Training shouldn’t be a precedence for San Francisco Unified College Board, says recall chief Siva Raj

Ritu Jha-

Siva Raj, an Indian-American father of two, faced a difficult decision when the pandemic hit in 2020: rebuild his start-up business that fell victim to COVID-19, or face the sudden downfalls of his children to focus on prolonged school closures; he chose the latter.

That decision all these months ago has resulted in Raj, a data scientist by training, taking on the Herculean task today of recalling the board members of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD).

Only speak to shows, Raj [Above with his children]expressed surprise and concern that the board was more focused on changing school names for political expediency than on ensuring better educational outcomes in a desperate situation.

There’s nothing wrong with changing names, he said, but is this the right time to do so when parents and students are grappling with the pandemic and its impact on education? Furthermore, the process was superficial and flawed without involving the community and parents.

“It wasn’t just the wrong time, it was the wrong way,” he said. “With billions of dollars in the school system in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, we’re fighting to get basic rights.”

Siva Raj with Autumn Looijen.

Raj is joined in his campaign by his partner Autumn Looijen. Both had relocated to San Francisco in December 2020 to join the ecosystem the city offers for startups. Both have now shelved their start-up idea in order to use a grassroots campaign to recall the school board.

Solarium told shows, “Siva and I have seen in our own family what a difference it makes to have open schools. My kids were happily studying personally down on the peninsula while he was stuck at home, depressed and falling behind. It was deeply unfair.

“Siva’s children are my children too and it was heartbreaking to see them fight,” she said.

The voting decision will be made on February 15; Postal ballots begin January 17. Three San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) board members were named in the special election: Gabriela López, Faauuga Moliga, and Alison Collins. According to the city’s elections office, more than 500,000 mail-in ballot packages are on the way and voters should expect them starting this week.

As to why only three are named in the recall election, Looijen said: “When we started recalling, only 3 members were eligible for recall – you have to wait 6 months after they were sworn in (in this case it would have meant waiting until July).”

Both Raj and Looijen believe the recall is important because every kid in San Francisco deserves a top-notch education — and that’s not going to happen with this board.

“This school board is letting kids fall behind during Zoom school and has no plan to help them catch up,” Looijen said. “They didn’t spend the money wisely and evicted families, and now they’ve taken $125 million out of our budgets. They treat parents like enemies when we all want the best for our children.

“It will take more than the recall to get our schools back on track – but getting better guidance is a crucial first step,” she added.

Raj said the deteriorating system at SFUSD was not due to a lack of money or talent, but rather a lack of political will. “For us, it’s been a real learning in terms of understanding why it’s happening. I’ve never bothered with politics in the past and lived here (San Francisco) for work,” he said.

Raj, who came to the US in 2010, initially lived in New York before moving to California to start a business. Before the pandemic hit, he worked in tech healthcare, selling specialty bikes to health clubs and gyms.

He worked with Looijen, a software developer, on another start-up and experimented with some ideas and apps to start a business until they decided to call it back.

Raj believes SFUSD stayed closed because he had no plan to reopen. Private schools reopened in 2020, as did schools in the Bay Area and Los Altos. They were ready because they had done the preliminary work in the summer of 2020.

In San Francisco, the school board was supposed to hire a “reopening consultant,” but declined. Raj said even Superintendent Vincent Matthews was furious with the board, saying it made reopening impossible.

When asked if she was with Dr. Matthews, he said they didn’t have direct access to the superintendent. In any case, it is not he who decides, but the school board. The Superintendent’s role is limited to executing the decisions of the Board of Directors.

San Francisco has a very diverse school district. Many of the students had little or no support at home. Some families had to go to work and simply giving a laptop was the starting point.

“I was lucky that I was home and able to supervise my kids and make sure they were on Zoom,” Raj said. “There were Wi-Fi issues and a lot of work. It was difficult.” The children, who came from disadvantaged families, were simply left behind, he said.

“We realized they just weren’t interested in the schools reopening, so we thought we should do something,” he explained of the reasons for the recall.

SFUSD elementary schools reopened in April last year, while middle and high schools reopened in the current school year in August 2021.

When asked why the recall election was called after schools reopened, Raj gave a number of reasons. “It was a tremendous learning loss for our children,” he said, “and even today, the board is unwilling to acknowledge the learning loss.

“You have to identify children and put in place a plan to help them catch up with their peers or their future is in jeopardy forever.

“What would they (the students) do when they graduate and have no future to look forward to? We can’t allow that,” he said.

School enrollments have fallen due to the prolonged shutdown, he continued, leading to severe budget cuts that could result in staff and teacher cutbacks.

A third major issue is racism on the board. “In March, we discovered that former San Francisco School Board Vice President Alison Collins made anti-Asian tweets that she refused to acknowledge until asked to resign, and then sued SFUSD schools for $87 million, because she said this violated her first edit rights.

“The level of dysfunction happening here at (the SFUSD) is exorbitant,” exclaimed Raj.

He explained why the three board members were chosen: “The three that we remember made bad decisions at every step. Instead of focusing on the students’ education, they focus on all sorts of shenanigans. They are more interested in advancing their political careers.

“They could have apologized and offered corrections, but they took the opposite approach. The children will be badly affected,” he added.

Getting the recall going wasn’t easy considering how difficult it has been to get signatures during the pandemic. Raj, Looijen and their supporters collected personal signatures from April 1st to September 7th. “In San Francisco, we had to submit 51,325 valid signatures to get the recall on the ballot,” Raj said. “We have almost 80,000.”

Last July, the San Francisco Chronicle published an opinion poll showing that 71 percent of San Francisco residents disapproved of the school board and 69 percent of public school parents supported the recall.

Raj has received a wave of support from Mayor London Breed for former California Democratic Party leader John Burton.

“We’re a grassroots organization run mostly by parents and some teachers and people interested in public education,” he said. “We Are Nonpartisan” Nearly 1,000 people volunteered to collect signatures for the recall petition. “We’ve had people standing in grocery stores and farmers markets all over the place,” he added.

Raj was hopeful for the February 15 result. “We have so many crises that need to be resolved,” he said. “We feel safe and we’re out there every weekend talking to people and educating them.”

If all three members are removed, the mayor of the city appoints three new members in their place.

Possibly the first Indian-American to initiate such civic action and become a catalyst for change, Raj said, “This is very important to us. Education is central to Asian Americans, and that’s why so many come to America because we’re educated.”

“Many of us come from poor backgrounds. We are in San Francisco, we have money because of our education and skills, and we want our next generations to have a similar opportunity.”

The campaign was also supported by the Chinese American Democratic Club. “People are united and they feel very strong in this recall election,” Raj said.