Four days after Mission Local’s story about the hiring of controversial Asian politico Josephine Zhao as a public school’s Black family liaison, San Francisco’s NAACP took action, asking the district to move her “immediately” to a different site.
Zhao, who was hired as a Black family liaison at James Lick Middle School in August, has nearly a decade of experience as a family liaison at San Francisco public schools. Aside from that, she is also a well-connected Asian political organizer whose divisive history — including making transphobic remarks in 2013 and 2018 — have raised concerns in the James Lick school community.
“We called for the district to immediately move her to a different site, because she’s an inappropriate person for that position,” said NAACP’s education chairperson, Virginia Marshall, who hopes to hear an answer from the district before the end of next week. “We were just appalled that she’s been in that position ever since August and our community did not know.”
Rev. Amos Brown, president of NAACP’s San Francisco branch, added: “The position of NAACP is that it is no attack on the personhood of Ms. Zhao. But in terms of principle, and in terms of what the job is about, that should be someone who knows the language, the culture, and the Black community in that position.”
“We stated our position, and we’re not backing down on it,” Brown added.
The school district declined to comment, citing “personnel matters.” Zhao didn’t immediately respond to Mission Local’s inquiries.
In a comment for Mission Local’s previous story about her position at the school in Noe Valley, Zhao said she’s “the most senior Family Liaison currently available” at the SFUSD.
“I was honored to receive the assignment in August for this school year through the consolidation process defined in the union contract between the school district and the union which I’m a proud member of,” she said at the time. “I agree that similar backgrounds do make for easier family connections and there are many more opportunities for this important and collective work because our school is short-staffed.”
NAACP and community members first presented their stance at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, with at least seven people commenting on the incident and urging the board to reconsider the decision to hire Zhao.
One community member said, “I want to let the school board know that the hiring of Josephine Zhao as the Black parent liaison for James Lick Middle School is yet another slap in the face to the Black community of San Francisco”
A Black mother commented that the hiring “once again highlights the anti-Black racism that exists in this district.”
“This is a pattern of not caring,” said another.
On Thursday, two NAACP members visited James Lick Middle School to meet with the principal and district staff. One of them was Marshall.
James Lick Middle School has a small but struggling Black student body, which has faced high rates of suspension and low academic performance, among other issues. In response to that, James Lick’s school site council voted in the spring to use the school’s discretionary fund to create a Black family liaison position to increase Black students and families’ sense of belonging.
When the fall semester started, however, school staffers were dismayed to find out the position was given to Zhao.
For the Black students at James Lick, said Marshall, “We need someone to come in, to work with them, to motivate them to improve, to come to class, to get on the honor roll, to get their GPA up, to go to tutoring, to pass the classes and to prepare for high school.”
Zhao, however, “doesn’t have the cultural competency, and she’s shown us all her own self, and she shares her views about African-American children, about homophobia comments.”
The NAACP also plans to discuss the matter at its regular meeting at 3 p.m. this Sunday at Third Baptist Church.
I’m guessing all these specialy liaisons are on the chopping block. As well as central office special projects staff.
There is something shady with this board. And you can’t hire enough teachers and staff but hire more for your downtown kingdom. Nothing has changed in the 40 years since I was a product of this silliness.
Why does a school have a black family liaison in the first place? Is there also a Native American family liaison? How about a Pacific Islander family liaison.
I shudder to ask this but … do white kids get a family liaison, or would that be too much privilege?
How is the disastrous state of affairs at the SFUSD to be remedied if we cannot focus on the essential and set aside, if only for a while, all else?
She ended a sentence with a preposition. I am ashamed for this person: “… and the union which I’m a proud member of,”
So not the fact that she’s Asian and a liason for said “Black” people is the problem but instead y’all are worried about “supposed” transphobic comments? Whatever that means
Except for one brief side note, the article was about NAACP’s position that she’s not a good fit due to her ethnicity and lived experience. If you’d like to know more about the “supposed transphobic comments”, you could follow the link to the previous articles about Zhao, because this is all very well documented and nothing “supposed”.
What happened to responsible journalism. There are two sides of a story. Is Zhao a person with great credentials? Does she work good with all people,etc. There has to be more of a story here. Does everything have to be about positive results to soothe parental and NAACP. Are these children deprived of classes , tutoring, socializing. That is the meat of the issue.
If you expect two sides to a story, you have come to the wrong site.
Nothing will ever work. American Blacks are absolutely racist.