Cassondra Curiel, the San Francisco teachers union president, said that she couldn’t turn on her TV without seeing the ads.
“Mayor Lurie and SF Parents Action trust Phil Kim to lead our schools,” ran one GrowSF-sponsored message for the group’s June school board pick. GrowSF, which is largely backed by tech executives, spent some $220,000 to elect Kim to the school board in that race; he got a whopping 61 percent of the vote.
The group is now getting ready for round two. November’s contest will pit its three picks against three rivals tapped by the San Francisco teachers union, and a separate slate from the San Francisco Parent Coalition that includes two of GrowSF’s candidates. One other candidate is not part of any slate.
The teachers union knows it’s outspent: In its two political committees, it had about $191,000 in the bank as of the end of June. GrowSF, meanwhile, entered the election season with just over $1 million in the bank, as of June 30, the latest date for which filings are available. (The group will spend on a variety of races, however, not just the school board.)
“When it comes down to the slate that we are representing, the distinction is clear,” Curiel said. She said the rallying cry “teachers vs. billionaires” has become the union’s slogan this season. “These are regular everyday people, parents and community workers with a long history in our district.”
GrowSF
SF Parents Action
Teachers union
Phil Kim
Phil Kim
Virginia Cheung
Autumn Brown Garibay
Ryan Hazelton
Autumn Brown Garibay
Tim Tung
Alida Fisher
Reina Tello
GrowSF
Phil Kim
Autumn Brown
Garibay
Tim Tung
SF Parents Action
Autumn Brown
Garibay
Phil Kim
Alida Fisher
Teachers union
Reina Tello
Virginia Cheung
Ryan Hazelton
The union’s slate is working closely together and campaigning jointly on the weekends. So are the Parents Coalition picks: Kim, Alida Fisher, and Autumn Brown Garibay have posed together at events, and the Parents Coalition have posters featuring all three.
The GrowSF slate, less so: At least one candidate said she is not aligned “with a particular political slate,” and there is no indication the group’s picks have any joint messaging.
Still, the group will spend heavily to jointly promote its three picks, and the race is a priority.
“It comes down to how important public education is for a healthy and prosperous and thriving society,” said Steven Buss Bacio, the group’s co-director.
He told Mission Local that his group’s outlay for November would be even more than the $220,000 it spent for June.
GrowSF, a balanced budget and ‘excellent’ schools
GrowSF has endorsed three candidates from a pool of eight running this November:
- Phil Kim, the incumbent school board president and a deputy director at the San Francisco Agency for Human Rights, who was appointed to the body in 2024 and won his first election in June with the help of $239,000 from GrowSF and the San Francisco Parents Coalition;
- Autumn Brown Garibay, a senior customer-success manager at Sprout Social;
- Tim Tung, a public finance and research analyst who is also the brother of Assistant District Attorney Nancy Tung, a former district attorney candidate and the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party.
The slate of candidates is also endorsed by Mayor Daniel Lurie, who threw his support behind many of the candidates GrowSF is supporting in other races, too.
Bacio said the group’s candidates reflect the organization’s focus on getting the school district “back on track” — a balanced budget after years of deficits, which have led to more than $100 million in planned cuts; supporting students learning to read and learning math; and “excellent” public schools that can compete with private ones.
About 30 percent of San Francisco children go to private schools, the highest rate in the state, and one of the highest in the country.
“We’ve let too many kids fall behind because we’ve taken our eye off the ball in the school district,” Bacio said. “And I think that’s where the board of education is so important.”
GrowSF has become the most active of several well-funded pressure groups to emerge in post-pandemic San Francisco. It is involved in picking winners in races big and small across the city and benefits from large checks.
The group cited Kim’s role in evaluating the superintendent on fiscal stability, Garibay helping San Francisco Unified School District parents navigate the enrollment system, and Tung’s experience as an auditor, currently serving on the city’s bond committee. The three together, Bacio said, were the most “forward-thinking.”
The eighth-grade algebra stance, in particular, became a lightning rod in school board politics; GrowSF and many others now use it as a litmus test.
“For the last decade, it’s been illegal at our public schools to teach kids algebra before ninth grade,” Bacio said. “It, to me, borders on criminal negligence.”
The group’s voter guide puts it succinctly: Kim, Garibay and Tung are “a dream team: An educator who put algebra back in eighth grade, a parent who caught the district promising one thing and planning another, and an auditor who balanced city budgets through the 2008 crash.”
But at least one candidate eschews the slate structure. Garibay’s campaign spokesperson said she is running for a host of reasons, but “not because she was recruited into or aligned herself with a particular political slate.”
The three do not appear to be coordinating messaging or running a joint campaign, despite the joint financial backing.
Parent Coalition overlaps mostly, but not fully, with GrowSF
SF Parents Action, the advocacy arm of the Parent Coalition, first announced its endorsements in June and shares most with GrowSF: Both groups back Kim and Garibay.
But the advocacy group, which was formed during the pandemic and played an active role in the 2022 school board recalls, opted for Alida Fisher over Tung. Fisher, the executive director at the Community Alliance for Special Education, sits on the school board now and is seeking re-election.
The group said that it “did not endorse Alida [Fisher] in 2022, and we have not always agreed on every issue. But over the last four years, Commissioner Fisher has consistently demonstrated a commitment to putting students first.”
It is unclear how much money the advocacy group will put into the November race, but its PAC had about $24,000 on hand as of June 30. During the June race, the group backed Kim with some $14,000.
Meredith Dodson, the head of SF Parents Action, said it is getting creative: Knocking on doors, writing postcards and talking to other parents at soccer games.
“We’re one of the smallest fish in a pretty big pond of political players in San Francisco, and we try to do as much as we can with limited resources,” Dodson said.
Teacher’s union, student equity and not wasting a cent
The United Educators of San Francisco has endorsed a completely different slate:
- Virginia Cheung, the chief advancement officer of Open Door Legal and a public school parent who finished with almost 76,000 fewer votes than Kim in the June school board race;
- Ryan Hazelton, the executive director of Mariposa Kids, a nonprofit for play-based programs for young kids;
- Reina Tello, a grassroots organizer at PODER, whose main focuses are environmental and economic justice
The union knows it can’t match GrowSF’s spending. The union spent $109,000 on Cheung during the June race, only to see her get the No. 2 spot with 27 percent. Curiel did not say how much money the union would spend this time around.
It has already paid out $45,000 to print mailers for its candidates, and in a recent newsletter, asked members to chip in between $5 and $25 to its political fund. Its political cash comes entirely from member dues, but Curiel said the union will coordinate with other labor unions, including the state and national teachers’ unions, to raise more money.
Hazelton, for his part, said the lack of significant funding is causing the union’s slate to work closely together. Saturdays are full of merchant walks and putting up the slate’s signs on storefronts, and the three are knocking on doors together to spread the word, alongside several dozen volunteers.
But the spending is daunting. “This really discourages grassroots candidates,” said Tello, who said she is not wasting a cent. “It deters me from running. You know, I’m a grassroots candidate. I’m a low-income working mom.”
In making its choices, the teachers strike, the city’s first since 1979, was top of mind: Curiel said the union endorsed candidates who supported its members during the walkout.
Hazelton, she said, defended the strike against claims that it was driving the district to crisis; Cheung worked with families at school sites and walked the picket line; and Tello said she had met with the union almost a year before through her job and then started preparing.
“All three of them really did put their money where their mouth was, or maybe it’s better to say they walked the talk,” Curiel said. She said that Kim did not support the teachers during the strike in a way the union wanted.
Nor, Curiel said, did Fisher: Though the union endorsed her in 2022, when she first ran, Fisher did not publicly support the strike and Curiel said that cost her the union’s pick this time around.
Also key was ensuring candidates aligned with the union’s Public Education Pledge, which calls for higher wages for teachers, equity between schools, and fighting against charter school expansion, among other demands.
(There is one other candidate who is not part of any slate: Laurance Lee, a licensed general contractor and volunteer at SFUSD schools, endorsed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, who’s running for Congress.)
Curiel, for her part, is sanguine about the union’s chances. Teachers have been through a tough year, she said; cuts meant that some educators who returned to schools in August learned their schools had lost staff, or had their budgets reduced. She hopes a new board will help allay some of those challenges.
And for now, she’ll avoid streaming platforms like Hulu and YouTube until after the election: She can’t take the GrowSF ads a second time around, and the union can’t afford its own.
Additional reporting by Marina Newman.
Lurie and GrowSF have supporters who are practically maga-level sycophants. I’ve never seen anything like it. My mother in law will praise lurie if he picks up a tissue from the street, “LOOK! He’s cleaning up SF!!”. Then when you show her the video of him throwing that tissue on the ground, “You’re just being difficult. Look at all the other things…”. GrowSF? They’re loaded with rich people who send their kids to private schools, insist on “vouchers”, demand tax cuts on properties, etc… Do you wonder why these particular people invest so much money in them? They care about money….. *their* money.
I think we all prefer a school board not backed by folks who hate democracy and want to overthrow the United States government and replace it with fascist anti-human techno fascism. But maybe that’s just me?
Thank you for identifying who’s who. We vote pro-teacher/pro-union.
Phil Kim was not involved in returning Algebra I to 8th grade.
It was removed February 2014. As an aside ,Matt Haney voted to remove it and later middle school and early high school honors classes.
This is someone growsf supports.
I became involved in 2013 when we learned the district was going to delay it against community wishes. This affected my daughter ( Class of 2020).
I filed public data requests for years. I finally received data which exposed the lies of success SFUSD was telling for years in June 2021. I sent it to the state asking for an audit. The state ignored me but removed the lies from the first draft of the California Math Framework.
Meanwhile? SFUSD voted to return Algebra I to 8th in February 2024. Before Prop G results. Before Phil Kim was appointed to the Board of Education.
The vote Phil Kim was involved in had to do with Algebra I pilots and which pathway to choose.
I clearly need to write a book.
It is stolen valor to claim the work some many of us did for years.
“Though the union endorsed her in 2022, when she first ran, Fisher did not publicly support the strike and Curiel said that cost her the union’s pick this time around.”
Big mistake. A multi-year record of alignment with what the union values (resources to back academic goals in all schools, good working conditions, and so on) while on the board should count for more than the cheaper signals they are using as a litmus test here.
I’m voting for whoever GrowSF recommends. They put in time and effort to parse the candidates. And they’re not ideologues, unlike most other local organizations that do endorsements.
Any San Francisco resident who has been here 10 years remembers what happens when we don’t pay attention to the School Board: progressives who ARE paying attention pack the board with people who think declaring Abraham Lincoln a racist is more important than anything else on the agenda, like reopening schools. The School Board’s obsession with social equity, and disinterest in test scores, is why half of SF students can’t read or do math at grade level.
If you really care about kids’ education, choose a school board that does also.
Kim, Garibay and Tung — hands down the best trifecta of school board candidates that the City has ever had.