San Francisco public school officials and board members talk a lot about kids like Royal Holyfield, an 11-year-old Black boy in fifth grade at a Tenderloin elementary school. They talk a lot about equity. They talk a lot about narrowing the persistent achievement gap between Black kids and their white and Asian peers.
But Joan Thomas, Royal’s grandmother, who has raised him since he was 10 days old, thinks it’s just that — a whole lot of talk. And at this crucial moment for the city’s school system, with three new board members sworn in Friday and a new superintendent to be picked this spring, Thomas and other Black families say they’re hoping the district will finally give their kids more support.
Thomas, 62, is charismatic, funny and direct. In October 2020, she invited me to her small apartment in a South of Market affordable-housing complex to see what never-ending Zoom school had done to Royal.
He’d sunk into a deep depression, gained weight and spent long days toggling among distance learning, YouTube videos and his beloved “Fortnite” video game. I thought of the family often afterward, as San Francisco became one of the last urban school districts in the country to reopen, and called Thomas the other day to ask how Royal is doing now that he’s back in the classroom.
“Not great,” Thomas said with a sigh. “He hates school. Some days are almost impossible.”