By James Sword and Nate Horrell, HANC Board

The October 2023 HANC meeting will focus on the happenings of public education in San Francisco. There are no fewer than 8 schools within the historic boundaries of HANC, four of them being public schools. 

In many ways the public schools of San Francisco have become a political target, resulting in a pointless recall that was more of a distraction than a solution to real problems. As a result of the recall, a pro-charter, pro-school closure Superintendent (whose selection was influenced by moderate and right-leaning SF Parent Coalition) was brought in to fix the problems of payroll, enrollment, staffing, etc… all of these are the same or worse since his arrival 18 months ago. On the other hand, despite raising $2 million from right wing billionaires to recall three members of the school board (a Black woman, a Latina woman, and the first Pacific-Islander elected to the board of education in SF) in Feb. 2022, progressives won back a narrow majority of new board members in the next election less than a year later. 

We are lucky some of the most vocal far-right groups have not yet infiltrated our public schools, but much of the money pumped into the recall, the same money advocating for the removal of D5 Supervisor Dean Preston, also funds much further right groups than we are used to seeing in San Francisco. You don't have to look any further than San Ramon or Davis to see extreme right groups masked as “parent advocates'' disrupting schools and school board meetings.

HANC has invited representatives from San Francisco Education Alliance (a progressive alternative to the recall pushing moderate SF Parent Coalition), United Educators of San Francisco (union representing teachers, paraprofessionals and other educators), and Service Employees International Union 1021 (union representing many non-teacher staff in SFUSD) to discuss the ongoing struggles for teachers, students, and school administrators, and what can and may be done - hint: STRIKE. 

Please join us from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at Flywheel coffee on Stanyan, or via zoom, on Thursday, October 12, 2023.