Alan Wong: Critics Play Race Card at School Board Meeting

After a school board meeting where I and other members of the board were accused of not caring about Supervisor Arlene Ackerman's plan for dream schools, the SF Board of Education - including student delegates - ultimately approved the Dreams Schools Initiative by a unanimous vote.

Dreams schools are based on the work of Lorraine Monroe, who was able to successfully change a failing, violent school in Harlem into a school now known for its miraculous transformation. The school is currently named Frederick Douglas Academy.

Racial accusations started when I and the other student delegate abstained from the initial vote to approve a resolution called "In Support of Dream Schools" immediately because it violated the normal procedure where board members vote two weeks from that date.

As a student delegate, I was elected by the students and have the responsibility to represent my constituency at the school board with my vote. The two student representatives did not wish to vote on the resolution immediately and, consequently, a shower of boos followed. We were accused of not caring about dream schools and the black community with questions like, "What would you do if the Dream Schools were for the Asian community instead?"

This led to board member Mark Sanchez's outrage over the accusations. He said he opposed "race-baiting to drive policy decisions."

According to demographics, the Asian population nearly outnumbers blacks in all districts in the east side of the City.

We did not wish to vote on the resolution immediately because our organization, the Student Advisory Council which represents youth from all over San Francisco, had not endorsed the measure, nor had the SF Youth Commission. Nonetheless, the measure had my full individual support.

As it turned out, the school board voted on the Dream Schools legislation immediately. After some discussion, which included Sanchez's criticism that the audience was "race-baiting," the Asian members on the board unanimously approved the "In Support of Dream Schools" resolution with myself and board member Eddie Chin supporting it.

After the meeting, I spoke to one of the people who asked, "What would I do if the Dream Schools were for the Asian community instead?" A senior at Thurgood Marshall High School, she was a former Abraham Lincoln High School student now attending Marshall and had seen the educational inequities between the west and east sides of the City firsthand. She mentioned that her comment was not a personal insult to Asians - she was just passionate about doing something to improve poorly-performing schools.

After talking, we both came to an agreement - Lincoln's principal is cooler than Marshall's.