When the school district says “school portfolio” it is talking about real estate.
In 2009, Jill Tucker of the SF Chronicle wrote: “In San Francisco, where a nothing-special square foot of dirt can carry a price tag of $200, the city’s school district is sitting on a gold mine. With more than 19 million square feet of property, the district is a major player on the city’s Monopoly board with real estate holdings from Baltic Avenue to Boardwalk.”
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The SFUSD School Board has been quietly moving to close schools.
Billing himself as a “Student Outcomes Evangelist”, A.J. Crabhill is the consultant recently hired to lead work on restructuring SFUSD’s “school portfolio”. He is a failed tech startup entrepreneur that dropped out of college and never studied education.
With so little experience in education, why was he hired? He has extensive experience closing schools. As President of the Board of Education in Kansas City, MO Crabhill closed 26 schools resulting in 700 job cuts, and under his leadership with the Texas Education Agency, the district closed roughly 40 percent of its schools.
SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne, has a history of closing schools serving low-income communities with little input from the public citing budget constraints. During his tenure at Hayward Unified, he recommended school closures to save money on facility maintenance. He stated, “Even if we just did minimal repairs it’s a significant amount of money for each of our aging facilities and that doesn’t even get to getting in the kind of classroom upgrades we want for our students.”
As a result, hundreds of Hayward community members rallied to protest stating the decision to close schools was “unfair and unexpected”.
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Additionally, during the October 14th Board Meeting, Superintendent Wayne shared a map of schools that he stated are too expensive to repair. The map above shows potential sites for school closure.
President of the SF School Board, Jenny Lam, and her fellow mayoral appointees, Lam, Hsu, Motamedi, and Weissman-Ward are redirecting funding away from students in need. In order to do this they are restricting public comment, shutting down Board Committee Meetings, defunding parent outreach to low-income communities of color, and dismantling advisory committees. They are denying parents from exercising their state-mandated right to have a voice in their children’s education.
The district has quietly restructured programs to remove parent voice in SFUSD. SFUSD dismantled Family Voice Office which tracked parent complaints, and reduced staffing to support the District English Learner Advisory Committee (DELAC). This academic year, the DELAC Spanish-Speaking support staff was cut leaving families with no interpreter for a State mandated committee in a district where one in three students identify as Latino/Hispanic. The BOE has also refused to approve this year’s PAC nominees.
Board President Jenny Lam and her colleagues plan to close schools serving low-income students. All mayoral appointees have advocated for cuts to school support and moving away from federal grants in favor of an austerity budget.
Lainie Motamedi says she wants to redirect money away from schools “By operating under-enrolled schools, the district is choosing to fund buildings rather than the future of students and staff, she said in her candidate video.” Making plans to close schools at a time when all CA schools were experiencing lower than normal enrollment due to the pandemic is not fiscal responsibility, it is taking advantage of a crisis to access SFUSD real estate.
Ann Hsu talks about austerity measures for SF schools. In her candidate statement, she stated, “We should not always look to the federal, state or city governments or philanthropic organizations to “bail us out.” We need to be self-sufficient and live within our means, like any company or family should do with their own budgets.”
Lisa Weissman-Ward says she believes the district should refrain from going after federal dollars (like Title I grants). She stated, “CA as a state has always trended more progressive. And it worries and concerns me to be dependent on federal funds that could be taken away in an instant.” She then contradicted herself, stating Title I funding is consistent. In a district facilities presentation (see slide above) the superintendent proposes “moving to reduce the % of restricted funds (Title I funds).”
Join the SF Parents for Equity mailing list to sign up to attend a free School Closure Zoom webinar.
Voting “yes” on “guardrails” means giving unrestricted power to the Board President and Superintendent to close San Francisco schools:
The board of education’s primary role is to represent the community’s vision and values for public education. The BOE proposed Vision, Values, Goals, and Guardrails Update is based on the input of only 988 individuals many of which do not even have children in attendance at any SFUSD schools. Only 2% of SF’s population should not be making decisions for 98% of SFUSD families. Board Community Outreach efforts have failed miserably. Instead of getting real input, they are rushing to push preconceived agendas.
If the Board adopts this new policy parents can no longer request for Commissioners to address their issues as agenda items. The Superintendent will also have the ability to close schools and cut program funding with minimal community oversight or input from families.
Read more about AJ Crabhill’s long history of closing schools:
AJ Crabhill says he improves schools but after his tenure as Kansas City, MO Board President, the district lost its accreditation with the state.
“On Jan. 1, the Missouri State School Board revoked the Kansas City public school district’s accreditation. Now parents have a hard choice to make: leave or keep their children at a failed school?
Kansas City’s Failed Schools Leave Students Behind, NPR, Education staff, Feb 18, 2012
During his tenure in Kansas City, MO, Board President AJ Crabhill closed schools, laid of hundreds of staff members.
“Previous superintendents tried to close schools only to be overruled by the school board. Covington, who came from Pueblo, Colo., last July, argued that the district had to stop spending money on maintaining half-empty buildings.
The board approved his plan, which closes 26 schools and three other buildings, by a 5-4 vote after months of tumultuous forums. The plan, which also cuts 700 jobs, is projected to save $50 million from a $300-million budget.”
Schools are out — forever, LA Times, by Nicholas Riccardi
Mar 19, 2010
AJ Crabhill also closed programs promoting Black studies.
“One concern is the consolidation of an “Afrikan-Centered Education” program, which has a curriculum guided by African cultural concepts. Students from three schools, divided by kindergarten through fifth grade, sixth grade, and seventh through 12th, will be placed at one school.
The program is popular in a district that is 61% black; 30% of Kansas City’s population is African American.
“Who’s going to be left with our children packed into those buildings, like slave ships?” asked Ron Hunt, a neighborhood activist with three children in an Afrikan-Centered Education school. Hunt is calling for parents to pull their children from the district.
Jamekia Kendrix already did. She pulled her daughter out this year — while running a nonprofit to improve education in the district.”
Schools are out — forever, LA Times, by Nicholas Riccardi
Mar 19, 2010
Take action!
Speak up at the SFUSD School board TONIGHT, Oct 25 2022! There will be a rally at 5:00 p.m. during closed session. Share your concerns and questions during public comment which begins during open session begins at 6:30 p.m.
Learn more at the free School Closure Zoom webinar. Join the SF Parents for Equity mailing list to for more information.