San Francisco Parents Just Recalled Three Progressive School Board Members In A Landslide
s voters of the notoriously liberal City by the Bay removed three progressive members of San Francisco’s school board. By the look of the results, parents were beyond fed up with the direction and lack of pandemic action the board showed.
San Francisco parents have spoken. An effort that began over a year ago has finally come to a conclusion as voters of the notoriously liberal City by the Bay removed three progressive members of San Francisco’s school board. By the look of the results, parents were beyond fed up with the direction and lack of pandemic action the board showed.
School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga, and commissioner Alison Collins, all Democrats, were all relieved of their school board duties by wide margins. San Francisco parents were furious that the school board was pushing their progressive politics instead of concentrating on the best interests of the children in their charge. “The city of San Francisco has risen up and said this is not acceptable to put our kids last,” said Siva Raj via the New York Post. Raj, a father of two, helped get the recall effort ball rolling.
It didn’t take much to get that ball moving. Once it started, it didn’t stop. López was removed from her top spot by a wide margin. On the “yes, recall” side, she took a whopping 75% hit to just 25% who were on her side. Moliga came in just a tad bit behind López in the numbers as 72% voted for his recall. The biggest “yes, recall” vote was seen in Collins’ camp as she had 79% of San Francisco parents who wanted to see her leave and not take anything with her.
The writing on the wall for the three ex-school board members came early and often. Their political slanting, which many called “woke,” was their initial undoing. San Francisco parents began to see the school board’s priorities when the board began to focus on the names of schools within the districts. They focused so much that they decided to rename 44 schools, saying these schools were named after and honored public figures that represented sexism, racism, and other social injustices. The schools up for renaming included names like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and even US Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Critics of these potential school name changes began to speak up and out. They claim that the school board was making a mockery of the country’s racial reawakening. San Francisco parents began to ask why the school board was wasting their time trying to rename schools when they should be making school reopening, and with it their children, the priority. Parents spoke so loud on the school renaming issue that the school board eventually opted not to move forward with their plan.
Opponents of the recall have called the effort a complete waste of time and money. Board of Supervisors president Shamann Walton went even further, saying to the San Francisco Chronicle that the recall effort was being pushed “closet Republicans and most certainly folks with conservative values in San Francisco, even if they weren’t registered Republicans.” Looks like he is including San Francisco Mayor London Breed as one of those “closet Republicans.”
Mayor Breed is a Democrat in what has been up until this very moment, a heavily Democratic city. In fact, the entire San Francisco school board had been entirely comprised of Democrats. But the only reason there were three progressive board members up for recall is because the other four have not served long enough to be eligible for recall. As for Breed, she was on board with the recall effort from jump.
When the recall effort began, she was staunchly behind the San Francisco parents’ efforts saying that they “were fighting for what matters most — their children.” As the results were tallied and the recall complete, Breed said in a statement, “The voters of this City have delivered a clear message that the School Board must focus on the essentials of delivering a well-run school system above all else. San Francisco is a city that believes in the value of big ideas, but those ideas must be built on the foundation of a government that does the essentials well. I want to recognize all the parents who tirelessly organized and advocated in the last year.”
There were others who wanted to speak out, claiming they knew certain factors of the city leaders were going to play the “closet Republican” card. “We wanted to show the diversity of the community behind this recall. I knew they were going to say, ‘Oh, isn’t it just a bunch of Republicans?’ and I’m like, do I look like a Republican?” This came from San Francisco parent David Thompson, who spoke up while dressed head-to-toe in rainbow drag attire, calling his fighting persona “Gaybraham Lincoln.”
One of the biggest reliefs of the recall effort appears to be San Francisco parents’ ousting of Collins. By receiving almost 80% of the “yes, recall” votes, parents showed who they truly wished to see removed. Collins moved into the spotlight last year when old tweets came to the surface that ended up tagging Collins with the “racist” label. In 2016, Collins fired off a series of racist tweets against Asian Americans saying, among other things that they had used “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and get ahead.” She penned these tweets before she was voted to the school board, eventually becoming its vice president.
When the tweets became public knowledge, she was demoted. Not taking the demotion lightly, Collins turned around and sued the school district and her colleagues for a hefty sum of $87 million, igniting another firestorm within the school board. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed.
With three vacancies now on the San Francisco school board, Mayor Breed will be the one who selects their replacements. Hopefully, this is a good sign for San Francisco parents and their children. Hopefully, it is a good sign for the city.
