Candidate Name: Laurance Lee
Phone Number: 415-652-5029
Web site: https://lauranceleesf.com
E-mail: laurance@laurancelemlee.com
Name of Campaign Manager: Self-managed
How much do you expect to spend in this contest: Approximately $30,000
Major Endorsements:
State Senator Scott Wiener; Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District Board President Thida Cornes; International Union of Elevator Constructors (IUEC) Local 8; Chinese American Citizens Alliance, San Francisco Lodge; United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 648; educators Susan Lai, Terence Li, Kelley Lewis, Carmen McDowell, and Dennis Chew; community leaders Chris Faust, Bill Lee, David Harrison, Michael Zwiefelhofer, Jessica Ho, Dennis Conaghan, Lily Lo, and David Chan; parent leaders David Prince and Eric Kress
Incumbent whose votes are most similar to the way you would vote:
Jaime Huling
Commissioner Jaime Huling's insistence on ambitious student-outcome goals, stronger action on chronic absenteeism, clearer links between the budget and results, and meaningful access to eighth-grade Algebra most closely matches my approach.
Incumbent who votes least similarly to the way you would vote:
No single commissioner
Most major Board votes are unanimous, so I do not see an incumbent whose overall record is consistently least similar to mine.
1. What lessons did you take from the recent strike? What would you have done differently than the incumbents, if anything?
My sisters, brother, and I were deeply affected by the last San Francisco teachers strike, decades ago. That experience stayed with me. I believe this year's strike could have been avoided. The district waited too long and was not forthright enough about which funds could be used to make an agreement work. By the time the financial picture became clearer, trust had badly deteriorated. During the strike, I contributed to the UESF support fund to help educators with their expenses.
They deserved to know that members of the community stood with them. The Board does not bargain at the table, but it is responsible for making sure district leadership brings accurate numbers, clear authority, and urgency to the process. Months earlier, I would have asked for a candid accounting of the recurring cost of the proposals, the recurring revenue available, the tradeoffs, and the steps needed to reach a sustainable agreement.
Educators deserve compensation and working conditions that allow them to remain in San Francisco. The district also has to make promises it can keep.
2. What is your stance on school closures for budgetary reasons?
I do not support closing schools simply to balance the budget. In 2024, I was open to considering closures because I saw under-enrolled schools, high costs at some small campuses, and spending that did not always produce better outcomes. Then I watched a process that consumed months, damaged trust, and closed no schools. I went deeper into the school-level data and began volunteering weekly at Drew Elementary in the Bayview. My thinking evolved.
We should work to grow and strengthen schools first. Some Bayview schools can be under-enrolled overall while still showing waitlists for particular grades or seats the district opened. That is a reminder that enrollment reflects program design, staffing, grade-level capacity, family confidence, and the number of seats offered. Before calling a school unwanted, SFUSD should understand what is keeping families out and what would bring them back.
Declining enrollment still requires honest planning. The district should first examine in-demand programs, program placement, co-location, grade configurations, central-office costs and space, and concrete plans to improve under-enrolled schools. If a merger or closure is ever proposed, the Board should require a real equity analysis, verified savings, meaningful engagement while options can still change, and proof that students will receive a better education afterward.
I do not want SFUSD's long-term strategy to be managing decline. I want us to build better schools and grow enrollment again.
3. What is your stance on pandemic safety in the schools? Under what circumstances might you support instating a mask or vaccine mandate, or canceling in-person classes? What would be the main basis on which you make this decision? (e.g., would it be based on your gut feelings, or whose advice would you listen to?)
The pandemic harmed families through illness and through the academic, social, and emotional costs of keeping children out of school too long. Keeping students safely in person should be the default, with particular care for disabled, immunocompromised, and medically vulnerable students and staff. I am a trained scientist. In a future emergency, I would follow the best available guidance from public-health authorities and specialists, even when it conflicts with my prior assumptions.
I could support temporary masking, testing, ventilation, vaccination, outdoor learning, or other layered protections when the evidence shows they are necessary and proportionate. Canceling in-person classes would be an extraordinary last resort, used only when schools cannot operate safely. Any restriction should have public criteria, frequent review, accommodations for vulnerable people, and a clear point at which it ends. These decisions should rest on evidence and care, not politics or gut feeling.
4. How (if at all) would you like to see AI used in the classroom and implemented in the curriculum?
For better and for worse, artificial intelligence is already prevalent and becoming more powerful very quickly. Parents across the city tell me they are worried about social media and technology in classrooms even before AI enters the picture. At the same time, some of the kindergartners I work with appreciate the personalized practice they receive through classroom technology. This is a complicated moment, and student safety and privacy have to come first.
Before SFUSD buys an AI product or places it in a classroom, the district should identify the educational need, examine bias, privacy, labor, copyright, and energy use, and explain why the product is better than a simpler alternative. Student work and personal information should not be used to train commercial systems. Students do need to learn how AI works, why it can produce confident errors, how bias enters a system, and why original thinking and checking sources matter.
I would allow limited, teacher-led uses for accessibility, translation, feedback, or carefully designed practice, followed by evaluation before expansion. AI should not replace educators, foundational reading and writing, student discussion, or professional judgment.
5. Do you have practical ideas on how SFUSD can be adequately funded?
SFUSD needs both more public investment and better use of the money it already receives. California should fully fund special education and other mandated services and recognize what it costs to educate students and retain staff in the Bay Area. I would work with Superintendent Maria Su, Board President Phil Kim, labor, and leaders from other Bay Area districts to make that case in Sacramento. San Francisco should also renew reliable local revenue and coordinate City funding for early education, health, after-school programs, and newcomer services.
Enrollment and attendance are funding strategies too. We should grow programs families actively seek, including additional Mandarin immersion opportunities, and build excellent neighborhood schools that earn families' confidence. We also need to fund the people who work directly with chronically absent students and their families. Better attendance means more learning and more state revenue. In June, I brought the Board a petition asking it to show what its literacy, math, and attendance goals would require, whether those strategies were actually funded, and when the public would see results.
That should be routine. Major programs should identify the students served, the full cost, and what changed. My years reviewing audits and construction spending have also shown me the cost of weak contracts and late corrections. Fiscal discipline protects classrooms and helps earn public support for the next investment.
6. How are you currently involved in the SFUSD -- or how were you involved in the past?
I regularly help SFUSD from the schoolroom to the boardroom. I am a K-12 graduate of Argonne Elementary, Presidio Middle School, and Lowell High School. Public-school teachers helped me overcome an early speech disorder and opened opportunities that changed my life. I now volunteer weekly with kindergartners at Drew Elementary in the Bayview, helping them learn to read. Over the years, I have volunteered in more than a dozen schools across the city in roles that include reading to students, offering career advice, supporting tutoring, and helping students receive scholarships.
I also serve as Vice Chair of SFUSD's Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee and chair its Audit Subcommittee, helping oversee more than $1 billion in school construction spending. I have reviewed district audits for years and caught and helped reduce unnecessary additional spending on school-modernization projects. I have shown that I can go where the need is greatest, learn what is happening, and work with others to make things better.
7. How do you feel about the current school assignment system (including at Lowell)? Would you make changes, and if so, which ones?
Parents tell me the current assignment system is confusing, slow, and unpredictable. My vision is that every family can walk their children to an excellent neighborhood school. A simpler zone-based system could help, but only if every zone offers genuinely strong schools, language programs, special-education services, and enough nearby seats. Otherwise, a zone is just a shorter commute to the same problem. SFUSD must improve schools while it redesigns assignment.
Families in the east need enough seats near new housing. Families in the southeast need access to strong options while nearby schools improve. Many west-side families want stability. Before the Board votes, the district should publish school-level simulations showing who gains access, who loses it, how transportation changes, and what happens to specialized programs. I support keeping Lowell an academic magnet with merit-based admission using multiple measures and transparent criteria.
Through the LEAP program, I have helped Lowell students tutor at Willie Brown and other middle schools, and the work is expanding to a third school. That kind of academic bridge can help more students prepare for rigorous opportunities. SFUSD should preserve excellence at Lowell while building more excellent pathways across the city.
8. Some of our schools receive significant funding from parent fundraising. Are you concerned about the inequality in fundraising between schools in rich and poor neighborhoods, and if so, what ideas do you have to make things more equitable?
Earlier this year, when I was choosing a school where I could volunteer regularly through the San Francisco Education Fund, I found Drew Elementary. It is a Bayview school making encouraging academic progress, but it had no PTA. After I purchased some classroom supplies on Amazon, I asked the teacher whether parents might be able to help with bubbles and a few other small requests. She explained how many families depended on free school meals and had very little room for additional expenses.
We were not talking about an expensive enrichment program. We were talking about bubbles for kindergartners. Yes, this is inequitable. I am now helping the Drew community form a PTA, and I have supported DonorsChoose requests at other schools when I could. I am doing what I can personally while listening to families and educators and learning what it will take to build a more equitable district. Individual volunteers and donors cannot substitute for a fair system.
SFUSD should fund basic classroom needs and strong core programs at every school, then direct additional resources to schools where students face greater barriers. Parent fundraising should add opportunities, not replace public funding or cause a school to receive less from the district. We should also build a stronger citywide matching fund and help schools without large PTAs connect with alumni, businesses, grants, and donors.
9. Are you familiar with the case of Williams et al. v State of California? Do you believe that all schools in the SFUSD are currently in compliance with Williams?
Yes. I am familiar with Williams, and I regularly review SFUSD's Williams reports and other school facilities records. I do not believe the district has demonstrated that every school is in compliance. The pattern did not begin this year. SFUSD's October 2024 annual report said that 18 of 113 prior-year extreme deficiencies assigned to Buildings and Grounds had not been resolved. It also reported that the average facilities score at inspected schools fell from 71 percent to 65 percent, while the new inspections again found exposed electrical hazards and ceiling problems.
The district's 2026 reports continue to document water damage and suspected mold, rodent problems, heating failures, damaged ceilings, failing windows, and inadequate electrical systems. The public reports do not allow us to match every current problem to the same earlier complaint, but they plainly show recurring conditions and incomplete follow-through. That is maddening and unacceptable. A child does not get those school years back.
This is a major reason I joined the Citizens' Bond Oversight Committee. As a general contractor, I know that neglected building problems become more dangerous and more expensive. I am developing a public website that will show open complaints, when they were first reported, and how long they have remained unresolved. The Board should require the same transparency and connect every serious finding to a work order, funding source, deadline, and final inspection.
I will not accept reports that carry the same known problems from year to year. If the district knows something is wrong, it has a responsibility to fix it.
10. What is your position on JROTC in the public schools?
I support keeping JROTC as a voluntary option. During scholarship interviews last year, I met a high school senior from a first-generation immigrant family who described how much of his leadership experience came through JROTC. He was confident, thoughtful, and well prepared for college. The program had clearly made a difference for him. I also understand concerns about military recruitment in public schools. Participation must be genuinely voluntary, and SFUSD should be transparent about the curriculum, recruiting practices, costs, funding, and student outcomes.
No student should be pressured to enlist or have personal information shared with military recruiters without informed consent.
11. Would you support district elections for school board members?
I remain skeptical that dividing the School Board into seven districts would improve how it governs. Students often attend school outside the district where they live, and decisions about enrollment, staffing, curriculum, and the budget affect the entire city. I live in District 8 and volunteer weekly at a school in the Bayview. Every commissioner should feel responsible for both communities and every school in between. District elections could instead encourage commissioners to protect the schools inside their boundaries rather than make the best decisions for SFUSD as a whole.
I do take the representation concern seriously. Citywide campaigns are expensive and make it harder for working parents and community leaders without wealthy networks to run. I would support a serious public review of district elections, the California Voting Rights Act, and possible alternatives. But I am not yet convinced that seven separate districts are the right answer.
12. What is your stance on allowing noncitizen parents, guardians and caretakers of students to vote in school board elections? Did you take a public position on previous ballot initiatives on the subject?
I strongly support allowing noncitizen parents, guardians, and caretakers of SFUSD students to vote in School Board elections. School Board decisions directly affect their children, and immigration status should not erase a parent's voice in the public institution educating that child. This is not a new position for me. I helped register dozens of noncitizen voters for a previous School Board election in which they were eligible to vote.
The City should provide clear multilingual information, make registration accessible, and explain any privacy risks honestly so families can make informed decisions about participating.
13. What are your thoughts on the various non-profit organizations that partner and/or contract with SFUSD?
Nonprofits can fill important needs and connect schools with people and expertise the district does not have. I volunteer at Drew through the San Francisco Education Fund, so I have seen how a nonprofit can connect a community volunteer with a real classroom need. Other organizations provide tutoring, arts, mental-health services, and culturally specific family support. But nonprofits should not receive blank checks or quietly replace responsibilities the district should perform itself.
Every contract should identify the need, the students served, the services promised, the full cost, and how SFUSD will determine whether the work helped. The district should avoid short-lived pilots, duplicative contracts, and programs that disappear when a grant ends. Strong community organizations should be treated as partners. Responsibility for results and the stewardship of public money must remain with SFUSD.
14. How do you see the role of the School Board in comparison to the role of the superintendent?
The Board should set clear student-outcome goals, adopt the budget, establish guardrails, and evaluate the Superintendent. The Superintendent and staff should run the district. My approach to Superintendent Maria Su is straightforward: support her and hold her accountable. Superintendent Su and her team deserve real credit for largely stabilizing the district's finances. SFUSD has returned to positive budget certification after several difficult years.
But literacy has not improved nearly enough, and chronic absenteeism remains far too high. The Board should expect clear plans, sufficient resources, regular progress reports, and changes when the district is off track. The new school-assignment system will be another major test. The Board should not draw zones or manage implementation, but it must insist on sound school-level analysis, meaningful family engagement, and a complete rollout plan before approving it.
Families have waited years for a better system. SFUSD needs to do it right the first time.
15. Would you ensure that all San Francisco students have access to a free, public pre-K program? If so, how?
Yes. Free, high-quality public pre-K should be available to every San Francisco family, not mainly to those who can pay private tuition or successfully navigate a complicated system. SFUSD should work closely with the Department of Early Childhood and community providers to make the best use of existing public funding, educators, and school facilities. Families should have one understandable way to find and apply for programs. Access must mean more than an available seat somewhere across the city.
Programs should be reasonably close to where families live or work, include children with disabilities and multilingual learners, and employ well-supported educators. The Board should track enrollment, waitlists, staffing, and whether children are entering kindergarten ready to succeed.
16. Have you read Diane Ravitch's book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System? What lessons should the District take from this work? Whether or not you've read the book, what role do you see for charter schools in the public education system?
Yes. Ravitch's change of mind is important. Competition, testing, and private management were promoted as straightforward ways to improve schools, but they often weakened public accountability without delivering the promised results. San Francisco does not need additional charter schools, especially while the number of school-age children is declining. Expansion would divide enrollment and public resources when SFUSD needs to build stable, fully staffed neighborhood schools.
Existing charter schools should meet strong standards for transparency, equitable enrollment, special education, labor practices, fiscal stewardship, and student outcomes. SFUSD should be willing to learn from effective teaching wherever it occurs, but charter expansion and competition are not substitutes for the sustained work required to improve our public schools.
17. What do you think of the current requirements that students take the SBAC test, and what are your thoughts on standardized testing in general?
I support keeping the SBAC because a public school system needs a common measure that allows families and the public to see whether students are learning and where major gaps persist. Without an outside measure, it becomes too easy to celebrate small improvements or overlook schools where students have been falling behind for years. But SBAC is one source of information, not a complete judgment of a child, teacher, or school. SFUSD should consider it alongside classroom work, curriculum-based assessments, student growth, attendance, and educator judgment.
I do not support excessive testing, teaching narrowly to a test, or imposing high-stakes consequences on individual students and teachers. The purpose of testing should be to identify where students need help, provide that help, and determine whether it worked.
18. How can the public schools better address the needs of Special Education students and ESL students?
This is both a civil-rights obligation and personal to me. I am the son of a Chinese immigrant, and SFUSD identified my speech disorder at Argonne Elementary. Teachers recognized my strengths, gave me the right support, and changed the direction of my life. Students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) do not all need the same setting. Many have succeeded in general-education classrooms when they receive appropriate accommodations, co-teaching, paraeducator support, and related services.
SFUSD should expand successful inclusion while monitoring whether each student is learning and receiving everything promised in the IEP. None of this works without staff. Families at the August 25 Board meeting again described special-education staffing gaps. Being fully staffed must include special-education teachers, paraeducators, psychologists, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and other providers needed to deliver every student's services.
The Board should require vacancy and service data by school and position, monitor missed services until they are made up, and insist on a stronger recruitment and retention plan. SFUSD needs to hire earlier, shorten onboarding, help paraeducators and bilingual staff earn credentials, provide manageable caseloads and planning time, and pay employees correctly and on time. A position is not filled because someone appears on an organization chart.
The student must actually be receiving the service. SFUSD and the County Office of Education are also doing good work by opening a program at the Edwin and Anita Lee building for students with autism and intellectual disabilities. It will bring some students now traveling outside San Francisco, including to Vallejo, closer to their families. The Board must make sure it opens with every promised position filled. English learners need much more urgency.
Preliminary results presented to the Board on August 25 showed that only 10.1 percent of SFUSD's third-grade English learners met or exceeded the state English-language arts standard. That is down from 11.8 percent last year and 19.1 percent two years ago. It is less than half the district's 23 percent target. Some of the families pushing hardest for me to serve on the School Board are immigrant families. They value education deeply, but they do not believe their children's needs are being addressed.
English learners need explicit language development alongside rigorous grade-level instruction, strong bilingual and dual-language pathways, regular progress checks, and immediate additional help when they fall behind. Schools must distinguish language acquisition from disability, address attendance barriers, and communicate with families in languages they understand. A decline this large demands a different and much stronger response from the district.