We recommend voting for Phil Kim, Autumn Brown Garibay, and Tim Tung for Board of Education.

Voters may cast votes for up to 3 candidates in this race, and we think these three should earn your vote.

SFUSD has climbed from a "negative" budget certification to "qualified" and brought algebra back to 8th grade after a 12-year ban. But reading and math proficiency remain among the lowest in California, the district has made no progress on the literacy and math goals it set for itself in 2022, and the overhaul of student assignment has slipped to 2028-29. Three seats are open, and these three candidates each bring something the Board needs.

Phil Kim

Phil is a former public school teacher who led STEM policy across 20+ states and 300+ schools, and his colleagues elected him Board President unanimously in January. Since joining in 2024 he has pushed the district toward things you can measure. He was one of the four votes that brought algebra back to 8th grade, and he made fiscal sustainability part of how the superintendent is evaluated, helping move SFUSD out of the budget hole that nearly cost teachers their jobs.

"We are seeing literacy and math outcomes improving for the first time in years, even as we underwent significant budget reductions last year."

Phil KimBoard of Education President

Autumn Brown Garibay

Autumn is a public school parent of three and a former PTA president who still serves on her school's executive team. Most of what she has done for SFUSD families is unglamorous and useful: walking parents through the enrollment lottery, aftercare, special education, and the mid-year staffing changes nobody warns you about.

That work led her to a question the other candidates did not ask: if literacy and math are SFUSD's top priorities, what are the plans to improve them? She read the school achievement plans looking for the answer. It isn't there.

In my preliminary review of school site plans, I am not seeing a clear line of sight between SFUSD's district-wide goals and the SPSAs [School Plans for Student Achievement] schools are being asked to develop.

— Autumn Brown Garibay, GrowSF questionnaire

That's how a district announcement fails to turn into progress, and exactly what she'd fix. She'd push on both problems she knows first-hand: enrollment that families can navigate without insider knowledge, and goals that are traceable into the site plans, budgets, staffing, and teacher training meant to deliver them.

Tim Tung

Tim has 20 years of experience auditing and balancing budgets, exactly the expertise the district needs to solve its budget crisis. He started in the City of San Jose's finance department, building the scenario models the city used to close structural deficits through the 2008 crash. He then spent 12 years at S&P Global Ratings reviewing the budgets and long-term forecasts of hundreds of local governments, testing what officials promised against what they actually delivered, and downgrading the ones that fell short. Today he chairs San Francisco's Citizens' General Obligation Bond Oversight Committee, which audits how the City spends its bond money.

He is also an SFUSD parent who chairs his school's site council. He wants to stop the delay on zone-based student assignment and build a real reserve before the Prop G teacher-pay parcel tax sunsets.

Policy without rigorous oversight is simply a wish list.

— Tim Tung, GrowSF questionnaire

Together, these three are a dream team: an educator who put algebra back in 8th grade, a parent who caught the district promising one thing and planning another, and an auditor who balanced city budgets through the 2008 crash.