SFUSD starts new year with fresh leadership team — and tough decisions ahead
Last semester was something of a minefield for SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su. It was sandwiched by the(opens in new tab)first San Francisco teachers strike since 1979 (opens in new tab) and Su’s trip to Washington to testify before Congress about the district’s curriculum and policies at a hearing that amounted to political theater. But those are in the past, neither of them looming large over this coming year, which begins next week.
What did loom large at Tuesday’s meeting of the board of the San Francisco Unified School District, the first of the new year, were the remaining questions as to how Su plans to handle the two biggest decisions facing the district — an overhaul of the student assignment system and a plan for school closures — both of which she postponed last spring by more than two years, beyond the term of her current contract. As the meeting made clear, Su will also be expected to deliver on the district’s outcome goals in literacy and math.
The plan to delay both timelines became public before the board had a chance to discuss it or weigh in, widely considered a communications misstep that marked the first rift between Su and her governing body since she took the post in the fall of 2024. During the remaining meetings of the 2025-26 school year, Su and her team were unable to meaningfully expound on the timeline, frustrating board members, including President Phil Kim.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Commissioner Parag Gupta asked whether Su had used the summer to come up with something more concrete for the board. Su declined to offer a timeline for school closures, suggesting those calls would come about through an “organic process” once a new enrollment system reveals which neighborhoods most need their schools. That system is due before the board by April, per the two-year governance calendar that was approved Tuesday.
