After being handily recalled from the Board of Education in February, Gabriela López is running again, to take back a seat on the board.
“I am running for a seat on the Board of Education to bring us together, to continue to listen, to care and to ensure that these spaces are welcoming for all of our families. It has only been four months with a newly appointed Board of Education and it is clear that our district is headed in the wrong direction,” López wrote in a statement sent out Friday morning, emphasizing problems such as teacher pay and racial conflict in classrooms.
López’s decision follows Commissioner Ann Hsu’s disparaging remarks on Black and brown families. Hsu was a major figure behind the recall that unseated López and her colleagues Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga, and was appointed to the board by Mayor London Breed.
“A this point, it’s news to us … It’s an interesting shift in a very complicated race,” Nathalie Hrizri, vice president of substitute teachers for the United Educators of San Francisco, told Mission Local.
To win, López would have to overcome considerable voter unhappiness with a set of controversial decisions made under her tenure as school board president, including the decision to end merit-based admissions at Lowell High School and rename a number of San Francisco schools during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic (although the school board chose to pause the renaming process in 2021, after backlash).
Prominent San Francisco politicians, such as Breed and Sen. Scott Weiner, endorsed the recall.
Since being ousted from the board, López has renewed her teaching credential and taught summer school at the University of San Francisco, according to her Twitter feed. In early February, she announced that she had been accepted to Stanford University’s Ph.D. program in education.
It’s unclear how running for office in November will affect those plans.
Other candidates running for the Board of Education include two other Breed appointees, Lisa Weissman-Ward and Laninie Motamedi. The two dissolved a slate campaign with Hsu after the latter wrote in a questionnaire that “one of the biggest challenges” facing Black and brown children is “lack of family support” and “Unstable family environments caused by housing and food insecurity along with lack of parental encouragement to focus on learning cause children to not be able to focus on or value learning.”
Weissman-Ward is also endorsed by the United Educators of San Francisco, along with candidate Alida Fisher. Other candidates for the school board include Joseph Kelly, Jr., Karen Fleshman and Laurance Lee.
This story is breaking and may be updated with more information.
Don’t forget she also voted to destroy the WPA mural at George Washington.
Totally unrepentant for her major part in the waste of precious time and school money. She is still full of herself and “I know better what’s good for you” attitude. She now promises to listen and learn. Duh. Más mentiras.
It wouldn’t be totally unreasonable to expect Lopez and that other egotistical racist mess, Alison Collins, to still be working towards implementing wasteful PC image ideals above real world education goals for our students. Collins especially.
Ay no. Mujer show some dignity. You were RECALLED. SF voters didn’t want you. You didn’t do your job and were asked to leave. Like it’s embarrassing for you now. Das pena ajena. Go get your PhD and then do something other than the board of ed. Your echo chamber is ill-advising you to do this. Outside of your grupito of supporters, we are all cringing.
Some people — even teachers — never learn.
Don’t give up Gaby. Si se puede.Kudos to Gabriela Lopez.
You know what would be hilarious? If Alison Collins and Faauuga Moliga joined her, won their old seats back, and proved what a HUGE waste of money/time/resources these recalls are.
Please, this city exists to waste money. 14 billion dollars a year to run a corrupt and failed social experiment.
Ms Lopez should take the advice given to many students: focus on your studies.
Perhaps although many voters might see it as disappointing that Lopez appears to be doubling down on the kind of race politics that caused her humiliation 6 months ago, by choosing a field of study that is “Race, Inequality and Language in Education”.
She might have stood a better chance in November if she had shown any acknowledgement of and remorse for the landslide popular vote to have her fired. The voters want to see that she has learned her lesson since February but it appears instead that, as with Collins, she is incapable of reading the room, and is now even more focused on the very obsessions that led to her being ousted.