We recommend voting for Phil Kim for the Board of Education.

Phil has both the experience and the track record that SFUSD needs. Phil is a former public school student and teacher, and a lifelong educator. He led STEM education and policy at K-12 public schools across 20+ states and 300+ schools. He has a Masters in Education, and is currently pursuing his doctorate in Education. Since he joined the Board in 2024, Phil has used his deep understanding of how other school systems have improved student outcomes to begin the process of improving SFUSD's. He was unanimously elected President by his fellow commissioners in January of this year.

We think Phil has done a great job working with the Board and our Superintendent over the last year and a half to get SFUSD back on track, and would like to see him continue his work.

"We are seeing literacy and math outcomes improving for the first time in years, even as we underwent significant budget reductions last year. As a Board, we must stay focused on effective progress monitoring of our student outcome goals, and holding the superintendent accountable to our guardrails."

Why vote for Phil Kim?

Phil's top policy goals are:

1. Student Outcomes

Phil believes school systems exist to improve student outcomes, and has shown relentless focus on bringing 3rd grade reading, 8th grade math, and college and career readiness markers to a competitive level. For the first time in years, we're seeing improvements. There's a lot of work to be done to get SFUSD where we all want it to be, but we think Phil is uniquely positioned, and experienced, in driving all parts of the school system towards the right outcomes.

2. Safety & Stability

Phil believes that a safe school is one that is properly resourced with highly competent and trained educators and school operators. He worked with the Board and Superintendent to prioritize and protect teachers' jobs during budget cuts. Phil states that steadiness in personnel is also important towards students feeling safe, and that training, coaching and development are needed to ensure great teachers stay. He is also committed to partnering with the Board and Superintendent to ensure school security staff are better trained and coordinated to prevent and respond to incidents.

3. Access

San Francisco has one of the largest percentages of students enrolled in private schools. Phil believes we must offer language immersion and other sought-after programs in San Francisco to attract more families to SFUSD, and drive enrollments up.

On other issues

1. Data Transparency

Phil is committed to making data publicly accessible. While SFUSD does report its data biannually, it's hard to find, and harder to understand. This is unacceptable. Phil Kim aims to fix that by aligning the Board and Superintendent on goals, the strategies to achieve them, and the data to measure progress. We look forward to seeing clearer, more digestible, public facing dashboards in the future.

2. Fiscal sustainability

One of Phil's first actions as President of the Board of Education was to ensure our Superintendent was evaluated on metrics that would align SFUSD with fiscal sustainability. As a result, the district has gone from "negative" fiscal certification to "qualified" and is aiming for the highest, "positive" certification by July of next year, completing the rapid transition out of state oversight.