The incident prompted outrage. Marshall was known to many as \u201cthe Lowell High for Black and Latino kids,\u201d so the police action felt like an attack on the city\u2019s brightest, traditionally disadvantaged youth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For me and other members of the San Francisco Youth Commission at the time, the police action at Marshall was a punch in the stomach. Most of us commissioners were current or former public school students. We knew the kids at Marshall, or kids like them. Though I was 19 and in college by then, I had attended SF public schools, many of my friends had graduated from Marshall, and my best friend\u2019s little sister was a junior at Marshall who witnessed the police action firsthand. I spoke to her a few days later. She was still in shock, unable to say much beyond that \u201cit was scary\u201d and \u201cit was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortly afterward, I presided over a hearing convened by the Youth Commission, where we questioned San Francisco Unified School District officials and representatives from the SFPD about what happened. We recommended ending the program that stationed cops in schools, a cause that was taken up by former Supervisor Chris Daly. (Our proposal went nowhere. In 2020, amid a national reckoning with police brutality, the city\u2019s Board of Education voted to cut ties with the SFPD (opens in new tab)<\/a>.)\u00a0<\/p>\n I wonder if a similar chain of events would play out today given the current composition of the Youth Commission. This year, Mayor Daniel Lurie gave all six mayoral appointments (opens in new tab)<\/a> to the Youth Commission to young people who attend or attended private schools. Six supervisorial appointments to the commission also hail from private schools, meaning that currently 11 of 17 commissioners attend private schools. This in a city where 74% of kids attend public schools, according to data from the California Department of Education.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m not agitating for a class war, especially among youth, and I\u2019m sure the commissioners whom Lurie appointed will work hard and kick ass. Young people, when given a chance, usually do. But I worry about such a striking disconnect between the majority of San Francisco\u2019s kids and the body charged with representing them in government. Because unlike most, or perhaps all, city commissions, the Youth Commission is a voice in City Hall for a population that cannot otherwise directly participate in government via voting.<\/p>\n As San Franciscans, we should be proud of what the Youth Commission has accomplished in the name of that population in the nearly 30 years since voters wrote the commission\u2019s existence into the city charter. In my era, the commission pushed for the city (opens in new tab)<\/a> to embrace its place as a skateboarding mecca by creating a task force that planned more skate parks, effectively decriminalizing the sport. We wrote the legislation adopted by the Board of Supervisors to oppose the recruitment of high schoolers into the armed forces during the height of the Iraq War.\u00a0<\/p>\n More recently, the commission spent years pushing for, and ultimately winning, free Muni rides for anyone under 18. The commission also advocated for the closure of juvenile hall. Although the hall is still open, the movement<\/a> resulted in major changes that made it a more humane place to jail children.<\/p>\n These are the sorts of policies that help youth who need it most; namely, those whose parents cannot afford to send them to private schools. Kids for whom saving a few bucks per day on a Muni ride can mean a meal in their stomach or a new pair of shoes. Kids who are statistically more likely to end up in juvenile detention (opens in new tab)<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Youth Commission often weighs in on San Francisco\u2019s public schools. Last year, the commissioners passed a resolution (opens in new tab)<\/a> urging the city to work with SFUSD to improve the quality of lunches. In 2022, they took up the cause (opens in new tab)<\/a> of student activists to urge the city to restart a task force to address sexual harassment and assault in schools. The standing education committee, which I once chaired, has weighed in on these meaty matters for decades. Its members need an intimate connection to the students and schools they\u2019re commenting upon.<\/p>\n In appointing only private school kids to the commission, Lurie plays into the stereotype that his detractors regularly lob at him: that he\u2019s a mayor focused on making the city better for the wealthy and connected. In a Mission Local article about the appointments (opens in new tab)<\/a>, one community activist said they say a lot about the mayor \u201cbeing out of touch with those folks that are in public school.\u201d<\/p>\n In abdicating his mandated responsibility to, as the city charter states, \u201cappoint five members from underrepresented communities to ensure that the commission represents the diversity of the city,\u201d the mayor potentially prevents the body from intimately understanding the needs and wants of most kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s office told Mission Local it was \u201cproud to have appointed a slate of youth commissioners who come from different backgrounds and walks of life.\u201d One of the commissioners is at private school on a scholarship. Nevertheless, a Youth Commission without a strong understanding of the experience of public school kids might not push for the sort of progressive policies it has traditionally championed \u2014 policies that, in a city where wealth equality is skyrocketing, youth of meager means need now more than ever.<\/p>\n After initially defending Lurie\u2019s appointments, the mayor\u2019s office on Friday issued a mea culpa (opens in new tab)<\/a>, calling the appointments \u201can oversight\u201d and promising that \u201cgoing forward, we will be more intentional about ensuring SFUSD representation across our commissions.\u201d I hope this is true, and that the mayor and the city take this misstep as an opportunity to recognize the value of a strong, representative voice for youth in City Hall.<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790088132_489_-S3840x2560-FPNG.png\"\/)
Students arrive at a SFUSD Board of Education meeting in San Francisco on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. | Source: Noah Berger for The Standard<\/p>\n