School board candidates on rescheduled antisemitism workshops

Welcome back to the “Meet the Candidates” series for the school board, where we ask each candidate one question every two weeks. They must answer the question in 100 words or fewer. We will link to longer answers.

Eleven candidates are vying for four seats on the city’s seven-person school board. The election will take place on Nov. 5. Non-citizen parents of children living in the city are permitted to vote in school board elections, and can find information on doing so here.

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In September, the San Francisco Unified School District abruptly canceled mandatory antisemitism workshops for educators that would have been run by the American Jewish Committee. The move came after some parents and community groups expressed concerns with the American Jewish Committee; some have called it a “Pro-Israel lobbying group.”

Other community members, however, criticized the decision amid what they called a “meteoric rise” in antisemitic incidents in the district. Following their backlash, the SFUSD rescheduled the workshops for next week.

This week, we asked the candidates:

Can you comment on the recent canceling and rescheduling of mandatory antisemitism workshops for SFUSD educators, and on the tasking of the American Jewish Committee with leading those workshops?

Some candidates gestured broadly toward the importance of reducing harassment, discrimination and bullying in SFUSD schools. The ones who spoke directly to the planned workshops, however, by-and-large support them. Some, however, also emphasized the need for such workshops to incorporate varied perspectives and avoid introducing biases toward other groups.

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Every kid deserves to feel safe at school—and no student or employee should ever experience discrimination or feel targeted at school because of their religion, ethnicity, race, or other aspects of their identity. Regular training on diversity, equity, and inclusion, including training on anti-racism, antisemitism, and anti-Islamophobia is part of any healthy organization culture, and should be welcomed in SFUSD.

On the school board, I’ll continue to model that we can disagree strongly about policy without resorting to stereotyping or discrimination.