Like the July 29, 2025 meeting before it, the Aug. 26, 2025 Board of Education meeting was a sickening power struggle over the microphone at public comment — but that wasn’t the worst part.
The ethnic studies debacle is only the latest and most hostile chapter in a long-running story of failed meeting leadership at Board of Education meetings.
Here we have a situation in which at least two of our communities have stepped forward to express legitimate concerns about how they are being discriminated against and misrepresented.
They have done so in politically and socially appropriate ways using an appropriate forum.
They have communicated actual problems experienced — not mere “beliefs and hurt feelings” as some public commenters tried to wave away.
Their children have had their identities harmed and their social relationships poisoned. Teachers have failed to ensure safe and civil learning environments.
Families have a right to speak up for their children’s safety. That’s our system.
Meanwhile, the other party to this argument responded with derision, actual name-calling, dismissal of concerns, and temper tantrums. The person feigned injury and outrage, despite having exclusive power over ethnic studies since its inception in SFUSD back in 2010.
It’s a problem that we’ve all gotten so numb to this behavior.
But here’s where things got disturbing.
In coordination with all the booing, hissing, jeering, name-calling, and cellphone photography and video-stalking going on inside the room, these attendees appear to have been coordinating with social media harassers outside of the boardroom.
Attendees started receiving worried messages from family and friends that their photos, names, and videos of them at the meeting were popping up all over social media — in threads posted by people who were not even present in person at the meeting.
Numerous in-person attendees reported feeling afraid to walk alone to their cars or to public transit.
This is a ticking time bomb, and we are only inches away from some really dangerous behaviors.
But that’s not all.
Rather than abolishing the rules, President Phil Kim and Vice President Jaime Huling need to learn and enforce proper meeting procedures — and they need to do so fairly and consistently for the safety of all.
While the live audience at board meetings has been dissolving into chaos over the last 12 months, the board members themselves have been busy violating California’s open meeting laws. They’ve done so by conducting secret electronic communications during meetings out of the public’s view.
Based on the synchronized smirking I observed behind computer screens at the July 29, 2025 meeting, I submitted a public records request for all texts and emails sent and received among commissioners. I was surprised to receive a response from the public records office the day after submitting my request, indicating that communications had indeed occurred during the meeting and would be provided to me. They promised to get these to me by Sept. 15.
This is a longer delay than the law allows, but it is what it is. I’ll report back on what I receive.
The bottom line is that none of this contributes to wise or effective education policy, much less the social cohesion that is necessary for a divided community with differing needs and wants to collaborate on improving student outcomes.
Open warfare is not how San Francisco voters want our city’s education system to be run.
SFUSD students need President Phil Kim and Vice President Jaime Huling to get better at managing adult behaviors during board meetings.
SFUSD students need their teachers to park their fantasies of “creating revolutionaries” outside the classroom door and focus on teaching to academic standards in an equitable and unbiased way.
And SFUSD students need our adult public commenters and observers to follow basic meeting rules and norms of civil behavior.
We need our board meetings to follow California’s open meeting laws.
Through their failure to take action against the harassment going on at board meetings, President Kim and Vic President Huling have made themselves legitimate targets of criticism.
What’s their proposed solution to these problems? It’s revealed in their their latest Board of Education Draft Agenda. They’re proposing to simply abandon Robert’s Rules of Order and basic governance structures, replacing them with arbitrary decision-making authority for the president of the board as the board meeting chair.
This approach will further undermine the core educational mission of SFUSD.
It’s time for board leadership to accept the challenge of serving the public. Rather than abolishing the rules, President Kim and Vice President Huling need to learn and enforce proper meeting procedures – and they need to do so fairly and consistently for the safety of all.
President Kim and Vice President Huling need to require – and enforce – a climate of civic goodwill that rejects the poisonous climate of harassment that has become normalized.
And we need them to hold meeting attendees to higher standards.
