For kids, it was business as usual — but for the public school district’s leaders, questions persisted
The sun shone brightly and spirits were high — at least on the surface — during the first day of classes at San Francisco’s public schools Monday.She donned a bright pink suit and slacks, along with an SFUSD pride t-shirt, as she visited three different schools throughout Monday morning.
It marked her first opportunity to welcome students back to class since being named head of the school system late last year. “Lots of excitement, lots of nervousness and anxiety,” she told The Examiner. “But overall, it's been fantastic.” At Portola's Martin Luther King Middle School, Su greeted and high-fived kids as they walked on a literal red carpet underneath a balloon arch leading to the courtyard where they lined up for class. Su — along with other city and school-district leaders — attempted to make sure pomp, circumstance and hopeful sentiments dominated the day. And for the most part, it was business as usual, especially for the sea of jubilant, energized and nervous students, seemingly blissfully unaware of the at-times rocky summer that SFUSD just endured. For district leaders, controversies swirling around and within the school system lingered over Monday’s festivities. One of the largest sources of anxiety centered on student safety and parental fears over an ongoing federal crackdown on immigration and a push for mass deportations, which has only heightened since the end of the 2024-25 school year. During a joint press conference at Sanchez Elementary School, reporters peppered Su and Mayor Daniel Lurie about what The City and district are doing to allay fears over immigration officers stepping foot onto school campuses. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have detained about 59,000 migrants this year, according to NBC News. Seventy percent of those people have not been convicted of crimes. A Stanford University-sponsored study released in June said the rise in raids has led to an increase in student absences and interrupted student learning. Neither Lurie nor Su answered in depth, though they each stressed their commitments to keeping kids safe and emphasized that The City’s sanctuary status extends to public-school properties. “My message to everybody is we are focused on keeping our communities safe, in our immigrant communities and San Francisco at large,” Lurie said.The first-year mayor — and first-time politician — has largely avoided referencing President Donald Trump and the effect of federal policies on San Francisco throughout his first eight months in office, though he has consistently expressed his support for immigrant rights. Su said she and other leaders will “use the full power and weight of the law to make sure that our students, our families and our educators are protected.” She repeated several times that the district has “policies and procedures” in place to keep campuses safe, though she did not elaborate on what those are. Ex // Top Stories Outer Sunset’s monthly market ‘more than just a retail venue’ Secondhand Saturdays bring vendors, artists and hands-on workshops, to a stretch of 37th Avenue SFUSD has plans to get students in class, teachers paid on time SFUSD superintendent Maria Su addresses worries old and new less than one week before her first opening day as head of The City’s public education system SF students returning to school amid falling national vax rates Local infectious-disease expert says declines elsewhere could still affect The City Lurie and Su’s answers came moments after they spoke to Sanchez teachers and students in the school’s courtyard. Neither of the two speaks Spanish fluently, but they did speak the language during their addresses to the campus. It served as a reminder of the district’s diversity, with 33% of the student body identifying as Latino and a quarter as English language learners during the 2024-25 school year, according to SFUSD figures. The bilingual remarks also demonstrated the thin line Su has attempted to tread in recent months between supporting the many immigrant families within the district while also keeping political ideology out of classrooms. Su — whose family immigrated to The City from Vietnam — sent a directive to principals last week emphasizing their enforcement of the district’s policy preventing teachers from bringing up their “political opinions” during the school day. The request stemmed from controversy over SFUSD’s ethnic-studies program, which some parents and organizers criticized earlier this summer for being too ideological. Those groups’ outrage prompted Su to pause and audit the curriculum, which is designed to highlight the American experience of nonwhite immigrant groups. In the interim, the school adopted a temporary, state-approved curriculum for this year’s course, while allowing kids to opt out of the classes. She reiterated Monday what she wrote in her memo to administrators last week: Teachers should instruct students how to think, not what to think. “There’s no place for ideology in the classroom,” Su said to The Examiner. “We need our teachers to focus on the curriculum and to deliver the curriculum with fullest fidelity.” When asked whether current immigration issues will be considered “political” and how the district will define “political,” Su did not answer directly. “We need teachers to focus on teaching the curriculum, and that is the request of all of our teachers,” Su said. “We've spent the last two weeks training our teachers to be ready to start the school year, implementing our new English-language curriculum, our new math curriculum, as well as all the other myriad of classes that they're asked to deliver and to deliver with fidelity. That is our biggest concern.” State Sen. Scott Wiener — who represents San Francisco — also welcomed students at several schools alongside Su. Out of all the public officials, Wiener was the most outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Wiener cited several bills passing through the state Legislature designed to support immigrant rights, including one which would ban ICE officers from public-school properties and another would bar them from wearing face coverings. “We have been very aggressive and clear that we don't need ICE to be here,” he said. “We want kids and schools to be focused on learning and teachers to be focused on teaching and parents to be focused on parenting, and not to have to worry about a family being separated or even grabbing kids now. It’s despicable.”
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