Six months after the school board officially appointed her Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Maria Su finds her frayed relationships with commissioners boiling over into public view. The controversy centers on the contentious issue of potential school closures — the very issue that led to the 2024 resignation of her predecessor, Matt Wayne. Now, on the eve of the school board’s first evaluation of her work under the new contract, Su faces skepticism and frustration.
This month, under her contract, Su is required to submit a self-evaluation to the school board on how she is leading the school district and meeting the agreed-upon goals for student outcomes and guardrails for governance. Her contract also states that the “Board and the Superintendent agree that effective governance requires strong collaboration and teamwork.”
Su’s report to the school board is confidential. Its discussions with her and among its members are all conducted behind closed doors, but are regularly listed on meeting agendas for closed sessions. The stakes are high. If the school board evaluates Su’s performance as “satisfactory” — the middle level rating between “Exceptional” and “Unsatisfactory”— or higher, it is required to extend her current contract for an additional year from June 2028 to June 2029. While the official extension vote would take place in public, community input at that point would be too late, as the outcome appears to be required by the contract. Similarly, a satisfactory annual review next year will extend her contract to 2030.
It is expected enrollment will continue to decline while school district officials undertake a multiyear effort to determine whether and where closures are needed.
Her review comes exactly when she is receiving her most severe criticism. Many commissioners were surprised to learn through a press report and her message to school parents that Su plans to delay potential school closures until the 2029–30 academic year. Last year, board members stated their expectation that Su would present them with plans by this fall to reform the enrollment system and reorganize schools. Instead, Su has now outlined a four-year plan of expanding programs and “addressing” student assignment by April 2027; implementing enrollment reforms in Fall 2028; starting a community engagement process to identify potential school closures, mergers, and co-locations in Fall 2028, “at the earliest” and implementing them in Fall 2029. This delayed and lengthened schedule risks, according to one commissioner, an extended period during which some schools lack teachers, nurses, and supporting staff to adequately serve students. Having fewer schools would make staffing and deeper collaboration among teachers easier to accomplish.
Their shock was expressed via written questions submitted to the school district staff in advance of Tuesday’s upcoming school board meeting. The question-and-answer document runs a record 24 pages, more than twice its usual length. The repetitive but varied requests for information about enrollment reforms and school closure plans suggest that they came from — and reflect the views of — multiple frustrated commissioners.
At present, school district facilities have over 14,000 empty seats at an undetermined cost. The expectation is that enrollment will continue to decline while school district officials undertake a multiyear effort to determine whether and where closures are needed. (An enrollment forecast through 2035–36 is currently unavailable to the public.) The proposed extended delay keeps schools from better serving existing students; risks frustrating current students and parents who could leave the school district; and dissuades new families from enrolling their children in public schools.
School board dissatisfaction with the plan and the absence of communication from Su produced a sharp response from SF Parent Coalition leader Meredith Dodson. In a Facebook post to her group’s members, she criticized “a few commissioners … airing publicly their personal grievances this past week — in parents [sic] channels, community group meetings, and multiple members talking to the press about their unhappiness.” Dodson made clear she was neither endorsing nor opposing the plan nor choosing sides between Su and the board. Nonetheless, an already difficult set of discussions has been made more contentious by the way in which the plan was rolled out. It is now up to School Board President Phil Kim, currently running for election on the June 2 ballot, to assert the school board’s prerogatives and authority as a partner in the future of the school district.
Other significant action is slated for Tuesday night’s school board meeting. Su will ask the board to hire a Deputy Superintendent for Education Services and an Associate Superintendent for Human Resources. While their names will not be revealed to the public until the start of Tuesday’s meeting, their annual salaries are known and exceed $340,000 and $246,000, respectively. Meanwhile, while failing to acknowledge his departure publicly, the school district is seeking a successor to General Counsel Manuel Martinez.
