Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:31] Katie DeBenedetti is a reporter for KQED.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:02:34] San Francisco needs to cut about $113 million from their budget, and Oakland needs to cut about $95 million.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:02:45] In San Francisco, the cuts, which are really potential layoff notices, impact about 10% of the district’s teachers, social workers, counselors, teacher aides. And in Oakland, hundreds of staff could be affected. There, the district is eliminating about 800 positions, but it’s creating 700 new ones. So a lot of people might get shifted into a new role. They might move from a 12 month position to an 11 month position, but there’s still gonna be a lot of confusion and a lot of jobs are changing, which could result in pay cuts.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:03:29] I think it’s really demoralizing for both teachers and staff that have kind of gotten used to receiving these pink slips. We’re looking at staffing that might cut a lot of the really key services that students rely on.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:47] Yeah, let’s dig into that a little bit more. What is the range of things actually on the chopping block? Starting with San Francisco.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:03:55] In San Francisco, they have basically said, we’re going to cut 395 or so roles across teachers, social workers, counselors, and under teachers, there are a lot of specialist positions. So those are English language arts specialist, literacy coaches, a lot of librarians are teachers. And then a lot of also administrators, most schools right now might not have an assistant principal. Basically, it’s anything that doesn’t fit in the state standard of positions needed to, quote, keep the lights on in school. So classroom teachers, a principal, a janitor, and a clerk are pretty much the only guarantees right now.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:42] And what about Oakland?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:04:44] In Oakland, a lot of the positions that are getting cut are going to be reallocated. So, you know, there’s going to be some cuts to classroom teachers in certain cases. But a big category of the cuts that people are worried about are these substitute teachers called STIP subs. They work at one school site. They say they’re year round. Basically, the district is going to eliminate those roles and kind of replace them with a group of subs that will live at the district level and be sent out based on teacher absences. The other big category there is a lot of roles for support staff are going to be changed from 12 months to 11 months, which results in a pay cut and also makes it so that those staff members won’t be able to use that 12th month of the year where they’re doing planning and preparing over the summer to really get things done.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:05:51] I really do feel like I have seen story after story after story about budget cuts at public schools all over the Bay Area. It really seems like a tough time right now for public schools. I mean, is it just, am I just imagining this, Katie? Like, or are public schools across the Bay really struggling right now?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:16] No, you are not imagining it. This is not isolated to San Francisco and Oakland.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:25] Many, many school districts are struggling. In just the Bay Area, Santa Rosa is planning to close five schools because of budget cuts. In San Jose, they’re also closing schools. And districts throughout the state are facing these deficits and making staff cuts kind of across the board.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:47] And why is that, Katie? Why is it that so many public schools seem to be struggling so much in this particular moment in time?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:57] One of the biggest reasons is declining enrollment. Families have moved out of cities. Kids might be attending private school in higher numbers. The birth rate is also declining. So there are a couple of reasons that schools aren’t growing. Basically the way that school districts get their funding is they get a certain amount of money for every student that they have. That makes up a big bulk of their total budget. So when you have a district like San Francisco, which has lost 10,000 students in the last 10 years or Oakland, which has lost 15,000 in the last 20, they’re getting a lot less money.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:07:42] Another big reason is during COVID, districts got a lot of relief money from the government and a lot of districts already facing that declining enrollment kind of used it to pay for ongoing expenses, but that money is now gone. And I think things are also just costing more. The cost of living in Oakland and San Francisco has gone up disproportionately to the, you know, amount of funding that they get from the state for schools. but they need to pay more in wages, they’re paying more for their buildings, for their third-party contracts, and that’s just not being reflected in the amount of funding they’re getting from the state.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:27] Coming up, why the budget situation is even worse in Oakland and San Francisco. Stay with us.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:12] So it sounds like a lot of school districts across the Bay Area are struggling with issues like low enrollment, the end of these COVID funds, inflation, but where do the budget problems at Oakland and San Francisco public schools, where do they stack up against these other Bay Area school districts?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:09:34] They’re definitely among the worst off. Oakland and San Francisco are among seven of about a thousand districts in California that have negative interim budgets from December. That basically means that without making big changes, they won’t be able to pay their bills in the next few years. Hayward Unified School District is also on that list, but the other four districts are much smaller. They’re in rural parts of the state and their budgets are really a fraction of the size of San Francisco and Oakland.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:07] I mean, Katie, why are things so bad at schools in Oakland and San Francisco, specifically?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:14] Oakland and San Francisco have historically, you know, talked about big cuts, talked about school closures, and then backed off those plans.
Lisa Grant Dawson [00:10:24] It’s been decades of not dealing with systemic issues and ultimately asking the superintendent and the staff to make it work for the year.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:36] So Lisa Grant Dawson is Oakland’s budget officer, and she said that they have this pattern. They’ll workshop a plan, they’ll discuss it, they’ll talk about the community impact, what can go, but then they won’t implement it. And that’s kind of continued for years.
Lisa Grant-Dawson [00:10:56] It often sounds like our issue is strictly financial, but it’s really how we operate and we’ve just reached a place that we’ve run out of space in order for us to be able to make amends as we have historically.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:15] I mean, is this normal that that these two districts sort of come up with a plan, you know, commit to these cuts and then decide to sort of back off on them?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:30] No.
Mike Fine [00:11:33] Oakland is notorious for planning, for taking a plan, and naming it five different times, but never fully implementing the plan. San Francisco has yet to come up with a plan, in my opinion.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:46] Mike Fine, who is the executive director of FCMAT, which is a financial company that helps California districts with their finances, said that a lot of districts are having these same issues, but what’s hurting Oakland and San Francisco is that they’re not taking the steps they need to, to remediate them.
Mike Fine [00:12:06] This failure to implement idea is really harmful because you go through the same grind and you go through the same emotional trauma year after year after year.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:12:20] Realistically, all of the budget balancing work that they’re doing costs money. Like last fall, Oakland and San Francisco both had plans to close schools, which admittedly it’s unclear how much money closing schools really saves, but developing the plans to close schools costs money, staff puts time into it. It’s a lot of work and then to get no gain out of it is hurting them even more.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:12:49] Coming back to the students here who really will, I imagine, bear the brunt of these cuts. I mean, what are these cuts going to mean for San Francisco and Oakland students?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:13:01] I think a lot of families and teachers are really concerned about how equitable they’re going to be.
Kampala Taiz-Rancifer [00:13:10] Our main function as a school district is to provide quality education. And when we make cuts so close to schools, we’re really undermining that.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:13:19] Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, who is the Oakland Union President for teachers, she says that a lot of the cuts that are being made are gonna impact students on their school sites. So, you know, teachers who are working 11 instead of 12 months won’t engage with families during the summer as much. Without subs on site, kids will have to, you know, get accustomed to working with teachers that they don’t know as well. They’ll lose kind of another adult resource. And really, they’re just going to hurt students more than they’re hurting the function of the district at the central office level.
Kampala Taiz-Rancifer [00:14:00] We are going to be having threats from our national government and we really at this time need to make sure that schools are stable and that they are places that students can rely upon.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:14:16] Both districts in the past have had school closure plans and budget cut plans that school communities feel have really negatively impacted low -income students and students of color disproportionately. And so there’s a lot of distrust just when we’re making these cuts, are we prioritizing those students’ needs?
Community Member 1 [00:14:36] The positions that you’re proposing to cut or reduce work directly with students and families, particularly from our most disadvantaged.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:14:43] and you can really hear a lot of those concerns at these districts recent board meetings from parents and from teachers.
Community Member 2 [00:14:51] Please fund a full social worker at every site at minimum.
Community Member 3 [00:14:54] District employees receive high salaries, yet they remain inaccessible.
Community Member 4 [00:14:58] I am here to demand that this board protect our student -facing services. I don’t even like calling it services. These are human beings. These are people, essential people, that work with our babies every day.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:15] What is next here, Katie? It sounds like, at least in San Francisco, TBD on who exactly could lose their jobs. And then in the case of Oakland, I mean, are these cuts going to happen in the next school year or what is next year?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:15:36] So the next step is layoff notice letters going out. These are not set in stone. A lot of people are going to get layoff notices and then in May, when budgets become more clear, get those notices rescinded. If they don’t get rescinded and they get confirmed in May, those employees will be without a job beginning in the next school year. The state would only step in if either district makes it to June just before the start of the new fiscal year without balancing a budget. So because both districts did pass layoff notice resolutions, they are technically making the cuts that they need to make. So it really depends on May and what cuts stay and what cuts get rescinded. And I’m sure in the months in between, there’s gonna be a lot of organizing from, you know each district’s unions, the parent communities, to fight cuts and try to shift them away from students.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:46] Well, Katie, thanks so much for breaking this down for us. I really appreciate it.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:16:49] Thanks so much.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:56] That was Katie DeBenedetti, a reporter for KQED. This 25 -minute conversation with Katie was cut down and edited by senior editor, Alan Montecillo. Jessica Kariisa is our producer. She scored this episode. Our intern, Mel Velasquez, added all the tape. Music courtesy of Audio Network, Blue Dot Sessions, and NPR. Support for The Bay is provided in part by the Osher Production Fund. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. I’m Erica Cruz Guevarra, thanks for listening, peace.
