Communication, Transparency and Fiscal Responsibility

Family Communication & Partnership

Alison has consistently advanced and advocated for increased communication with families on multiple district platforms and in multiple languages including the district website, ParentVue Google Classroom and other parent and student communication systems.

Before Commissioner Collins was even on the Board, she worked as a parent advocate roughly ten years ago, to establish the district’s first SFUSD Parent Newsletter and District Google Calendar.

In the past year, Alison successfully advocated for the current family and student helpline, now called the SFUSD Student Family School Resource Link, which began in the summer of 2020. It is available for families in multiple languages to 1) request devices and technology help, 2) ask questions about SFUSD academic or student support, and 3) receive referrals for external social service resources provided by city agencies and community-based providers such as food pantries, eviction prevention, and another support services.

Parent Rights

Commissioner Collins consistently advocates for accountability for families. Most notably she called on the district to share information highlighting Student and Parent Rights which include but are not limited to Bullying, Hate Speech and Harassment, Sexual Harassment, Gender and Sexual Identity Harassment. See the parent rights information here.

A consistent advocate for family communication, Commissioner Collins has consistently advocated for translation and interpretation at Board of Education meetings and clear posting of board meetings. She has consistently supported the expansion of language services available at BOE and school district meetings including American Sign Language interpretation.

As a parent leader, Alison filed a complaint about the practice of charging instructional fees for PE uniforms which led to a legal memo to all schools sites to discontinue the practice of charging fees for educational activities. This practice violated state law and was causing disproportionate harm to low-income and immigrant families.

Alison also successfully advocated for child care to be available at SFUSD Board of Education meetings.

Parents have a right to be involved in their children’s education, especially during distance learning.

Talk to the Hand — When Schools Dismiss Family Partnership

Board Accomplishments

In Support of Increased Oversight, Transparency and Accountability for Charter Schools in Relation to Fiscal, Educational, and Socio-Emotional Impacts on SFUSD Students,

Authored by Commissioners Mark Sanchez and Stevon Cook, in collaborations with SF Families Union (Alison Collins) and Coleman Advocates for Youth and Families

In the fall of 2018, before Commissioner Collins joined the Board, she worked with Commissioner Sanchez to draft this resolution which establishes a Charter Oversight Committee that is open to community participation, and which specifically reviews the following: 1) Demographics of students served at each charter school, disaggregated by subgroup; 2) Demographics of students who leave each charter school each year disaggregated by subgroup; 3) Demographics of students retained year to year, by grade-level, at each charter school, disaggregated by subgroup; 4) Teacher credentialing and “proper assignment” and retention rates at each charter school; 5) Parent and staff representation in charter school governance; 6) The reasons for student transfer to SFUSD from charter schools, where applicable; 7) The provision of services to the charter school’s students with IEPs by the school’s Special Education Local Plan Area; and 8) Investigations of complaints received by SFUSD concerning the charter schools.

SFUSD Data Access, Inclusion, and Partnership to Enhance Student Success Resolution

Primary co-author with Commissioner Faauuga Moliga, with Commissioner Jenny Lam

In an effort to better reflect the diversity of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and capture the true identities of the student population, the District revised its data collection systems to maintain more specific racial/ethnic, national origin, language, and gender-specific data. Commissioner Collins worked with community-based organizations including Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC), Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, and others to author the “SFUSD Data Access, Inclusion, and Partnership to Enhance Student Success Resolution,” This resolution ensures data collection allowed communities to be seen who were previously invisible including Vietnamese, Arab, and other Asian American communities that were previously invisible. The cultural identities of multiracial students also become more visible. For example, students who are mixed, Samoan Pacific Islander, and Black previously only showed up in one or another report, now students who identify as multiracial will appear in multiple reports by the cultural/racial groups that align with their identities.