San Francisco school board recall vote seen as warning sign for Democrats amid fury over Covid policies

Recall campaign targets officials rocked by scandal and misplaced priorities over Covid-19 frustrations

Voters in San Francisco overwhelmingly decided to remove three members of the city’s school board, following parents’ frustration over school reopenings, changes to admissions at one of the city’s top schools, and debate over renaming 44 schools – splitting Democrats in one of the nation’s most liberal cities.

The city’s first-ever successful recall campaign targeting school board members came after a series of controversies and lawsuits among city and school officials, compounded by nationwide frustrations over in-person and virtual learning, mask guidance and other complications during the Covid-19 pandemic

The recall effort – buoyed by a massive $2m campaign – also comes as Republicans nationwide turn to education issues and school board races as political wedge issues, leveraging parents’ frustration and culture war clashes for a wider political campaign against lessons on racism and gender.

Following the results in San Francisco on Tuesday night, Republicans and right-wing figures from across the US pointed to the outcome as evidence of a larger “parents rights” battle brewing at the state and local level. The results were swiftly framed as a “wakeup call” and warning for Democrats as the general public grows increasingly weary of Covid-19 restrictions.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Mayor London Breed said the “voters of this city have delivered a clear message” that the school board “must focus its attention on the essentials of delivering a well-run school system above all else.”

“San Francisco is a city that believes in the values of big ideas,” she said, “but those ideas must be built on the foundation of a government that does the essentials well.”

Alison Collins, Gabriela Lopez and Faauuga Moliga – were targeted in the recall effort on the city’s seven-member school board, all of whom are Democrats. Ms Collins was recalled by the widest margin, with 78 per cent of voters supporting her removal.

In March, she sued the city, school district and several commissioners on the board following its decision to remove her as vice president, after her Twitter thread in 2016 accused Asian Americans of using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead’” and called on Asian Americans to denounce anti-Black racism. She apologised for the posts, and her suit was eventually dismissed.

Asian parents already were incensed with a plan to replace a merit-based admission system with a lottery program at an elite public school, where Asian students make up more than half of the student body.

In January 2021, the board debated renaming 44 public schools, including schools named after Abraham Lincoln and Democratic US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was also mayor in the late 1970s and 1980s.

The debate, which came on the heels of national discussions over racial justice and efforts to rename streets and other institutions, drew widespread criticism, including from Mayor Breed, who asked “why the school board is advancing a plan to have all these schools renamed by April, when there isn’t a plan to have our kids back in the classroom by then.”

The board eventually scrapped the idea.

Alison Collins was among three San Francisco school board members ousted by voters in a recall election on 15 February. (AP)

In a Facebook post defending her support for the recall effort, the mayor said that “during such a difficult time, the decisions we make for our children will have long term impacts.”

“Which is why it is so important to have leadership that will tackle these challenges head on, and not get distracted by unnecessary influences or political agendas,” she said.

The recall effort was supported by several interest groups, including real estate groups and the tech industry, and derided by progressive group San Francisco Berniecrats as an attempt to “short-circuit the democratic process with big money.”

“Across the country, right-wingers are attacking school boards; over half of the signatures to qualify for the ballot were gathered by people paid as much as $22 per signature, many of whom came from out of state,” the group said.

The effort also secured an endorsement from the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, which accused the three board members of “consistently” failing “to shepherd the district and its students through the gravest of times during the pandemic” while making a “mockery of the broader push for historical reckoning in the United States at a time of unprecedented receptivity to change.”

Following victories in Virginia last year, Republican campaigns and right-wing activists have targeted education in their campaigns, from Covid-19 restrictions to warnings against “critical race theory” that have dominated volatile school board meetings – explicitly local events that are now making national headlines.

Within the first half of 2021 alone, at least 51 recall campaigns targeted dozens of school board officials across the US, many of which were powered by well-financed conservative groups and fuelled by backlash to Covid-19-related policies and anger over perceived “critical race theory” teachings. More than 20 of those recall efforts were in California.

Autumn Looijen and Siva Raj, who helped launch the recall effort after moving to the city in 2020, also came under criticism for appearing on Glenn Beck’s radio show to promote the campaign.

“In this deeply divided city, in this deeply divided country, it shows that there are some things we can all agree on. Competent leadership. Good public schools. Protecting our most disadvantaged kids,” they said in a statement after the vote.