The San Francisco Board of Education is abandoning its plan to rename schools with names of historical figures like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington until students and teachers can return to classrooms, said Commissioner Gabriela Lopez on Sunday night.
“I also acknowledge and take responsibility for the mistakes made in the building renaming process. We need to slow down and provide more opportunities for the community to contribute – this cannot happen until AFTER our schools come back in person,” wrote Lopez in Twitter.
San Francisco’s educational leaders faced adverse reactions as they focused on renaming schools amid the coronavirus pandemic. Lopez’s announcement came days after the parents began circulating a petition to oust Lopez, Vice President Alison Collins and Commissioner Faauuga Moliga for politicizing education, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
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“We are parents, not politicians, and we intend to continue like this,” organizer Siva Raj told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We are determined to ensure that public schools in San Francisco provide quality education for all children in the city.”
They hope to get 70,000 signatures in order to get a recall on the vote.
A plaque for Roosevelt Middle School is seen outside the school in San Francisco on Wednesday, January 27, 2021. (AP Photo / Haven Daley)
“While talking to the parents, I heard how difficult it is to worry about your child’s disconnection and his struggle to stay motivated in distance learning,” said Lopez in a statement. “We are in negotiations to undertake the work of returning to face-to-face learning and I am committed to working with partners in the city to obtain vaccines, tests and other resources that we need.”
Lopez said she was “deeply grateful” for the nomenclature committee’s “anti-racist” work.
“The renaming of schools … was a process started in 2018 with a timetable that did not anticipate a pandemic,” she said in a statement.
Hopeful California governor Kevin Faulconer took advantage of the San Francisco school’s name change fiasco last week.
Faulconer made the reopening of schools a fundamental part of his campaign. On Wednesday, Faulconer gave a press conference outside Abraham Lincoln High School, one of 44 schools in San Francisco that has been renamed in recent months due to alleged links to white supremacy. Schools named after Presidents George Washington, William McKinley, James Garfield, James Monroe and Herbert Hoover also did the chopping block.
“The San Francisco school board prioritized removing the name outside this school, rather than the education that should be taking place inside it. President Lincoln should be celebrated, not canceled. Getting rid of the Lincoln and Washington name is outrageous,” said Faulconer.
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Faulconer’s press conference came a day after the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) postponed scheduled talks on how to safely reopen classrooms.
Bradford Betz and Peter Aitken of Fox News contributed to this report.