San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced her support for a recall of three of the seven members of the San Francisco Unified School District Board.
The campaign to recall the board members secured enough signatures in October. On Tuesday, the mayor said in a lengthy Facebook post that parents were voicing “normal, commonplace frustrations” and that the school board’s priorities had been misplaced.
SAN FRANCISCO SCHOOL BOARD RECALL ELECTIONS SCHEDULED FOR FEB. 15
“Our School District is in a dire fiscal situation,” she said. “Our kids have fallen behind after spending more than a year out of the classroom. Sadly, our School Board’s priorities have often been severely misplaced.”
One of the issues parents complained about is that while schools remained closed for in-person learning during much of the coronavirus pandemic, the school board dedicated time voting to rename 44 buildings in the district.
The three members up for the recall are president Gabriela Lopez, vice president Faauuga Moliga, and commissioner Alison Collins.
Breed said the recall effort was a “grassroots effort” and that parents had reasonable concerns.
“Their kids have fallen far behind in their education, and they are breaking down from the mental health challenges of a pandemic, exacerbated by chaos in our public school system,” she said. “And parents feel members of the Board aren’t listening to them, prioritizing their kids in the classroom or trying to solve these immense problems.”
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The recall effort in San Francisco mirrors campaigns in Virginia, Wisconsin, and other parts of the country.
Many of these recall efforts have been described by analysts as Republican-led efforts to push back against liberal school board policies. Some analysts also credited the focus on education as fueling Republican victories in the 2021 off-year election cycle.
The three San Francisco board members up for recall were described as “liberals” by the San Francisco Chronicle. If the recall on Feb. 15, 2022, is successful, Breed, a Democrat, will appoint their successors until the next election in November. It will also be the first recall in San Francisco since 1983, according to the report.
