Welcome back to our “Meet the Candidates” series, where District 2 supervisor candidates respond to a question in 100 words or fewer. Answers are published every Tuesday.

District 2 covers neighborhoods in the north of the city including the Presidio, the Marina, Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights, Presidio Heights, Anza Vista and portions of the Western Addition and North of the Panhandle.

Every year, confused parents of children entering San Francisco’s public schools have to confront the lottery. 

The system is theoretically simple. Parents provide a ranked list of their top choice San Francisco Unified School District picks by late January. SFUSD runs a lottery, and a few months later the district tells parents where their kid is assigned. 

But parents hate it. 

Making the list of schools is time consuming and the wait is anxiety-inducing, parents say. Plus, the results can be disappointing — an assignment to a school they didn’t want, or one with a start or end time that is impossible to coordinate around work schedules. 

So why have a lottery system? The lottery started in 2002 after a court case that prohibited the district from considering race when making school assignments. But SFUSD didn’t want to simply send students to their nearest school, which would result in schools segregated by class and race, mirroring the city itself. So, it started using a lottery. 

In the end, though, SFUSD data showed that the lottery system exacerbated inequality in the school system.

So, in 2020, SFUSD’s Board of Education voted to move San Francisco back to a zone-based system of school assignments. The hope was that the new zone system would lead to more predictability, students enrolled in schools closer to home, and more diverse classrooms. 

In reality, figuring out how to divide the city into zones that allow for all three of those factors — predictability, proximity, and diversity — is a tall order. Though the new zones were supposed to be implemented by the 2026-2027 school year, there is no current proposal for what the zones would look like and no timeline for SFUSD switching over. 

This week’s question: How should SFUSD students be assigned to schools?

When assigning schools to students, SFUSD should prioritize accessibility, strong education and ensure schools across the city are equally resourced. 

I have heard complaints from many parents that they would like the option to walk their kids to school and not have to send them an hour across the city every day. 

We can improve the selection process to ensure that students can choose a school in their neighborhood. Limiting travel time will also give kids one less thing to worry about and ensure that they are more focused on their education. 

See Brooke’s full response here.

Endorsed by: Former District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, former State Senator and Supervisor Quentin Kopp, UESF, CA Working Families Party … read more here.

Stephen Sherrill

• Job: Appointed District 2 Supervisor
• Age: 39
• Residency: Homeowner, moved to the district 11 years ago
• Transportation: Driving, public transportation, biking
• Education: Bachelor’s degree from Yale University
• Languages: English

SFUSD should move to a simpler, more neighborhood-based assignment system. Families deserve a fair chance to attend a school closer to home, without a confusing citywide lottery or long commutes. 

Assignment reform also has to be matched by a serious focus on school quality. In a district facing budget cuts and hard decisions about its footprint, resources should be concentrated so neighborhood schools can offer students the staffing, support, and academic programs they need. While the Board of Supervisors does not control SFUSD policy, I will continue to use this office to advocate for that approach.

See Sherrill’s full response here.

Endorsed by: Mayor Daniel Lurie, GrowSF, Nor Cal Carpenters Union, San Francisco Police Officers Association, SF YIMBY, Northern Neighbors … read more here.

Candidates are ordered alphabetically and rotated each week. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at io@missionlocal.com. 

You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.

Between surging gas prices and ransom-level parking fees, the cost of the daily grind adds up.

But AbdAllah Abou-Ismail has found a way to make the city foot the bill.

“I was like, you know what? This my reason for biking every day,” he said.

Every morning, he hops on his bike and pedals his way toward a free lunch. Call it a bit of roadside economics: The city of Palo Alto pays him to stay out of traffic. And instead of low-grade road rage, he starts his day on the right foot.

“Actually, my energy levels got a lot better once I started biking. Before I would get to work a lot more sleepy, but with the bike, I come into work 100% I can hit the floor. No downtime, no nothing,” he said.

It’s all thanks to a program called “Bike Love,” which tracks his commute and pays him $5 a day — up to $600 a year — to spend at local businesses. It’s one of several efforts the city has rolled out to get drivers to shift gears. The initiative runs through an app called Motion, which tracks trips automatically on your phone, whether you’re on a bike, e-bike or scooter. 

Pat Burt, a Palo Alto city council member who serves on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the goal is simple.

“We want this to be a means where they get addicted to biking and as a result, they’re healthier, mentally and physically, and happier,” he said.

According to the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association, the program kept nearly three million car miles off local roads last year and cut more than a thousand tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Not everyone thinks it goes far enough. Billy Riggs, a professor at the University of San Francisco who studies transportation innovation, says these programs tend to target people who are already biking.

“This is cute, it just can’t be about cute solutions,” he said.

As for Abou-Ismail, the payoff is simple — and daily.

“By the time I reach work, I’ve already had a small little adventure, and five bucks into my account,” he said.

In this episode of Plateworthy, host Nyesha Arrington makes her way through some of the best bites in San Francisco. First stop on the eating tour: Breakfast Little, owned by Andrew Perez and known for its Mission-style burritos. The tater tot-filled OG breakfast burrito has balanced bites of bacon, creamy avocado, and plenty of spice.

Next, Arrington stops at Sōhn for a galbi patty melt. Chef and owner Deuki Hong preps every aspect of the sandwich, including a square-shaped beef patty, kimchi-style slaw, melted cheddar, and a sweet and salty galbi sauce, all between a sesame-crusted croissant bun. Arrington pairs it with a banana oat milk latte and popcorn chicken skewered with tteokboki, before enjoying in Sōhn’s art-covered dining room. “This is one of those quintessential mashups that actually works,” she announces after her first bit of the patty melt.

Arrington then heads to Sons & Daughters, a cozy fine dining spot with two Michelin stars. Chef Harrison Cheney preps trout for one of the restaurant’s most popular courses. The huge fish from Mount Lassen are cut into filets and each bone is carefully removed with a technique Cheney learned while working at Gastrologik, a famously boundary-pushing restaurant in Stockholm that closed in 2022. The fish is cured overnight before being cut into extremely thin slices that are layered on a sheet pan and left in the freezer overnight. Then they cook down the sauce for the fish dish, layered with shallots, garlic, and lacto-fermented root vegetables along with their two-week-old brine. Arrington helps to smash up currant branches that sit in a neutral oil for about a week, creating a flavorful herb oil for the dish. Egg whites slowly soak into another mixture of herbs, also for the sauce. The leftover trout is mixed with egg yolks, lemon juice, and salt in a food processor to make a mouse that the fish will sit on top of. Finally, Cheney makes the layered dish: the rounds of trout and the mousse at the bottom of a small bowl then topped with the fermented root-vegetable sauce and currant wood oil. Arrington is emotional eating the light dish which showcases Californian produce.

Watch the latest episode of Plateworthy to see Arrington taste a few most-try dishes across San Francisco, from a casual breakfast burrito to a high-end trout dish that take days to prepare.