looking outside of SFUSD, which faces a chronic problem of parents choosing private school: The district has some 14,000 empty seats<\/a> and is losing state funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many candidates recognized the high demand for language classes, but Fisher said too few teachers means waitlists are long.\u00a0<\/p>\n