Mayor London Breed on Sunday announced the deployment of a support team for the struggling San Francisco Unified School District following an emergency school board meeting earlier in the day.
The meeting was held in response to concerns about potential school closures, operational issues, and financial outlooks.
"Our City will support our children, families, and educators during this difficult time for the School District," Breed said in a news release. "With so many questions around SFUSD's fiscal situation, potential school closures, and outlook for families, I'm deploying top City leaders and expert staff to help the School Board and District leadership navigate the coming months. I wouldn't be where I am today without San Francisco's public schools, and I will do whatever it takes to make sure our current students have the support today that I had growing up here."
The School Stabilization Team will consist of city leaders who are experts in the fields of children and families, education, and fiscal oversight, per Breed.
In response to the meeting, Breed also announced deploying $8.4 million in unallocated Student Success Funds. The funds will be used for "emergency needs and emergent strategies to support the school community."
"We recognize that the last few months have been filled with uncertainty and doubt. There have been instances when SFUSD has fallen short, and this is not acceptable," said the San Francisco Board of Education and SFUSD in a joint news release. "We are committed to stabilizing the district, meeting our ambitious goals to improve student outcomes, and honoring our guardrails. In order to do so, we must work together to make tough decisions and deliver results for our students."
Before Sunday's meeting, community members asked the school district to engage them before announcing which schools it plans to close or merge with for the 2025-2026 academic year. The district announced earlier this month that it would delay that announcement.
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This would not be the district's first time closing or merging schools. However, closures at previous times largely impacted Black and brown families, according to advocates.
In 2006, the Board of Education voted to close and merge over a dozen of its public schools to save money. The decision was necessary due to declining enrollment in the district, per the BOE. The schools chosen for closure had fewer than 250 students operating at less than 75% of their building capacities.
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In 2005, the board closed three schools in the Western Addition neighborhood, which primarily served African American and Latino students.
According to the BOE and SFUSD, they plan to 'Rightsize SFUSD's school portfolio with fewer but better schools." Before an announcement, the district said Stanford University would conduct an equity audit to educate its decision.
The School Stabilization team will be co-led by Maria Su, executive director of the Department of Children Youth and their Families, and Phil Ginsburg, the Recreation and Parks Department general manager. The team will also be made up of Deputy Controller ChiaYu Ma, who will provide fiscal expertise; the Mayor's Education Policy Advisor Hong Mei Pang, to provide communications, policy and administrative support; Deputy Director for Policy and Planning at the Human Services Agency Susie Smith, who will provide programmatic and family support; Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector Amanda Kahn Fried, to provide payroll and finances support; and Assistant Director of the Department of Human Resources Shawn Sherbune, Assistant Director, to assist with staffing analysis.
"The Department of Children, Youth, and their Families works extensively across multiple City Departments, educational institutions and the nonprofit sectors to make San Francisco a great place for children and young people to grow up," Su said in a news release. "Leveraging our track record of success and our long-established partnership with San Francisco Unified School District, I believe that we can weather this storm as a City and stabilize our public schools and support our children and families, just like we did during the COVID-19 pandemic."
Carl Cohn, the former superintendent of Long Beach Unified School District and San Diego Unified School District and a former State Board of Education member, will also serve as the team's special advisor.
"I look forward to working with Mayor Breed's team in helping SFUSD through this critical situation they are now experiencing," Cohn said. "Throughout my decades of experience working in California across many levels, I understand the challenges for districts and how to tackle them."
Voters passed the Student Success Fund in November 2022 to provide additional city resources for the SFUSD. The goal of the proposition was to help students achieve grade-level success in what the state considers core academic subjects while enhancing their social and emotional well-being.
