‘We failed our children’: San Francisco Mayor London Breed on school board recall
San Francisco Mayor London Breed acknowledged that the city’s school board “failed our children” instead of making sure students return to the classroom — a debacle that resulted in the landslide recall of three board members.
“We failed our children,” Breed said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “Parents were upset. The city as a whole was upset, and the decision to recall school board members was a result of that.”
She asserted that educating children shouldn’t be a “Democratic-Republican issue.”
“And so in this particular case, the board neglected their primary responsibility to focus on other things, other things that are important, but not as significant as what they were there to do and that is to educate children,” she said.
School board president Gabriela López, vice president Faauuga Moliga and commissioner Alison Collins were all stripped of their positions during a special election last week. More than 70 percent of voters supported the recall.
Parents launched the effort in January 2021 over the board’s focus on progressive proposals — including renaming dozens of schools — instead of serving the best interests of the children.
“My take is that it was really about the frustration of the board of education doing their fundamental job. And that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that they get back into the classroom. And that did not occur. They were focusing on other things that were clearly a distraction,” Breed said.
The school board approved a plan to rename 44 public schools that it said honored public figures linked to racism, sexism and slavery — including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
Voters were also irked that the board wasted hours debating remote learning and mask mandates as San Francisco schools remained closed from March 2020 to August 2021 even as students in neighboring districts returned to class.
“Not to say that those other things around renaming schools and conversations around changes to our school district weren’t important, but what was most important is the fact that our kids were not in the classroom,” Breed said.
The ousted school board president blamed voters who are “aligned” with white supremacists for recalling her.
“So if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence,” López said in a tweet last Thursday.
“Don’t be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. And the support of the recall is aligned with this.”
In the posting, she linked to a Washington Post headline that said: “San Francisco recalls school board members seen as too focused on racial justice.
“This headline says it all. If you are not outraged, you’re not paying attention,” López said.
