By James Sword, HANC Board
Back in September 2021 I wrote an article asking the organized-under-COVID parent political action committee (formerly Decrease the Distance) to use their loud and well connected voices to improve issues within the school system rather than push for status quo and take credit for efforts by communities long ignored by politicians. (https://www.hanc-sf.org/24-home/639-sfusd-under-covid-19). While this group has mostly ignored this call to action, they have continued to focus on reforming San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to better serve themselves and other already families already benefiting from the status quo (like mine). Two areas they have focused on are 1) helping raise nearly $1,000,000 for the recall of the Pacific Islander, Latina, and Black members of the Board of Education (BOE), and 2) increasing the power of the Mayor in influencing and controlling the BOE. As early as March of 2021 people closely connected to Decrease the Distance (DtD) began pushing a charter amendment to have the Mayor appoint the BOE rather than have it as an elected board – currently the only election where non-citizens are allowed to vote.
Fast forward to December 2021 when Mayor London Breed announced she was introducing a charter amendment, “Children First” ballot measure that will make San Francisco “a national model for how cities can improve the well-being for children. The measure will reform how the City delivers services to children and create accountability measures to ensure the San Francisco School Board focuses on kids, not politics.” The word salad announcement was dripping with irony, starting with the fact that DtD politicized SFUSD when they called for schools to reopen before teachers were vaccinated by leaning on the moderate politicians representing San Francisco to push the cause, and lobbying them to withhold money from an already underfunded school district.
