Parents say they’re miffed over SF school board’s public-comment rules

Parents are saying the San Francisco Board of Education’s recent decisions to enforce a hard deadline on public comment at its weekly meetings, and to prioritize in-person speakers, are limiting civic engagement.

The school board is one of a few remaining legislative bodies in The City allowing for virtual participation, a vestige of the COVID-19 pandemic, after most of its peers ended the practice last year. For the last several meetings, the board has prioritized student speakers — whether they are attending in person or remotely — and in-person adult attendees over virtual commenters.

Those changes, coupled with an 8 p.m. public-comment deadline and limits on speaking time, are not meeting parents’ needs, opponents of the rules said.

“When you limit access to virtual public comment, you’re not hearing from some of the most vulnerable parents,” said Bernice Casey, a Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 parent. “It really hurts the community.”

The San Francisco Board of Education implemented its 8 p.m. cutoff in order to address agenda and action items at a reasonable time. School-board meetings begin at 6:30 p.m. and can stretch well past 10 p.m.

According to its current public-comment policy , the board limited speaker time because “it does not serve the public interest to have meetings run late into the night,” and it offers community members alternative methods of communication, such as emails.

Erin Horne, member of the parent advocacy group Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco, said she is disabled and limited virtual public comment hinders her ability to participate in public meetings.

“It’s a big struggle to be able to attend in person,” she said.

Some parents cited government code and violations of the Brown Act — a 1953 California law guaranteeing the right of public participation in local meetings — at the board’s most recent meeting on Tuesday.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed executive orders suspending portions of the Brown Act to allow governing bodies — including school boards and county offices of education — to meet virtually. California lifted its pandemic state of emergency in February 2023, effectively leaving it up to those bodies to decide whether or not to continue with remote public comment.

The Board of Education still offers it, unlike the Board of Supervisors. The Board of Supervisors voted to end virtual public comment access at meetings, with some exceptions, after racist and antisemitic callers interrupted a September 2023 meeting.

The California School Boards Association said in April 2021 that pandemic-era policies allowing remote participation led to increased meeting attendance , as families and community members who otherwise might not have made it to an in-person board meeting could participate from afar.

There are no current plans to nix virtual public comment access at The City’s school board meetings, but David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, said the Board of Education is well within its power to restrict remote participation and commenters’ speaking time.

“In terms of time limits, the Brown Act does not say, ‘[the public may have] one, two or three minutes [to give comment],’” he said. “It says agencies may adopt reasonable regulations for public comment, including, but not limited to, certain time limits.”

But governing bodies should declare these regulations in advance, he said.

“It cannot be ad hoc, and it has to be clear and generally applicable to everyone,” Loy said. “Within reason, [time limitations] can be modified to meet unique circumstances.”

Although some governing bodies have eliminated virtual public comment, Loy argued that offering it is a “best practice.”

“If they’re going to do that, they should treat all public comments equally,” he said. “I don’t think that in-person comments should be privileged on a virtual comment, because I think that tends to defeat the purpose of the equity based rationale for allowing virtual public comment.”

A district spokesperson said California law authorizes boards to set reasonable limits on the total amount of time allocated for public comment — both on particular issues and for individual speakers — and that many boards set specific time allowances in their policies.

School board President Lainie Motamedi did not respond to a request for comment before publication.