Dr. Amy Bacharach was elected to the Board of Trustees in November 2014. She is a Senior Research Analyst with the Judicial Council’s Center for Families, Children, and the Courts, where she works on state policy issues primarily in the areas of juvenile justice, collaborative justice (e.g., drug courts, mental health courts, girls’ courts), and human trafficking, specializing in evidence-based practices. She has conducted extensive research on collaborative justice and juvenile issues, including runaway behavior, substance abuse, and survival sex and human trafficking in adolescents, and has authored numerous articles and reports and a book chapter. She also serves on statewide task forces related to these issues. In addition to her work with the Judicial Council, she spent many years as an adjunct professor and in 2013 was named one of the top 25 forensic psychology professors nationwide. She was a recipient of a Fulbright Award in Egypt to study women’s experiences with a new law allowing them to ask for divorce; however, the Egyptian government refused to grant her clearance to conduct this research.

Originally from Philadelphia, Trustee Bacharach had lived in France and Mexico City and travelled extensively around the world before calling San Francisco home. Trustee Bacharach holds a Ph.D. in Forensic Psychology and a certificate in Organizational Development. 

I am a proud graduate of Emerge California and have been an elected delegate to the California Democratic Party since 2011. This year, I was elected to be a Hillary delegate to the Democratic National Convention. I have been part of the finance council for Hillary since the “Ready for Hillary” campaign. I was a founding member of Vaccinate California and worked closely with Senators Pan and Allen to pass SB277, which was important to me as a new mom. I am currently working on legislation that will close the loophole in the Paid Family Leave Act that will allow public employees to be eligible. I am also a member of Assemblyman David Chiu’s Women’s Advisory Committee.

Locally, I have served on the Community College Board for the last two years. In my time in San Francisco, I have served on the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee as a policy advocate for issues dealing with girls and women. I was also on the board of the National Council of Jewish Women, which focuses on lobbying at the local and state level to combat human trafficking, prevent family violence, promote girls' education, and advocate for restorative justice, and have served on the United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council, whose goal is to reduce poverty in the Bay Area by half by 2020. I also currently serve on the board of the Richmond District Neighborhood Center. I have raised money, phone banked, and walked countless precincts for local democratic candidates and local and state initiatives. I also registered voters and phone banked for Obama during the 2008 and 2012 campaigns and for Allyson Schwartz for PA governor, and I have been part of the National Finance Council for the Hillary For American campaign and for the Ready for Hillary Campaign before that.  

A native San Franciscan and proud graduate of City College, I have spent the past four years fighting to save City College from loss of accreditation and closure. I served two terms as Student Trustee to the Board and on the Student Senate for California Community Colleges as Communications Officer and External Affairs Officer for Region 3, the Bay Area region. In these roles, I mobilized thousands of San Franciscans, and advocated alongside the college’s students, faculty and classified staff, as well as city and statewide elected officials, to keep City College’s doors open.

I have over 16 years of professional development training and experience combined with lived experiences in the communities that City College serves. I have worked for numerous nonprofit agencies and labor organizations dedicated to improving the quality of life for marginalized, low income communities such as: the Center for Young Women’s Development, Youth Leadership Institute, UNITE HERE Local 2, Jobs with Justice, and Urban Services YMCA.

I am a 2005 Jefferson Award recipient, and have been honored for my work in co-founding Youth Treatment and Education Court Leadership Fellows, as I helped develop a curriculum to train court administrators, judges, probation officers and thousands of service providers nationwide in culturally competent drug treatment for youth. I was recognized for my CCSF advocacy by the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee in 2015, with the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club’s “City College Champion” Award in 2014 and the San Francisco Bay Guardian Local Hero Award in 2013. I am a graduate of the Women’s Policy Institute, the Women’s Initiative for Self Employment, the School for Organizing, Unity and Liberation (SOUL), and have served on the San Francisco Youth Commission Board, the Juvenile Justice Commission Board and other community boards. I am an Emerge California alumna, class of 2016.

I am running for re-election to the SF Community College Board because as a product of the California Community College system, I know how important this institution is for many who need access to affordable quality education. I also understand the issues that many students face and have been working hard over the past year as a Trustee to ensure that City College stays accredited, accessible, and affordable. I want to make sure that my set of skills and abilities are put to use in service of the betterment of City College and to make sure that San Franciscans are afforded the same opportunities that I was.

Over the past year as a Trustee I have focused a great deal of my attention to supporting and reaching out to traditionally underserved students in High School, Middle School, and currently enrolled at City College. I was very proud to have been able to co-host the first African-American and Students of Color Welcome Reception at CCSF last fall. The reception aimed to connect the incoming students to current students, alumni, and student resources offered on campus to make sure they are successful and live up to their full potential.

As a current Trustee on the Board, I have had over a year of experience working on the issues that City College faces and am proud to say that I have been a part of several successes that the Community College Board has achieved. When I first joined the Board of Trustees, City College was facing an accreditation and financial crisis, its enrollment numbers were at historic lows and were followed by cuts in state funding. With my leadership the board has made decisions that have set City College back on a steady accreditation and financial path. I have been able to do so through strong relationships with colleagues and my ability to form coalitions in order to achieve real results.

The accreditation crisis provided the College District and the Board with the opportunity to really look at how the Trustees have governed and made decisions in the past. City College is currently accredited and in its final year of “restoration status”. This status has never occurred before, and is something new that was created after the City Attorney’s lawsuit. One of the requirements of restoration requires us as an institution to create and submit a Comprehensive Self Evaluation Report, including addressing 32 specific areas of "continuing noncompliance", to the Accrediting Commission on Community and Junior Colleges (ACCKJC). I am very proud that the Board has voted to approve the self-evaluation at our study session on July 14th. An external review by the visiting team will take place the week of October 10th. If the External Review finds that we meet or exceed all these requirements then we will be moved from “restoration status” to “reaffirmation of accreditation.” I am proud to say that over the past two years my colleagues and I have received numerous trainings on accreditation, budgeting, enrollment management, labor negotiations, student success, team building, and also how to make decisions on complex items that could be outside of our core expertise. You could say that we are the best trained College Board in California and are fully prepared for the visit this October.

The City College Board along with our Chancellor has also reached a tentative agreement with our faculty union after long contract negotiations. I am thrilled that we can now give our faculty a well-deserved raise, avoiding a strike, while maintaining City College’s financial stability. Great things happen when good people work together.

Other achievements that I am proud of are the establishment of a partnership between City College and Five Keys Charter School at SF County Jail, the revival of the San Francisco School Board and Community College Board Joint Committee that I am apart of and my sponsorship of Emergency Student Aid for students who need it. We also recently launched an initiative to make City College free to people that either live or work in San Francisco. This bill which I co-sponsored passed the board unanimously and if passed by the voters this Fall, San Francisco will be one of the first cities in the country to truly invest in local higher public education.

My top three policy priorities are:

Accessibility: Since community colleges receive a significant amount of funding based on the number of “full time enrolled student”, we need to strengthen our enrollment rates to maintain our classes and services for students by improving our marketing and presence throughout San Francisco. I will also promote initiatives to expand affordability, such as the proposed city ordinance to make City College Free, and the proposal for Expanded Emergency Aid.

Accreditation: Maintaining accreditation is essential to assure quality education for our students. We are in the final year of “restoration status” the Board has approved and submitted a Comprehensive Self Evaluation Report addressing 32 areas of “continuing noncompliance” to the ACCJC. I will continue working with my colleagues to ensure decisions are made to achieve a “reaffirmation of accreditation” after our external review on the week of October 10th.

Financial Stability: I am committed to maintaining stable financial footing through prudent financial policies and responsible management of reserves and voter approved bond funds. I am also committed to fighting for the parcel tax on this November’s ballot for long term stability, building stronger partnerships with the city, SFUSD, and other organizations to grow back our enrollment.

Another final important focus is the selection of a new permanent Chancellor by next Summer. Something that I am focused on as well to ensure that the choice reflects not only the diversity of our students and city but also understands the important role education plays in people's’ lives.

I am proud to have the endorsements of over 100 organizations, elected officials, and community leaders, because they know that I am the right choice to serve on the City College Board at this critical time. As of today, I have been endorsed by the SF Democratic Party, SF Parent PAC, Rep. Jackie Speier, Congressional District 14, Attorney General Kamala Harris, State Controller Betty Yee State, Board of Equalization Chair Fiona Ma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, Supervisor London Breed, Supervisor Malia Cohen, Supervisor Jane Kim and Supervisor Katy Tang to name a few.

For a full list of my endorsements visit http://www.alexrandolph.com/endorsements.

San Francisco has been good to me.  Growing up here as a kid living with foster families, lots of people stepped up to help me make my way.  With their help and generous financial aid, I was able to attend and graduate from Lick-Wilmerding High School and go on to earn degrees from Yale, Harvard and UC Berkeley.  Today I am a Deputy City Attorney in Oakland.  In my free time I try to give back to the City that gave so much to me.  In 2010, I ran to represent District 8 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and although I did not win that race, it was a great honor to earn the votes of nearly 15,000 voters who shared my vision of San Francisco as a city that leaves no one behind, a place where every child has the same opportunities to survive and thrive that I did.  

In 2012, as City College of San Francisco was descending into an accreditation crisis that continues to threaten the survival of one of San Francisco’s most vital institutions, I ran for the College District’s Board of Trustees and won.  Within six months of my joining the Board in January 2013, the ACCJC announced it would be terminating City College’s accreditation and shutting the institution down by July 2014.  Following on that announcement the State Chancellor suspended the locally elected Board and replaced us with an appointed Special Trustee.  As a trustee-in-exile over the next year and a half, I joined the fight for fair accreditation in California and worked tirelessly to reverse the ACCJC’s termination decision.  In addition to traveling across the State to explain our fight at other community colleges, I urged the City Attorney to sue the ACCJC and worked closely with his attorneys to strengthen their case, and I lobbied local, State and Federal elected officials to build support for City College and for accreditation reform.  No member of our Board of Trustees was more outspoken or persistent in fighting back against the injustice of what was happening to City College. 

Since the State Chancellor began restoring the Board in late 2014, I believe that my leadership has helped hold the Board together and prove that locally elected leadership can govern the college responsibly and progressively.  I am proud of the work I have done to save City College, restore local control and help the College begin to recover from the accreditation crisis.  However, significant challenges remain: our enrollment is down by a third, our financial future is consequently uncertain, and after nearly a decade of crisis (first the recession, then the accreditation debacle) the institution is in need of a lot of healing.  I am running for re-election because I believe I have the right skills and values to continue to champion the College and help assure its recovery.