The San Francisco Unified School District’s ethnic studies class has been a source of debate among officials, donors, and parent organizers since an investigation by The Standard last month outlined the unconventional approval process behind the course and its politically charged content.
According to sources, the district notified city officials that it would be suspending the ethnic studies program for the next school year to assuage concerns over the course, which was mandated for all high school freshmen in 2024-25.
The course would have remained a graduation requirement for incoming freshmen but would not have been offered to any high school students next year, giving district staff time to develop an alternative curriculum and get it approved by the board.
But after teachers and union leaders got word of that decision and fought back, SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su decided to rush through an updated curriculum to keep the course in place for 2025-26, according to district staff.
For the last month, SFUSD has been scrubbing and altering content in its publicly posted ethnic studies curriculum, removing references to the Chinese Red Guards and white male privilege. Su has advertised the new curriculum as a “pilot” that will take materials from other districts.
“As we prepare for a successful start to the school year, my goal is for SFUSD to offer ethnic studies with intention, quality, and shared purpose,” Su said.
The ethnic studies program has been criticized for including politically inflected material, such as an exercise instructing students to rank various racial, socioeconomic, and gender identities based on the amount of power they have in the world and one asking them to role-play as Israeli soldiers herding Palestinians into refugee camps.
Carolina Samayoa, a social studies teacher at Lowell High School, posted on her public Instagram account on Wednesday that she wants students to write emails to the district in defense of the ethnic studies class.
Samayoa called the situation “urgent.”
“I have a BIG ask!” she wrote. “The superintendent is trying to pause ES to give into political pressure. I need YOUR help.”
Samantha Aguirre, another SFUSD teacher, wrote on a district parents’ Facebook group about the implications of pausing the course.
“[Teachers] will suddenly be reassigned to world history … and have likely never taught it before,” Aguirre wrote.
At least one district parent said Samayoa’s posts illustrate why the course should be dropped.
Kimberly B., who refused to give her last name out of fear of retribution from teachers, said the posts — along with an entire toolkit regarding ethnic studies — are divisive and mischaracterize the opposition. Kimberly and other parents say they believe ethnic studies is a necessary school subject, but the current iteration teaches only one worldview.
“If you agree with [the ethnic studies suspension], you must be a right-wing Trumper who doesn’t care about Black and Brown people,” the parent said of the language in the materials shared by district teachers. “This is another example of teachers telling students what to think, not how to think.”
Teachers defending the course said canceling it could create a domino effect for DEI-related programs in the city.
“This move will be a concession of defeat to racist political interests that are seeking to eradicate multiracial education,” a document circulating among staff reads. “The implications are far-reaching beyond ethnic studies.”
The board approved its budget for the upcoming school year Tuesday night, with a reduction in spending on ethnic studies from more than $2 million to less than $500,000. While the state previously approved a semester of ethnic studies as a graduation requirement starting with the class of 2030, Gov. Gavin Newsom has revoked funding for its implementation. SFUSD’s ethnic studies course is slated to run for two semesters.
The course was taught for more than a decade before it was mandated for all freshmen at the start of the last school year. Questions from The Standard to the district about the ethnic studies program have gone unanswered since the unapproved budget was published last week.
Mayor Daniel Lurie said in a statement Monday that he would have liked to see the program suspended for next year, but is happy that the curriculum will be replaced and audited.
“If our school district, like our city, gets back to basics and focuses on outcomes, we can give our children the high-quality education they deserve with the tools for success,” Lurie said. “I am hopeful that this year and moving forward, we will offer an effective program that aligns with local and state requirements … If the district doesn’t identify a curriculum that meets those standards, they should pause it.”
Parent organizer Viviane Safrin, who has been pushing the district to make changes to its curriculum since 2023, said the ethnic studies class has the potential to be inclusive and beneficial to students but should be approved by the board through an extensive process that lasts beyond the summer.
“It was rushed, unvetted, and lacks historical grounding,” Safrin said. “The district knows this and wants to fix it but seems ready once again to prioritize adult agendas and politics over taking the time to vet, approve, and implement the high-quality curriculum our students deserve.”
Anna Klafter, president of the district’s administrators union, told The Standard she approves of the decision to keep the course, since it “is embedded in the social science sequence in almost every school in SFUSD.”
When asked whether she’d be willing to abandon SFUSD’s homegrown curriculum in favor of purchasing one from another district, Klafter said teachers are willing to compromise.
Besides, she added, under district policy, teachers have a lot of freedom on how they wish to teach the class.
“The curriculum is just a framework,” she said.