More SFUSD Layoffs to Target Central Office, Bringing Budget Gap Closer to Zero

San Francisco’s schools superintendent said a plan to cut hundreds of positions in the district’s central office, while preserving classroom teacher roles, will bring the district within $10 million of bridging a hundred-million-dollar deficit by the end of the year.

Top administrative staffers will be included in the second round of employee cuts that Superintendent Maria Su is set to present to the Board of Education on Tuesday. In addition to counselor and paraeducator layoffs announced earlier, Su said the reduction of 205 administrative roles is necessary to ensure that every classroom in the district has a certificated teacher next fall.

“There will be no layoffs to our teachers because we value and know how important it is to have a teacher in every single classroom,” Su told reporters on Monday. “But of course, this does mean that we still need to move forward with certain other positions. We will be laying off central office staff.”

About 100 staffers in the central office will be laid off, and 30 more roles will be eliminated after employees took the district’s early retirement buyout earlier this year. Su said the district plans to promote internal employees to fill some of the roles left vacant by high-level retirements. The remaining 75 positions affected by the cuts are currently vacant and will not be filled. The district said the plan will save it $34 million a year.

Parents and union leaders have long called for cuts to what they say is a “bloated” and dysfunctional central office and accused the district of spending too much money on positions that don’t serve students. Su, who has led the district for six months, said that in the past, about 25% of district spending went toward the administrative arm.

The cuts will reduce that to 16%.

“We are taking a thoughtful, multi-pronged approach, balancing the budget carefully while doing everything we can to minimize the impact on students and our staff,” Su said. “Everything we do is guided by our belief that every dollar should support student success and that strong systems create the foundation for thriving schools.”

Frank Lara, the vice president of the union representing SFUSD teachers, told KQED that the union is optimistic about her proposal.

“We think it’s about time that a superintendent took the matter seriously and is making the level of cuts that [she is] presenting to the board,” he said.

According to Lara, past central office cuts have overwhelmingly affected lower-level staff and union members, while Su’s plan consolidates more upper-management roles.

“We can see that it’s actually coming out of where it should,” he said.

While Su has repeatedly said no classroom teachers will be laid off as part of the significant spending reduction, she noted that all 114 teachers currently on special assignments — usually district veterans who focus on specialized small group instruction, reading intervention, or other targeted services for struggling students — have been asked to return to the classroom.

Most of those special positions will be eliminated, or at least remain vacant until the district fills 92% of its base staffing needs.

Su’s plan for the central office also includes a new executive office structure meant to eliminate some of the “silos” she noticed between departments after taking over the superintendency last fall. Her plan shrinks her executive staff from eight to four positions and merges other high-ranking roles.

Two top business and operations positions will be combined, and four positions heading educational services for different grade levels will be merged into two. The largest number of central office positions being cut are in curriculum and instruction, student and family services

and technology. Human resources and early education will also lose more than a dozen roles.

While the district works to make $114 million in budget reductions, it is also shelling out nearly $30 million over four years to implement a new payroll system.

Though not ideal, Su said it’s a necessary expense after the district tried and failed to implement a new system in 2022 and 2023, which left employees with missing or incorrect paychecks.

“That cannot happen under my watch. It will not happen,” Su said. “It is unconscionable that it did happen, and we cannot allow that to be the case moving forward.”

The fiasco cost the district $34 million and a lot of trust from staff and families. Last March, the district committed to pivoting to Frontline, a payroll system used by more than 60% of districts across California.

“It does take us a lot of money to stabilize the current system,” Su said. “However, when we do pivot to the new Frontline system, I believe that the amount will significantly reduce.”

The district is on track to present a balanced budget by the state’s deadline at the end of June, Su said, but the process will continue to require “lots of difficult decisions.”

“SFUSD is committed to ending our habit of deficit spending and avoiding future state oversight,” Su said Monday. “We have been living on a credit card and this cycle is not acceptable. Our students deserve better. Our staff deserves better.”