San Francisco's school board wasting time on ridiculous debates

[NED funded]

as students remain home

I have always been curious about how "woke" culture would impact policy. Apparently by pointlessly wasting time and rejecting candidates for not being diverse enough

A gay dad volunteers for one of eight open slots on a parent committee that advises the school board. All of the 10 current members are straight moms. Three are white. Three are Latina. Two are Black. One is Tongan. They all want the dad to join them.

The seven school board members talk for two hours about whether the dad brings enough diversity. Yes, he’d be the only man. And the only LGBTQ representative. But he’d be the fourth white person in a district where 15% of students are white.

The gay dad never utters a single word. The board members do not ask the dad a single question before declining to approve him for the committee. They say they’ll consider allowing him to volunteer if he comes back with a slate of more diverse candidates, ideally including an Arab parent, a Native American parent, a Vietnamese parent and a Chinese parent who doesn’t speak English.

Was this an episode of “Portlandia,” the TV satire about liberalism gone to ludicrous extremes? No, it was just another Tuesday night at the San Francisco Board of Education, a group that would provide great entertainment if the consequences weren’t so serious.

Parents teach their children to treat everyone fairly. To not be rude. To listen more than speak. To do research before forming opinions. To not waste other people’s time. To focus on what’s important. To acknowledge mistakes. It’s too bad school board members haven’t learned these lessons over the past dreadful year of distance learning for the more than 52,000 children in their charge.

“What’s wrong with these people? They’re committing political malpractice and educational malpractice seemingly at every meeting,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who represents the Castro and said he’s heard repeatedly about gay students in city schools facing bullying and discrimination. “But we don’t want someone queer with an actual seat at the table?”

The Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club on Friday slammed the board for its “misguided fumbling towards a goal of diversity.”

The person who was perhaps the most stunned was Seth Brenzel, the gay dad whose daughter is a fourth-grader at Glen Park Elementary. “At any moment, I expected a commissioner to address me,” he said, “because there I was.”

Knowing his face was beamed live across the city on Zoom, Brenzel kept a neutral expression as the board discussed his race, gender and sexual orientation — and whether they were a worthy mix for the Parent Advisory Council.

“I thought maybe somebody would ask me a question. Like, ‘Hey, Seth, why do you want to be a member of the PAC?’ Or, ‘Hey, Seth, can you tell me about your volunteering in the district?’” he said. “None of that happened.”

Brenzel, 48, lives in Bernal Heights with his husband, a child psychologist, and their daughter. He’s the executive director of the Walden School, a nonprofit that runs music education camps, and he sings tenor for the San Francisco Symphony. He’s the co-president of the parent-teacher organization at his daughter’s school.

Seems like a top-notch candidate for a volunteer position. Especially since, as PAC coordinator Michelle Jacques-Menegaz explained, recruiting parents during the pandemic has been next to impossible. She’s asked the school board repeatedly to help her find parents from underrepresented backgrounds, and they haven’t.

She knew Brenzel’s advocacy for reopening schools safely might be an issue. But any normal board would have at least tabled the appointment, quietly, rather than publicly humiliate him for two hours, said PAC chair Naomi Laguana. After all, hundreds of parents were waiting to speak about opening schools, a topic that, as usual, didn’t come up for seven hours.

“There were 500 parents along for this roller-coaster ride of insanity, and I felt responsible,” said Laguana, who had recruited Brenzel.

But the confounding move was just the latest by a school board that seems to specialize in them. I’d like to get their side of the story, but Commissioners Gabriela Lopez, Alison Collins, Mark Sanchez, Matt Alexander and Kevine Boggess didn’t return requests for interviews. Commissioner Faauuga Moliga couldn’t be reached.

Asked whether she regretted what happened Tuesday, Commissioner Jenny Lam said, “It’s more about recognizing that I’m clearly stating my support for Seth as a candidate. The next step is bringing together his candidacy along with additional candidates for the slate for the PAC. I’m focused on those next steps.”

She acknowledged that the meetings need to be better structured and that the board needs to be clearer that safely opening schools is its top priority.

That has not always been evident over the past year.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...e-15948058.php

This has become releveant bc results show that remote learning is just not working and has a whole lot of issues

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...edium=referral

[GreenJesus]

Gay isn't diverse enough to outweigh the "white" and "male" part. Typical san francisco diversity bullshit. Focusing more on skin color rather than what they can offer for the school district.

This would be the only male on the Board and yet they still rejected him. Shows they don't care about actual diversity. They are just anti white male.

[s_bushido]

The school board clearly has issues.

On the other hand, I remain unimpressed by the useless fucks who spent the past year refusing to take the virus seriously and now want to complain that it's "woke culture" causing current issues with dealing with those consequences.

If you wanted schools open by now, it would have probably been a good idea to support efforts to stop the spread before half a million people ended up dead. Maybe then teachers unions would be less hesitant to put those they represent in harm's way before a vaccine has been fully distributed.

[Fugus]

This is overboard to say the least but unfortunately thanks to places like Kentucky and Alabama I can understand why diversity quotas are needed.

But this is too much and too extreme.

[DarkTZeratul]

But this is too much and too extreme.

Funny, that's what I thought about their decision to rename a full third of the schools in San Francisco because of "controversial" names, including George Washington High School (because he owned slaves), Abraham Lincoln High School (because he didn't commute EVERY Native American sentenced to death after the Minnesota Uprising), and Diane Feinstein Elementary School (because she once ordered a Confederate flag in an art installation put back up after it was illegally taken down, even though she later replaced it with a Union flag following a consultation with city officials).

Admittedly some schools do deserve to be renamed. For instance, James Denman Middle School, named for a former superintendent who denied enrollment to Chinese students. But like the above, it's an example of wasting time and effort and money on stupid purity test bullshit instead of real issues that actually matter.

[Shadowferal]

Just a matter of time before they petition to get rid of Presidents day.

[eschatological]

You can tell a Democrat is President when the resident conservatives dig up meaningless bullshit stories that literally affect nothing (it's literally a volunteer position) and act like the world is ending.

Maybe they rejected him because he was wearing a tan suit, or put dijon mustard on his burger. Who knows?

Have you ever been to a PTA meeting? Cause that's what this is equivalent to, but it's couched in "parent advisory committee to the school board" terms to make it sound like it's actually a thing. They have, largely, for decades, discussed how they didn't want sex ed, and wanted the girls to wear longer skirts, and so on and so forth. It's literally a nonsense, nothing position. Nothing ever gets done at these meetings, and no policy is made at them.

[Themius]

Gay isn't diverse enough to outweigh the "white" and "male" part. Typical san francisco diversity bullshit. Focusing more on skin color rather than what they can offer for the school district.

This would be the only male on the Board and yet they still rejected him. Shows they don't care about actual diversity. They are just anti white male.

You realise the diversity is part of the "thing offered" right?

"They're just anti white!" there are three white people on the board?

[PC2]

There's eight unfilled positions and they can't tolerate a single male or gay person on the entire committee? It sounds more like a hetero-moms club pretending to be otherwise.

[Deus Mortis]

You can tell a Democrat is President when the resident conservatives dig up meaningless bullshit stories that literally affect nothing (it's literally a volunteer position) and act like the world is ending.

Overdramatic much? No one is acting like the world is ending.

[Elegiac]

Overdramatic much? No one is acting like the world is ending.

Y’all kind of are, honestly.

It’s literally PTA level drama while there is a pandemic and a climate crisis going on with a rumbling undercurrent of rising fascism.

[tehealadin]

Overdramatic much? No one is acting like the world is ending.

Usually when people make criticisms like the one you quoted, e.g. "nothing to see here, why even bother?", or "omg look what else is happening!" then blow the criticism up as if even thinking that this is a bit insane is akin to freaking out (usually saying things like "omg snowflakes, dont be so triggered", though to be fair some folk do go on like that), it annoys them because they support the general ideology in the story, but have enough sense to realise that the people in it go a bit far with it. And instead of trying to adopt a nuance position, e.g. just because some people go a bit far into the realms of "who does this benefit actually?" doesn't mean that there aren't valid points to the ideology driving it, this doesn't mean that any kind of striving for diversity is inherently bad or insane, they just resort to "STOP IT!", like a christian seeing people criticising the actions of some zealots being daft, and going into damage limitation mode for the team.

Just as this doesn't mean the reds are coming for the children (as some will try to make out), having institutions, no matter how small (and these kinds of things can have some influence on a local level) be reflective of the communities they serve isn't an insane or bad idea, but having a checklist, a top trumps of "diversity" (I use quotes because I feel there is a difference between trying to make a body not be made of the same people, make it more representative, and tick box exercises, which I don't think is a worthwhile vision of diversity to be chasing) and rigorously sticking to it, placing the need for "diversity" front and centre to the potential detriment of the group (e.g. people were happy to have him on board) is an example of how not to do it, doesn't mean the entire idea, or any efforts to have reflective bodies is bad.

[Draco-Onis]

Overdramatic much? No one is acting like the world is ending.

Says the side that tried to overthrow democracy by murdering people last month but you know woke schools and whatnot.

[Flarelaine]

I really thought this thread would be about renaming schools because the SF school board really went overboard there. This? This is really a non-issue (although arguably still indicative).

[Magical Mudcrab]

It's obvious that they have some set of guidelines that made Brenzel believe he was able to apply for the position, meaning that they probably have some codified diversity initiatives that would allow for his addition. Given the details from the article, and how they treated him, it's pretty obviously a situation where some small fish are letting some minute amount of power go to their heads, likely leveraging diversity as an excuse to be obstructionist; however, it's also possible that, ironically, they simply don't like him because he's gay. Given the superintendent has noted homophobic bullying from the district and the apparent lack of non-CIS representation, it is a little suspect. That said, it's literally just some school parent committee. Not important overall, obviously not indicative of the broader diversity movement, but possibly troubling for the district if it turns out to be a situation of discrimination against gay people.

That said, people need to chill out with kneejerk reactions. Simply mentioning a topic that is slightly critical of "woke culture", which isn't even a legitimate criticism of progressivism more generally as it's pretty obviously misapplication of their own policies, isn't some cryptofascist scheme to undermine diversity initiatives. Hell, the source isn't even some right-wing site that's trying to portray progressivism as some all-encompassing boogeyman. It's literally a left-leaning publication discussing a local issue, where the OP might be from, which some people seem intent on portraying as being all down to bad faith conservatism (a default assumption of slightly racist turtles all the way down I guess). That conservatives in America are running amok and causing strife in the political and social strata, mostly by finally going full mask off as it would be silly to say that there wasn't always this longstanding undercurrent of fascist tendency (because, after all, America did inspire the Nazis to some degree), does not mean you cannot talk about other things.

[DarkTZeratul]

I really thought this thread would be about renaming schools because the SF school board really went overboard there. This? This is really a non-issue (although arguably still indicative).

So did I, which is part of why I brought it up, though I think both really kind of touch on the same theme: ridiculous absurd purity tests being placed about rationale discourse.

For instance, the renaming of Diane Feinstein Elementary that I mentioned earlier? A lot of people pointed out that when you take the Confederate flag incident in its larger context it's really pretty clearly not an issue, especially when paired with her history of fighting for the rights of women and the LGBTQ+ community. The school board acknowledged all of this, but said that it still technically falls under the rules they decided upon to dictate which schools should be renamed (at an estimated cost of $10,000 per school, to boot), so they won't budge.

[s_bushido]

Simply mentioning a topic that is slightly critical of "woke culture" [...] isn't some cryptofascist scheme to undermine diversity initiatives.

You may have had a point if that isn't literally what that has become. They simply stopped complaining about "diversity" and moved on to "wokeness" instead, presumably because they'd used the former so much in such a short period of time that they'd turned themselves into a meme.

btw, it wasn't the OP's source who used the buzzword, it was the OP.

[Magical Mudcrab]

You may have had a point if that isn't literally what that has become.

btw, it wasn't the OP's source who used the buzzword, it was the OP.

I could be overly generous, but the way I read it is that the OP is critiquing "woke culture" with the idea being that overzealous individuals are wasting time through meaningless purity tests (i.e.: nonsensical application of diversity quotas), and that they're incorrectly abstracting this local issue more broadly to try and make the malformed argument of "it's bad here, therefore it's likely bad elsewhere". Obviously I disagree, with any major concern I may have erring on the idea that they aren't progressive enough, as there seems to be more indications of the committee being homophobic rather than exclusionary of white people. Then again, as I said, I could just be extending way to much charitability in my interpretation.

[s_bushido]

Then again, as I said, I could just be extending way to much charitability in my interpretation.

/shrug

I've long since run out of charity for people unironically using that after hearing "the woke" used as a noun...

[Endus]

Frankly, this just seems like an organization more concerned with the appearance of being "woke" than actually having any interest in diversity.

A proper understanding of diversity would demonstrate the importance of intersectionality and the need for unique voices that speak to groups not currently spoken for. And frankly, excluding a gay candidate on racial grounds, when you've got no LGBT representation on the panel and plenty of ethnic diversity already, that's a red flag.

There's 10 extant members, and 8 additional spots to fill. Who are the 8 candidates they thought were better than this guy? He seems like an ideal choice, unless you're holding his sexual orientation or gender against him, and when the extant panel members are all straight women, that's a bad look. "We're sexist and homophobic, but we're not racist" is just quibbling about what flavor of bigot you are. It don't mean you're progressive.

Anyone thinking this is a mark against diversity movements or progressivism isn't actually paying attention to the facts of the case.