Students, Parents & Educators Organizing to Demand SFUSD Stop Proposed School Closures
PRESS RELEASE for September 18, 2024
San Francisco, CA – Today students, parents, educators, and advocates are hosting a press conference at the SFUSD headquarters to stop proposed closures of public schools across the city. Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth, the Small Schools Coalition, and the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF) are advocating to protect small schools that predominantly serve students of color, demanding deeper investments to improve schools and increase enrollment, rather than closing or merging schools.
What: Press Conference to Stop Proposed School Closures: “Not Our Public Schools”
When: Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, 1:45–4:30 p.m.: Organizers and press to arrive at 1:45 p.m. Community members to arrive at 2:30 p.m.
Where: SFUSD School District Headquarters, 555 Franklin St.
Who: Students and parents from SFUSD will provide testimonies about their experiences navigating the stressful and confusing process around proposed school closures.
Organizations attending: People Organizing To Demand Environmental & Economic Rights (PODER), San Francisco Community (SFC), O’Connell High School (OHS), June Jordan High School (JJHS), Youth Making a Change (YMAC), Parents Making a Change (PMAC), REP-SF coalition, Coleman Advocates
Speakers:
Raquel De La Cruz, YMAC member and JJHS graduate
Reina Tello, a parent, member of the Small Schools Coalition, Community Organizer with PODER, and member of the REP-SF coalition
Mirna Vasquez, a parent and PMAC Lead Organizer at Coleman Advocates
Davilo Crow, SFC Parent
“Parents and students were not involved in this decision at all. If they were, then the focus would be on how to make our schools better, instead of closing them,” says Blanca Catalan, a parent and organizer of Parents Making a Change (PMAC) at Coleman Advocates. “We should be focusing on improving the schools we have – not closing them. We want to have a different conversation with a completely different starting point.”
“We are demanding that SFUSD stop this process of closing our schools. The School District should be asking: How can we work together to make our schools more attractive to families to increase enrollment? The solution is to increase investment in our schools and the quality of education to increase enrollment,” says Chris Ballard, Executive Director of Coleman Advocates.
“SFUSD’s communication makes it seem like the decisions have already been made to close schools – which has caused students and teachers to leave. SFUSD is creating the conditions and justification for schools to close by preemptively causing enrollment to decline and resources for students to be diverted away. They are creating the conditions for this runaway train because they are the ones steering it,” says Reina Tello, a parent, member of the Small Schools Coalition, Community Organizer with PODER, and member of the REP-SF coalition.
“The school year just started, and instead of worrying about studying for my next test or what clubs I’m going to join, I’m stressed about the possibility of my school closing and how this will harm me and my peers,” says Neveah Nathan, a student at June Jordan School for Equity.
“We know that Black and Brown students are the ones that will suffer the most if their schools are closed because this has historically been the case. We are fighting to save small schools and protect our students of color, especially in the southeast part of the city, in neighborhoods like the Excelsior, Ingleside, Bayview, and the Outer Mission,” says Mirna Vasquez, a parent and PMAC Lead Organizer at Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth.
Community members are fighting to keep schools open, especially small schools like June Jordan School for Equity, who are predominantly from immigrant and working-class communities of color. The population of June Jordan has declined from 250 to 178 because many families have left due to the uncertainty of school closures. The goal of the Small Schools Coalition is to ensure that no decision about small school changes gets made without a central group of representatives giving feedback, which has not yet happened.
Studies have found that school closures have severe negative impacts on students’ academic performance, attendance, extracurricular participation, safety, relationships, and parent involvement:
Negative impact on student’s test scores the year preceding closure or immediately after (Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019).
Greater distance may lead to a decrease in attendance (Kirshner, 2019).
School closure can cause and reinforce spatial injustice. Closures are classed, affecting poor and of color students and communities (Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019).
Transferred students experience a decrease in extracurricular participation (Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019).
Children experienced a sense of loss when forced to transfer. Sense of belonging in school was diminished (Kirshner, 2019).
The most prevalent challenge of students is to form new relationships and manage the old ones disrupted by the closure (Kirshner, 2019).
Concerns about safety when students leave their familiar neighborhoods (Kirshner, 2019).
Parents tend to be less involved with the new school (Tieken & Auldridge-Reveles, 2019).
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About Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth
Coleman Advocates currently focuses on building more effective, equitable, and supportive public schools in San Francisco and beyond. We believe the transformation of our educational system requires the involvement of the entire community—not just teachers, school administrators, and politicians.
About the Small Schools Coalition
The Small Schools Coalition brings together parents, students, educators, administrators, and community members across San Francisco. We are organizing to protect our small schools and to protect the public education of our children and our future. We highlight the voices of our communities because they are the experts on how our kids learn the best.
