Mayor Daniel Lurie’s office has apologized after a Mission Local story revealed that the mayor had only appointed private school students to the city’s youth commission.
About 70 percent of San Francisco students go to public schools, including over 2,000 who are homeless. Mayor Daniel Lurie gets to appoint six young people to the San Francisco Youth Commission, a 17-member body. All six mayoral appointees this year attend private schools.
“This was an oversight, and it should not take away from the engaged, committed students who were appointed,” read a statement from the mayor’s office.
“The Mayor’s Office is responsible for roughly 500 commissioners citywide and appoints about 100 each year,” the email continued. The mayoral appointees to the Youth Commission represented “a range of demographics.”
“Going forward, we will be more intentional about ensuring SFUSD representation across our commissions, reflecting our deep commitment to our partnership with the SFUSD community.”
The story drew attention and criticism about the mayor being “out of touch” after it was published on Wednesday. Parents were “very upset,” “angered” and felt “it brought up the larger issue of how close San Francisco leaders are to the public schools,” said Rebecca Kee, the executive director of the San Francisco Parent Coalition, a parent-led advocacy group.
Records obtained by Mission Local going back to 2016-17 revealed that no mayor in that time appointed only private school students to the Youth Commission.
Kee brought the concerns to Kunal Modi, the mayor’s policy chief overseeing education, on Thursday morning to share the “deep disappointment in this failed process.” She heard back quickly.
“They apologized, and they’ve committed that this won’t happen again,” she wrote in a Thursday afternoon Facebook post to her group. The mayor’s office is also “offering time to connect with parents” and hear their concerns, according to the post.
One of the popular questions in the group’s Facebook community was, “What would it take for the mayor to enroll his own children in the public schools?”
It’s a question that gets to the heart of the issue, said Kee, because “if there are specific concerns that the mayor and his team, on a personal level, see in the public schools, how can they identify and champion those causes?”
Another parent asked, “Should there be an immediate addition of a number of seats on the commission dedicated to public school students who were already in the pool?” Kee said. The parent wondered if a resolution could be passed “to ensure that public school kids are never forgotten in the future.”
Public school teachers, meanwhile, said they were “not surprised” when they learned about the incident, according to Frank Lara, vice president of United Educators of San Francisco, the union for some 6,000 public school educators.
“It matches his vibe when he only chooses students from private schools,” said Lara. He said, for instance, that the teachers union had not heard from Lurie since the four-day teachers strike in February.
“There’s a big disconnect between [Lurie] and the people of San Francisco,” Lara said — though polls show Lurie is very popular.
Womp womp womp. Better bump the annual PR budget from personal inherited wealth funds to $2M next year. This “normal human” cosplay is more expensive than anticipated, clearly.
The incredibly thoughtless “statement” misses the point entirely. Calling this an “oversight” is absurd. Note, further, that 2 of the Mayor’s appointees are from the same private high school he attended (as is Mandelman’s!) while NONE are from any public high school. Calling this a mere oversight underplays the gravity of this serious misstep.
Honestly given that he’s collaborating with Trump and ICE and in the bag for techno fascists, I’m glad he’s so shit at strategy and totally prone to humiliating gaffes.
I want to say unbelievable… but then I think avout it and realize that no one is surprised that he did this. He is so out of touch with the regular pesky people.
Hey Kunal, why dont you just bomb or shoot terrorist parents and teachers.? Thats what your mentor Stanley McChrystal would have done (did) And he would be very dramatic about raiding a public school so that everyone got the message
I’ll vote against D, E and F because I’ve seen the exact same Lurie ad promoting them close to 100 times on Youtube.