Courtney Helland wants her seventh-grade daughter to take Algebra 1 next year. That shouldn’t be a problem. 

Math teachers at James Denman Middle School, where Helland heads the PTA, have offered to teach Algebra 1, and the San Francisco Unified School District’s board pledged to offer the class to every eighth grader starting in the 2026-27 school year. Voters even weighed in last year, with an overwhelming 81% (opens in new tab)in support.  

Yet if the next school year is anything like this one, Helland’s daughter won’t be taking algebra at Denman. Instead, the district can promise only a sped-up summer version or an online class without a live instructor.

That is because Denman and roughly two-thirds of San Francisco’s K-8 and middle schools are not offering on-site algebra. Meanwhile, other public middle schools are in the second year of offering Algebra 1 — which was standard for eighth graders for more than a decade — as a normal class.

Parents and teachers advocating for a full return of Algebra 1 say the patchwork of options creates a new kind of educational inequity that leaves many eighth graders without access to a high-quality course.

Rori Abernathy has taught at Denman for 11 years on the front lines of the “math wars,” the ideological battle over which classes should be offered to which students. She has a harsh review of the online, self-directed version of Algebra 1 available at her school. “It should just be killed with a stick,” she said. 

Sundar Sarangan, whose son completed Denman’s online class last year, described it as “literally a set of videos” that the boy “painstakingly had to complete.”

Peg Cagle, an honors algebra teacher at the Los Angeles Unified School District and a former recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (opens in new tab), said she thinks the summer-school option is also “terrible.”

“It takes time, and not just instructional minutes, for our brains to make sense of ideas and fit them into our existing schema,” she said of the summer intensive, which aims to compress a week’s worth of material into one day. (Cagle’s daughter is a staffer at The Standard.)

Algebra 1 is just one course, but Cagle said it has outsize importance, because deferring the class to ninth grade delays the five-year path that culminates with AP Calculus by 12th grade. Having calculus on a  transcript is considered critical for admission to STEM programs at competitive universities.

When SFUSD removed Algebra 1 from public middle and K-8 schools in 2014, the goal was to eliminate the “tracking” of students into high or low math tiers in hopes of alleviating racial disparities. But it didn’t work.

Research (opens in new tab) conducted over six years showed that the policy did not meaningfully reduce racial inequities and in fact lowered placement in AP math courses by as much as 15% districtwide. 

Where some see delaying algebra as a way of leveling the playing field, others argue that the policy demotes kids who have natural talent and gives families of means another reason not to enroll in SF public schools. Over the past decade, parents have sued the district (opens in new tab) and engaged in heated discussions with administrators to bring back Algebra 1.

When the SFUSD board voted 6-1 to reinstate Algebra 1 for eighth graders in February 2024, they implemented a pilot program testing three structures at seven schools for 2024-25 and 2025-26. The plan was to decide how best to offer in-person Algebra 1 classes districtwide “during the school day at all middle and K-8 schools by the 2026-27 school year (opens in new tab).”

But district officials won’t say if they will offer Algebra 1 as an in-person class at all K-8 and middle schools next year. Spokesperson Laura Dudnick said the district is “committed to providing Algebra 1 as an option to all 8th grade students in the 2026-27 school year, as we have been doing through the pilot.” She repeatedly would not specify if the class will be offered in-person during regular school hours.

SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su said this month that the board would decide next semester after reviewing the one-year pilot through classroom observation and feedback from student focus groups and teacher surveys. School Board President Phil Kim used the same language in an email to The Standard.

The district’s evasion about the future of Algebra 1 is frustrating for students who want the chance to take a class offered to eighth graders in districts across the country.

Helland recalls that when the district recommitted to algebra, advocates cheered — but it may have been too soon. She argues that Denman is putting its students at a disadvantage by not offering the course, adding that parents of prospective 6th graders consistently ask about it when they tour campus.

“I don’t understand how this isn’t the biggest equity issue ever,” Helland said. “It’s wildly unfair.”

Abernathy, the math teacher, believes strongly that Denman’s principal, Jennifer Ujiie, chose to opt out of the district’s Algebra 1 pilot because of the same ideological concerns that led to its original removal. Ujiie did not respond to requests for comment.

Abernathy, who is Black, said she is sympathetic to arguments against tracking. When she was in middle school and wanted to take algebra, she was told that it was over-enrolled. Now she suspects that her race was an issue. She also has concerns that offering Algebra 1 as a default class — one of the options being piloted — would mean that around 80% of Denman seventh graders who don’t show math proficiency could be set up to fail.

To be sure, there are challenges with offering Algebra 1 districtwide, including a lack of qualified teachers amid a statewide shortage (opens in new tab).

But the current system isn’t working. Districtwide, only 47% of students are proficient in math; the district’s goal is 65% by 2027.

The district is testing three routes. In addition to offering Algebra 1 as a default, it will consider a structure in which students who show interest or readiness may choose a compressed class combining eighth-grade math and Algebra 1, and one in which Algebra 1 is offered as an elective.

The effort depends on buy-in from SFUSD administrators, some of whom are opposed. Rooftop School Principal Darren Kawaii believes “algebra should be left in high school,” since students in the compressed math course may miss key concepts and, further, may have to forgo an art elective.

Any of the options would technically fulfill the district’s pledge — which makes its reluctance to commit to an in-person class next year particularly notable.

Abernathy believes offering Algebra 1 as an elective — in addition to a required general eighth-grade math course — gives students the choice to pursue additional instruction. She asks why students are allowed to push themselves in other areas but not in math.

“Lots of people can’t run that mile,” she said. “They’ve still gotta be in P.E.”

Now, years after what seemed like victory, parents again find themselves fighting a district that seems unwilling or unable to make good on what it promised. 

“They better bring it back,” Helland said. “They said they would.”