By Tali Woodward

Elected by his peers two years ago to be a student representative to the San Francisco Board of Education, Alan Wong has seen his share of political discord. And when the 17-year-old Lincoln High School student decided last month to introduce two resolutions to the Student Advisory Council (SAC) – a panel made up of students from the city's public high schools – he suspected he might get some heat from Supt. Arlene Ackerman.

One of the measures is critical of the raise and severance package Ackerman landed last November – and urges the superintendent "in goodwill to renegotiate her contract," given budget pressures and a legal challenge to the agreement (see "Cutting the Golden Parachute," 5/4/05). The other resolution opposes reconstitution, a type of school reform built around replacing the teachers who work at a particular school.

Wong knew that these are among the most divisive issues facing the district, but he felt the students needed to weigh in.

"When the superintendent and the Board of Education make decisions, they don't consider what the students think or want," Wong told us. "We don't have politics to think about – we are free to vote our conscience. We have a budget shortfall and we are raising the superintendent's salary. That doesn't make sense." He also said that reconstitution is "just plain disrespectful" of "the people that work day-to-day with students."

The SAC's recommendations are advisory and don't carry any real legal weight. Nonetheless, SAC members say adults who work with the SAC have pressured them to drop the resolutions – even implying that Ackerman might dismantle the SAC if the measures were to pass. Students have gotten intimidating phone calls at their homes, stern warnings from their principals – and an education in the uglier side of politics.

"Normally we students don't get a say in what happens. The SAC is our one way of expressing our own opinions," Diana Suen, who represents Lowell High on the SAC, told us. She said that budget strain is very apparent at her school: "Classes are going to be cancelled, the ceilings are about to fall on us, the walls are rotting. And then the superintendent is trying to keep our voices down – that's just really messed up."

Behind-the-scenes pressure

By all accounts some SAC members were hesitant to support Wong's resolutions, which were scheduled for a committee meeting on May 30. Then, on May 25, an employee of the Youth Leadership Institute, a nonprofit that helps the school district run the SAC (and has yet to renew its contract), sent out an e-mail rescheduling the meeting for the very next evening.

Several SAC representatives who had agreed to cosponsor the measures had been persuaded to withdraw their support by the time Wong arrived at the meeting, he told us. Before and during the gathering, other students said, staffers with YLI and the SFUSD either said or "strongly implied" the resolutions would threaten the existence of the SAC.

Representative Jason Wong told us he isn't convinced that the SAC has spent enough time analyzing the issues. Yet he understands why supporters felt pressured: "Staff did say that the superintendent had communicated that her feelings were hurt. I think that's how some students might have felt intimidated."

The committee voted to table the superintendent's resolution and to place the measure dealing with reconstitution on the agenda as an informational item for the June 6 meeting, which was supposed to be the last of the year.

Balboa High student Amanda Piercy wasn't able to attend the meeting, but she didn't escape pressure. "A staff member contacted me and said I should take my name off the resolution – that we could face retaliation from the board and the superintendent," Piercy told us. "I said that I would not feel like a strong leader if I did that." She kept her name on both measures.

Suen took her name off the resolution, but later told us, "The only reason people aren't supporting this is because they're afraid about not having a voice. So the stifling – it's already happening."

YLI vice president Lorne Needle, who works with the SAC, told us, "I didn't pressure any of the young people." He refused to comment on whether students were pressured by anyone else. "I don't believe YLI staff have pressured people," his boss, Maureen Sedonaen, said. "The school district questioned whether the young people had all the information."

Ackerman and her deputies declined to answer questions about the accounts from students.

More intervention

Tensions were high from the very start of the June 6 meeting, and students noted they had never seen so many adults attend one of their gatherings.

When the president of the SAC announced that the resolutions couldn't be discussed because they weren't on the agenda, Piercy and others argued that since the committee meeting wasn't noticed 72 hours beforehand, it was void.

District General Counsel David Campos said voting would violate the state's Brown Act. Moreover, Campos told the students, "I really think it's dangerous for anyone in the district – be it a student organization or not – to be involved in issues that could potentially involve liability on the part of the district."

He wasn't the only adult giving the SAC advice. Several members of the audience encouraged the kids to stand up against the superintendent; others simply reassured them they should vote their conscience. But Ackerman's liaison to the SAC, Brad Stam, said several times he was "confused by the urgency."

"If there are some members who don't want to participate in what would be an illegal meeting, you're within your rights as individuals to leave the meeting," he said. "And if there's not a quorum, the meeting would not proceed." (This prompted teachers union president Dennis Kelly to interject sarcastically, "You're not trying to sway anything, are you?")

Eventually the SAC came to a consensus that they should schedule a new meeting. But on June 9, Ackerman sent an e-mail stating, "It has come to my attention that the Student Advisory Council is considering two important resolutions on which I would like to give my personal perspective. I am unable to be present at the SAC meeting currently scheduled for June 13. Therefore, I am postponing the meeting."

SFUSD's public relations office later issued a statement saying, "The superintendent feels it is important for her to continue to support the SAC fully by being available to address any concerns or questions in person the student representatives may have in order for them to make well-informed decisions."

Many SAC representatives questioned Ackerman's authority to delay the meeting and feared that it would be impossible to assemble council members during summer vacation. They decided to round up everyone as planned.

As the meeting got started, lawyer Campos again warned the SAC that they might run afoul of the Brown Act. He said that whether or not the superintendent had the right to postpone the meeting, the last public notice that went out said that the June 13 session had been cancelled.

But Wong refused to back down, and asked the body to vote to continue: "If the school district is willing to sue a group of students that are representing their views and make us have another meeting, then so be it." After a unanimous vote, the SAC took public comment – mainly from students – and had a long discussion on each measure. They passed both resolutions overwhelmingly – with one abstention on each, and not a single "no" vote.

Yet the matter may not be closed. As the council members gathered June 13, SFUSD officials handed out a 30-page press packet alleging that adult critics of the superintendent are "using" SAC members. "We leave it open to public examination if it is plausible that the resolutions were indeed written solely by the students who originally submitted it, or instead with the assistance of adults," reads the statement.

In an accompanying letter, Ackerman wrote, "I have recently seen some very disturbing signs that certain adults are trying very hard to manipulate SAC members in order to pursue their own political objectives. I think this type of behavior is shameful, and I caution all members of the SAC to guard against being used to promote other people's agendas." The most relevant attached document was a personal e-mail Wong received from an adult encouraging the SAC to hold the meeting.

But the students maintain that they were working independently – at least until they faced pressure from the district and asked some people for advice, Wong told us that he borrowed language from newspaper articles concerning these issues, but that no adult was involved in drafting either resolution.

Read the SFUSD press packet and our commentary on it.

E-mail Tali Woodward