The moderate advocacy group GrowSF says it will spend more to elect its slate to the San Francisco school board this November than any outside group ever has — pouring six figures into a down-ballot contest that most voters skip.

Three seats on the city's Board of Education are up this November, in a race that historically draws a fraction of the attention lavished on mayoral and supervisor contests. Into that quiet corner of the ballot, GrowSF — the tech-aligned, moderate Democratic group that has become one of the most prolific spenders in city politics — is preparing its largest school board campaign ever, backing PTA leader Autumn Brown Garibay, newcomer Tim Tung, and incumbent board president Phil Kim. The money gap between GrowSF's slate and the field's grassroots candidates is the real story: in a low-turnout race, whoever controls the mailers controls the outcome.

GrowSF told the SF Standard's Power Play newsletter that it intends to break its own record for backing a school board slate this fall. Its three endorsees are all moderate Democrats: Autumn Brown Garibay, a former PTA president; Tim Tung, a late-entering public-finance specialist; and board president Phil Kim. The group declined to name a figure, citing a desire not to tip off opponents — but the benchmark it promised to top is already substantial.

In the June special election, GrowSF's independent expenditure committee spent roughly $220,000 boosting Kim, according to Mission Local (external source, opens in a new tab) and filings with the San Francisco Ethics Commission (external source, opens in a new tab). That committee's top donor is entrepreneur Nicholas Josefowitz. Kim won that race in a landslide, taking about 65,700 votes to challenger Virginia Cheung's 25,900 and self-funding candidate Brandee Marckmann's 12,700.

Brown Garibay, a Mission District renter, is "unquestionably committed" to the schools but "lacks the deep policy knowledge of the incumbents," SF Parents Action wrote.

The imbalance is the point of contention. GrowSF's endorsed candidates enter the fall with a war chest few can match. Marckmann, who is running again, poured six figures of her own money into her earlier bid; SF Parents Action (external source, opens in a new tab) noted pointedly that she billed herself as a grassroots candidate before self-funding to the tune of $100,000. Most of the ten candidates who filed for the three seats have nothing approaching that.

GrowSF casts its checkbook as a corrective. Director Steven Buss Bacio told Power Play the group wants board members fixed on student results and district finances rather than on climbing to their next office, and he described the effort as the biggest school board push the group has mounted. Bacio and co-director Sachin Agarwal contend the left has long treated the board as a stepping stone — the reporting points to the trajectories of Assemblymember Matt Haney and Jane Kim, now a candidate for insurance commissioner, as evidence.

The candidates GrowSF is backing carry uneven résumés. Kim, a former science teacher and the only credentialed educator on the current board, shares the group's priorities on restoring eighth-grade algebra and tightening the budget. Brown Garibay, a Mission District renter, is "unquestionably committed" to the schools but "lacks the deep policy knowledge of the incumbents," SF Parents Action wrote. Tung, who chairs the city's general obligation bond oversight committee, entered the contest late — about two weeks before the August 7 filing deadline, after the endorsement season had closed. He is the brother of former prosecutor and school board candidate Nancy Tung.

The stakes are not abstract. The district is staring down a $113 million deficit (external source, opens in a new tab) and is fresh off a four-day teachers' strike last school year. Whoever takes office in January will weigh whether to raid reserves, close schools, or cut programs to close the gap — decisions that touch tens of thousands of families.

What heavy spending buys, in a race this quiet, is name recognition. Turnout in down-ballot school board contests runs far below citywide elections, which means a wave of mailers and digital ads can prove decisive in a way it never would in a mayor's race. That arithmetic is the source of GrowSF's confidence — and of the worry, voiced by cash-strapped candidates, that money is crowding out the education debate the deficit demands.