SF Teachers Union at Risk of Shutout Loss in School Board Election
A day after San Francisco school board president Phil Kim won his reelection bid, candidates backed by the teachers union appeared in danger of missing the cut for two other open seats, according to the latest results released Wednesday afternoon.
A field of eight candidates was vying for three spots on the board, which will be tasked with a series of tough and consequential decisions related to the district’s enrollment system and school portfolio during their term.
First-time candidates Tim Tung, a public finance analyst, and Autumn Brown Garibay, a parent in the San Francisco Unified School District, followed Kim by more than 6 points in second and third place.
All three were endorsed by moderate political group GrowSF, which has been a major player in recent city elections, and the San Francisco Democratic Party.
The educators union’s slate of endorsed candidates — Virginia Cheung, Ryan Hazelton and Reina Tello — trailed behind the three front-runners, in that order.
Kim prevailed despite recent discontent from some of his backers after he voted for Superintendent Maria Su’s recommended plan to replace the district’s lottery for elementary school assignments.
Parents had overwhelmingly pushed for an enrollment system that would give families more choice to enroll in district-wide schools, but Kim voted with the board majority to pass Su’s alternative proposal that will place students in a neighborhood school, with the option to apply to a small number of other campuses with special city-wide programs.
In a statement on Tuesday night, Kim said he was focused on the “next chapter” for SFUSD, acknowledging the district’s struggles with declining enrollment and limited resources: “That means making difficult decisions about school consolidation and ensuring our schools are fully enrolled, adequately funded and positioned to thrive,” he said.
While about 13,000 votes separated Brown Garibay from Cheung, who sits in fourth place, United Educators of San Francisco president Cassondra Curiel said Wednesday that the union was “still holding out hope for some of our non-billionaire-backed candidates” to earn seats on the board, echoing the union’s campaign messaging against the GrowSF-backed slate.
If the current standings hold, the result would deal a blow to the union’s long-standing dominance over the school board’s elections. Since 2016, just two UESF-endorsed candidates have lost their races — one in 2018 and one in 2024.
Tung, who sits in second place, told KQED he was “feeling really good” shortly after polls closed Tuesday night.
“Throughout this entire journey on the campaign trail, the people I’ve talked to have really appreciated my views, and it’s been really enlightening being able to understand from the community what’s important to them,” he said. “I’m looking forward to hopefully being elected and then also being able to move the district forward in a responsible way.”
SF Parent Action, the political arm of nonprofit group SF Parents, endorsed two of the three GrowSF-backed front-runners: Kim and Brown Garibay, who said in a statement on Wednesday that she was excited about early vote returns and felt “confident in the votes still to come.”
“It’s clear voters are paying attention to the progress the district has made, and what San Francisco wants to continue to see from its schools: a focus on student learning, raising the bar, closing the gap,” said SF Parents executive director Rebecca Kee.
Following the slates backed by GrowSF and the teachers union, incumbent Alida Fisher and small business owner Laurance Lee rounded out the bottom of the pack.
Kee said more informed voters see Fisher, the third candidate SF Parent Action endorsed, as “part of that focus” on academic progress, but added that she lacked the institutional support the other candidates amassed.
More results are expected Thursday afternoon.