New SFUSD Superintendent Su visits one of the schools on closure list
The students at Yick Wo Elementary School on Tuesday got a chance to ask the new leader of San Francisco Unified some of the burning questions families across the district have been wondering about for months.
Both Mayor Breed and the new superintendent, Dr. Maria Su toured the school in an effort to boost morale among parents and students, still anxious about the possibility of closures. Su was part of a "School Stabilization Team" of city officials appointed by Mayor London Breed last month to help the district.
Students in class during the tour asked both officials why the schools were closing and if the process would resume.
Though neither could give definitive answers yet, both officials offered students reassurance that the city and the district are working hard to keep the doors open at all 13 schools initially slated to close or merge.
In a small conference, Dr. Su told a group of reporters that her first priority is examining the deficit with a fine-toothed comb. But her second was restoring the district's reputation.
"The other thing that I really want to focus on is reestablishing trust and faith and hope in our school district at all levels, both at the teacher level, principal level, but also with families and children," Dr. Su said.
Dr. Maria Su has the monumental task of plugging holes in a deficit that's expected to reach $400 million by the 2026 -27 school year. A plan to close or merge 13 schools to address the district's massive budget deficit and to avoid a takeover by the California Department of Education that was initially proposed by former superintendent Matt Wayne have been temporarily halted while the city and district come up with a plan to mitigate the crisis.
Wayne abruptly resigned from the position of superintendent last week.
Dr. Su says her immediate goal is to research the data and understand the cause of the deficit before she can say whether closures will resume. There's no timeline on how long that will take.
"I will not sugar coat anything. It will require a lot of us to make difficult decisions, but there is still a space for hope and a space for us to reestablish that relationship with our school community," Dr. Su said.
Parents like Christy Samson breathed a sigh of relief after the closures were paused. Dr. Su's appointment as superintendent has offered her a renewed faith in a district she felt hadn't prioritized small schools like Yick Wo.
"I believe in hope, and I believe in the fact that we can get through anything together as a family and as a community," Samson said.
Dr. Su still has to provide an interim budget for the California Department of Education by mid-December, which will provide more insight into the tough decisions the district will have to make.