Newsletter, May 2026
With fewer than 30 days remaining in the school year, we are in the final push to maximize this year’s student gains and help districts focus their priorities for next year.
- In San Mateo-Foster City, we are finalizing the vision for student success and building out next year’s annual plan, recognizing that accelerated outcomes come from the discipline to focus and the courage to say no.
- In South San Francisco, we are wrapping up our pilot of the Title I schools-focused rapid improvement sprints, where site- and district-leaders are working more effectively together to accelerate progress in classrooms.
- In Ravenswood, leaders are focused on early literacy outcomes, aiming to sustain the momentum gained last school year.
Finally, we are thrilled to be exploring a potential new partnership with the Sunnyvale community. This would bring our reach to 26,000 students across 51 schools.
Investing in Curriculum
Because our goal is to improve student outcomes, our major programmatic investments focus on instruction. And the data is clear: switching to top-tier, research-backed curricula is one of the most cost-effective ways to boost student learning—which is why we support this work.
- In South San Francisco, we ran a community-wide campaign to help ensure universal board approval of their new math curriculum (Illustrative Mathematics) last year. Our focus now is its implementation, and we’re seeing meaningful movement—mid-year data shows better lessons provided on time, and more student discourse.
- In Ravenswood, we invested in educator coaching and progress monitoring tools to support implementation of their literacy curriculum (CKLA).
Because implementing high quality curriculum is demanding, we’re thinking most about:
- Leveraging rapid cycles of improvement to improve leaders’ comfort with the curriculum and develop the leadership routines and behaviors essential for sustained success.
- Equipping teachers to support their Multilingual Learners.
- Exploring how curriculum-aligned AI can support teachers and help students master content faster—use of tools like Coursemojo is showing outsized impact on student outcomes.
Learning from Teachers
Thousands of districts develop visions and plans, but very few authentically engage students, families, teachers, and principals. As a result, so many visions and plans don’t materialize, or if they do, they miss critical insights. We’re changing this.
This year in SMFCSD, we pushed ourselves to do even more to reach teachers—ultimately capturing the engagement of every one of the 1,172 teachers in the district.
With deep engagement, educators have held the pen on what the future of instruction looks like in their classrooms. Here’s what we heard:
- Teachers want more relevant professional learning, and they want to be able to learn more from each other.
- They are thrilled about the direction of the vision, calling out specifically language around high expectations, productive struggle, and belonging.
- They crave regular collaboration and believe in their collective desire to engage. One teacher wrote: “Teachers are not resistant to change—they’re resistant to being handed something and told to figure it out.”
What’s ahead: In the next few years, SMFCSD will work with their full visioning coalition—to date, that’s 140+ family members, 25+ district leaders, 750+ students, and all 1,172 teachers across more than 3,000 touchpoints—to build a culture of learning and accountability that sets the ground for accelerated student achievement.
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The Bay Ed Fund is an innovative approach to education philanthropy. We work with communities to co-design bold visions for student success, providing long-term funding, capacity-building, and expert support to drive transformative and sustainable improvements in public school districts.