Warring coalitions endorse, rescind and make accusations in bare-knuckle, down-ballot races
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With few voters directly involved with San Francisco public schools — less than one-fifth of the city’s voters have children and even fewer send those children to public schools — a candidate’s endorsements play an outsized role in getting elected in a down-ballot race like school board, said retired political consultant David Latterman.
This election cycle, the groups offering endorsements to the 12 candidates vying for four open seats have been actively engaged, each providing varying amounts of financial and human capital.
“For a down-ticket race like this, the groups matter more than individuals, because the groups are going to make things happen,” Latterman said.
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Here is some background on the main groups and their endorsements. We will update this as new endorsements are made.
About the groups
United Educators of San Francisco
The United Educators of San Francisco is the San Francisco teachers union. Generally, it leans progressive in endorsements. It endorsed, for example, the progressive Labor and Working Families slate for the Democratic County Central Committee in the March 2024 elections and took no position on Prop. G, a proposition to encourage the San Francisco Unified School District to offer Algebra 1 to students by eighth grade. To explain its position, it wrote that the proposition “provides no plan and no funding” to bring back eighth-grade algebra and is an example of the “school culture wars playing out in San Francisco.”
The union opposed the school board recalls of 2022. Vice President of Substitutes Nathalie Hrizi said the union’s priorities, outlined in its Public Education Pledge, include centering both academic as well as social and emotional needs of students and the stability of school communities.
The union holds a membership meeting to determine recommendations for school board endorsements. To secure a recommendation, a candidate must receive 66 percent of the vote among members. Hrizi said progressive incumbent Matt Alexander was the only candidate to do so this year.
The executive board makes final endorsements. A candidate who was not recommended by the members must receive two-thirds of the more than 30-member board’s vote. Alexander, like any candidate who receives the members’ recommendation, needed only a simple majority.
UESF endorsements:
Some observers, including Latterman, think the moderate candidates wanting UESF’s endorsement cut a back-room deal, aligning with Alexander despite his being disliked by the parent groups. UESF’s Hrizi denied those allegations.
The union provides endorsed candidates monetary and outreach support, including a maximum campaign contribution and campaigning for member support of the candidates.
SF Parent Action
SF Parent Action is a public education-focused parent group that formed during the pandemic and supported the removal of two of the three board members up for 2022 recall. Meredith Willa Dodson, executive director of affiliated organization SF Parent Coalition, said 7,000 parents receive SF Parent Action’s newsletter, but around 200 parents comprise the most active “core” group.
Dodson said that while the group has families from every neighborhood, many are from south and southwest San Francisco. According to SF Parent Coalition’s website, SF Parents’ priorities are focusing on student outcomes, addressing the budget deficit, and improving accountability and transparency. SF Parent Action supported Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra.
Dodson said the group’s endorsement process began early in the year with parent meetings to workshop its candidate questionnaire, which consists of a set of short answers and 10 open-ended questions, and Interview Day. In May, it held the interview day with candidates, consisting of onstage questions and small group discussions with each candidate.
Parents voted and rated candidates, and the board approved the choices.
SF Parent Action endorsements:
After the alliance between Parag Gupta, Jaime Huling, John Jersin and Alexander, Dodson said SF Parent Action gave community members the opportunity to vote again. They voted to stick with Gupta and Huling.
SF Guardians
SF Guardians is the parent group led by Autumn Looijen and Siva Raj who launched the 2022 recall effort. Raj said Guardians’ Facebook group includes 1,600 members — mostly parents, with west and south San Francisco more highly-represented among the more engaged members, a geography he attributed to a higher concentration of families in those parts of the city.
Raj added the group’s high priority issues are addressing the budget crisis, increasing enrollment and restoring academic excellence. The group also backed Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra, contributing nearly $42,000 in support.
The candidates answered questions, and over 700 Guardians members participated in an initial vote to endorse Supryia Ray, Laurance Lee, Jersin and Gupta.
After UESF endorsed Jersin and Gupta, however, over 100 Guardians members voted overwhelmingly to rescind the group’s endorsements of the two because they had allied with Alexander. Guardians sees that alliance as problematic because Alexander had aligned with the three later-recalled members on a number of polarizing issues, including renaming schools and lottery admissions at Lowell High (Alexander was not eligible for recall at the time of the recall effort). The group plans to call for a vote later in the summer to fill the two remaining endorsement spots.
SF Guardians endorsements so far:
Raj said SF Guardians provides its endorsed candidates with advice throughout the campaign process.
GrowSF
GrowSF is a political advocacy group that covers a range of issues. It endorsed the moderate San Francisco Democrats for Change slate for the DCCC and supported Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra in the March 2024 elections. It also supported removing all three board members up for recall.
Directors Steven Buss Bacio and Sachin Agarwal wrote in emails that the group mailed its voter guide to 350,000 households during the March elections. According to Buss Bacio, the group’s priority in the school board race is the “fiscal crisis facing the schools, which threatens to bankrupt the district and lead to a State takeover.”
Buss Bacio and Agarwal wrote that GrowSF sends questionnaires to the candidates and explains “why we think you should vote a certain way and how we came to that conclusion.”
GrowSF endorsements:
GrowSF is bankrolled in large part by tech executives, including Garry Tan, and has become a major fundraiser in San Francisco politics.
San Francisco Republicans
The San Francisco Republican Party supported Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra and supported the school board recalls. Chairman John Dennis said the SFGOP’s top priorities for school board include “meeting standards,” adding that SFUSD is “failing its students” and parents are increasingly sending their children to private schools if they can.
To receive the SFGOP’s endorsement, Dennis said, candidates submit a questionnaire and are encouraged to speak with the central committee, consisting of more than 20 members plus a number of ex-officios. The committee then votes to determine who to endorse. Dennis called it a “really encouraging sign” that candidates are actively seeking the SFGOP’s endorsement. “We’re seeing voters re-registering Republican in ways we haven’t seen in six decades,” Dennis said.
Republicans’ endorsements:
TogetherSF Action
TogetherSF Action is a political advocacy group. It was not involved in advocacy at the time of the 2022 recalls, but it supported Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra in the March 2024 elections. Founder and CEO Kanishka Cheng wrote in a statement that the group’s endorsements “include candidates who will focus on making consequential decisions about the $420M budget deficit that the district is facing while prioritizing student outcomes.”
Cheng wrote that the endorsements are based on community feedback — here, “SFUSD parents and the broader school community” — along with independent research and candidate interviews.
TogetherSF Action endorsements:
TogetherSF Action launched with $3 million in funding from venture capitalist Michael Moritz.
Harvey Milk Club
The Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club is a group focusing on queer and progressive politics in the city. It endorsed the Labor and Working Families slate for the DCCC and opposed Prop. G for eighth-grade algebra in the March 2024 elections. President Jeffrey Kwong said the group opposed the recall of two of the board members in 2022, named accountability, predictability and stability as important issues in this race and underscored the importance of Chinese-American representation on the board.
The group invited candidates to fill out a questionnaire and participate in a public interview. The group’s political action committee made recommendations, and the general membership voted on the candidates via a score voting process, Kwong said.
Milk Club endorsements:
In addition to SF Guardians’ plan to redo its rescinded endorsements later this summer, the San Francisco Democratic Party will interview school board candidates in mid-August and vote on endorsements in late August, according to its website.
Below, we’ve summarized the state of group endorsements of the candidates. We will update this graphic as more roll in.https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/bOkJB/10/
The following candidates have not received endorsements from the groups listed above: Lefteris Eleftheriou, Ann Hsu, Madeline Krantz and Deldelp Medina.
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ANNE LI
Anne Li is a reporting intern from Little Rock, Arkansas. She writes and edits for her campus newspaper, The Stanford Daily. Contact her at anne ‘at’ missionlocal.com.More by Anne Li
