The San Francisco public school district has long encouraged parents to join advisory groups and share input on a wide range of matters, including special education, the well-being of students of color, and nitty-gritty budget details.
But in recent years, those groups have become more grist for an ever-churning political mill, often exposing rifts along racial and other lines of identity. In 2021, the school board rejected the main parent council’s nomination of a white gay father, and last year Chinese-American families accused the same council of exclusion. In both instances there were open seats that needed to be filled.