While she didn’t do so intentionally, Ginny Fang picked a particularly tumultuous time to head up the San Francisco Unified School District’s nonprofit wing.

Fang is nearing the end of her second year as president of Spark SF Schools, a tenure that has coincided with historic district and citywide budget deficits , along with a newly-elected federal administration that has stripped away billions of dollars in funding from every level of education.

But Fang said it’s times like these when she thinks about her late grandmother — Tse-Hsia Lei Wang, who fled China during the communist revolution and became an educational and community leader in Taiwan.

“I think about her stories of escaping the Japanese bombing [of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War],” Fang said. “I think about

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