“All this is in the benefit of you because you're impacted right now.” “I don't believe you when you say ‘all kids,’” she says. Some Black parents, like Leilani Ishaan, a product of SFUSD schools whose two sons graduated from district schools last year, are also skeptical of the intentions of the recall proponents. San Francisco Unified School Board President Gabriela López poses for a photo with a young supporter at the launch event for the No School Board Recalls campaign on Saturday Nov. Asian families, especially Chinese families, were hesitant. In San Francisco, district surveys found that white families overwhelmingly wanted to return to classrooms, while Black and Latino families wanted to return by much more narrow majorities. Throughout the pandemic, surveys around the country consistently showed that white families were more likely to want to return in person than families of color. Scott notes that communities of color in the city tended to be more skeptical of reopening schools. “Those voices are often not centered in these efforts that are coming from folks who say they are in fact putting people of color at the center.” “You see the logic driving these efforts being centered on opportunity structures and pathways for communities of color and for communities experiencing poverty,” Janelle Scott, a UC Berkeley education professor, says of the recall push. She says the recall comes at the expense of the district’s most vulnerable and marginalized students. Parents like Mahina find that sentiment disingenuous. “We have a school board that talks nonstop about social justice but doesn't do the single most important thing that our school district needed the whole year to help the very kids who are the most disadvantaged and hurt by ,” says Siva Raj, the recall campaign co-lead. A judge dismissed the suit, and Collins dropped her effort. In response, Collins sued the district for $87 million. Central, too, is anger directed at Collins, who was stripped of her leadership position on the board when past Twitter comments were resurfaced by recall proponent and Lowell grad Diane Yap. Recall leaders argue the board unnecessarily delayed reopening classrooms while prioritizing - and mismanaging - the renaming of schools and changing the admissions policy at Lowell High School, San Francisco’s elite public school. 13, for the launch of the No School Board Recalls campaign. But the voices of parents like Mahina, who feel represented for the first time, are often drowned out. Scott Wiener recently throwing their weight behind it. The campaign to recall Moliga, board President Gabriela López and board member Alison Collins has earned national attention, and continues to gain momentum, with Mayor London Breed and state Sen. “Having someone who looks like you sitting on the board of ed not only is empowering for our students and our families, but also he knows the struggles straight from the heart,” she says. But if Moliga, the school board’s vice president, is recalled in February, Mahina worries that progress will slow for students who’ve consistently had some of the worst academic outcomes in the district. Since fellow Pacific Islander Faauuga Moliga took a seat on SFUSD's board, she says she’s seen new investments in her community, like the creation of the district’s first Samoan dual-language immersion program. “We're not going to have our kids go through the same issues that we had to go through,” she says. She’s an advocate for the Tongan community, starting the organization San Francisco Tongans Rise Up and joining the San Francisco Unified School District’s Parent Advisory Council. Now Mahina is raising a son in San Francisco. She says her family didn’t know how to demand better. The child of Tongan immigrants, she says teachers assumed she was Latina and placed her in classes for English-language learners, where she struggled to follow lessons delivered half in Spanish. When Anna Mahina was growing up in the Bay Area in the ‘80s, there were few, if any, supports in schools for kids like her.
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